For the month of November I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month. In order to do this, I decided to take a break from my short stories for now. I will continue with your regularly scheduled spookiness come December.
In the meantime, if you are interested in reading my novel piece by piece as I write it, I invite you to join my Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/TaylorNicolas
Thank you so much for being a part of my dreams.
I'll see you soon.
<3 Taylor Nicolas
JP sat cross-legged on the bed she once shared with Jason. How much time had gone by? How long had she been waiting for him to come back? The day seemed to be so long, and from time to time she tried to log into her blog to see if there were any comments, maybe an update from someone who had been following along with her journey. But nothing. She couldn't even connect. She figured that a storm was coming in, and that she would wait for it to pass.
The van wouldn't start either. She had at one point decided to travel into town to contact someone about what had happened, but nothing. No sound, no click, just silence.
She could try to walk out, just walk away from the van and into the town. But, what if she couldn't find her way back?
She kept herself going by repeating over and over that eventually, Jason had to come back.
He had to.
After all, all of his stuff was in this van. She was in the van, and you don't just abandon everything you own over a little argument. Especially not when you're expecting to marry the person with whom there was an argument.
To JP, it had been just a few hours. a few hours of sitting on the bed in the back of the van, waiting for Jason. The internet had been down for just a little while, and soon everything would be back to normal.
What JP didn't know, was that it had been 4 months. JP had been sitting on the bed, legs crossed, for 4 months of endless day. She had walked deep into the woods the first day, but to her, it was just a walk to and from the lake. She tried to drive out the second day, and had been checking her phone every hour. To her, it was just a very long day. Not even too long of a day, just one of those summer days that seem to go on forever, despite it being autumn.
JP knows nothing of the Things that Possess. She knows nothing of the rules that come with being removed from your vessel, or what's more finding a new vessel to inhabit. She doesn't know that Jason and Elizabeth, who has been living blissfully as JP, have already been married for a week and a half.
She doesn't know that all she has to do, is find a new vessel, and she'll be free from this endless day.
All she knows
is that Jason will be back
Any moment now
Jason will be right back......
The trick is, not to give in to doubt. Really that's all that matters overall, in terms of being possessed. And frankly, Elizabeth was a girl who had always been full of doubt. She'd first come to the lake when she was 6 with her Father and brothers on a camping trip. She'd been so unsure of the lake itself, screaming and crying about monsters in the water, that she refused to go fishing. She sat on the shore while her family stood in the water casting lines. Causing such a ruckus that anything they could have caught was scared away. Her Father became so aggravated with her nonsense that he cut the trip short by a whole day. They didn't even have a chance to sleep in the woods.
Yes, Elizabeth was definitely a prime candidate for possession.
In High school, a boy asked her to the Junior formal and she worried herself sick thinking that it was all a trick.
"He's probably going to dump fish heads down my dress. Or try and get me drunk and take advantage"
Truth be told, poor Mark Maverson just liked the way she looked, and wanted to take her out. But when she stood in front of him silently, becoming more and more uncomfortable as the wheels in her head turned and turned, he knew he'd made a terrible mistake.
"Umm.... you know what Liz, I actually think I'm going to see my Grandma that weekend, so just forget it" He'd taken off in an almost sprint as soon as the words left his lips. He would never talk to Elizabeth again, not even during an exam Senior year when he desperately needed a no. 2 pencil.
Elizabeth lived a life of doubt and caution all the way up until her 18th birthday when she decided that she no longer wanted to be a mouse.
She was fed up with this life of utter sadness. Her hair was perpetually falling out, her heart was always pumping out of her chest, her eyes were sunken in so deeply one would think she was posing as a ghoulish specter.
Very bravely, as brave as you could expect from her, Elizabeth approached her Father. She told him, voice shaking, that she wanted to go to the lake for her birthday. That she wanted him to show her how to fish, and she wanted to sleep under the stars.
You'd think an Outdoors-man such as Matthew Pierson would be please that his daughter finally wanted to follow in his footsteps. Instead, he glared at her over the rim of his glasses, still holding his morning paper.
"Elizabeth, I don't know what it is you're playing at, but I want no part in it. If you're thinking for one minute, after what you put me through not too long ago that I would EVER take you back to the lake....." He trailed off. This usually meant that he was going to say something completely cruel, but then realized his daughter's delicate disposition couldn't take the blow. Elizabeth wanted to tell him he was wrong. That in fact that "not too long ago" was actually 12 years ago, and that she wouldn't cry on the shore for hours and hours. But unfortunately, she'd used all of her bravery to tell her Father that she wanted to go to the lake. She walked back up to her room with the speed of a geriatric tortoise.
Her speed granted her time to think, and by the time she reached the top of the stairs she'd decided that she was going to the lake on her own. She would show everyone that she wasn't a scaredy cat or a meek little mouse. She would be the kind of girl who said "Yes!" When a boy asked her to a dance. The kind of girl who went swimming without feel of serpents, and ate ice cream without fear of aneurysm.
At this point, an intelligent human being might have come to the conclusion that our dear Elizabeth Pierson is suffering from some sort of Mania, or Anxiety disorder. You may be screaming
"Good god! Someone take that girl to a Doctor! She needs medical attention!"
I regret to inform you that, apparently in Elizabeth's life, there were no intelligent humans. It is this, a lack of intelligence, that creatures of possession prey upon.
In another world, in another story, written by some other writer who is not so hell bent on warning you and telling you these truths, Elizabeth might have had a beautiful coming of age.
But instead
That night, when her brother's and Father went to sleep, Elizabeth took a knapsack, a sandwich, a flashlight, and her bicycle and went out into the woods.
She was not prepared. You would think a girl who had been raised by a man such as Matthew Pierson would have known everything there was to know about camping. But, like he said, Matthew had given up on her at the age of 6. After all, Matthew was a much better Outdoors-man then he was a Father.
That night, armed with a little red flashlight, Elizabeth walked on an unknown trail until she heard water. She followed the sound of the water until she came to a clearing, where the moon was as big as a Ferris wheel and just as close. It shown so brightly that Elizabeth forgot that she was afraid of the woods, and the water, and for that matter the moon. She started a little fire, and allowed herself to lie down in the moon's light, breathing in her surroundings. She almost fell asleep when...
"Hello" Elizabeth's eyes shot open, she sat up with a swift jolt. She suddenly remembered her deep seeded fear, and overwhelming doubt. But there was nothing. No person around, no animal, just...the Moon.
"Hello" Elizabeth replied surprisingly calm.
"What's your name?" The voice asked. It's sound was soft like music played on a stringed instrument.
"Elizabeth. What's yours?"
"Don't have one."
"You don't have one? Where are you?" Elizabeth looked all around, and when she once again saw no one, she rested her eyes on the Moon.
"Is that you?" She asked
"Yes, that's me. I have been watching you. And I like you very much. Would you like to swim in my water?"
Like I said before, Elizabeth was a human full of doubt. But something about the Moon's sweet voice left her feeling....nothing. Not fear, not doubt, not peace. Just....nothing.
She closes her eyes and breathed in the water, the sky, and the moon. She rose to her feet, and walked into the water.
The Moon, dear reader, cannot speak. The Moon is a giant gravity rounded astronomical body 238,900 miles away from the earth. But what CAN speak, are the things that possess. They have no faces, no outward appearances. They just sort of float through the earth looking for a vessel. And this thing that possesses, this one was completely entranced by Elizabeth's vessel.
Elizabeth stepped into the water, and allowed herself to become submerged. She was suddenly on the other side of the lake. How had this happened? She was sure she'd fallen asleep and dreamed it all, until she saw herself come walking out of the water. She watched herself gather her things, and leave the campground. Elizabeth shook her head, only, when she went to shake her head she couldn't move.
She tried to look down at her hands, her feet her torso, only to find there was nothing.
She was no longer.
She was just, a consciousness.
In the days and years that followed, Elizabeth Pierson would come to be known as the most fun, adventurous and brave woman that the town had ever seen. Her hair grew in thick, her skin perked in the sun, and her eyes glimmered like jewels.
Her Father was so pleased with her turn around that he would often take her to the Lake and go fishing. Sometimes, in the night though, he'd hear her laughing. Cackling even. But it didn't matter.
Elizabeth was finally the girl that would say "Yes!" when a boy would ask her to a party. She was never called a mouse, or told she looked like a ghoulish specter. Finally the daughter her Father had always wanted, the sister her brother's could adore.
And isn't that, after all, what she'd wanted all along?
I walked out into the woods and I can't find him.
I can't find him anywhere.
I decided that I would try to drive to the next town, call the police.
But the Van won't start. I put the keys in the ignition, and nothing happens
Nothing at all.
Everything seems so bright now and I can hear a loud ringing in my ears. I closed my eyes for a moment and when I opened them again it was dark
Almost too dark to see.
I tried to call his cellphone, but nothing happens. No dial tone, no ringing
Nothing
I don't know what to do now.
</3 JP
Hey Family
I just wanted to update you! Me and Jason are officially ENGAGED!!
I'm so excited for what the future holds, and I can't wait to spend my life with him. We're on our way back to Illinois to get things ready because
I can't wait!
Love you all so much! Keep you posted
<3 J
I CAN'T FIND HIM
I went out into the woods to look for him
I can't find him I can't.
I know that I said that I would go on without him, I know I said that, but
It's been 3 days and I'm too scared to go on without him
what if he's hurt?
Or dead?
I can't find him anywhere. I walked out along the trail and I couldn't see anything
I can't find him
What do I do?
I can't
I'll get blamed
this is all my fault I know it
I'm being punished, that's why I'm having the dreams and that's why Jason is missing and that's why my
That's why
Sorry I thought I heard something outside of the van, I went to check but
I'm going to contact the police.
She is asleep, and when she sleeps I am awake
I go into the forest, to the mother of the wilderness
I speak her name into the sky, she knows that I am here.
I go to the one that waits for me and I tell him that it's almost finished
I am almost completely one with her.
I touch the trees
I touch the ground
I know our time together is short, me and the other
I can see her sleeping inside of us
I can feel her dream of the lake where we met
I can hear her crying out for the man she claims to love
Soon there will be no sleep for her
No dreams
No crying
Only pain
I go to the man she claims to love in the woods.
I see him laying on the ground in the lap of my sister
She is pleased with what she's done.
I too love him
I stroke his hair
I watch him sleep
His pain is almost over
So close
Soon
“Shit” Claire pulled her fingers up over her mouth, she felt like her mother could hear her, despite being all alone. She looked at the fl...
