Her very own horror.

Kristineth wasn’t your average girl, or at least she wanted to think so. She was a goth, a dedicated one. That meant you’d never see her wear anything but corsets, chokers, and cardigans—all in black. No matter the time or place, she could only ever be seen in this gothic attire and engaging in “true” gothic activities: reading cursed books from the Internet, studying cases of occultist murder, and learning Latin, of course. Though, sometimes it could be Arabic.

But she wasn’t a… quirky goth… the one that everyone feels attracted to because of her cute looks that just happen to be mixed up with edgy hobbies. No, unlike those attractive goths that people see on the web, Kristineth was a short and stout girl. All the clothing she wore would get deformed, visibly squeezing her skin with countless straps—albeit an abundant element in the goth wardrobe, on her, it looked ridiculous. And her chubby face… which didn’t have any specific shape, would always host an enormous layer of excessive makeup.

It's short to say that to everyone else she was a bum in gothic garments. Because of her always attending the school dressed that way, with time she had become a walking butt of the joke. People would always point at her and use her as a meme template, as a comic reference, always trying to remind her just how much she sucked.

At home, not much was different.

“Just what the hell are you wearing?!”, “Can you not be normal for one day?”, “We’ve come tired of your demon crap!” were all words coming from her stepfather. Of course, her mother would defend her from such verbal assaults at times. In fact, she was the sole reason Kristineth was even allowed to walk around looking like that. But even her mother often took the side of her verbal husband. One thing was certain—there were hostiles wherever she was.

Every time that she felt too exposed (usually after another volley of her stepfather’s senseless chidding), she would run off to her room and peer through her extensive window, in the direction of an old and abandoned suburban house at the edge of the town. The house was situated in an area so unpopular and unprofitable that so far no real estate company was able to make something of it. Even construction companies didn't show interest in that patch of land for how deserted that part of the town was.

But that was the status quo. The citizens, through multiple generations, have attributed it to a different story, a more mystical one. Some decades ago, when those suburbs were still thriving and would house this town’s entire population of miners working at a coal extraction facility not far from there, a new family moved in: Frobishers.

It was said the day they moved in, it was raining heavily, animals would come out of the wild into town, and lightning hit the roof of their newly-purchased house. It rained so hard, in fact, the mine got flooded, resulting in a catastrophe that took away multiple lives.

With time, even more incidents began to occur that would tarnish the town’s economy, primarily the mining facility. And every time before some major occurrence hit the unsuspecting people of Pardows, the Frobisher family’s head, Nigel Frobisher, would be seen going around his house in gloves entirely soaked with blood.

Eventually, the town’s mining facility crumbled, all the major investors moved out, and the city’s growth halted, ending in its current state of semi-subsidized existence. But the uneasy miners of Pardows wouldn’t rest easy. Skeptical and hardened with reality, they would not stop speculating about the strange effect the Frobisher family might’ve had on them. One day, Kieran Hill—like everyone else, a miner who had recently lost his job—felt too frustrated about all of this and, uninvited, he entered the Frobisher family’s house from the backyard. His friends, also unemployed, would always talk him out of it. But that one night he did. He announced his plans to some of his friends via telephone and went off at night to see what was up with Frobishers and finally confront those intruding strangers about their isolation.

He never came back. Police would search the area and even inquire into the Frobisher’s house, but there was nothing they would find except for a small book with Devil’s Piktogram on it. With time, the townsfolk found more suspicious things about Frobishers. Some would say they saw Frobishers perform rituals, and some would say Frobishers could speak to animals. And each day more of such observations would stack on one another.

The town would have no rest from those seemingly silent Frobishers… until one day. It was the day Matthew Frobisher, the son of their family, was found dead. He was found washed off to one of the banks of the local river. There were no injuries, but the evidence suggested that he must’ve died before he could drown. The investigation ended inconclusive. Nonetheless, the next month their family was out and plagued the town of Pardows no longer.

And many generations later, no one still dared to even pass their house, let alone enter it. The realtors would attempt to sell it to clueless newcomers, but they would all give up.

Kristineth had long been planning to go there. Having read a lot of black magic books and skimmed the Internet for information about ghosts and other paranormal activity, she resolved to conduct a ritual and contact the spirits of Frobishers. Possibly, she wanted to become their servant and even acquire some of their power.

In the meantime, she had arranged an entire group of people willing to do this ritual together, consisting of her other best friend goth and other kids from her school. Obviously, the latter were going there just for thrills and to possibly make even more fun of what a loser Kristineth already was. They didn’t know any better. Kristineth knew that but didn’t care much. Furthermore, if she gained some form of power from ghosts, here was a sacrifice she could compensate those spirits.

So avoiding the chidding stare of her stepfather the entire day and on her way out of home, she took her bike and headed off in the late evening to the rendezvous point not far from the Frobisher’s.

“Hey, Kris!” called Clementine, her other goth friend, the only person not hostile to Kris in her entire life. She was standing right beside Jannete and Tuck—the latter being the school’s cheerleader and baseball player respectively.

“I thought there were going to be more of us,” replied Kristineth.

“Others chickened out.” briefly explained Tuck. Kristineth also noticed those two had brought some booze and Tuck was already smelling of alcohol.

“So, Krissy, are we gonna hunt those spirits or what?” asked Jannete with some smirk suggestive of her irony.

They opened the door, which was weirdly loose, and entered this rotting structure. For some odd reason, some assets of comfort were present (like rugs, lamps, etc.)—though dusty and broken, this isn't something usually found in an abandoned housing like that. And the wooden floor would always make this creaking sound.

“That’s what you’ll live like in ten years if you don’t study well, Tucker Morgan,”  commented Jannete. The two were a couple.

“Nah. I’ve got it covered.”

Kristineth cleaned some space in the center of the living room and arranged the preparations. She lit up the candles and drew a red circle in a piktogram-like manner although different. Jannete and Tuck would share disparaging remarks on Kristineth’s visual involvement with this, standing at the side.

“It’s set,” she announced, “come sit around it.” If initially, Jann and Clementine weren’t showing any signs of getting spooky feelings about this place—now, seeing this circle dimly lit with candles, it began to show an impression on them.

“Afraid, Jann?” asked her boyfriend.

“Not a bit,” she seated herself, matching the symmetry, “What do we have to do, Krissy?”

Kristineth grabbed a tube and a tripod-stand with a platform to burn this tube, almost like they were about to do a chemistry project, “I’ll have to take your blood samples and burn it in the center.”

“Is it necessary?” Jannete asked.

“Yes. In order for the hosts to appear, we have to show our commitment to them.” Jannete sighed at the ridiculousness of this, but it was worth it if she could laugh it off with her friends later.

When the samples were gathered in this tube, Kristineth positioned it in the stand and lit up underneath it. She then unfolded a quirky-looking book and began to chant Latin from it. After about ten minutes of her awkward and silent chanting… nothing happened.

“Uhh… alright, is that all?” asked Jann, “I’m losing my enthusiasm.”

“That's not all!” cut Kristineth, “Just wait some… more…” the prospect of all that just not working bothered her deeply. “I need you to continue sitting the way you are.”

“How much longer?! This position is uncomfortable. I’m getting-” but a dull knock on the second floor cut her speech.

“What was that?” asked Clementine. They were peering at the ceiling

“Something could fall off,” assumed Jann.

“This place stood untouched for like… forever. Everything that could would have dropped a long time ago.” remarked Tuck.

Kristineth tucked some resealable plastic pouch out of her bag.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s animal blood,” she answered, “I got it from the local butcher,” she said as she began to unseal it. And then, dunking her palm in it, began to daub it across her face.

“Alright. That’s enough,” said Jannete, preparing to stand up.

“Where are you going?” Kristineth got disturbed.

“Kristineth Kingsney, you are a freak! I’m sure we’ve had fun with Tucker, and now we will gladly quit.”

“Wait,” he stopped her, “We came to see a ghost, right?”

“What? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t happen every day. And it’s not like we’ll have to paint ourselves with it too. Right, Kris?” he asked, turning to her, and she nodded.

“You can tell others about me later at school,” she continued after him, “I don’t mind.” After all, what was she to lose?

“If anything happens, I will protect you. Right?” he reassured Jann.

Jann hesitantly sat herself back, to the old position. From then Kristineth resumed her chanting audibly way more aggressive words, and in a much louder tone. She gradually raised her loudness as she was progressing through the lyrics until… another knock against the ceiling!… and another!… and then the frequency increased. Clementine and Jannete were visibly more concerned now.

“We need to go there,” said Kristineth.

“Hell no!” tightly screamed Jann, “not one more step into this shithole!” she exclaimed.

“Come on… let’s see that! Are you really scared of ghosts?” Tucker was nagging her.

They stood up and together started climbing up the rotten staircase. It was so old and sapped that every second step wound bent under their weight. On the second floor, they were standing cramped together despite the available space. Clementine had courage a long ago, and Tuck too was trembling slightly, despite his attempts to hide it. Only Kristineth was standing forth from the rest. A long corridor with different rooms was stretching before them, and darkness was looming from the end of it, illuminated scarcely by the moon peeking from the nearby window.

“Spirits of Frobishers! I call upon you! I order you to heed my voice!” shouted Kristineth into this abyss.

A figure appeared.

A pale figure of a woman walked out of the furthermost room, with not a single sound of opening the door, as if clipping through the surroundings. Clothed in a light white dress from older times, it had one of its deformed breasts reveal itself because of the carelessly hanging shoulder strap. On the pale face was what seemed to be an almost wig—that dirty and greased was the figure’s hair. On its body were different cuts and bruises. Freshly dead body—it was!

Tuck grabbed Jannete’s hand and steadily marched down and out of the house, stomping on his way to bolster what was left of his bravery. This pale mannequin (as it could hardly be called a person) stood there silently, eyes fixed somewhere in the girls’ direction. But Kristineth… she began stepping forth.

“Kristineth!” called Clementine.

Kristineth just ever-slightly turned her blood-daubbed face and glared back at Clementine, in a fashion that felt unsettlingly cordial with this cursed interior. Something inside Clementine just couldn’t bear watching this a second longer, and she ran off.

Kristineth turned her full attention to the spirit, “thy spirit, how can I join you? Yield me your strength!” she begged. And to that, the spirit slowly raised its left hand pointing at the room she appeared from.

Kristineth, excited and, at last, in harmony with her soul, followed the direction into this realm of Evil. Step after step… she walked in, preparing to embrace her fate.

But… but there was… there were… there were two bodies lying around? They seemed to be… still breathing?—Lively breathing, actually!

In the room, where Kristineth walked in, were two lying men. They were awkwardly moving their limbs around them, almost like babies do when lying on their backs. They were humming and mumbling, trying to say something—incohesive. Their clothes were poor-looking indeed, but in a normal way… like homeless people. And… needles were scattered on the ground.

Junkies… Drug… Junkies!…

Kristineth felt herself empty—emptied of any vigor for life that she had left and that she had been saving for this moment. She felt so dispirited, she didn’t want to move at all and just felt like standing there instead. But overseeing these miserable, degraded idiots who had lost all respect for Frobisher's den was even more unbearable. She turned around and in silence walked out of the room.

The same white-dressed “thing”, which was actually a woman, was now found reclining against the nearby wall, her face away from Kristineth. She was making some gagging sounds and puked right below her, onto her bare feet, ignoring Kristineth’s movements entirely…

Going home, the streets were empty. There wouldn’t even be a single car passing by. Kristineth removed some amount of the animal blood from her face, afraid she would scare a pedestrian by looking like a ghost, which never existed. But some dried portion of it stayed near her hairline, and she couldn’t bother less about it. It was getting very late—so late that she had better hurry to not get screamed at by her stepfather. Yet she wanted to walk those deserted streets accompanied by the chilling wind. Besides, he could be asleep. Why would he care for her?

Oh, how wrong she was… That when she arrived home, so late an hour, he was sitting there on the couch, patiently, like a tiger with his claws clenched in. Her mother was right beside him.

“Where the FUCK have you been?” he throttled with his voice. No answer followed.

“I’ve been telephoned,” he continued, “I’ve been told what you did, he was nodding his head, “tomorrow everyone out there will be talking about this!… you wicked girl. We’re gonna be asked how we even allowed this fuckery—the neighbors, our colleagues… everyone!” It was as though the chair was restraining him from jumping at Kristineth and violently pushing her out of the home.

“I’ve had enough of this, girl. I’ve always told yo’ mom we ought ‘do something. She would defend you. She said you would get smart. But you didn’t!” he shook his head, not detaching his cold glare off her. “You’ve already attracted a lot of shame to this family as it is, walking like that and doing that with your look. But now…” he stopped and then pulled a sizable garbage bag filled with things. Kristineth could see some of its contents stacked on top of it. These were her diary, her edgy-looking dolls, her amateur art of zombies with their guts spilling out. All these were assets essential to her soul, piled together in a garbage bag.

“I’ve picked up all that shit from your room, all the wrong shit that’s been messing with this family. Tomorrow, I will drive it to the local trash disposal site and burn it. When I wake up, I wanna see it intact—not one thing missing. You understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Go to your room.”

She complied and in a self-excusing manner, devoid of any emotion from a glance, headed where she had been told to. Upon reaching the room, which had every trace of having been violently ravaged, she threw herself at her pillow. Five minutes in, and it was soaked entirely.

It used to be that, whenever a bad mood like that dawned on her, she always jumped on the seatboard of her window and started gazing in the direction of the Frobisher’s house: dreaming how she would visit it, have her first contact with a ghost, sign a pact in exchange for powers. And this shack of mystery turned into another disappointment—like everything else about her life.

If before, looking in the window, she could always pinpoint that place in the far-off distance, where she wanted to be… now she didn’t want to be anywhere at all.