Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25201450-20140919221800

'''So I wrote this a while back and just recently decided to upload it here. Anything that can improve this is welcome.'''

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Before you read this: I'm not asking for your help, just your attention. I have to warn someone about her, or whatever she is that's made my life a living hell.

---

We've all seen those people. The ones who sit on the corner of the street, holding a sign or instrument, asking for spare change. And at one point you've probably felt the urge to help them.

Well, I'm no different. I'm a sucker when it comes to those people.

I was walking down a crowded street when I heard the faint sound of an acoustic guitar playing a tune I didn't recognize in the slightest. Naturally, I searched for the source of the strange music.

On a wooden bench, I found a frail girl hunched over a guitar. Her short, mangled black hair created a curtain over her face, preventing me from seeing her expression. She had on a thin, tattered red gown that reminded me of an escaped mental hospital patient (which, come to think of it now, she probably was). Despite her disturbing appearance and the bad vibes I was getting from her, for whatever reason I decided it'd be a good idea to help her in some way.

I noticed a tin cup sitting on the ground beside her bare feet and tossed some quarters in, causing the empty cup to rattle. She didn't look up, but as I walked away I could catch a glimpse a wide grin stretching from ear-to-ear splayed across her face.

As I headed back to my apartment complex, I kept wondering how in the hell nobody heard her. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of noise coming from cars driving past and people talking, but the distinct sound of a guitar should stand out.

After a few days I almost completely forgot about the girl and her song. I never saw her on the same street again, so I assumed she'd moved to a different one. But she entered my thoughts again a week later when I was visiting my friend who lived a couple miles away from my apartment.

We'd been watching movies and stuffing our faces with all sorts of unhealthy shit until midnight when I finally decided to call it quits.

"Drive safe!" she'd called after me as I exited her home.

"Alright."

I unlocked my black Civic and slammed the door shut behind me. After I started driving, I turned on the radio. Static crackled in the speakers for a few moments until I started to hear an oddly familiar melody.

It was the same one as the girl on the bench had been playing, only this time it had lyrics. I'd never heard it on the radio before, so I was a bit shocked and creeped out.

Beckon to my call;

Outside the window.

Don't worry you won't fall;

In the end I bestow.

''You are the young one; ''

''Quite the naive one. ''

Come into the shadows;

The nightlife awaits.

You've trusted your large heart;

And look what that's done.

Now I've done my part;

The song has begun.

You are the young one;

Quite the naive one.

Come into the shadows;

The music awaits.

No need to look back now;

You're already too far.

This life you avow;

Completely to me.

You are the young one;

Quite the naive one.

Come into the shadows;

Midnight awaits.

It's not that it was a bad song, it just had this eerie feel to it. The female singing the song, whose voice I hadn't heard before, didn't make the cryptic words any less chilling. It had a feathery feel to it, almost like a whisper.

After the intro started a second time, I realized it was on a loop, so I changed the station. I wasn't really shaken up by that. I labeled it a coincidence and nothing more.

Like before, I didn't think about it often and moved on with my life. But again, she managed to slip into my mind a few days later.

I'd just burned a new CD to listen to while driving. Nothing weird about that. I exited my apartment, got in my car, put the key in the ignition and inserted the new CD.

I waited for music to start playing and my jaw fucking dropped when the intro for the same song I'd heard not only the girl playing, but on the radio too, started playing instead. I was pretty damn conused, because I never put that song on the CD, and I sure as hell never downloaded it. I skipped ahead, only to find that all of my songs were replaced with this shit.

I ejected the CD and drove quietly to my office.

By now I was pretty freaked out. All of the reasons I thought of that could've explained this didn't fully reassure me. No one else could've put that on my CD because I live alone. Unlike the last two occurrences, this one stuck to my mind.

And guess what? It didn't end there.

A week later on the same day, I'd just entered my apartment building and was making my way down the hallway to my room when I heard the faint sound of (you guessed it) the song.

My heart started beating faster as I slowly unlocked the door.

There was a fucking record player sitting on the middle of my coffee table with a trail of maggots leading to it from the kitchen.

I don't own a record player. Hell, I don't own any records.

I started to look for any signs that some jackass had broken into my apartment while I was gone, but nothing else was out of place. I cautiously stepped over the maggots squirming on the foor and looked at the record playing.

Midnight Awaits.

I shook my head, wondering how I could come up with a rational explanation for this. I took out the record and snapped it in half.

Getting a broom and a dust pan, I collected the maggots off the floor and tossed them out the kitchen window.

Wait a fucking second, I thought. I never opened the window before I left, or any other time during the day.

By now I was shaking, wondering if the same psycho was still in my apartment.

So I decided to get the hell out of there.

You're probably wondering why I hadn't called the police, because that seems like the sensible thing to do, but they'd have thought I was some batshit insane bitch. I guess that's not a very good excuse but I'll have you know I was about to piss myself and wasn't thinking clearly at the time.

I packed up some clothes and grabbed the keys to my apartment and car. I locked the door behind me and sped down to Allison's (the friend I mentioned earlier) home in the suburbs.

"Oh, hey-what the hell happened?" she asked when I came to her door. I must've looked pretty deranged.

"I'll explain later. Just please let me stay here for a few days," I begged. Being the loyal best friend she was, Allison let me stay at her house until I felt it was safe enough to go back to my place.

I was only there for two days when my landlord called me.

It was around ten o' clock at night and I was just about to call it a day when my cell phone started ringing.

"Hello?" I said and waited for a respone.

"Miss Pearson," the tired voice of my landlord sighed over the line, "your neighbors ask that you please lower the volume and stop jumping around."

My mouth hung open and my eye widened.

"But-wait, why did you call this number?"

"You didn't pick up your home phone."

"I'm not even at my apartment," I stuttered. I could hear him suck in a breath.

"And you're sure no one should be over there?"

"I'm sure."

"I'll get the police."

I thanked him and hung up.

A million thoughts ran through my brain, all leading back to that girl I saw on the bench almost three weeks ago. I dismissed it as bullshit instantly, seeing as I was this huge-ass skeptic at the time. But the more I thought about it, sadly, the more it made sense.

I hurried back over to meet the police at my apartment. Nothing looked different, just like last time. Except, now there was a repaired version of the song on the record player and another trail of maggots. The cops didn't find anything except chalk-like footprints that started at the kitchen window. They said they searched the entire place and didn't find anyone here or anything missing. I thanked them, even though they found the same things I did.

All safe now, right? The worst is over now, isn't it?

Surprisingly, the next encounter happened two weeks later.

I was laying in my bed, trying to fall asleep, when I heard the muffled sound of that damn song in my living room. It wasn't coming from the record player, because the police took it as evidence.

This  time, it sounded like...

...an actual person in the apartment.

''Maybe if I pretend to be asleep, she won't bother me. Shit, I should've locked the bedroom door. Too late now though. Wait, holy fuck, is she getting closer? No she can't be, no-''

"Come into the shadows, midnight awaits." The stench of a rotting carcass filled my nose as she leaned over and whispered in my ear.

I froze. I could feel my stomach drop and I nearly shit bricks.

I let out a blood-curdling scream and swiped at the air, trying to get her away, but my trembling hand only came in contact with cold air. I heard someone running out of my apartment and slamming the door shut, making it become uncomfortably quiet.

I decided that was the last straw, and got the fuck out of that city. I took whatever I could fit in my car and turned in the keys to my apartment to my landlord the next morning. There's no way in hell I'm going back there.

---

Now that I've finally settled down (I hope) I haven't had any incidents with her. She must be done with me now.

But guess what? That bitch doesn't want me to forget about her just yet.

I was walking down the street when I happened to hear an acoustic guitar playing that fucking song. Being the dumbass I am, I looked for the source of the song.

Oh God, she fucking looked up.

I saw her on another bench; same dress, same guitar, same tin cup.

When she felt someone staring at her, she lifted her head and made eye contact with me.

Jesus Christ, that image is forever burned in my retinas until I die.

She had wild look in her inhumanly wide eyes, and a wide grin revealing two rows of decaying teeth that reached her ears. Dried blood and scratches decorated her cracked, ghostly pale skin. She continued strumming as we look at each other. She heard another person approaching and quickly lowered her head as the unlucky passerby dropped a quarter in the tin cup. I sprinted away.

If only he'd known the hell he was about to be thrown into.

I'm hoping you don't end up like me, or anyone else that has experienced this. My theory is that only certain people see her, and once you dop your money in the cup you're a goner.

I don't know if she's done with me yet. Fuck, I hope so. I don't want to lie in wait every night waiting for that god awful song to start playing again. 