Welcome to the Authors' Cave
Halloween Blog Train!
Welcome Gemma Farrow, my guest host blogger!
1. Include a picture or video of yourself in a Halloween costume! Here is Gemma Farrow in a Voodoo Skull!
2. What is your favorite scary movie? Pumpkin Head
3. What scene from a book or movie scared you more than any other? A scene from The Ring (remake 2002), when the dead girl, Samara, crawls out the TV screen.
4. If all of Stephen King's bad guys were after each other, who would win and why? I would have to say Randall Flag also referred to as R.F. I choose him because he has appeared in a number of King's books, including a starring role in The Stand; he isn't always a main antagonist, but the fact he's a continuous presence reflects his enduring personality and capabilities. His powers include necromancy, prophecy and he can influence both human and animal behaviour. He seeks the destruction of civilisations. Therefore the most likely to win out of all of King's bad guys.
WHOA! If you are just starting the Halloween Train Story, click here to go to Train Car #1 for the beginning - this is the ending!
...And the Ending!
I know my body is sedated on a hard bed, in a white room that has become more dominate upon my awareness than my long ago old life. I know I have lived a life before that, if Lord Hampshire is anything to go by, and maybe more lives preceding him. In the past week that has passed since waking to darkness with strange sensations upon me, my face invaded by something unknown and overwhelming, I have learned much about myself, and more about a future I never imagined in my past life as a woman who helped in the large kitchen of a convent. Yes, old memories have returned (though they are fractured, missing parts I yearn to know), sometimes with an intensity that is overpowering in their nostalgia.
I remember my sister, Mary; her fragile smile.
I remember Carson’s cruelty.
I remember grief . . . and rage.
I know these doctors with their strange new titles, such as psychologist, have placed medication in me, something like laudanum but so much stronger that my body (this new body) shows no consciousness. It sleeps as if for forever. And for a while, the real me; the soul these doctors brought back from the place where spirits belong, seemed to sleep too. I was grateful. There was no longer the sense of being pinned in an unknown world, captured inside a body that wasn't mine, and most terrible of all, being so with the monster who murdered my sister.
Lord Hampshire, I think I can bear. But Carson . . .
Then my spirit awoke, while my body remained passive. More strangeness, this inability to move at all, but yet within I am fluid, able to think and consider and suffer the nagging sense that I should be expecting something.
These people put me to sleep for a reason.
They did so because I could not deal with the spiritual conflict, not just the fight between Carson Barlow and Lord Hampshire, but the emotions I felt towards Carson Barlow. My hatred was untethering me, just as much as the two combating men were undoing my spiritual . . . core?
It’s strange, the new words I am capable of attaining. I was a humble, hard-working woman. My intelligence as expected for a woman of my past time. Now, as I consider what it is I should be preparing for, I realize my intelligence is beyond anything I have known. I suspect it might even overshadow the good doctors.
I scream.
My spirit screams.
Though my body does not move, I clench spiritually, hands, stomach; my toes curl as pain lances through me. Then heat follows. Then a cold that is reminiscent of the grave.
We’ll start the extraction in one hour . . .
As the pain passes it leaves me with this unsettling phrase.
I focus on the word extraction. I think of rotten teeth being pulled. My old doctor, when he dealt with my abscess ruined tooth, had used such a word.
Panic flutters to life.
Another flare of pain, this time seeming to tug my spirit inward, as if encouraging a collapse. No, no, no . . .
Extraction.
Rot.
Carson Barlow.
They, the doctors, are trying to remove him from my body.
A part of me exalts, but another part that which is fixated on the pain, is hit with terror.
They are prising Carson, like one would a leach, from me, and in doing so my spirit is being pulled with him.
And Lord Hampshire?
No sense of him. No sense of Carson Barlow. Just this terrible pressure, the tugging, the cold and the fear.
I root in, holding fast to the sense of me. My body, imagining it as it lies still and silent. I picture the white room. The doctors.
Dimly, as if he is trying to distract me, hoping to redirect my attention to the vortex pull of disconnection, Carson Barlow starts to heckle. He abuses both me and the doctors.
“No. Bitches. No. I’ll kill every one . . . of you. I . . . will—”
I smile grimly as he screams.
“You will have no body, Carson. No life. As you took my . . . sister’s life and stole her future, now the future takes . . . yours.” I laugh. I groan as the inexorable tug forces me to weaken my hold on myself.
No.
Doctor, she’s showing signs of stress . .
That’s to be expected. Increase the pressure.
“Miss Wade? Miss Wade? You must hold on. If you fail now, we will both die.”
Lord Hampshire’s voice is like fuel to my lagging spirit. I imagine digging my feet into the ground, the way a person being pulled from behind will do to resist complying. I imagine holding onto a solid, immovable surface. And most of all I imagine Carson Barlow as a weak, dissolving irritant. I visualize him snapping free like a twig beneath a great storm.
He screeches, the sensation of nails claw my psyche.
I moan, begging the discomfort to be over . . .
Dizziness washes in.
The last thing I hear is Lord Hampshire’s voice, “We’re rid of the animal.”
Mary smiles at me. Then she says, “Live well, Virginia. Live well.”
I wake with a start.
I stare at the ceiling. It’s white. I am grateful for that whiteness because at least it isn't darkness.
“Finally, you’re awake. You don’t know how pleased I am. You’re a strong soul, Miss Wade. Truly. How do you feel?” Dr Moore says. She sits by my bed, brown eyes taking in everything my face offers.
“I feel exhausted. Am I well?”
“You’re more than well. You are unique. And this success is as much down to you as it is to this institute’s research.” She leans forward, holding that odd contraption she calls
I stare at the ceiling. It’s white. I am grateful for that whiteness because at least it isn't darkness.
“Finally, you’re awake. You don’t know how pleased I am. You’re a strong soul, Miss Wade. Truly. How do you feel?” Dr Moore says. She sits by my bed, brown eyes taking in everything my face offers.
“I feel exhausted. Am I well?”
“You’re more than well. You are unique. And this success is as much down to you as it is to this institute’s research.” She leans forward, holding that odd contraption she calls
a . . . clipboard. Writing notes. Dr Moore always writing notes. “Can I ask you something?”
And asking questions.
I sigh, the good feeling I felt during my dream of my sister, fading a little. “Yes.”
“Is there any awareness of the negative personality?”
“No. Nothing. I felt him break free.”
She nods. “What about other personalities? Our procedure was focused to his astral wavelength but as with any new trial, you were equally at risk. At the end of the day, energy is energy, and the extraction process targets energy. But, hopefully, the other consciousness present—” she checked her clipboard “—Lord Hampshire may have been . . . evicted too?”
I was about to tell her what I’d experienced in the final moments of the extraction; Lord Hampshire’s supportive urging and declaration that Carson Barlow was done with, when he said in urgency: “Miss Wade, refrain from telling her those details. It would be best if we kept something back, do you not think? We are still at a great disadvantage, and in a strange time. As much as I detest being imprisoned in a female’s body, (and we, too, have our own relationship to contend with), you and I are for all intents and purposes unexpected allies—”
“Miss Wade? Is Lord Hampshire still present?” Dr Moore’s eyes are filled with a look that though brief, stirs coldness in me.
I give myself a little shake. I smile. “No. I believe he is gone, too.” I nod to reaffirm. “There is only me, Dr Moore.”
She smiles. “Wonderful.” She claps her hands together. “There is so much you will come to understand, to experience. Miss Wade you are our prize.”
“We are her prisoner, Miss Wade.” Lord Hampshire says. “It is a very unhappy situation for someone of my standing to be imprisoned by not one, but two females.”
Lord Hampshire, I say mentally, we, too, will play this new game. We will learn all that we can, and then we will make our escape.
And then? He replies, dubious.
And then we will live well, because despite everything, we have been given life. And life is to be lived.
Dr Moore continues to hold a satisfied smile.
I smile in return, thinking that I have learned much, and can learn more. And the one important thing I have gained, as much as I hate to acknowledge it, is from Carson Barlow. He might have left, but there remains the memory of him, the shadow of his thoughts. I have put them inside a mental box.
I feel that this new world may be more challenging than my old one.
And what minds like Carson Barlow’s can give, I need to keep.
And Lord Hampshire senses this change in me, because he does not contend me any further.
And asking questions.
I sigh, the good feeling I felt during my dream of my sister, fading a little. “Yes.”
“Is there any awareness of the negative personality?”
“No. Nothing. I felt him break free.”
She nods. “What about other personalities? Our procedure was focused to his astral wavelength but as with any new trial, you were equally at risk. At the end of the day, energy is energy, and the extraction process targets energy. But, hopefully, the other consciousness present—” she checked her clipboard “—Lord Hampshire may have been . . . evicted too?”
I was about to tell her what I’d experienced in the final moments of the extraction; Lord Hampshire’s supportive urging and declaration that Carson Barlow was done with, when he said in urgency: “Miss Wade, refrain from telling her those details. It would be best if we kept something back, do you not think? We are still at a great disadvantage, and in a strange time. As much as I detest being imprisoned in a female’s body, (and we, too, have our own relationship to contend with), you and I are for all intents and purposes unexpected allies—”
“Miss Wade? Is Lord Hampshire still present?” Dr Moore’s eyes are filled with a look that though brief, stirs coldness in me.
I give myself a little shake. I smile. “No. I believe he is gone, too.” I nod to reaffirm. “There is only me, Dr Moore.”
She smiles. “Wonderful.” She claps her hands together. “There is so much you will come to understand, to experience. Miss Wade you are our prize.”
“We are her prisoner, Miss Wade.” Lord Hampshire says. “It is a very unhappy situation for someone of my standing to be imprisoned by not one, but two females.”
Lord Hampshire, I say mentally, we, too, will play this new game. We will learn all that we can, and then we will make our escape.
And then? He replies, dubious.
And then we will live well, because despite everything, we have been given life. And life is to be lived.
Dr Moore continues to hold a satisfied smile.
I smile in return, thinking that I have learned much, and can learn more. And the one important thing I have gained, as much as I hate to acknowledge it, is from Carson Barlow. He might have left, but there remains the memory of him, the shadow of his thoughts. I have put them inside a mental box.
I feel that this new world may be more challenging than my old one.
And what minds like Carson Barlow’s can give, I need to keep.
And Lord Hampshire senses this change in me, because he does not contend me any further.
The End
-Ginger
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