Nightmare Ink Presents Issue 6

Hi everyone,

Due to a lot of stuff, I had to delay the release of this issue of Nightmare Ink Presents but it’s finally here and I won’t take any more of your time!

The Haunting of Blackwood Manor Chapter VII - Otherworldly Frights

“So, Lily,” Sarah asked the girl as she served her some scrambled eggs from the pan her husband had just passed to her. “What brings you here so early?”

They had invited her for breakfast, which she at first refused but ended up accepting.

Lily retold to the whole Smith ensemble the reason for her being there, just as she had done to Alex on their way to the house.

From the stove where he was now flipping some pancakes, Mark anticipated his wife's line of thought.

“Sound logic, getting a ride to come this far, but…” he looked at the table from over his shoulder. “What would you do if you hadn’t found Alex on his run?”

Lily pondered her answer for a while.

“I would wait around. Maybe go on a walk a bit further down the path,” she paused to eat a bite of her eggs. “Of course, I wouldn’t stand at the front door like a creepy stalker waiting until I saw movement inside.”

Something in the way she had said the last sentence made everyone else at the table think that that would be exactly what she would have done. A shiver went up their spine as each one individually imagined looking out of a window and seeing a girl standing in the hazy morning light. Imagining how that vision would play with their newly arising fears.

“I’ll admit I haven’t planned that much in advance. But I met Alex and everything turned out alright,” she gave them a smile that lifted all the uneasiness away.

“And how were you thinking of getting back to town? Or will you walk?” This time it was Emily asking the question, an air of true curiosity on her face.

As if prompted by the question a loud, pressing, hard knock came from the front door. Lily jumped in her chair, exhaling a hushed fuck.

Mark got up and went to the front door, Sarah following him but staying at the edge of the kitchen door, motioning for the kids to stay in their places. The three teenagers still around the table could hear a hushed conversation coming from the entrance. After Mark passed by his wife giving her a reassuring smile, following him was another man, he looked a bit distraught, eyes darting to every corner of the rooms he passed by, as if looking for something in the shadows.

“Honey, this is Ollie Evergreen. Ollie, my wife, Sarah.”

Ollie extended his hand to Sarah who took it.

“That’s Alex, who you already know, and that´s Emily,” he said pointing at his son and daughter. “And I think you know who the girl sitting in between them is,” he smiled jokingly as he finished the sentence. Ollie was going to say something but was cut off by his daughter.

“Sorry, Dad. I totally lost track of time, I didn’t meant to.”

“I’m sure your dad understands. When we were more or less your age, we lost track of time more often than not.”

While her husband was talking Sarah offered Ollie breakfast but he politely declined, saying that he was good.

“And it’s okay, Lily,” he said to his daughter, his voice a bit coarse and low. “I just wished you would have told me where you were. Always glued to your cell phone but never for what matters.”

Outside, near the parked Evergreen’s pick-up, plans were made for later in the day, the kids would go for to the Marquis for the screening and the parents would have a quiet dinner.

As the pick-up left the Smith’s driveway, Ollie glanced through the rearview mirror at the manor house getting smaller in the distance.

“I was chilled,” he muttered under his breath. “Didn’t you notice the cold, Lil?”

His daughter looked at him, a puzzled look on her face.

“Not really, dad. I didn’t feel anything. Are you okay, Dad?”

Ollie muttered a half-hearted yes and then they drove home in silence.

A few hours later the Smiths were ringing the doorbell on the Evergreen’s two-story house.

Lily opened the door screaming that the Smiths had arrived and that they were in the living room before grabbing Emily’s wrist and dragging the other girl to her room.

“So, which one do I wear?”

Lily looked from Emily to the three outfit combinations she had laid on top of her bed.

“The goal of the outfit being?” Emily asked back to what seemed to be her new friend.

“Well, most of all to let Ethan Hayes see what he’s missing,” Lily sat on the bed and looked Emily in the eyes. “It’s not I’m interested in him, I just want to make him wonder.”

“Oh, I think we can certainly do something about that. Let’s see…” Emily smiled slyly at Lily as both started raiding the drawers and closets. In the less than half an hour they took to prepare, Emily borrowing one or two of Lily accessories, Lily gave a roundup of everyone they would meet later that night.

As they got down the stairs both girls could hear their parents talking to each other, their mothers off to the side talking about art, and their fathers and Alex talking about sports most likely. The moment they were noticed at the foot of the stairs, their mothers rushed to them complementing their make-up and choices of clothing, their fathers on the other hand complained that maybe so much production was a bit too much for just a night at the movies. Alex remained, still and silent, as he watched Lily, loose blond hair and a white flowy summer dress, get to the landing. She looked, in comparison to all the experiences he had had since coming to Cedar Falls, like an angel. He sensed something aimed at him just to notice his sister's gaze piercing a hole in his forehead. She moved closer to him.

“You okay, dufus?” She asked, her voice low so no one else would notice.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good,” Alex told her, eyes still fixed on Lily.

They got out of the house, bags of food prepared by Lily’s mom in their hands, to their parents shouting the usual stream of advice at them, which they knew the kids would probably ignore.

Lily had downplayed the Marquis. That was the thought on Alex and Emily’s mind when they got to the movie theatre. It was one of those old places with a white marquee where black block letters would be put to announce the movie playing at the time which at the moment stood blank, a central glass booth at the middle of the entrance where tickets were one time sold if they were still not. The Smith kids stand in awe of such a place, coming from multiplex-land where all was the same wherever they went.

Alex was the first to speak.

“Do they still screen movies here?”

“Oh yeah, not that many though. But Mrs. Henessey, she’s the owner, tries to keep the theatre working and let us use it in exchange for some help around it,” she looked at Alex. “She’s Pete’s aunt, which also helps. Oh, you’ll like Pete, Em. He’s a horror nerd too,” she said the word in a non-judgemental way, after all, she was also one of them.

As if he had been listening through the glass door, atop the stairs behind the ticket booth, that now opened Pete appeared.

“Welcome, friends old and new to another OF, that’s Otherworldly Frights for you plebes, presentation!” He made grandiose moves and tried to project his voice. “May your mind be fractured, and your spirit shaken!”

Alex looked at the guy at a loss, Emily and Lily just bursting into laughter.

“Oh man, this is a first,” Lily was able to say in between laughs. “Guess he is trying to put a show for you two. Nice first impression.”

“Really? And OF was the only thing he was able to come with?”

The four teenagers burst into laughter as Pete’s head wrapped itself around the situation.

“To be honest I had never said that out loud before. But a movie club needs a name and that’s the one I’m sticking with. Name’s Pete. You must be Emily. Your brother didn’t tell me you were so beautiful.”

“I just told you she liked horror…” Alex said.

“Well, she is.”

“Let’s get inside before Pete tells us that to get in, we’ll have to make an account on his OF club,” Emily said turning to Lily and both girls walked into the Marquis foyer.

Pete punched Alex’s shoulder.

“I know she was sister but she’s feisty. I like it.”

“You do? You can keep her man. I’ve been putting up with her for seventeen long years.”

“Oh… maybe I will. Just remember you told me too.”

“And I’ll also tell you good luck with that,” Alex said pointing at her sister as both boys followed the girls’ steps into the theatre.

The foyer had half a dozen people waiting inside, Lily and Pete introduced the Smiths to everyone, including Ethan Hayes that stood mouth agape when Lily passed him by just giving a side glance while saying to Emily that’s Ethan Hayes star football player to which Emily, doing her best resting bitch face, make a quick nod and walked by. The Otherworldly Frights movie club had been created as a pet project by Pete and his love for movies. It had started as a small gathering for friends in Pete’s aunt's basement, but as he got older Pete asked her aunt if he could start using the old theatre to which she had said yes. The group had grown bigger but always remained a close unit mostly because they usually only screened horror and sci-fi.

“I choose a very special movie for tonight. I know it will probably be very hard for some of you,” he glanced at Ethan, “because it’s subtitled but I checked and there are no hard words so everyone should be okay.”

Everyone laughed, even Ethan.

“So, let’s get inside and bask in the harrowing, dark, and atmospheric horror that is the 1960 Mario Bava masterpiece Black Sunday or in the original Italian La Maschera del Demonio.”

“He was doing good…” Emily muttered to Lily as they entered the screening room. “Until he tried the Italian…” Both girls tried hard not to giggle as the movie started.

After the movie ended, they gathered again in the foyer eating and discussing the movie, the techniques used, the storylines and plot, and how if a remake was made now, it wouldn’t hold a candle to what they had just seen even with all the CGI and effects of today, or maybe because of that. There were also comments about Barbara Steele and on how she was a horror powerhouse and that there was no other Scream Queen who could get to her level, which caused a discussion about Jamie Lee and how Jenny Ortega and Mia Goth were already on top of their game as their generation horror first ladies and how they still had a whole career in front of them. In the middle of all that a cry of “and she was hot, why are all scream queens hot” which sent a round of laughter around the room.

When the food was gone and the discussion ended, they all went their way, Pete telling them not to worry and that he would take care of cleaning the following morning.

“It wasn’t a half-bad night, was it?” Emily asked her brother as the family drove home from the Evergreen’s house.

“You kidding? It was great,” he looked at his sister. “Know what, Em? I think we’ll be okay here.”

His sister nodded at him and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Even with everything thing that’s happening to me,” he thought to himself.

This is it for the week. Once again sorry for the delay.

I hope to hear from all of you and most of all, I hope you are enjoying my little tale.

See you in a week, hopefully on schedule, take care.

M.

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