Even now, I can feel her tugging at my brain, trying to pull me in. I have traveled across the globe to escape her grasp, but she has found me. She is here.
When I first bought the book, I was so happy. I have spent the last few years hunting down first editions of Stephen King books. And I’ve been very succesful at it, thank you very much. My collection was complete, except fort this one book that had alluded me for years: A signed first edition of CARRIE. I knew who had it. An old guy by the name of Graham McKinnock. Kept it in a safe in his basement, where nobody could see it, but I knew. More of an art dealer than a book collector, but it took me the best part of four years to get him to part with it. In the end, he finally agreed to sell it to me, and for a reasonable price too. ‘May God have mercy’, he said to me as he handed over the book. I thought he was trying to be funny. Of course, that was then…
From the first day I had it in my possession, I felt the book attracting me towards it. I’d be in the kitchen, making coffee and a sandwich, and I’d get this feeling… Like I had to check on the book, make sure it was still there. Or I’d wake up in the middle of the night, and I found myself standing by the bookcase, holding the book. I’ve never sleepwalked in my life, not even as a little kid.
But those were small things. Weird, sure, but nothing to get too upset about. There were other, far more disturbing incidents. The animals, for instance. In the five months between the time I got my book, and the time I burnt down my house and jumped on the first plane to Australia, there have been no less than 19 birds that flew into the wall of my house, killing themselves. All in the same spot too. Right where my bookcase was on the other side of the wall… And then there’s the time I found the neighborhood cat, Mittens, clawing furiously at that same wall like she was trying to dig her way through. Her paws were all bloody, and she had a look of absolute terror in her eyes. I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, and as she tried to attack me in order to get back to the wall, I pulled her away to the front of the house, where she calmed down a bit. I let her go and she ran as fast as she could. I haven’t seen her anywhere near my house since.
Around this same time, the dreams started. Unclear at first, but it soon became apparent what was going on. Sue Snell, the girl from the book, was visiting me in my sleep, pursuading me to set her free. ‘We belong together, like before’, she said. ‘I’ll make you young again, and strong! We’ll take whatever we want, do what we want, GO where we want, and nobody will ever stop us, Billy. Not this time’.
I also started getting flashes of things that have never happened to me when I was awake. Or things I THOUGHT hadn’t happened. I couldn’t be sure: When I was in my teens, I was in a car accident. Hit a wall, and was in a coma for six months. I don’t really recall anything from before that time. My memories go from childhood to about 12 years old, and the next memory is waking up in the hospital.
I really didn’t know what to make of all this, and I was getting scared. As much I didn’t want to, I knew I had to get rid of the book. I didn’t want to sell it. I wasn’t going to pass my problems on to some other poor unsuspecting soul. So I did what I had to. I went to my backyard, poured gasoline on the book, and set it on fire. I watched it burn to ashes. That night, I fell asleep immediately. A great burden had lifted from my shoulders.
I woke up around 3.00 am, and something felt strange. It felt like I wasn’t alone. Then I heard her voice. ‘Thank you Billy. I knew you would do it. I knew you would set me free. Now we can be together forever’. I turned towards the sound, mortified. Right there, IN MY BED, was Sue Snell… Or what was left of her: A ghostly apparition, almost transparant. ‘Do you remember now Billy’? She asked. ‘Do you remember what happened? We were playing a harmless prank on that bitch Carrie White, and she killed all of our friends. Burnt down the school. Made us crash! Do you remember? I died, but you survived… And when you woke up, you had forgotten about me. The doctors told your parents not to tell you about all the horrors that happened at our school, afraid you’d have a relapse. They had already moved you to a hospital they thought was better for you, two thousand miles away from your past… You never knew, did you? But you know now. Take back your place at my side. Together, we will make them pay. All of them!’
As she was speaking, I was unable to move. I dont know if it was my own fear, the shock or realising that the book I had read so often had been a reality and I had been a major character in it, or if she had somehow put some kind of spell on me. But as the minutes ticked away, she was becoming more and more… solid. Like she was coming through from another world. And I found myself regaining control over my body. Sue’s new form was now complete: She was as real as you or I. So I did the only thing I could: I grabbed the first heavy object I could find (A marble statue of an elephant, purchased on a trip to India) and beat her over the head with it. it knocked her to the floor, unconscious. I quickly got the can of gasoline I used earlier out of the garage, and poured it out over her. I grabbed a few things, some clothes, money, and my passport, and then I set her on fire… I ran out of my house, drove to the airport and got on the first fligt to far far away (Being Australia, in my case).
But it has done me no good. I can feel her. She is coming for me. And she is angry. May God have mercy…
