Lauren's Tale (2010)

 

 

From: l.auren666@btinternet.com

To nikkibea@aol.com

Hiya Nicks, just one of my random nonsense e-mails!

How’s things with you, coolio?

Are you still seeing that guy you met at Ma Cameron’s in April?

I was in the Belmont Cinema Lounge last night with a girl from work.

I had taken my laptop along to use the Wi-Fi, check my e-mails and catch up on my Facebook.

Ok, I was there for a glass or wine or two with Trish, you know me, any excuse for a drink.

Since my Uncle Gary’s death, I have taken up writing. Remember Uncle Gary, I told you about him, the weird writer, I think I have inherited his gift, or least I hope that’s what it is. I have started up a Blog Page –a WordPress blog thing, I go by the name of ‘Twilight Girl’ –in tribute to Stephanie Meyer. I’m really excited about this writing thing and I ‘ve joined a writer’s group. Some of them are nice folk, some of them are bitchy, it’s totally cliquey, but I think it’ll be great!

Anyway, I have done my first story, a horror –ish one, it just came to me, like it was being dictated to me. Bit of a cliché, I know, but that’s how it was.

As you’re the only real horror fan I know, can you read it and tell me if it makes sense to you. These things really happened, Nicks, it’s like my life has become a horror story since I took up writing. If you think its shit do tell me, be honest!!

 

“My name is Lauren Davies. I’m twenty-six. I work in an office as an admin assistant. The pay is rubbish, but it’ll do me until something better comes along. I live a pretty ordinary life. None of my senior colleagues take me seriously; they see me as a “silly little girl” and brush me aside for some of the graduates in the office who always seem to get the promotions.

Ok, I do have the odd ‘blonde moment’, but I do have a brain!

The reason I’m telling you all this, is that I recently fell heir to my late Uncle Gary’s computer, and I’m really hoping that there’s something on it that can make me heaps of money, and hopefully change my life!

He didn’t leave a will, or any money, so we ended up picking through his stuff to see if there was anything worth having. I wanted to find out more about his writing, so I ended up with the computer.

There’s nothing dodgy on the computer, no porn or anything like that. There’s a bunch of short stories he wrote during his short and troubled life. They are quite scary, a bit like Stephen King or somebody like that. Not really my thing. I really like reading, but I am more into the ’Twilight Saga’ ‘Game of Thrones’ and of course, Harry Potter.

I didn’t see Uncle Gary very often when he was alive, but always heard whispers about him at family gatherings he regularly failed to attend.

My Mum told me that he’d been ‘haunted by ghosts all his life’, and my Dad always talked about him as being a ‘mad bastard’.

He was just 43 when he died under mysterious circumstances.

The other night, I was sitting in my flat, bored out of my mind.

TV was just so rubbish. There’s only so much of ‘What Katy Did Next’, ‘Embarrassing Bodies’ and ‘How to Look Good Naked’ etc. a girl can take.

My Phone died on me. I left the charger in the office!

 One minute I was playing ‘Uprising’ by Muse.

Then silence.

My great scheme to have a quiet night in didn’t work out, so I decided to have a look at Uncle Gary’s stories.

It was one of those old computers from last century, cheers Uncle Gary; you might have left me some cash, not some poxy old computer!!

I lifted the computer from its box, brushed away the dust from the plastic monitor screen, plugged the machine in and switched on.

I had a few files to choose from.

There was ‘Master of the Macabre’, where a guy writes stories that come true, and as a result a heap of folk from his writers group meet their demise.

The end of ‘Master of the Macabre’ stuck in my mind after I had read it a couple of times. We were never told how Uncle Gary died, and how could a computer have a mind of its own, that so wouldn’t happen. As for the bit that said he choked on his own words, that was rubbish!

‘Sonic Assassin’, a longer story, one he had scrawled a note saying that “this was the nearest I got to marrying the styles of Stephen King and James Ellroy in my work”.

I thought it was a crap idea. The guy in the story gets the urge to kill after hearing hidden messages in rock music, ok to be fair it had its moments.

The scariest of the lot was ‘The Body of the House’, which I don’t think was one of Uncle Gary’s, the name at the foot of the page was illegible. Anyway, this story was brilliant; it would make a good film. The main character is a writer living alone, who is losing the plot with drink. He imagines that his house has a heartbeat and is a living thing.  Easy to see why Uncle Gary like that one, the main character, Iain Carvel, is pretty much like him.

I’ve never tried writing before, but being inspired by Gary’s work, I thought I would have a go.

Once I did strange things began happening. It seemed easier than I thought to write about scary things and people dying mysteriously.

I’m a big fan of scary movies, but when it’s for real it freaks me out!

I wasn’t writing in the style of Stephanie Meyer or J.K Rowling, I was writing in the style of Gary Shand, my late uncle. I had never read any of the stuff he had until today, but I had seen a few Stephen King adaptations, my thing was more ‘Saw’ or ‘The Ring’ and zombie movies like ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and stuff like that. How the fuck could I be writing in the style of Gary?

 

It could be software he downloaded for horror writing; I let my mind tell me, then again....

I have recently become obsessed about writing a story which involves the death of Ashleigh, the girl at work we all hate I hate with a passion.

Imagine if you could write a story that would come true?

That could really bring her bloody office bitching to a bloody end, couldn’t it?

 

Lauren Davies2010©

Gary Shand 2010©

From: nikkibea@aol.com

To: l.auren666@btinternet.com

 

Fucking hell, Lauren!

This is like something out of a real horror movie! Have you thought on getting it published, maybe putting it up on a horror website? The thing that worries me is, are you ok? It reminds me of a Stephen King story from the 80’s ‘Word Processor of the Gods’, the computer is possessed, haunted, call it what you want.

Lauren – please text or e-mail me, put a post up on Facebook, whatever- just so I know you’re ok.