A Day in the Life

A simple pratical joke leads to a father and daughters untimley death.

 

Death, murder, anger, and sadness. All of those words can relate to one person. A lovely 17 year old who never got to live life. Mary Stevens loved learning, and always tried to keep a positive attitude, but sometimes when you go to a horrible school where nobody seems to understand you, it can be hard to keep that positive attitude. Mary had a loving family, her mother stayed at home cooking and cleaning, while her father worked at one of the many car repair shops in the big town of Eureka California.

"Mary what would you like for lunch?" Her mother Linda asked one morning.
"Food" Joked Mary.
"Okay, how about peanut butter and fried Bananas" Mary’s mother remarked.
"No; I'll have a ham sandwich" Mary said.

After Mary’s lunch was packed, her father John drove her to school. Mary and her father had a unique relationship, they rarely talked, but it was almost as if they didn't need to. Mary and her father were so close, they loved spending time together. If it were up to them, they would skip work or school and go fishing every day.

"Have a good day at school!" Mary’s father called as she stepped out of the car.
"Fat Chance" Mary grumbled.

Lately, all the kids at school had been teasing her, and she was so sick of it. She wasn't a wimp or a geek, she just refused to fight back, but the cruel teenagers just wouldn't leave her alone.

"Hey Mary" Someone waved.
"Hey" Mary waved.
"The cheerleaders are planning on using your gym shorts as a flag" He said.
"What?" Mary asked.

That was straw. She just couldn't handle it anymore, she pushed her classmate out of the way and marched to the gym, where the cheerleaders were practicing for their upcoming contest.

"Oh, look who it is girls." A blond haired, blue eyed cheerleader said.

Mary marched right to the blond haired teen until they were inches apart, then as if she couldn't hold her rage in anymore, Mary hit her right in the jaw.

"Owww!" She cried."You witch!"
"That was totally uncalled for!" A brunette cheerleader said.

Mary glared at the brunette cheerleader with a mean, evil stare. She looked down at her hand. It was clenched in a fist, and she was breathing heavily. Suddenly, she realized what she had done, and just ran out of the Gym crying, tears flowing from her brown eyes, and her brown ponytail swaying back and fourth.

"You watch your back Mary, we'll do something a lot worse than just using your shorts as a flag!" The brunette cheerleader cried.

Mary couldn't hear the warning; she was too busy running from the horrible girls. Somehow, she managed to get through the day, and she had to admit, when people started to look at her with fear and confusion, it was a good feeling, it meant they were to afraid to tease her.

"Hey Mary, how was school?" Her mother asked at the end of the school day.
"Pretty good actually" Smiled Mary forgetting all about the incident this morning.

On the drive home, rain started to pour. As they were pulling into the driveway; Mary saw one of the cheerleaders from her school and suddenly remembered what she had done. After putting her school stuff away, she got an umbrella and walked outside to talk to the cheerleader.

"What are you doing here?" Mary asked.
"You hit Annie" The cheerleader said with an evil stare.
"Look, I'm sorry about that, it’s just that when everyone teases you, your bound to go crazy" Mary said.
"Sorry doesn't feed the bull dog does it?" The cheerleader asked. "Come with me, I want to show you something."

The cheerleader forcefully grasped Mary’s wrist until it started becoming a light purple color. Mary was pulled away by the blond cheerleader. The rain was pouring down, getting Mary’s hair wet, which made it stick to her face, while the cheerleader didn’t seem to mind the rain. The blond lead her to a small park, not far from town where there were five more cheerleaders sounding her father, who was tied to a chair.

"What’s going on?" Mary asked.
"You don't know about our ritual" One said.
"Huh?" Asked Mary, confused.
"You see, any time one of us get hurt, we kill" A cheerleader explained "And we want you to watch" "That’s insane!" Mary cried

Mary tried her best to shake loose from the grasps of the cheerleader, but failed to do so, they were holding her too tight. Mary couldn't figure out why her father would follow a cheerleader, she thought her father was smarter than that. It was then she knew what the girls were planning on doing.

"How did you get my father to follow you witches?" Mary asked
"We told him we kidnapped you," One smiled "Said if he wanted to see you again he has to follow us,"
"You girls are evil" Mary snapped.
 

Finally, the girls got tired of all the questions, and tied their mouths up until they got to there destination which was an old abandoned house. They shoved them inside, then one of the girls pulled out a kitchen knife.

"Tie her up" A girl said.

Two girls pulled out ropes and tied Mary to a chair; while her father was still trying to shake lose from a strong cheerleaders grasp.

"Ready to watch daddy die?" The blonde asked "Let him have it"

The girl with the knife was stabbing John repeatedly in the chest, slitting his throat, and in the stomach. Mary cried out for her father, but she knew he was already gone. The last thing she remembered was being pushed, her hands and face covered in her father’s fresh blood.
When she awoke, she was laying beneath a tree, as if she fell asleep. It wasn't until a few minutes later when she realized what had happened. One part of her wanted to call the police and get the girls caught, but another part couldn't care less. She loved her father, and couldn't imagine life without him. Mary searched around the park, looking for her father’s corpse or the knife that killed him, but had no success in finding either. That was until she saw something shiny glistening from the water nearby.
 

"I have to do something" Mary told herself.
 

Mary looked in the water, and it was indeed the knife that killed her father. Most of the blood had been washed away, but some spots still remained. She took the kinfe tightly in her hand and looked at her reflection in the water. Mary noticed that she was breathing heavily and there were no tears in her eyes.
 

"Hang on daddy, your baby girls coming" Mary said aloud.
 

Before she could think twice, she plunged the knife deeply into her heart and fell into the water. As she lay dying, she watched her life pass before her eyes. Everything from her first birthday to her first real kiss replayed in her head. Mary knew how hard this would be on her mother, but didn't think it could be helped. The first sight she saw when she walked into the light was her father. He was smiling and had his arms open to his daughter. Mary ran into them and started crying.
 

"I'm home Daddy" She whispered.

 

Author's Note

My first shot at a horror story.

Reviews

[SR Urie]

Hi Miranda.
Nice story, well thought out with good character description and an interesting plot. The teenaged girl loves her mom and worships her dad to the point that she and her father communicate almost telepathically. As most people have to endure in school, peer pressures from cliches and two faced popular types gets the better of her temper and she punches one extra mean girl, but instead of starting a fist fight (which is what would normally happen when one girl slugs another girl in the face) the cheerleader gathers up her coven of 'witch-cheerleaders' and takes ulterior revenge, but instead of on Mary, on Mary's father. Unable to bear losing her father, Mary takes very drastic action, plunging the same knife that killed her dad into her own chest, committing what I would describe as the most selfish act a person can do; suicide. Very unique storyline.

Your writing flows very well. You set up your story effectively, describing the feelings of Mary about herself, her parents, and ultimately about the kids she had to deal with at high school. If I may, I reccomend that you add a bit more while describing Mary and her parents and the mean cheerleaders and even the school. Does she like her house and is she confident with her self image when she goes to school? Does she have a crush on someone, or is she getting over a lost relationship that might be a reason for the other kids to tease her? Do the strong cheerleaders have some gruesome or evil thing going for them that Mary isn't aware but you, the writer, is aware of? Is there some kind of history of people disappearing in the community that the witch-cheerleaders are responsible for? And in the end did her dad really get killed or does Mary go to the bright light of death to find he is alive and the mean cheerleaders were just being mean instead of murderers? Hmmm..
Also, please have a look at your sentence structure and the way you use punctuation. You haven't done it much but repeating ideas while using conjunctions, especially in the same sentence, is a big no-no.
You have made a great start to the journey of putting ideas to the written page. Your words flow well and your story is very good. Keep it up! BZ

[T A Duncan]

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