An Averyverse Ghost Story
Eerie Lane was a long and winding road, starting at the base of Morbid Mountain, and ending in a small town near the top. Slowly making its way towards that small town was a bus carrying a single passenger, Avery, a writer looking for inspiration in a new home. She had fallen into a rut of writing mystery after mystery after mystery, and she was getting bored with herself. As the bus climbed Eerie Lane, Avery stared out the window at the seemingly endless landscape of rocks and trees, until a sign grabbed her attention.
5 Miles to Casterly Falls
Avery reached into her bag and pulled out a brochure advertising the town of Casterly Falls, claiming it was the most haunted town in all of the State of Social Media. She read the brochure, as she had already done at least a hundred times before, and hoped to herself that this move was the right decision. She wondered if Casterly Falls really was haunted, or if it was just a scam to attract tourists. Either way, she didn’t care. Even if it was a hoax, an exposé would be a better story than nothing…and better than another mystery.
Finally, Avery could see houses coming into view. The bus pulled into the small town, and she started gathering her belongings. When the large vehicle stopped, the writer stepped off, carrying her whole life in a couple large garbage bags, her laptop tucked under her arm, and the brochure still in her hand. As the bus pulled away, heading back down the mountain, Avery opened the brochure, read an address she had written in it before her trip, and then shoved it in one of her garbage bags. She picked everything up and started walking through town.
As Avery walked down the street, the first thing she noticed was there didn’t seem to be anybody around, but strangely, she still felt like she was being watched. She looked around, her head turning to the left, and then to the right, her eyes scanned both sides of the street, searching for anybody, but the town seemed completely empty.
“Where are the townspeople?” Avery wondered out loud. “Doesn’t anyone live here?”
Casterly Falls’ newest (and apparently only) resident saw that she was coming up on the road she was looking for and headed in that direction. For a short while, Avery continued to walk until she reached the address written in her brochure, 665 Conifer Way. It was an older, sort of rundown looking cabin with big windows. The place didn’t look like much, but the rent was affordable, and Avery knew she didn’t need much, just a place to be able to write.
She pushed the small gate open and began up the walkway towards the cabin when a woman stepped out the front door, smiling and waving.
“Hello! You must be Avery”, the woman said excitedly. Avery knew right away from the woman’s voice, this was who she spoke to on the phone about renting the cabin. “I’m Karen. Come on in and look around”, the woman continued, almost shouting with glee.
Karen showed Avery around the cabin, which consisted of a bedroom, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a fairly large living room. The rental agent kept a smile plastered on her face the whole time Avery moved around the small dwelling, looking everything over. The writer knew she didn’t cook, and she barely slept, so most of this space was pretty useless, but there was a desk in the living room by a big window, and she figured that’s where she’d spend most of her time.
“It’s perfect”, Avery said after a few minutes. She realized she was still carrying her garbage bags full of her life around and finally put them down in her new home. “The town seemed pretty empty”, Avery said to the rental agent. “Doesn’t anybody else live here?”
“Oh, of course!” Karen exclaimed. “Most of the residents of Casterly Falls are loggers, so they’re busy out in the woods all day, but come six o’clock, this town is bustling”. The agent looked suddenly at her watch, and just for a second, she dropped her smile, but by the time she looked back up at Avery, it was plastered across her face again. “Sorry to rush off, but I’ve got another appointment to get to”, Karen said cheerfully. “Is there anything else you need before I head out?”
“Just one more question”, Avery responded. “Is the town really haunted?”
“Oh sweetie, you read the brochure”, Karen said through her smile as she leaned in to get closer to Avery’s face, and then continued in almost a whisper, “you’ll find out soon enough”. Then the rental agent snapped back to upright quickly before shouting on her way out the front door, “Bye now!” The cabin door slammed shut, and Avery was alone again.
The writer put her laptop on the desk in the living room and took her garbage bags into the bedroom. She reached into one of the bags and pulled out the brochure. Avery opened and read through it, though at this point she basically had it memorized. When she finished, she put it down on the dresser and walked back into the living room to use her computer.
Avery sat down at the desk, opened her laptop, and pressed the power button. Nothing happened. She pressed the button again, but still nothing. “What the fuck?” Avery growled quietly to herself. She tried pressing the button a few times in a row quickly. Again, nothing. Frustrated, she sat back in her chair and stared at the blank screen of her computer. Suddenly, in the darkness of the unpowered monitor, a ball of light moved across the screen. Avery jolted upright in her chair, startled. Another flash bolted across the computer screen, and she jumped to her feet and spun around to see what was causing the lights.
Avery found herself face to face with a young woman who seemed to be soaking wet, only she wasn’t. Water was dripping off of her body, and from her hair, but it wasn’t falling anywhere. Avery looked down at the floor not getting wet. She looked back up at the woman’s face, which was now all contorted in pain. Avery was scared, but she couldn’t move a single muscle in her body to try to get away. The watery woman opened her mouth suddenly, and screamed…
“GET OUT OF THIS PLACE!!!”
…and then, in a blink of an eye, the woman started to swell up like a water balloon being filled, looking bloated and getting so full, until she burst in a big splash that fell to the floor before disappearing all together. It was like she was never there. Avery was looking at the floor again, shocked that it wasn’t wet at all, and totally amazed by everything that just occurred. She could feel her heart trying to beat out of her chest, wanting to rip right through her skin, but she was smiling. She couldn’t believe it, the place really was haunted, she thought as she slowly sat back down in her chair.
Without thinking, Avery pressed the power button on her laptop and it lit up with the login screen. When she realized it had worked this time, she closed the laptop, grabbed her keys, and headed out to go back into town. She had to find out more about what was going on around Casterly Falls.
As Avery locked the door of her cabin, she noticed a black cat pacing on her porch. “What are you doing here?” she asked the cat. “Get outta here…go home” she said. The cat jumped off the porch and sauntered away, while Avery made her way down the walkway towards the gate.
Walking into town, Avery looked at her watch and saw she still had a couple hours before everyone would be done with their logging for the day. The town was still as empty as it had been when she had arrived that morning. It was a literal ghost town, she thought, bringing a small smirk briefly to her face. Most of the buildings she was walking past appeared to be residential, but then she noticed two businesses, the general store and a bar. The writer knew she should probably start with the general store, but was more drawn to the bar, so that’s where she went.
Avery walked through the door into a large space full of tall tables and chairs, and a small bar along the back wall with a few stools around it. She walked past all the tables to get to one of the stools, and chose the one pushed into a corner on one side of the bar. The writer sat there for a few minutes, wondering if anyone actually worked there, surrounded by the aroma of cedar and booze, when suddenly a man with a beard and tattoos appeared from a back room through a door Avery hadn’t noticed.
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in”, the bartender said. “What can I get you?”
“Vodka on the rocks”, Avery replied. The bartender took down a glass from the shelf and scooped some ice into it.
“You just rented the cabin on Conifer Way, right?” the bartender asked while pouring the vodka. When he noticed the confused look forming on Avery’s face, he continued, “We don’t get a lot of new people here”, placing the drink down in front of the new resident.
“Oh…”, Avery started, pausing to sip from her glass before continuing, “yeah”.
“Welcome”, the bartender said with half a smile, “I’m Mike. This is my bar”.
“Avery”, she responded. “I’m a writer”.
“Oh really? Would you have written anything I might have read?” Mike asked, but Avery assumed he was just being polite, really trying to earn his tip.
“I doubt it”, she replied, then lifted her glass to her lips, threw back her head, and downed the rest of her drink. “Another?”
Mike poured Avery another drink. She downed that one too.
“Another?”
As the bartender poured the writer her third drink, she asked about the town being haunted. She asked if it was real. When he told her it was, she took a sip of her drink and told him about the woman she saw in her house. She did not, however, tell him that she could see the watery woman now, standing at the other end of the bar. This dripping distressed damsel had followed Avery into town, and the writer wondered why.
“People are going to start showing up soon, so I’ve gotta finish setting up”, Mike said. “Hang out and meet some of your new neighbors!” Then he disappeared back through the previously unnoticed door into the back room. Avery continued to sip her vodka, watching the ghostly figure watching her, and waiting for the people of Casterly Falls to arrive.
Avery could feel the sun shining warmly on her face before she opened her eyes. As she woke, she realized that she didn’t remember meeting any of the townspeople. Her head pounding, she then realized she wasn’t even in her own bed. She looked around the room…posters of different bands were scattered across the walls, and none of the furniture matched. She sat up in the bed to discover she was only wearing her underwear and a t-shirt that didn’t belong to her, and no one else was there.
“Fuck”, she whispered to herself. She jumped out of the bed and started looking for her jeans, but at that moment Mike, the bartender, walked into the bedroom holding two cups of coffee.
“I thought you might want this”, he said, holding out one of the cups to her. Avery looked at Mike, and then at the cup, with annoyance plastered across her face, but the coffee smelled good, so despite her hesitation, she took it and took a small sip…it was delicious, but she didn’t want to admit that at that moment.
“Where are my jeans?”, she snapped at the bartender, taking another sip of her coffee.
“Right there”, he responded pointing at the floor by the door. Avery pushed past him, put the coffee cup down on the dresser, and started to put her pants on. “Nothing happened, if that’s what you’re annoyed about”, he told the writer. Avery looked at him confused, slowly drinking her coffee. “I gave you the t-shirt, you kicked me outta the room so you could change, and by the time I came back, you were sleeping”, he explained. “I slept on the couch”.
Avery wasn’t surprised by this story, and in fact, she was a little relieved. This was tame compared to some of the other stories she’s been told about herself after a night of drinking. “I’ve gotta get out of here”, she told Mike, making her way towards the door, hoping to be gone before the pangs of guilt and regret really started to hit her.
“What about the seance?” Mike asked as she left the bedroom. Avery froze, before slowly turning around to face the bartender again.
“Seance?” Avery asked, suddenly ignoring her own messy behavior for the sake of a potential story.
The bartender then told the writer, actually a second time, about the medium in town, and how she could help Avery with the ghost that had been following her. She could suddenly see herself, sitting at her computer, words flowing freely onto the page, and Avery smiled. She told Mike to set things up with the medium and then she went home to shower and change.
After a long nap and a hot shower, Avery left her cabin just after the sun had set. She walked into town and found Mike waiting for her outside the medium’s house. They walked up to the front door together, and the bartender knocked. They both waited anxiously until a woman opened the door with a smile.
“Please come in”, the woman said. “Madame Sami is waiting in the parlor”.
Mike led the way into the house, Avery followed, and the woman closed the door behind them before following along too. The three people walked into a darkened parlor to find Madame Sami, a woman with short hair and wearing various colorful crystals, sitting at a round table covered in lit candles.
“Your guests have arrived, Madame Sami”, the woman said as she walked around the table to stand next to the medium.
“Welcome”, Madame Sami said to Mike and Avery. “This is my assistant, Heather.” The medium gestured to the three empty chairs at the table. “Please, sit down. We should get started”.
Heather, Avery, and Mike sat down in the empty chairs, with Avery directly across from Madame Sami.
“Join hands”, the medium instructed. Everyone at the table joined hands, creating a circle. Madame Sami began to chant in a language that Avery didn’t recognize, and as she did, the candles began to flicker. Avery was trying to absorb every detail…this was going to make a great chapter in her book. Suddenly, floating above the table, in the middle of the circle, the watery woman appeared, but it seemed like only Avery was able to see her. The writer looked around the table to see if anyone else was reacting to the ghost, but no one was.
“Get out of this place”, the ghostly figure urged again. Avery looked around once more to see if anyone heard her speak, but still no reaction. Then the candles all went out, leaving everyone in pitch blackness.
Avery sat in the darkness for almost a full minute before she realized that no one was holding her hands anymore. She stood up and felt her way through the dark until she found a wall, then she searched for the light switch. When she finally found it and clicked it on, Madame Sami screamed. Her eyes still adjusting to the light, Avery turned around to see Heather sprawled out on the floor.
“Is she dead?” Avery asked, shocked.
Hours later, Avery and Mike sat on the front porch of Madame Sami’s house. The sun was starting to rise as the coroners rolled the gurney with a body bag on it towards the hearse. Avery stopped them as they passed.
“Do you know what happened to her?” she asked them.
“We won’t know for sure until Dr. Naught can perform the autopsy”, the coroner responded. “But strangely, if I were to guess, based on her appearance, I’d say she drowned”.
“Drowned?!” Avery gasped. “How would that happen?” But the coroner merely shrugged and continued rolling the gurney to the vehicle.
“Do you want me to walk you home?” Mike asked the writer.
“It’s already morning, I’ll be fine”, she responded.
“Can I call you later?” the bartender asked as Avery walked away.
Without turning back around, she shouted in response, “I’m not here for a relationship, Mike. I’m here to write a book”.
Avery walked through town and turned onto Conifer Way. She walked down the street until she reached the gate in front of her cabin. As she started up the walkway, she noticed the black cat from a couple days ago, still hanging out on her porch.
“Alright…I guess this can be your home if you really want”, she said to the cat with a sigh. She opened the door, and the cat ran in. Avery first went to her room, and changed her clothes, and as exhausted as she was, she knew she was too pumped to sleep. On her way back out of her bedroom, she stopped at her dresser, picked up the brochure that had brought her here, and read the title aloud,…
“Welcome to Casterly Falls”.
She put the brochure down, walked into the living room, and sat down at her desk to open her computer. As she began to write, thinking about everything that had already happened in the past two days, she was anxious and excited to see how this story was going to turn out.
Averybody Writes 
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