The Fool Writes: "The Luckiest Girl"

Now for something a little different: I challenged myself to write for an hour and see what happened. This is a little thriller short story I wrote, inspired by a girl I saw downtown one day and decided to completely fabricate a story for her. Read and enjoy!

“The Luckiest Girl”

by Isaac Crow

Sarah Tulsey was a lucky girl, although you would never be able to tell by looking at her. Sarah was at least one hundred pounds overweight and had a flat face. Her brown hair was always stringy and greasy, and she usually kept it up in a ponytail.

Her personality wasn’t very attractive either. She had very poor social skills and never had any friends in high school. Sarah was a rather mean girl. She wasn’t a bully, but she never took advantage of people who tried to open up to her and be her friend. She was a loner mostly all her life.

So why was Sarah a lucky girl? For one thing, she always wore a bright yellow t-shirt that said “Lucky Girl” in bold pink letters across the front. But just because something is written on a t-shirt doesn’t mean it’s true. Although if someone’s t-shirt says “I’m with Stupid” and has an arrow pointing up a themselves, that one is probably true.

But Sarah was a lucky girl long before she found that t-shirt. She was actually a lucky girl from the moment she was born.

Sarah’s mother, Elaine, was not loyal to her husband Edgar. She would cheat on him left, right, and sideways despite the fact that he was a devoted husband. Shortly after marrying him Elaine realized she didn’t love him but, worried about never finding love again, she stayed married to him. She had her affairs but they never lasted long.

One night Elaine lay with another man, Simon. Simon was a hard-working man and (according to Elaine) a very passionate lover. Unfortunately, he was also careless. Simon’s wife came home and found him in bed with Elaine. Which is bad enough in most cases, but Simon happened to be married to a woman who claimed to be a witch.

The witch was furious. As Elaine scurried around the bedroom picking up her clothes, the witch screamed at her. She said, “May your first born child be doomed to die. Every five years of your child’s life, Death will come for it and try to take it. Death will only leave her be if It takes another in her place. If It does, it will return five years later to try again, until it succeeds.”

Elaine was not a very superstitious person, but the witch’s words got to her. As it happened, a few weeks later Elaine learned she was pregnant. She tried to contact Simon, but no one had seen him in weeks, and his wife had left town. Elaine managed to convince Edgar the child was his, and from then on she remained loyal to him.

Elaine gave birth in a hospital, like any respectable woman would. For the nine months she spent preparing she worried about the words the witch had said. Would her baby have problems? Would it die in her womb? Would it be stillborn? Sometimes these thoughts kept her awake at night. Other times she would sleep and dream of the witch, and wake up in an icy sweat.

The doctor who delivered Sarah was an old man. Dr. Williams had delivered over a hundred babies in his lifetime, and it was rumored he could do it blindfolded. All his nurses and patients loved him, and said they never had a better doctor to help them through their childbirth. Elaine loved him as well, and she was happy he was able to successfully deliver Sarah.

After he cut the cord, Dr. Williams put Sarah in Elaine’s arms. “Congratulations, Mrs. Tulsey,” he said, “It’s a beautiful baby girl.” And then he fell over and died.

That event traumatized Elaine. Dr. Williams was old, for sure, so a heart attack wasn’t that uncommon. Still Elaine couldn’t help but think his death was the reason her Sarah survived. Although she still worried, she decided to push it to the back of her mind as she took care of her lucky baby girl.

Almost five years went past and Elaine couldn’t have been happier. She had made peace with her marriage to Edgar and loved taking care of Sarah. Although the little toddler was chubby, she had no health problems and all the specialists said she would live a happy life. For many years Elaine never even thought about the witch.

But then one week before Sarah’s fifth birthday the nightmares returned. The witch would be standing there, fire burning in those dark eyes. She would be pointing an accusing bony hand at Sarah and repeating her curse. Again, Sarah found herself waking up in cold sweat and, one time, screaming.

By the time Sarah’s birthday rolled around Elaine was convinced death would come for her baby once more. The panic caused her to never let Sarah out of her sight for fear something would happen. So she began to make plans.

For Sarah’s birthday, Elaine and Edgar got her a cake and had a small celebration as a family. It was one of the only (and the last) times Elaine would feel like she had a perfect family. Elaine put Sarah to bed as Edgar sat in his favorite chair to watch television. Worried about Sarah’s “allergies” Elaine made her daughter take a dose of Benadryl. When she was sure her daughter was out like a light, Elaine calmly walked back into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. Silently, she went into the living room and cut her husband’s throat.

And lucky Sarah lived another five years.

Those next five years were particularly rough on Elaine. She felt guilt over all the abuse she had given Edgar over the years, not to mention murdering him in cold blood. She was always worried she’d be found out, too. Disposing the body had been scary, but she managed to get Edgar into the trunk of her car and later bury him in the woods.

The nightmares were more frequent. Sometimes the witch would be there, pointing and screaming at her. Sometimes it was Edgar, blood still pouring from the large gash where his throat used to be. Sometimes both of them would be in the dream. Other times Death would appear, wearing a long black cloak and reaching a cold dead hand out to grab her.

By the morning of Sarah’s tenth birthday Elaine was almost completely deteriorated. She hadn’t slept or eaten in at least a week and her face looked hollow and full of pain. That morning after she sent Sarah off to school and wished her Happy Birthday, Elaine began to write her a note. In that note, she explained everything: her affair, the witch, Dr. Williams’ dying, and the murder of her father. After finishing the note and putting it in an envelope addressed to “My Lucky Girl”, Elaine called an ambulance. Immediately after hanging up the phone, Elaine hung herself from the ceiling of her living room. The paramedics didn’t make it in time.

And, Sarah lived five more years.

Foster care was a rough time for Sarah, especially since she was a rude little girl who got teased because of her weight. Even worse was that she thought her mom was crazy, going on about witches and what not. Sarah learned the murder was very true (police found her father’s skeleton buried where Elaine’s note said it was), so she was convinced her dear, sweet mother was clearly mentally unstable.

As Sarah grew into a surly teenager she began to have weird dreams. Her parents would appear to her and tell her to be careful. Sometimes a woman she’d never met would point and scream at her. Other times she would dream it was just pitch black, but then she would realize she was in a coffin and had to dig her way out.

Despite being a rude loner, Sarah did manage to get herself a boyfriend of sorts. Rory was your typical “badass” foster care kid who also didn’t have a lot of friends. Eventually the two formed a sort of bond where they would sneak out to get drunk and smoke together. Upon learning it would be Sarah’s fifteenth birthday, Rory made plans for them to sneak out and go to their favorite hangout on an abandoned wooden bridge.

Sarah was excited to be going out with Rory that night, pushing all the thoughts of her horrible nightmares out of her mind. They got to their favorite spot, split a bottle of Jack and a joint and spent the night holding each other. It was the first perfect night Sarah remembered having since her mother died.

When the sun started to rise Rory told her they had to get back. As Sarah pulled herself up she lost her footing and fell against the railing of the wooden bridge. It broke beneath her weight and Sarah suddenly found herself falling towards the rocks below. Luckily, Rory was fast enough to see her fall and strong enough to catch her and pull her back up.

“Shit, that was a close one.” He said, stroking her dirty hair out of her face.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Thanks.”

The two walked off the bridge and started through the woods. They didn’t get too far before Rory realized he left his jacket on the bridge. “Stay here, I’ll go get it.”

Sarah waited for him in the silent woods for a few minutes. A loud crack and then an even louder crash made her heart jump to her throat. Running as fast as her fat legs could carry her, Sarah ran back to the bridge. When she got there, she couldn’t see it. At the bottom of the rocky ravine was a pile of planks that used to be the bridge and, somewhere amongst them, Rory’s body.

Sarah lived another five years, the lucky girl.

Sarah had managed to get a job at a department store. It was all she could get, education wise, and all she could handle mentally. One of her managers, Tina, was a real bitch to Sarah everyday. She would tell her to be nicer to the customers and to move faster on the sales floor. Sarah hated her, but tolerated her enough to get her job done. It was actually at this department store Sarah bought her  “Lucky Girl” t-shirt. She hoped wearing it ironically would cheer her up and maybe allow her to make friends. It didn’t.

Life had gone even further downhill for Sarah by the time she neared twenty. Rory’s death had scarred what little sanity she had left. Nightmares happened every night. Sometimes that bony woman would appear. The witch, Sarah though, although she still didn’t want to believe in witches. Other people would appear with the witch. An old doctor she never knew. Her father with dried blood caked down the front of him. Her mother, rope burns on her colorless neck and sadness in her dead eyes. Rory, almost unrecognizable with all the pieces of him that were missing. It was hell.

The nightmares happened almost nightly three months before her twentieth birthday. Sarah couldn’t get them out of her mind…did this mean the curse was actually real? It couldn’t be, could it? It was two freak accidents, one murder, and one suicide…it’s definitely a lot of bad luck, but surely Sarah wasn’t cursed.

To convince herself she wasn’t cursed, Sarah had made plans to stay home alone on her birthday. Nothing would happen and she’s live the next day and no one else would’ve died. That was, until Tina schedule her to work the midnight shift at the store.

“They’ve upped our trucks this week, Sarah, and this shit needs to get unpacked and put away. Everyone has to do their part.” Tina would tell her before running into her office to do “her part” sitting at a nice cushy desk.

Sarah worked hard all night by herself, just Tina sitting in the office. At about two in the morning Tina came to the backroom and told Sarah she had to dump her trash in the compactor before they went home. As Tina unlocked the compactor, Sarah began to get horrible chest pains. She clutched at her flabby chest and said “oooh damn”.

Tina rolled her eyes. “Quit being a huge baby, Sarah, and throw your trash away.”

But Sarah’s pain wasn’t going away. It was coursing all through her body, and her world began to spin wildly. The lights felt like they were flashing, but Tina wasn’t reacting like they were. Her manager was saying something to her but Sarah couldn’t make out what she was saying. The pain finally got so intense Sarah was sure she was going to collapse.

Oh my God, she thought, Death is coming for me!

Not willing to die, Sarah tried with all her might to gain her wits and finally succeeded. In a rash moment of lucidity, Sarah grabbed Tina and rammed the smaller woman’s head against the metal door of the compactor. Again and again she slammed it, blood flying everywhere. Did Tina scream? Or was that her? Sarah wasn’t sure. The pain in her chest went away as she looked at Tina’s body in a puddle of blood on the floor.

Sarah tucked Tina into the compactor and closed the door, but couldn’t bring herself to press the “crush” button. Instead, Sarah raced off into the night, never to be seen by anyone in the area again.

Sarah is now an urban legend. Some people say they see Sarah wandering around cities in her Lucky Girl t-shirt. Some speculate she is simply on the run from the police for killing her boss. Others suggest she’s trying to track down the witch to get her curse removed. Others still say she’s hunting for whoever Death is going to take on her twenty-fifth birthday.

Sarah Tulsey is now a wanted woman. She is a confirmed murderer, a former juvenile delinquent, and a possible psychotic. But she is also a very lucky girl.