“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.
