Based on the campfire story of modern horror.
By: Chris Arndt
Hello dear readers, I offer you a dastardly tale. This tale is a remake of one that was told to me as a child as I sat by the fire with my friends, and I tell you it is truly wonders what murderous images one can see while the fire dances in your eyes and words fill your ears. This tale is the tale of the darkest of mind. This is the tale of the darkest of heart. This is the tale of man at there most savage, and collected.
We all walk the streets of our every day, passing many strangers as we go. Each individual has their own story but we never take the time to know them. Each an empty face seen for a flash and forgotten just as quickly, but for some reason one woman caught your eye. Why? Her features are familiar and yet she eludes you. Her middle-aged mannerisms are nothing to intrigue even the most gifted of analysts. Perhaps she reminds you of an old teacher of yours. Perhaps a relative. You gaze at her until you loose her in the crowd.
What it is that you don�t know about this woman is that she has a most intriguing interest. Her simple yet guilty pleasures in life are puzzles. She has no power to resist their simple charm. If she would find a puzzle anywhere she would have to buy it and meet it�s challenge. Today is no exception. She finds an old puzzle on a rummage sale table while passing on her way home. She buys the puzzle and seems to quicken her pace home in anticipation of the treasure in the box under her arm.
Her obsession with puzzles has led to her reserving one room in her house for a gallery dedicated to her puzzles. It is in this room where on a table in the center does she complete the puzzles and then hangs them evenly on the walls as though they where windows to many other worlds with the excretion of one window leading to the actual world outside of her puzzle room. It is this room that she so hastily rushes to. She almost in a mad rage throws open the box covers and pours the aged pieces onto the table.
She scans each peace with intricate detail and care before she begins. Now she begins putting the peaces together in a speed that would shock the most gifted fan of puzzles. In mere minutes the puzzle is complete, and framed. She with great precision finds the perfect place on the wall and places the puzzle there to join its brothers and sisters of cut pictures. This has been her daily ritual for the past five years. She then will go to bed begin her day anew with plans of spending the next day in the same ritual of a puzzle. She closes her eyes, not knowing of the horror, which awaits her in the next day.
That morning the woman wakes up and prepares herself for the day as we all do on days that we don�t know that our lives will change forever. She throws on her coat and grabs her purse ready to face the world in her usual manor, but when she opens the door she finds a most unusual surprise. A plain box sits at the step. In great curiosity she leans down to pick it up. She brings the box to her ear and shakes it to discover the rattling of hundreds of peaces inside. With hungry excitement she closes door and rushes to her puzzle gallery. She throws her purse and coat on the rocking chair in the corner and moves to the table.
She opens the box and pours the peaces onto the table in a falls of color. She looks over the beautiful pile and lowers her fact to it. With eyes closed she breaths in the scent. These peaces are freshly cut. Who sent them to her? Why was it sent? She quickly moves her hands over the table turning each peace to be right side up, and begins working with the hopes that the puzzle itself will answer these questions.
The peaces fit together easily at first and soon she has the border finished. She begins to slow with the complexity of the puzzle before her. She quickly begins to feel uneasy about the project, yet she keeps working.
She now has finished one full corner and it seems as though this puzzle is familiar to her. She continues to work diligently and she feels as though she has seen this puzzle before. Almost like she has finished this puzzle before. With each peace fitting into place the uneasiness grows into fear. The puzzle is now almost complete.
She sits back into her chair and an eerie sensation floods her as she looks at the puzzle. In the right hand corner of the puzzle there is an image of a couch. She looks up to see the couch in the corner of her room. She sees the image of the rocking chair with a coat and a purse on it in the adjacent corner of the puzzle. She looks up to see the rocking chair with the coat and purse she just put there. A cold shiver runs down her spine as she sees the image of her sitting at the table in the center of the room. Fear has now turned to horror.
Who sent the puzzle? How did they know what this room looks like? She couldn�t finish it, and yet she had to. She needed to turn away, but she couldn�t help but face it. With trembling hands she picks up the last peaces. As a tear rolls down her cheek she places them into place. The puzzle is finished. Her eyes open wide at the image laid before her. She stands quickly knocking the chair behind her over. Her scan the image over and over again as terror sets in. The last part of the puzzle was of a man standing at her window wielding a knife. She then quickly turns to her window to see you. The breaking glass is the last sound she will ever hear.
Each peace has taken its place, and now your puzzle is complete. You my dear reader may be wondering why it is that you murdered this poor woman. Don�t ask me. Her blood is on your hands.