Below is my short story that I am submitting to a writing contest. I have until the July 2 to send it in. It's done. This is a longer piece from one of my STORY LINE STARTERS. The one where the girl goes to the lighthouse and solves an age old mystery. This will also be a future novel, but I had to condense this to meet the 5,000 word requirement. I think I will keep the same title for the novel.
Alter Ego Meets Soul Mate
My brain is infested with an invisible fog and my life seems to be spiraling into a container of nothingness. I needed a good fix of something. May I suggest a strong cup of coffee? I really wasn’t aware at all about what my near future was going to be. All I wanted to do was down a good cup of coffee with Bailey’s Irish Cream flavored creamer and my three heaps of sugar and start blogging.
When waking, I have no thoughts of what will come. Just do with me what you will, okay? And today, I have woken up ungodly early. Another night passing without taking my prescribed sleep medicine and here it is 5am. I suppose I am ready to face the world. Not really. I’m not even ready to look at myself in the dusty mirror. Someone knock me out with a Little Tikes orange hammer! I hear nothing but silence. Oh well, it was a thought from an insane person like myself. I’m fast to turn off Mr. Bleep. I hate it on days when the constant ringing gripes at me while I possess clumsy hands. Hells bells. I might as well get up. My daily mirror shows me I need to fix my curly blond hair. She looks like me, but is she? I haven’t yet told her today is a new start and I am going to somehow change myself. How? I do not know that yet. But don’t we say we are going to make amends and start fresh? How many of us stick to all we set out to do? Where on Texas Toast is my bucket list? I do have one but I don’t seem to accomplish all the things festering in it. Is it possible for new beginnings? I’m supposed to hop into that canoe on the calmness of lake and find my fresh slate every day? Someone who created the blank page forgot to include routines, ruts, and bad habits. I’m queen of all three. It’s time for a shower. I love my yellow bathroom with the purple pansy wall border. It puts the cheer in my day. Here is the wonderful hard, warm pulse of the shower as it beads down on me and clears my senses. Ten minutes later, toweled off with my purple towel, minty fresh teeth, dressed in my navy blue trumpet skirt and a baby blue floral tank top, I am ready to kick start my morning. I don’t know what is going to be the outcome, but I’m sure going to give it my all. Downstairs, I sit on my lime green wicker chair, open up my laptop and stare out the white paned window while I wait for things to slowly chug along. I’m an impatient person. I don’t know who I get it from. Maybe it stems from Aunt Lucia. Her influence on me was always overbearing. I guess I need to call her and say I’m sorry for being a royal BEE. Or should I say female dog? I really hate to curse. Mom cursed plenty for the whole family. Family was me and my younger sister. I wish Melena was here today. I hate drivers who fall asleep at the wheel. Really ticks me off. If only he hadn’t hit her. And to see her sprawled out mangled over her nice red bike with the old fashioned basket really sent me on a drinking binge for a while. I’m really not an alcoholic, but after her death, I did drink to drown my misery. To top it off, a year later, Mom committed suicide as she just couldn’t handle what life had given her. She dealt her cards wrong in my mind when she should have stuck it out and seen it through to a better tomorrow. I hope Melena met her with a massive slingshot to give her a taste of her medicine. I hated Mom for leaving me like that. Anyway, here I stare out the window, past its blue gingham curtains and into the deep blue sea and white sandy beaches. I love my view of the ocean. Every waking day I have to pinch myself to make sure I am blessed to be in this beautiful sea side cape house nestled on this private beach. All I can gratefully say is, “Thank-you, Marvin.” Marvin, Medeiros, my only uncle died shortly after Mom to prostate cancer and I got lucky and inherited his lovely secluded property. There isn’t another house around for several miles. Just me, the cats and the sea. So not so plain Jane, Marina Elenora Medeiros gets to sell seashells by the sea shore… well, that happens in my dreams. I have Mom’s maiden name as she was a single mom. Some Tom, Dick or Harry ran off and couldn’t handle having a child. I never met him. The only man in my life was Marvin and he’s gone. I sit near my laptop blowing a kiss of thanks for showing me my wallpaper. I’ve got Bella Swan and Edward Cullen in one of their sexiest moments now on my screen. Hello, my lovely vampires. And I guzzle down my small white glass of orange juice. I need that too. I need something healthy to go with the coffee with my sugar. And the coffee just sits there. I’ve only had two sips so far. I’m a blogger. I blog from morning till night. Well, most days. Other days, I am pumping out the handmade items. Handmade Ellowyne Wilde doll outfits, some for the Gene Marshall fashion dolls and some for freaky looking Blythe dolls too. She has the gothic eyes. I’m a doll collector. Mom was too, so I ended up getting all her dolls too. I get a little embarrassed sometimes that if some stranger were to see all my dolls, he or she would probably take up running. And I would be left all alone. I hate the silence. No kids anywhere to make life sweet. No laughter and fun in the air. My life really sucks sometimes. I guess I’m crying to God to give me some change and peace of mind. I’m worth the effort. Really!!! But at least I’m well off. I can’t complain. Marvin left me all his money and Mom had stashed lots of money away for a rainy day. So I guess I could just blog for a while and work on my nice Etsy Shop. The knitted outfits are selling well. This blogaholic needs something to happen. Where is my unchartered island where discoveries are fresh? Please put a nice looking fireman on it too. I’m hankering for one that is going to strip for me. I’m waiting with my sexy body parts wound up in a taut knot. And I also would require 50 Shades of Grey to wait for me under a tree too. That’s how long I’ve been without and I need it! Bad! After taking another sip of coffee and giving Billy and Mist some cat food, I settled down to do some tasks. First, I checked my mail. Delete, delete, delete and then my fingers stopped hitting the keys. Here’s an odd and alarming message popping out to grab me and magnetize me to my fridge.
Are you ready to ruin your life, Marina? Be careful where you step. You might follow their path…. Signed, Soul mate.
After staring at the creepy message for a moment, I will have to admit that my interest just peaked. There’s this creepy lighthouse photo on the page with a black crackling effect around the edges. Then I dawned on the connection. It’s the same lighthouse that is in the distance from my house. Dare I connect the dots and call this a coincidence or just some stroke of luck that someone has decided to play with my curiosity? Now I’m standing and looking at the lighthouse that juts out on one part of the beach and is partly in water. The lighthouse suddenly has a flashing light. I know that nobody has been in there for years, but now I feel as if I am drawn to it and am ready to go check it out. I shut down the laptop to conserve energy, grab my small pink backpack that has a few things in it and within a few minutes, I’ve shut my door and am traveling across the desolate beach to an unknown destination.
This is just not me. I never attempt to follow the unknown. Marina is a meek girl who doesn’t dare to travel down the path not stepped. She must still be unconscious as she would have stopped me from doing this. Or is it the fact that Marina is dead and her alter ego has stepped in to make a mess of things? I approached the lighthouse and had to take off my white china flats as there is two feet of water at the base of the lighthouse. I’m glad I decided to wear my skirt today and not my pink lounging pants. The weather is getting too hot for those anyway. I climbed up the old cement steps of the lighthouse and I got the heavy door open. I put a small doorstop wedge by the door to keep it open. As I walk inside, I am feeling these invisible spiders crawling up my spine as if they were letting me know that I shouldn’t be here. Yet, my feet were not listening to my fears and were catapulting me further into the darkness of an old decaying lighthouse. I’m just a lonely girl in an abandoned lighthouse. Or was I? “Hello? Is anybody here?” No answer. Silence was the vice gripping me. I thought some more about the note. Who was Soul mate? Should I be happy to have found him or should I not linger and let old fish drown in his sorrows? I’m not ready for a new romance especially after reeling from John taking up with that young girl from the Something Fresh Florist Shop. She was fresh all right. Especially after I found out about them and had a face to face meeting with her. I wish my eyes were daggers. Let’s just say she would be pleasantly dead. Now I was on the second set of rickety steps on a spiral staircase that let up several flights. Up. Up. Until I was at the top looking out to sea or down to the bottom of the lighthouse. I looked out of the window and far below. All I now was focusing on was that dark mask and eyes I could not see. Tall and ominous he was as he stared up towards me. I wondered if he could see me. Then, I caught sickness as I looked at the black sinister metal in his left hand. Fart me silly, he had a 9mm handgun. Okay. I’m thoroughly chilled to my marrow. It might as well have been raining as I’m feeling a heavy wetness sinking down on me. I’m not wet really, but literally, I am. My blogger’s brain now was thinking of many more fun things to be writing about back at blogger central. Or should I say at What Goes Around Comes Around Blog. It’s my personal blog to wet my appetite about anything that pops into my mind. I waited a moment, deciding what to do. Then, I watched in horror as he decided to leave. Tick, tock, went the ten terminal minutes while fear makes me pee in my hot pink satin underwear. Okay, not really. But if I had been a kid witnessing this, I think I would have. Now, I’m running down the stairs. I just feel like I want to go back home, get into bed and pretend to sleep till 7am or 8am. Beauty sleep I am lacking and now my problems are compounding. At the bottom of the stairs, I now am bewildered and horror seems to be setting in. The door has been bolted shut and I can’t pry it open. He has locked me in! And now I’m on the other side on my uncharted land, prisoner or victim to his wrath and I don’t like this change. This is not what I asked to happen. And as I search around the room, I’m aware that he took my white china flats as a souvenir. What would the masked man want with my pretty shoes? I wish I had a nice spiky pair of Bella’s pumps on hand in case of his return I could shove it into his eyes and make a break for security. But is there any safety left in this world? Where is my fireman to rescue me? I would take him any day over Soul mate. Dying of celibacy here! Now, I’m sitting on a black chair crabbing to myself because there’s no wine to be had. Not even a cup of coffee. I so wished I had had all my coffee before heading out on some violent game. What should I do next? I’m discovering that he didn’t confiscate my backpack. Thank my lucky stars. I guess I should see what is in it as I haven’t checked it out in a few days. I poured out the contents onto the hard, cold floor. OMG. My new Live Scribe Pulse Smart pen! What an awesome thing. I’m glad it’s fully charged. I just bought it a few days ago. I’ve been wanting it for a while. A girl has to have her toys too. As if there was any working outlet in this place of my new habitat. Well, the pen will last me for a little while at least. Then, I checked the other items. A dark pink Revlon lipstick, two containers of nail polish, one bronze and the other that gold crackle cover up. I was a glutton for the crackle craze that came out after the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Luckily, I also have one Live Scribe notebook left. Also in the mix is a small bag of spearmint menthol cough drops, one bottle of flavored water (black cherry) and a small bag of Cheetos. That would surely make me thirsty. I wonder if I could pull a Lisa trick from that Red Eye movie where she writes on the mirror with some soap liquid. Although, I seriously doubt that there is a mirror in here and who would find my message? Soul mate would probably kill me and wash it off. This lipstick is older than the hills, good golly. Well, that was it. No phone, no laptop and no weapon for my alter ego. What were my options? I guess I should be thanking myself that I have my mind and my wits to keep me going, but was that going to be enough to get myself out of here? I have to start thinking about what my options are. Especially if I didn’t want to be waiting for Soul mate to return, I had best be thinking. He was going to come back, I just have the gut feeling .
Then, I looked at the door. I don’t know why I didn’t see it partially visible underneath the old door. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pick it up, yet I knew that I was going to. My alter ego just loves a good mystery. She loves to jump from moving trains, bungee jump from the tallest bridge and drink heavy doses of peach schnapps and orange juice until she is in oblivion. What I wouldn’t kill for one of those right about now. Maybe Soul mate could come back and have a drink with me and we could shoot the breeze and talk about all kinds of things. Then, I can get him in a drunken daze and punch the nuts out of him. He wouldn’t know a tornado until it was too late. Yeah, my alter ego happens to be Million Dollar Baby. Well, in my dreams. A girl can dream, can’t she?
Now, I’ve picked up the slightly bloody envelope. I think Soul mate means business. When I see flashes of crimson on something, it never is a good thing. It’s about the size of a small envelope and half the size of a letter envelope. Yellowed and old, yet it appears to hold something new and eerie most likely.
It’s now opened and I’m feeling my nerves rattle as I read it. Okay, now I’m traveling back to quite a while ago to some other story. A mystery that hasn’t yet been solved and maybe it never will and I’m sitting on this hard old chair wondering what it has to do with sweet meek me. But maybe Soul mate isn’t after Marina. He wants to play hardball with Alter Ego. Okay, I like to tango. So be it. I began to sift through his roughness of words that tore at my throat as I continued to read on into his tortured mind. I guess I was going to begin to figure out what Soul mate was all about, whether I wanted to or not. He was forcing me to play his game. Okay, Marina, By now, you are contained right where I want you. You didn’t listen to me, did you? Your lovely sweet scented china flats stepped in the wrong spot and now their mine. I hope you won’t mind if I keep them. I want to hunt you down, and now that I’ve captured your scent, it will be easy to turn you. I like your wallpaper. That barely there picture of Bella and Edward is enticing. I hope you don’t mind that I jerked off in your wicker chair. Have you thought about who “they” are yet? You should be thinking of this. I want you to remember. Are you wondering what I did to them? It wasn’t a pretty sight. The cops think they know stuff, yet they just don’t. They’re like a pack of three blind mice. But you’re different. You know. Don’t you? You know why I’ve come to be your soul mate? Because you got too close. Now, I will leave you to think a little bit and will come back later for you. I noticed you brought your Smart pen with you. Use it wisely. If you use it wrong, you won’t like what you see. Oh, and you might not want to drink your water as I could have tainted it for you. I like your choice of nail polish and I see that you like the Midas touch. Just a note to you, you won’t get rich blogging but you will get your goes around comes around. You might want to do your nails before you die.
Soul mate
I shuddered as I seriously didn’t have plans on my full plate schedule to die. It’s not going to happen at least not if I have a say in it. I decided to get off the old chair and do some searching. I was hoping to find a crow bar I could pry this door open with, but it seems that I am having no luck. I looked on the ground floor to see what was around. On a wall there were some hooks and a dingy old rain slicker hanging there. My fingers fumbled inside the pockets just hoping to find something, maybe a key would be just ducky. I guess I’m also looking for clues, seeing as he has left me inside here to try and remember something. All I found inside the pockets were some old metal washers, a stick of gum and a crumbled up receipt. Wow. It was dated back in the seventies. I guess nobody has been around for a while. This lighthouse hasn’t been occupied in years. I don’t think anyone has lived in it since the late Sixties. Uncle Marvin said there used to be a caretaker that lived there and kept watch on the ocean, but it had been abandoned since then. Well, I wasn’t about to try the old stick of orange flavored Trident. Not even a mouse would want it. But it still had to taste better than that awful L.L. Bean Spruce gum. Whoever invented that crap must have been hard up to come up with that. One taste and it’s on the ground for someone to step on. I decided to grab my backpack and go upstairs for a little bit. On my way up, I spied a shovel under the stairway. I think I should come back to that and have that handy in case Soul mate comes back for me. It might be my only weapon. Or I could break some glass and try cutting him with it. I surely would love to make him bleed. I sat upstairs on the floor. I opened up the backpack and pulled out my Smart Pen. I think I need to record something and maybe hide it somewhere in case he kills me. Maybe I should document this and hope that someone finds it and turns it into the police. I turned on trusty Smart Pen and started to just record stuff. I decided not to write in the notebook this time. “Hi. My name is Marina Medieros and if you have found this, I hope it will lead you to my killer. I live in the cape house near the beach. I think he’s been in there and you might find his fingerprints or his DNA if he wasn’t careful. I got an email message from him this morning. He calls himself Soul mate. I saw a light on in the lighthouse and came down to investigate. While I was in here, I could see him down below. All I know is that he is tall and he was wearing a mask. And he had a 9mm handgun. So, if you find my body here or somewhere else, that is what you will probably have to go on. I can’t give you too much else, except that he has written me a letter and wants me to remember something possibly of some other crime that I can’t really remember just yet. He has threatened in the letter that he is going to kill me. I’m going to try to escape before he comes back, but if I don’t and he gets me, I am going to find a good hiding place for this and the letter and pray that you get it and bring him to justice.” I turned off the Smart Pen. I don’t want to waste the energy and not have it work when I might really need it. I guess I will paint my nails. I might as well die pretty if I’m going to meet a terrible fate. And there goes my unchartered island that I wanted to find. Why did I blog about it? Because I wanted to, that’s why. Everyone wants to find new paths to follow.
And as I finished my last fingernail, something dawned on me. He did want to make me remember and I think I’ve just thought about what it may be. About a month ago, I started blogging about something that had happened quite some time ago and I wanted to play amateur detective. About a year ago, this young couple disappeared and nobody could find them. There had been some foul play and the police just seemed to be chasing their tales. Well, not really but I guess Soul mate was right that they were like blind mice. And I decided to start writing about them. I also followed one of the suspects. I happened to catch wind of one of them. Don’t ask me how. I wasn’t going to sign the bottom on these twelve articles I had written, but then as I thought about it, my name was right in the Url address so I guess it really didn’t matter. I got thinking that nobody would start coming after me for writing what I did. I guess I didn’t know that Soul mate was reading my writings. I must have hit a nerve. It had really baffled me how Lauren and Ted Conright had disappeared and left no trace. Then two days later some man with geeky black glasses and long brown hair tied in a ponytail had been seen driving their car around town. Someone had spotted him going into a hardware store. The police later found the car parked near the Aragunsquit River. I got following the story very closely and then started on my own sleuthing. This cat was not going to die though. Okay, so he has jogged my memory. Why does he want me to remember? Did I have it exactly right? He was stalking Lauren. I knew that as she had told her sister about it. I also wondered if she and the man decided to kill Ted and take off somewhere. That could have happened too. And I didn’t think it had happened at their house, as the police would have found more evidence there. They obviously had their suspects but not much to pin them on. When the guy had gone into the hardware store, the clerk remembered that he had bought rope. All I could think of is what was he going to do with that? I started to wonder how he killed them. Did he use a gun or was it by strangulation with his rope? The clerk said he paid with cash so nobody could trace it. As I looked at my pretty nails, I wondered what Lauren had done to make this guy come after them and stalk her. Maybe she even liked it, especially if she was starting to get tired of Ted. Some women just aren’t happy in their marriage and tend to wander. That’s when trouble seeks them out and makes them a marked woman. I wonder who he killed first. I’m thinking he killed Ted first. He would have given him a good fight. I’m just imagining Ted coming upstairs for a cold drink of Labatt’s beer, closing the fridge and seeing this stranger in his house. All it took was one shot from the gun. Then he probably tied Lauren, gagged her and threw them both in the trunk. I’m having a moment of realization. I’m here in the lighthouse where he was too. Why was he here in this abandoned place? Could there be two dead people on the premises? I stood up and realized that I don’t have much time left. I left the backpack upstairs and started searching . I went down to the bottom floor and started examining my surroundings. There was this old braided rug in a corner so I decided to pull it up and sure enough there was a trap door. Once opened, I peered into the darkness below. I grabbed an old orange flashlight that still worked. I trembled as my lead feet followed down into a dark abyss. I could definitely smell something decaying down here. Death stench? I arrived at the bottom and could see lots of dirt. There had to be cement at the bottom as the ocean was all around the lighthouse. I started to shine the light on the dirt and I was quite shocked to see the dirty old rope that he had used in the crime. As I looked closer in one particular spot, Lauren’s hand was visible and her wedding ring was glimmering. That’s what he wanted me to find. I just know it. He wanted me to find them so that now he can come and kill me too. I ran over and pulled at the rope. I managed to pull the long, thick rope and ran up the stairs, took a chair and broke a large hole in the glass. I tied the rope to a sturdy piece of metal, grabbed my backpack and started a long decent down to the water below. I was thankful for bare feet hitting the ocean water and darted to the safety of my house.
Nothing really happened for a few days except for a note from Soul mate. He said if I called in the murders he would come kill me and hunt down anyone that knows me. Two days later, I got a knock on my door. A young man with dirty brown hair and deep brown eyes stared into mine. “Hi, I’m Luke Ravena. I’m your mail order husband you were asking for in your blog.” I took one look at him and knew right away I was going to like him. He looked so darn hot, I could feel my insides burning. My alter ego loves an unchartered island. No women’s intuition here. My blond hair proves it.
“Come on in. Why don’t we start with a good cup of coffee and a bag of Kettle Cooked Chips. I hope you like jalapeno flavor.” “Sounds great. And I guess we can toast to that new unchartered island you keep talking about on your blog.” “Can you play fireman for me sometime?” “That can be in the cards.” “Great.” I pulled up a seat and began enjoying the company of my suddenly new husband. Well, it wasn’t set in stone yet, but if he’s my steamy fireman I’ll take him. Luke started looking Marina up and down while he sipped his coffee. Little did she know that he had a safe deposit box with her white china flats in it. But she did look so delicious that he decided he would just play with his food for a while. Who knows how long. A lifetime with Soul mate perchance?
Jennifer Jo Fay
Copyrighted June 30, 2012