Okay it's December, I promised chapters and I haven't upheld that have I... I apologise. School is chaos, end of year exams are chaos, VCE is chaos. Update tho, my writing motivation finally decided to make an appearance. I will warn you, for those who have watched the movie, do not expect everything to be the same. There will be a few details i will skip over because
1. I honestly can't be bothered
and 2. Some details don't add any extra horror-ness anyway sooooo
Allon-sy, lets continue reading
In the living area, Diana stayed up beside Mary-Ellen, her leg shaking as she sipped a cup of coffee. Mary-Ellen on the other hand, seemed unbothered by the revelation. After all, it was late in the night, and she simply believed she had been seeing things due to her fatigue. Instead, her time was spent rushing through an assignment due on paper, the tv running as background noise.
But Mary-Ellen's focus on her work was led astray, when an almost non-existent whisper echoed from beneath the dialogue of the scene playing on the screen. Diana remained oblivious, her senses tired and numb from her recent clairvoyant episode to the point that she hadn't noticed Mary-Ellen stand from the couch in her stupor.
Turning down the volume of the television, Mary-Ellen's ears strained themselves to hear the faint whispers of what seemed to be an interview. "He had silver coins for his eyes. She said his light shows you the way to the land of the dead. I just wanna find my sister," a girl's teary voice floated through the hallways of the house to the living room, slightly muffled as though played through a tape recorder. Mary-Ellen furrowed her brow, confused at where the tape was playing from.
"And where did she first see him?" the voice of Ed Warren questioned.
Mary-Ellen strayed from the living room, her footsteps light as she followed the sound down the stairs and into the room of files that the Warrens kept in the office.
"Not long before he took her." The girl's voice answered. "She said she'd wake up, and he'd be in her room, watching her sleep. The night she went missing, we both woke up to a noise. It sounded like a coin falling on the floor. She told me to wait in her room. So I did. She never came back. I went to look for her and ended up in a long hallway. Filled with coffins. Last night... I woke up to a noise. Another coin being dropped. It was like he was... like he was calling me," the girl narrated, the fear in her voice portraying just how terrified she was during the experience.
"Have you ever seen the Ferryman?" tape Diana asked in reply, light and caring.
"If you don't pay his toll, he'll take your soul," the girl on tape tearfully replied. The sound of the tape rewinding sent a mild chill down Mary-Ellen's spine. She didn't believe in ghost stories or demons in the dark, but it seemed odd that a tape would play out of nowhere. The tape began to play once more, the chant of the girl's words played over and over again in rapid succession, each sounding more demonic than the last.
'If you don't pay his toll, he'll take your soul.'
In finding the origins of the tape, the blond-haired girl reached out, stopping the tape before it continued. It was then she noticed the file that detailed the Ferryman case laid open upon the stacks of boxes, as though beckoning her to take a peek. They must've left it open when they were rushed out by Diana earlier in the day, Mary-Ellen rationalised to herself. The dim lights in the room were enough for Mary-Ellen to make out the grey and white pictures that filled the case file that depicted a man with two coins placed upon his eyes, as well as a detailed drawing of what looked like a reaper holding a lantern. Only Diana knew his name as Charon, the ferryman who ferried the dead souls across the river Styx and Acheron into the Underworld.
As Mary-Ellen stepped toward the file to get a closer look, the lights in the study suddenly extinguished, plunging Mary-Ellen into the depths of darkness. Mary-Ellen was beginning to fear the dark, and remembering the small flashlight she had seen when she switched off the tape recording, she whirled around, her hands dancing in the dark as she felt for her object that would soothe her fear.
Her hands finally grasped onto the object that held the light in the darkness, and with no hesitation, the button was pressed, and the room was lit by the beam of light that shone from the flashlight. It was then she heard a coin drop, clattering on the ground, the ringing echoing in the dark. Mary-Ellen flashed her light around the room, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Little did she know that behind her stood the same man from the photo, donning two coins over his eyes.
The floorboards creaked as Mary-Ellen edged out of the room in fear. It was then another light clink sounded from the top of the stairs, which led to a quick succession of metallic thunks, and ended with the clattering of a coin before her very feet. Recalling the dialogue that had played from the tape, Mary-Ellen began to fear for her life.
The lights had gone out throughout the house, shocking Diana out of her post-episode daze. It was then she noticed Mary-Ellen was nowhere to be seen. "Mary-Ellen?" Diana called out, placing the cup of now cold coffee onto the coffee table before her, her hands feeling around in the dark to make sure she knew her bearings. "Mary-Ellen, where are you?" Diana called out once more, hoping she would hear her friend's answer, moving to the bedrooms upstairs, thinking the girl had gone to check up on Judy.
Said blonde however, had followed the sound of coins clattering on the wooden floorboards back to the middle level of the house, where she had left Diana, only for the Warren to be nowhere to be seen. The coins continued to clatter and a now extremely terrified Mary-Ellen continued to follow the trail of coins, despite her fight of flight response urging her entire being to run.
A/N: A sense of self-preservation doesn't exist in horror movies apparently.
This led her to the laundry room, where another coin dropped before her feet. Mary-Ellen's breath began to tremble. Why was this happening?
A/N: Because your friend can't keep her hands to herself and does not know when to stop being a goddang idiot.
It was then she noticed a glint, a few feet higher than her own figure right before her very eyes. Two coins floated in the air, and a slight shade behind them resembled a hazy figure of a forehead, the two coins acting as its eyes. With a trembling grip on the flashlight, Mary-Ellen raised her wrist to shine it upon the figure, only for the coins to drop, sending the blonde into a further state of absolute anxiety.
Only moments later, her flashlight began to dim, stuttering its last breath under the influence of the demons in the house, fighting to keep awake. But it died anyway, leaving Mary-Ellen once again shrouded by darkness. The coins rolled to her feet, as the others had done before, and this time, Mary-Ellen crouched down, reaching out a trembling hand to grab the coin from the checkered black and white flooring. Slowly getting to her feet, she raised the coin into the light of the dim moon that shone through the window, the dulled silver glinting in all its evil glory.
Suddenly, a pale wrinkled figure appeared behind the coin, its shaggy hair and dishevelled stature, paired with the coins that covered the eyes of the undead. Mary-Ellen screamed. Finally, she ran, abandoning all rational. Running in the opposite direction to that of the laundry room, she had only managed to make it past the beam that separated the living room and the kitchen, before an unseen force caught her by the leg, sending her flying forward, her body hitting the ground. It dragged her back, back to the laundry room, which had now converted into a tunnel filled with coffins and the undead, who had coins over their eyes and a man who held the lantern, the only source of light, which only shot another string of terror right into the very heart of the blonde teenager.
In a moment of pure adrenaline, Mary-Ellen's hands caught onto the wall that bordered the kitchen, and with all her might, she heaved herself away from the laundry room, screaming in terror. But the force on her leg did not cease. Suddenly, the flashlight lit itself once more, and a still screaming Mary-Ellen let go of the wall, reaching to grab the torch, scrambling hands gripping onto the cylindrical object to shine it into the tunnel.
"Begone foul spirit! I command you to obey me to the letter! Leave the girl alone!" Diana ran into the scene, holding out her hand and the silver cross she had as a necklace around her neck. The elder Warren had heard Mary-Ellen's screams from the storey above and rushed as soon as she could to help.
The force dragging her leg stopped as light befell what was now a normal laundry room once again. Mary-Ellen scrambled to her feet and led by Diana, the two girls rushed up the stairs to Judy's bedroom and began pounding on the door, screaming the little girl's name, a green light eerily shining from the space between the floor and the base of the door.