Halloween theme (Patreon)

I had several seeds for stories on possessions, so I decided to make a few weeks of Halloween themed stories this year. The end result was Bloody Mary, Underoos, and Trick and Treat. I was working on another one to be released between Underoos and Trick and Treat, that came as a request before I wrote any of these. The requester wanted some teens to enter a haunted house (as in a house inhibited by spirits, not a Halloween ride experience) and come out posessed. In our discussions the idea was reduced down to one guy who is possessed by a dead jock, that slowly takes over his life. Practically this would work out similar to Bloody Mary, where he would lose time where the jock spirit would take him to gym or out running. His body would change in ways mysterious to him. The jock spirit would take his body out to party. People the guy didn't know would start to greet him. A class mate would ask him how he manage to do it. How can he party so much and still pull off an OK grade. I wasn't clear on how to end the story, or at what point the guy would discover he was possessed. I kind of imagined that the point he really understands the possession is real is when he wakes up with a tattoo.

A lot of the ideas for this story was used in Bloody Mary, and some of them in Hiatus, so it became a bit hard to figure out how to make it different. I figured it should be told as a spooky story, as if it was told by teenagers having a party in the old house. Basically tell the backstory of the house, and why it became a nexus for possessions. Then tell the story of how the jock died just were they are now sitting and telling the story. Then tell the story of how someone else got in there and got possessed by the jock spirit. Perhaps he was escaping a rain and abruptly fell unconscious when he sat down in the stairs. Finally the story should end with someone in the group retelling the story falls unconscious.

Well, I started on the background story, and it became something completely different, so I abandoned it.

Haunted House

Everyone calls it the Joelstein house, but it was doctor Abernaky Ford who built it in 1898. His wife Sarah came from New Orleans and was accustomed to a much richer social life, so she made their house into the center of the town with epic parties. Legend has it that people didn't just get drunk on Sazerac, but that the doctor also lent a hand. Morphine, Cannabis and Heroin were all common in cough syrup.

Cognac based sazerac cocktails were not the only thing Sarah brought with her from Louisiana. The town had a secret circle with spirit seances and summonings, those too probably enhanced by the good doctor. We probably only know this from what happened in 1926. Just as today, it was one week before Halloween, the Fords had a big party that continued with a private session here in the main hall. The details are not very reliable, as everyone was high, drunk or both, but at some point shortly after one o'clock in the night Lars Oleson became aggressive and snapped the neck of Sarah. When sheriff Branson arrived it took five people to keep Lars in place.

He was taken to city jail where manage to knock out sheriff Branson, run back to the house and kill Abernaky and two remaining guests. Finally he jumped head first from the balcony over there and broke his neck.

After that the house was empty for many years. A few people moved in over the years, but rarely stayed long. The last one was Ben Joelstein who moved in 1962 and lived here until 1971, when he was found dead a few days before Halloween. The examiner concluded that he had tripped in stairs we are now sitting, and broke his neck.