Ed Sheeran Fan's Poltergeist

1

Samantha had planned the perfect Halloween-themed bachelorette party for her friend, Kara.

She'd meticulously ironed out every detail. The nightclub. The restaurant. The food. Everything was in place.

It was all a welcome diversion. Seeing as the last year had been a living hell.

And that hell was due entirely to one person. Her ex-boyfriend, Colin.

2

They'd had a rocky relationship, Samantha and Colin. But it wasn't always like that. He'd been so charming when they met. That rainy afternoon when she'd lifted her gaze from her phone, stepped forward and literally bumped into him in line, at the front counter of that cute little café next to the modern art gallery. Little could she have guessed the charming, handsome stranger had a rollercoaster of moods, that he must have been bipolar or borderline. Maybe both...

When she met him, though, he was so cute and fun. He was a joker, a clown, a lovable goofball. Witty and full of laughs.

A professional artist by trade, he was a protean painter, spending most of his time in his home studio, painting these immaculate murals of mountains, the sea.

Oh, and he'd paint her too. As an angel. He'd summon a numinous force, a touch of God in his brush. Seriously. It was almost as if, at least to her, he was better than Di Vinci.

He'd be so enraptured in his art. The way he'd stand, wide-eyed at his easel, mesmerized, moving his whole body in concert with his brush, producing such jaw-dropping, lifelike portraits of her - usually portraits of her in the nude- renderings of her as a Greek goddess with fluttering, silky white wings and wavy black hair bouncing over her shoulders. Her feminine curves and contours, her creamy skin, the hourglass shape of her body portrayed to a heavenly perfection; in a way she'd never imagined possible.

Sweeping the brush, with rhythmic grace, he seemingly had a power as strong as the ocean. She'd blush red, posing and turning for him, smiling coyly, herself feeling as if she really was an angel, if only for that moment... Her heart melting, knees weakening when he'd whisper, repeatedly, from behind the easel, just how "exquisite, beautiful she is..."

If he wasn't painting, he'd be adorably eccentric, a lovable madman, dancing in his bedroom, playing air guitar, cranking classic rock (often AC/DC). Or he'd be shuffling feverishly about the house, a million miles an hour, cooking piles of pancakes, quoting Hemingway, and writing lists on his phone, planning daring trips to every part of the globe. Planning to try extreme sports, wild activities. African safaris, skydiving, lion taming, scuba-diving, parasailing, paragliding, bungee jumping. He'd even mentioned wanting to wrestle alligators! It was as if there was nothing he wouldn't try...

3

But then there was his other extreme, which, horrifically, she'd soon discover. His crash. His plummet. When he'd be down. And when he was down, it was rock bottom. He'd be irritable. Aloof. Hiding in bed, under a bubble of covers, catatonic, talking to no one, doing nothing. Going for days not touching his phone or even leaving the house. Pissing in empty Gatorade bottles he'd keep next to his bed.

And that was the best she could hope for when he was down. Often, he'd be worse. Like when he'd start fights, arguments over nothing.

He'd get so angry. One minute he'd be fine, everything going swimmingly. And then, POW! He'd explode. Like a bomb. Over nothing she'd done intentionally. It could be just how she crossed her legs in a restaurant. The tone of a text message. The choice of a song or brand of milk.

Really, any perceived slight he might regard as a mortal wound. Anything could make him flip out and start explosive arguments that she always feared would become physical. But they never did. He'd never lay a hand on her, never resort to violence.

Still, though, in her mind, the possibility existed that he could. It was the serial killer look that'd flicker in his sharp blue eyes. The way he'd scream at the top of his lungs, the guttural sound of his straining voice, his curly red fascist haircut flopping and moving like flames atop his skull as his lanky body jolted with rage.

Following a friendly joke she'd cracked about him liking Ed Sheeran, he'd blown his lid, jumped up from the couch and threw a glass at the wall, shattering it. Aghast, her expression twisted to one of fixed terror. And she sat curling to the corner of the couch, fearing that next time it'd be her thrown at the wall, her spine splintering and cracking into pieces like the poor Picasso painting glass he'd just jumped up and flung with the fucking power of a baseball pitcher.

(The whole incident, too, really made her hate that "Shape of You" song even more, and in a whole new way...)

4

Eventually, they'd always make up after their fights, have a romp in bed, return to calm, civility. He'd apologize profusely to her. His eyes wet and his kind voice sweet as candy, ricocheting like a windchime in her ear.

When they'd fight over the phone, he'd later send her apologetic texts with loads of emojis, shower her with compliments and show up to her doorstep with a bouquet of roses, endearingly jutting out his bottom lip. Then he'd take her to a fancy French restaurant and ply her with wine and delicacies. Afterward, they'd Uber to his house, retire for the evening and let their full stomachs weigh them down onto the bed.

In bed, they'd lay supine, on satin sheets, in a tacit silence, staring into each other's eyes. Then they'd cavort under his heavy down feather blankets, before cuddling and kissing for hours. Everything would be bliss for at least a day or two- until his mood crashed again and the arguments resumed.

5

Finally, enough was enough. Samantha had tired of his cycles. She'd seen Kara and Kara's fiancé; how happy they were. Sure, the two had fights, but nothing like Samantha and Colin.

Samantha, at Kara's urging, decided to give Colin an ultimatum. Get mental help, get in therapy, get on the right meds, or they'd have to split up.

Colin didn't take well to Samantha's request. He took it personally. As an insult. Accused her of cheating on him, trying to find a way out of their relationship.

Samantha, while sitting next to Kara, in Kara's tiny apartment, sniffled and cried on the phone as Colin berated her. Kara, her pink hair in a tight bun, knitted her brows, and looped an arm over Samantha's shoulder, leaned in and listened to Colin's cursing, his shrieking voice, and then whispered to Samantha that they should call the police.

Samantha pursed her lips. Shook her head. She didn't need the cops. She could handle this herself. And so she drew in a deep breath and summoned the courage to end things, knowing Colin needed far greater help than she could offer. Like Kara had said, Samantha knew Colin would have to sort out his issues before he could have a successful relationship with her. Or anyone.

After telling Colin this, he yelled even louder, and for the first time, threatened to kill her. But she simply hung up. Then collapsed into Kara's arms, burst into a fit of hot tears.

But, later that dark, windy night, Samantha's sadness shifted to fright and her stomach churned.

She worried Colin would call back. Maybe show up to her apartment, with the most malevolent of intentions...

6

Eerily, though, she heard nothing from him. She worried he'd taken it too hard. Maybe had killed himself.

But then she remembered his guttural, sibilant screaming, how he'd threatened to kill her. And she started to become increasingly panicked.

What if he was serious? What if he showed up to her workplace, to her apartment?

Worse yet, he was rich. Not super-rich, but wealthy. A trust fund kid with ample financial resources. Aside from painting and going to art galleries, traveling, he didn't do much, so he had plenty of time and plenty of money to attack her. Or hire someone to do the job.

She started to picture that. She'd read an article online about Dark Web sites offering "life-ruining services", for-hire services selling stuff like disfigurements, e.g. throwing acid at someone's face, or beating someone with a blunt object and paralyzing or otherwise maiming them; or grapple-fucking or murdering them; or even just spreading online rumors, sending fake or real nude pictures to porn sites; hacking into someone's Twitter or Facebook and posting outlandish tirades; stealing their identity, driving them into debt, all sorts of nastiness. Colin could easily pay for that...

Or he could hire a mob guy or a cartel killer, a professional killer. Just thinking about that made Samantha peer out her living room window, terrified that there was a masked man, hiding in an adjacent building, a sniper, perhaps, who'd shoot her from afar, kill her like Kennedy.

But it didn't have to be done with gunfire. A hitman could possibly poison her. She'd read about that in a thriller novel. A pro-hitman could easily disguise himself as a policeman or repairman, gain entry to her apartment and lace her food with cyanide or anthrax.

Or he could be following her, to and from work, mapping her movements. He could be anyone. Anyone among the knots of people. He could be some inconspicuous bald guy in a business suit, walking briskly by her on a bustling subway, jabbing her in the small of her back with a syringe and she drops dead on the spot and the whole thing looks like a heart attack.

Or a former IRA operative, a killer rigging her apartment with a bomb. Like one of those bombs that could be triggered by opening the fridge or turning on the stove. After thinking of that one, she only ate takeout for a few days, checked all her appliances.

Her mind racing at night, she slept less and less. She could see any of those scenarios. She could see Colin, polishing a gun in his palatial bedroom. Colin, with his strong jaw set, staring with his evil eyes of shit at the nude paintings of her on his walls. Him throwing darts at her portraits. Him concocting all sorts of dastardly schemes to make her suffer.

7

In the following days, fear and its fangs bit at her brain, to the point of exsanguination. The fear drinking her blood. Colin was her vampire. He was her poltergeist. He was invisible, yet everywhere. And she had worsening, terrifyingly vivid nightmares of him as a cat burglar crawling in through her bedroom window at night, and eating her alive, like a zombie. Or him cackle-fucking her with a broken beer bottle and then slashing her throat, licking sticky spurting bursts of blood off her open wound.

There'd been a recurring dream, too, of his hired mafia goons driving by, in a black Cadillac, shooting her dead in the street like Paul Castellano outside of Sparks.

Colin had been a big fan of horror movies and mafia movies and had watched tons of them with her. Who knows what ideas he was concocting... The asshole could literally pick almost anything from a Stephen King book and try it on her. And he had the cash to get away with it too...

8

But Samantha again summoned her strength. She wouldn't be cowered. This wouldn't be the same as when she was a kid and her abusive father would come home, drunk, and slap the shit out of her and her mom, or lash them with his belt, for no reason, other than he could...

She'd always admired her mother for having the guts to grab her and leave. The pair hand in hand, escaping the house, dashing through the blue-lit living room, while her angry walrus of a father, in his undershirt and boxers, splayed out in his dirty old raggedy recliner chair; his mountainous belly rising and falling as he was snoring like a chainsaw in front of a Monday night football game. Half-eaten Mexican food, and an empty bottle of Jack strewn at his side... The room stinking of nachos and farts...

Samantha decided to emulate that bravery. Take the initiative. Break out of her box of fear.

She terminated her apartment lease early, disguised herself in a wig and trench coat and moved, in the small hours of night, to another apartment in another part of town. She changed jobs. She cut and dyed her hair. She bought a new wardrobe. She deleted her social media accounts and started new ones.

(But she kept a burner account that was friends with Colin's Facebook, so she could track his movements. Worryingly, however, he hadn't posted anything since they'd split...)

9

Still, although she'd moved, covered her tracks, still, there was always the chance he could find her.

She'd be on the subway or at the grocery store, at a bar or restaurant with friends, and she'd think that she saw him. He'd be there. In the corner of the room. She'd clearly see his rubicund face. She'd see him in the oversized Adidas tracksuits he'd wear. She'd see him, from the corner of her eye, so vividly that she'd get cotton-mouthed and icy shakes of terror would barb up her spine. Gasping, her heart would skip a beat. But then she'd look again, and mercifully, he'd be gone. Or just invisible again.

10

Since she knew how into horror movies and books he was, she started wondering if maybe he'd placed a curse on her. So she visited a tarot card reader, who wasn't useful, but a psychic hotline she called was. The psychic had convinced her that Colin had likely placed a hex on her and accompanied Samantha in an hour-long prayer that was calming and mentally therapeutic.

Samantha decided that she'd fight fire with fire, too, and looked into putting her own curse on Colin, if anything, to cancel out his. She googled witches' curses, Satanic rituals, but settled on buying a voodoo doll on Amazon, and took to stabbing at it, joyously, every night, for a week, with a sewing needle.

But simply stabbing the voodoo doll wasn't enough. Eventually her vengeful smile died. Molded into something else. Bent forward to her kitchen counter, she found herself hyperventilating, seeing Colin's ruddy freckled face, alive on the doll, the serial killer look gleaming in his blue eyes.

With her body quivering in quakes of anger and pain, hot tears streaming down her cheeks, she lost control and shrieked and violently ripped the doll to pieces. Then angrily threw its mangled remains out the kitchen window, watched the serial killer's face float away into the cool drizzly gusts of a starless night.

11

Although it'd been satisfying, stabbing, decapitating the doll, she ultimately decided she was skeptical about voodoo and curses. And she continued to worry Colin might be following her. So she bought a small handgun, started keeping it in her purse, taking it with her everywhere. If he was going to attempt anything, she'd at least try to take him or his goons out in the process. She wasn't going to be the scared little girl, curled into a corner, crying as she received whips from the belt strap.

Hell no!

She was fighting back!

He picked the wrong bitch!

12

At least the party planning lifted her mind off Colin. It was to be a festive occasion; old and new friends would be there. It would be a blast. The twerking male strippers she'd ordered would certainly lighten her mood.

Gosh, maybe one of the male strippers would turn out to be straight. Ask her out. One of them, from the pictures online, was super tall and looked like Chris Hemsworth! "Oh, please let him be straight... And interested... Oh, please, please, pretty please..." she thought and prayed to herself.

Then she went rummaging through her closet and picked out the shortest, sexiest black dress she had to accompany her Catwoman mask, fishnet stockings, and thigh-high shiny black hooker boots.

"He'd have to be gay not to want to fuck THIS..." she thought to herself, trying on the dress, running her hands up her hips, jutting out her round ass and admiring the shapely curves shown in her closet mirror.

13

Finally, Halloween arrived. She coiffed her hair and wore that sexy black dress. And while she'd recently been thinking and worrying less about Colin or his assassins, the threat stayed with her, and came back up in a nightmare she had a couple nights prior, where Colin burst into the party with a machine gun, like a mass shooter, and pulled a Columbine.

Again, she decided that she should protect herself, and, if only for mental reassurance, she should pack her handgun with her, in her purse, take it to the party. Just in case.

14

The party started off without a hitch. No sign of Colin. And in the super pricey, yet splurge-worthy Italian restaurant, they ate an extravagant pasta and lobster meal, guzzled red wine. Then they stumbled out, piling into the stretch limo idling outside, the ladies screaming and laughing and singing and dancing to bumping dance tunes as they rode through the electric pump of the glittery city, over to the swanky nightclub, where they'd get this party REALLY started...

"I gotta feeling!!!" they sang in unison. The limo's surround sound stereo was cranked to full blast, rocking the ladies' bopping bodies with its booming bass, the girls clinking champagne glasses, moving and grooving jubilantly in the limo's cushy brown leather seats.

15

Pouring out of the limo, Samantha looked up and saw heavy storm clouds the color of tar had gathered in the sky above. Then a CRASH of thunder accompanied sudden veils of rain. The group shrieked and giggled like schoolgirls, running clumsily in their heels, through the downpour, retreating towards the nightclub's neon-lit marquee...

16

Once seated in the club's VIP section, sipping cocktails, the club's thumping trap hip-hop music abruptly shut off. The rowdy group of late 20s, early 30 something tipsy gals were all shocked to then receive a surprise visit from the police. Three tall, handsome uniformed police officers entering from behind the bar. The men with frowns, serious gazes, one of them saying something about a complaint. That it was a serious matter.

"It's a crime that you ladies LOOK SO FINE!!!!" shouted one of the policemen, pointing his finger at Kara, accusingly.

Then a Cardi B song blasted from the sound system, and the police started smiling and dancing and tearing off their police uniforms, revealing sculpted pecs and abs and man-thongs as they bumped and grinded on the now whooping and clapping, twisting and dancing, glass hoisting, hooting and hollering ladies. The smiles on all their painted faces stretched miles wide.

When the Chris Hemsworth clone strutted over to Samantha, he shook his hard ass in her face, then spun around and accidentally kneed her purse.

BANG!

It was like a firecracker, the sound of the gunshot. And a puff of smoke followed it; the gray plume flitting up in the air and dissolving, like an apparition.

Samantha pressed her eyes tightly shut and gasped. Her ears felt as if they'd been stuffed with cotton balls. Then her ears rang in a super high-pitched hum, and she faintly heard something like a scream from a horror flick, accompanied by hysterical crying.

She hung her head, timidly opened her eyes, looked toward the sound of the pop. It had come from her purse. Cringing, she glimpsed down at a tiny burnt black hole in her glittery Gucci purse. The dark hole looking sort of like a puckered asshole.

Lifting her head, she saw the Chris Hemsworth clone, in a fallen heap; he was writhing, in a pool of blood, on the club's white marble floor.

His blue eyes bulging, he was screaming, primally. His face a hot mess of agony. And his dark red, dripping wet hands were clamped tightly over his left thigh, which was gushing blood.