u/Nick_12780

This is a follow-up to a previous post on this subreddit where I still have some female roles available. 2 of these are in talks with someone else but the rest are completely up for grabs and this will be updated as they are taken.

Mrs. Whitlock: ~460 words—Mother to Liu and Jeff, Mrs. Whitlock is someone whose obsession with peace and appearances brings about the destruction of her family.

Creepy Blind Old Woman: ~483 words—Appearing to both Liu and Jane, this 90 year old woman seems to know more than she’s letting on, knowing things about the characters they don’t even know about themselves yet. There’s definitely something more to her…

Mary Vaughn: ~349 words—Tattooed and looking like she came straight out of an urban outfitters, Mary is a love interest of adult Jane and tries her best to make Jane feel at peace, despite never getting the full picture (In Talks)

Susan “Hannah” Perez: ~311 words—Starting out as a mysterious woman behind the bar counter, Susan soon becomes someone Liu cares deeply about despite never fully understanding her or her motives. (In talks)

Marie Hopkins: ~264 words—Mother figure to Jane after Jane’s mom passes. Marie is extremely patient and caring and gives off the vibe of your stereotypical, 50 year old grandma.

Lydia Hawkins/Waitress/911 operator: ~134 words—Lydia is the best friend of Jane, appearing very briefly in the overall narrative. Think of Heather McNamara from Heathers. The waitress is simply a monotoned teen who is fed up with Jane constantly zoning out. The 911 operator is just that.

Paula Holloway: ~127 words—Mother to Jane Holloway, Paula is a character whose ghost haunts the second part of the narrative. She teaches Jane the beauty and knowledge of stars before her death when Jane was young.

Casey Hopkins: ~106 words—Wife of Marie, Casey is also a mother figure to Jane, but is a lot more sharp tongued than Marie

I met her at a bookshop. Every October, BrookBend took over the old Grant Hardware store for this small event, mostly featuring Indiana authors like Kurt Vonnegut (who had just published Slaughterhouse-5), Rex Stout, and Jean Shephard. Strangely, none were from BrookBend itself. Perhaps it’s hard to find inspiration among the golden cornfields and overgrown weeds beside telephone wires. 
I went to this shop every year, not to buy books, but to indulge in what I can only call “book-voyeurism.” Flipping through offset cream pages, running my fingers across the coarse surface, inhaling the crisp scent of a fresh book, feeling the resistance of a creaseless spine—there was no better feeling.
However, on that particular October day, in 1969, I was there to make a purchase. The name of the novel escapes me now, but I remember buying it for my older sister, Kimberly, after we had gotten into a nasty fight. A fight that we never recovered from. Not like I knew that then. I thought that, maybe, if I could add to her ever-growing romance collection, I would be accepted back into her good graces. 
“I think I love you,” the worker muttered, eyes on the register.
“Uh…what?” I responded, startled.
“Oh! Sorry–no.” She moved her disheveled, raven hair from her face to reveal a pair of auburn eyes. “I was talking to myself.” She awkwardly laughed. “I was just reading the back of your book.”
But my eyes didn’t move down to the book blurb; instead, they stayed fixed on hers. There was something about the way the brown swirled around the iris, reflecting the dying bulb above us. Surrounding them was jet-black eyeliner, creased as soft as the book she was now holding. A beige shadow floated above them and, next to her left eye, sat a large, chocolate-colored birthmark, the shape of a lily pad. 
It was as if time froze when I saw them. Maybe it truly did, and God was giving me the gift of memorizing every detail. And that I did. Memorizing every divot, every crease, the red hue emerging as though she were straining them for too long. I memorized it all like I imagine a painter would his muse.
So, when I saw those eyes on the morning news, all those years later, my blood ran cold. It was January 8th, 1982. Her picture flashed on the motel’s CRT screen, moments before I entered the shower. Beneath her photo read: “Lara Viney, Missing, Presumed Dead.”
Weirdly enough, the photo they used wasn’t at all modern. No, that was taken during our senior year of high school and, I should know, I was the one who took it.
The Class of ‘70. Satan’s Class. At least, that’s what my mother called us. We were the product of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement; perfectly engineered to polyester rebellion. I didn’t fear the draft; that is, I didn’t fear it more than I did any other aspect of life. My death would come someday; why not die in the glory of protecting one’s country?
“THERE’S NO GLORY IN DEATH!” Lara yelled into the megaphone. Her booth sat about a centimeter off school grounds and bore a big “Save our Country!” sign on both ends. Students slowed as they passed, some snickering, others eyeing Lara with a mixture of annoyance and awe. The principal stood by the flagpole, arms crossed, pretending not to watch. 
I lingered at the edge of the grass, clutching my history book, willing my feet to move closer.
Lara spotted me and waved me over, her face flushed from the early autumn heat. My feet quickened, open-toe shoes catching pebbles.
“Jackson, right?” She asked in a way that only someone who knew the answer would. “How would you like to change the world?” She handed me a petition with no signatures other than her own.
“What’s this for?” I questioned, unable to read the faded text at the top of the page.
“A petition demanding that Congress end all military operations in Cambodia.” She looked down at the paper I was now holding. “Sorry for the description; my pen was low on ink.”
“I’d hardly call this changing the world. I mean, does the government even look at this stuff?” 
Her smile faltered slightly. “Well, aren’t you the optimist?”
“I’m just being realistic…” I handed the petition back to her. Her glistening eyes sharpened into daggers as she snatched it from my grip.
“Was Gandhi being realistic when he started the Salt March?”
“What?”
“Was Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis being realistic when he claimed invisible particles caused diseases?”
“Who-”
“Was Susan B. Anthony? Was J.F.K. when he said we’d go to the moon?”
“I guess no-”
“Being realistic is a poison for progress. Who knows? Maybe this petition will inspire one, just one, Senator to march down to Congress and demand change. Maybe that’s just the first step in a long line of dominoes that leads to world peace. And if everyone were just realistic like you, none of that would’ve ever happened. What if?” She slammed the papers back into my chest. “So, just sign the damn petition. It won’t kill you, but it might save someone’s life.”
Her breath began to slow, but her passion stayed burning behind those eyes. I wish I were as passionate about anything as much as she was about everything. I grabbed a pen from my bag and wrote my name large across the page. I let myself feel hope for a day, and every day after that I spent with her, handing out flyers, collecting signatures. By the end of the week, we had three: mine, hers, and our science teacher, who felt bad for us constantly losing flyers to the autumn winds.
After the Sun set that Friday, I expected to see tears or at least a frustrated exhale. Instead, she turned to me, evening out the stack of flyers against her thigh, and said, “Have you ever been to the straw mill?”
“No. I don’t make it a habit to hang around factories. My dad works there, though.”
“Yeah, mine did too.” The air between us stayed silent for a few minutes, only filled by the croaking of frogs that were just out of sight. Once we finished taking down the signs, she continued, “It is really pretty, though, if you ever go up there.”
“The mill?”
“No, like the scenery around it, up high on the hill. My dad used to take me there before he passed.”
My heart dropped. “Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Surprised you didn’t already know. It seems like everyone knows everything about everybody around here.”
“If you couldn’t already tell, I’m not really in with most of the gossip channels.”
“Really?! You were such a Chatty Kathy all week!”
“W-Was I talking too much?” I stammered. “Sorry, I just get going sometimes and it’s hard to stop.”
“I was being sarcastic. I think this is our first real conversation. You kinda just latched onto me like a leech.”
“Sorry I-”
“Are you sorry about everything?” She chuckled to herself. “It’s okay, I was just messing with you. I kinda liked having a silent buddy.”
“Why in the past tense?”
“Figured you didn’t want to stay around after such a bust of a week.”
“Would Gandhi have discovered world peace if he stopped after a week?”
“Gandhi didn’t discover world peace, but I appreciate your newfound spirit.” A smile curved up her left cheek, her eye squeezing the lily-pad birthmark. A silence fell between us again. I folded the small table and prepared to carry it to her car’s trunk.
I broke the silence as we walked. “So what were you saying about the mill again?”
“Oh, yeah. My father used to take me there some nights to look at the stars. Wasn’t really as into them as he was, but I loved the moon.” She responded, her face never leaving the direction of her car. 
“What was so nice about it? Isn’t it just a rock?”
“You continue to be the most boring person I’ve ever met.”
“I think it’s a talent.”
“Have you ever seen a lunar eclipse?”
“Nope. Sleep right through them.”
“Well, if you ever do, you might realize how pretty the moon is.  Lara paused, looking up at the night sky. Her voice softened. “For just one small moment, that little rock gets to be all of the sunrises and all of the sunsets of the world, all at once.”
Each knock on her door weighed on me. But nothing felt heavier than my overall return to BrookBend. It was exactly as I remembered it. Roofs coated in a thick, white blanket, kids running  around in puffy, red jackets, crunching snow between their hands, and the pond in the center of the town iced over, allowing couples to skate across, spilling their hot cocoa that had now turned into worse chocolate milk. Above it all stood the mill, motor tracks revealing the dead grass leading up the hill.
It was a few minutes before anyone answered, as the cold began to freeze the snot leaving my nostrils. The door creaked halfway, and a soft, aged voice came out.
“Hello?” the woman asked.
“Hey, I’m Jackson Talbot. You might not remember me, but I was–”
“Jackson?!” Interrupting people mid-sentence must’ve run in the family. She fully opened the door. “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you!”
“I don’t blame you. It’s been a few years, and well.” I ran my fingers over my thick black beard, badly in need of a trim. “I do look a little different.”
She stepped aside. “Please, come in! It’s freezing out there!” The smell of nicotine and litter box filled my lungs as soon as I entered, leaving my snow-filled boots at the door. She fought against the wind to close the door before continuing. “What’ve you been up to? Writing, I hope.”
“You hope right!” That wasn’t a real phrase. “I screenwrite. So, like for movies and TV shows and stuff.” The wallpaper peeled away in long, yellowed strips, exposing veins of cracked plaster beneath. Old photographs in the living room hung crookedly, their subjects faded and blurred, as if the faces were trying to disappear.
“Oh, anything I might know?” She led me over to the kitchen, pulling a chair from the island for me to sit on. I gave her a nod before clearing my throat to continue.
“Probably not. It hasn’t been… well, successful at all.” Dirty dishes overflowed the sink as a spider crawled across a blackened apple under the windowsill.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” She started pouring water into the kettle. 
“Oh, don’t be. You’re always unsuccessful until you are.”
“You sound like Lara.” She let out a light exhale. “She always has a way of rubbing off on people.”
“That’s actually part of the reason why I’m back. I saw her on the news this morning and–”
She set two mugs on the counter with enough force to crack them. “Oh, that old story?! Don’t you worry about that.” A grin crawled its way across her face. “She’s right upstairs!”
The school’s basement corridor smelled permanently of damp gym socks and the industrial floor wax used to mask them. Lara leaned her head back against the locker row, her feathered hair catching the dim orange glow of the exit sign. She unzipped her canvas tote, digging past a crinkled brown paper bag and a dog-eared copy of Judy Blume's Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I stayed behind her, facing the circle of teens I would come to know as friends. 
There was Jim, a James Dean type (or at least he tried to be with his red windbreaker jacket and nauseating hair gel), Lacey, whose acne made it extremely hard to buy beers, and Pamela, the only girl other than Lara, and the one who hated my quiet ass the most. They all sat in half a circle on the linoleum floor.
“Who’s he?” Pamela pointed her painted nail at me.
Lara responded, “This is Jackson. Jackson meet Pamela, Jim, and Lacey.”
Lacey gave me a small wave before putting it down under Pamela’s glare.
Lara glared back at Pamela, “Stop it, Pamela.”
“Stop what?”
“You know what.”
“Forgive me for not trusting a guy I don’t know.”
“All you need to know is…” She pulled out a paper bag. “He scored us these.” She opened it up to reveal 10 thinly rolled joints. I definitely didn’t score those, but I was willing to go along with whatever made the group like me.
This was the first time in my life that I had friends and the first, but definitely not last, time I got high out of my mind. We were 4 months from graduating and, for those months, we walked around the school like we were invincible. But, ‘fake it till you make it’ will only get you so far, as we would come to learn.
The floorboards groaned with every step upstairs, echoing like distant sighs through the house. Dust motes floated through the air, swirling in drafts from unseen cracks. Once I reached the top, I saw her room, the door cracked with a faint light coming through. The hallway was dim, the only light a jaundiced glow leaking from a single bare bulb.
The first time I came to her house was to make signs for a protest that was happening just outside BrookBend.
“Why don’t we ever have protests here? I’m tired of having to sit in the back of Jim’s nasty van.” I asked, trying to force the last bit of black out of the marker.
“What would we protest?” Lara smiled. “Boredom?” 
“I don’t know…what about conservation stuff? We have a huge forest. I’m sure there’s something there.” I moved my leg, realizing the imprint her room’s carpeted floor had left. 
“Yeah, one that’s never touched. The Haymitches own all of that land and they’re very serious about never cutting anything down.”
“How do they own all of it? It literally circles the town?”
“Yes. And they own the town.” She finished the “s” on her “DIE FASCISTS" sign.
I was still staring at a blank canvas, deciding what to write. “Not literally though. You can’t just own all of the land.”
“What country do you think we live in?”
“Fair point.”
“Besides, if you’re so curious, just go to the library. I’m not a human encyclopedia. Though, I’m flattered you think I am.” She smirked. “Wanna see something groovy?” I always hated that word. 
“Sure.” I responded, realizing I wasn’t going anywhere on my sign.
The doorknob to her room felt cold against my sweaty hand. Her door creaked with each inch of my slow push and the room looked…normal. Well, maybe normal wasn’t the best word, but, rather, frozen. It looked nearly the same as how it did all those years ago. The gray bed covers were tucked in, her posters of Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones laid slightly crooked against her wall, her fingerprints still visible along the black of the posters.
The only thing new was a mirror that sat across from her door, riddled with various Polaroids of people I didn’t recognize. I heard dishes clatter downstairs as her mom hummed a tune of a nursery rhyme I couldn’t quite name. 
Duh
Duh Duh
Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh
Duh 
Duh Duh 
Duh Duh Duh
Duh 
Duh Duh
Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh
Duh
Duh
Duh Duh
Lara led me to a small door next to her bed. 
“This used to be just a gaping hole.” She said, opening up the tiny entrance to reveal a nook filled with multi-colored fairy lights, books, and blankets. She continued, “I don’t come in here as much anymore, but, when I was younger, my parents would argue and this was my place to get away.”
It always surprised me how open she was. Never hiding a thing, no matter how personal it may be.
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked, following her inside the crammed space.
“Because…I just want you to know that…if you ever need to get away, this is here for you.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” I backed away from her as much as I could in that space, which wasn’t much.
“I’m not gonna force you to tell me anything, but, I mean, every time I see you, you’re…” She gestured to my arm that held a bruise.
I jerked it away and avoided her gaze. “I just fall down a lot, okay?”
She backed off. “Okay.” She got cozy on one side, allowing me space on the other. “You know there’s a partial lunar eclipse next week. Wondering if you’d want to come with me and everyone else to watch it. I know it’s not your thing but…”
I leaned in to kiss her, but my lips collided with her hand instead. 
“What are you doing?” She asked, her auburn eyes wide.
I immediately pressed my back against the wall. “Oh—I’m so sorry. I just thought we were…um. And I really like you.”
“No, you don’t.” She said plainly. 
“What?”
“Like me? You don’t. You might think you’re supposed to but—“
“Supposed to? Who are you to say what I like and don’t like?!”
“Fine. Kiss me then.” She lowered her hand.
“What?”
“Kiss me. Then you’ll see that you don’t like it.”
I was caught off-guard, but took her up on this invitation. I leaned in slowly as my lips collided with hers.
She was right.
I didn’t like it.
A faint, persistent scratching came from inside the walls, as if something was trying to claw its way out…or in. I bent down and realized it was coming from the nook’s door. I pulled the knob, but it wouldn’t budge, so I took the pocket knife out of my pocket, cut around the frame. But as I twisted the knob the scratching stopped.
I pulled on it, and the door opened.

There was this song I loved a few years ago and I only recently remembered it. It is now removed off Spotify so all my playlists are useless. It was called “Sleepless” and the cover featured a drawing of a woman lying down in different positions. I remember it being a male vocalist and a guitar being prominent. The lyrics were something like “I don’t care, bout my dreams, bout my sleep.” It was indie rock, I believe

For a year I have worked on the first novel in a series called “The BrookBend Files.” This series takes concepts of modern internet horror/folk lore like Slenderman, the rake, and Jeff the killer and boils them down to the core elements that first made them scary. The first novel is done, I just need an agent. And it would truly help me if you could follow these pages to show public interest!!! The instagram, facebook, and TikTok are all titled “the_brookbend_files.” Your support would mean the world!