- NOSTU, Part I: Third Time’s the Charm
By Draven Copeland, Managing Editor
Introduction
While Endling was a story that focused on the beauty that surrounds us even in our personal suffering, Nostu is deeply grounded in the darkness that overwhelms us in grief. Where there were beautiful sunsets over the destruction of New York City in my previous creative story, there are now only the evils lurking in the pitch-black nights of the fictional backroads town of Insmith, Oregon.
In line with my intentions of the story both thematically and tonally, I wanted to write this piece from the perspective of the modern young adult, for whom interpersonal life is so heavily tied to phone screens and followings from people they don’t even know. Sex has become something we watch on our phones or recreate through hastily written texts and reused photos. Death has become something that circulates in video form, flooding chat rooms and social media day in and day out. The only part of the human experience that has not been overridden with glowing pixels and parasocial love is birth.
This story is fueled by my own anger and discontent with the world around us. It is the most transgressive piece I’ve written; I don’t wish to make this extremely dark style of writing my mainstay, but I did very much enjoy it. Taking inspiration from my two favorite short horror stories, H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and Clive Barker’s “The Midnight Meat Train,” as well as films such as Ridley Scott’s Alien, Scott Derrickson’s Sinister, Michael Haneke’s Funny Games and Jean Rollin’s Fascination, I’ve crafted a world in which followers are not only online. They lurk in the darkness, watching and waiting. In this world, death won’t be the end of your video fame; it will only be the beginning.
Going full-on horror is something I generally stay away from unless there is an idea I feel very passionately for that can use the genre as a vehicle for something I want to say; this is how I’ve written all of my creative work and, while horror is my favorite genre by far, I avoid it because I feel like it has become largely oversaturated as a genre. With Nostu, I’ve compiled ideas from both classic horror writing and modern horror filmography to create something that I hope will be fresh for the reader, whether they’re a horror connoisseur like myself or just a friendly consumer of Imaginary Gardens.
Dedicated to my friends, both here and gone. Thank you.
**CONTENT WARNING: This text contains sexual references, graphic crime scene descriptions, strong language, and misogynistic behavior**
“‘Sorry that happened.’ That’s what they say,” the woman’s voice spoke through the iPhone’s speaker, her words flashing onto the screen’s black background. “It’s never an apology to you or a check-in to how you’re feeling. Not a ‘what can I do to help?’ or even a ‘how are you holding up?’ y’know, like a hand out in assistance… whether they actually do something with it or not.”
The screen flashed pictures of Marie Mariani with her late sister Angela as she paused, her breath letting out in bursts between sobs.
“‘Sorry to hear about that,’” she laughed without joy. “That’s the one I ****-ing hate.”
Jackie Frashland chuckled to himself as he watched his phone screen. The bleeps they add in during post-production always provoked him to laughter.
“Like it was a shame they had to hear it,” Marie’s voice continued. “Like ‘damn, now my day’s ruined too’, but they don’t wanna say it, y’know? But that’s just the way it is, I guess. Nobody knows what it’s like… what it’s really like… until it happens to them. This just doesn’t happen to very many others, does it? Who else saw their sister’s corpse online before they even knew she’d died?”
Her voice recording ended as the video on the screen transitioned to display Jackie the way he’s known to the digital world; the watermark in the bottom left corner of the screen displayed his channel name, “WTFJackie.” Lit brightly by an offscreen ring light, he sat at his desk, his somewhat unkempt bedroom (strategically staged as ‘unclean but not dirty’) appearing in the intentionally blurred background.
“Well guys, there you have it,” present-day Jackie watched himself say in the video, idly staring at the screen as he lay in his hotel bed. “That’s the end of my interview with Marie Mariani, sister of Angela Mariani, the pregnant woman found dead on the sidewalk somewhere in Insmith, Oregon. According to the Insmith Sheriff’s office, the case was left unsolved and has been untouched for over a year.
“Surprisingly, there was no coverage of the case when it happened; Marie wasn’t even aware her sister was dead until I did some digging and reached out to her. The last time they’d spoken was years prior, but Marie maintains that she always wished they had a better relationship. As you’re about to see, that is no longer in the cards for her.”
Jackie scrolled through the comments as he half-listened to his own voice, hearting the ones that made him chuckle. “tf they got goin on in oregon??” said MasterBaiter27, earning themselves a like. “white women after their first period 😭🤷” said OR1ONSB3LT, to which Jackie laughed out loud, liked the comment, and responded, “lol.”
“I’m heading to Insmith tomorrow morning to speak with the case’s lead investigator,” WTFJackie continued on the screen. “After Robyn Patterson’s corpse was found last Wednesday in the same part of town with nearly identical lacerations to Mariani’s. Trigger warning for the weak ones out there, I’m about to show the crime scene photos for you all.”
A message from “Mom” appeared at the top of the screen, fully covering the video. Jackie muttered profanities as he hovered his thumb over the message, tapping it only when it began to slide back up, catching it just before it flew off the screen. The video stopped as the phone switched apps, his voice cutting off and leaving him in silence in the dark hotel room.
A picture of a pregnancy test appeared in the text thread, a bright red “+” in the middle of the thin white stick, held in a smooth brown hand. Three dots gyrated at the bottom of the screen as “Mom” typed on the other end. In reality, Jackie hadn’t spoken to his mother in more than five years, ever since the “fat cunt” incident at Thanksgiving dinner years ago… she had reached out to him in the months afterwards, but he had blocked her number. The person he was now anxiously awaiting a response from he had called “Mommy” before, but only in her bed and when his girlfriend wasn’t listening.
“i told you this would happen jackie,” appeared in gray on her end of the thread.
His thumbs furiously crafted a response. “what do u want from me?”
The three dots appeared again. A group of muffled footsteps on the carpet floor outside the hotel room passed by as he waited and he glanced up at the time: 2:25a.m. Must’ve missed out on a party tonight, he thought. Not that a party in the backroads forest community of Insmith was greatly appealing to him.
“i dont have the money to pay for ts mf youre the one cumming in me THREE FUJKINF TIMRS,” she replied. Before Jackie had a chance to type his own response, she followed up with, “condoms arent too expensive now huh?”
“what r u doing w it?” Jackie replied.
“im getting rid of it.” Jackie let out a sigh of relief. “and im sending your bitchass the bill.”
“Fucking bitch,” Jackie said out loud, already deleting the conversation from his history one message at a time. The heater in the darkest corner of the room made a wet clicking sound as his unoccupied hand moved idly in his pants and he cozied up under the musty sheets. When the messages were completely cleared, he swiped back to continue watching himself.
Black and white images of the nude corpses of both pregnant women appeared on the screen, their chests and genitals barely pixelated; an ad popped up in the bottom right corner promoting the uncensored versions, available on a separate paid subscription platform. The blood pooling out of their bodies had soaked into the streets on which they were found, and the cuts running down their thighs were starkly clear as the dark black blood clashed against their pale white skin.
“Both Robyn and Angela were found with deep lacerations in and surrounding their genital area and leading outward down to their knees,” WTFJackie continued. “Blood loss is listed as the cause of death, but there was no sign of a struggle on the part of either of the victims other than burns on their wrists and ankles, meaning that they were likely tied to something during or before the time the cuts were made. They were also both visibly pregnant at the time, although neither crime scene had any evidence leading to the discovery of their fetuses.
“Not only do the lacerations appear in sets of four, spaced evenly apart – suggesting that they were made by some sort of small, clawed animal – they appear to have been made whilst trying to get into… or out of… the victims. Did someone… or something… take these women’s children? Or did whatever they gave birth to herald their mother’s deaths?”
Jackie smiled to himself as the video ended with an over-the-top horror-movie slashing sound, the words “TO BE CONTINUED” appearing on the screen in dripping, blood-red letters. Satisfied, he ripped a blinker from his dab pen, damn near coughed up a lung, and went right to sleep.
