Warning: Rather morbid and scary things described inside; if you have problems with these things don't read!
Penny sighed as she placed another letter into the pile. No one liked her manuscript. The madrid of excuses to why were almost as numerous as the number of rejections she'd received. Too short, too detailed, too graphic, too gruesome, not marketable, we only publish children's books, blah blah blah. Despite her confidence that her story "Gone" was a brilliant piece of fiction, the constant passes from one publishing house to the next was starting to chip away at her.
Laying back on her bed, she looked over her laptop to the framed pictures of several authors that were tastefully arranged on the wall. Each picture was mounted, matted, and to the right was a small object, carefully affixed to the matting, the distal bone of one finger of the author's writing hand. Penny considered the fingertip, that part of the body that was always closest to the quill, pen, or typewriter, as the second most sacred part of an author, the first being their brains. But, brains were more conspicuous and much harder to come by then a bit of bone since the brain had rotted away long before anyone thought they'd have any sort of value. She'd gotten the idea after reading about Mary Shelley, who kept silk parcel containing some of her beloved Percy Bysshe Shelley ashes and the remains of his heart. She too wanted to keep small parts of these prolific and admired people close to her in some small way. She had what she considered most of the greats; Lovecraft, Shelly herself, Stoker, Christie, Doyle and the crown jewel of her collection, Poe. It was best not to ask how she acquired these relics, and if anyone asked she insisted they were just pieces of plastic that were made up to sell the whole picture.
"Oh Poe, what should I do?" she asked, looking forlornly at the author's grim visage. Ruminating over her favorite author's career, she recalled that he'd publish to many smaller things like newspapers and periodicals. But they really didn't have anything like that anymore, but...
Penny sat up and flitted over to her laptop. While there weren't many magazines that ran short stories and poems like in Poe's time, there was the internet.
After some time, she finally found a site that featured new scary stories everyday from submissions. It might not be the most glamourous or popular site in the whole world, but from skimming past submissions, she felt that people who read her story would appreciate it. Putting a copy of her manuscript to the side, her tiny hooves began to tap out a small summary.
Gone: By Penny Dreadful. - Lorna Moore, a girl of 17 is murdered by happenstance after she comes across a person of bad intent. Shocked by her sudden demise, the spirit of the girl is trapped inside her own corpse and is slowly driven mad at she has to lay in the place where she is hidden and witness herself slowly decompose.
Satisfied, the filly began to copy her story. Even as the spirit of Lorna is slowly deteriorating into insanity, her family and the police are desperately looking for her. But, as time goes on and her case goes cold, her family slowly start to reconcile that Lorna may never come home and attempt to painfully move on in their lives. As years pass and those with lives move forward, Lorna continues to be driven further and further into madness, unable to move on.
A couple decades later, the police are on the trail of the person who took Lorna's life. But the person who killed her is not keen to be caught, especially after all those years. For a brief moment, Lorna believes she's been found, but it's just the killer, who moves the remains of the body from it's first hiding place, to a new one; a steel barrel. The barrel is stashed away at a different location, and the murderer disappears once again. All she has now is the deeper, silent darkness.
A few years later, the criminal is killed in a freak accident. No one will ever know they were the person who ended Lorna and countless other people. The members of Lorna's family move on, telling their children and grandchildren about their lost family member, carrying on her memory even as what is left of their loved one screams for help, justice, and vengeance, trapped in her mortal, rotting shell.
In a city not far from the one where Lorna grew up, a factory is being demolished and the waste contents, deemed safe by the government to bury in their air tight steel barrels, are being dropped into a landfill. Buried together with the byproducts of machinery, buried under tons of trash, covered now by a field of grass and flowers, decades removed from her time, her family, and her life, Lorna is still there.
With a deep exhale, Penny proof read herself, even though she'd read her own writing a thousand times. Not all stories have a happy ending, she thought to herself as her eyes skimmed the last few sentences. It'd been another point in someone's rejection letter. They'd offer to publish it if she changed the ending, but she refused. With all her t's crossed and i's dotted, she submitted the story for review by the admins.
A week later, a email from the website's admins informed her that her story had been published to the front page of the website and invited her to come and read what people were saying in the comments. Nerves knotting her stomach, she navigated to the comment section, braced herself and began to read.
"I never knew that was something I could be afraid of, but now I am."
"To never be found, to be lost forever, I can't bare the idea!"
"I'm horrified and addicted! Please write more!"
Penny's face glowed. The online comments were full of such fear and praise! So many people were touched in some way by Lorna's story. Even as she tried to read all the comments, more poured in. Everytime she finished one page, at least two new pages had sprung up.
ding
The tab that held her email account blinked, signaling someone had sent her a new message. Clicking over to the tab, she opened unread link.
Alone in the Dark Publishing? Penny had never heard of them.
Scanning through the email, her heart raced. AITD Publishing was a very small, relatively new operation that wanted to specialize in the mystery and horror genres. They had read Penny's story in the online magazine and were interested in publishing it and any other short stories she might have laying around in a small collection.
"We cannot promise you the biggest paycheck or millions of copies to be sold, but if you can scare us like you did in "Gone", we think one day, you could stand above the likes of Poe, King, and Barker."
Penny's hooves shook. Was this real? Someone was actually reaching out to her to publish her stories?
A no name publisher however! her calculating side told her. Even if they do print your books, someone with no clout in the industry may barely sell any copies. What good would it do then? Even if only talking to herself, Penny always had a good point.
Still....if this place was willing to take a chance on her, also a no name writer who no one had ever heard of, then maybe this was the best chance either of them had to make a name for themselves. Hooves still shaking, Penny tapped out a short reply.
"I am interested in signing with you. Please contact me with the particulars of the deal."
send
She didn't realize it yet, but the moment her tiny hoof pressed the right mouse button, her cutie mark appeared.
