Author's note: This story is kind of a mixture of Needful Things and The Body, as well as Stand By Me, so if some details aren't perfect I apologise. I wanted to write something novel-esque that was still erotic; so if you're into that don't worry about the long descriptive sections I will label the smut clearly ;)
New York, 1991.
This isn't easy for me to talk about. There are a lot of thoughts racing through my head these past few weeks, and honestly I haven't been sleeping. Writing things down has helped me through the darker parts of my life before, and it's the only remedy I can think of now too. A voice inside me is whispering 'Write the story. Then you'll fall asleep'.
So here goes.
I grew up in a small town in Oregon named Castle Rock. It was your typical, run-of-the-mill boring slice of Americana. The only tragedy I can remember from my youth was the case of a young boy from a neighbouring town who went missing for several days, and was later discovered dead by the train tracks. But apart from that I remember my home town in an oddly dream-like fashion; a simple and innocent place, that sometimes makes me sad and I'm not really sure why. I left Castle Rock when I had just turned 18 in 1963 to move to Portland, and then later New York; returning only sporadically to visit family or attend the wedding of an old friend. After my parents died, the last reason to return died too, and I hadn't been back since 1984.
Three weeks ago news reports broke of a mass hysteria breaking out in Castle Rock for an unknown reason, resulting in a spate of murders and suicides and the desolation of an entire community. The extent of it was almost beyond belief. I had sat in utter shock and disbelief in front of news reports and extensive articles dissecting every single detail of this unspeakable horror. My sleepy home town had become a freak show to the entire world, full of bloody and intrigue, and all the while I sat there remembering it's convenience stores, it's baseball games, the summer fair, the lake where we went swimming, the church I went to every Sunday, and the people who grew up alongside me and who formed me into the woman I eventually became.
One of several names mentioned in various reports was that of John 'Ace' Merrill; a middle-aged ex-con, petty criminal and drug addict who had seemed to have played some part in the destruction of Castle Rock and who had been killed by a bullet to the head in a stand-off with law enforcement.
I had not seen Ace in almost a decade, but when I had first heard his name mentioned I cried like a baby.
Castle Rock, 1963.
I'm not exactly sure when or how it happened, but one day a very long time ago something put me
on Ace Merrill's map. Maybe he had become bored of every other girl in our small town and was running low on options. Maybe I had somehow become more attractive mysteriously over time? (I did grow a cup size over summer break that year after all).
I had known Ace, or rather John, pretty much my entire life to some extent. Castle Rock was not a big town, and there were only a couple of schools for us kids to go to, so everyone basically grew up in daily proximity of one another. We had never been friends, nor had I ever secretly admired him from afar. He was just a guy from school and little else. Once we had been partnered up for a science project in 7th grade, and we received the very generous grade of a D for our sub par efforts. I could blame it on Ace's disregard for academic life, but honestly, science was never my strong point either. Apart from that our lives rarely intertwined. In high school we rarely had the same classes, and he stopped attending school fairly soon after starting. Outside of school he was occasionally in the background of the parties and social gatherings that I went to, but that was it. He had a reputation, along with his gang The Cobras, of being a hoodlum; boosting cars, damaging property, starting fights, drag racing and so forth, and so he wasn't at the top of the list of guys I wanted to get to know. Those types of guys are fun from a distance, but I had never been enough of a thrill seeker to try and date one.
No, the guys I had dated by the time I was seventeen (all two of them) were fairly nice, straight forward boys. There was Frankie Kelliher- the class clown -most famous for his comebacks, and that one time he fell off the bleachers during a pep rally, and John Helden, whose dad ran the local bowling alley and who had never quite left the boy scouts. Quite the spectrum, I know. To be honest, they would probably have said something similar about me. Donna: the girl whose mom once yelled at the principle during a charity bake sale. Or maybe Donna: the girl who kind of looked like Melissa Guthrie from Greyson High but with brown hair. But hopefully not Donna: that girl who got bitten by a raccoon on the class hike in middle school.
You see, I'm wasn't the hot cheerleader, or the nice girl on the homecoming committee, or the cool girl who smoked behind the cafeteria, or the smart valedictorian. I was… ok, I guess. I was fine. Outstandingly mediocre. My grades were good enough, but sometimes I got drunk at parties, and I did give John Helden my virginity after the spring fling because I thought I might be in love with him for some reason. That was the kind of girl I was. Which is why it makes no sense why Ace Merrill suddenly decided I was the next girl on his list. Unless of course he had a literal to-do list of the girls in Castle Rock in which Donna Parson was alphabetically between Heather Palmer and Georgette Perry.
I'm probably losing you in my rambling. Sorry. I will start my story now.
