A/N: I know it doesn't specifically state if Charles was left or right-handed in the books or the TV show, but Michael Landon was left-handed, so that meant any characters he played would also be left-handed (unless he was forced to use his right hand). For this fanfic, I'm just going to make Charles left-handed.
I also don't have anything against lefties. I'm not scared of them, I don't think they're stupid, I don't think they complain too much, none of that. FYI I'm left-handed too. I figured that since Little House on the Prairie takes place in a time where lefties weren't treated as well as they are today and since no one in the show seems to notice Charles is a lefty, I thought I'd make a horror story out of it for Halloween. That's all :)
(Also, Walnut Grove is not actually cursed, don't worry)
"Laura Ingalls! You little devil!" Nellie screamed as she slapped the paper spider that Laura had snuck onto the back of her neck. She jumped up and chased her rival around the room, screaming the whole time.
Charles held back the laugh, but couldn't help the smile that crept onto his face. The two girls: one with braids, the "country girl", and one with a bunch of curly locks, the "better girl". Always fighting and arguing for no good reason or over a small thing.
"Oh, you two, quit runnin' around!" Nels shouted, grabbing the screaming girls and holding them in place. "Enough is enough. Now, why don't you work on some more decorations for the party tomorrow and - " he glanced at Laura with a grin on his face, "not put fake spiders on each other?"
Nellie scowled. "But - "
"No buts. Now settle down."
Charles stepped over and tugged Laura away. "I'll be sure to keep this feisty little one calm," he whispered to Nels. Then they both laughed.
Nels rolled his eyes. "Well, well," he laughed, "good luck with that."
As Charles dragged his daughter away from Nellie, Carrie bounded over.
"Pa!" Carrie said, holding a cut-out pumpkin in her hands with a spooky face drawn on it. "Look what I made!"
Charles knelt down to meet his youngest daughter's height. "That's real scary, sweetie!"
"Should I make more of 'em?"
Charles shrugged, smiling. "Why not?"
"Try putting a spider in the corner!" Laura added.
Carrie beamed. "Okay!" She dashed back to the table she was working at and immediately began cutting out more pumpkins and scribbling faces on them.
As Charles stood back up, Caroline stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey, what's that for?" he asked jokingly. "Has something gone wrong again? Have you been - "
"Charles, why...why would any of that happen? During such a joyful time of the year like this?" replied a smiling Caroline. "I just want to ask you about what sort of Halloween treats I should make for tomorrow. Any ideas?"
Charles thought for a moment. Well, there's candy-related stuff. And pumpkin-related stuff, too. But what else? Come on, Charles, you can think of something.
"Let's see...there's cake and cupcakes and cookies and candy and - "
"Pa, you know Ma means something besides that," Laura said, elbowing her father.
"Yeah, alright, alright!" Charles laughed. "How about bat wings or eyeball stew or - "
"Eeewww," Caroline and Laura said in unison.
"Eye don't know how that would taste, Charles," the Reverend said, walking over with a huge smile plastered on his face.
Charles spun around to face Robert. "Of corpse you don't know," he shot back. "Bat have you ever eaten bats?"
Everyone laughed just as Hiram squeezed himself into the tiny crowd.
"I would make a skeleton joke," he said, "but I don't think you'd find it that humerus."
Everyone laughed again.
"Hey, here's a spooky fact," Hiram said. "Did you guys know that left-handed people were once thought to be demons?"
Demons?
The room was quiet for a moment.
"...why? Don't they just do things differently?" Laura said quietly. "Aren't they just like the rest of us but part of the minority?"
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Hiram replied. "I mean, they don't think that anymore, but many people still force left-handers into using their right hand, and some people are freaked out by lefties because the fact that they can do things in such a peculiar way and can't do things the "right" way just seems creepy to them."
Well, alright, Charles thought. I won't say it to upset you. But I'll tell you sooner or later, okay?
"That's scary," Caroline said. "When I really think of it, I don't think I want to meet a left-handed person. But they're just different, just like how the Indians are different from us." She huddled closer to Charles.
"Left-handers aren't really demons, you know," Charles said before he could stop himself.
"Lefties are also a part of God's creations," Robert Alden replied. "And they won't hurt you. I'm sure we've walked past - or even talked to - a left-handed person before and have never known. And I'm not exactly sure what a demon is supposed to be."
"You're talking to one right now," Charles almost said, but stopped himself in time. You dare say that, Charles, and God is going to hate you.
Nels popped his head over. "I'll be honest here - the first time I saw someone writing with their left hand, I freaked out," he said, shaking his head. "I mean, it just seems all backward that way. It's like being able to bend your arm backward. Creepy, isn't it? My mother used to tell me that left-handed people would kill you."
You're looking at one of those people on the left side right now.
Laura shrugged. "Well, enough talk about lefties and righties," she said as she started back to her table. "Also, there are people who are both left and right-handed."
"The word is ambidextrous, Laura," Mary reminded her sister.
"Yeah, am...ambi...whatever that word is."
Charles sat down and sighed.
Everyone seems to be afraid of lefties.
He couldn't bring himself to tell anyone that he was left-handed.
"Charles?"
He didn't respond.
"Charles, are you okay?"
"Huh?" He snapped back into reality. "Yes, I'm fine. I was just thinking."
"About what?"
Charles paused. Should I say it? "Well, Caroline, have you...have you ever met a left-handed person before?"
Caroline shrugged. "I bet I have. For all I know, anyone could be left-handed and they just do a great job of covering it up, or we're simply too oblivious to notice. But you said they aren't really demons or anything bad. The only reason why they're probably grumpy is that things are difficult for them, right?"
You're right: everything's difficult because being left-handed completely screws you for life. Why can't the world be left-handed for once and let the right-handers suffer? "I guess so. Goodnight, sweetheart."
"Goodnight."
He woke up with a strange feeling someone was calling him.
Charles sat up, glanced around, and listened intently, but the only sound in the house was the quiet snoring of his wife and his children.
It's nothing, he thought. You likely just had a nightmare. Now go back to sleep before you wake up your family.
However, five minutes later he thought he heard it again. He couldn't make out what was being said, yet he understood. He couldn't tell where it was coming from, yet he knew it wasn't from inside the house.
Charles shut his eyes, pulled the covers over his head and tried to shut out the strange voice. Just go away. If you want something, just ask. I'm not going to listen to you. His greatest fear at the moment was Caroline or his daughters waking up and hearing the same thing he was hearing - how afraid they would be.
Then something began telling him that someone unwelcome was inside the sod house.
Charles immediately sat up. He tried to tell himself that he was simply tricking himself again and was just overprotective of his family. He repeatedly told himself no, nothing was out there, nothing was going to hurt anyone, no, no, no.
"Stop it," he snapped as quietly and as firmly as he could. "Stop it."
He tried not to think about it, because the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that something wasn't right, and the more convinced he became, the closer he was to involuntarily jumping up and running into the sod house to see what was probably nothing.
But the more he tried to not think about it, the more he did think about it.
Charles squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth. He pulled at his curly brown hair. He gripped his arms. He repeatedly shouted internally for the voice and the urge to stop, but nothing worked.
The next few moments were a flash: his bare feet were hitting wood, then dirt, then grass, then stone, then dirt again, and he was inside the sod house.
Everything was the same as it had been the last time he'd gone inside here.
"Told you," Charles muttered to himself. "Told you nothin' was wrong. Now get back inside and under the covers before your little right-handed freakish wife realizes you're - "
He stopped. Had he really just called Caroline a "little right-handed freakish wife" and had not known it?
Something definitely was wrong. The more he thought about how much he loved everyone, the more he hated them. The more he thought about how much he trusted and believed in God, the more convinced he became that God wasn't real and was just a silly thing created by someone to "give everyone strength". The more he thought about how the world couldn't be changed from right-handed to left-handed, the more he wanted to change it himself.
And the more he thought about not revealing his left-handedness to anyone, the weaker his right hand felt and the stronger his left hand felt. He felt as if his right hand could barely pick up a feather, and he felt as if his left hand could split the entire United States in half if he slammed it once on the ground.
Then Charles heard it: the voice, clearer this time…
If you're a righty, you better watch out. Because I'm a lefty. And I'm coming for you. Tonight.
He wasn't right-handed.
"Sorry," Charles whispered. "Better go to my family and the rest of the world instead. I'm left-handed."
What? You're left-handed? Help me. Please.
"No," Charles muttered. "No. I can't see you. Don't talk to me like that, please."
Then, something grabbed him and caused him to fall to his knees. An uncomfortable and new feeling overtook him and he glanced down in horror.
He was bleeding heavily all over - in all the places where an injury had been inflicted before, even if it wasn't bleeding then. And he felt no pain.
"What the - ?" stuttered Charles, not knowing why this was. He'd remembered a time when he scratched himself trying to climb a tree - yes, it was bleeding - and it wasn't anywhere to be seen on his body.
You're left-handed. You're seeing everything that happened to you because you were a lefty.
So that was why he was called into the sod house.
Charles looked down at his right side. An ugly gash was pouring blood onto the dirt and sod floor. He swore he could see part of his stomach through it. Then he realized the gash was getting deeper and deeper - and so were all of the other cuts all over him.
He recognized a small cut on his right wrist from trying to use a knife when he was younger.
"Dork," Peter said, shoving his little brother. "You can't use a knife right, can you?"
Charles frowned. "Sure I can!"
"Bet you can't without slittin' your wrists open!"
"Bet I can!"
"Prove it!" Peter said, smirking and backing away. "I'll enjoy the show."
Charles picked up the knife, determined to show Peter that just because he was left-handed, didn't mean he couldn't do anything the same way everyone else did. With shaking hands, he slowly sunk the tip of the knife into an apple and pushed down.
Three seconds later, he was screaming his head off, and blood was everywhere.
"I…" Charles stammered as he saw the cut get larger and deeper, exposing his bone. "That...wasn't my fault!"
Sure it was. Had you been a righty and not a lefty, you would not have cut yourself.
Charles felt a wave of nausea hit him as all the cuts and scrapes got deeper and exposed everything inside of him. This was horrendously disgusting. He wasn't feeling any pain, and he soon felt he'd drown in his own blood.
Suddenly, blood flooded his vision. Wiping the blood out of his eyes, he reached up and felt a cut on his forehead increasingly get larger and deeper, buckets of gore pouring out of it, blocking him from seeing anything.
"Why are you...doing this to me?" Charles tried to say, but stopped mid-sentence. He could taste blood.
You wouldn't help me. So I am making you do so.
Blood began to pour over Charles' bottom lip and out of his eyes. "Why?"
Left-handed people were once thought to be demons. You don't like living in a right-handed world. So you are going to change that with me.
Charles scowled. He wanted to scream, but nothing came out. Instead, he said:
"If you're a righty, you better watch out. Because I'm a lefty. And I'm coming for you. Tonight."
Charles involuntarily repeated it over and over again until he was unable to say anything due to blood filling his throat. He screamed once, but it sounded more like a demonic roar rather than a human scream.
Someone grasped his left hand and pulled it - forcefully.
Charles felt his head snap back with a sickening crack. He caught a glimpse of the blood covered wall of the sod house.
And he was gone.
Caroline jolted awake suddenly, her right-wrong senses tingling.
Something wasn't right.
It wasn't the wrong version of "not right". It was…
Left?
Something wasn't right - so that meant it was left?
She swallowed and reached out to wake her husband up, but she didn't have to heart to do so. Every time she got scared and made Charles help her, someone or something would only shove him into nothing but a pool of trouble.
It's nothing. Don't wake him up. He's left, not right. Wait, what?
Caroline sat up and looked around.
He wasn't in the bed next to her. Charles had left the house for some random reason. He had left. To where was the question - probably to the outhouse. He hadn't gone anywhere earlier throughout the day.
However, she still felt something really wasn't right.
She slid off the bed and slowly walked towards the door, the wooden floor of the house creaking under her feet. With shaking hands, she reached out and lifted the latch. Slowly pulling the door open, she peeked outside to see what was going on.
Everything seemed okay.
Shrugging, Caroline shut the door just as a huge gust of wind blew in and caused her to shiver. It wasn't this cold before, she thought. It's the middle of the night, anyway. It's supposed to be cold. She shivered again and slowly walked back to the bed, trying to make as little sound as possible.
She laid back down onto the mattress and closed her eyes, trying to fall asleep. Morning would come soon enough.
There was the sudden thunder of footsteps and she felt something sink into the back of her neck. A flash of wet warmth ran down her back.
Caroline Ingalls never saw daylight again.
Hiram Baker yawned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He sat up in his bed and sighed. It had been a long day, he needed sleep, and he wasn't sure why he was awake at such a time like this.
Then, someone grabbed his shoulders.
What the -
"If you're a righty…" someone whispered, "you better watch out. Because I'm a lefty...and I'm coming for you. Tonight."
"W-who are you?" Hiram stuttered with fear.
"How do you not know who I am?"
A familiar voice. But it had the edge of something that didn't resemble his personality. Hiram was sure it was this one person he was thinking about - but something wasn't right. Something was left. Wrong. He wasn't sure what the right word for "not right" was anymore.
"Why are...why are you here? I asked you a question, now answer it!" Hiram shouted.
"It's the same left-handed person you've known all along since I fell out of that tree trying to save a kite."
Charles?
"...Charles? Why are you here?"
"If you're a righty, you better watch out. Because I'm a lefty...and I'm coming for you. Tonight." He sighed. "Why did you mention it, Hiram? Why did you mention that left-handed people were once thought to be demons?"
The blonde man gulped, trembling with fear. "I'm sorry, Charles, I...I didn't know you were left-handed! I didn't mean to upset you!" he stammered. "If it makes you feel any better, my sister was left-handed and I don't actually believe in demons - "
"Enough nonsense…" Charles snapped quietly. The grip tightened. "I have no right to make you pay, but if I ever wish to do so…" He sighed again. "I will make you…regardless of the consequences...and I'm going to do it. Right now."
Hiram tried to run, because who knows what Charles was up to now, but something metal clattered onto the floor and he fell over it.
Damn it.
He was turned onto his back, and only then did he realize what had become of Charles now. He swallowed the vomit that had risen from his stomach.
There were horrendous cuts and gashes all over his friend. They all looked like they should be bleeding, but they weren't. His eyes were nothing but a creepy, blood red. Many of the wounds even exposed his bones and insides.
"Charles Ingalls, what in the name of Heaven happened to you?!" Hiram yelled. "What...why...why are you doing this to me, Charles? How are you not bleeding? How are you not dead?"
Charles frowned. The tip of something sharp cut into Hiram's flesh. A flash of pain shot through his neck.
"Why are you murdering me...with a knife...and cutting me in the back of my neck...instead of just stabbing my chest fifteen times?" Hiram stammered, trying to shut out the pain. "Stop it, Charles! I'm your friend! What's wrong with you?! I'm sorry if I hurt you by mentioning this thing about lefties, but that's no reason to kill me!"
The frown on Charles' face deepened, and he pressed - with his left hand - harder on Hiram's chest. The knife (or was it a razor or some other metal object?) protruded deeper into his neck, the pain rising, his vision going blurry. He could feel the warm, crimson liquid dripping out of him and running down his back. Though there was physical pain, the real pain he felt was of what happened to his friend and why he was getting killed by him. Why he had said what he said to make Charles so upset. Why he hadn't realized that Charles was left-handed.
A tear slid down his face as Charles pushed harder on his chest, causing the object to protrude deeper into his neck. Hiram couldn't feel his arms or legs. He couldn't tell his mind to stop. He couldn't make his eyes focus on Charles' face. He was numb all over.
"Charles...please," Hiram whispered, breathing heavily. "Don't do this to me...I beg you. I'm sorry. I'm so s-sorry about what I said. Can you...can you f-forgive...me? Please..."
If Charles had said anything in return, Hiram never heard it.
Nels walked as quietly as possible back inside. He had gone to the outhouse to relieve himself.
As he stepped back into his house, he realized the house was an eerie quiet. Of course, it was always quiet at a time like this. But tonight was strangely quiet - he couldn't hear anything - anything at all.
The door suddenly slammed loudly behind his back.
Well, there you go, Nels Oleson. You just got some sound like you wished for.
He walked up the stairs and crawled back under the covers next to Harriet.
It only occurred to him around ten minutes later that his wife didn't seem to be breathing. She seemed unusually...cold. Harriet snored every now and then, but he hadn't heard anything - anything at all - since he'd woken up to go to the outhouse. Of course, if he decided to wake Harriet up, she'd yell at him for doing so.
If she wasn't…
"Oh, no, Nels, don't you dare think that," Nels snapped at himself, sitting up. "Your wife is not - "
If you're a righty, you better watch out…
"Who the heck - ?" Nels stammered.
...because I'm a lefty. And I'm coming for you…
He stood up and dashed into the hallway. "Nellie? Willie? Is that you?"
Tonight.
As soon as Nels heard the last word, someone - or something - grabbed his shoulders and shoved him onto his bottom. There was a forceful yank on his right arm, dragging him onto his knees.
"Who in the name of Heaven is over there?! Willie, if that's you, you're going to have some big consequences in the morning!" Nels shouted throughout the dark building. "And, Nellie, if that's you, the next day of your life is not going to be a pretty one!"
There was a sigh. Then, "Neither will see the sun rise again...ever again."
Nels knew that voice. He knew it as well as he knew the mercantile. He knew that person - a kind but risk-taking person who made friends with everyone within days his family moved into the area just a few years ago. He was helpful. Loving. Outgoing. Protective. Defensive. Forgiving. If his death would lead his family and friends to victory, he'd die.
That person was Charles Ingalls.
"Wh-wha..? What?" Nels stammered, his eyes widening. "Charles, what are you doing here? What do you mean by 'Neither will see the sun rise again'?"
"Do you seriously want to know where they are now…?" A small chuckle followed. "You'll be meeting them again very soon...I can guarantee you that. I won't tell you more, because if I do…" There was a sigh. "...it won't be a nice, big surprise for you anymore. And a spoiled surprise is never any fun, is it?"
This was not normal. Nels could feel a familiar hand on his shoulder - Charles' hand - but Charles himself was nowhere in sight. He also wouldn't talk like this, but he didn't sound drunk.
Then he realized it.
It was Charles who was whispering in the hallway about righties and lefties. And since Harriet seemed to quiet and cold, and what Charles had said about "Neither will see the sun rise" and "You'll be meeting then again very soon", that meant…
That meant Nels' family was dead...Charles had killed them...and he was to be murdered next.
"Charles, you - what is wrong with you? Why are you doing this?!" Nels screamed. He told himself that he was having a nightmare - his family was not dead, Charles hadn't really murdered them, and he'd wake up to Harriet shouting for him to shut up. Chances were that if Charles had put Harriet, Nellie, and Willie to death, he was going to finish off - or worse, he had already finished off - the rest of the town and any nearby residents.
The question was why.
Nels began thinking of all the possible reasons.
One - he had gone crazy.
Two - he suddenly felt the need to have the town all to himself.
Three - someone had told him to murder everyone within five miles of his house or otherwise "face the consequences".
Four - he was doing this purely for the fun of it.
Five - someone had said something that had upset him or made him go completely wacko.
However, nothing made any sense. Charles wasn't the type of person who could suddenly go crazy without warning, and he definitely wouldn't kill everyone to have all this land to himself. And even if someone had threatened his family, he still wouldn't dare go and murder all his friends. There was absolutely no way Charles would find killing people "fun", and something that upset him wouldn't ever get him this mad.
"You're scaring me, Charles," Nels squeaked, his voice trembling.
"Exactly," Charles responded, saying it in a way as if it was obvious - which it was. "You said your mother always believed that left-handed people would kill you…"
What in the - ?
Nels froze. No. This can't be, he thought. Charles could not have been left-handed all this time and none of us had noticed it at all. Surely someone must have noticed him using his left hand for writing or something.
"How could you not have noticed, Nels Oleson?" Charles said quietly, sighing shortly after. "How could you and Harriet not have noticed what hand I used for throwing? For writing? For working? For everything? I wonder why Caroline and my little girls didn't realize it either…"
"You mean you've already murdered your own family?! Charles, you're - "
"Shhh…" Charles whispered. "I have a question for you, Nels."
Nels swallowed and listened, keeping his mouth shut. He knew that if he dared disobey, it would be an automatic death for him. He was absolutely terrified at the moment.
"If you must die…" That sigh again. "...and you had to choose from two ways...would you choose the difficult way...or the easy way?"
"Um…" What does he mean? "I don't know. The easy way?"
Charles sighed again.
Okay, that sigh is starting to get annoying.
"The easy way it shall be, then…" Charles said, his voice low, his tone sharp. Nels felt someone kick him onto his back and fling him into a sitting position. His pulse suddenly quickened tenfold. What was Charles about to do?
Before he could think any further, Nels heard Charles say "Goodbye…"
There was an agonizingly painful yank on his left arm, similar to the one that had happened a matter of minutes ago when he first heard the whisper. His head snapped back.
His life was then over.
Laura glanced around.
She was outside, in a dark, foggy field surrounded by trees. The fallen leaves crunched beneath her feet as she walked forward. She wasn't quite sure where she was going, but she had wanted to find the left side. The right side was right - or correct. But she had wanted to know what the left side was like. The opposite of right. The wrong side.
Something suddenly grabbed her left hand and pulled hard. Her head snapped back.
Laura jolted awake with a gasp. Her heart was pounding in her chest.
Thank God that was just a dream.
"Laura? Are you awake?"
The brown-haired girl turned to see her older sister sitting up in bed next to her.
"I'm fine, Mary," Laura responded. "I just had a small nightmare. That's all."
Mary shrugged. "I kind of had one too," she said. "I was walking through a foggy field until someone grabbed my left hand and pulled hard. Then I woke up."
Did she just have the same dream that I just had?
"Strange, I had that same dream too," Laura said quietly as to not wake up the rest of her family still asleep. "I was trying to find the left side because I was tired of the right side."
"Me too! I was wondering about what the left side was like so I set out to find it in my dream. But why would we be trying to find the 'left side'?" Mary said.
"Maybe because we were talking about left-handedness and right-handedness earlier and we don't know what it's like to be left-handed," Laura reasoned. "Makes sense. Our minds always mash up random stuff that happened during the day, right?"
"That's true," said Mary, laying back down. "It's likely just a huge coincidence we had such similar dreams and woke up at the same time about it."
Laura had just opened her mouth to respond until someone's voice stopped her.
"Not a coincidence…" they said quietly. "Not."
Mary was sitting up in an instant again. "Was that you, Laura?"
"Uh...I don't think so," the younger girl answered.
Mary scowled, though barely visible through the dark room. "What do you mean you don't think so? If you did say it, then - "
She was cut off when the voice spoke again.
"If you're a righty, you'd better watch out…" it said, "because I'm a lefty. And I'm coming for you. Tonight."
Laura gasped. Who is that? He sounds like Pa, but I don't know if Pa's a lefty. And Pa wouldn't do this to us. He couldn't have known that Mary and I were searching for the left side in a dream a little earlier back.
There was a sigh.
Yep, no doubt that it's Pa who's doing that.
"Nice try, Pa," Laura said, giggling. "I know that's you. This prank isn't gonna work!"
Her father suddenly came into view. For a moment, Laura thought he was wearing some sort of costume until Mary screamed at the top of her lungs. Mary never screamed like that. It then became clear that this was no prank or scare - it was pure horror.
Charles' eyes were nothing but red. The smell of blood and rotten flesh filled the air. Countless areas of his body were split open. His usually brown hair was now stained a deep, blood red.
"Pa, what happened?" Laura shouted. "Why are you - "
"Half Pint…Mary..." he whispered, adding a small laugh shortly after. "I'm so jealous. You get to see Freddy again soon. I probably won't...for a long time."
"What do you mean by that, Pa? Stop it! You're scaring us!" Mary shrieked.
Charles shot a glare at his eldest daughter. Then he quickly reached out and yanked her left arm. Hard. Laura watched in horror as Mary made a gagging sound for half a second, her head snapping back. Her eyes then rolled into the back of her head and blood started pouring out of her mouth, running down her chest, staining her golden hair and the sheets.
It took Laura a while to comprehend what had just happened.
Her father had just killed her sister.
"Mary!" Laura screamed as a tear slid down her face, a stabbing pain in her chest. "Mary, no!" She then turned to Charles. "Pa, how could you do this?! What did Mary ever do to you?"
Charles sighed again, taking his grip away from Mary, letting the blonde girl fall limply onto the bed. "I gave you a warning, both you and your sister," he said quietly. "You had your chance to leave on your own." He pulled out (from nowhere) a sharp metal object, the tiniest of light reflecting off of it.
A warning. Was the warning the dream that Mary and I both had? About the "left side"?
"Pa…? You're left-handed?" Laura squeaked.
"Yes, I am," Charles snapped. "If you'd realized it earlier…" He chuckled slightly. "We might not be in this little predicament right now, would we?"
"Pa, please, stop!" Laura screamed, completely horrified. "You wouldn't scare your own children like this, would you?!"
Charles said nothing. He reached out with the sharp object and brought it towards the frightened girl.
Run, Laura's mind screamed at her. Run. Now.
Laura jumped up, knocked the knife out of Charles' hands, dashed across the loft, and - completely forgetting there was a ladder - ran right off the edge. The moment the hit the ground was painless - the smallest part of a second later, a huge zap of agony shot up her arm. She covered her mouth to keep from screaming.
Climbing onto her feet, she stumbled to the door, fumbled with the latch, and was just about to open it until something flung her several feet away from it. Someone approached her and pinned her down onto her stomach. Laura struggled to get back up, but something cut into the back of her neck, causing waves of horrible pain all through her.
Laura screamed. "Please, Pa, stop!" Her words came out in a series of gagging and coughing noises.
"I don't need a daughter who doesn't know whether or not her father is left-handed…" Charles growled. "I don't need someone in my life like that."
Blood pooled onto the wooden planks of the house as the knife sliced through more flesh, scraping against bone. Laura attempted to reach up and knock the knife away, but she couldn't lift her arm. She'd likely broken or fractured it falling off from the loft. Her other arm was pinned down and splintered from the wood. Laura lifted her head up - bad idea. The knife cut further. The pain increased, and the world was going black. A single glimmer of light remained from the dying fire in the fireplace.
Laura felt tears stream down her face. I'm sorry, Pa, she thought, trying to send a silent apology to Charles.
Sorry for what, Half Pint?
She didn't know.
The already dark house suddenly clicked into complete darkness, and all the pain and feeling inside of her vanished.
Reverend Alden sat up and yawned, having woken up from a strange dream of the "left side".
"Well, what a dream…" he muttered to himself as he got his clothes on and walked outside. "Something's left Walnut Grove…"
Left the town? Something in the area was wrong, not left.
The cool autumn wind strengthened, and the sudden scent of blood caught his attention.
Robert shivered in the darkness. Fallen leaves crunched beneath his feet as he stepped towards the trail of blood - not very visible, but visible enough so that it would attract attention. He truly hoped this was just a Halloween prank and not something of the left side.
Robert knelt down and rubbed a finger into the blood-stained dirt. He brought his finger back up and realized there was a smear of blood on it.
So this is real. Or it could be fake. Forget it, I'm still going to see what's going on.
He hopped into his buggy and rode off.
Around fifteen minutes later, the Ingalls' house could be seen faintly in the distance. The trail of blood led to its door.
Robert sighed. For all he knew, the only member of the Ingalls family who would attempt to play any sort of prank would be Laura. That one sneaky, silly girl with the braids. But even if Laura set up a prank, it would most likely be on Nellie and Willie. She wouldn't be leaving a trail of blood for anyone to find.
What if it wasn't Laura who did this?
Of course, an enemy of the Ingalls family could've left fake evidence that they'd murdered someone. But why on Halloween, when it could easily be mistaken for a prank? The worst case scenario would be that a true murderer had passed through Walnut Grove and was now messing with the Ingalls'.
Charles' wagon was still there, meaning nobody had left the house.
Robert turned into the property and stopped the horse. He hopped out of the buggy and walked slowly to the window and peered through, trying to see something.
They were boarded shut.
He tried knocking on the door, but nobody responded.
"Charles?" Robert called. "Charles, is everything okay in here?"
There was no response.
Robert knocked again, and the door opened a crack with a small creak. The strong scent of blood flooded from inside. Yeah, this is getting weird. What he saw was horrendous.
The only light came from the dim fireplace, and it just illuminated the scene before Robert's eyes. As his heartbeat suddenly quickened, he could just barely see Laura's lifeless, dead body lying on the blood-stained ground. Someone was standing in front of her and he was holding a blood-covered knife in his left hand. He looked like a combination of a zombie, a demon, and…
Charles.
Robert Alden's mind screamed, but fear locked his mouth shut. His feet were screaming to run, but they stayed superglued to the floor. His heart was beating so fast that he was nearly one hundred percent convinced that he was going to have a heart attack. What in the world was Charles doing? What had happened to him?
Charles began giggling slightly. It gradually turned into a small laugh - but the Reverend was too terrified to be able to tell whether he was laughing or crying. Soon, the laugh-cry faded into light weeping. It then slowly turned into sobbing.
Robert started breathing heavily. Something about Charles' sobbing wasn't right. The last time he'd seen tears fall from Charles' eyes was when Freddy had died. But this was different. It sounded not right. Not wrong, but left.
The sobbing suddenly stopped. Charles cranked his head around slightly and Robert could see two soulless, blood-red eyes staring at him. All the lights in the world suddenly shut off and there was a bloodcurdling scream.
In the Reverend's eyes, there would never be any more light.
135 years later, two college students wandered next to the Ingalls' house. One was left-handed, the other right-handed. They had heard of this forgotten and abandoned town named Walnut Grove. It was said to be cursed.
The left-handed student suddenly had an idea: they should enter the house and investigate, but they should only go in one at a time. The other student shrugged and walked in, not knowing what was to be uncovered.
The moment the right-handed student entered the house, all light shut off except for the small fire in the fireplace. Everywhere smelled like rotting flesh. There was a single dead body, a girl about eleven years old. She had tight, brown braids, and the back of her neck was cut open.
That same student looked around and caught a glimpse of a zombie-demon-like person with empty, red eyes and blood-stained curls. That person grabbed the student's left hand and yanked on it hard. The student's head snapped back. Blood poured out of his mouth and he was dead within seconds.
After five minutes, the left-handed student still outside was getting worried as to why his friend hadn't returned with any facts or observations. He stepped inside the house to look for him.
The left-handed student never exited the house.
Both students were so amazed by a single, old house, that they hadn't seen the note scribbled in blood just outside:
If you're a righty, you better watch out.
Because I'm a lefty.
And I'm coming for you.
Tonight.
