It's All In My Mind? Chapter 1, a sinister fanfic

IT'S ALL IN MY MIND?

I do not own the copyrights to Sinister, or anything mentioned in the story. This is a fan effort, made for fun and not profit. This story does have graphic imagery…as a fanfic based on a horror film likely should.

I have tried my best to get all details right; what I could not discern, I made my best guess. (It's tough trying to get details from grainy film clips…) I did add a bit of my own fanon to the Sinister mythos. Most of this story was written from Sep. 2013 to Jun. 2014. I updated it in Apr. 2016 to clear up scene transitions and do some slight dialogue edits.

CHAPTER 1: Dredging Up The Past

SUNDAY

"OK kids, bedtime, there's school in the morning!" Ed's deep voice called out from the bedroom. A tall man with thick, curly brown hair, Ed tightened the belt on his red robe as looked back at his wife, Marnie. She had already changed out of her clothes, wearing a long pink nightgown, and was taking the yellow hairband off her black ponytail. Ed stepped out of the bedroom to see his youngest daughter, 10-year old Stacy, walk briskly up to him. "Did your homework?"

"Yep!" The little girl in the pink pajamas smiled at him. "Fractions are actually pretty easy!"

"Good work!" Ed rumpled his daughter's long brown hair. "You're a lot better at math then your dear old dad was!" He kissed his daughter on the cheek. "Love you, honey. See you in the morning!" As she retreated into her bedroom, 12-year old Lucy made her way upstairs. "How about you, Lucy? You did your homework, right?"

"Ugh, yeah." She made a face as she pushed her long black hair behind her shoulders. "If I have to read another page of that boring Dickens book, I'm going to scream. This school stinks."

"Don't lose hope, honey! It's only October, you can't give up now!"

Lucy let out an exaggerated sigh. "Fine, dad, I'll try!"

"Now, I want you to go to bed for real, Lucy…no trying to sneak downstairs for TV again!"

Lucy smirked. "I'll try!" She chuckled, then kissed her father on the cheek. "Love you!" she called out as she went into her bedroom.

"You going to go to bed too, dear?" Marnie asked as she approached him from behind.

He shrugged. "I'm not all that tired…I think I'll clean up the garage a little."

"Oh, Ed!" Marnie chuckled. "You're always spending time in the garage! I swear, one day you'll move the bed down there!"

"Why bother, I could just sleep in the minivan! It's big enough!" The two shared a laugh, then a kiss. "I'll be up soon honey!" Marnie retreated into the bedroom as Ed went downstairs, turning to the right and heading into the garage. He flipped on the light; the garage was nice and roomy. Ed always liked hanging around the garage, even as a kid; he felt it gave him a great feeling of solitude. He couldn't quite explain it. As such, every house he had ever lived in had one.

On one end of the garage was Marnie's van, a brand new white Dodge Caravan purchased just two months before. On the other was a shelf stacked with old home videos. Marnie's family had a lot of old Super 8 videos, and this was the only place with room to store them all. The week before, Ed had painstakingly arranged all of the videos in four cardboard boxes, in chronological order. Ed noticed that the first box, labeled '1966-1970', was open. That's odd, he hadn't moved it lately. Well, as long as he was in here, might as well watch a few videos. After all, what was the harm in bringing out old memories?

Ed set the projector onto a table, and loaded in the earliest reel, labeled 'Enid's 80th, 3-11-66'. Ed took a seat in a beat-up lawn chair and smiled as it started up, the images silently projected onto the bare wall. That had to be Marnie's old house; Ed recognized the garish green the living room was painted. A silver-haired lady with wire-framed glasses and many wrinkles blew out candles on a cake. The camera turned left and right to show the other family members clapping and cheering; Ed recognized most of them from Marnie's photo albums. A few smiled and waved at the camera; at least one little boy held up a handwritten sign that said 'Hi Mom!'. Ed stopped the projector and took the reel out.

Ed then removed the second reel, 'Disneyland, 10-5-66', from the box. He put it in…sure enough, there was the familiar Disneyland castle, quickly cutting to footage of the Jungle Cruise. He smiled at the sight of the little girl in the video, who was excitedly pointing. The girl was a spitting image of both Marnie and Lucy. Same long black hair, same bright smile. Good looks run in the family, he thought. The reel cut to the girl and their family eating lunch outside one of the rides, at which point Ed stopped it.

Ed put the Disneyland reel back in and took the third and final 1966 reel in the box…one labeled 'Pool Party '66'. He remembered placing it last, because the exact date hadn't been written on it like the other two. The video started up, showing a pretty woman in a green bikini standing in a pool, smacking an orange beach ball. Ed watched as the video silently showed the rest of the family, swimming around, enjoying themselves. There were five family members in all; the parents, a girl in her mid-teens, a shorter girl who appeared to be about 12, and a boy who looked to be about 9. As the video continued, he realized he didn't recognize anyone in it; the people here didn't look like Marnie's family, and this definitely wasn't her house. The camerawork was also different; nobody bothered to acknowledge the cameraman. Ed watched as the family sat down to eat and drink, smiling and joking about something.

He was about to take the reel out when he noticed that the scene had suddenly switched from day to night, still showing the pool. The camera then turned to show the table where they ate, something glowing green inside the pitcher. Then it turned more, showing the father lying on a beach chair, tied to it with duct tape. Ed also noticed a cinder block tied to the chair, and a rope tied to the top of it.

"What the…"

The camera pulled back to reveal three more people given the same treatment…all of them the same family members who were laughing and having fun earlier. He then saw one of the ropes being pulled, and the chair with the mother went into the pool. The chair landed standing up; the woman's feet stuck out of the water, jerking about, trying desperately to free herself. As she kept twitching, one by one the other three chairs were pulled into the water…first the two girls, then the father. Ed stared in disbelief; was this video for real? The cameraman kept his gaze on the pool, stopping at a pitch black figure. It looked like someone standing on the bottom of the pool. The figure turned to look up at the camera; it seemed to have a white, vaguely human face. With that, the video ended.

Ed sat in his chair, stunned and numb, for over a half hour.