Excerpt from the rough draft of Extraordinary Tales of Extrordinary Supernaturals: Volume I, Chapter 5: Tales From The Millennium Attacks by Samantha Westley.
Tale of the Lady In Black ***UNDER CONSTRUCTION***
The Aster family is a human family that lives and has lived in London for a long time. The mother, Brooke Aster and the father, George lived with their two daughters, Megan and Katelyn in the same house that Mister and Missus Asher had purchased back in the 80's. It was close to George's parents, but far enough to be comfortable. George was a schoolteacher and Brooke was a receptionist, while the two daughters were both avid participants in dance classes in their youth. They are an ordinary human family with ordinary human lives, but there was one small detail about them that wasn't so ordinary: Brooke's family was cursed.
Many families have their stories, and some even have stories about encounters with the supernatural. Yes, while this may be shocking to some of you supernatural beings reading this, humans do toe the line between their world and the supernatural one from time to time and they do talk about it. Sometimes, the stories get passed down for generations, but Megan Aster would see the legend herself when she was nine years old.
It was around that time when she first saw the strange woman- always from a distance, and always wearing a black outfit that covered almost all of her skin. Sometimes, she would be near the school when Megan and her younger sister were picked up by their parents, sometimes, she would be following from a distance when they went to the shops, but most of the time, she was outside their house—always at a distance and never getting too close.
Now, it wasn't every day that Megan and her family would see the woman, but it was often enough. Sometimes, she would disappear for over a week, but she would always come back. Sometimes, Megan wondered if the woman was really there, but simply out of sight, which sent chills down her spine. She hadn't noticed her before, but once she did, she couldn't stop looking for her. Of course, she got curious and asked her parents who the woman was, but they didn't give her a proper answer until she was older, understandably not wanting to frighten the young child, but the explanation didn't curb the entirety of the horror.
The woman had always been there. She had been there for many years. Brooke and George seemed to be the only ones who weren't perturbed by the woman's prescence, with George refusing to believe that she was there and Brooke simply refusing to talk about it. Megan was sure that she knew the woman was there, however. There were always passing comments about how she wasn't dangerous and as time went on, the rest of the family started to believe it, too.
The woman in black was never too close by never too far. She was always in the background, so the girls only ever noticed her if they were looking for her. Then, there came a point when the girls simply stopped being afraid. There was no reason to be. They were never harmed by her and at times, they felt that they ought to thank her.
When the family dog went missing for a few days, he was found tied to the railing of the front porch, safe and sound. There was no note and no reason why he should have returned. The family hadn't even put up posters aroudn the neighbourhood for him yet and the leash he was tied with didn't even belong to the family, but some stranger was kind enough to let the Asher family have it.
One morning, George came out to find that the cars on his street all had busted windows, presumably shattered by a group of hooligans in the night, but strangely, it all stopped with his car. He never told police about the drops of blood on the handle, despite finding it strange.
Neither of these moments seemed to be related until the night that Megan and Katelyn became certain that it was the work of the woman in black. That night, Katelyn, who was in secondary school at the time, went to a party at a friend's house down the street. When a knock came at the door a few hours later, her parents assumed it was her coming back late. They were about to open the door and scold her for seemingly forgetting her keys, but when they did, they found her carefully laid out on their stoop, passed out, stinking of alcohol, and wrapped in the woman's black shawl. Katelyn had no recollection of getting home. As far as she knew, one moment she was at the party, and the next, she was home. Her friends spoke a few days later to her about a woman dressed in all black having come to the door and escorted her home.
It had to be her. There was no other possibility. The woman in black was helping them, seeming more like a gaurdian angel, rather than a curse, but they didn't have any information about her to be sure. Their mother refused to speak of the woman, only getting a sad look in her eyes whenever she was brought up. This did not deter the girls, however, as they only became more and more determined to find out.
Then, the year 1999 came about. The Millennium attack on London came to their neighbourhood. Bombs dropped from overhead, lighting the street on fire as one building was set ablaze and then lit the one next to it. The impact shattered the windows and threw their furniture, including their beds with them in it. Monsters stalked the streets outside, shooting and devouring everyone in sight, but the woman in black was still there.
She had never come any farther than the stoop on one rare occasion, but now, the woman was in their house. Frantically, she lifted heavy furniture with the strength of ten men and tossed it aside, searching for the members of the Asher family. It was on that night that the family first got a proper glimpse of her up close.
She was a pretty woman with pale skin, red hair, and eyes to match. Her face strained as she lifted the bed frame off of Megan before effortlessly picking her up and moving on to the next room. After gathering all of them, she shoved them out the back door and led them through the burning streets, finding them shelter to wait out the horrors of that dreadful night, blocking their view of the carnage that was just outside of their field of vision.
They huddled until morning in wretched silence. The entire time, they were finally with the woman in black, but too frightened of the world around them to ask her the questions that they wanted to. All they could do was stay huddled against her as she held them, trying her best to keep them calm alongside their mother and father. Their mother, was in tears, however. She clung to the woman the hardest, it seemed, and the woman hushed her all the same.
"It's alright, Brooke." she'd say. "Everyone will be alright."
When the morning came and the monsters went, when the fires burned out and the world was quiet once again, the family could finally move. The woman in black, however, could not. The sun shined too brightly through the shattered windows, forcing her to stay put, but the Asher family could not stay forever. As repayment for her help, they huddled around her again, this time shielding her from the sun as it passed through the room as the day went on. George finally believed in the woman, trying to find something to cover her with as he searched for other survivors out in the street. When all was quiet, she was finally able to tell them her story.
The woman's name was Mabel and she had been alive for quite some time. It wasn't an unusual amount of time for a person, granted, but it was far too long for her to look as young as she did. She moved to London long before the Ashers were born and had a husband and child, just like the many women she knew did. Brooke was only seven years old when she disappeared.
That night, she had forgotten an ingredient for dinner and went to the store to get it. She never made it back to her car, having been bitten by a vampire on her way out of the grocery store. There was no way that she could go back to her life of being a housewife after that. She didn't know how she would ever control her thirst and there was simply no way that she could put her husband and child at risk like that. So, she resolved instead to watching from afar, watching as her husband remarried, watching as her daughter grew up and graduated school, watching as her daughter got married and had children, herself. Then, she watched those children, too, making sure that they were safe as they, too, began to grow. She was always watching, unable to be a part of her daughter and grandaughter's lives due to the very nature of what she was—what she wasn't. She wasn't human and therefore, they could never be together.
They were forced to part ways as the army came in and got the survivors to emergency shelter. Months passed and the Ashers found housing, with the help of the government, and slowly started to rebuild their lives. George went back to work and Brooke found a new job as the building she used to work in was destroyed. Megan and Katelyn went back to school and they all tried their best to put the horrific night behind them and move on to the best of their ability. It was a struggle, given that they had lost everything they owned in life.
An entire year passed without any of them seeing the lady in black, but they couldn't forget her. She was the reason why they were alive to begin with. Christmas break of the year 2000 came and both girls were home, getting ready to celebrate the holiday to the best of their ability. They were sitting in the front room together when a knock came at the door. At the very least, they were able to celebrate Christmas for the very first time with Grandma and this time, she wasn't wearing black.