[INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3] C H A R L I E  M O O R E [/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr]It was not the birds that had Charlie up with the sun, but rather the urge to piss after being ungracefully awoken from a nightmare. As with most dreams, the details slipped away once her eyes opened and fixated on the faintly lit ceiling, but she could recall her desperation to escape from something or someone. She was carrying an unfamiliar young child on her hip, their weight making it impossible to move quickly enough to outrun the offender. She was roused just as she felt her body be yanked to the ground, the kid’s small frame crushed beneath her as she fell. Her subconscious mind was to be thanked for protecting her from what she knew she couldn’t handle. 

As she stumbled across the room towards the bathroom still in a haze, her bare feet suddenly slipped against and sunk down into the subfloor where she had torn away rot but not yet replaced the hardwood. Her toes curled into the dampness and she felt her upper lip involuntarily curl in disgust as she peered down at the darkened wood, hardly distinguishable in the steel blue dimness of daybreak. The unfamiliar and deeply concerning texture sent her scrambling away from the area and towards the closest light switch. The starkness of the bathroom’s vanity lights revealed the wet wood sprawled much of space beneath the cast iron radiator situated against the wall. 

“Oh, damn it to hell,” Charlie hissed as she realized the leak’s source, the radiator valve still steadily emptying water onto the floor. “Keep the originals,” she sneered, voice lifted a few octaves to further her mocking as she yanked her only towel from the shower curtain rod. So many of the town's residents had sought her out to offer their advice upon hearing of her intentions to renovate the old home. “Respect the history, Child. You’ll regret it.” 

Two cups of coffee and a few hours of trying on her own had gotten Charlie nowhere but later in the day. Finally, accepting defeat, she had situated her cell phone on the window pane above where she sat and there she had begun listening intently to a video of an elderly man online explain his quick, two minute fix to the problem. The home’s wifi, however, was nothing short of horrendous and this meant that the picture would halt to buffer every few seconds, leaving the man rambling about olives and couplings with no way for Charlie to figure out what any of those words meant. 

With interest in her original project long lost, Charlie had settled back into bed with a magazine she’d stolen from a table at one of the local restaurants, its cover plastered with a promise of “394 Stress-Free Christmas Ideas” being tucked inside the pages. The young woman had just reached idea fifty-four, revealing microwaved marshmallow to be the superior gingerbread house adhesive, when her cell phone vibrated against the window in which it was still propped. The text was blissfully ignored until she completed the list and only then did she work to stretch her torso across her bedside table to retrieve the phone, refusing to pull her legs from beneath the covers as the room’s temperature had steadily been dropping with its only source of heat out of commission. 

“Well, huh.” It was rare the Charlie moved with purpose, but seeing as she had ignored an anonymous call to action involving the apparently very real ghost pooch she’d encountered to learn how to make a dollar store wreath, she figured now was a good as any. A pair of dirty overalls from her bedroom floor were yanked over her legs as she headed down the stairs, aged Converse were stepped into at the door, and an oversized fleece flannel stored in her car completed the ensemble. 

. . . 

Charlie approached the assembled group outside the church with little hesitancy, recognizing some of them from brief interactions in town, but hardly viewing the current crowd as threatening. Despite this, she had backed her vehicle as far as she could down the road, left the doors unlocked, and secured her key to her wrist with a hair elastic. She was picking through old trail mix she’d found in her center console as she searched for the hair tie, the bag now held in the crook of her arm. Meticulously, she was singling out the chocolate pieces as those present all confirmed they were in the same place for the same reason. It was only when a few of the others began to approach the church that she spoke up, making it apparent she’d only been quiet for so long prior because her mouth was full.

“I think that it’s cool that we’re all here together and all to share our experiences, but is anyone wondering how this person, or people, knew we’d all seen the things we had? I haven’t said a thing to anyone. I mean, sure, this is all [i]weird[/i], but just wasn’t sure if I’d missed that conversation before we go rolling up into the creepy as shit church. It’s just that I’ve seen this horror-flick once or twice and it typically ends in about the same way.” Nevertheless, Charlie still moved towards the front door as she rambled, certainly not to be left alone outside.