The Woman in the Red Coat
This story came from the 3 random words: Atonement, Red, Tarot. Thank you to Hannah Rush for giving me the prompt!
Kris Hobbs lay in her bed, the thick denim comforter that her mother got her when she still lived with her in California pulled up to her chin. The room was perfectly tidy, as she always kept it. But she knew the floor would soon be covered in blood.
The TV (which was barely ever on when it was time to sleep) was playing The Office with the volume up high. A diffuser on her nightstand was lazily spewing out lavender essential oil, though it did nothing to calm her nerves.
The bottle of anxiety pills that the doctor gave her after the incident happened was still unopened, but sitting nearby—just in case…
Her wet blonde hair was tied up in a tight bun. And she wasn’t in her usual pajamas. She was under the covers wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Because she knew that she might have to dart outside into the cold night air (had it started snowing yet? God she hoped not—the wet hair and snow: not fun).
She checked her phone again to see the time. 2:54 AM. It would be happening soon.
She knew it was going to happen again tonight. The same thing that had happened the last four nights. Just the same. The voice of the psychic echoed in her mind for the eight millionth time:
The woman that you kill will come back to you, asking for forgiveness. You must give it to her. It is the only way that she will be able to move on...
Kris hated those words. Because they weren’t true! She didn’t kill that woman. It wasn’t her fault. That woman killed herself. It wasn’t Kris’s fault...
But those words didn’t matter. Because it would happen again. Kris was sure of it.
The woman in red would appear in her room. She would ask for forgiveness. Kris would plead for the woman to just go away. But she wouldn’t.
What was the point of it—coming back every night? Just to torture her even more?! She hated the woman more and more for what she had done to Kris’s pleasant life. The life that used to be good. That life that used to be fun. The life that she used to enjoy every single day. Now all of it was a nightmare—the images continually flashing into her mind all day. And at night...
Wasn’t it enough that the woman had ruined her life? Did she now have to come to her every night?
She was on the verge of tears, on the verge of insanity. On the verge doing the same thing that the woman did to her. Just to end the cycle of terror.
But Kris already knew that she couldn’t do anything like that. Because if she did...
If she did that, then wouldn’t she end up just like the woman? Stuck in the same cycle, but only this time it would be for eternity. Searching for forgiveness and not being able to move on.
Kris had gotten her shifts covered at Dave’s Bar and Grill easily enough this week—what with the tragic events that had just happened and all...but she would have to go back to work eventually. She would have to have a life again eventually. She couldn’t live like this. Not for any longer. She would truly lose her mind if something didn’t change soon.
So she would have to do it tonight, then. And if that didn’t work? She didn’t want to think about it.
Mom would be coming into town tomorrow. And she said that she would stay for as long as she needed to. But how was Mom going to help with this? God! Kris was going to end up in a mental hospital or something. Maybe that’s where she needed to be?
But a terrifying image came to Kris then, of her wrapped in a straight jacket, in some padded room or something, and the woman in the red coat still coming to her, night after night. And Kris would scream and cry that there was bloody ghost in her room. And the doctors would come and sedate her. And that would be how every single night went for the rest of her life.
Not an option.
She would do it tonight. She would forgive the woman for what she did to her. Well...say it at least. The truth was that she still hated the woman so much. Even more now than she did four days ago when it happened.
Hated her so so so much.
But she could lie. She would tell her all was forgiven. Just to end this nightmare.
A week ago Kris went to a psychic. A small building—just someone’s house really—off of 96th Street that she’d passed a million times. It had a big banner hanging from the front porch that read Madeleine Odom - Psychic Readings. She’d noticed it a thousand times but never once thought of going there. The closest she’d ever come was wondering how many people actually saw that sign and called the phone number on it to schedule a reading.
But something happened that day. And she didn’t just call, she drove straight into the driveway of the house and knocked on the front door. It was curiosity and going off of an impulse more than anything else.
Mostly Kris expected either for no one to answer the door, or to be told that she would have to call to schedule a time for the reading. And if either of those were the case, then she would just forget about it.
But that wasn’t what happened.
A woman answered the door and welcomed in from the cold chill of the air outside. The home was warm and smelled of incense. But outside of the smell, there was nothing really out of the ordinary in the house. It was decorated just as any other normal house would be. No crystal balls or shrunken heads or whatever else Kris had expected.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Amphetamine Daydreams to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.