A child born of human and spirit will usher in the end of times. It is the essence of
evil . . . a perversion of the Immaculate Conception

October 31st, 1988
Los Angeles, California

The ghost of Winona Wexler had been waiting for this day for what felt like an eternity. In truth, it had only been a solid year since the young woman had broken into the disreputable and abandoned Murder House with her boyfriend. It was then that she'd consequently met her brutal and untimely demise. The time had passed, even when it seemed as if it never would—when each day was just a monotonous, lurching repetition of the one before. Each tick of the clock ached painfully like the thumping pulse behind a slowly healing wound—reminding her that she was doomed to spend her days within the confines of this deceivingly beautiful mansion. Winona spent most of her time staring through the window, warily watching the living while she only became more forgotten in death, and her physical body surely decomposed within its grave.

However, tonight would be much different from all the rest. For, it was Halloween once again, and only on this night every year, the spirits that ruefully dwelled within the iniquitous walls of Murder House were free to leave the premises—free to roam about with the living—that was, until the clock struck twelve. In some twisted, dismal way—the idea of it almost reminded Winona of the fairy-tale Cinderella. Although, if she were to lose her shoe, she was almost certain that her Prince Charming would never come knocking in hopes of returning it.

Winona only had one thing she wanted—no, needed—to do. She wasn't sure if it was just morbid curiosity that made her want to find Jack, and she kept telling herself not to get her hopes up with the thought that he had remained faithful to her after all this time. Because, in reality, it was utterly unfair to expect someone (especially someone like him) to wait on a dead girl. Despite her dreary thoughts, a tingle of excitement ignited like wildfire within the teenage girls' belly at the sheer possibility that Jack would perhaps occasionally come visit her when he knew that part of her still existed.

Maybe she'd get her Prince Charming after
all . . .

Winona clenched her jaw, rows of teeth baring together in vexation as the little ginger boy with the slit throat and the baseball bat strode by her bedroom door, looking in on her with a devious grin before disappearing from sight. She wished that there was some way to permanently banish the little fucker from her afterlife—for the pesky child had not only inadvertently caused her death, but he and his identical twin brother made it their mission to cause mischief all around the house—day after neverending day.

Winona failed to associate with the copious amount of spirits that resided within these fiendish walls, so it was merely by chance that she had heard the whispers of temporary freedom that Halloween had to offer.

As the perennial teenage girl finally found the courage to leave her bedroom, she made her descent down the elegant staircase, her hand trailing along the dusty banister as she vividly recalled the night that she had fallen to her death. A mystical beam of moonlight slithered through the stained glass window, casting the house in an otherworldly glow. Winona then realized that mostly everyone else had already vacated the premises, an eerie (yet comforting) silence encasing the abandoned home. This stagnant silence, however, only inadvertently caused her thoughts to grow louder, making her feel as if her skull may very well split down the middle.

With cautious and timid steps, Winona walked out of the prison that posed as a house. She half-expected it all to be some kind of sick joke, and that all of the other spirits would gather around in condescending laughter when she realized that she would not be able to leave the lawn, after all. However, when Winona found herself standing free outside of the heavy steel gates, she couldn't help but actually feel a little bit like Cinderella did on the night of the ball. Hell, maybe she was living the life of a Princess. At least, for one single night, that was . . .

Now, she was off to find her Prince Charming. How lovely it would be if true love's kiss could actually bring her back to life.

⁂

Winona rigidly crossed her arms over her chest as she gazed at the glowing neon sign above Gilley's, an archaic bar that Jack had frequented often when she had known him. She had first stopped by the house in which the man had used to live with his parents, only to find the little shack dilapidated and forgotten, the front windows shattered into a million pieces, the baby blue paint chipped and weathered as the roof seemed to tilt as if it was one more rainstorm away from caving in.

She couldn't help but feel as if what remained of the residence served as a bad omen, and was somewhat apprehensive to walk into the bar—afraid of what she would find, or whom she would find with her old boyfriend. The music pulsated from inside of the establishment in an overwhelming invitation as numerous couples made their way through the doors, the women dressed in suggestive costumes that had to have been made out of lingerie.

Just as Winona was about to bravely enter the bar, the deafening screech of tires stopped her dead in her tracks, and she spun around just in time to see a familiar jet-black Harley swerve into the opposite lane of traffic. Time appeared to stand still, a guttural cry crawling up her throat as the bike sloppily crashed into the grill of an oncoming semi-truck. The heinous sonance of horns blaring and mortified cries of the horrified onlookers managed to melt together into a blended blur, creating an undeviating buzz within Winona's ears. Thus, she broke into a sprint, straight towards the young man who was now partially splattered over the pavement like fresh roadkill. She shoved through a gawking crowd of pedestrians that slowly began to gather around the scene, frequently clipping several shoulders in the process. Unsteadily, the middle-aged trucker with a head full of salt-and-pepper hair toppled from the idle truck, shocked sobs slipping through stick-like lips as he audibly blamed himself for the event that had transpired, even though Winona knew that it hadn't been his fault, at all.

Winona sank to her knees alongside the mangled and bloody body of Jack Tennant, wobbling digits brushing his ratted blond locks from his paling features as she cradled his cheek in her hand. Lovingly, she grazed her thumb over the patchy stubble that graced his face, hot, blinding tears spilling from her disbelieving eyes as they splattered his chest in varying shapes.

Suddenly, Jack hacked, ruby-red blood oozing from between his lips, staining his teeth in its macabre hue as it dribbled down the slope of his chin.

He was still alive. If she could just get him back to the house . . .

"Jack! Oh my god—Sweetheart, it's me. It's Winona. Can you hang on for me? Can you open your eyes?" Patchy pleas tumbled from her lips in a profusion of sorrow, her eyes raking over the completely ruined body of the man she had once given her heart to.

Jack's eyelids fluttered open, revealing a stunning set of emerald green orbs that promptly widened at the blurry sight of a seemingly alive Winona. His paling lips inched upwards into a weak grin, shallow breaths growing infrequent and ragged with each staggered second that seemed to pass. Winona could smell the whiskey on his breath, mingling with the metallic taste of his blood. Confidently, she pressed her lips to his, her motions frantic as she attempted to hoist the biker up into her frail embrace, failing miserably.

"Winnie," Jack whispered, a torrent of blood erupting from his mouth as a series of violent coughs rocked his body. "I must have went to heaven . . ."

"No, Jack you haven't died. You won't die." Winona wailed, claiming the man's large hand between her two dainty palms. Instantly, her gaze drifted upon the sleek golden band that claimed his ring finger.

Jack had gotten married. He moved on.

With the strength she could muster, she placed one final kiss to his lips, watching helplessly as the last bit of life left Jack's eyes. His stare glossed over, eyes empty and lifeless as a single, weighty breath graced his bottom lip. Ultimately accepting, dismally depressing. The shrill sonance of sirens pierced the air, an abundance of ambulances and police cars racing to the scene of the crime as Winona audibly wailed. They were too fucking late.

As Winona held the deceased, bleeding man within her arms, she swiftly noticed a crumpled-up picture protruding from the front pocket of Jack's leather jacket, halfway hanging out and smeared with splatters of his blood. She clasped her unsteady fingers around the folded and mildly mangled picture, hesitantly smoothing it open to reveal a hazy and distorted image of an ultrasound. 'Girl?' was etched across the top left corner in a loopy, unrecognizable penmanship, along with an uneven heart. Something told Winona that the object she was currently clutching was the only reason why that golden wedding band rested around Jack's ring finger.

Jack was going to be a father.

The police promptly arrived and initiated the departure of the crowd that had gathered around Jack's dead body. A meaty hand suddenly rested upon Winona's bony shoulder, causing her to jump as she hesitantly looked back at the grim-faced cop that hovered over her and Jack.

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you a few questions," the burly man stated, his bushy black brows knitting together in sorrow.

Winona reluctantly tore herself away from Jack's body as she took several staggered steps backward. She knew that the obligatory questions that the officer would ask involved 'what is your name?' and 'what is your relationship to this man?', and she knew that she simply could not give an answer. She was a dead girl, buried six feet underground. And now, Jack was dead, too. She was already beginning to feel an impalpable force urging her back towards her eternal damnation, the hands on the clock clicking closer to twelve. Winona stood paralyzed as she began to tell the police officer her name. The man looked down to his clipboard in order to jot down the information, but when he'd looked back up, the girl was nowhere to be found. It was as if she had quite literally vanished into thin air.

When the clock struck twelve, Winona instantly found herself hovering the musty old bed within the haunted walls of her palace of torture. Miserably, her lithe limbs curled into a ball atop the mattress that somehow reeked of mothballs and death. The ghost hugged her knees to her chest, despair washing over her in all of its entirety as ragged wails howled from between her tear soaked lips. She wished that she could have died—truly died—next to Jack, that night.

There was no fairytale in Winona's future. There was no silver lining—no light at the end of the tunnel. Her afterlife was meant to be nothing more than one big horror show.

March 2012

"Tell me about your family."

Back in October, Ben Harmon and his wife Vivien had moved in with their troubled daughter, Violet. The man was a psychiatrist who had decided to conduct his business from home in order to be closer to his lovely wife—of whom he had apparently cheated on. They came from Boston—that's what Winona had heard, at least. She'd decided—out of boredom, mostly—to take advantage of the fact that the house she unwillingly haunted was now inhabited by a shrink.

She certainly felt as if she could use some mental help—and she had gathered through careful snooping that Tate was doing it, too. Though, she suspected that his reasons for posing as a patient to Doctor Harmon were much more mischievous than hers could ever be. She had seen the ill-mannered Kurt-Cobain-wannabe slinking about the house, sneaking around with the young and impressionable Violet Harmon.

Winona was just a tad-bit jealous that Tate Langdon was getting some ass when she clearly was not.

"Pippa?" Doctor Harmon called to Winona, uttering the fake name she had given him as lines of concern etched over his face.

"My family . . ." Winona began, shaking her head free of the tangled thoughts that begun to accumulate like sticky spider webs inside her brain. "Sometimes, I'll watch them from afar. There was this one time . . . Mom was at her favorite little coffee shop downtown, the one with the back porch that opens up to the park—have you seen that one? They have amazing almond pecan scones. Anyways, I just kind of . . . sat there. On one of the old, chipping park benches, and I watched. I imagined what it would've been like to sit across from her at that wicker table. To see her face light up when she sees me, and that stupid Home Goods magazine would topple from her fingers. I wish more than anything to just wrap myself around her skinny little self and squeeze for an eternity."

For several Halloween's thereafter, all Winona could truly do following the horrid death of Jack Tennant, was stand outside the window of her childhood home. She'd stand there and watch as her single Mother occupied the remaining days of her life alone and unhappy, persistently cleaning the already spotless furniture around the area. She did this every single year, that was, until one Halloween, when Winona discovered that a new family lived where her Mom once had. She knew that could only mean one thing—her dear mother had passed away.

Ben's brows knit together in vexation, slender fingers threaded around the sleek, ball-point pen. Winona watched as the middle-aged psychiatrist jotted down a series of statements within his notebook, pink tongue glued between his slightly sealed lips.

"So," Dr. Harmon began, meeting her wary gaze once more. "Why is it that you can't reconnect with your mother, Pippa? Whatever's happened between the both of you, I'm sure she would forgive you for it."

"No," Winona whined, avoiding his glare. "It's too late, Doctor Harmon."

"It's never too late, Pippa–"

"She's dead, now." Winona croaked, threading her quivering fingers through a particularly knotted portion of hair.

At her proclamation, Ben fell silent, thin lips strung together in a sympathetic frown.

"Sometimes I just feel like my life is at some kind of stand-still," Winona confidently continued, glare glued to the decorative rug beneath her feet. "Like the Earth is still spinning, but I'm standing still. Like time doesn't exist. I feel empty and numb and maybe a little–"

The young, lifeless girl momentarily froze, sucking in a deep, sarcastic sigh as she realized that she'd forgotten to breathe within the past several minutes. It's not like she needed to anymore, anyways. Her lazy gaze met Ben's once more, wetting her lips before concluding her statement with: "Dead."

Dr. Harmon spilled a series of reassuring phrases, all of which blended together into a stagnant blur as Winona focused on his fingers, and how he mindlessly toyed with the inky black pen. Suddenly, she became very aware of his wife Vivien's recent absence.

"Say," Winona began, interrupting Ben mid-sentence as he hastily bit his tongue. "Isn't your wife pregnant with twins?"

"H-how do you know that?" Dr. Harmon stumbled over his words, looking at Winona with a quizzical glare as a series of impatient knocks sounded from the door. The woman wondered if it was Moira on the other side—just dropping in to fuck with the unfaithful man a little more.

Dr. Harmon looked to his watch, sighing in disdain upon mumbling that his next appointment wasn't supposed to arrive for another thirty minutes. Winona politely smiled when the man excused himself from the room to investigate the interruption. When he opened the door to find no one on the other side, he explained that he was going to go check the front door for a moment. "Stay right here, Pippa—I'll be back to continue our discussion."

The genuine, caring smile that flashed over the scrambling Doctor's face filled Winona with a sense of comfort that she had not experienced in a very long time. Unlike most of the spirits in the house, she enjoyed the Harmon's presence, and she found herself occasionally wishing that she could pile up on the couch with Vivien, and rest her head on the woman's shoulder as they watched Days of Our Lives. Instead, Winona had to settle for being invisible in the corner, remaining silent and unseen—for the most part, at least.

A flash of blond hair passed by the door, and Winona instantly recognized Tate Langdon, who had begun to take slow steps backward until he was at the entrance of the doorway, once more. The ghost leaned his lanky body on the door frame, arms crossed over his gray striped chest as he looked upon the girl with tangible distaste. Winona had sort of wanted to make friends with Tate—in the beginning, despite the horrible things he had done—but the boy's constantly salty demeanor had made her shy away from the notion just as quickly as it had risen. In truth, the only thing—living or dead—that Tate Langdon had shown sincere affection for in a long time was none other than Violet Harmon.

"What could you possibly need to talk to a shrink for?" Tate spat, his white-blond locks nearly falling into his dark, piercing eyes. "You may be dressed like a grungy tormented soul," Tate rose his pale fingers in mocking quotations. "With your punky little ripped jeans, and your dark makeup, but in reality, you're just like—"

Winona had opened her mouth to ask Tate if it was his classmates that he had ruthlessly slaughtered who she was apparently just like, but instead, her lips remained silent. Dormant.

"Fuck off, Tate." She snipped, before excusing herself from the room, hands curled into irate fists at her sides. It was evident that her session with Dr. Harmon had officially expired.

⁂

The day before had transpired with a certain stillness that could only be described as the calm before the storm. Winona had always been able to sense impending doom—even as a child. Her mother had chalked it up to anxiousness, and maybe it was. However, when Constance Langdon burst through the doors of the Murder House at the brink of dusk with a shrieking Vivien in tow, Winona knew that whatever was about to happen would not have a happy ending.

Winona rose from her sitting position on Violet's bedroom floor as Tate turned the music down, craning his neck to listen. Violet had disappeared with her estranged father only moments prior, only after ruefully revealing that she was—in fact—actually dead. Tate and Winona invisibly hovered, exchanging awkward glances as both Ben and Violet slipped through the door at the mere sound of a noisy car horn from right outside the window.

Though the pair of oddballs did not really get along, Winona sometimes still found herself in Tate's company simply to listen to the music he and Violet played—or rather, to just be near someone her age. Words were seldomly uttered, but only rarely did Tate banish her from his presence. Violet would typically object, but Winona, (being the antisocial teenage girl she was), would almost instantly vanish, as if she were never even there at all.

She took a liking to the mansion's mother, Nora Montgomery, around her second year of residency. Nora almost reminded Winona of her mother, in a sad, weeping way—and the eternally seventeen-year-old girl even taught the pretty woman who'd swallowed a bullet how to french braid her hair. However, Winona just couldn't bring herself to spend all of her time with an exceedingly miserable Nora. While the lovely, motherly woman was sweet as could be, the cloud of sadness she carried was enough to bring a person to tears.

A blood-curdling scream rippled through the stale air, one that nearly convinced Winona that Vivien was being ripped open from the inside—a bone chilling sound loud enough to wake the dead. Tate and Winona's eyes hurriedly met as the shaggy haired boy's adams apple bobbed in his throat with a worrisome gulp.

"Vivien," the ghost girl whispered in worry. It was then that she'd unwillingly remembered what the others had divulged—what Tate had supposedly done to the lady of the house. Hopefully, his kinky night in the rubber fetish coverall made of shiny black latex—with his girlfriend's mother, nonetheless—hadn't contributed to her pregnancy. Tate had already bolted to the bedroom door, but did not make an exit. It was as if he was afraid to find out what was happening—afraid that it was his doing.

"You had better hope both of those babies belong to Dr. Harmon," Winona growled as she shoved past Tate, purposefully knocking into him. With the wails of agony that were erupting from downstairs, she knew that Vivien must be going into labor.

Just when they had been fortunate enough to have a decent, lovable family move in, Tate had just had to go and stick his dick somewhere it absolutely did not belong, possibly ruining everything.

"Oh yeah?" Tate yelled at Winona as she disappeared down the hallway. "And, what are you gonna do about it, you fucking bleeding heart?" The second the words had left Tate's mouth, all of the lights in the house promptly extinguished, enveloping the pair in a sleek, stark darkness—the low hum of the failing generator consuming their ears before deliberately dying.

Winona's steps were careful and measured as she cautiously made her way down the stairs. If she had a heartbeat, she knew it would be pounding in anticipation. She could vaguely hear the annunciated voice of a man asking for towels to be spread out underneath someone, and although she hadn't eaten in years, Winona found her belly churning in terror.

When Winona reached the end of the stairs, she spotted Violet's fear-stricken form as she watched something horrendous unfold—something that Winona could not yet see.

"She can't give birth here, it's not safe-" Violet protested, her doe-like eyes filling with tears as a motivated Constance came into view.

"Well, then make it safe. You know what to do." Constance said, her voice leaving no room for disagreement.

With that, Violet disappeared with a panicked cry for Tate.

Feeling as if she perhaps should not, Winona reluctantly made her way to stand where Violet once had, hovering the doorway as she peered in at a scene that was so strange—so distorted and wrong that it was almost blurry, at first. Charles Montgomery—the original owner of the intricately crafted house, a psychotic, drug-addicted doctor—was perched between Vivien's generously parted legs in preparation to deliver the babies. The room was basked in a red, hellish glow as the flickering of candlelight bounced eerily over the shadowed walls.

"I can't be here! Get me out of this house!" Vivien pled, wildly swinging her head around until her rabid stare collided with Winona's. Caramel blonde locks, dripping with sweat from the excursion at hand clung to her ashen face. It was as if the closer her babies came to taking their first breaths, the closer Vivien Harmon came to meeting the reaper. Despite the fact that the situation was horrific, warmth flooded through Winona with the knowledge that the woman of whom she had cared for from afar was finally seeing her. Sure, Winona could have shown herself before, but it had never felt right.

"Vivien, push, remember your breathing!" Dr. Harmon pleaded, perspiration derived entirely from worry beading across the crinkled expanse of his forehead as he repeated the mantra over and over again.

Before she had even realized, Winona was standing next to Vivien as the woman watched the ghosts of the nurses aid the doctor. Blood bloomed like rose buds over the chest of Maria's white uniform, exactly where she had been ruthlessly stabbed. Their eyes were glassy and mindful as they obeyed instructions to give Vivien ether to numb her pain.

Clasping Vivien's frail hand between hers, Winona found herself cooing phrases of encouragement to the helpless woman. After all, Winona would have been grateful for any comfort during her own time of death, and it seemed as if Constance was more concerned with the babies that were about to be expelled into the world rather than offering solace to their mother. While Ben Harmon was desperately trying to be of assistance, Winona could tell that the poor man was mentally curled up into the fetal position—just as perplexed and frightened by the freak show going on around him as his dying wife.

"Pippa? What are you–" Dr. Harmon stuttered, bugging eyes landing on a sweetly smiling Winona Wexler.

"It's Winona, actually. Don't worry, we're here to help." She said, finally allowing the veil of secrecy to drop as she briefly smiled with a half-hearted apology. Ben's puzzled stare lingered only momentarily, head shaking from side-to-side in bewilderment before returning his glare to a sobbing Vivien.

Following the doctor's orders, Vivien let out a final push, seemingly using all of the strength she possessed—only to be met with the heartbreaking sound of stagnant silence.

Charles Montgomery bundled up the elfin, immobile baby in a simple white blanket, a thin frown etched across blank features. Winona raised a curious brow as the doctor removed himself from the in-between of Vivien's parted legs, strutting across the living room and momentarily disappearing from sight. Vivien weakly requested to view the evidently deceased child, but instead, her inquiry went unanswered, the shrill tone of a giddy Constance filling the stagnant void as she reminded the weak woman of the second child, who would surely make its appearance within moments.

The following events that transpired would surely be burnt into Winona's memory for an eternity, like a warm, melting stamp—sloppily seeping into the skin in the form of a branding. From the area between Vivien that was bloodied and ripped beyond repair, Dr. Montgomery heartily revealed what could only be described as a living, breathing angel. Even covered in the essence of his mother's life force, he was the most beautiful baby Winona had ever laid eyes upon, and she couldn't help but openly gawk at the screeching little child.

Prying her attention away from Vivien, Winona impulsively reached for the little angel that was now wrapped securely in a stark pure blanket to match his dead brother's. Something inside Winona suddenly stirred—an overwhelming essence of peace consuming her every limb at the sheer sight of the beautiful, gurgling baby. Per her request, the exhausted doctor eased the weighty bundle into the curve of her arms, a pair of wide, crystal-blue eyes fluttering in wonder as his tiny pink mouth opened, a bald cry of hunger taking its place amongst the elements as the clear vowels rose like balloons.

"I will always protect you." The words tumbled from Winona's lips like a forgotten prayer—one that she had always been meant to utter—just before Constance returned, empty handed with her eyes firmly fixated on the thriving alpha of the twins.

"Give me my grandson," the woman chastised before ripping the living embodiment of joy away, the elderly woman's bowed mouth wrinkling in an awed whisper of his name.

Michael. His name was Michael Langdon.