I wrote this for English for my personal response I'm quite proud of it. I kinda feel the ending may be too anti-climatic. Anyway it's a horror enjoy.
The dark crimson curtains parted slowly promoting an ovation of clamouring hands applauding. This lasted for a few seconds then the clapping subsided and the audience just stared.
The face of Claire Burton stared back suspended in the air by a long rope wound tightly around her neck, making her skull almost vomit her eyes out, her face tinted a pale watery colour blue. Her expression vacant and dead. A slight breeze blowing her violet dress around her ankles. A high heel hanging loosely from her left foot. Her beautiful volcanic-magma-waterfall of hair untidy and covering most of her face.
The silence was dreadful no one uttered a word no child spoke and no baby cried. All just gawped with a mixture of confusion, terror, morbid fascination. To many it felt like time had stopped that if they moved at all it would break the spell of this horrible stricken calmness.
Over a thousand people were saying nothing and just staring some with tears appearing in their eyes others with expression like they’d just been slapped.
Behind the stage the Manager was now deciding to act, he was a middle-aged man very lean, glasses propped on his nose, dazzling sea blue eyes and a mat of brown hair combed over a bald spot in the middle of his head. He crept up the long ladders. His treads falling heavily on the metal with a loud terrible “Clunk, Clunk…”
He creased his brow in concentration and clambered up the rungs gingerly. No one was speaking still. The only sounds were him climbing up.
When he reached the top of his ascent at last, he saw the rope holding her snaked around one of the wooden beams. Bending down until he was on knees, he slowly tugged Claire frail waif-like form up. Her shoe fell creating a loud thud on the stage drawing the silence away.
A cry of terror rang out through the auditorium and through these cries of panic could be heard,
“What happened?”
“Who did it?”
“Did she do it?”
“Why did she do it?”
“What’s going on?”
“Where is the person responsible?”
The manager tried to ignore them all as these questions flitted from mouth to mouth in a matter of seconds.
The question he heard continually was, “Who could hurt the golden angel of the West End?”
Hair like a fiery cascading waterfall. A voice like a thousand harmonious angels. This would have been her first night performing live to a TV audience. She had been already big in her home town of Hitchin a Hertfordshire Market town. Now she’d never get the chance of being bigger.
The Manager once he’d pulled her up he drew out his walkie-talkie and rang up the Janitor,
“Hello…Keith, we’ve got a problem… call the police, Claire Burton was found hanging.”
The Janitor gasped in surprise, “Sir… I will… who could do this?”
“I’ve no idea Keith, but problem is over a thousand people saw her hanging.”
Keith gasped again, “Sir, is there a chance of theatre being closed for this?”
The Manager was struck dumb; if the theatre closed, over seven hundred people would be unemployed. All the coming shows would be cancelled and it’s possible the theatre would be taken to court. After a long silence Keith spoke,
“Sir… you still there?”
“Yes… and I’m afraid I don’t know; I just don’t know Keith…”
The manager replaced the walkie-talkie back on to his belt.
Keith had spoken the truth and the manager just hadn’t even began to think of threat of the theatre being closed.
He picked her body up slowly, when a note falling from her dress caught his eye, a small ragged sheet of paper, handwritten. It was a post-it note. The manager picked up the note and read,
Baa, baa dead sheep have you any skills?
Yes sir, yes sir three bodies full
One for the manager,
And one for the theatre
And one for the singing of a dead angel.
The manager read a few times when his ears caught the haunting melody he looked around to see all the people had left. The music was familiar and reminded him of his child hood.
As the music continued to play, he realized it was “Baa, Baa Black Sheep” Though as he listened it was reminding him less of his child hood he was beginning to feel a sinister sensation coming from it.
The music halted as soon as it began and the manager was left breathing laboriously feeling as if he had run a marathon. His heart pounding against his rib cage. He was sure that this wasn’t the last he’d hear of this situation.
From what he knew of Claire, she wouldn’t have advertised her death in such a way. He’s positive she wouldn’t have hung herself. The girl suffered from such low self-esteem, yes, but she’d chosen a less obvious, in your face death.
Whatever happened it all came back to the theatre, this theatre had a reputation. It was one of the finest establishments in the West End. It had already begun a prosperous year collecting an estimated £99,000. Was all this for nothing?
If it looked like a suicide and no one else had seen the note. Was one accident worth closing the theatre and missing the biggest year yet for money? The outtake estimated for this year alone would be the largest ever. That would really help this theatre repairs wise etc… Many people would keep there jobs was one person so worth it closing the theatre for?
Ha growled angrily, muttering, “One person” ripping the note to tiny shreds and throwing them away.
The police came next day to find another body; it was the old manager with a money clip
stuffed halfway through his mouth and a tape recording repeating same term in the same angry tone, “Money! Money! Money! Always comes down to money don’t it!”
********
He was found in the auditorium and cause of death was a broken neck, his glasses lay smashed by him. The police spoke to the manager next of kin and the decision was made to close the theatre. Claire Burton parents took the theatre to court suing for over £70,000, bankrupting the theatre. All over the news, the manager was held responsible and people theorized that he’d off’ed himself because of guilt. As he couldn’t defend himself the manager was held responsible for Claire death. Three weeks after the theatre was demolished and the crew who were commissioned the demolition noticed one man continually through the preceding smiling as the building fell. After they’d demolished the building the man walked away whistling “Baa, Baa Black sheep.”
