Disco lights in her eyes ...

She has a four-leaf clover bookmarked in a brittle yellow paged bible. She doesn't read it. It rests in the bottom of her frilly pink handbag buried beneath a carton of Lucky Strikes, Cherry Red lipstick, and a compact mirror. Her heartbeat matched the theme of her footsteps, stepping on every single crack as she cursed her mother's name in a voice that wasn't her own inside her head. Memories of flashing lights that looked like summer in technicolor came through in a haze between squinted eyelashes. The past was not so black and white. The past holds hands with the future. Like distant lovers, bound to reconnect on the same plane of existence. Some things don't stay dead...

Versie Mae Cane was birthed in Kaymoor, West Virginia. Kaymoor was a mining town lucrative for coal mining and other natural elements. Her father, Junior had been a coal miner for the Norvell's, who owned much of the property in Kaymoor. An unfortunate incident caused the business to go belly-side up.

Some of the coal miners began to disappear, or turn up deceased. Rumors of a ravaged creature with horns, hooves, and many eyes like a spider were reaping sorrowing on the mines and surrounding hills. As a result Navell's Mining Company went under, and much of Kaymoor's income had come to a halt. Coal mining kept the town afloat. Many families began to pack up and migrate further North. Versie was 16 years old and stubborn-headed. She was daddy's girl. Junior was among one the victims of these rumored 'animal attacks'. Unfortunately, the body of Junior was never found. Versie felt that Junior might come back one day despite her mother Ruby being the voice of reason.

Her mother, Ruby, left Versie in Kaymoor. To never be heard from again. Versie learned to live off what Mother Nature gifted her. She had watched the one-horse town turn into a skeleton village. Community members warned her to leave before she was the last one left to fend for herself. She wasn't going to leave without her father. Since many townsfolk evacuated Kaymoor, Versie made an easy living selling and trading garden vegetables, crocheted clothing, or animal skulls and trinkets every other weekend in the farmer's market a few counties over.

The past became a whisper... until one night a scream happened in the woods.