Ghostagram

Ghostagram! is a funny horror story about a girl who lives her entire life on Instagram. It was written by Shira Rachel Danan.

Megan Tucker was waiting for her friends. Marissa and Callie were supposed to pick her up. They planned to go to the mall and shop for Halloween costumes.

Megan checked her makeup again in the bathroom mirror. She looked good. Damn good. She snapped a picture for her Instagram admirers. After she posted the image, she waited for the likes to start coming in.

Just then, she saw something terrifying in the corner of the photo. It was a little girl in a long white nightgown. She had blood pouring down her face. Megan screamed and turned around, but there was nobody behind her.

“Megan? What’s wrong?” her mom asked as she came running into the room.

“Nothing,” Megan lied, “I thought I saw a gray hair.”

Even though her heart was pounding, she didn’t want to worry her mother, who had enough on her mind as a single mom who worked two jobs just to make ends meet.

“Don’t worry, Megan,” her mom sighed. “You’re still a young and beautiful girl, and you always will be. Hopefully you’ll never have any gray hair like I do from working these two jobs and raising two kids on my own.”

“Two kids?” Megan gave her mom a puzzled look.

“Uh… I mean one,” her mom said quickly. “One kid.”

Just then, they heard the sound of a car horn outside. Megan kissed her mother goodbye, rushed downstairs and hopped into Marissa’s waiting car.

“Hey Megan, I saw your selfie on Instagram,” Marissa said, as she pulled away from the house.

“Yeah, that Halloween decoration in the background was really creepy,” Callie said.

“You guys, it wasn’t a Halloween decoration!” Megan squealed. “I don’t know where that murdered girl came from. I’m totally freaked out!”

“Oh come on, Megan,” Marissa said, “You cannot be serious!”

“I’m deadly serious!” Megan said.

Her hands were shaking so much, she could barely unlock her phone. She forced herself to calm down, then snapped another selfie. This time she was pouting cutely with her sunglasses on her head.

She posted the photo, but when she looked at it, she couldn’t believe her eyes. There she was again… The creepy dead girl was sitting right next to Callie in the back seat of the car!

“OMG!” Megan cried. “Check your phones now!”

Callie and Marissa both unlocked their phones and checked Instagram. When they saw the photo, they screamed in horror.

“She’s going to get blood on my car!” Marissa complained.

“Never mind your car!” Callie whined. “What about my short-shorts?”

“Why is this happening to me?” Megan moaned.

Then she noticed her new photo already had 53 likes. And the previous one from her bathroom had 181 likes. There were tons of admiring comments like “hey gurl u look sexxxy” and “nice try with the Halloween decoration u almost got meee” and “Wanna hook up sometime?”.

“Wow, that’s a lot of likes,” Callie said.

“Maybe being haunted by a blood-drenched little ghost girl isn’t such a bad thing after all,” said Megan.

“But who is this ghost?” Marissa wondered. “And why is she haunting you?”

They pulled into a parking space at the mall and piled out of the car.

“I don’t know,” Megan said.

As they walked into the mall and searched for the costume store, she noticed a new comment on her instagram account. It was from someone she didn’t know, and it said, “That’s weird. The little girl in the background of your photo looks exactly like Susie Tucker. But it couldn’t be. Susie Tucker died in 1998. She was murdered by her own mother. BTW, you look hot. Damn hot. Wanna hook up sometime?”

“Susie Tucker? Who is Susie Tucker?” Callie said.

Suddenly, everything started to make sense to Megan. Her brain was normally dormant, but now it was working overtime.

“I think… I think…” she said, “I think she’s my sister!”

On Halloween night, Megan was in her bedroom, getting ready. She put on a long, white nightgown, then took a selfie in her living room. Although she didn’t know it, she was standing on the very spot where the sister she never knew had been murdered 15 years before.

She posted the photo and when she checked it, she saw the pale, bloody, frightened girl in the background. Megan wanted to wait and see how many likes she would get, but she knew there wasn’t time. Her mom was about to come home from work.

The front door opened and her mother walked in. When she caught sight of Megan’s outfit, she froze in her tracks.

“Megan? Why are you dressed like that?” she asked.

Megan took a step closer to her mother.

“This year, I’m going to the Halloween party as my sister,” Megan said.

“Whatever do you mean?” her mother replied.

Megan grabbed her mother by the arms and started shaking her.

“This is how Susie was dressed, wasn’t it, Mom?” she shouted. “This is how she was dressed on the night you MURDERED her!”

“Stop it, Megan!” her mother screamed. “It wasn’t my fault! She was starting to grow old! Old like me! I couldn’t let that happen! I wanted her to stay young and beautiful forever!”

Megan began to cry, scrunching up her face to hold back the tears.

“Nooo!” she moaned. “I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s true! You need help, Mom! You’re crazy!”

Megan’s mother stared at her in horror. “Are those… Are those wrinkles on your face?”

She reached into her purse and pulled out a large butcher’s knife. The blade glistened in the moonlight.

“You’re getting old, Megan.” she whispered. “Old like me! You have to stay young, like Susie! I’ll help you stay young and beautiful forever!”

“Mom, nooooooo!” Megan screamed, but it was too late. With a crazed look in her eyes, her mother thrust the knife into Megan’s chest. The teenage girl staggered backwards and collapsed on the floor. A pool of blood spread out around her on the carpet.

As the life ebbed from her veins, Megan swiped her phone. It was a painful struggle, but she managed to take one last selfie. As soon as she posted it to Instagram, it got a comment.

It was from one of her teenage admirers and it said, “U look sexxxy Megan. Wanna hook up sometime?”