Carrie
Stephen King

(2/3/23- 2/4/23)

JN:     

        Stones fell onto the house of 3-year-old Carrietta White. Thirteen years full of incessant bullying later, she found herself in the middle of a gym shower session bleeding for the first time in her life. The girls around her called it out, made fun of her, and threw tampons until the gym teacher realized that Carrietta (Carrie for short) didn’t know what to do. She was brought to the principal’s office after the gym teacher cleared the locker room and helped Carrie clean herself up. On her way out, she telekinetically broke something in the room and pushed over an ashtray. She was allowed to walk home and take the day off, where she thought about her strange telekinetic powers.
        Carrie’s mother, Margaret, was a zealot that abhorred anything unladylike, including menstruation, which was why she never told Carrie about it. When her father died and her mother's stomach grew several months later, Margaret believed she had a tumor instead of the obvious baby growing inside her. When she finally gave birth, she cut the umbilical cord herself.  
        Three years later, on the fateful day of the falling stones, Carrie stumbled upon a sleeping teenage neighbor out sunbathing on the lawn. The girl was wearing a two-piece bathing suit because Margeret yelled at her for sunbathing and the girl’s mother got offended and doubled down. Carrie noticed that the girl had breasts and asked about them, shocking her when she said that her mother told her that breasts were sinful. The girl felt bad for her, especially when her mother yelled at Carrie to return home. Minutes later, large chunks of ice fell onto Margaret's property and her property only. Following the chunks of ice came falling stones, creating craters all around the property but never going beyond. The neighbors watched in horror, but the news crews were too slow to pick it up, so the incident never was confirmed to the public. 
        (Back to Carrie) Entering her house, Carrie found herself alone looking at all the religious paraphernalia that crowded the rooms. When Margaret returned and learned she had been bleeding, she took Carrie to their altar and kicked her there when Carrie stopped moving and broke into hysterics. Along the way, her mother kept talking about Carrie's sinful nature, about the weakness that God instilled in Eve and thus all women, and how her sinful past now made her bleed. Crying, Carrie kept blaming her mother for not telling her about bleeding and blaming her for her traumatizing bullying. She also threatened to make the stones fall again (finally realizing that she may have caused it), which resulted in a brief moment of panic from Margaret. Still, Margaret forced Carrie into the closet as punishment. Six tormenting hours later, she was allowed out, and after some sewing, she finally went to bed. Nonetheless, Carrie knew she now had leverage over her abusive and hateful mother. 
        At school the following day, the gym teacher reprimanded the girls who bullied Carrie, giving them all a one-week detention. Chris Hargensen, one of the popular girls, yelled at the gym teacher and received a slap across the face as a result. Her father, a lawyer, met with the principal the following day to threaten to sue the school for corporal punishment. The principal, however, turned around and listed all of the times that Chris verbally assaulted and harassed other students, threatening to counter-sue if her father went forward to court. 
When Carrie was finally about to go back to school, she practiced her telekinesis to the point where she could control it, although it was still limited. 
        (New character) Sue Snell was one of the girls who laughed at Carrie when she bled in the shower, but she felt very bad about it. She also felt bad for all the jokes and teasing targeted at her, so she asked Thomas, her boyfriend, to ask Carrie to the school prom. So, he went to Carrie during school one day and flat-out asked her. After she received confirmation that it wasn’t a trick and Thomas really wanted to go with her, she accepted. When she told her mother about it, she grabbed Carrie and dragged her once more to the closet. Carrie, done with being abused by her, used her telekinesis to stop her in her tracks. Her mother went upstairs to pray. 
        A future book reporting on the incident known as Prom Night (this book is purposefully all over the place, so I would like to at least include a portion of that) looked into the impact that Thomas had on the massacre that took place on Prom Night that resulted in many deaths including his own. It examined the creation of the problem and placed the brains behind the operation in Chris and her submissive boyfriend. It also discussed the recessive gene that created Carrie's telekinetic ability, which is triggered by extremely stressful situations. 
        When the day of the prom came and Carrie put on the dress for the first time, her mother tried to stop her. She begged and hurt herself, but Carrie was determined to leave, so she resorted to using her powers. Like before, Margaret left her alone to go pray as Carrie waited for her date to arrive, and right when Carrie thought Tommy wasn’t going to show up, he did. The first thing he did was call her beautiful. He brought her to the dance, and for the first time, people treated Carrie kindly. Tommy stayed with her the whole time, ensuring that she was comfortable with everything. Surprisingly, Carrie found that she was having a wonderful time. When the time to choose prom king and queen came, Carrie and Tommy went to the ballot box and voted for themselves. The votes were counted, and a tie occurred between them and another couple. Everyone voted again, and Carrie, feeling overwhelmed, told Tommy not to vote for them. He didn’t listen and voted for them anyway, and when the votes were recounted, Tommy and Carrie won by a single vote. Tommy led a nervous Carrie up the stairs to accept their crowns, and right as the celebratory music echoed their victory dance, Chris and her boyfriend Billy initiated a contraption that dropped a bucket of pig blood onto them. 
        For a brief moment, the gym was completely silent as the onlookers figured out what happened. Then came the uncontrollable laughter at Carrie's expense; another joke to make fun of Carrie. While they were laughing, they didn’t realize the significance of one of the buckets falling and knocking Tommy unconscious. Horrified, Carrie covered her face and hurried through the crowd to the back door. She came back a couple of minutes later with a smile on her face. People tried exiting the main gym doors but found them inexplicably locked. Suddenly, water sprinklers began blaring above. Several people fled through a fire escape, but the rest saw the electrical band equipment inching closer to the layer of water forming on the ground. They saw a member of the band fry when he came in contact with a microphone. They saw the electrical cables swerving through the air and finally reaching the layer of water. If they were still alive at that point, they finally saw the fire caused by the electrical equipment lick its way higher up in the gym until they finally reached the oil tanks. 
        When firetrucks came to put out the fire, they noticed that all fire hydrants had been screwed off and rendered useless. Across the street at a gas station, all of the gas pumps were leaking gas onto the street, leaving the perfect disaster to unfold when a passerby threw his cigarette on the ground. Half a block was leveled instantly. People came to see the disaster at the school unfold at a distance as another unfolded around them. Powerlines fell around them, electrocuting the unfortunate ones. Carrie went home, causing destruction and devastation every step of the way. 
        Entering her home, Carrie found Margaret with a knife, ready to plunge it into her to rid her of the devil which she held. Carrie was too powerful at this point, so while Margaret stabbed her shoulder, Carrie simply slowed her heart and kept slowing it until it stopped. She returned outside to cause more chaos and found Chris driving with Billy. Carrie threw the car into a wall where it quickly caught fire. Not far from it, Carrie looked up at the stars for the last time, watched as her own chest caught fire, and died.
        Sue was at home for most of the night, but she knew about the fire. She couldn’t explain how, but she also knew Carrie caused it. Sue knew where Carrie was, so she drove to where Carrie lay dying and reached out with her mind to speak to her. Sue related to Carrie that she didn’t trick her and didn’t hate her. Sue listened to Carrie's mind saying how sorry she for killing her mother. She kept saying that until Sue couldn’t hear her anymore, and Carrie's body finally gave out. At the end of the day, 440 people were killed by the devastation that Carrie caused that night. (And that is Carrie, quite the tragedy. Thank you for reading, and please be kind to people. You never know what they are capable of for better or worse).