~500 words, 2 mins
This post provides context, but it is not necessary to read before enjoying the main story, “The Onion Boy”, which is linked here. Think of it like “behind the scenes” bonus content. Enjoy!
I must have been twelve or thirteen when I first got a cell phone, and little did I know it would usher a brave new world of kaleidoscopic modern horrors into my life. No, I’m not talking about the nearly all-consuming screen addiction I’ve developed, as my phone has become more like an appendage rather than an appliance. That’s a topic for another day. Today, I’m talking about spooky chain text messages. You know, texts you’d get from a friend like, “Send this to ten friends or get visited tonight by the ghost of a precocious and murderous little girl!1!!1!!!!”
Chain letters predate the internet and SMS messages but really had a moment in the mid-aughts. They’re the predecessor and are thus similar to creepypastas, which are characterized by their “campfire story” feel. However, the difference with chain texts is that the medium, an unprompted digital message, defines the genre.
The seemingly crude horror story was elevated by receiving it over text or email, which pulled you into it personally. The messages would always include a call to action, a specific mandate to the reader to help it propagate by sending it to a number of your friends — or else.
Example: “The Monster hurt the character” is a very different premise than “If you don’t do something, then you will be harmed by a monster.”
The story leaps off the page with malicious agency of its own, transcending the bounds of its fictional nature and willing itself into existence. This should be the goal of every good piece of writing in one way or another. But I wasn’t thinking about any of this when I was a tween.
It might seem silly, but the first time I received a scary chain text, I was genuinely terrified because I neglected to forward the message as instructed. I received it during the day, dismissed it as something only the stupid and gullible would believe, and promptly deleted it. But once night fell, the fear crept in. I found myself on the top bunk of my brother Charlie’s and my bed, trembling under the hot glow of the adjustable reading lamp clipped to the headboard, anxiously waiting for the clock to strike midnight — her arrival time.
Charlie would periodically wake up to groan and groggily complain from the bunk below that I was up too late, but I ignored him. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I had doomed us by recklessly ignoring my classmate’s plea to forward the message to ten people, lest the spirit of a murdered woman creep out of the toilet, slither into our beds, and snuff us out as soon as we fell asleep. I had no choice but to stay up all night and protect us from that cruel fate!
This experience was in the front of my mind when I wrote “The Onion Boy” — a haunting tale that shares DNA with Nosferatu, It Follows, and Interview with a Vampire, and details the tragic corruption of our protagonist and, if The Onion Boy himself is to be believed, maybe the reader too.
I hope you enjoy!
Millerwiller 