“As you can see, the place is in excellent condition,” the real estate agent beamed, her pink heels clacking across the polished wooden floor. “The prior occupant was a sweet old lady. No family or kids or pets to dirty up the place…”
I loved the old farmhouse right away, but I doubted my wife Beth would see it that way. We should have come at a different time of day.
“Lonely out here, isn’t it?” Beth look at me uncertainly, and I could see why. The setting sun made our real estate agent’s shadow look stretched and monstrous on the bare white walls. In the dying light, the trees around the property seemed black, skeletal, and endless.
Although Beth had said that she was enthusiastic about our move, I think she was already secretly afraid of the countryside: its vast spaces, its helpless isolation–
And maybe she had a point.
It was a big step for us, but we had to get out of the city.
After what happened at our daughter Kennedy’s school, we didn’t have a choice.
Kennedy herself held my hand, looking around the place with wide, eager eyes.
I think she liked the place too–
But it was hard to know for sure.
Kennedy had non-verbal autism, and her ability to communicate with us was limited to her facial expressions, gestures, and the exchange of pictures or drawings.
My wife ran her hand over the wooden bannister leading upstairs.
“A lot of space, though…” she muttered to herself.
“Four bedrooms, two baths, an attic and an unfinished basement!” the real estate agent confirmed cheerfully. The two-bedroom apartment where we currently lived was smaller than just half of the farmhouse’s second floor.
I took another look out the window at the windswept farmland. Out in the country, there’s no one to hear you scream, I thought, and shivered.
The sound of my wife’s voice brought me back to reality.
“I think we’d like to make an offer.” Beth smiled at me. Kennedy jumped up and down excitedly, then began pulling my fingers to bring me upstairs. She wanted to pick out her new bedroom.
At every step in the process, I expected–maybe even hoped–that something would go wrong, trapping us in our uncomfortable-but-familiar city lifestyle.
Yet somehow my family and everything we owned arrived safe and sound to our new home.
Our scanty possessions looked like toys in the high-ceilinged rooms; soon I was so busy with furniture shopping, school shopping, and handling the relocation paperwork that I forgot all about the strange premonition I’d felt when I first set foot in the farmhouse–
For a while, at least.
Two weeks in, there was a knock on our door. A pudgy man about my age in a baseball cap and overalls stood on our front porch, wiping sweat from his brow.
“Corbyn Liddel.” He held out his hand the moment he saw me. “I’m your tenant farmer. Guess they went over all that with the lease, huh?”
I nodded. I vaguely remembered signing a paper that would allow someone to continue farming the land while paying us a percentage, but so much had happened since then….
“What brings you folks out to our neck of the woods?” Corbyn went on.
I had a sudden flashback to the sight of Kennedy–bruised, bloodied, eyes wide with fear. She’d wet herself and her throat was hoarse from screaming. They’d stuffed her into a locker to try to make her talk…but of course, she couldn’t say who.
“Oh, you know.” I tried to smile. “Fresh air.”
“Uh-huh.” Corbyn scratched his chin. “Whelp, if you folks need anythin–”
“There is one thing!” I rushed. “Did you know the woman who lived here before?”
“Y’mean Nellie Pruitt? Sure. Sweet old lady. Kept to herself. Bank repossessed the place after she disappeared.” My jaw dropped. “There was a search’, a’course, and a story in the local news. Most folks figured she ran outta money and moved out west with some relatives, but far as I know she didn’t have any relatives. Maybe she broke a hip out there in the woods and the coyotes got to her. I seen you got a little girl. I’d keep’er outta the woods if I was you.” Corbyn spat over the porch railing. “Anyhow, I’ll leave a check in the mailbox round the first’a the month, same as I did for Miss Nellie.” With that, Corbyn tipped his hat and walked back to his truck.
I didn’t share what I’d learned with Beth and Kennedy. For one thing, I didn’t want to upset them so soon after the big move; for another, I couldn’t be sure that what Corbyn had told me wasn’t all talk. He might even have been just having a laugh at the expense of us city slickers.
Doing my best to sound casual, I asked around at the post office, the gas station, and the bait shop in town.
The only thing everyone was clear about, however, was that ‘Miss Nellie’ had lived alone all her life and that now she was gone–
And that I’d do well to keep Kennedy far away from the forest.
My daughter herself was loving her new environment. The kids at her school didn’t seem to care at all that she didn’t speak; they were just happy to see a new face in town. Her drawing abilities helped: soon she was doing so many sketches for her friends that my wife told her to start taking commissions to help out with the bills–and Beth was only half-kidding.
As much as we were enjoying country life, that was one thing I’d underestimated: the monthly cost of the big old place. When I got the first heating bill, the town theory that Miss Nellie had gone out west to avoid her creditors suddenly made a lot more sense.
It was almost double what I expected.
Of course, I reasoned, there were probably a lot of nooks and crannies for warmth to escape through, a lot of space between the basement, the two main floors, and the attic–which we’d barely even explored yet.
Then there were the doors, which stuck and popped in their frames; they creaked open almost at random. The prior occupant (Miss Nellie, I reminded myself) had installed three sets of locks on each of the exterior doors, and the real estate agent had given us keys to two of them…but it didn’t seem to help.
When the sun set behind the foggy fields and turned the pine trees surrounding the farm to black and jagged fangs, I could understand why an old woman living alone out here might’ve wanted three sets of locks.
Maybe it was my own insecurity about suddenly being so far from everything and everyone that made me notice Kennedy’s strange new behavior before anyone else.
I was laying awake one blustery night about six weeks after our move, listening to the wind rattle the rafters of the old house. To my nervous mind, it sounded like wild animals scratching at our double-bolted doors. Wild animals like the coyotes that ate Miss Nellie, I grimaced–and then got out of bed for a glass of water before my thoughts could get any more insane. On my way back from the kitchen, I heard creaking footsteps moving along the upstairs hallway.
I charged up the stairs, as though I’d hoped to catch some intruder in the act–
But I only found Kennedy. She was squatting by the floor vent, opening it and shutting it with a frown.
“Are you alright, honey?” I asked. “Is it too cold for you?”
With a shake of her head, my daughter ran back to bed. I looked inside the grate, wondering what she had seen in there–but there was only blackness.
Falling asleep became a struggle after that. Every time I closed my eyes to sleep, I became aware of a whole set of groaning, scraping, thumping sounds.
Noises that seemed innocent enough during the day, but at night…
They made me feel sure that some horrible thing from the woods had slunk into our home. Some awful elongated creature with oily black fur and sharp fangs, crawling across the ceiling of my daughter’s bedroom…
I had to put a stop to it. Soon my insomnia made me irritable, and I knew that it was hurting my marriage. Beth and I started fighting over idiotic things, like who had left a door unlocked or who had finished off the leftovers in the fridge.
It was affecting Kennedy too. She no longer had the wide-eyed enthusiasm she’d first shown when we’d first moved to the old farmhouse; in fact, she was looking just as haggard and sleepless as I was.
Although I’d never used a hammer for anything more complicated than hanging a picture frame, I set out on an earnest campaign of DIY home repair.
I trimmed back the tree limbs that scratched along the roof; cleared the gutters of birds’ nests and rotting leaves; patched up any cracks or holes I found.
Kennedy was daddy’s little helper, handing me nails when I needed them and giggling when I cursed or banged my head.
She seemed oddly reluctant to leave my side–
Especially in the attic and the cellar.
Not that I could blame her.
The bare insulation that looked like pink, flayed-off skin; the freakish shadows cast by the swinging, dusty incandescent lightbulbs; the way cold air seemed to move around in the darkness like a living thing–it gave me the creeps as well.
I slept better after my repairs. I had checked the house myself and confirmed that it was secure; what more did I want?
Of course, whenever that question crossed my mind, I thought of Kennedy.
I wanted Kennedy to talk.
I wanted Kennedy to be happy.
I wanted Kennedy to have a normal life.
Maybe that’s why the breakfast conversation I had with my wife a few days later disturbed me so much.
“Hey,” Beth tugged on the sleeve of my bathroom. “I found something weird in Kennedy’s room this morning.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Tupperware.” My wife wrinkled her nose. “I guess this solves the mystery of where our leftovers are going…”
“Do you think she’s still hungry after dinner?” I wondered aloud. “She used to be so good about letting us know with the pictures…”
“Well, it’s been a big change for her. I know she’s happier at her new school, but still…” my wife bit her lip: a telltale sign that she was pondering whether or not to tell me something. “Hey, you don’t think she’s developing, like, hoarder tendencies or anything like that, do you?”
“Where did that come from all of a sudden?” I blinked.
“It’s just…” Beth sighed. “I keep losing things. Silly things. Photographs, an old ring…it’s like I put something down and it’s gone…then later it reappears somewhere else! It’s driving me crazy!”
I resolved to check Kennedy’s room later, but I was running late for work and forgot all about that odd little conversation…until a few hours before dawn the next morning.
When my eyes snapped open with no clear cause, I knew something was wrong.
Whispering. Someone was whispering in our hallway!
I sprung from bed and burst into the hallway, startling Kennedy.
She was in her pajamas, lying on the floor beside the vent.
“Honey…” I knelt down beside her. “Were you…talking? Who were you talking to?”
Kennedy beckoned me to follow her back to her bedroom, and with a last unsettled glance at the darkness inside the floor grate, I did. My daughter flipped open the purple binder where she kept her drawings; how long had it been since we’d had time to sit down and look through them together?
Too long.
The first sketch showed a pair of glowing eyes behind black bars…like the bars on the ventilation grate.
In the second, a gaunt purplish figure with floor-length white hair stooped over a familiar-looking tupperware like a hungry animal.
It appeared in drawing after drawing: walking down a dark hallway in a filthy dress…watching us from the little round window in the attic…curled up beside my daughter in her bed, stroking her hair with those long filthy fingernails…
“Honey…who’s this?” Although I knew it was useless, I pointed to the horrible purplish figure–
And Kennedy burst into tears.
We scheduled an appointment with her old child psychiatrist the very next day.
“Learning to speak via an imaginary friend is common,” she assured us sweetly, “And after the trauma your daughter experienced, it’s only to be expected that her artwork is a bit…disturbing. I wouldn’t discourage her. This could be the breakthrough we’ve been hoping for. And don’t worry,” she smiled. “There’s no such thing as ghosts!”
I didn’t feel very reassured as I drove my family back home, but a plan was forming in my mind. Beth would call it insane, and Kennedy would be frightened by it: I’d have to wait until they were both out of the house…
When Beth left to take Kennedy to school the next morning, I put my plan into action. Trusty hammer in hand, I smashed through the wall around the vent in the upstairs hallway.
The space on the other side was larger than it appeared; it was more like a tunnel than a ventilator shaft. I spotted a trapdoor in the cobwebby gloom.
I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry.
Flashlight and hammer in hand, I wiped plaster dust from my sweaty forehead and crawled forward into the darkness.
The trapdoor was just the beginning. It led to yet another narrow space–just tall enough for an adult to move around in by crawling–located between the first and second floor. From there, a ladder inside of an unused chimney led down to the cellar…or up to the attic. No doubt it had its exit behind the hideous, drafty pink insulation…
But I wasn’t focused on the countless wooden tunnels leading throughout my house: I was staring at the nest.
A filthy pile of rags surrounded by jars of vile amber liquid was at the center of the space; among the heaped cloth I noticed Beth’s old ring…and photos of our family.
I suddenly realized that the cramped space was a lair, a home to something horrible and wrong…and if whatever-it-was wasn’t here, then where was it?
To my horror, I heard a door open downstairs. Beth’s voice. Kennedy’s footsteps. “Honey?” Beth called uncertainly from downstairs, “Kennedy forgot her lunchbox, have you seen it?”
Oh, I had seen it, all right. My daughter’s lunchbox was at the center of the nest…
“GET BACK TO THE CAR! GET OUT OF HERE!” I shouted–
But the thick walls muffled my voice.
I scrambled out of that disgusting warren as quickly as I could, smashing my head on wooden crossbeams and slicing my hands on rotted, splintering wood…
A shriek came from downstairs, and as I skidded into the kitchen behind my daughter, I saw what had made my wife scream.
It wasn’t exactly like Kennedy’s drawings…but it was pretty close.
No, not it, I realized, her.
The waxy-skinned, gumless, skeletal thing I was looking at was Miss Nellie Pruitt–
And she held a butcher knife in her hand.
“I was so lonely. All I wanted was a family,” the old woman rasped. “And now I have one. YOU are my family. And I won’t ever let you go…”
I kicked a chair at her and sprinted for the kitchen door, but it was locked.
Of course. The third set of keys.
We were trapped.
“Why don’t you come over here, sweetie?” the old woman beckoned to Kennedy with a long, dirty fingernail. “Doesn’t your Grandma Nellie always get you whatever you want?”
My daughter looked at me with wide, uncertain eyes. As the gaunt figure reached out for Kennedy, Beth tugged her away; the old woman’s face twisted into a purple expression of rage.
“Don’t you DARE try to take my granddaughter from me!” she hissed insanely, lashing out with the knife.
Nellie Pruitt caught my wife in the wrist. Kennedy wailed as blood splattered across the kitchen floor. The old woman pulled my daughter close against her yellowed, stained nightgown.
“Shhhh…” she cooed. “Don’t you worry, sweetie. Grandma Nellie won’t let them ruin our happy family.” Her teeth–freakishly lengthened by the scurvy that had infected her while living hidden between our walls–clacked together when she spoke. I wanted more than anything to shatter her drooling smile with my boot, but I didn’t dare to move: a red droplet ran down Kennedy’s neck from where the old woman was pressing her knife against my daughter’s jugular.
Ignoring her own bleeding, Beth had slipped her phone out of her pocket. She was trying to call for help..
“Put’em on the table!” Nellie suddenly screeched. “NOW! All them new-fangled devices…we’re not having any of that in OUR family…are we, sweetie?” She stroked my daughter’s hair with a filthy hand. Kennedy looked at me, hyperventilating, silent tears in her marble-round eyes–
And there was nothing I could do.
Beth and I both put our phones on the kitchen table.
Nellie Pruitt’s grin was hideous.
“Now son–” she went on, and I realized in horror that she was talking to me “–why don’t you make some pancakes. Grandma Nellie’s hungry.” When I didn’t move right away, her glare turned angry and she twisted the point of the knife ever so slightly on Kennedy’s neck. I began to rummage around for flour and milk. “No need for my sweet granddaughter to go to school anymore–she can stay home and play with Grandma! And you–” Nellies voice suddenly became cruel again as she turned on my wife “–the place is a pigsty! Didn’t anyone ever teach you to clean!? Get those dishes tidied up!”
While I heated butter in the frying pan, Beth moved mechanically to the sink beside me. Our eyes met. She made grabbing motions with the plate in her hand, and nodded to the hot cast-iron skillet in my hand. One, two– she mouthed –three!
As my wife dived to rip Kennedy from Nellie Pruitt’s grasp, I flung the scalding butter at her face, then brought the hot metal down on her wrist like a hammer.
Beth covered Kennedy with her body as I fought the old woman for control of the knife.
She had a strength and ferocity born of madness, but the difference in our age and weight began to tell. I struggled to cover my face as she gouged at me with her nails…then I felt her teeth sink into my neck.
My shove sent her sprawling backwards. Her skull hit the countertop with a sickening crack, and something fell from her neck when she collapsed:
A dirty string from which three keys hung.
I grabbed it and left her where she lay: my first priorities were my wife and child. Kennedy seemed to be in shock, and Beth was pale from loss of blood. I helped them to the car, barely bothering to look over my shoulder at the crumpled form on the kitchen floor.
We were already barreling down the driveway in search of help when I smelt the smoke.
Behind us, the old farmhouse was burning.
We never discovered whether the fire was caused by the gas stove I’d left on…or whether it had been set on purpose by Nellie Pruitt herself.
Just for a flash, however, I thought I saw an emaciated figure in a torn nightgown standing in the flame-shrouded doorway. It reached out to us with a mix of hate and longing–
Then turned and walked back into the blazing house.
Once my wife is released from the hospital, we’re going to move back to the city.
This time, however, we’re going to make sure to inquire after the prior occupant of our new home…and make sure that they’ve really left.