I never thought I’d come back to this place. But here I am, sitting before you, fingers warming as the friction from my click-clack of the keys intensifies. I write so earnestly in the attempt to shed light on what has happened at my old family farm over these last months. I’m also doing this selfishly; I can’t bear the thought of another person stumbling onto this curse. So please, if you take nothing else away from what I’m about to tell you, at least remember to never come looking for this farm. Never come near this land. You’ll be trapped here forever if you do.
You all deserve an update, and as I was named directly by our previous pen I thought it was only appropriate to document this story myself. My name is Mama M, and I was the one stupid and desperate enough to unload this infected land onto that poor man. He, fortunately for me, left his laptop open, logged into this page, and I now understand what might have happened here. To him.
I didn’t curse him knowingly. Having grown up in a cursed family I have my own lion’s share of experience in the supernatural. I made it my entire life; not just the farm, but other curses and entities as well. As a cocky 20 something I thought, defianty, after my first successful thwarting of the demonic that I was, of course, invincible, and I needed to use this ability to help others. I’d cleansed one accursed being, so surely I could cleanse them all. And for quite awhile, I did. But that all worked around my grounding or came after this unfortunate mishap.
My grandfather bought this land in 1932, and he built every structure on it by hand. My father was born on this very piece of land in 1940, and I was born, just the same, down to the exact embroidered family pillowcase on the bed, in 1964. As you can already probably tell, not much is tested by time here as it would be outside the limits. Nothing changes, and tradition is important. So important that it dictated every part of our lives, from how many siblings we would have to how literate we became, and, of course, it decided which of us would take over the farm. Being the first born, that honor was reserved for myself. The curse needed to be contained by our family, I was taught growing up. The first born of every generation was destined to never move off this land, not just through will alone, but by sheer force. There was this tether that would not let me leave for longer than 48 hours, and no matter what I did I could not escape the boundaries of my prison yard for long. Until this last year.
I’d searched so far and so long. I’d brought in every expert I could find, shady or not, but the curse still didn’t break. I felt trapped, and I felt desperate. All I wanted was to move, to start my life, and to help others in their quest to demystify the unknown. But instead I was stuck, weak, helpless. Until I met Charles.
Charles was a known cryptid hunter and came with rave reviews. Whatever the cryptid equivalent of Yelp was, he had five stars. His business was booming and supposedly he knew what he was doing.
He was an hour late to our first meeting. That should’ve been a red flag in and of itself, but I was still doubting my own expertise. Honestly, if I’d just believed in myself and my experience I probably could’ve cleansed this land for good, but instead I trusted a hack and got someone killed. But whatever he did seemed to work, at first. My tether was broken. I could come and go. It seemed as though I could even dare to move away. What Charles didn’t tell me until after I had already moved, however, was the fact that once I did the curse would come raging back, ready to impart not just the current horrors I’d lived my whole life with on the new family, but with horrors I’d never experienced piled on top. That was the price I paid for my freedom, and I regret it every day.
Before I’d move away from the farm the biggest monsters involved in the curse were those overseeing the curse of the goats. My grandmother loved goats more than anything. She’d see them hopping about and the brightest smile to ever eclipse any face was seen in hers, at least, according to my grandfather. He may have been biased, but I accept his recollection all the same.
The entities had one goal: to erase the joy from the farm. In seeing my grandmother’s bright smile, especially when produced by an exact on-Earth recreation of the devil himself, they saw an opportunity. Snuff that happiness, and make the consequences not only discourage the keeping of goats, but make it hurt as well. And hurt it did. That same year my grandmother was completely inconsolable. My grandfather chalked it up to hysteria at first, but later, after her passing, saw the curse for what it was. A nightmare amidst their daydream. She’d spent a year plagued by inexplicable nightmares. She thought intruders were knocking in the night, closing in, making their way to her bedroom to ravage her. These horrors became so real to her that she ran out into the winter night and was never see again, until the sad day when her frozen corpse was discovered by my grandfather himself.
From that point forward we never had goats on the farm, for fear that the happiness they’d bring the keeper would result in a fate worse than death. Despite only finding my grandmother dead, and having multiple ways to explain her fate, he became a believer. He always said that he knew his wife and knew that the last thing she was, was a victim. He remained, until his death, in continuous suspension into the unknown; a demonic purgatory that humans were never meant to witness.
I give you all this background not to expunge myself but to, instead, let you understand the true nature of the land. I don’t know what imparted the original curse, but there was absolutely someone after my grandfather, and they, without doubt, won in their war waged against him. The issue is that the misstep my grandfather made was so egregious that we cannot cleanse the land despite the fact that he’s gone. Therefore, whoever did this didn’t want just him to suffer. They were so angry that they wanted us to all suffer as well.
I’ll return tomorrow to let you know everything I do about our previous pen, but until then I have monsters to fight. I pray I’ll speak to you tomorrow. The tapping has already begun, and if I’m to make it through the night, I have to hide. Now.
Edit: It’s 3 am. Hiding didn’t work.
I woke up about an hour ago when the tapping progressed into violent banging that shook the walls of the house, just like the buyer of the land described. I silently rose from bed, making my way to the hallway while hopping around each old and squeaky floor board at an attempt at stealth. When I came out into the hallway, on the landing of the stairs I could make out not one, but three black silhouettes. The banging intensified into levels I wouldn’t have thought possible; it felt as though it wasn’t focused on the house anymore, but instead on the inside of my own skull, just beating against the inside of my head. I clutched my temples in an attempt to make it stop, and when it finally did after a moment that felt like hours, I looked up toward the silhouettes to see them slowly advancing toward me, silently, as if they were floating through the hall rather than walking.
Now, having grown up here I’m not the easily startled type, but just the dark outlines of these figures had the hairs standing as straight as they could possibly get on the back of my neck. I broke out into a cold sweat and before I could even think about my next move I ran. I made it as far as barricading myself in the bathroom before the pounding inside my skull resumed. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop it, or anticipate how this may escalate, so I jumped from the window rather than stay another moment in that house.
When I landed I registered a sharp pain shooting up my right leg, but didn’t have time to stop. I knew my only chance at survival was to make it past the edges of the land, and to do it quickly.
I took off for one of my grandpas old hunting blinds that sat at the outskirts of the property. Branches whipped my face as I sprinted through the woods, using only the light of the moon to guide me. I made quick time and as I passed the blind I broke through the trees and continued to the edge of the land. The moment I stepped over the line the banging in my skull relented, and I stopped to catch my breath just before a horrible anguished shrieking began, once again overwhelming my senses before abruptly stopping. But the sense of overwhelm didn’t stop with it; it feels as though I’m being stared at, as though I’m being hunted. And, like a deer in headlights, I feel frozen, as though I can’t figure out my next move. I do feel a pull, though. An inexplicable force trying hard to bring me back to the edge of the land.
I had a moment to update this, feeling as though I’d reached a safe haven despite the uncontrollable shaking of my hands. I’m not so sure, anymore, though, because if I’m not mistaken I can just make out in the distance the three silhouettes from the landing still silently and steadily advancing toward me.