My mom was dying from cancer. It was quick and severe. Stage four, by the time they caught it. In a matter of months, she went from healthy to bedridden, so weak she couldn’t even take care of herself.
I had just graduated high school and had been planning to go to college that fall. I’d made plans to do a big road trip with my friends that summer, one last hurrah before we all went our separate ways.
Then suddenly none of that was important anymore. My mom needed me, so I dropped everything and took care of her.
But it wasn’t enough.
She kept getting worse, no matter what I did.
That’s when I began to pray. I’d never been particularly religious, but I was desperate. My mom was my only family. My dad had been out of the picture my whole life, and I had no siblings. No living grandparents. No cousins or aunts or uncles. Just me and her, our whole lives.
And I wasn’t ready to be alone.
So I prayed and prayed, just like you see on TV. I prayed morning, day, and night, pleading for God to heal her. I promised lifelong devotion. I promised anything I could think of, but none of it helped.
She kept getting worse until it was only a matter of days.
So I prayed some more, this time opening it up to whatever god would take me.
What I didn’t realize was more than just deity was listening.
The next morning, I went into my mom’s room to get her ready for the day, but she wasn’t in her bed. I stood there frozen, not knowing what to do. She hadn’t left that bed in weeks.
That’s when I heard the singing. It was coming from her bathroom. The shower was running, and she was singing.
The water stopped, and a few minutes later she opened the door and came out, wrapped in a bright white towel. Her sallow skin was now bright and healthy.
“Morning,” she said with a smile, drying her dark hair with another towel. “I’m feeling so good today!” She said it as if she hadn’t just been dying of cancer less than 24 hours ago.
But I didn’t question it. Neither of us did. She was better, and that was miracle enough. I knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
We spent the whole day together. We ate ice cream, went on walks, enjoyed the warm summer day.
The other shoe didn’t drop until that night.
My mom was asleep, but I laid awake in bed. Nothing made sense. The day had been amazing, but surely it wasn’t sustainable. Surely we needed to take her to the doctor to be examined.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something scraping against the inside of my closet door.
My room was dark, only the light from the dim streetlamp trickling in. The wind blew outside, the shadows of the rustling branches playing across my door and walls.
I sat up, cocking my head to the side to listen. Then I heard it again, something sharp dragging along the closet door.
Slowly, I stood up and walked to the closet. I placed my ear to the door, my breath stuck in my lungs. This time, the sound of a million tiny bugs scurrying across the wood reached my ears.
I threw the door open, ready to confront whatever was on the other side.
But there was nothing. Just my clothes.
I turned back to my bed, and that’s when I saw it.
The shape of a body laid under my covers, like a cadaver in the morgue.
The white sheet rested thin across the body, the points of the head and toes still visible.
I crept toward the bed, my heart thundering in my chest, blood rushing to my ears. The floorboards creaked underneath me, the wood cool on my bare feet.
Reaching toward the sheet, I pulled it off in one swift tug. A scream surfaced to my throat, threatening to burst out, but it stayed trapped in my mouth.
There, in my bed, was the corpse of my mother.
Her skin was gray and flaky, peeling off in chunks and strips. Her mouth was open in a scream, her cheeks mottled and sunken. She looked like a statue with chips of paint gouged out. Her eyes were black pits, as if birds had plucked out the soft meat that had once been there.
Bile rose to my throat and I clasped a hand over my mouth. This couldn’t be my mother, not the healthy women I’d just spent the day with.
I stepped back away from the body, and that’s when it moved.
Its head turned violently to the side, the sound of bones snapping filling the air. I could tell, even without eyes, that it was staring right at me. Looking into my very soul.
I scrambled backwards as the body lifted upright, now standing on my bed and peering down at me. It cocked its head again, this time so far it was perpendicular with its shoulders.
A faint rattling noise escaped its black mouth as it hunched forward to get a better look at me.
Then, it began to transform.
The ratty black hair shifted, the broken skin of her face warping. It pulled back, turning into smooth, gray bone as her hair twisted upward into jagged antlers. In a matter of seconds, whatever this thing was now wore the mask of some kind of wild animal, all sharp teeth and glistening bone.
Red dots burned in its eyes, and the rest of its body transformed, changing from my mother’s corpse to a gnarled mass of roots, leaves, and branches. Its body seemed as if it was made from the forest floor itself, dark and earthy.
The monster that stood before me descended off the bed, never breaking eye contact.
The smell of rotting wood and damp earth rolled over me, ancient and buried.
It moved closer, but I stayed frozen, my back pressed against the wall.
It cocked its head once more, the skull now upside down, then it emitted the rattling noise and its head shifted back, right side up.
Its earthy body rippled, and a bony hand emerged, black nails sharp as talons. It reached forward, and I closed my eyes as it caressed the side of my face. Its fingers were cold as death, rough as sandpaper.
It clicked again, and although it didn’t speak, I could somehow understand it.
Your mother. I have returned her to you.
It pulled back its hand, and I looked at it once more. It was now crouched forward, its face only inches from mine.
I heard your prayer and answered. Now, you must make payment.
I remained speechless. I didn’t know what to say. The bony hand reached out once more. This time, it took my hand, running the dark nail against my palm.
Then, quick as lightning, it jabbed its nail into my hand, stabbing through the flesh. Blood welled up, and I tried to pull my hand back, but its grip was tight, a vice.
It continued to dig into my hand until I was certain it would break all the way through to the other side. A whimper trembled on my lips, then the room around me vanished.
Suddenly, I was floating above a street I didn’t recognize, the night pressing in around me.
I sputtered and gasped, struggling to return to the ground, but I remained there, trapped in suspension.
From my left, I heard a sound and whipped around.
An old man, wearing a tattered bathrobe and worn slippers, guided a faded and dented garbage can to the curb. Its wheels rumbled over the uneven driveway, and I called out for him to help, but he couldn’t hear me.
He just continued pushing the garbage can, his head tilted down, his back stooped in an aged hunch.
I opened my mouth to speak again, but a sudden jolt of pain ripped through my skull. The clicking noise filled my brain once more.
This man, it said, made a deal with me. I saved his life when no one else would. But when I came to collect payment, he refused. You will get me what’s mine.
The pain flared, and I squeezed my eyes shut in pure agony. When I opened them again, I was back in my room. Not just in my room, but under my covers. In my bed.
As if the whole thing had been a dream.
Except I knew it wasn’t.
Gripped in my hand, I felt something hard and bony. I pulled back the covers to see a dagger, cold and sharp, clutched in my hand. The handle was made of the same bone as the demon’s face. The blade was twisted metal, dark and somber.
I let go, pushing it off the bed, and the sudden headache returned. Images flashed across my mind. My mom, dead and rotting. Me, covered in blood, my throat slit. The demon, standing over me until its body consumed my own.
I let out a deep breath of air as the visions ended, the pain receding.
I looked back at my hand to see the dagger there once more.
From the closet, a darkness seemed to emanate. The clicking resumed, fainter this time, and two red dots burned from the shadows.
Find him, it whispered to me.
And then it gave me the man’s name.
As if in response, the blade suddenly burned hot in my hand, hungry for blood.
I stood up from the bed.
The demon had made its demand clear, and I would make certain I had paid my debt.