Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/yoty1s/swear_on_my_life_part_1_of_2/
We wheeled Agnes into her room. Jim laid her down in the bed, and we let her sleep. Afterward, we sat at the kitchen table and drank some coffee.
Jim took a sip, “I should Irish this up. Need something a tad stronger than coffee.”
“I’m still stuck on Agnes’s confession,” I said. “Why did she say that?”
“Who knows what’s going on in her mind. Or what’s left of it.”
“Why was she in the office? Why was she staring at the shelf?”
“I dunno.”
“Was it always an office?” I asked.
“Before it became a storage room? Yeah. Her second husband used it for work.”
“I didn’t know she had been married,” I offered.
“Four times,” he said, deciding to go ahead and add booze to the equation.
“Wow,” I said.
“Bad luck, that woman,” Jim said, taking a sip of his drink. “My daddy was her true love, I think. He died when I was a kid. Car accident.”
“I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard for you.”
He shrugged, “We all have crosses to bear. He was a good man, though, from what I can remember.” He let out a little laugh to himself. “Isn’t that funny? Even the most important people in your life eventually become a distant memory. I don’t remember what he sounds like anymore. It’s been so long.”
“I always tell people that memories are important, but how you feel about them matters more. When you think about your dad, if it gives you a little boost, that’s what matters.”
“I like that,” Jim said with a half smile. “Thank you.”
“This job is half nursing and half counseling,” I said.
“I’d imagine so.”
“What about the other three men,” I asked. “Were you close?”
Jim shook his head no. “After my dad died, I had a hard time connecting with any of them. After the second one up and left in the middle of the night, I knew I made the right call.”
“Left?”
“Like a thief in the night. Third one killed himself in the house. Mom found his body.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“Shot himself – bang – in the shelter.”
I felt the hair on my neck start to stand. “In the tornado shelter?”
“Yep,” Jim said. “Took a few days to smell him, Jim added, taking a sip of his coffee.
My head was swimming. Was all the strange shit from a ghost? It couldn’t be, right? They didn’t exist. Plus, I had reasonable explanations for everything. Didn’t I?
“He was nice, but he had a dark side. Took to the bottle like a baby to a teat, if you don’t mind the expression.”
“It’s okay.”
“Fourth guy I thought might last, but after a few months, he took a Grayhound outta town.” Jim laughed again, “Poor son-of-a-bitch must’ve been miserable to take a goddamn bus to get away from mom.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, too. A cross-country bus trip is fun for nobody. It was clear that Agnes had lived quite the life in this little town. “What happened after?”
Jim sighed. “Well, Mom got moody, which wasn’t totally surprising. She never had it easy. Whole life was just ten miles of bad road. Great mom to me, though. Loving and caring. Never wanted for anything, really. I don’t like to subscribe to hoo-doo or Godly conspiracies or anything, but I think the stroke was a way to ease her mind after so many stressful years. Bleak, huh?”
I didn’t want to tell him that he was dead wrong about stroke victims not having daily stress. But, he seemed comforted by the fact that his mom wasn’t overburdened by her rough life and was being taken care of. Why ruin the illusion for him?
“We all deal with hardship in our own way,” I said.
Jim finished his drink and put his mug down, “Work is what keeps me going. I better get started before the rain comes. If it’s bad enough, I’ll have a short day. You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Go to work. I’m fine.”
He nodded and headed out the door. I watched as he headed for the machinery, a little worried he had a belt before driving around in a harvester all day. But the farmers of yore drank beer for breakfast, so I’m sure he was okay.
I stayed at the table and finished my coffee. The conversation had been enlightening. Agnes had four husbands, two dead and two who fled. Her saying, “I did it,” made me wonder if she was confessing to us. That the accidents weren’t accidents at all. That she had actually killed those men.
I wasn’t sure, but I knew I wanted to check. Normally, I’m not a big snoop. It’s a violation of the trust my clients put in me. That being said, I was concerned that the person who had just attacked me was a murderer. That didn’t sit well with me.
I went back into the office and stared up at the shelf above the couch. Agnes had been staring at the boxes up there when we entered the room. Why? What was in there? Did something prompt her to look? I needed to know.
I stood on the couch and pulled off one of the boxes. It was a cardboard banker box with the name “Irv” scribbled along the top in messy handwriting. I assumed this was Agnes’s pre-stroke handwriting. I popped open the box and was surprised to find an urn inside. Like the box, the name “Irv” was written across the urn.
“Why is this in a box?”
I gently placed the urn on the ground and dug into the box. There were a few photo albums, and it was clear that Irv was Jim’s father. In the photos, it seemed like he was a good guy. He seemed to genuinely love Jim and Agnes.
I placed that box down and pulled down the three other banker boxes. They all were labeled with names: Tom, Roger, and Sean. Like Irv’s box, each one was filled with memories. They all seemed pleasant. Nothing that would suggest suicide or abandonment. I know we can curate our own little emotional garden and pluck out all the unsightly weeds, but if you do too much plucking, you wreck the ecosystem. Everything here seemed fine.
I was more confused than I had been before. What the hell had Agnes been talking about?
From behind me, I heard someone flip on the bathroom light. I turned around and watched as the office side bathroom door squeaked open.
“Oh…kay,” I muttered.
Just then, the door that led into my original room opened as well. I saw a shadow of someone in a wheelchair on the wall. “Agnes,” I called out. There wasn’t a response.
I moved to the hallway door and peered out into the hall. There wasn’t anyone there. Then I heard footsteps in the living room behind me. My heart started pumping a little faster. I hadn’t heard anyone come in.
“Jim,” I called out. “Is that you?”
Nothing.
The light in the bathroom clicked off. I steeled myself and headed towards it. If someone was in there, I’d soon find out. As soon as I got to the Jack and Jill door, the light started flickering like someone was moving the switch up and down in rapid succession.
I swallowed and kept moving. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I don’t like games.”
I entered the bathroom, and the flickering stopped. I looked over at the mirror, and it was fogged over. I was confused. No one had taken a shower, so it couldn’t have steamed over. The only other way to get fog on a mirror is if someone had breathed on it.
Oh shit.
Just then, some unseen force was writing the word “five” in the fog. Water droplets rolled down the glass from the newly formed letters. My legs felt like jelly. What was going on?
From inside my original room, I heard the muttering start up again. It was still unintelligible, but it was more aggressive. More agitated than it had been before. A drawer from the dresser was pulled open by some unseen force.
“The hell,” I muttered to myself.
That’s when I caught a glimpse of some shadowy figure in the mirror. They were reaching out for me. I snapped my head around and didn’t see anything. I wanted to run, but I was paralyzed. I turned back to the mirror, and the figure was gone, but something more unsettling had replaced it.
A reflection. I hesitate to call it my own because, even though it looked like me, it didn’t match my movements. It stayed perfectly still, eyes stock forward, staring dead at me, and shot me a toothy grin. My mirror self mouthed the word “five.” I ran out of the bathroom.
I would’ve kept running, but the office was so cluttered with boxes that I fell into a stack and spilled the contents. I was covered with old bills and paperwork, and photos. I tried to scramble to my feet, but I slipped back down to the ground. My foot caught another box, and it tipped over.
A well-worn journal slid out of the box and cartwheeled end over end until it stopped near my face. It had splayed open to a page, and I saw it was a journal. The handwriting told me it belonged to Agnes. Despite being ready to snap, a phrase on the page caught my eye.
The doctors all say I’ll never get pregnant, but I might know another way.
Just then, the air was filled with the rising blast of a horn. It kept repeating its one sinister note. Then I heard a wall-shaking crash of thunder. Fuck, I thought, the storm.
I heard the front door burst open. It was Jim. He looked exhausted and frantic. He ran to the bedroom and saw me on the ground. His eyes were wild.
“Tornado!” he yelled. “It’s coming right for us! We gotta get to the shelter!”
The fear of the storm trumped the fear of the ghost. I scooped up the journal and tucked it into my pocket. Standing, I looked at Jim. “I need your help getting Agnes into her chair.”
“We have to move,” he said. We both bolted towards her bedroom. Agnes was awake now. Her eyes looked more lively than I had ever seen them. She seemed to understand something terrible was happening.
Jim quickly picked her up and plopped her down into the chair. I grabbed her medications in case the storm took the house. Jim was already pushing his mom out of the house and down to the shelter.
I wasn’t far behind them. I grabbed my car keys and wallet and headed for the front door. As I did, I passed by another mirror. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw my non-reflective reflection mouthing the word five. I picked up the pace.
I burst out the front door and came to a standstill. The fat raindrops were pelting me, but my eyes were locked on the massive funnel of clouds now ripping up the corn fields less than six hundred yards in front of me. The noise was all-consuming. It was mesmerizing – mother nature was a bad bitch.
A stalk of corn slammed next to me, waking me up from my stupor. I dashed for the back of the house. Jim was waiting for me at the ramp down into the shelter. He had already closed one side. He waved me on. I ran past him, and he slammed the shelter door shut.
“Move deeper into the room,” he said. I didn’t argue.
I pushed against the wall, away from Agnes, and sat down in the dirt. Jim moved towards his mom and sat down, finally catching his breath. “You okay, mom?” Naturally, she didn’t answer.
The noise of the oncoming tornado is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Two hundred-mile-an-hour winds filled all the space. Occasionally you’d hear debris slamming into the ground. The house itself groaned and seemed to shimmy ever so slightly at the approaching funnel.
I had to try to take my mind off of everything. I pulled out my phone and turned on the light. Without trying to draw attention to the journal, I pulled it out and started reading.
The doctors all say I’ll never get pregnant, but I might know another way. I’ve been researching how, and though there will be many sacrifices, I want a child. I need a child. My life won’t be complete without one.
The priest said it would take five souls for the one I desired. Once I called upon the creature, the contract was secure. They’d provide me a child, but I would need to live up to my end of the bargain. I’d need five. I could do five.
I’ll be a good mother.
I looked up in horror. I turned my glance over to Jim and Agnes. He held his mother tightly. He had tears in his eyes. He was scared for her. He loved her. She had been a good mother.
The tornado was about a hundred or so yards away. The screaming wind made it impossible to focus on anything else. I tucked the journal back in my pocket and put my hands over my ears. I started crying. Out of old habit, I mumbled a prayer. I had stopped being religious years ago, but I was out of ideas at the moment.
Over the din of the storm, I heard someone cackling. I looked up, tears streaming down my face, and I saw Agnes laughing at me. Jim looked confused. Agnes raised her bony finger and pointed at me. Her laughs got louder and louder, rivaling the winds.
Then it hit me: four ex-husbands. She still owed the creature a soul. She had to have killed those men – even Jim’s father. She probably planned on landing a fifth, but the stroke was an unexpected curve ball. Now she was all alone with only Jim and nurses to help her. Her next victim would be a nurse. Most of them had the good sense to leave when weird shit started happening, but I stayed. “I did it,” she had said. She wasn’t confessing anything. She was targeting me.
I was going to be number five.
I felt dirt hit my ankle. I looked down and saw some unseen force writing a message in the dirt in front of me. I turned on my phone flashlight and shined it on the ground.
“It might hit us! Brace yourself!” Jim screamed over the whipping winds.
The message read: “You won’t get out of here alive.” I looked up at Agnes, and she was staring at me. The overhead light was swinging from the wind, casting ever-moving shadows across her menacing face. Behind her and Jim, I saw the shadowy figure move behind her and place a withered white hand on her shoulder. Jim didn’t see a thing.
The shadow took a step back and then blinked out of sight. I didn’t know where it went, but I knew it wasn’t gone for good. Agnes gave me a half smile, the rest of her face frozen from the stroke.
“Fuck you, bitch!” I screamed at her. She started laughing again. I felt the ground under my foot start to fall away. I looked down and saw that withered white hand breaking through the soil and feeling for my leg. I pulled my leg back and stood up.
Jim noticed me standing. We locked eyes. “What are you doing?” he screamed over the oncoming wind.
That’s when I made the wildest decision of my life.
“Your mother is evil!” I screamed. “You may not be safe!”
“What?”
I didn’t have time to keep at it. Agnes wanted me dead, and I knew it. The wind was so intense now. I wasn’t sure how close the tornado was, but it didn’t matter. If I stayed down there, I’d die. I didn’t know what would happen if Agnes got her five souls, and I sure as shit didn’t want to find out. If I was dead anyway, I might as well go down swinging.
I was gonna take my chances outside.
I ran over to the shelter door and flung open one side. I could hear Jim protesting but just barely. As soon as the door was open, you could feel the suction of the tornado. My hair flew up like something above me was yanking at it. Everything was drowned out by the noise.
I struggled to open my eyes. I raised my hand to my face to shield it from the wind, but it only provided the smallest of relief. I could glance up and see the top of the swirling whirlwind. I wasn’t sure if it was heading toward us or away, and I couldn’t stick around to find out.
I glanced over and saw my car about fifty feet away from me. Some debris from the fields had landed on it, but it looked okay. Just then, a stop sign slammed on the ground in front of me, bringing me back to the task at hand. I broke out in a full-on sprint toward my car.
I was about ten feet from it when a hand reached up from the ground and grabbed my leg. I dropped to the ground and rolled a few feet. Another hand reached up through the ground and grabbed my thigh. I struggled to break free, but I wasn’t strong enough. I could feel myself being pulled down into the ground.
“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!” I kicked at the hands with my free foot. I caught the hand around my thigh, and it let go just enough for me to roll away. I got to my feet and ran the last few feet to my car. I ripped open my door and jumped inside.
My hands were shaking, but I managed to get my keys into the ignition and crank my car to life. The sound of the engine purring was the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. I glanced out the window and watched the tornado turn and head away from the house. I also caught a glimpse of Jim from the shelter door. He was waving at me, but I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. I dropped the gear shift into drive and floored the peddle.
I drove for hours, not stopping for anything. I listened to the radio and heard that the tornado had significantly damaged the town. I imagined the lone Starbucks was out of commission. That was reason enough to flee this place and never look back.
Jim tried calling a few times, but I never answered. I didn’t know what to say to him. If I told him his mom was evil and going to have someone killed, he’d think I was crazy. Hell, he probably already did, considering I damn near ran into a tornado.
When I finally stopped a few hundred miles away, I called my company and told them I had left. I also mentioned that they shouldn’t send anyone else there under any circumstances. I said I was abused and didn’t go into details. I think they took it seriously because I’ve received several emails from HR asking how they can help me. I don’t believe some HR drone is going to be able to help me with all the shit I went through.
When I stopped for gas, I realized I still had Agnes’s journal on me. I filled up my tank, grabbed a bite to eat, and read that sucker from cover to cover. There was a lot of disturbing shit in there, stuff I don’t like talking about. Suffice it to say, she absolutely aided in having those four husbands killed. I got chills reading it. I thought about throwing it away or burning it, but then I thought I should hold onto it, just in case.
I moved back to Denver and found a local job. I haven’t yet set out on my world travels, but I’m okay with delaying it for now. I had a lot of adventures at my last stop. I never told anyone back home what happened. I just told them I was homesick. I’m due for some easy living for a bit. I think I earned a return to normalcy.
At my new job, I often find myself staring out the windows and up at the clouds. I don’t want to be caught off guard by an approaching storm again. I know one’s coming, and I want to be ready for it. I’m unsure if I’m still marked as the fifth soul or if someone else has filled that position. The thought that Agnes succeeded in getting a fifth keeps me up at night.
Against the Hippocratic oath, I really hope harm came to Agnes. I hope she’s dead and suffered on the way out. I pray Jim is safe and secure, but I hope that fucking farm burned to the ground. I hope the next twister spreads the ashes across a hundred miles.
I hope Agnes is in hell.