That night I had another restless sleep. I kept having the same recurring dream. I dreamt that I woke up standing at the top of the stairs. Looking down at my feet, I saw that I was standing over two wet footprints, coming out of the bathroom behind me, going down the stairs. I followed them down and, at the bottom, they turned around, into the hallway, past the kitchen and out the back door.
I followed them all the way, and in front of me stood the old dilapidated shed. The door to the shed is open, but it’s dark, so I can’t see anything inside. I slowly walk towards it and I can hear my dad’s voice. He sounded almost playful when he spoke. The way he spoke to me when I was very young. “Oscar! Oscar! Come look! Look what daddy’s doing!” He kept repeating this over and over the closer I got. When I reached the door to the shed he said, “Oscar! Hey, Oscar! Look what daddy’s doing! Watch me! Watch me swing! Watch me swing, left to right! Watch me swing front to back! Watch me swing, hanging by my broken neck!” He almost sung it like you would a nursery ryhme. But those last two words weren’t his voice. It sounded like a deep, angry growl. Just as I’m about to run into the shed, the dream ends. Every single time.
I woke up in a cold sweat. It was still dark outside but the sun was coming up soon. I checked my phone. It was 05:15 am. I got up to get a glass of water from the kitchen. I walked back upstairs sipping my water when my mom peeked out of her room.
“Edgar? You feeling bet… oh, Oscar dear. Have you seen your dad? He said he wasn’t feeling well and he went to get something to drink. You didn’t see him in the kitchen?” “No, I didn’t see anyth.. oh god.” Just then I remembered that I saw something that didn’t immediately register to me in my sleep deprived state. The back door was open. My mom could see the panic on my face. It spread to her like a contagion. Just then, we heard a loud SLAM coming from the backyard.
I already knew what was happening, but I refused to believe it. I thought I’d woken up. In the dream I couldn’t feel my body. This time, I could feel every beat of my heart. The hair on my neck standing up. The cold air blowing in from the back door. Time slowed down. I watched my mom running, almost leaping, down the stairs. I watched the glass of water fall from my hands and shatter into pieces on the floor by my feet. I snapped out of it. I ran down the stairs and out the back door to my mother, who was banging on the door to the shed. Crying out, “Ed! Ed! Please! Open the door, Ed! Just open it!” It wouldn’t budge.
I stood back, took a running start and slammed into the door with the full weight and force of my body. It felt like the door somehow reciprocated my energy and pushed me back, causing me to land on the ground on my back. I was just about to get up again when the doorknob twisted by itself and slowly the door creeked open.
And there, illuminated only by the light of the rising sun, was my dad. Hanging by a rope, suspended from the almost rotten roof. His neck, broken into a gruesome angle. My mother let out an earth shattering scream. The kind of scream only ever heard when a human realizes that someone they love dearly, had died. I never want to hear that sound again. It will stay with me until the day I die. All I could do was stare silently, in total shock of what I’m seeing. This time the dream didn’t end. This time it was real. It was never a dream.
The funeral was just a few days later. He was a beloved writer, so there were quite a few people in attendance. I spent that day and the days leading up to it trying my best to take care of my mom and sister. Oh, Lucy. I’m so glad she didn’t see what we saw. She didn’t understand what was happening.
As for me, Angela tried her best to console me as much as she could from so far away. I’ve been telling her every detail of what was happening. She’s been nothing but supportive. After the funeral we were on our way home again. I didn’t want to go back to that fucking house. I knew that whatever was happening there, wasn’t over. But with my father gone, we have to move again soon. We just needed to find a place and then we could be on our way.
The next few days I spent helping my mom look for a new place to live. I practically forced her to move back to Portland. Eventually we found a place that looked promising. We decided we should go to Portland and stay in a motel for a few days so we can go look at the new place and sort some paperwork out. Basically, we just wanted to get the fuck out of this house as quickly as possible. That following weekend we started packing.
A couple nights later I was asleep in my room when I woke up feeling very cold. I reached to pull my blanket back up but it wasn’t there anymore. I tried sitting up to see if it fell on the floor, when a hand pressed down on my chest and pushed me back down on the bed. Another hand came from the other side and held me down. I couldn’t understand what was happening. When I looked to see where the hands were coming from, I realized they were reaching out from underneath my bed!
Someone or something was pulling me down. The arms were dark grey, almost black, and bony. The hands had abnormally long fingers with long, sharp fingernails. I immediately started to panic and hyperventilate. I was about to scream when ANOTHER hand reached out from under the bed and held my mouth shut. Then another arm shot out and clamped around my stomach. And another one from the other side a bit lower down. I tried my best to break free, kicking wildly on the bed and into my wall, when six more arms reached out and held my arms and legs tightly to the bed.
I was now powerless as this thing held me down, unable to move a muscle. I tried screaming for help but almost nothing came out with the massive hand over my mouth. I refused to stop fighting back, using all my strength to move any part of my body I possibly could. It was a futile attempt. I managed to look down. Another hand was reaching up from the foot of my bed. It slid across the other hands and arms and over my stomach and chest. It wrapped around my neck and started squeezing. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like it was crushing my trachea. I felt myself losing consciousness. I tried to fight it but my eyes were struggling to stay open. And then it all went dark.
I woke up at noon the next day. I ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. There were no marks or bruises on my neck or body. I knew it wasn’t just a dream because my throat was incredibly sore. I could see the exhaustion on my face. I had big dark rings below my eyes which was emphasized by my skin getting more pale as the days went on. This house was killing me. It already took my father… I heard movement in the kitchen. I went down to see if it was my mother. She was sitting alone by the table with her face in her hands. She was crying. Without looking up, she spoke. “I can still hear him. Your dad. I can still hear what he was saying over and over to himself before… those godawful whispers.” “Mom…” “It all happened so suddenly. Out of nowhere. I mean, usually there are signs. Right? Your father showed none.”
“It’s this house, Mom. Something about it…” Before I finished speaking, she interrupted me.
“I need to get out of here, Oscar. We need to leave this place. If this house could do that to your dad, god knows what might happen to us.” I sat down across from her at the table. She finally looked up to meet my gaze. Her bloodshot eyes widened when she saw the state of my visibly exhausted face. “Oh, Oscar. Look at you. I hardly even recognize you.” She grabbed my hands tightly. I told her everything that happened the previous night. This terrified her. We decided we’d spend the rest of the day packing so we can leave as soon as the following day.
We finished packing and loaded everything in our van. That night, the three of us were gathered around the kitchen table having our final meal in that house. We were discussing the final details of our “escape.” My mom explained that we would meet with the agent to sort out the paperwork for our new house that coming weekend, but that she had already made arrangements for us to stay at a nice motel in Portland until then.
For the first time in a very long time our moods were lifted as the prospect of leaving was on the verge of being realized. We were talking about everything we were going to do when we got back to Portland. We actually managed to laugh and make a few jokes. I was, of course, beyond excited to see Angela. I’ve been texting her about every detail of our move back since we started planning it. She said that she would meet us at the motel as soon as we arrived.
We were still enjoying each other’s company, when suddenly it went pitch black. All the power in the house went out. We fell silent. The cheerful mood, now gone with all the lights. I pulled out my phone and turned the flashlight on. “Do we have any candles, mom?” “Oh, shit. No, we don’t. But I do remeber seeing some kerosene lanterns somewhere when we moved in.” “Do you remember where they are?” From the light on my phone I could make out the distress in her eyes. “They’re in the shed…”
Of course they are.
I practically ran in and out of that shed to grab the box of lanterns. I didn’t want to be in there a second more than I had to. I did see something strange in the brief time I was in there. From the flashlight on my phone, I could see what looked like black candle wax all over the floor and the walls. I don’t know how I never noticed that before. I didn’t spend any time trying to think about it. I ran back inside to my mom and little sister.
We lit the lanterns in silence. The exhaustion from the day’s packing started kicking in and we were about to go to bed, excited to leave this place behind come morning. We didn’t give two shits about why the power might be out. It’s an old house with shitty wiring. It’s a miracle it didn’t act up sooner. Besides, we weren’t planning on spending another night in the place.
I was finishing up in the bathroom and my mom was tucking my sister in to bed when I heard it. The unmistakable voice of my father coming from right behind me. “Osssscar. Ossssscar.” I swung my whole body around. There was no one there from what I could tell by the dim, flickering light of the kerosene lantern. I went back to brushing my teeth. I heard it again and swung around instantly. Nothing.
When I turned back to the sink, I froze. In the mirror I could see my dad. In the reflection he was standing right behind me. But not as I knew him, because he was standing behind me the way I saw him for the last time - with his neck broken into an ungodly angle and that crooked smile on his face. I wanted to run but I couldn’t move. In the reflection I saw him put his hand on my shoulder but I couldn’t feel anything. “Ossssscar. You neeeeed to gooooo.” I heard him speak, but his mouth didn’t move. It was like he was speaking to me inside my head but I could hear it clear as day. “Goooooo. Noooowwww. Mussssst goooo. Noooowww!”
And just like that, he disappeared.
I ran out of the bathroom, calling for my mom. She came out of my sisters bedroom and paced towards me with her lantern. “Not too loud, Oscar, your sister just fell asleep and…” “I saw him, mom. I saw dad.” I interrupted her. Her eyes widened as I told her what happened. “Are you sure it was him? Are you sure he said that to you?” “Yes, mom! I think we need to get out of here NOW! I think he’s trying to warn us.” “Shit, shit, shit, shit. Fuck. Uhm… Okay. I’ll go get your sister. Can you go grab the keys for the van in the kitchen? We’ll meet you outside, okay?” “Okay, I’ll start the van so long.”
I practically leaped down the stairs after grabbing my lantern from the bathroom to enter the dark kitchen. “Keys, keys, keys. Where are the goddamn keys?!” I whispered to myself. “Got them!” I turned and went towards the front door. I was in the foyer busy unlocking the front door when I heard a loud bang followed by my mom screaming.
I turned to look where the noise came from. I saw that it was my sister’s bedroom door that slammed shut. The doorknob was rattling and I could hear my mom’s panicked screaming as she was banging against the door trying to open it. I ran towards the stairs to help them. I managed to get about halfway up the stairs when I got grabbed by the neck and picked up. I was hanging about 3 feet off the ground. I looked down to see who or what was busy choking me. I struggled to see because when I got grabbed, I dropped my latern, but I could make out the shape of a man. A very large man with very little facial features. In the small amount of light I could see that he had abnormally long arms and legs. His fingers had to be very long too because they wrapped around my neck entirely. His skin was very dark. Almost black. He didn’t seem to have a mouth and where his nose was supposed to be, there was only blackness. Like it had rotten away. And the smell. Oh god, the smell. I’ll never forget that stench.
It was the same stench as the first day we moved in. The only things I could see cleary were his eyes. They were abnormally large and sort of elongated. They were completely white. The same as Lucy’s eyes were on that night. His neck was also bent into a disgusting angle. I tried to free myself but to no avail. It pulled me closer towards it’s face. That’s when I could make out that he did in fact have a mouth, but it was covered by a layer of skin. Like it was sewn shut where his lips should have been. It started streching like he was opening his mouth behind the skin. The next moment he let out a deafening scream right infront of my face.
I reciprocated.
He tightened his grip around my neck. I felt my legs getting weaker. I tried kicking him but I had no power. Everything happened in a few seconds but it felt like an eternity. I started seeing stars. I knew I was passing out from his grip. The world around me started getting darker and darker. The desperate screams from my mom and sister, became muffled echoes.
A peaceful hopelessness rushed over me. It went almost completely dark around me, when suddenly, there was a flickering of light in my peripheral vision. I frantically moved my eyes around, trying to see where it came from. My eyes started burning, when the creature’s grip on my neck loosened slightly.
What’s that smell?
Smoke?
Smoke!
My lantern! I dropped it when this thing picked me up. It must have broken and set the wooden stairs on fire!
Another blood curdling scream erupted from the creature’s “mouth.” It hurled me against the front door. Hard enough that the lock broke as my body slammed against the wood.
I was in pain, but I managed to stumble to my feet. In front of me I could see the creature writhing in pain as the flames licked his sickly skin. Smoke started filling up the house. I turned my attention to my mom, upstairs to my left, in front of my sister’s bedroom door. She’s been slamming her body against the door, trying to get to my sister, but it wouldn’t budge. She was exhausted, and by now, the smoke made it’s way to her, causing her to start coughing in between her desperate pleas for my sister.
I was helpless. My only way up was blocked by this creature, who was now being stripped of his flesh by the fire, somehow unable to move. I decided to run out to the car to see if there is something I could prop up below the balcony to stand on, so I could reach my mom. Just as I turned around to make my way outside, I heard a loud bang, followed by the sound of splintered wood falling on the floor below.
I looked up to see that the door to my sister’s room is completely ripped off. Like a grenade had exploded right next to it. The force was so strong that it nearly pushed my mom over the balcony. Seconds later, the loudest shriek I’d ever heard erupted from inside my sister’s bedroom. It was so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. And then, through the smoke and splinters surrounding my sister’s bedroom door, the creature emerged. It was that same woman I saw that night my sister came to my room. My mother and I both froze. All we could do is stare at this thing. She was only standing there for a second, but I could see that she was dragging the lifeless body of a baby girl behind her as she walked.
Her face contorted into a mix of sorrow and hatred when her eyes darted between the creature burning on the stairs, and me. In one swift motion, she lunged the lifeless baby towards me and dropped to the floor. I actually tried catching the little body, but right before I could grab it, it simply vanished.
Looking up at the balcony again, I saw this woman crawling on al fours towards the top of the stairs; letting out an angry growl of despair every couple of feet. I was so distracted by this that I didn’t even notice my mother had disappeared into my sister room. “MOM?! MOM?! WHERE ARE YOU?!” I shouted. Just after, she came bursting out the door with my sister’s limp body in her arms. My mom tried shaking her, trying desperately to wake her up. But there wasn’t time. We had to get out of there. NOW!
“Drop her down to me, mom! I’ll catch her!” I had to shout this a few times before she finally snapped out of it. There wasn’t time to argue. The smoke started filling the lower floor and the fire was spreading rapidly. Without another moment of hesitation, my mother gently lowered my sister down to me far enough so I could grab her. I threw her over my shoulder and ran outside. I put her in the back of the car and ran back inside to help my mom. I wasn’t fast enough. Right as I stepped back inside, my mother jumped down from the balcony. She landed badly and I knew she broke something in her right foot. I immediately ran to help her up. “I got you, mom. Come on, we gotta go!” “Oscar, look!” She pointed towards the stairs.
The woman had actually crawled into the flames towards the humanoid man. They were now locked in each other’s grip, both letting out shrieks of pain.
I helped my mother up on one leg and threw her hand over my shoulder. As we turned towards the front door, they both went completely silent. I looked over my shoulder to see them both just staring at me. A look of hatred on their faces unlike anything I’d ever seen. Like it was all they knew. The woman let go of the man creature - who then fell to the floor - and started walking down the stairs toward me.
“Fuck this.”
As fast as I could, I dragged myself and my mom out of there. I didn’t even think about turning around to look at this thing chasing me. Only when I got to the car, I turned to see her standing in the frame of the front door, still on all fours.
She couldn’t leave.
I helped my mom into the back of the car next to my sister. Just as we all got in and I started the car, a loud crack sounded from the house. The roof collapsed. The whole house was ablaze now. I couldn’t care less.
Thank God my dad tought me how to drive when I was 15 years old. As we sped off, we could still hear the cries of the woman echoing through the night sky.
We drove straight to the hospital. My sister turned out to be okay. She passed out due to smoke inhalation. It was a bit much for her tiny frame to handle, but she’s okay. She later told us that while she was out, she was trapped in a nightmare where the woman from the house was trying to catch her. In the dream she was hiding in the house, trying to get away from her, but the woman imitated my mother’s voice, trying to coax her out, but she didn’t fall for it. The next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital.
My mom and I stayed by her side through the night. She was discharged the next day. We immediately went to the airport and took a flight back to Portland. We got to a motel and stayed there until we could move into the new house. In all the chaos I had lost my phone and subsequently lost contact with Angela. Within the first couple of days in Portland, I managed to get ahold of her again though. She was worried sick. I told her everything. She was, again, nothing but supportive and understanding. We had so many questions that needed answers. So Angela and I did some digging. On the history of the house, who lived there before us and if anything like this had ever happened before.
After days of research, we finally got some answers. As it turns out, in the late 1800s, there had lived a young couple by the names of Evelyn and Karl Richardson, and their infant daughter, Lucille.
As the stories go, they got married in their 20’s and moved into that house. After many years of trying to conceive, they found out that, unfortunately, Evelyn could not have a baby. They tried every option they could find. Even turning to the church for help. Unfortunately, nothing worked. This took a massive toll on their marriage as Karl began to resent Evelyn for not giving him the child he so desperately wanted. Eventually Evelyn figured that if the church couldn’t give her what she wanted, maybe she should go in the opposite direction. So, with that, she turned to the occult. She invited witches, held seances and read multiple books on the powers of the occult. She performed ritual after ritual trying to get pregnant. All of this, she did without Karl knowing about any of it.
Eventually though, it worked. She got pregnant. Karl was so happy, he didn’t even bother questioning how it happened. At first.
Many months into the pregnancy though, he became suspicious. He started thinking if he wasn’t perhaps the reason she couldn’t get pregnant in the first place. Perhaps she’d been unfaithful and found another man who could give her the child they wanted. His suspicion grew every time he saw her. Until he couldn’t take it anymore. One night after a few drinks, it finally surfaced. He confronted Evelyn about it. By this time, she too was feeling very guilty and afraid about what she’d done to become pregnant. In hindsight she regretted her decision and she admitted everything to Karl.
Karl, being a deeply religious man, went into a fit of rage. In his drunken anger, he became violent. Screaming and cursing at his wife, until words weren’t enough to quench his rage. He threw her out of their bedroom and pushed her down the stairs. Filled with immediate regret, he raced down the stairs. But it was too late. Evelyn had broken her neck on the fall and a pool of blood began to form between her legs.
Realizing what he’d done, Karl ran into the backyard, went into their wooden shed, and hung himself from it’s roof. Cursing himself to an eternity of torment before doing so.
As the story goes, when the authorities got to the scene, they found Karl in the shed and Evelyn at the bottom of the stairs. Only, there were no signs of her ever being pregnant.
Well, there you go. That’s everything. We’re done with all of that and have been for almost a decade. We haven’t had anything strange happen since then. Lucy is starting college and I have a good job and am currently living in a good apartment with my wife, Angela.
Everything is perfect. Besides one little thing. The last couple of weeks, Angela started talking in her sleep a lot more frequently than she used to. Usually she’d say some funny gibberish nonsense and we’d laugh about it in the morning. But, lately, she’s been saying one thing over and over and it’s been freaking me the fuck out. Almost every night I wake up to her repeating one phrase:
“I’m sorry, Karl. Please forgive me.”