The sun is setting on this muggy day. I’m slipping on moss-covered rocks, staggering up the hill to my grandfather’s cabin–my inheritance from the grumpy old hermit. His will might have read, “I bequeath to my granddaughter… this wreckage of a place.” But after the drug bust, I lost custody of my kid and my parents disowned me. I have nowhere else to go.
My skin feels clammy as the drugs leave my system. I’m going cold turkey while I’m here, it should be easier since I can’t score out in the middle of nowhere. I’ll prove I’m responsible, and get my daughter back… I hope.
Townspeople spread rumors about a haunting that’s plagued this cabin for years. The only thing I see haunting this place is mosquitoes. That and some screech owl sounding like a person in pain. I laugh, but my laughter feels forced and sweat trickles down my spine. It’s hard to breathe this moist, mildewy air. It chokes me.
I kick a cement slab over to reveal the front door skeleton key. It takes a few tries to jimmy the rusted lock free. The door groans and complains, anointing me with dirt and leaves as I enter the pitch-black space. Acrid odors like burnt hair and spoilt milk assault my nose as I inch into the room. I turn on my cellphone flashlight. Something shifts in my periphery.
My hands are shaking. I don’t know if it’s because I’m creeped out or detoxing. I use the cement block to wedge the front door open.
I find candles lining a chipped and stained mantle, a box of kitchen matches buried in melted wax. I light the dusty candles, animating the walls as the light undulates. The room is barren, draped only in the silken threads of spiders.
I hear shuffling. Then a faint, high-pitched squeal of grating metal–the front door slams shut. I want to scream, but only manage strangled sounds.
A Victorian baby carriage with corroded wheels squeaks out of a thin smokey veil, dragging shackles behind it. A murky shape drifts into being, an outline carved from a shadow within a shadow. Vibrating along its edges, it emerges from the blackness, taking the form of an old woman. The air contracts, releases, and births this apparition from a devil’s womb.
She reaches inside the ornate black wicker basket and retrieves a tiny bundle wrapped in cobwebs. There are no cries; not even a whimper. Seared on the back of her hand is a burn mark–a trident.
My leg muscles spasm and my bones feel like they’re liquifying. She slowly glides towards me, a phantom of dust and ash. My throat convulses and attempts choppy gulps of air. Her feet never touch down. I must be hallucinating.
She speeds up, barrels towards me–stops–flickers. A tiny fist made of bones falls from her bundle. I squeeze my eyes shut to clear the image. When I open them, she’s in my face–breath reeking of death and desperation.
I bite my tongue so hard, blood pools inside my mouth and slides down my throat like a dying eel. I tense my entire body, bracing for impact from this atrocity. She shoves her bundle into my chest and a stone-cutting cold slices through my rib cage, freezing my heart. I fall back, pinned to the wall.
I could just let go and die here. People say I’m half-dead anyway. Just surrender to this entity and fade away…but my little girl would grow up without a mother. I will NOT do that to her.
A violent jolt of white-hot rage shatters my paralysis and I shout from my gut: “I am not a fuck-up!” Rage unfreezes my heart and ejects her bundle, knocking her to the floor. Her ancient face cracks and snarls, showing yellow carnivorous teeth.
The specter jerks her head all the way backwards, her scrawny throat ejects a scream. She bites her lower lip and draws thick blood. It seeps down, saturating the bones she carries.
Hyperventilating, I take a deep breath, and roar until my throat is raw–:“I choose life!” Immobile, she is suspended midair–a giant fossil in amber.
I scream, “I choose life!” again and again: my soul rejecting the soulless. She recoils, gliding backward with the baby carriage, her ethereal form swallowed by the darkness–shadows reuniting with the demon that cast them.
The victory is short-lived.
Out of the depth of night rolls a bloodied baby rattle, searching for the hand that once possessed it.
[Image Credit : Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash]
by 
Patricia Pease
Latest posts by Patricia Pease (see all)
- Cradling the Damned - May 8, 2026
Such a great read.