A Threat Of Death

“Don’t close your eyes, don’t sing your last lullaby.”

Kix – Don’t Close Your Eyes

~

Several years had passed now since the demonic hag had come to the front door and frightened the children. The boy was now in his middle teen years and closer to being an adult than he was the very little boy that the hag had first visited. The visits had never stopped, but something about that front door incident had changed things.

Oh sure, the hag was still coming to the boy, but the terrifying visits were now in his dreams instead of the waking world. The boy guessed early on that her failure at the front door must have weakened her in some way. He just wished he knew how it was done. Maybe this was the way to finally get rid of her altogether.

The fact that she was now only in his dreams was no relief. Oh, far from it. The hag’s threats and evil promises made him as afraid as ever in the waking world because, even though she wasn’t in the waking world now, she knew things and seemed to be able to affect things there. But even though this torment seemed to be never ending, the boy was glad it was only in his dreams now.

The problem though was that he still had to go to sleep at night. The boy never tried to stay awake because there was no use. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that a person had to sleep sometimes. So now while he was in bed, even though the fear and worry were causing him to have trouble getting to sleep, he eventually would drift off to face the inevitable. The nightmare of the hag.

He found himself in a basement. It wasn’t his house. The boy looked around at this familiar place that he had never seen before, and knew he was in a dream. He also knew what was there waiting for him. He tried to find a way out, but there was only the stairs leading up, and they were somehow blocked by an invisible barrier. There was only one direction to go; to the back of the basement.

That’s where he found her, sitting in a big chair and surrounded by a dull light, waiting expectantly for him with a cruel grin on her face. “Don’t ever think you can escape,” she said in a mocking tone. “I always know where you are and what you’re doing. Come forward, boy!"

The boy knew there was nothing to do but to move towards the hag. But not too close. It was a compromise he had discovered long ago. He could appease her anger without giving in completely. He could never give in to that unasked question she always had. “Just say yes, boy. Then it will all be over with. You know you want to end it,” she told him.

The boy did want it to end, but not in the way she intended. He knew that giving in would be the worst thing he or any person could ever do. He wasn’t exactly sure why that was, but he knew it no matter how much she tried to hide just what would happen, or what that question was.

After a pause, the hag glared at him and abruptly said, “This little game is becoming tiring. It’s time I taught you a lesson in what I will do if you don’t give in to me. You know I can hurt your family, don’t you? I’ve been kind to you so far. Do you know that? Now I’m going to show you that I can make you pay for your hesitations.”

As soon as those words were out of the hag’s evil mouth the air just to the right of the boy began to shimmer and distort. Slowly an image of a person began to form in that spot. As it coalesced, the boy was shocked to find out that the image was now his mother! There was something different about her though. She didn’t appear to be quite really there. It was as if the boy was seeing her on a movie screen because she didn’t seem quite three dimensional, and her color was a little dull.

The boy tried to talk to the image of his mother, but even though she moved like a normal person, she didn’t seem to know he was there. Still, the boy knew this was not just some doppelganger; this shadow image somehow really represented his mom. The boy wondered what this was all about.

“I’m going to kill her,” the hag announced to the boy in a matter of fact tone of voice. “That should make you understand my power over you, dog!” Then there was a flash of red and yellow around the image of the boy’s mother, similar to a the way a match looks at the moment it has been struck. With that, his mother fell to the floor, dead in every appearance.

“NOOOO,” the boy screamed. He quickly knelt beside his mom to see if there was any way of saving her, but he knew there was no hope. The boy looked up at the hag and said, “Bring her back! You have to bring her back! Please!”

The hag gave an evil sounding chuckle and said to the boy, “Oh, she’s not really dead. Yet! This is just part of a demonstration to show you that I can really do it. You thought I was weakened, but I’ll show you that I’m as strong as ever, and I can hurt any one of your family if you don’t do as I say. And don’t you think this demonstration is over! This is just a dream right now. Just wait until you see the results of this.” Then the hag began to laugh.

As the boy looked on in horror at the evil hag, the image of his mother regained consciousness. Soon she was back on her feet. The hag looked straight at the boy and said pointedly, “Leave this dream! Take your mother and go! You will answer the question the way I want you to when I ask, because you will know my power!”

The boy found himself laying in the dark in his own bed. This had been the worst encounter with the hag yet, and it was because he truly believed her this time. He had no reason to doubt she could do this. The boy was terrified. He wasn’t able to get back to sleep that morning, and he went through the rest of the day tired, but wide awake and just glad this latest incident was over.

When the boy got home from school that day, he was greeted by his father, but his mother wasn’t there. Something had happened. His father told him that his mother had to be taken to the hospital. She was okay now, but it had been a precarious situation. She had, for some reason, had a seizure. When they got her to the hospital, her heart had stopped. It was all the oddest thing, but she was okay now. They could find nothing else wrong.

The boy’s dad explained that she would have to stay in the hospital for a few more days under observation to make sure she was really fine. But he made it clear that after they determine there’s nothing else wrong, she can come home. He said the doctors claim to understand the problem and think it’s all over.

The boy knew the real problem. The hag did this to her. And when his mother got back home the boy was very protective of her, staying by her side as much as he could, even though he knew he could do nothing. But eventually as time moved on things had to return to normal, even though the boy knew the hag might abruptly strike again at any time. He wondered if there was anything he could ever do.

<<< Episode 06

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How It Began

“When I was young it came to me.”

Queen – The Night Comes Down

~

The hag had not been bothering the boy quite as much for the past few months now, giving him a little bit of a breather from the torment she had inflicted upon him. This change seemed to have started when his little sister and brother had a violent episode with her. The boy was guessing that the demonic witch’s appearance to his younger siblings seemed to somehow expend much of her energy for some reason. They said her big attempt at the front door had been directed towards him, but it seemed to have failed for the moment.

There were actually several things that had come out of that incident from a few months ago. His brother and sister had immediately told him what had happened, saying they were sure the hag was trying to get to him. The pair also told their parents about the incident when they got home that night. Soon the whole family began to understand what had been happening. The boy finally felt able to tell about what had been happening to him for as long as he could remember now. As his story unfolded, his mother began to think back to a related story of her own.

It all began when the boy was barely more than a baby. His mother’s younger sister, the boy’s aunt, had moved back from a place very far away, and she had brought something with her for her two sisters, one older and one younger. It was a game, she said. It was called a Ouija Board, and you could supposedly talk to spirits through it. It couldn’t really do that, she said, but it was fun playing with it and maybe trying to figure out how it really worked. Soon each of the three sisters had one.

The three sisters, becoming very close once again, used a board together many times with great success. They would ask the so called spirits their questions, and would be met with surprisingly accurate answers. The answers could also be amazingly helpful, telling them solutions to any of their little problems, and other positive things it added to the inquiries. At least two of the sisters suspected the others of manipulating the answers. The third sister oddly became silent about it.

Even though the sisters were very close, they couldn’t always be together. They each had their own lives to lead, and they each had their own homes, so they just couldn’t use a Ouija Board together as often as they’d like. Even though the rules on the box stated for some reason that the board wasn’t to be used by less than two people, the boy’s mother decided to try hers out while she was at home by herself. She was surprised to find that it worked!

It was shortly after that when the trouble started. At first the young woman began hearing strange, quiet voices in the house. She assumed they were from people outside, but there was something oddly different about them. Then one day the bathroom door had somehow become locked. They had to break in the small window from outside to get in. There they found a car key jammed in the lock from the inside. They suspected the baby, but there was no way he could have bent the key the way it had been when they found it.

One night shortly after that, the young woman and her husband began hearing strange knocking sounds on the walls. They would normally believe it was maybe the pipes or something, but this was a relatively new house. The knocking was clearly coming from the outside walls, but it was too late at night for anyone to be there. After that first night, the knocking continued from then on to be a problem on random nights.

On another night, not long after the knocking began, it was ended with a huge banging crash on the side of the house! It shook everything almost as if a car had crashed into the house. The woman’s husband went outside to see what had happened, but there was no sign of anything there in the freshly fallen snow.  The young woman had already been frightened by the strange things that were going on, but now she was absolutely terrified. She didn’t like being in the house anymore.

The knockings were just the beginning. The problems would now only get worse. Another night, the young woman was in bed sound asleep when she was mysteriously awakened. She opened her eyes to see a horrible apparition leaning over her by the side of the bed! It was the ugliest old hag she had ever seen! It’s malevolent face was glowering down at her as if in a terrible anger!

The woman instantly knew in her heart that she was looking into the face of death itself! She thought she was going to die! She was too afraid to move, speak, or call out to her husband, who was just inches away. The only thing she could do was close her eyes as tightly and as quickly as she could. After laying there expecting the worst, it never came. So she slowly opened her eyes wondering if the apparition was still there. It was gone.

The next day, finally realizing the source of all her troubles, the young woman took the Ouija board from the closet where she had been keeping it and took it out to the trash. She remembered then that her youngest sister had for some reason buried her board in the dirt floor at the back of the basement of her parents’ house. It must have been for a similar reason. She hoped this would end the terrifying problems, but there was still to be one more thing.

It happened the very next night when the young parents were in bed asleep. Their two year old son came in complaining of nightmares. The woman told him he could climb into bed with them, and so he slipped in at the edge and soon fell fast asleep. A little while later is when the incident was to happen.

The young mother was awakened for the second time in two nights. This time was different though. Something had physically picked her up about a foot off the bed! She could feel hands holding onto her. Suddenly she was violently thrown away from the child and into her husband! Both adults were now wide awake and confused, knowing something very bad had happened, but not really understanding what that might be. The mother believed that this might have been some sort of last revenge for her getting rid of the Ouija Board.

And that was her story. The children’s mother thought it had been all over with after that last incident. The knocking on the walls had never quite ended, but she never imagined that the children were having problems. In an effort to soothe their fear, the children’s mother told them that the woman that had tried to get into the house must have been a drunken neighbor or something, but they knew better than that.

The children knew that thing was not human! And when the mother told them all not to worry, and that she would take care of this, the oldest boy knew that she couldn’t. He knew his mother wanted to protect him, but she just didn’t understand. What could she really do about it? None of them were really sure what to do. How could anyone fight a thing like this? The boy worried about what would happen next. He knew he was the only one that might ever be able to do something, and he wondered if it was all just hopeless.

<<< Episode 05

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At The Door

"…and you are there with glowing eyes and burning hair."

Concrete Blonde – Violent

~

The little girl sat on the living room couch with one of her brothers, happily engrossed in the TV show she was watching. Her too real nightmare from a few years ago about the witch was mostly long forgotten. That feeling of danger she had back then couldn’t last long for her anyway because of how protective the rest of her family always was towards her. And even though her parents were out for a few hours that night, she always felt safe because her three big brothers were there in the house with her.

After a little while she heard an odd sound that she hadn’t heard in quite some time. It was a low eerie, almost electronic, humming sound, like a too long held bass note on a piano. It wasn’t coming from the television, which up until now was the only source of sound near them. The scary sound seemed to be coming from the front door. The girl unconsciously moved a little closer to her brother on the couch.

All of a sudden there was a bang at the front door! It was followed by loud scratching and rattling. Someone was trying to get in, but the sounds weren’t the sounds of a normal turning of a doorknob and opening of a door. They were violent shakes. She knew it was nobody they knew.

Her brother jumped up from his position on the couch and ran for the door with the little girl right behind. They got there just as the violent banging stopped completely. There wasn’t anything at the large window set in the door to keep anyone from seeing in or out. The area of the door was a small alcove that led to all parts of the house, so it was already difficult enough to see into the house. Including the doorway to the living room, there were also stairs to the left going upstairs as you entered. The two siblings looked out the window and only saw the darkness of the night.

Then in less than a second, from out of the night a face swooped in close to the window! It was the hideous face of an ugly old hag! She had an angry sneer on her mouth full of crooked teeth, and her eyes seemed to be cloaked in an odd glowing darkness. The little girl immediately recognized her as the witch from her dream. “GIMME MY DOG,” the hag screeched at them. “YOU HAVE HIM! GIVE HIM TO ME!!!”

The locked door somehow flew open right in front of them, and the hag pushed herself halfway in! She turned towards the stairs leading up, and screamed again at the frightened children, “THIS HOUSE IS MINE! IT’S ALL MINE! I WANT MY DOG! BRING HIM TO ME!!!” The girl somehow knew not to let the hag get upstairs where her oldest brother was. She had a strong instinctive knowledge that this old witch meant great danger to him. And, even though she would usually look to him for help in any other bad situation, she hoped he stayed where he was.

Right at that moment the girl’s other brother threw himself at the hag and pushed with all his might! After an intense struggle the old witch was pushed back outside, and the two siblings pushed the door shut behind her! Only a second later they looked out the window again, in dread that she would come back, but there was nothing there. Then the girl’s brother stepped right up to the window and peered out. “How could she just disappear,” he said in a shaky voice.

“I’m going to have to go out there and make sure,” said the boy. The little girl pleaded for him not to open the door, but checking was the only way he could ease his own fear. If he saw that ugly old hag he would run back in the house. After a short, desperate argument, he gathered his courage, opened the door back up, and marched out onto the long front porch, the little girl right behind him.

He then peered around to find out if the strange old hag had gone anywhere near. He looked up and down the street but found nothing. The two then looked to the side of the house from the porch to see if she was anywhere near the hatch that led to the dirt floor basement. They still found nothing so they went back inside. The thing, which is the way they were thinking of it now, had truly disappeared.

Shaken and still scared, but secure in the knowledge that it was all over, her brother then locked the door once again, and they both ran upstairs to tell their oldest brother.

<<< Episode 04

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A Troubled Sleep

“And when I look in my window, so many different people to be.”

Donovan – Season Of The Witch

~

The boy was having a lot of trouble trying to get to sleep. It had become a common problem for him in the past few years. You see, now when things got quiet at bedtime he began to worry. He wondered if the demonic hag that had been haunting him would ever go away. Several years had now passed and the boy was now several years older, with three younger siblings; the youngest of which was now close to the same age as the boy was when the hag had first visited. And still the witch came to terrorize him.

And what about the threats this horrible old witch was now making toward his family? It seemed as soon as the boy decided that the witch’s threats towards him were maybe just all bluster to scare him, she began to threaten his younger siblings. As an oldest brother, he instinctively feared for their safety even more than his own, which made him fear the witch even more than before. And there was also something else.

The other thing that concerned the poor young boy was the idea that these hauntings were somehow all in his imagination? Nobody else ever saw the witch, and the boy was sure people now looked at him a little differently than most other kids. He overheard them say his withdrawn behavior was because he was shy. He didn’t like that. He wasn’t shy! The whole thing made him feel like a disappointment. He wondered what he could do about it all. He was afraid it was all hopeless.

But even though it took him several hours to fall asleep, that’s just what the boy finally did. It was not long before he was dreaming. He found himself in the living room of his house with the rest of his family. Everything looked okay, but something didn’t feel quite right to the boy. It was after realizing this didn’t feel like a good dream that he noticed that his sister wasn’t there.

And then at that moment the familiar low ominous humming sound that always announced the coming of the hag came again to the boy. But there was a curious difference this time. It didn’t sound quite as close. It felt almost as if the sound was being aimed in another direction. The boy thought maybe it was because this was just a dream.

Even though, upon hearing the threatening sound, his usual urge was to flee in panic to a futile safety near the closest adult, curiosity got the best of the boy.  He couldn’t help himself but to follow that all too familiar strange shift in gravitational pull towards the back of the house. And anyway, he felt that it wasn’t pulling towards him as hard this time. He still didn’t want to meet the hag alone again, but he just couldn’t help himself but to follow his curiosity.

When he got to the kitchen doorway his eyes were somehow instinctively drawn to the window just over the sink at the right side of the kitchen. There looking in the window was the demonic witch with a menacing look on her face! Even though the boy felt the overwhelming urge to run away, he didn’t do it because he noticed that the hag’s horrible gaze wasn’t focused in his direction. She was after something else.

When the boy followed the gaze of the monstrous old hag to the opposite side of the room he found his sister cowering there in the corner! The boy’s terror shifted immediately from himself to his poor little sister. What could he do? He knew he was incapable of helping her.

The boy then turned to look back to the kitchen window but the hag wasn’t there anymore. She was now in the middle of the kitchen walking toward his obviously terrified little sister! No!!! And when the witch halted directly in front of the helpless little girl, the evil old hag turned to the boy and gave him the most evil, spiteful grin she had ever shown him.

It was right at that moment that the boy woke up from the nightmare.

The next afternoon, while still obsessively worrying about his all too real feeling nightmare over and over, the boy’s little sister approached him. Her gaze was focused on the floor for some reason, and she seemed as if she wanted to turn and run. Then she finally looked up at him and said in a small voice, “I don’t know who to tell this to. I had a nightmare last night. It seemed real when I was there. There was a mean old witch, and she said she was going to hurt me…”

<<< Episode 03

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Disturbed

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"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?"

Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody

~

This is the third episode of the story of a very strange little boy. You see, this little boy has the very disturbing thought that he is being visited by a demon. An ugly old hag of a demon. Is that true? Could something like that really be true? How could anybody know that for certain, except for the boy? Maybe even he didn’t know. That wasn’t exactly the question that was on his mind at the moment though.

The real question he had been wondering was, “What do you have to do to get rid of an evil demon when nothing seems to work?” That’s what the boy was beginning to wonder. As the demonic hag had promised, she had come back to him time and time again over the next several years, and in his memory there was never a respite of more than a few days at a time from this psychological assault that made him too afraid to ever think of fighting back. The boy was growing older now. He was no baby anymore, but he could only take so much.

And it usually didn’t matter where or when she might appear. There seemed to be only one rule. It almost always began when he was mostly alone. But it didn’t necessarily end up that way. He could wander ten feet away from another person, and the witch would appear. And then it never mattered where he tried to run. A visit didn’t end until the witch chose to end it. And there was always her unasked question. She promised to end all of it for him if his answer would be yes.

Even when the demon witch didn’t appear to him, the boy thought he could sense something evil hovering near him, waiting to strike. He became nervous at all times, dreading what might happen next. His every thought was shadowed with fear and worry of the bad things the hag would tell him. He could never repeat those things. They were too scary to even think about. So now she didn’t even have to be there to hurt him. It seems his own thoughts were betraying him.

Another problem was that the boy had decided that he had to pretend everything was normal, to protect everyone else. He was sure his parents expected him to be normal even though they had never said it, so he had to pretend there was nothing wrong. He was sure this wasn’t their fault. How could they know? They could never see the hag. Nobody could… except the boy. And he knew by this time that no normal person could help him stop something that was as invisible as a ghost. They were all normal. But he wasn’t normal. The boy knew that. He wished somebody would tell him if they thought he wasn’t normal.

But what could he do? Nobody ever said anything. But after seeing some of the strange looks he had gotten for trying to tell this story to people, the boy decided that there was only one thing he could really do. He was going to have to trick them. Trick them all. Yes. That was it. That was the answer. He was fine. That’s what he would say. That’s what he would tell them. It would be easy. So easy. The hag had told him so many times now that they wouldn’t believe. Sometimes she had dared him to tell them, and other times she had warned him to be silent. He thought she was wrong that the others would never understand… until now.

The boy also decided that he didn’t want anyone else in the family to be as afraid as he was. He needed to protect them somehow. His parents. His two little brothers. His new baby sister. The hag had begun to make threats against them too now. She told the boy that she would hurt them if he didn’t do as she told him, if he didn’t listen to the things she said. How could he do that without agreeing to her unasked question that he somehow knew would be the very worst thing he could ever do. Ever. Agreeing to smaller things sometimes seemed to appease the evil creature enough though.

But the boy wondered what would really happen if he were to answer yes to the question? It had been made clear to him that he would learn the question only after he answered with a “Yes.” That always seemed so backwards to him, but he was afraid to ask why it had to be like that. The hag always told him that it would all be over if he were to answer yes, but how could he know for sure? He thought maybe she was trying to trick him. He didn’t think he had ever caught her in a lie though. He listened very closely for lies. Maybe she wasn’t lying about this either, but he still thought this was something very bad.

And there was still his family to think about. They already thought he was a bit strange. He could tell, every time he mentioned anything about the hag. What would they think if he seemed fine all of a sudden? Would they think he was crazy for being okay? He wasn’t crazy! The boy knew the things he had seen! He didn’t care what anyone else might think! But he wished they would tell him, because sometimes he felt like he was being tricked by their silence. He didn't like being tricked. So what if nobody else saw the hag but him. That didn’t make him crazy. He was sure it was all true! He… wasn’t… CRAZY!!! No no no… No!

<<< Episode 02

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