The Old Hag

The old house was long and thin, with dark corridors that ran from one end to the other, beside narrow rooms and cold passages, a front room, a dining room, a living room and a kitchen. Upstairs were four bedrooms with a bathroom in the middle, the wooden floorboards boomed and creaked with every step. I lay in the back room above the garden that grew wild, so cold and lonely, but sleep took me away as she did every night.

The screaming woke me.

The voice was sobbing, weeping, crying out for help, filling me with its fear, its sobs and cries, as footsteps urgently pounded the way to my sanctuary, beating on the door, “Help me! Help me! Please!”

I tried to move, I wanted to help, to say something, anything, but my hands were tied, I was strapped to the bed and gagged, I couldn’t move or speak.

Christ I could barely breathe as the door opened, the screaming stopped and the small dark figure entered and came over to me. It’s breath was loud, shallow and hoarse.

Now I started to make a sound. A pathetic, frightened, cowardly whimper, as the figure climbed on top of me and sat on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I looked at its face…

I woke with my heart beating its way out of my chest as the footsteps pounded away down the hallway, taking the sobbing voice with them, as I dried the tears from my cheeks, my mouth dry, and tried to unsee the face that woke me, that saved me.