In the darkest hour of the night I heard an owl. I
stopped the rocking chair and listened closely. No other sound broke
the silence. I was sitting on the porch with a woolen quilt wrapped
around me. The night sky was clear but dark with a small crescent
moon hovering right above the animal shelter. Thick snow covered the
ground and in the horizon I could vaguely make out the silhouettes of
the cows standing still as if they were frozen. I waited but nothing
happened. I knew someone should come from the forest. I had seen the
figure emerge from the tree line before, walking on our fields and
around our house but never coming close enough for me to recognize
who it was. It was a rather tall figure, hunched over and there was
something odd about the way it moved as if it was limping. I had seen
the figure the night my daughters went missing, and I suspected it
had something to do with their disappearance.
It was freezing and I had to give up my little
waiting game. I got up, went inside and warmed up a glass of mulled
wine. Then I walked into the library, where I always felt a certain
serenity, put on a fire in the old, stone fireplace, sat on the black
and leathery rococo couch and yawned. I felt so, so tired, I could
not sleep. It was past that.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang from upstairs,
followed by a noise of shattering glass as if a window was broken. I
was startled and spilled the hot beverage on the couch. I breathed
rapidly and my heart was beating like crazy. I was alone in the
house. My wife, Kristen, had left me just a month earlier, as she
insisted I was going mad: imagining things, getting obsessed with the
figure. She did not believe there was someone or something stalking
our house, following us. I had first seen the figure almost a year
ago, but I did not tell her at first. I dared not to tell her as I
did not want to needlessly scare her. After our daughters strangely
disappeared though, I had to.
Kate was fourteen, nearly a teenager. Kayden only
three months old, just a baby. They vanished one night, almost six
months ago now. The police believed Kate had kidnapped Kayden. They
suspected so as Kate had been very protective of the baby. Not just
that, she had been constantly fighting with Kristen and me. But that
is how teenagers are, is it not? Perhaps Kate and Kristen were
fighting a little bit more than is considered usual. I was not sure
what they fought about, mostly about Kayden, I guess. Our little baby
had a difficult start having problems with her tiny heart. Somehow
Kate believed that Kristen was not doing her part as a mother too
well. Nevertheless, I did not believe that Kate would have ran away
with our baby. She would not do that to her parents. Besides, I was
sure the mysterious figure had something to do with my poor girls
gone missing.
I got up from the couch slowly. I was trying to
determine whether it would be wise to go see what was going on
upstairs or just call the police and stay safe. But it would take a
long while for the police to get so deep into the countryside and
then it might be too late, I decided and headed for the stairs. My
heart was pounding and all the way up I could hear the wind whistling
as it came inside through the broken window. The sound was coming
from our bedroom. A while ago the night had been calm but now the
wind was rising and I knew that a storm was going to hit us before
morning.
I got up the stairs and hit the light switch but
nothing happened. Everything was covered in pitch-black darkness and
I reached my hand in front of me, so I could feel if I was going to
bump on something. One step, two steps, three and four. I could feel
the bedroom door. I fumbled to find the doorknob and finally did. It
was lower than I had remembered. I opened the door and it made a tiny
creak.
It had started to snow outside and delicate, white
snowflakes flew inside from the broken window. The red Persian carpet
was covered in glass shards. The wind was rising and the pale white
curtains flowed ominously towards me like the ghosts of our
ancestors. The house was old, centuries old, and I had always felt a
bit restless there. I looked around but it was hard to see well in
the weak light of the crescent moon. I saw nothing on the floor that
could have broken the window. I looked outside and saw no one but I
got an uneasy feeling that someone saw me. I left the room quickly as
something was making me panic. In the darkness, I would not be able
to see if someone was standing in the corner of the room. And most
likely someone was as I did not notice then but I should have.
Indeed, there was someone with me in the house.
When I managed to find the stairs in the dark, I
realized, the light downstairs was now gone too. I started my way
down but suddenly hit something or missed a stair and lost my
balance. I rolled down and hit my head on the last step.
I may have lost consciousness for a while, I
thought as I woke up. I stood up and my head was spinning. My right
ankle, I had broken back in the day in a riding accident, hurt bad
and it was hard to stand on it. The damn foot was always bothering
me, and sometimes it made walking really painful. Now I found myself
struggling for a while to give it any weight at all.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps from upstairs followed
by a whisper. I could not make out what was said, though.
“Hello? Is there someone there?” I tried to
yell but I could hear the fear in my voice. It was trembling.
I felt nauseous. My feet were shaking, my palms
were sweaty and my throat felt dry as fallen leaves under the autumn
sun. I was trying to see what was on top of the stairs, was there
someone standing there? It was too dark.
“The cows... They can’t see”, I heard a
hissing whisper followed by a sound of footsteps running above me.
Regardless of how scared I was, instead of running
away, I ran up the stairs. The pain in my ankle was throbbing.
“Who are you?! Show me yourself!” I screamed.
I got up but was met with the blackest darkness as if a wall was put
in front of me. I made my way back in to the bedroom, tumbling in the
dark. I walked to the broken window and looked outside. Shivers went
through my spine and I froze in place. I kept staring, unable to look
away. Outside a hunched over, black figure was standing in the field,
looking straight at me. The footsteps in the snow, I had not noticed
before, now went from the house to where the figure was. It was
standing closer to me than ever before and it looked… familiar.
Then I heard it. A baby crying. All the hair on my
back rose up and I felt tears gathering behind my eyes. It could not
be… I turned around slowly, my feet getting scratches through my
woolen socks from the broken glass as I moved. I looked, the moon
shined brighter now and I saw that there it was: an old pine wood
cradle in the corner of the bedroom. It should not be there, we had
moved it to the attic after our daughters disappeared. I took a step
towards it and saw that there was something in it.
“My baby… Oh my God, Kayden”, I whispered
and almost fainted. I was shaking my head in disbelief.
“My poor baby, how can you be there?” I asked
her and wept. Then I made my way to the cradle and swept her in to my
arms.
But as I did I realized, it was not my baby at
all, it was not even human. I screamed and stared at my hands. It
took a while for me to recognize what I was holding. It was a tiniest
calf. A dead one.
But I was sure it had cried like a real baby. Was
I going mad after all? Then I found it. A tape recorder, under the
body of the poor baby cow. If this was a sick joke it had gone too
far. I felt terrified, unsafe. I felt like I had to get out of that
house...
To be continued.
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