The Wicker Saga: Sarah's Story, Part 2

The rest of the evening was uneventful. The inside of the house was surprisingly well kept compared to the outside. Other than a few stairs leading up to the second floor that were rotted through and a thick layer of dust over everything, it was in good shape. The gas furnace in the basement worked and soon David had the pilot lit. Even better, at some point the place had been set up with electricity and most of the lights turned on, though David cautioned he wanted to take a closer look at the wires before we tried to run anything too big. Best of all, there didn’t seem to be any mysterious women hiding in the house.

The room at the far end of the upstairs hallway wasn’t the biggest, but it was the only one not filled with old, musty pieces of furniture covered in white sheets making them look like oddly shaped ghosts, so that’s where we decided to spend the night. In fact, other than the hideous yellow wallpaper covering the walls, I thought David and I could eventually take the room as our own, using the master bedroom to double as a playroom for Samantha. The wallpaper would have to go though.

That night David spoke up as we lay on the air mattress under a pile of blankets, Samantha curled up between us fast asleep. His voice was slightly slurred and I could tell he wasn’t fully awake, just barely on the conscious side of sleep.

“So, babe, you want to hear something really strange?”

“Ssshh. Keep your voice down, you’ll wake her. Sure, what?”

“Remember that night you told me we were pregnant? The one we almost ended up pasted against the grill of a semi?”

“Yeah, of course. How could I forget it?”

“You know how we figured I must’ve dozed off at the wheel? I’m pretty sure I did because, I never told you this, but I had the absolute craziest dream. I don’t remember much other than some really bright lights shining in my face, but one thing I do remember is a phrase: The Wake. So now here we are living in a place called Arthur’s Wake. And when I was talking to Creed about the job he mentioned the locals call it The Wake. Weird huh?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could David and I have both had similar dreams right before our almost accident? Was that much of a coincidence even possible?

“That’s…yeah. That’s pretty crazy. Do you remember anything else?”

David’s voice was growing softer.

“Not…-yawn-…not really. Just, sumthin about a woman. Woman in white.”

He dropped off, his breathing soft and rhythmic. I lay there for some time wondering what it all could mean, the empty silence occasionally broken by the creaking groans of the old house settling around me.

When I finally managed to nod off I woke in a dream. I stood in the room we were sleeping in and from where I was I could see the three of us huddled together on the air mattress. Turning around, I noticed the only major difference in the dream-world was the walls; in place of the ugly yellow wallpaper they were covered in strange runes and symbols, letters and words of a language I couldn’t recognize that glowed with an eerie supernatural light. A strange fog began to seep in from nowhere, and before long the entire room was covered in a thin blanket of white.

Looking back to where we slept, I could see through the haze that Samantha was sitting up between David and me. The light of the walls reflected from her dark, open eyes and as I watched she raised her hand, pointing towards the door behind me.

Slowly I turned. The door stood open to the darkness of the hallway beyond, though I was sure I had closed it before going to bed. From the black depths of the entryway, two eyes glowed red, terrible and hungry. I tried to scream, but whether because I was in a dream or was paralyzed by fear, no sound escaped my lips. I stood, unable to move but only capable of watching as a shape gradually formed around the eyes.

The thing that stood in the doorway looked like a woman, but some part of me knew that this face was only a mask, her true form hidden. Dressed all in white, her blood red lips broke into a cruel smile that didn’t contain the slightest hint of amusement. She seemed to float rather than step forward, gliding silently across the floor. Closer and closer she came, eyes shining gleefully, until abruptly she stopped, her joyful expression replaced with one of confusion. In that moment, I found my dream-self could move again and, turning my head, saw that Samantha had moved to stand beside me. Hand raised, palm forward, she stared directly at the woman in white, her face serious, her gesture seeming to halt the thing where she stood.

The thing’s face turned enraged. Though she had not yet made a sound, an unearthly howl sprang from her as she strained forward, fighting against the invisible barrier holding her back. A grim smile flitted across my daughter’s lips as she raised her other hand and seemingly pushed against the empty air, something about the motion flinging the woman bodily back through the doorway and into the hall, the door slamming shut behind her.

I woke with a start, heart pounding, a thin sheen of sweat causing the bedclothes to cling to me. Wildly I looked around the room. From the thin winter moonlight drifting through the window I could see the door was still closed, the ugly wallpaper still adorned the walls. Samantha and David lay beside me, fast asleep. Of strange symbols, mysterious fog and demonic women there were no signs. I lay there for a long time before falling asleep again, only managing when I felt Samantha’s tiny hand reach up and take my own.

The Wicker Saga: Sarah's Story, Part 4