It Crawls

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Cassie knew that for Jared, lighting the ceremonial candle was a sacred part of his ritual, the moment when he tuned into the vibe and set his intentions to communicate with the dead. He sat on a pillow at the center of the room, folded his legs into the lotus position, and closed his eyes. He expected her to follow his lead and do the same.

It had taken longer than expected to reach the hunting cabin because the road had deteriorated through decades of neglect. They had parked the rental car a mile away and hiked in. Now, before the last rays of sunlight vanished behind the mountaintop, she wanted to get a good look at the place where they would spend the night. She wielded the battery-powered Coleman lantern like a shield and shone it into the corners. Lots of cobwebs and spiders, but nothing running away. No rats or scorpions.

The one-room cabin featured a tall ceiling, and it was completely bare, except that to the right of the front door, there was a box shoved into a corner.

“Babe, come check it out! There’s a cat door!”

Jared sighed. “Well, they must have had a cat. Obviously.”

She noted the undertone of contempt. Their couples’ therapist, Roland, had warned them about contempt: it was the most accurate predictor of divorce. They had gone into therapy after Jared discovered that she was on the pill when all along, he thought they were trying to conceive. She didn’t want to start a family until she was sure they were going to make it as a couple. Anger at each other had killed desire, and they hadn’t been intimate for months. Cassie was trying to mend the marriage by taking an interest in his hobbies because it seemed to her that getting divorced at 29 would feel a lot like failure. And that’s how they came to travel across several states to spend the night in a remote hunting cabin that was allegedly haunted, in a valley that had no cell service. This was definitely no-one-can-hear-you-scream territory.

Cassie examined the cat door, which consisted solely of a frame; the swinging door was long gone. The heavy wooden box had been jammed up against it, most likely, she thought, to keep animals out. Two corners of the box had been gnawed, like something had tried to chew its way in. She lifted the latch and examined the contents. The box was full of toys, some for felines, some for humans. She was about to pick up a palm-sized doll, a devil made of gray fabric with eyes and mouth and horns sewn in yellow, but she stopped short before she touched it. Cute, but also kind of weird. After one last look, she shut the box.

This cabin, which had been the site of a mass murder over thirty years before, felt more sinister than any of the other two supposedly haunted sites they had visited. She got the sense that eyes were watching them. She turned suddenly and held the lantern aloft, illuminating the corners of the room to be sure nothing had joined them since dusk had descended.

“C’mon, Cass, what are you doing?”

Satisfied they were still alone, she switched the lantern off and sat on the pillow across from him, complying with the ritual, except that she dared not shut her eyes.

According to Jared’s research, the locals had avoided the place since the murders. But somebody had obviously broken in and defaced the walls with graffiti. Jared had explained that wasn’t unusual. Whenever news broke of a particularly vicious murder, the site would garner a flurry of macabre fascination and some degree of vandalism before falling off the radar of the living. Cassie deduced the graffiti artists were three teenage boys, each with their own color of spray paint, and not exactly spelling bee finalists. If the place hadn’t filled her with such dread, she might have snickered at the blue splatter that read, “Satin lives!” Either the boys were really excited about luxury sheets, or they had no clue how to spell the Evil One’s name. On the wall behind Jared, there was a spray-painted message that Cassie couldn’t quite make out. When she finally realized what it said, goose flesh tickled her arms, and the small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

Jared cleared his throat and she flicked her eyes down to find him glaring at her.

“I guess I should have come by myself.”

She really, really hated it when he sulked. Roland had suggested they try to keep their faces and voices neutral during conflict, so instead of rising to the bait, she said softly, “Sorry. This place just gives me the creeps.”

“Well, gee, that’s hopeful. Maybe you’ll pick up on the frequencies instead of falling asleep.”

He was referring to her habit of taking a sleeping pill during his investigations so that she could get her full eight, while he stayed up all night waiting (in vain) for ghosts to make an appearance on his thermographic camera.

“This place is just wrong. It feels off kilter.” She pointed at the graffiti on the wall behind him. “Look.”

Jared stared at the words a moment, trying to decipher the scrawl, but soon gave up and turned back with a shrug. Whichever genius had used the red spray paint was not in control of his medium. Each letter ended in a pool of paint that dribbled downward, like a trail of blood.

Cassidy translated for him: “It crawls.”

“What does?”

“You tell me.”

He thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “People are so cruel.”

Jared rose from the pillow and crossed the room to their bedrolls, side by side between the windows, which were unbroken—surprisingly, given the remote location, deep in the Appalachian woods. He retrieved a binder from his backpack and switched on the lantern, bathing the room in antiseptic blue light. Every project had its own binder, a compilation of research about the history of a haunted place. Cassie knew it would be good for her marriage if she showed more enthusiasm for the backstory, but she just hadn’t been able to drum up a true need-to-know… until now. She leaned in close as he turned the pages, both eager and fearful to know what “It” was.

“This was the family.”

Cassidy peered at the photograph. Their murder had taken place in 1989. The modern clothing was somehow more disturbing than the bonnets and bustles and morning coats that populated most of Jared’s research projects. A grandfather, a father, two boys in their late teens, and a woman holding a baby. The photo looked posed. Professional, but not artful, like they’d had the family portrait done by a photographer at the mall.

“Who killed them?”

“Him.” Jared pointed to the older of the teens, a nerdy, lanky boy with dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses. “Evan. He fled the scene, and the State Troopers tracked him down the next day. He was killed in a shootout.”

“One of the sons?” She traced the boy’s face with her index finger. “Why?”

“Schizophrenic,” said Jared. “Off his meds.” He moved to the door of the only bedroom and pushed it open. “This was the grandfather’s hunting cabin. Doc, they called him. The boy found Doc asleep and shot him in the head. Which was ironic, since Doc had taught Evan how to shoot by lining up coconuts on the fence.”

“How’d you come by that little detail?”

“I have my vays,” he said, putting on an accent.

“No, seriously. You’re making that up.”

“Everybody in the village knew the family. I made random phone calls till I found somebody who wanted to talk. The boy lured his family to the cabin, and ran them down and shot them one by one. The mother hid in the pond under the landing dock. He shot her through the wood planking. Tomorrow morning, we can walk down there, see if we can find the bullet hole.”

Cassie had always found it a little disturbing, the way Jared became so animated when he recounted macabre tales. His hobby had become his identity. When he met new people, he always described himself as a Paranormal Investigator, not a real estate agent. Now her pulse quickened, her mouth became a little dry, and she felt a brief spasm of concern at her own morbid curiosity.

“What about the baby? He killed it, too?”

“That’s the mystery.”

“How do you mean?”

“The baby girl was never found. No one knows if Liz—”

“Liz was the baby?”

“The mother. Elizabeth. No one knows if she had the baby with her, or did she leave the child with somebody? If she did, it wasn’t with any friends or relatives. They dredged the pond, but found no trace.”

“So “It” refers to the baby. ‘It crawls.’”

“Probably. Yeah.”

They were silent for a moment. The only sound was the soft rustle of pages in the binder, as Jared reviewed clippings of the local news stories published at the time of the murder. Pure joy played across his features (pug nose, downy lip, long lashes), like a little boy re-reading his favorite fairy tale. Cassie found it just a little bit odd that Jared had brought her to a site that featured a dead baby, all things considered.

She jumped to her feet. “Let’s get outta here.”

“I won’t let you sabotage my work.”

His “work”? Oh, brother.

“I’m getting a seriously bad vibe from this place.”

Jared seemed delighted. “Well, let’s just see about your intuition, little lady.”

He picked up the EMF meter, a handheld monitor that measured electromagnetic fields.

“Come on, Jared. These people suffered a horrific tragedy, and you turn it into a –”

Jared crossed his arms across his chest. “A what?”

“A sideshow.” Too late, she heard the therapist’s voice, warning her not to be cruel.

He clenched his jaw in anger. “Don’t you have a novel to read, or something?”

“Actually, I do.”

The way she wriggled into her bedroll and strapped on her headlamp conveyed fury even better than slamming a door. She’d brought a fun book, The Three Musketeers, a story engrossing enough to compete with busy airports and haunted houses and asshole husbands. Jared busied himself with setting up his gadgetry: securing his night-vision camera to a tripod, setting up his audio recorder and his infrared temperature device, none of which had so far captured paranormal activity at any of the past sites.

“Hey, where’d you put the aspirin?”

His voice broke into the story right as D’Artagnan discovered the fleur de lis on Milady de Winter’s shoulder, but Jared hadn’t interrupted her reading. Cassie had been staring at that same passage for a while. It couldn't hold her attention while there was a murdered family and missing baby to think about.

“What was her name? The baby?”

“Angela.”

Cassie reached into her pack, felt around for the Excedrin bottle, and handed it to Jared.

“Are you getting a migraine?”

“I hope not,” he said, his tone implying that if he did, it was all her fault. He popped a couple of painkillers and swallowed them down with water from his canteen.

Cassie reopened her book, though she was tracking his actions. When he slinked into his own bedroll, she glanced over to see that he was fiddling with the EMF meter, and she thought what a ridiculous picture the two of them made, their backs to each other, each absorbed in their own form of escape.

Cassie stared at the words illuminated by the headlamp, but all she could think about was poor Elizabeth. What would it be like to have your own son stalking you, to hide under the boat dock, to try to quiet your breathing so he couldn’t find you. Did Liz have Angela with her? Had she stashed the baby in the bushes before dashing for the water?

She came back to the present and realized that her husband had been silent for some time.

“Oh, please, Jared. Are you actually giving me the silent treatment?”

An owl hooted in the distance.

She turned over and was shocked to see Jared’s face completely slack, mouth gaping wide. His eyelids were still; he wasn’t dreaming.

Cassie turned off her headlamp, suddenly feeling exposed. On either side of them were windows with no shades. A specter might be peering in at this very moment. Across from her was the front door, and to the right of that was the cat door, blocked by the wooden toy box. She was glad, at least, that there weren’t many windows in this cabin. There was another one to the right in the kitchen, over the sink. When you stood at the sink, you could see the pond, the pond where a troubled boy first shot his father, then his brother, and finally, the woman who had made his miserable existence possible.

“Jared. Wake up! Did you lock the door?”

In the woods, the owl vocalized, demanding to know Who. Who who who?

“C’mon, Babe,” she said. “You have to get up and lock the door. I’m too scared.”

Silence. She scrambled out of her bedroll, used her headlamp like a flashlight, and leaned over him, gently shaking him.

“Jared? Jared!” She shook him more forcefully. She placed a finger on his neck and felt a pulse. She tried to suppress the hysteria rising in her gorge. The old wooden cabin creaked. If Jared were awake, he’d probably say it was just the natural sounds of a rustic cabin. To her, every noise sounded like a footstep.

She grabbed the EMF meter. No activity. Of course there was no activity. How ridiculous!

She retraced the last couple of hours, trying to figure out what was going on, was it something he ate, was it something he--

Cassie lunged for her pack and brought up the bottle of painkiller. Except what she’d handed him wasn’t Excedrin; it was her sleeping pills. Hypnotics. How appropriate, since they put you in a trance.

She whispered hoarsely at Jared’s motionless form. “You didn’t notice these weren’t small, white tablets?”

In the dark, she thought, in the dark he couldn’t see them. And if he took two, he’d be out till morning. She only ever took one at a time, and she was used to them. They knocked you out, they made you--

“Dead to the world,” she whispered out loud.

She switched off her headlamp again, jammed herself back into the bedroll, and stared at the ceiling, feeling cold despite the warm summer night. What to do now? She couldn’t drag him a mile to the car. She couldn’t leave him here. She was so tempted to glance right, to peek at the kitchen window. What if “they” were there, the forlorn family, lined up, their translucent faces peering in, staring, their eyes glowing red like carbuncles. The murderer, the oldest boy, had died somewhere else in a volley of bullets. But the others, their spirits might be stuck here. They might be watching her. They might cause her death so they’d have company.

“Shut up, shut up,” she whispered to herself. “It isn’t far. Just walk over there and lock the door.”

She couldn’t make herself move. She stared at the doorknob. It seemed to be slowly turning.

“Stop scaring yourself,” she whispered.

First she disengaged her left leg, moving slowly, slowly. Then the right leg, slowly, slowly. Now she was out of the bedroll.

“Go!”

She jumped up and raced to the door. No lock. It had long since rusted, no longer capable of thrusting the deadbolt into place. She leaned back against the door, her eyes flitting about for something to lodge against the door, but the room was bare. All the furnishings had been removed. Not a chair to shove under the doorknob. And now she had to wonder… why was the only thing left in the cabin the freakin’ toy box?

Cassie felt her legs weaken, and she let herself slide to a sitting position. She could stay here all night, making sure nothing got in. No people, no animals, no… thing. But she was facing the windows. What if a face were to appear? She couldn’t stand it, that’s what.

And now she realized that she could see in the dark. Her headlamp was across the room. It had been pitch black before but… the moon had risen. It lit up the outdoors. Now she could make out the undulating mountains in the distance. The door was her vulnerable spot. She had to secure the door.

The only object was the heavy wooden box. She didn’t like to leave a gaping hole in the wall, but right now she was a lot less afraid of a curious raccoon than she was a… a what? She didn’t even know. She pulled the box away from the cat door and positioned it sideways across the bottom of the front door. Feeling somewhat safer.

She crept quietly across the cabin floor, as though normal footsteps would rouse disgruntled spirits. Cassie moved to the edge of the wall where the kitchen began, so that she could peek around the corner. Nothing. No faces at the window. Superstition. Silliness.

Feeling bolder because she was in darkness and the outside was bathed in light, she stepped up to the kitchen window and peered down the moss-covered pathway that led to the pond. The water glistened peacefully in the moonlight. There was no sign of past calamity, a violence that had only lasted for a blip in time. (What are you doing? Stop! We love you! Evan, no!) She stood there a while, entranced by the setting. So calm. Nothing scary about it. She had about convinced herself to get back in bed, when her eye detected movement halfway up the path. Not sudden, not something running, but a steady motion, advancing towards the cabin. An animal, maybe. Something low to the ground, light colored, reflecting the light, not dark, like a raccoon. She ran through her limited catalog of small, wild, night dwellers. The creature moved in an odd way. It wasn’t so much walking, or lumbering, or even slithering. The thing was… crawling.

She froze, unable to look away. It came slowly, relentlessly, its little hands and knees gliding over rocks with ease. The shape was nearing the far side of the cabin. Would it come through the walls like the ghosts in movies, or through the door, or...

...the cat door!

She sprinted to the toy box and tried to slide it across the floor, but it got hung up on a nail head and wouldn’t budge. Now she was pulling it, feeling like a figure in a dream, moving as though underwater. Her muscles were frozen with fear, so she pulled with stiff arms until she had it almost in place, but it didn’t seem to fit now, the way it had before. It blocked the door, but left a small gap. Too late, she realized she’d placed it backwards. No time to move it now.

Cassie heard the thing before she saw it. The regular motion, the drag of fabric against ground, the labored breathing. A rotted baby hand appeared in the gap, its fingers straining to reach her. Such tiny blackened fingers, and yet the nails were adorned with pearly nail polish, chipped at the edges.

Cassie tried to speak, but at first her voice wouldn’t come. When she did, it was an anguished chirp. She said, “Angela, go away!”

The baby sat back and wailed a supernatural cry of distress. Cassie clamped her hands over her ears, willing it to stop. And then it was silent, moving to the gap again. Now the thing was staring at her, its eye luminous, reflecting the moonlight.

Cassie’s eyes flicked to Jared, still out of it, mouth agape, sleeping peacefully. What if she’d been the one to take the sleeping pill and he’d had to face this alone? Would he have been elated or scared to death? Would he have run to the car, leaving her alone with the demon child?

From the bedroom where the old man was killed came a scraping noise, like a rocking chair. Stupid old man. Putting a gun in the hands of his violent grandson. She watched the door, fearing it would fly open to reveal his decomposing face. When it stayed shut, she wondered if he was confined to the place where he died. She didn’t know the rules of ghosts.

She called in a hoarse whisper. “Jared! Wake up!”

He slept on.

Now it was Cassie’s turn to crawl, crawling across the cabin floor, crawling towards Jared. Movement caught her eye beyond the kitchen. She crawled towards the window and raised herself up. Ambling up the path were three silhouettes. Soon they would be able to stare in the window, and she knew without a doubt that when she saw their faces at the window, she would die of fright. And they would have company.

She loped back to the backpack and found the sleeping pills. She swallowed one, then another.

Cassie wrapped herself up in the bedroll like a cigar, the fabric pulled up over her head, beneath a window so that no one could see her from the outside, and she felt slumber creep up on her, whisking her away from the horror. Soon she was motionless, lost in dreamless sleep.

*******

Cassie’s eyes fluttered open the next morning, and she rejoiced to see that the cabin was restored to its banality; just a rustic, spider-infested wreck. She pulled herself up on her elbows, a groggy bobblehead. Jared was furiously packing his equipment, which, as usual, had registered no paranormal activity. He accused her of drugging him with a sleeping pill on purpose, sabotaging his one chance at investigating the cabin. Worst of all, since they'd overslept, there was no time to search for bullet holes in the dock. He couldn’t stay another night because he had an appointment with potential homebuyers first thing Monday morning.

“Get your ass out of bed,” he snarled. “We’ve got a long drive ahead.”

While he ranted, Cassie tried to bring her eyes into focus. The toy box had been pushed aside. She could see where the thing had crawled across the floor, leaving tiny dusty handprints on the black fabric of her bedroll. She shuddered, so glad she'd slept through it. When she stood up, the devil doll fell out of her bedding. She kicked it across the room.

Cassie said nothing on the long drive back about what had happened. Jared listened to music so they wouldn’t have to talk.

Six weeks later, Cassie squatted in the bathroom stall in the office building where she worked, and peed on a stick. This was the third attempt, and the results were positive again. She was certain she’d gotten pregnant that night in the cabin, but she was also certain it wasn’t Jared’s. It belonged to the thing in the cabin. The demon baby was trying to resurrect itself through her womb. She had to get rid of it, but the laws had recently changed, and the state would force her to give birth. No matter that the thing growing in her belly might be a creature from hell. There were no exceptions—even to save the mother’s life—but what about to save her soul?

She would pack up and leave immediately. She had to travel to a state where she could terminate. She checked the test results again. She was pregnant, yes, but the question was…

...with what?