The Webbs were not a happy family. To their small community, they seemed perfectly well adjusted, if a bit different. The truth kept behind closed doors was much uglier. They were a family of four: Mr. and Mrs. Webb, their son, the eldest, and their daughter, the youngest.
Mr. Webb was the head of the family, and ruled the household through fear. Mrs. Webb was regularly berated for her incompetence, while the eldest was mocked for his shortcomings as a man, and the youngest for being too fat. As a male, the eldest was targeted for the majority of the physical violence, but the females were always taught to know their place. All were regularly reminded by Mr. Webb of the ways they fell short.
It didn’t matter that there were three of them and only one of him because anyone who tried to take a stand against him would be standing alone. Mrs. Webb usually tried to avoid conflict at all costs, if the children ever came to her about Mr. Webb, she would usually take his side, and neither of the children had any power to contend with either of them. Bringing the problems at home to outside parties was out of the question because Mr. Webb considered it a betrayal of the family. He knew how to make them all feel small and alone.
But, life for the Webbs was about to change drastically; whether for better or for worse, would depend on which Webb you asked. It began one afternoon, after a particularly ugly scene had occurred in the living room of the Webb home.
The eldest, who was 16 at the time, had tried to stand up to Mr. Webb, and he had retaliated violently. Mr. Webb shoved his son repeatedly until he was backed into a corner with Mr. Webb an inch away from his face, daring him to try to hit him and see what would happen, while Mrs. Webb and the youngest sat by silently, looking away from what was happening. When the boy finally backed down, his only means of self-defense, Mr. Webb replied smugly, “yeah, that’s what I thought,” before calling him an epithet denigrating his masculinity. Mr. Webb then sent them all away and sat down in his chair beside the window, feeling proud of himself.
He soon heard a strange whistling sound coming from outside the window, almost like a sputtering tea kettle. The wind had been blowing hard all day, but this didn’t sound like the wind.
He looked out the window to find the source of the whistling, but the entire street was empty–without even a car or small animal to be seen anywhere–except for one strange old woman, seemingly dancing in the wind.
To even say she was dancing was almost a stretch; her arms hung at her sides as she leaned to one side and stomped her foot twice, then leaned to the opposite side and stomped her other foot twice, over and over again. Mr. Webb wondered if she might be mentally ill or a drug addict; though she looked, overall, pretty ordinary, he found her very unsettling. She had long white hair, pulled back into a bun, and wore a long black coat and boots. But she had the most bitter, hateful facial expression he’d ever seen, as she stared out unblinkingly with her eyes boring directly into him.
He immediately went to the front door to confront her, but when he opened the door she was gone.
This was only the first of many times Mr. Webb would see the old woman dancing outside of his house, always preceded by that strange raspy whistling sound.
More and more he began to notice that the woman would appear after he’d berated his wife and children for their poor performance, which led Mr. Webb to believe that his family’s failures were what brought on her presence. He believed that the old woman was something evil, and he regularly accused them of attracting her to the house with their negative energy. But these accusations wouldn’t stand.
On the morning of the eldest’s 18th birthday, he was gone without a trace. He’d taken few of his belongings with him and left no indication of where he was going. They would never see or hear from him again.
Mrs. Webb and the youngest were often made to listen and expected to agree as Mr. Webb went on about what a coward and a failure the eldest was, and how he wasn’t willing to fix his faults and be accountable for his actions like a real man. When berating them for their shortcomings, he often compared his wife and daughter to his son.
Though the youngest did her best to keep her head down at home, it eventually came to light, just before her 18th birthday, that she intended to leave as well. When Mr. Webb confronted her in her bedroom, she could only sheepishly confirm that she planned to leave, along with his accusations that she was heartless and selfish, among other things. He told her how she would never survive on her own and how people would do horrible things to her. She just tried not to escalate the confrontation any further as she waited for it to be over. It didn’t matter how much she hated herself, she couldn’t stay any longer.
As the Webb household grew smaller, the visits from the old woman became more frequent. Over time, she seemed to be coming closer and closer to the house, and Mr. Webb was becoming more agitated.
With no one else left, Mrs. Webb became the sole target of Mr. Webb’s cruelty. She’d never protected her children from their father, and now she could no longer rely on them to shield her.
Then, one gloomy evening, Mr. Webb was alone in the living room, sitting in his chair. He’d just berated his wife for not having dinner ready yet, and she’d returned to the kitchen in tears. Sitting alone beside the window, he suddenly heard the raspy whistling again. He immediately looked out the window to see the old woman, standing no more than 20 feet away. Only, this time, she wasn’t dancing. She just stood in one place, staring at him with the same look of pure hatred. He bolted up out of his chair, raising his fist; he wouldn’t be intimidated in his own home by some bitch, and now he was going to put her in her place. But just as he began to threaten her, the unthinkable happened, and his voice died in his throat.
The old woman’s head fell from her collar, tumbled over her shoulder, and rolled across the ground. Mr. Webb stood petrified as the creature’s true head snaked out from its collar, curving forward into a hook shape. It had no jaw; its head and neck were one continuous, elongated appendage, with a snout nose at the very tip and big, beady eyes at the curve of the hook. It looked like some kind of disfigured, bald rat, with wrinkled skin that was covered with warts.
Then, the vile creature’s face contorted into a malevolent smile, it opened its mouth, and let out the raspy, stuttering, whistling noise. It was laughing.
Mr. Webb fled in terror to his wife in the kitchen. At first she shrunk away, fearing his wrath, but she soon gathered through his frantic rambling that he wanted her help. He explained that the evil old woman had returned, only much worse, and stood laughing in their yard. Mrs. Webb held and comforted him until both could gather the courage to return to the living, but the creature was gone. Though they checked all around the house, it was nowhere to be found.
For the rest of that night, Mr. Webb didn’t have a single mean word to say to his wife. She was all he had left, and he only wanted comfort.
However, the next morning, he woke up in their bed alone. His wife had left, taking nothing more than the clothes on her back and what little she could fit in her purse, and had left a note on her side of the bed. The note only said that she’d met another man, she was never coming back, and she was no longer Mrs. Webb.
Mr. Webb’s heart sank, not knowing what to do. His wife and children had deserted him, and now he was alone with that thing. The power he’d once held over his family meant nothing now; they were long gone, with the best years of their lives ahead of them.
The following night, Mr. Webb lay awake in his bed. To his horror, the light of a passing car flashed around the room, momentarily casting the shadow of a robed figure with a hook-shaped head across the walls. He wondered if he should flee his home, but where could he go, and what if it followed him?
He just felt small and alone.
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