The Hag: Conclusion
Terrifying visions haunt a man as he lies paralyzed in his bed, causing him to question everything he knows about the world, his own sanity, and even his wife. A multi-part horror novella.
This is the final chapter. Click here for the navigation page.
KATHY STOOD IN THE entryway of her home and took it all in with a mixture of relief and sadness. She had no luggage, no purse, no keys to toss on the entry table. Her parents had driven her home from the hospital, where they’d treated her injuries and let her go, and where Michael remained in the psych ward until further notice.
They had wanted to take her home with them, but Kathy had declined the invitation, just as she’d declined their offer to come in and stay with her. She needed time alone to process everything, and she wanted nothing more than to fall into her own bed, even without Michael lying beside her, and sleep through the worst of her grief.
Kathy climbed the stairs the same way she’d done everything since leaving Michael tied up in that shed—in a detached fog of bewilderment. Of everything that he had put her through in the last twenty-four hours, it was the question she’d been asked, over and over, that had done the most to bring it all into stark reality. A question she’d thought no one would ever ask her about her own husband.
“Do you want to press charges?”
The answer was no. Michael clearly wasn’t himself. He needed help, not jail. As she climbed into the shower, she prayed that he’d find it, that he’d get the rest his fractured mind so desperately needed, and somehow come back to himself. Back to her.
Was this kind of thinking the reason battered women stayed with their abusers? Was that who she was now? A battered wife, full of excuses for her violent husband?
She turned the question over while standing beneath the spray and letting it wash away the soot and the grime as it ground her in the reality of the moment. She didn’t think so, not really. This situation was different. But wasn’t that what she would say? What they always said?
But Michael had never been a violent man. He’d suffered a psychotic break. And what was broken could be repaired. Usually. Sometimes.
Kathy shut off the water. She toweled off on autopilot, dropped the towel on the floor and shuffled into their room, where she pulled on clean underwear and a sleep shirt before falling into bed and closing her eyes. Almost instantly, she sunk into the blissful, unknowing void of sleep.
***
SHE COULDN’T MOVE. Was she chained up again? She tried to scream, but her mouth refused to open. She couldn’t make a sound.
This was different. Kathy couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t move so much as a finger. A heaviness held her down—not like the weight of the chains, but something more oppressive, almost suffocating. Voices whispered in her ear. They spoke gibberish at first, but as she strained to listen, a single voice became clear. “Your fault. You did this. He was mine.”
Kathy tried to shake her head, but it didn’t budge. Her heart pounded, and she struggled to breathe. Was she having a heart attack? She fought to move, willed her eyes to open, tried with all her might to shout. At last, a sound came from her throat—not the full-throated scream she’d been trying for, but it was enough. Gasping, Kathy shot up in bed and turned on the bedside lamp.
What in the hell was that?
Her mind raced. Could this have been what Michael experienced? The reason he hadn’t been sleeping? If so, no wonder it had driven him to a psychotic break.
Kathy wouldn’t let that happen to her. She needed sleep, and she would get it. Reaching for the lamp, she reconsidered and left it on. She lay back down, rolled onto her side, and pulled the covers over her head.
A creak on the stairs made her sit up again to listen. She heard nothing. Maybe she’d imagined it.
No. There it was again.
Kathy jumped out of bed and went to shut the bedroom door. She locked it and then dragged the chair over from her vanity and wedged it under the doorknob. Then she called 911.
“Someone’s in my house,” she said when they asked about her emergency.
“Are you in the home?” asked the dispatcher.
“Yes. I’m locked in the bedroom. I heard someone on the stairs. I’m home alone. Or supposed to be.”
“All right, ma’am. Stay where you are, and don’t leave your room. Police should arrive within ten minutes. Would you like me to stay on the line with you?”
As she opened her mouth to answer, a chilly breeze brushed her skin and ruffled her hair. She looked over at the bedroom window, which stood wide open, the curtains billowing in the breeze.
The intruder had been in her room. They could have killed her. Was it Michael? Had he somehow escaped and made his way home? Surely if he had, someone would have called her. The hospital, or the police.
“No,” she said into the phone. “But please hurry.” She ended the call, but gripped the phone tightly against her chest as she crept toward the window. Leaning out, she considered whether she could handle the drop if she hung from the windowsill. If so, then she could run next door. Assuming she didn’t break an ankle.
Before she could decide, a light came on in the bathroom. “Did you really think a locked door could keep me out?” a voice called.
The voice was female. Young. Almost sultry.
A woman emerged from the bathroom. She was beautiful, with raven-black hair cascading over her shoulders, dressed all in black leather.
“Wh— who are you?” asked Kathy.
“You know me, Mrs. Latimer.” Her eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head in a way that was almost animalistic. “You took my lover from me. I can’t reach him now.”
Kathy gawked as recognition set in. “Tricia?”
“That’s one name. I’ve gone by many.”
“How did you get in here?”
“I go where I please.”
“You don’t belong here.” Kathy turned the phone back on and dialed. “I’m calling the police.” She raised it to her ear. A piercing shriek came out of the speaker. Startled, Kathy threw it on the bed.
“That won’t do you any good,” said Tricia.
“It doesn’t matter. I already called them. They’ll be here soon.”
Tricia laughed and shook her head. “Not soon enough for you.” She took a step toward Kathy, who jerked back in response.
“Stay back!”
But she kept coming, creeping slowly forward, her face full of amusement.
“What do you want?”
“Michael was sustaining me. But now they’ve got him so full of drugs I can’t touch him. I need to eat. You took him from me. So now you can feed me.”
Kathy couldn’t believe her ears. Her mind raced back to everything she’d read on Michael’s phone. It couldn’t be real. Could it?
“It was you,” she said, her tone half accusation and half wonder. “You were doing this to him the whole time.” She shook her head. “What are you? Some kind of...” Her mind grasped for the right word, grazed against words like demon and succubus, but rejected them, finally landing on, “witch?” It was the closest to acceptance her mind could come.
Tricia laughed. And then she lunged.
Kathy vaulted away and ran for the door. But as she stopped to fumble with the chair, Tricia leapt onto her from behind. The girl was petite, much smaller than Kathy, and she hung down Kathy’s back, her arms tightening around her throat. Kathy couldn’t breathe. Worse, she grew tired, almost overcome with a compulsion to lie down and sleep. Fighting the urge, she wedged her fingers between her neck and Tricia’s arm and pulled while she shoved the chair aside with her free hand. She turned around and backed into the door, throwing herself against it as hard as she could, sandwiching Tricia in the middle. The girl—witch, whatever—grunted with each blow, but held on. Kathy found the bare flesh of Tricia’s hand and dug her nails in, slamming the little witch into the door again and again. She felt fingers, gripped them and pried them up, bending them back until the harpy cried out in pain and at last loosened her grip.
Coughing, Kathy unlocked the door, threw it open, and ran. She took the stairs two at a time, but as if by magic, Tricia appeared in the foyer below. She stood between Kathy and the front door. Kathy didn’t slow down. With an angry shriek, she hurled herself down the stairs as fast as she dared go and used her momentum to shove Tricia out of the way before turning toward the kitchen.
She didn’t stop to turn on the light. Plenty of light shone from the streetlamp outside and the nightlight plugged into the outlet over the sink. She made her way through the kitchen, around the large island toward the laundry room, where she could escape through the garage. But Tricia was too fast. She caught up with Kathy next to the island and again grabbed her from behind. Again, Kathy felt overcome with sleepiness.
“It won’t hurt if you don’t fight it.” Tricia’s voice sounded seductive, almost soothing. “All you need to do is sleep. And then you won’t feel a thing.”
Kathy sought Tricia’s hands, but this time she kept them tucked out of reach. She clawed at her leather-clad arms, to no avail. Looking around in desperation, her gaze landed on the pots and pans hanging from a rack suspended over the island. She reached up with difficulty. Her arm felt so heavy, and Tricia’s weight wasn’t helping. At last, her fingers brushed the rim of a skillet. Stretching a little more, she managed to knock it off of its hook. It fell onto the island with a bang. Kathy grabbed the handle and slammed the flat side of the skillet into Tricia’s head.
Tricia screamed in pain and let go. Gasping, Kathy turned and stood transfixed with horror.
The girl’s flesh bubbled where Kathy had hit her. As disturbing as that was, even more disturbing was the way her entire face changed. The beautiful young woman turned briefly into a decrepit old crone, ashen, wrinkled and balding, before turning back again. Kathy looked at the skillet in her hand. Cast iron. She recalled something she’d read on Michael’s phone. Iron would reveal the truth. Without thinking, Kathy shoved Tricia into the fridge, pinning her there with the skillet. “What did you do to my husband?”
But Tricia only screamed. Disgusted, Kathy stood back. The creature before her seemed to be stuck halfway between her illusion of youth and beauty and her true appearance. Kathy almost felt pity for the thing.
But as she watched, Tricia recovered, her youthful looks returning as she straightened up. “You’re going to pay for that.”
Kathy shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She raised the skillet and hit Tricia again, knocking her head sideways and causing the flesh on her face to sizzle.
But Tricia didn’t go down.
Swearing, Kathy threw the skillet at her and ran for the laundry room, her mind going over everything she’d read about how to kill a succubus as she went. She reached the laundry room and shut the door just as Tricia slammed into it.
Silver. Holy water. A wooden stake. Kathy didn’t have any of those things. She didn’t even know for sure whether they’d work. She should just keep going, escape through the garage like she’d planned, and let the police deal with Tricia. If they could.
Behind her, Tricia banged on the door, hard enough to splinter the flimsy particle board. Kathy spun toward the door. She spotted a broom propped in the corner beside it. The old-fashioned straw kind with a wooden handle. She seized it and turned it upside down, holding it at an angle and stomping on the handle. It cracked, just as the door also cracked. Another moment, and Tricia would be through. Kathy raised her foot and brought it down hard on the handle.
It broke in two, each half coming to a sharp point. The door burst open, exploding under the force of Tricia’s rage. Kathy raised the sharp end of the broom and braced herself. Tricia flew at her and impaled herself on the makeshift stake. Her eyes went wide with shock. As she stared disbelievingly at Kathy, the illusion faded completely. It was the crone who gaped at her in shock. Her features twisted with fury, and she reached for Kathy’s throat. But as she raised her arms, her body turned to ash. Kathy watched, amazed, as the creature crumbled into dust.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, staring at it, trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened. Trying to decide whether Michael hadn’t gone crazy after all, or whether she had.
The sound of approaching sirens snapped her out of it. She grabbed a dustpan from the corner, used the broken broom to sweep up the remains—the only evidence that she hadn’t, in fact, lost her mind—and deposited all of it in the trash can in the garage before going to meet the police at the door.
She was as truthful with them as she could be. The intruder had been her husband’s TA. She had attacked Kathy, and Kathy had successfully fought her off, injuring her in the struggle. After that, Kathy didn’t know where she went, or what had happened to her.
She felt bad that the police would waste time and resources searching for the girl, but it wasn’t like she could simply tell them to look in her trash.
She declined another trip to the hospital. She wasn’t badly hurt, and what she needed more than anything was sleep.
So she did. And it was the best sleep she’d had in ages.
***
THE HOSPITAL CALLED the next morning. Michael was lucid, and asking to see her if she felt up to it.
She took a cab to the hospital. Outside the entrance, she stood there a moment, facing the doors and clutching her purse in front of her like a shield, steeling herself for what she might find.
What she found was Michael, dressed in borrowed scrubs, sitting at a table in the rec room. Kathy mentally cursed herself for not thinking about bringing him a set of clothes. He caught sight of her entering the room, and his face lit up in a way that still made her heart flutter, but only for a moment before collapsing into a pained expression Kathy could only describe as intense shame. He looked away, cementing his gaze to the floor as she approached the table and took a seat.
“Kathy, I—” His voice cracked. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, then coughed to clear his voice. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Do you believe I’m me?”
“Oh, man. Honey—” He reached for her hand, but stopped himself, and folded both of his hands on the table. “I can’t explain what happened. I completely lost my head... I’m so sorry. I know that’s probably meaningless, after what I put you through, but—”
“How have you been sleeping?”
“Better. Great, actually. I feel like this fog has lifted, and I can see clearly again.” He raised his hands and buried his face in them. “I can’t believe I tried to... how could I have been so delusional? The things I believed...”
“You weren’t delusional,” she murmured.
“Don’t say that. It’s not your job to make me feel better. Not after what I—”
“Michael, look at me.”
Slowly, he lowered his hands, and Kathy leaned forward, finally making eye contact.
“You were not delusional,” she said, keeping her voice low enough that the orderly standing watch nearby wouldn’t hear. “You were just wrong about who it was.”
His forehead creased as his eyebrows drew together. “What are you saying?”
She reached across the table and took his hand. “I’m saying you don’t need to worry. You weren’t crazy, but it’s over now. I took care of it.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then his gaze drifted down to their clasped hands. He reached for her other hand, and she gave it to him, gladly.
It was over, but that didn’t mean things could go back to normal, not completely. But she loved him, and he loved her, and they needed each other if they were going to live in this new world in which demons like Tricia existed.
As Kathy squeezed her husband’s hands, she felt reassured by one thing: it might be a world that held demons—but it was a world where the demons didn’t win.
The end.
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