The Hag: Part One
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.
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MICHAEL COULDN’T MOVE. Not a finger, not a toe, not so much as an inch. His eyes were the only part of him that appeared to be free. They darted back and forth, frantically taking in his darkened bedroom, searching for answers, something to help him understand what was happening. His lungs also worked as he struggled to draw breath. His heart, too. It tried to jackhammer its way out of his chest.
He struggled with all his might to sit up. An icy hand pressed down on his forehead, keeping him in place. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. He tried to scream, but another hand clamped over his mouth. Others took hold of his arms and legs—how many hands did this freaking thing have? Or how many of them were there? They held him down with a force he couldn’t even begin to resist. He couldn’t see his attackers as his gaze roamed about the room. But it was his room, alright. He lay in his own bed. The dresser sat against the wall where it belonged, at the foot of the bed, with the TV perched on top. Where was his wife? What did they do to her?
He tried to call her name, even if only to mumble it against the hand covering his mouth. But no sound came. He could only think it. Kathy...
A light appeared before him, displacing the dresser and the TV. It was large and oval, like some kind of doorway. Or not a doorway, exactly. His mind grappled for the right word, seized on it, its implications sending a chill through him. Portal. A red and hellish portal. Where it led to, he didn’t want to find out. A shadowy figure stood outlined against the light, looming over him, dark and menacing, its shape vaguely human. It stooped to put its hands on the bed and crawled toward him. It changed as it moved, becoming more feminine before stretching out on top of him.
Michael screamed. Or tried to, anyway. All that came out was a thin, reedy whine. Another hand gripped his shoulder and shook him, and suddenly the spell was broken. The creature disappeared, along with the sinister light and the hands that held him down. Michael bolted up, panting, looking around the room. The dresser and TV were back where they belonged.
“Michael, honey, are you alright?”
His wife’s voice, thick and husky with sleep, greeted him from her side of the bed. He turned and found her propped up on one elbow, her sleep mask pushed up on her forehead, squinting groggily up at him.
“I... I don’t know,” he said, relieved to hear his own voice working properly. “Something just happened.”
“You were whimpering in your sleep. Did you have a bad dream?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean, I was awake. I’m sure of it. Didn’t you see anything?”
“Like what?”
He glanced back toward the television. “There was this light, and someone standing at the foot of the bed—”
“All I saw was you, and all I heard was you whimpering. You had a nightmare, that’s all.” She pulled her mask down over her eyes and laid her head back on the pillow. “Go back to sleep. We’ve both got work in a few hours.”
“I don’t think I can.” Michael looked at the clock on his nightstand. The digital display read 3:35 AM. He had to be up in less than two hours anyway, and he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep after what he’d just gone through.
He threw back the sheet and swung his legs over the bed, but stopped and considered Kathy. What if whatever the hell that thing was came back and attacked her? Shouldn’t he stay to protect her?
As if in answer, Kathy rolled over and pulled the sheet over her head, clearly determined to drink every last drop of sleep she could get.
Michael sighed and got up, keeping a wary eye on the spot where the doorway, or portal, or whatever it was, had appeared as he made his way into the hall. After a pit stop in the bathroom, he went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee, more out of habit than from need. He already felt wide awake, adrenaline doing more to pump him up than caffeine could ever do.
By the time he finished the first cup in the bright, cheery lights of the kitchen, the adrenaline faded, along with his certainty that it had all been real. Surreal seemed like a better descriptor. Kathy was right. It had to have been a nightmare.
What else could it have been?
***
“YOU OKAY, MAN?”
Michael blinked. He stood in front of the coffeemaker in the department lounge, holding the pot in one hand and his cup in the other. He didn’t know how long he’d been standing like that, spaced out while the last two nights played themselves out in his mind.
He turned to find Gary Thomas holding his mug and watching him with a look somewhere between bemusement and concern.
“Sorry. Guess I zoned out for a minute.” He filled his mug, set the pot on the burner, and got out of Gary’s way.
Gary reached for the pot. “Everything okay? No offense, but you look tired.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well.” He left it at that, figuring the details would make him sound insane.
“Insomnia, huh?” Gary returned the pot and raised his mug to blow on the hot coffee. “Did you take anything for it?”
“No. It’s only been two nights.” Truth was, he was afraid to take anything. He didn’t know whether sedation would prevent his nighttime attacks, or make it harder to break out of them.
“Valerian tea. Drink some before bed and you’ll go right out. I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”
Gary was all about natural remedies, always trying to push them on his colleagues. Michael had been thinking more along the lines of Xanax, something that would put him well and truly under, if he took anything at all. “Thanks. But as tired as I am, I’m sure I’ll sleep like a log tonight.”
“All right, but the offer stands. Just say the word.”
“Yeah, I’ll keep you posted.” With a nod, Michael turned toward his office. Back at his desk, he gulped a mouthful of coffee, not caring that it was still hot enough to scald his mouth a little, before setting it down and reviving his computer.
He stared at the search results on the screen. He’d pulled them up earlier, taken one glance, and decided he needed fortification before diving in. At the top of the page was a horrifying image of a demonic-looking creature crouched on the chest of a sleeping victim. His search on the phrase “awake and can’t move” had given a name to what he’d been experiencing: sleep paralysis.
It also provided two competing explanations. The rational, scientific explanation was that Michael’s mind was simply awake and conscious while the rest of his body was in a sleep state. This caused waking dreams, and chemicals in his brain kept his body paralyzed to prevent him from acting them out. It was a comforting explanation, one that gave Michael tremendous relief. He wasn’t experiencing something paranormal, and he wasn’t losing his mind. This sort of thing happened to lots of people.
But then he’d kept reading, which had been a mistake. Because despite the perfectly rational, natural explanation for this phenomenon, plenty of people believed that something else was taking place—something purely evil.
Michael was a rational man. He was inclined to believe the rational explanation. Cling to it, even.
And yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d encountered pure evil. The image of the demon on the sleeping woman’s chest perfectly encapsulated his experience, and it made him shudder.
A knock on the door prompted him to minimize the browser window. “Come in.”
Tricia let herself in. Michael remembered his wife’s accusations and flushed. He hadn’t paid much attention before, but the young woman was quite lovely, though all business with her buttoned-up blouse, thick-rimmed glasses and messy bun.
“I finished the PowerPoint for tomorrow’s lecture. It should be in your e-mail.” She dropped a folder in his in-box. “And here’s Professor Thomas’s budget report.”
Michael nodded. “Thanks, Tricia.”
“Need anything else?”
“Not right now. I’ll let you know.”
She lingered next to his desk. He looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. “Did you need something?”
“I’m a little worried about you, to be honest. You don’t seem yourself lately. Everything okay at home?”
Was that a hopeful note he heard in her voice? He dismissed the notion immediately. Kathy’s paranoia was getting to him. Not that Kathy was the jealous type. He waved off her concern. “I haven’t been sleeping well, is all.”
She folded her arms and scrutinized him, pursing her lips. “Why don’t you get out of here? Go home and get some sleep. I can handle your afternoon classes.”
If Kathy’s suspicions were correct, and Tricia stripped naked and offered him some afternoon delight right there on his desk, it wouldn’t have come close to tempting him as much as her current offer. He could finish his research at home, with no more interruptions.
His gaze fell on his in-box, and Gary’s budget report.
Gary was an expert on old folk tales and lore, and there seemed to be a lot of that focused on sleep paralysis. Maybe he should pick his colleague’s brain before he left. “Is Professor Thomas still in his office?”
“He was on his way to give a lecture when he handed me his report.”
“Right.” He leaned back in his chair. Glancing at the clock on his desk, he thought of the Shakespeare class he had in half an hour, followed by student office hours. He didn’t think he could make it that long. “I think I’ll take you up on your offer.”
She nodded, looking extremely pleased. “I think it’ll do you good.” She left him to go back to her own desk.
He watched her go, considering her. She was a sweet kid, eager to please, but also bright and good at her job. She’d go far in her career. But clearly, she saw him as a mentor, and nothing more. Kathy had nothing to worry about.
He undocked his laptop, slid it into his bag alongside a stack of essays, and headed out of the office. He nodded to Tricia as he passed her desk. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” She smiled brightly. “Sweet dreams.”
***
“MAYBE WE SHOULD TALK to your doctor about this.” Kathy peered at Michael over the forkful of salad poised halfway between her mouth and her plate, concern etched in the faint lines around her eyes.
Michael poked at his own dinner, Kathy’s homemade salad garnishing the leg of a roast chicken she’d picked up from the supermarket. It looked and smelled delicious, but he didn’t have much of an appetite. By the time he’d gotten home that afternoon, he was so exhausted he fell into bed. But sure enough, his nightly visitor proved just as relentless during the day. Shaken awake by the encounter, he’d spent the rest of the day reading up on his condition, going down deep and strange rabbit holes that left him questioning everything he thought he knew about how the world worked.
He didn’t need a doctor. He needed an exorcist. Or maybe a shrink.
He glanced up at Kathy as she finished delivering her bite of salad to its destination. “What good would that do?”
She swallowed her food and looked at him as though it should have been obvious. “Maybe he could give you something to help you sleep.”
Michael still didn’t think drugs would help, but he hadn’t told Kathy about the sleep paralysis or the terrifying visions. For all she knew, he struggled with garden-variety insomnia and bad dreams. “Drugs would make me feel hung over. How would I teach my classes?”
“I don’t see how it could be any worse than not sleeping.” She put down her fork and reached across the table to take his hand. “I’m worried about you. You’re so tired all the time, and it’s making you short-tempered.”
He grunted. “Sounds more like you’re worried about yourself.”
“I’m sure I’m not the only one you’re being short with.” An edge crept into her voice, but she kept squeezing his hand. “Doing that with the wrong person won’t help your career. Besides, it’s not safe. Did you know driving while sleep deprived is as bad as driving drunk?”
Michael said nothing. His wife sighed. “Well, if you won’t see a doctor, maybe there’s something over the counter you could try. Something natural, like melatonin.”
“Valerian root.”
“What?”
Michael sighed. “Gary Thomas suggested I drink valerian root tea. He offered to bring me some tomorrow.”
“Maybe I could run and get you some after dinner so you don’t have to wait. I suppose they’d have that at the health food store.”
“Tell you what.” Michael extracted his hand from hers and wiped his mouth with his napkin, despite barely touching his dinner. “I’ll give Gary a call. He doesn’t live far from here. Maybe he won’t mind bringing some over. And he can tell me all the history and folklore behind the stuff. That’ll be sure to put me to sleep.”
He smiled, but his joke did nothing to lighten Kathy’s mood. She glanced at his plate, those concern lines growing deeper.
“Fine.” She stood and picked up both of their plates. As she carried them to the kitchen, she said, “Let’s hope it actually helps.”
Gary was home and happy to come over. He held out a cellophane-wrapped box when Michael opened the door. “Here you go. Steep it for five minutes so it will be good and strong. It won’t smell pretty, but the taste is fine if you add some honey. I also like to pour in a splash of warm milk, so I get the tryptophan effect on top.”
Michael examined the box. “Thanks. Come on in. You don’t need to rush off.”
“Oh.” Gary seemed surprised, and mildly delighted. “Sure. Thanks.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“No, thanks.” He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door.
Michael showed him into the living room. “Have a seat.”
“Is everything okay? I mean, asking for the tea wasn’t some ploy to get me over here so you could ream me out about my budget report, was it?”
“Huh?” Michael stared at him in confusion. He’d forgotten all about the report, hadn’t even glanced at it before he’d left for the day. “No. Nothing like that. I just wondered what you could tell me about this stuff.”
Gary shrugged as he took a seat on the sofa. “Well, people have been using it as a sleep aid for centuries. It’s safe and fairly reliable. There’s not much else to tell.”
“Oh. Well, then.” Michael set the box on the coffee table and lowered himself onto the loveseat across from the sofa.
Gary leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “What’s going on with you, Mike? I get the sense you didn’t ask me over here to discuss ancient herbal remedies.”
Michael hesitated. He wanted to open up, but doing so to a colleague could be dangerous. He’d known Gary for years, though. And he didn’t know anyone else he could talk to about... about the paranormal possibilities of what was happening to him.
Without looking up at Gary, he asked, “What do you know about sleep paralysis?”
Gary was silent for a beat, long enough to make Michael glance nervously up at him. “Ah,” he said at last, a note of curiosity in his voice. “You’re getting visits from the old hag, huh?”
His choice of words startled Michael. “What do you mean?”
“The old hag. That’s what they call it in the old world. Europe, I mean, and some parts of the U.S. Other cultures have other names for it, of course. You know, people think a nightmare is just a bad dream, but the term actually originated from sleep paralysis. ‘Mare’ was the name for a demon, like an incubus or succubus, that visited people at night to torment them in their sleep.”
Michael stared at Gary as his stream of words sunk in. “So, you’re saying this is... what? Demonic possession?”
“Not possession. Oppression, maybe, possibly with the aim of gaining possession. I mean, that’s if you believe the folklore. Which, many people and cultures throughout history believed exactly that. Some still do.” He regarded Michael, whose face must have betrayed the creeping horror he felt, and let out a laugh. “Hey, relax. Just because I make a career out of studying this stuff doesn’t mean I believe it. There’s a scientific explanation.”
“Yeah, I know.” Michael tried to match Gary’s laughter, but it sounded forced, even to his own ears. “I can tell you, though, it doesn’t feel very scientific when it’s happening to you. So why do they call it the old hag?”
Gary leaned closer, not so much with concern but with excitement at this chance to share what he knew. “That’s the really fascinating thing about this phenomenon. About half of the world’s population experiences sleep paralysis at some point in their lives, but out of those, only about half of them also experience hallucinations, what I can only describe as waking nightmares. And in that group, there tends to be a commonality among people of different cultural groups as to what they see.”
Michael was too tired to follow Gary’s academic speech patterns. “So you’re saying people belonging to a certain culture all see the same thing attacking them?”
Gary nodded. “More or less. People describe seeing shadow people, gray aliens, demonic-looking entities... many people see this creepy guy in a hat.” He shuddered. “I don’t know why, but that one really creeps me out. Did you know that was one inspiration behind Freddy Krueger?”
Michael gave him a look that told him to get on with it.
“Anyway,” he went on, taking the hint, “in the western world, especially among people of European heritage, it’s common to see some kind of female entity. Sometimes young and attractive, but more often described as an old hag.” Gary stopped talking. When Michael looked up, he was back to looking concerned. “Are you okay, man? You look like someone walked over your grave.”
“I’m fine. It’s just, what you described was eerily familiar.”
“Yeah. To you and countless other people who’ve been dealing with this stuff throughout the centuries. At least you’re not alone.”
Michael picked up the box of tea and fidgeted with it. He wanted to get up and pour himself a drink. Something a lot stronger than tea. “It doesn’t make much sense though, does it? The medical explanation, I mean. If everyone experiencing this is simply stuck in a dream state while awake, why are we all having the same dream? That’s not normal.”
Gary seemed to consider this a moment before offering a weak shrug. “Shared subconscious focusing on Jungian archetypes? That’s one theory, anyway.”
“What are some other theories?”
Gary hesitated. “The other theories aren’t so scientific, and probably not anything you want to hear while you’re in the middle of dealing with this stuff.”
Michael regarded him steadily. “You mean we’re back to demons.”
Again, Gary shrugged. “There are plenty of people who believe that, no matter how good the arguments are to the contrary.”
Michael considered this. “So, let’s say for the sake of argument, those people are right. How would you deal with this?”
“I don’t know, man. Consult a priest? Pray? A lot of folks claim it stops if you call on Jesus Christ.”
Michael scoffed at this. “I managed to scream the other night and that was enough to snap me out of it.”
“I would imagine that getting yourself to do or say anything at all would interrupt the paralyzing mechanism and allow you to come fully awake.”
Michael nodded. “But what about preventing it altogether? Isn’t there some kind of folklore about how to defeat this thing?”
“I’m sure there is, but that’s something I’d have to research.” Gary’s voice sounded a little nervous. He squirmed slightly in his seat and looked toward the door.
Michael laughed, and Gary seemed to relax a little. “I’m just messing with you. I’m pretty sure a sleep doctor will help me more than a priest or some old folk ritual.”
Gary smiled. “Hey, you never know. Sometimes it comes down to individual psychology. Religious people are probably helped by attacking it from a more religious vantage point.”
“Too bad I’m not religious.” Michael stood and held up the tea. “Thanks for bringing this over. Do you think it’ll help?”
Gary stood, too. “Maybe. It can’t hurt. Good luck getting some sleep tonight.” He turned for the door, but then snapped his fingers and turned back. “St. John’s Wort.”
“What?”
“It’s another herbal supplement. In British folklore, people would use the plant to ward off visits from evil fairies while they slept. Of course, now we know that the stuff is a natural form of Prozac. But I’m thinking maybe these fairy visits were actually sleep paralysis episodes. So maybe try some St. John’s Wort. See if that’ll put an end to your old hag visitations.”
Michael nodded. “Yeah. I’ll give that a try. Thanks, man.”
Gary returned his nod and then let himself out. Michael took the tea into the kitchen. The dishwasher was humming, but Kathy was nowhere to be found. Michael went to the cabinet, took out a mug, and opened the box. He glanced over at the kettle sitting on the stove, but he didn’t want to wait as long as that would take. Instead, he dumped some of the tea into a mug. It looked like a bunch of little broken twigs. The scent didn’t hit him until he added water. It smelled foul, like a skunk had let loose in the mug. He was supposed to drink this stuff?
With a sigh, he popped it into the microwave and set it for a few minutes. He drummed his fingers on the countertop while he waited.
The look Gary had given him when he’d suggested there might actually be an entity attacking him told Michael everything he needed to know. The idea was ludicrous. There was a perfectly good scientific explanation for what was happening to him, and he should be happy with that. It meant that this thing might be treated medically. Or maybe with therapy, or something.
Hell, maybe this tea would even work. Or the St. John’s Wort.
No way in hell was some supernatural sex demon coming to him at night and having her way with him. Michael actually laughed at the idea. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, and he tried to stay fit, but it wasn’t like he was God’s gift to women. It was ridiculous enough to think that someone like Tricia had a thing for him, let alone some ancient demoness.
Then again, Kathy was still attracted to him, or at least put on a good show of pretending to be, and she was at least two leagues above his own. It still took his breath away sometimes, to think that someone so beautiful wanted to be with someone like him.
So then, maybe the idea wasn’t so ludicrous, after all. Or maybe it wasn’t about physical attractiveness at all, but about vulnerability. Maybe the whole sleep paralysis thing was a natural occurrence. But the things that some people saw and experienced when it happened? What if these creatures, demons, whatever, were simply taking advantage of that?
The microwave beeped, startling Michael out of his reverie. With a sigh, he took the mug out and brought it to his mouth to blow on it. The smell was even worse, and he almost gagged. When he took a sip, he did gag, and dumped the rest of the stuff down the sink.
So much for that.
Michael rinsed out his mug. Then he took it into the living room, to the liquor cabinet, and took out a half-finished pint of Johnny Walker. He poured himself a double, topped it with soda water, then held the mug up, as if in a toast. “Let’s see what the old hag does with this,” he said to the empty room, then tossed it back before pouring another.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Watch for Part Two to drop next Monday, and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it:
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So good! Can’t wait to read what happens next!
After reading the first part, I bought the novella right away.