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Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Mama
We went hiking that October. The weather was cool and clear. The day began uneventfully. The forecast was positive. We geared up and traipsed across the countryside. It was my friends Evan, Trinity, Gavin, and me. We walked for hours, but never really had a destination. We’d had a particularly bad semester in school, and getting away was a need at that point.
We felt adventurous, so we decided we wouldn’t use any navigational tools for our journey. No GPS, no maps, and no compass. We grew up in the area, so we already knew most of it by heart. We started looking for potential camping sites that evening. Gavin noticed the clouds first. It looked like rain.
We weren’t sure where to camp, so we decided to use an abandoned two-story farmhouse. None of us had ever seen the place before. We walked through it to make sure it wasn’t unstable or dangerous. It seemed fine. The temperatures weren’t freezing yet, so we opted to use Trinity’s tiny portable cook stove instead of a campfire.
The first raindrops fell . . . but we didn’t think much of that. We were distracted. Noises began. It sounded like someone walked all over the house, but we never saw anyone else. The steps walked through the old bedrooms upstairs . . . down the stairs . . . and into all the rooms on the first floor. We became so accustomed to the sound we didn’t think anything of it.
Around 30 minutes later . . . we were startled by a crash. It sounded like the entire upper floor had caved in. We all went to see what had happened, but nothing had changed. The upper floor was just as we left it.
It’s funny, but we didn’t even consider it might be paranormal. We just assumed squirrels and other creatures had made a home there. We should’ve considered it. The last light outside faded, and we finished supper. Most of us brought canned foods, so we just took the lids off and sat the metal cans on the cooker.
Trinity’s eyes grew wide. She said, “Guys . . .? What is that?”
We carried several spotlight flashlights. We aimed the beams in the direction of her stare. Every chair in the dining room was now stacked on the table, toward the ceiling. They were stacked atop one another.
No one had gone in there.
We remained silent. I think we all instinctively knew something wasn’t right. We were just too afraid to speak it.
Doors opened and closed . . . somewhere in that house. Strange voices argued. The thing that creeped us out was the baby’s cry. Somewhere, a baby cried that didn’t sound right . . . didn’t sound human . . . like a monstrous siren. We all got up to look for the source, but every time we got near it, it moved.
The ratty, decrepit furniture surprised us the whole time we were there. If it wasn’t stacked in unusual formations, it was turned over or on its back, all without a single sound. Eventually, all the chairs in the dining room were moved without our seeing or hearing anything. Suddenly, the chairs were lined up facing the wall in a single row.
We knew there weren’t animals in the house.
We all returned to the front room. We hoped to just wait the storm out. We didn’t want to get out in the rain, even at that point. We sat with our backs to one another. We planned to stay there until daybreak . . . but we didn’t get to.
Around three in the morning, loud screams began upstairs. It was a woman and a baby, screaming together. We heard them slowly moving, and noticed the footsteps heading toward the stairway.
Whatever it was . . . it was coming toward us.
We heard strange bare feet walking. It sounded weird . . . like flesh hitting wet wood. The cries hadn’t stopped. We gathered our things and ran out the door.
I was the last one out, so I braved a glance back.
I wish I hadn’t.
I saw a woman carrying a baby. She had no eyes or nose, and a black gash for a mouth. She walked slowly toward me. I’ll never forget the sound she made as she walked. She didn’t have any feet, just gory stumps that left bloody prints.
I was stunned . . . I couldn’t move. Evan yanked me out into the yard as the thing neared. We fled the area . . . and never went back. We never told anyone about it . . . until now.
I eventually did some research. A family lived there in the 1910s. They had a daughter who became pregnant out of wedlock. The solution was to poison her to avoid infamy. The family doctor was in on it. It killed mother and child. Ever since their deaths, no one had been able to live in the house. The house was razed a couple of years ago, but hikers still report the screams of a woman and a baby in that area.
I can still hear her steps when it’s quiet at night. I can’t help but wonder if that thing . . . if she’s still there.
