snip - Liana Raes
The earliest memories of what Isaac Raes would later categorize as ‘occult bullshit’ came from his grandmother’s stories. She was a lonely old woman, and his father had made habit of bringing Isaac along to visit on the weekends. There was only so much he could get out of the single story house, especially at night, so often he would find himself laid face up on the floor; heat soaking into his back while is grandmother talked with perfect certainty about things that did not exist.
Usually this happened while his father and uncle were cooking and talking about their respective lives. His uncle ran a bookstore over in Maine, something that seemed to be going particularly well for him. Isaac would sometimes listen to them tiptoe around the subject of the divorce, he was less bothered by it than he thought he should be, but it wasn’t like his mom had been around much to begin with.
So he listened to stories about monsters and spirits and things that could rip him limb from limb in a matter of seconds. His grandmother was usually careful to save these stories for when her sons were out of the room, however tonight she seemed to get a little carried away, too much to notice when Isaac’s father came back in.
“Mother, I’d appreciate you not filling his head with horror stories.”
And that would be the end of it. Until she felt like he was far enough out of earshot.
The stories didn’t bother him, they were usually the most interesting part of the visit, though that wasn’t saying much. She seemed to have so many of them that not once in three years had he heard a repeated tale, and if he had it had been forgotten.
The real experience came when he was about nine, he’d pretty much outgrown the excitement of the stories by that point, and tried to spend as much of his time outside the old house as he could, even if it meant just sitting on top of the wall out front and picking stones off it.
At night though, he was confined to the indoors, this was the one thing both his father, uncle, and grandmother were adamant about. So there he was on the floor again, watching dust motes float past his face. His father and uncle were talking about some distant relatives, his grandmother was shuffling an over-sized deck of cards.
“Isaac, would you go get my other deck from the basement? Those stairs are unkind on my legs these days.”
Basement?
His interest was immediately perked, he’d never been in the basement, he hadn’t even known this house had one. At this point, anything to distract him until it was time to leave, he would take it. “Sure, gram.”
“The door is on the hall off the kitchen, the cards are in a heavy silver case, about the size of a shoebox.”
Following those instructions, he found the door behind a plain blue curtain, the stairs were steep and creaky, he couldn’t picture her getting down them at all... It was dark, lit only by a single bare bulb in the center of the room, which seemed to be quickly swallowed by the dirt floor and walls.
The shelves lining the room were a mess, gardening tools still caked in dirt and withered grass, buckets full of black muck, coils of tangled rope and garden hose, chicken wire everywhere. Everything smelled like rust and rot.
Finally, on top of one shelf he spotted the box that had been described, so he dragged over a few of the buckets, balancing on the rims made him just tall enough to reach. It was heavy, just as she’d said, though why a deck of cards needed such a special box he had no clue.
There was a moment of complete silence after he pulled it down and then-
Crash!
The buckets he’d been precariously balanced on tipped into each other, sending him and the box to the floor in a mess of-
Something.
Sticky, brownish black gunk, whatever had been at the bottom of the buckets for god knew how long. For a few seconds he just sat there on the floor, box still in his hands, dreading the reprimand he’d face upstairs, and the ride back to Danville covered in whatever this stuff was.
“Hello?” A voice from behind the shelf “You’re not momma...”
Isaac wiped the dust off his glasses and got to his feet, looking between objects to see an opening behind the shelf, and a pair of bright red eyes staring back at him.
He didn’t stay to see what they belonged to.
Back upstairs, he tripped over the lip where the carpet started, and came crashing to the floor again in front of the three adults, sending the box out of his hands, and cards scattering over the floor.
“Slow down there, kiddo.” His uncle laughed, getting up to help gather the cards.
His father had noticed that he was a mess though, and in the light upstairs he saw what he’d taken to be some sort of brownish black was in fact a deep red soaking his clothes. Between that and the red eyes, it was enough:
He started to scream.
That was blood, that was definitely, definitely blood.
“Isaac, hey come here, it’s alright.” As he calmed, his father came and pulled him into a hug. He was still shaking, but the immediate horror had passed. “What happened?”
He explained in halting words about the buckets he’d used to reach the box, and about the thing behind the shelf with red eyes. As soon as he’d said this, his grandmother let out a huff:
“Now really Isaac, you shouldn’t pester Liana. She’s not used to strangers, you probably startled her.”
The reaction to this was palpable, both his father and uncle froze, and his uncle’s voice came as though his throat was constricted. “Mother, Liana has been dead for twenty-three years. That’s enough, you need to let her go.”
His grandmother was the one laughing now, if anything this seemed to bring both men to Isaac’s level of fear. “Oh boys, you never did take any interest in my work. Why do you think we had a closed coffin funeral? Why do you think you never saw her all those months when she was ‘sick’. I had her saved.”
Saved?
“What are you talking about?” his father demanded “Liana is dead!”
She was still laughing, shaking her head “No, no, not dead, not quite.”
“Can you show us where you saw the eyes?” His uncle asked, and though going back was the last thing he wanted to do, Isaac nodded.
Holding tight to his father’s hand, the three made their way into the basement.
“Over there, behind the shelf.” He pointed, but stayed close to the stairs. They pulled the shelf out, revealing a thin metal screen blocking off another small room.
Pressed up against the screen, smiling with teeth too sharp and eyes bright red, was a little girl with long black braids. Her fingers and arms curled against the mesh, like she was leaning her full weight on it. Her clothes looked new, but they were covered in various dark stains, similar stains covered her face and hands. “Where’s momma? Did she send you to play? I haven’t had people to play with in sooo long.” There was a singsong tone to her voice, and she rolled back onto her heels as she spoke.
Isaac’s uncle fell to his knees. “Liana?”
“Uh-huh!” She seemed blissfully unaware of their unease and pain.
“Ed, what the fuck, what did she do?” his father whispered “That can’t-”
“I had a brother named Ed, Eddie and Al.” Too late the trio saw her fingers had ripped through the mesh wall, too late as she fixed her eyes on Isaac, who was still covered in old blood.
“Isaac!” as the little girl had made to lunge for him, Isaac watched his father jump in the way of her.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion...
Her small hands tearing into his throat, coating her in a red the same bright color as her eyes. They fell to the floor with a wet thud, Isaac stood a few feet back, unable to tear his eyes away.
His uncle’s shout seemed to come from very far off, he was too fixated on the motionless form of his father, and the thrashing of Liana where she sat on his chest. It didn’t feel real.
It couldn’t be real.
Something rushed by him, and in a flurry of black hair and metal, suddenly Liana’s head was on the floor. There were a few moments of silence.
His uncle fell back to the floor and puked.
Everything seemed to be blurring around the edges, and suddenly-
it all went dark.