Curse of the Nun

by Kathryn Dahne

  “And you keep coming back?” Anna asked, incredulous.

  Anna couldn’t even begin to fathom how someone would ever want to come back to the house. She was never setting foot in it again when she got out.

  KK shrugged. “No one believed me. So I took up ghost hunting to prove her existence.”

  Anna let that sink in for a few moments. The thought that she had lived so long in the same house as the nightmarish entity in the first place was almost more than Anna could bare. How could she have not known? KK seemed to be very familiar with the ghost, but Anna had never once come across something out of the ordinary until yesterday. It didn’t add up.

  Donna’s rental house was not exactly what came to mind when Anna thought of haunted houses, either. She had always pictured them like the ones from movies: large, gothic structures in gray stone, covered in ivy, the furniture dust-covered with clinging cobwebs in corners that the sun hadn’t touched in a hundred years. That was a haunted house. Not a two-story family home in the suburbs. Still, there had been all those disappearances.

  As for KK’s ghost hunting, she had always pictured that more for bored kids that liked to break into old abandoned factories and scare themselves, not handymen stumbling onto it during their day job.

  “Any luck?” She asked.

  Proof didn’t sound bad, if only to assure herself she wasn’t just going crazy. She thought again of her clone dying on the bathroom floor. Or something worse than crazy.

  “Not yet, but today looks promising?” KK laughed.

  Anna snorted. Of course not.

  “I just want to get out,” she said.

  “That’s the easy part!”

  Anna side-eyed him. She hadn’t found it particularly easy by any stretch.

  KK pulled out a photo and handed it to her. Anna recognized it as the one from the box in the spare room. She could see some semblance of the woman in the photo in the specter trying to kill them, but death had not done any favors to Sister Catherine’s appearance. The nun in the photo was youthful, and though her eyes were haunted and her mouth pulled down in a frown, her features were still beautiful.

  “Sister Margaret Catherine,” KK began. “She’s a ghost now, obviously. She thinks she’s in purgatory. A hundred years ago this place was a convent. Holy Land. She’s convinced she needs to protect it to prove herself to God and earn her way into heaven. If she thinks you are a threat, she’ll try to drive you away…or kill you.”

  Anna could understand the need to feel like you’ve actually earned the good things, but it was less easy to sympathize with the murder part. The word “STAY” flashed into her mind. What did that mean for her then? It didn’t really seem like Catherine wanted to drive her away. Would she kill Anna to keep her?

  Anna rubbed at her neck. “I think she is taking the kill route.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  They both chuckled a little. It was a weird thing to joke about, but the other option was crying and Anna just didn’t have the energy for that at the moment. She handed the photo back to KK.

  “It’s a textbook haunting, really,” He explained. “Tortured soul can’t rest in peace and gets stuck on earth after an untimely death.”

  Anna was pretty sure she’d never run across a textbook on hauntings in her life. That would have been a way more interesting class than any she had taken.

  If this was really happening, then she had a hundred different questions. Why had there been no sign of Sister Catherine until now? Why did she want her to stay so badly? Couldn’t she just have left a note on the fridge-” Hey girl, don’t leave me, you’re the light of my afterlife! Stay forever or I’ll mindfuck and murder you, much love, Sister Cath.”

  There was a sudden pressing question burning in Anna’s mind.

  “How’d she die?” Anna asked.

  KK passed over another photo, his expression suddenly grim. Anna looked down at it and felt ill.

  Oh. That’s how.

  “Oh my God…” Anna whispered hoarsely.

  Silence stretched out between them as Anna handed the photo back to KK. She had known, on some level, that the sad nun from the first photo had not found the peace she had been looking for in the convent. As KK had pointed out, peaceful souls did not become murderous ghosts. The newfound knowledge of what happened burned at Anna.

  She’d come close to death before, her mind instinctively shying away from the night she had told Lex she was leaving. She’d nearly overdosed more than a few times in her quest to numb her feelings of guilt and shame. Inadequacy.

  Their heads snapped up at the sound of grating metal gears. The garage door rose slowly, letting in the golden-tinted light of day. KK immediately stood up and walked over to it.

  “Wait!” Anna hissed.

  KK gave her a questioning look. Anna shook her head firmly at him. She wasn’t about to trust anything that obvious.

  “Throw something outside first.”

  His eyes lit up as her caught on to her plan. KK moved over to the far wall and grabbed the closest thing to him. It was a sledgehammer.

  “Something small,” Anna added in a strangled tone.

  They didn’t need something that lethal to come flying back at them.

  “Oh, good point.” KK offered her another sheepish smile.

  He dropped the sledgehammer. Walking over to a tool bench he selected a smaller nail hammer instead. KK moved until he was just inside the line of the garage door, planting himself squarely in the middle of the opening. He cocked his arm back and threw the hammer out the open garage door. It struck the driveway and skidded a few inches, spinning from the force of its own momentum. They waited, barely daring to breathe.

  It remained still and lifeless.

  Maybe this really was their chance?

  A faint rattling noise reached their ears as the hammer shivered slightly against the concrete. Anna tensed. It lifted free of the pavement and hurtled through the air directly at her face. She ducked to the side as KK let out a startled yelp. It impacted hard on the wall behind her with a sharp crack. The deep gouge it left was a testament to what it would have done to her face.

  “I should have seen that coming,” KK admitted.

  Anna huffed. “I’ve been hallucinating like this since she showed up.”

  KK nodded as if that actually made sense to him. Anna was slightly impressed at how calm he was being about everything. He certainly wasn’t someone who would strike her as particularly brave had they met in other circumstances.

  The handyman looked more like someone Anna would have mercilessly teased as a nerd in high school. Lean, bookish, and sloppily dressed. The type that would spend all day playing video games in mom’s basement.

  KK nodded in response to her statement. “Yeah, that’s her physical form. It’s how she walks around, makes you see things, messes with the pipes. You ever see that movie, Ghost?”

  Anna smiled enthusiastically. “I LOVE that movie—”

  “Great,” KK cut her off. “You know how it takes Patrick Swayze’s ghost a ton of energy to interact with the physical world?”

  “Yes! Like in that scene when—”

  He interrupted again. “Exactly, so if we wear her out she won’t be able to use her physical form and we can get out.”

  KK pulled an EMF reader out of his backpack and handed it to Anna.

  “Follow me,” he instructed softly.

  Chapter 7:

  They chose to set up in the living room. Anna was skeptical when KK had first suggested his plan, though she had to admit that he seemed to have a far better handle on the situation than she did. They sat cross legged, facing each other, in the middle of the floor. KK set a recorder next to him and pressed record. A little light blinked, indicating that it was working. He flashed Anna a reassuring smile.

  “June 17th, I’m with Anna Winter attempting to speak with Sister Catherine,” KK spoke into the recorder.

  Anna
handed him the EMF meter, watching curiously as he switched it on. The indicator hovered around the 1mG mark.

  “EMF meter,” KK explained off of her look. “The higher it gets, the closer she is. If it passes five milligauss it’ll beep…” He shrugged slightly. “That means you’re fucked.”

  Anna swallowed and eyed the device warily to see if the indicator had moved at all.

  KK then pulled a ouija board out of his backpack and set it on the hardwood floor between them. Anna failed to hold back a laugh. He couldn’t possibly be serious.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “What?”

  KK looked up at her, cocking his head to the side like a confused puppy.

  “That’s a toy,” Anna pointed out skeptically.

  They sold those things at every tacky toy and game shop she had ever seen. It was meant for children to spook themselves with on sleepovers, or Victorian age-grifters to bamboozle wealthy widows out of their money.

  KK shook his head and shrugged.

  “So is Chucky,” he said. “That doesn’t matter.”

  Chucky, Anna thought, is also completely fictional.

  “Does it really work?” Anna still felt pretty hesitant.

  “No, I put it out for decoration,” KK deadpanned.

  Anna made a face at him as he slipped on headphones attached to the recorder. He looked up at Anna for a moment, studying her, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pentacle pendant.

  It was made of a dull metal, slightly larger than a half-dollar coin. The five-pointed star was encircled by a braided, Celtic design.

  “If anything happens use the pentacle,” he said, extending the pendant out to Anna, “but be careful. Sometimes it scares her off. Sometimes it just pisses her off.”

  Anna stared at him a bit dubiously-that was an uncomfortably large margin for error. She accepted the pendant, her hand dipping slightly when it turned out to be much heavier than she expected and slipped it into her pocket.

  “Good to know,” she replied, a touch sarcastically. “Where does she come from, anyway?”

  KK flashed her another confused puppy look.

  “What do you mean?” He asked.

  Anna thought about the photos of Sister Catherine she’d seen. She’d looked so sad, so tortured in life, it was hard not to feel the tiniest flicker of empathy for her. Especially if she’d been tortured enough to do…that to herself.

  “Sister Catherine. What’s her story? What was she like?” Anna clarified.

  She wanted to know why Catherine had felt like she’d lost all hope. What had been the circumstances in her life that had led to her being in the convent in the first place? Anna could only assume she’d be trying to find something that she felt she was missing. She wondered if Catherine had been trying to run away from her life, just like Anna had. KK just shrugged again, fiddling with his devices. He appeared largely indifferent to Catherine’s plight in life.

  “No clue. We can check ancestry.com when she’s not trying to kill us.”

  Anna nodded absently. For someone as obsessed with proving the existence of ghosts as KK was, he seemed to be ignoring what she would consider a pretty fundamental part of the picture. Didn’t how they die factor in? It seemed to in movies. He did have a point, however, in that they needed to focus on getting out of the house. He seemed hopeful that they could reason with Sister Catherine. Anna hadn’t found the dead nun to be particularly reasonable so far, but she didn’t exactly have any ideas of her own. Maybe she could find some sympathy in Catherine if she felt that Anna might understand her pain. Maybe that was their way out.

  KK placed both of his hands on the ouija planchette, moving it in a couple of slow circles before indicating that Anna should do the same.

  “Sister Catherine, Anna and I are here to apologize,” KK called out.

  Silence. The EMF meter sat at a steady 1mG and the planchette was unresponsive beneath their fingers.

  “I’m not a threat,” Anna added. “I want to leave.”

  The planchette flew across the board to “NO” as the EMF meter spiked up to 2.5mG. Anna pulled her fingers away as if they had been burned. She shook her head in firm denial. Her stomach flipped in fear.

  “Nope. Fuck that.”

  “Don’t worry,” KK cajoled. “I’ve got it under control.”

  Anna had serious doubts about that.

  The planchette moved slowly across the board under its own power. It slid in a stuttering motion over to the “S” marker.

  “See, she’s worn out,” KK said.

  The planchette continued to move despite this assurance, gliding from one letter to the next slowly but clearly.

  “Stay,” Anna read out.

  She and KK exchanged an uneasy look. Anna wasn’t surprised to see the word again, but she didn’t quite grasp what the nun wanted. If she wanted Anna to stay so badly why was she trying so damn hard to kill her?

  The planchette began spelling out as second word. The motion was smoother this time, more fluid.

  “Protect?” KK read.

  That was a new message. Anna was about to ask him what his take on it was when he suddenly yanked off his headphones and held them out to her, wide-eyed.

  “What?” Anna asked, even as she reached out to take them from him.

  She heard the same gruff voice from the phone calls earlier.

  “Stay…Stay…Stay…” it chanted.

  Anna watched as the ouija board spelled out her name. Was the spirit simply afraid of being alone in the house again?

  “I can’t stay,” Anna pleaded.

  The planchette slid back to “no.”

  “I’ve been listening to you,” the voice in the headphones said. “You’re just like me.”

  Anna shook her head sadly as the word stay was spelled out on repeat. Anna wasn’t like Catherine at all. She’d hit some pretty low points in her life, but she had always wanted to live. KK watched her with an apprehensive expression. He fidgeted with his hat as he waited, unable to hear the voice in the headphones.

  Anna gulped and tried to reason with her. “Sister, you don’t want me, I—”

  The voice cut her off harshly. “It is my time to go. You must protect this holy land.”

  “I can’t,” Anna repeated. “I have a daughter.”

  She closed her eyes in a brief moment of fear. Anna wanted so badly to see Claire again.

  “Stay. Replace me as I ascend to Heaven.” The voice repeated stubbornly.

  Anna looked across at KK, hoping he would have some idea of what to do in this situation. He offered her a helpless shrug as he bit his lip nervously. Anna felt for Sister Catherine. She could understand the feeling of wanting to move on to something better, but feeling like you couldn’t. They were alike in that way, she supposed.

  It didn’t change the fact that staying wasn’t an option.

  “No.” Anna said firmly. “I can’t.”

  The voice dropped back into an inhuman register. “Then I’ll force you.”

  The planchette stopped spelling out “stay.” It stood stationary in the middle of the board.

  “Pick it up,” the demonic voice ordered Anna.

  “What is she saying?” KK asked, fidgeting anxiously.

  Anna didn’t respond. She reached out and plucked the planchette up from the board. She raised the object to her face to stare through the little center cut out. She scanned the living room through the frame of the planchette - the back of the couch with a decorative throw draped over the back, the glass-topped end tables that Anna had always hated - and saw nothing out of the ordinary beyond KK’s uneasy expression.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  Anna lowered the planchette and turned to look at him. Sister Catherine loomed over him. Her black lips twisted up in a cruel smile, eyes glinting in the shadows of her habit. Her hand was upraised, preparing to strike downwards with the sharp silver crucifix at t
he back of KK’s unprotected neck.

  Anna threw off the headphones and fumbled in her pocket for the pentacle. KK realized her intent too late to give a warning.

  “NO!” he cried, even as she pulled it free to hold it aloft.

  KK grabbed her wrist as to prevent her from lifting it higher, shaking his head frantically. Anna panted heavily, adrenaline kicking back in. She looked back at KK, needing to understand what to do.

  Sister Catherine sat in KK’s place, holding Anna’s wrist tightly in her grasp. She smiled again at Anna as she twisted her wrist back with a sickening snap.

  Anna screamed, high and loud.

  Pain burned up her arm from her wrist as she heard the pendant strike the floor. Sister Catherine forced her backwards, pinning her prone on the floor. Instinct alone allowed Anna to bring her other hand up in time to catch Sister Catherine’s wrist in turn. She strained, holding the silver crucifix at bay from her own neck.

  Anna grunted at the effort required to keep from being stabbed, struggling to free herself from the nun’s hold. Sister Catherine’s face was uncomfortably close to her own, letting her see every unnatural feature of the specter. Her skin was grey and lined with veins that ran pitch-black. Her eyes were all black, shark-like and full of rage. Anna felt an involuntary shudder run down her spine. She had to look away from the twisted visage of Sister Catherine snarling above her. Her eyes fell instead on the discarded pentacle pendant.

  It skittered further out of reach across the floor.

  Sister Catherine took the moment of Anna’s distracted inattention to rear back, detangling herself from Anna’s grip on her wrist. Anna rolled to the side, moving barely in time to dodge the downward strike of the crucifix. It embedded itself in the hardwood floor inches from Anna’s face.

  Anna had the brief, nonsensical thought of hoping that Aunt Donna couldn’t charge her extra for that.

  Sister Catherine screeched loudly, a banshee wail of aggression and frustration as she vanished again. Anna wondered if that meant the specter had exhausted herself again for the moment.