Kathryn Dahne - Curse of the Nun

“Stay away from me!”

Anna held her hands up in front of her to ward off any unexpected lunges as she backed out of the kitchen again.

“Honey?” Mike called after her, confused and hurt.

Anna headed straight upstairs to Claire’s room. She needed to leave, now. Anna didn’t know where they would go, but she had to get Claire safely away and fast. She gently, but urgently, shook one of Claire’s shoulders. She wouldn’t ignore the warnings like she had with Lex.

“Baby, wake up.”

Claire made a sleepy noise of protest as she opened her eyes to blink confusedly at Anna. Anna pulled back the covers and urged Claire to her feet.

“Mom?”

“We have to go.”

Anna held tight to Claire’s hand and lead her out of the room. She reached the top of the stairs and looked down. Anna quickly shoved Claire behind her in a protective stance. Lex stood at the bottom of the stairs, holding a sharp, silver crucifix in his left hand.

“Get the fuck out of my house!” Anna yelled at him.

“I told you I wanted to see you,” he singsonged, taking a step up the stairs.

“Stay back!”

“I’m clean now, Anna,” Lex continued, taking another step.

Anna urged Claire more firmly behind her as she tried to carefully retreat back down the hall. She tried to block out her daughter’s frightened whimpers. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going through Claire’s mind right now.

“Get out!” Anna screamed at him.

Lex advanced another few steps up the stairs. “Let me see my daughter. Just for a second.”

Anna shook her head. Lex was going to get nowhere near Claire, not while Anna still had breath in her body.

“Mommy?” Claire cried, a sound so scared and confused it broke Anna’s heart.

“Stay back,” Anna warned Lex. “I’ll kill you if I have to.”

Lex smiled and charged up the stairs at her.

Anna didn’t wait. She bolted back towards Claire’s room, her daughter’s hand still tight in her own. She flung open the door only to find herself face to face with the shadowed visage of a slowly rotting nun. A sharp crucifix lanced downward at her as Anna raised her free arm to block her face.

Anna screamed as a line of fire lashed across her arm. She didn’t pause to look down at the cut on her forearm. She backpedaled frantically and pulled Claire after her into the bathroom across the hall. She locked the door behind them, leaning on it and breathing heavily.

Anna caught sight of herself in the mirror as she sat down on the floor next to Claire. She looked too pale, as she had those first few conscious days in the hospital, and her eyes were wide in terror. Claire looked up at her with a frightened expression.

Anna brushed Claire’s bangs aside with a shaky hand.

“You okay?” she whispered.

Claire just nodded, but Anna could see the tears brimming. She tugged Claire in close and held her tightly. Poor thing didn’t understand what was going on.

Bang, bang, bang!

Anna and Claire both looked up at the pounding on the door.

“Anna! Let me in!” It was Mike.

“Go away!” Anna shouted at him through the door.

“I’m serious! Something is going on!”

He sounded worried and sincere. Anna sobbed. God, she wanted to let him in, but she just couldn’t. Not after everything that had happened.

“I can’t trust you!”

That hurt so much to admit out loud. She had once trusted Mike for everything.

“Lex is in the house with a knife!”

It twisted Anna up inside to hear the fear in his voice, but she couldn’t open the door. She had to protect Claire and she couldn’t count on Mike for that.

“Hide somewhere else,” Anna choked out.

“What’s the matter with you?” Mike demanded.

There was nothing Anna could say to that, tears coursing hot and bitter down her cheeks. She knew she was betraying him. A part of her screamed at her to open the door. This was the man that had done everything for her and Claire. All the good things she had going for her had been because of Mike and she was leaving him vulnerable to her psycho ex.

She also remembered the awful feeling of his arm around her throat, trying to cut off her air. She had to protect Claire, that was all there was to it.

The sounds of a violent struggle came through the door in muffled thuds and grunts, followed by the heavy thud of something hitting the floor. A pool of crimson oozed under the door and crept along the grout of the tile. Anna sobbed harder. Was that Mike’s blood? Anna hoped not. Oh God, had she gotten him killed? She pulled Claire up and back, not wanting to let the blood touch her.

“Daddy?” Claire whimpered brokenly.

Anna stroked her hair with a soft shushing noise.

Lex’s angry voice sounded through the door. “Don’t call him that!”

Anna climbed into the tub with Claire, pressing her daughter’s face into her shoulder to shield her.

“Give me my daughter!” Lex said with an inhuman snarl.

“You’ll have to go through me!” Anna screamed back at him defiantly.

“ Stay with me.”

Lex’s voice was distorted to the point that Anna no longer recognized it as him. No, she recognized it as someone else’s.

“ Stay with me, Anna.”

Memory after horrific memory flooded Anna’s mind.

“Sister Catherine?”

“ Leave this life behind.”

“What did you do to Mike?!” Anna screamed at her.

Fury and despair welled up in her. It hadn’t been Mike doing those awful things to her. It had been Catherine. Mike was dead because of her.

“ Mike is gone. Next I either take you or your daughter.”

Anna shook her head and closed her eyes. “This can’t be happening.”

“ You don’t want this life. This struggle. Your past will never leave you. I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve lived it, too. You don’t have to do what I did, Anna.”

Anna shook her head in negation again. She would never do what Sister Catherine had done to herself. It was unthinkable. Claire had just lost her father, maybe two if Lex really had been here. Anna never wanted leave her without a mother.

“ It’s you or the girl.”

Anna watched in horror as the lock on the door clicked open from the inside.

“Take me!” Anna screamed in sudden terror.

Claire! She had to protect Claire. Her daughter deserved the chance to live.

She turned to give Claire a last, reassuring look only to see the glint of the silver crucifix as Sister Catherine drove it into her stomach. The nun’s face was rotting away. One eye was gone, the other was milked over and sightless. Her lips looked burnt in places and there were rips in her graying flesh.

Anna lurched over the side of the tub, trying to get away as her vision closed in around her.

Anna retched, blood dripping from her mouth to pool on the tile floor next to the tub. Someone was holding her hand.

“No, no, no, no, don’t die on me, Anna!” KK’s desperate voice came from somewhere close.

Anna looked up. Sure enough, there was KK, looking frantic and pale as he sat next to the tub.

“KK?” Anna whispered hoarsely.

How had he gotten here?

He gave her a tremulous smile. “Hey. There you are.”

“Where am I?”

“The bathroom,” KK replied immediately. “You got hurt in the attic.”

“I was stabbed,” Anna said slowly.

She was trying to work out the sequence of events, but everything was jarring and wrong. She was in so much pain .

KK nodded. “Yeah. What do you—”

“In the rental house.” Anna cut him off.