Kathryn Dahne - Curse of the Nun

KK rolled his shoulders a little to ease the tension in them. He pulled up the bulky headphones from their position around his neck before turning on the recorder. His ears immediately filled with the soft hiss of static from the recorder’s audio. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, dressed in jeans and gray flannel over a dark t-shirt, headphones mashing his unruly hair back to his head where it escaped from under his baseball cap. The room around him looked simple, ordinary; a bedroom like any other. Nothing there that should inspire the sense of nervous anticipation running up his spine.

KK knew better.

There was a history to the land here, older and darker than the visual of the plain bedroom around him could ever hope to convey. His attention was split between the ouija board spread out on the comforter in front of him and the EMF reader lying next to it. He knew better than to believe the facade of normality around him; but knowing and proof were very different things.

This time he was going to leave with that proof.

“Sister Catherine, I come on behalf of the devil,” KK said, adjusting the volume higher on his headphones.

He’d done enough homework, to know that provocation was dangerous, but a sense of desperation had driven him to recklessness. He needed something to happen. He would make something happen.

“We will take and burn this holy land,” KK taunted. “You are an enemy of Satan and will face hellfire if you do not cooperate.”

Only the static of silence greeted him from his headphones.

“I know you’re here!” He shouted.

Nothing. Not even the faintest feeling of being watched.

KK turned his head, scanning the room for any sign that his words had caught the attention of something. He waited, hoping patience might pay off where provocation had failed. He took soft, shallow breaths, straining to hear any voice that might come through the recorder. His gaze flicked from the room to the board, the EMF reader, and back again. The device registered a baseline of 0.0 mG. The bedroom remained ordinary. Empty.

Disappointment curled in his gut as long moments passed. He had been so sure that it would work this time. KK’s shoulders sagged as he sighed dejectedly. He reached out and stopped recording, pulling his headphones off and dropping them back around his neck. Time to pack up and go. It seemed that Sister Catherine had no interest in playing his game tonight. KK leaned forward to begin packing away his equipment. He pulled off his headphones completely and laid them on the bed to avoid tangling himself in the cord. He moved to fold up the ouija board first.

His fingers had just curled around the edge of the board when the planchet flew across the surface to the word “No.” The EMF reader lying next to it suddenly jumped from 0 to 2 mG.

“Sister Catherine? Can you hear me?” KK asked, torn between hesitation and hope.

The EMF meter fluctuated wildly, lighting up and beeping erratically every time it spiked past 5 mG. KK felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end, the atmosphere around him suddenly heavy and oppressive. The persistent normality of the bedroom now seemed almost uncanny, as if it was too normal to be trusted. KK flinched a little at a prolonged tonal beep from the EMF meter before it flatlined back to 0 mG.

KK reached out for it, unsettled by its sudden silence.

“Sister Catherine, are you—”

The EMF reader was ripped violently away from his fingers as an unseen force sent it and the ouija board flying across the room. The sound of heavy, rattling breaths filled the silence in the wake of the resulting clatter. Fear spidered up the back of KK’s neck as he raised his eyes to the figure standing in front of the bed. Sister Catherine wore a nun’s habit that seemed to be made of draping shadows as much as cloth. Her face was obscured by darkness, but KK could feel her rage bleeding into the air around him.

“Shit,” he muttered softly. “Too far.”

She wasn’t moving, a frozen image at the foot of the bed, just watching him. Waiting to see what he would do next. He knew that he needed to get out of there, his animal hindbrain screaming at him to leave everything behind and just run.

He couldn’t run though. Not if he wanted proof.

“I was just trying to get your attention,” KK said in the most placating tone he could manage around the lump of fear in his throat.

A faint noise hissed out of his discarded headphones and KK scrambled to put them back on. A gruff, dark voice rasped over the static background: “ Out… out… out.”

KK moved slowly, leaning over the edge of the bed towards where his backpack sat, trying not to take his eyes off the sinister figure in front of him if he could possibly help it. A lamp on the bedside table crashed to the floor, narrowly missing him as he jerked upright, bag in hand.

“Just getting my things,” KK said nervously.

The chanting grew louder through the headphones. “ Out… Out… OUT!”

He fumbled discreetly for his phone and felt a hot surge of triumph as his fingers closed around it. He kept his face still. He was going to get his proof. He thumbed over to the camera function with a furtive glance then swiftly brought the phone up to snap a picture.

Sister Catherine’s face was illuminated, inhuman eyes set in a pallid face covered by a tracery of ink-like veins. Her shadow-bruised mouth dropped open impossibly wide as she let out a screech that KK felt down to his bones before she abruptly vanished. He looked down hastily to check the picture and muttered a few choice words under his breath. The room was there, but Sister Catherine was not. He grimaced as he picked up the audio recorder and realized he hadn’t been recording. He turned it back on with a huff of frustration.

“Sister Catherine?” He called out again.

The sound of his own racing heartbeat was all he heard in response.

“Give me something,” he demanded. “Anything!”

The feeling of unreality still permeated the room, but no further sign of Sister Catherine’s spirit manifested. KK switched off the recorder and packed up. He mentally berated himself for the missed opportunity and the perversity of spirits only showing up when his equipment was off. He opened the bedroom door to the hallway and with a last, unhappy look over his shoulder stepped through.

KK walked out of the closet on the opposite side of the bedroom and stopped dead in disbelief.

He looked between the closet and the door he had left through in confusion, trying to make sense of what happened. He’d gone out through the door in front of him. He knew he had.

“What the hell?” KK whispered, alarm sinking in.

He bolted for the bedroom door again only to be spat back out through the closet. This couldn’t be happening. There was no way. He panted frantically, his mouth gone dry from the fear that had hooked itself deep into his chest, and headed for the window. KK opened it to feel the chill, night air rushing in from the neighborhood beyond. He looked between the nearby houses for signs of their occupants.

“Hello? Somebody?” He yelled desperately. “HELP!”

All the surrounding houses were dark. No one could hear him. The clawing need to get out by any means possible had supplanted any previous desire for his proof. The door wasn’t an option anymore but the window might work. He was on the second story of the house and the darkened yard was several feet more below him than he was really comfortable thinking about. KK swung his legs over the windowsill in preparation to jump. The fall would probably hurt, he knew, but anything was better than staying where he was. He tossed his backpack out ahead of him and felt his heart stutter in his chest as he heard it tumble through the closet door again behind him.