Raise a Family

Pauline Peters lived a perfectly splendid life, she had a perfectly handsome husband, two perfectly healthy children, and a perfectly behaved indoor cat. It’s why their move from the suburbs to the countryside came as a shock to their neighbours.

In the rolling dales of northern England, a light mist coated the fields during the early hours of the coldest mornings. It resembled cobwebs if looked on from afar.

At 6:41 A.M. Pauline had developed a new routine, she would drink her black coffee, admiring the mist from the kitchen window. It was the quietest time of day, an hour before the house came alive with the colour-coded family calendar.

It had been weeks since they moved into the converted farmhouse affectionately known by locals as ‘Slaughter’s Pass’. An unusual name if you weren’t familiar with its history. Slaughter’s Pass was the road, named for the final march animals took on their way to the abattoir.

Looking out across the field, she squinted.

A white blotch in the distance.

Her brows knitted with curiosity as she strained to sip coffee through her teeth. Staring at the blotch as if to determine whether it was moving. She’d convinced herself it was.

But it didn’t move.

It was a smudge on the window.

A smudge she would deny ever being there if asked.

“Mum,” her son’s voice startled her.

Patrick was eight years old, dressed in Spider-Man red and black pyjamas. He stood at the kitchen entryway rubbing at his bright green eyes. “Mum, where’s Penny?” he lisped at the 's' from where his two front teeth had recently fallen out.

“Penelope’s in bed,” she offered back softly, approaching him. “You should be in bed.” She ruffled a hand through his light blond hair. “You still have another hour before I make breakfast.”

He continued rubbing at his eyes. “I had a bad dream.”

Pauline placed her cup on the side and looked around the bleach sprayed surfaces. “It was just a dream, sweetie,” she said, dipping to match his height. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

What she failed to ask was what his bad dream had been about, and how sleeping after such a dream seemed like a daunting task.

Patrick wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck in an embrace. “Ok.”

She carried him through the house to the staircase and back to bed.

Both bedrooms were next to each other.

She carried Patrick into bed, kissing his forehead before tucking him in. “Try and sleep.”

Pauline continued to Penny’s room, the door was ajar and while normally dark, the curtains had been drawn to reveal the dark morning clouds. She pushed the door with her foot, first, she noticed a candle on the windowsill, burning down a wick.

Second, she noticed the bed was made.

Her throat seized, caught in the act of calling out her daughter’s name.

A soft tug on her blouse sent her sliding across the rug.

“Mum,” Patrick said.

On the ground with tears in her eyes, Pauline froze.

“I told you, she’s not in bed.”

She clawed at the bed, pulling herself to her feet. “Where’s your sister?”

Patrick’s soft face eased into sadness. “I don’t—I don’t know.”

In a panic, she pulled the candle from the windowsill. Snuffing it out with her hand, smearing hot wax up her arm. “Get your dad!”

Wearing his signature blackout eye mask and earplugs, Perry Peters was unaware of any commotion going on outside of his dreamscape. He slept with a smile pinching his dimples into his cheeks.

Pauline rattled her husband’s body, pulling him from perfect slumber.

Only for confusion to creep across both of their faces.

A meek voice came from the doorway, from beside Patrick.

“Mummy.”

At six years old, Penelope Peters stood with wide eyes, perfectly crystal with concern.

Pauline jumped from the bed. Shaking, she settled her hands around her daughter’s cold face. “Where—have you—been?” she forced through laboured breaths.

Perry scoffed, throwing his eye mask across the room. “Thought someone had died. What were you thinking?” he massaged his temples. “I can feel my vein showing.” His vain was definitely showing, as was the throbbing vein down his forehead.

Penelope shrugged and shook her head, letting her two plaited pigtails whip the air. “I—I—don’t know.”

The truth was, Penny had been sleepwalking, and it wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time anyone had noticed she hadn’t been where she was supposed to be.

Over the next couple of nights, Pauline barely slept, but she was losing time all the same. Her panic had yet to subside and she knew her daughter couldn’t articulate her answers in the manner she wanted them answered.

Like, where had she been? And, where did she find the candle?

6:41 A.M. came around again and Pauline stood with her black coffee, facing out across the white fields of fog. They washed over her, visions of being wrapped up, seeing it from the inside, the softness to the mist. She got lost inside it.

Beep. Beep. An alarm buzzed from her phone on the kitchen counter.

The coffee had gone cold, her mind felt rested, but her body ached from where she’d been stood with poor posture. She slapped a hand on the phone, snoozing the alarm. Her hand moved up her arm and itched at the wax burn.

“Patrick! Penelope!” She called from the foot of the stairs.

Sound travelled in this house, bouncing from every corner and alcove.

And yet, no response. Pauline called once more.

With swift stomping feet, she set about the staircase. Calling out once again her children’s names. There was no response.

They weren’t in their rooms.

Lit candles burnt wicks to near stumps on both windowsills.

“P—P—Perry!” she screamed, chasing her thoughts to the bedroom she shared with her husband. “P—”

He wasn’t there.

His side of the bed was empty, and on the bedside table, the small candle wax stump nearly out as the flame reached its end.

Pauline stuttered on the letter ‘p’, her chin quaked, and her jaw vibrated in fear and anger.

It didn’t take her long to notice dirt footprints. She didn’t stop long enough to recall whether they had been there all this time. But they had. They’d been up and down the stairs, and she hadn’t seen them once.

There was only one set of prints, and they led to the front door.

And from the front door, they led down the drive.

And from the drive, the led right, down Slaughter’s Pass.

Throwing her feet into a pair of gym shoes, Pauline followed after the prints with bated breath. Each print held the same measure of dirt in its wake like it had been left for her to find and for her to follow.

And then they stopped.

The markings were gone.

To the left of the road, there was a gap between hedges, leading into the field.

She followed.

The grass was tall, but a groove on the ground navigated her.

It led her all the way to the trees, where the dirt was softer.

The crackle of fire caught her ear. She held a hand to her mouth, breathing her hot breath against skin.

She followed the sound and the smell of acrid smoke in the air.

“Gotcha!” a voice hissed from inside a tall black trench coat. Two long bony arms slithered around her body. It squeezed until a pop and she was unconscious.

Pauline woke, several moments later, sucking in deep as life came back to her. She was laid on her back, looking up into the trees, feeling the wet dirt beneath her hands and the droplets of rain mist against her face.

Pushing her head up, craning her neck, she caught a view of what was happening.

The Peters family were laid in a cross, head-to-head, with a circle of heaped white salt around them. And in four six-foot deep nine-by-four holes, there were heaps of bones, sitting like unsolved puzzles.

“We can’t,” a hissing voice snapped from beneath the hooded figure.

“But look—” a deeper voice came through. “The perfect family.”

“No,” it snapped again. “She touched the flame.” The voice rumbled.

Pauline heard it all. They weren’t going to kill them. The opposite. If they died, so did their plan.

She reached out to her son and daughter, finding their hands, yanking at them until they reacted, tugging back.

“They’re waking,” the hissing voice spoke.

It was time. Pauline pushed herself in the soggy ground to her feet.

The ground was soaked with blood, it covered all four of them.

Perry was almost fully absorbed, and yet still perfectly smiling as if in a blissful dream.

“Come on,” she shouted once on her feet. She stared ahead to the cloaked figure. Two red embers in place of eyes looked back.

Dazed heads in a sleepy haze, Patrick and Penelope rose to their feet.

“Go!” Pauline shouted. “Go!” She knelt and grabbed a handful of salt. “Go,” her last attempt, sobbing as she threw her fistful of salt.

The figure let out a deep hissing, its cloak flailing, seeming to attack itself like a slug.

She looked at her husband once again. He’d sunk to the neck.

There was no saving him.

“Go!” she called out again, racing after her children. “Keep—keep run—keep going!”

They were out of the woods and into the tall grass, fighting through they found the hedge.

“The car—” she let out once they were on the road. “Get to—the car.”

Running back to the house, their mother commanded them into the Jeep.

With Patrick and Penelope in the car, Pauline sat in the front seat. Blood spread across her forehead, matting her hair slick and sticky against her face. She panicked, looking for the spare key, searching in the overcast morning light.

She took a respite of a moment to glance to the empty seat by her side.

“Is dad going to be ok?” Penny asked.

Sniffling, Pauline nodded. “Yes, sweetie.” She pulled at the glovebox and relief washed over like a river to see the spare key.

As the engine roared its exhilarating trill, she put the car into gear and powered out of the drive, turning right, away from it all.

“Mum!” Patrick cried. “What about dad?”

Focused on the road, Pauline panted as she let her foot press harder on the gas. “Hush, hush.”

“Mum!” he screamed louder. “You said—you—you—”

She turned to see them in the back, Penny quietly sobbing with the blood on her skin and nightdress. “When we get to town,” she said, gulping on her words, “we will.”

“Noo!” he screamed louder.

The car swerved, compelled into a hedge. The force sent Pauline’s head against the steering wheel, knocking her out.

“Mummy,” Penny sobbed.

The door opened as the cloaked figure stood. “Help your father.” A flesh-eaten hand reached out for Patrick. “Let’s reunite your family.” Behind the hood, their father’s perfect face revealed itself.

Necromancy: the best way to raise a family.