Aunt Karen
Short Story : Aunt Karen
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ( Horror Story)
By Debopam Rai Chaudhuri . All Copyright Reserved 2019
I would like to share my story, because I feel that if I
don’t, I will go crazy. It all started when I was a child, I lived with my
parents in a relatively large house, near the Bantala , where we had a few
extra rooms.
This house was owned by my grandfather, on my mother's side,
who, upon his death, inherited it to my mother. On his deathbed, my grandfather
implored my mother to look after all his siblings, so, let's say that a clause
for her to inherit the house would be that every time one of her siblings
needed to stay there, they would do so without any problems. Given my mother's
kind and generous nature, she had no problem with this.
Although none of her numerous siblings ever needed to stay
at our house… until she came along.
She was the oldest sister in the family, her name was Karen.
None of the others wanted to help her, because until recently she began to
develop senile dementia, she never married and for that reason she ended up in
a nursing home. However, it was no longer possible to take care of her there
because the money she saved in her youth and with which she paid for her stay
had run out, so because of my mother's character and the promise she made to my
grandfather, she admitted my aunt into her home to take care of her. Because
she was in a nursing home and because of her condition, we
had rarely heard her mentioned, it was even the first time I had seen her. Her
face was already very wrinkled, she had only a few strands of hair, a hunched
back and a somewhat lost look, although she had remnants of what was a severe
countenance.
Many years later, my mother would tell me that since my
grandfather had to work to support his children when my grandmother left them,
he had left the task of raising the children to Aunt Karen, which had
embittered her character and forged that demeanour. When my mother welcomed
her, Aunt Karen simply gave a short grunt, and looked at my mother almost as if
she wanted to order her something.
“Calm down, Karen, make yourself at home,” she said, as if
she understood the nature of the grunt. Later, she asked my father to carry the
luggage, which consisted of a suitcase and a grocery bag. While he was carrying
the suitcase, he asked me to help him with the bag, which we put in a room next
to mine.
My mother would bring Aunt Karen, who would not stop
grunting, while she spoke to her affectionately. This left me with a feeling of
discomfort that became more pronounced as the days went by.
My mother would assign my two sisters and me to bring her
food and we would take turns. When it was my turn, I would quickly leave the
food and leave, because the first time I did that task, Aunt Karen stared at me
and let out a very loud growl, to the point that I accidentally dropped the
plate on the floor and ran away scared. My sisters never had that problem,
perhaps because they did not look my aunt in the eye, or because they were
never uncomfortable with her presence.
My aunt lived in our house for a year, which was very
difficult, because it was a guarantee of growls to give her food. It was even
difficult to play in my house.
On the rare occasions when a friend came to play with me at
my house, it was only a matter of time before we heard horrible growling, which
scared my guest away. The same thing happened when I played alone; I couldn't
even move a toy car without provoking reactions from Aunt Karen, which were
always negative.
Finally, amidst grunts, piercing stares, aches and pains,
and frequent medical consultations, Aunt was taken to the hospital for a
respiratory condition. Three weeks later, she died in a hospital bed, several
miles from my home.
However, the funeral process did take place there, with all
my uncles and aunts present, thanks to my mother calling them all. Unwittingly,
I overheard a conversation between two of them. Both remembered that she did
not measure the boys and girls in her care with the same yardstick.
“Do you remember how she locked you in the barn because you
didn’t want to eat vegetables?” one of them said.
“And what about the spanking she gave you when you forgot to
tie up the horse?” the other uncle responded. Suddenly, another of my aunts
arrived and reinforced the idea that they both put forward:
“It’s your fault, you were always terrible! She never raised
her hand to my sisters and me, because we always behaved well.
“You know very well that that is not true, sister, and you
know that Aunt Karen treated them differently than us. Don’t you remember that
when you were older, you would come home very late from seeing your boyfriend,
and she covered for you? A week later, I went out with a young woman from a
nearby farm, and how my father felt when he found out, thanks to Karen! He
almost threatened to marry her or send me to the priest!
That conversation made me think about why I felt something
different than my sisters when they took food to their aunt. Now I knew that
she was a woman who was severe with men and was kind to women, something very
strange in a primarily macho society, which is usually the other way around.
The time of the novena passed, then a month of constant
visits from my uncles, until they stopped coming to the house. In some way we
had returned to our normal life, until one night I had a disturbing dream.
I was in my room, as if I had just woken up, in my dream it
was already five in the morning, I don't know how I knew, and suddenly I heard
a grunt similar to the ones Aunt Karen made when I approached to give her food,
it came from the next room, the one I lived in.
I don't know how I worked up the courage, but I dared to
enter the room. It was dark, and somehow I could see the empty bed, a small
table with a small tray on it, just as it had been before she had to be taken
to the hospital, never to return.
I decided to turn on the light, when suddenly a growl
sounded. Sure enough, it was Aunt Karen, standing up, wearing a black shawl
that covered the few strands of hair on her almost bald head, her face had more
pronounced wrinkles, her eyes were red and staring at me, her mouth trembled as
if she wanted to tell me something. However, she could only utter a growl,
which sounded much more disturbing than when she was alive, more sepulchral, so to speak.
This caused me to leave the room and go into my own. I got
into my bed and wrapped myself in the blankets. Suddenly I heard the growl
again and I saw Aunt Karen's horrible face very clearly, as if it were
surrounded by a luminous halo and it was going through my blankets, while it
continued to growl, it was getting closer and closer, and closer…
Until I woke up. I was covered in sweat in my dark room. I
decided to get up and turn on the light in my room, with my breathing accelerated.
I was afraid that my dream was real, so I looked out into the hallway and saw
the door where Aunt Karen was staying.
Nothing… that morning I stayed awake, and I even saw the
sunrise for the first time, which if it weren’t for the fear I felt all night I
would have appreciated more. When the sun came up, my mother called me to have
breakfast on my doorstep. That’s when she saw me upset, and she asked me what
had happened to me.
“Mom, I dreamed about Aunt Karen, she was chasing me from
her room.” I told her.
She looked at me strangely. She told me that perhaps she had
eaten too much cereal the night before, so she didn’t give much importance to
the matter. From that day on, my mother began to change: her kind nature was
the same with my two sisters, however, she became very abrupt with me.
Over the next few months, I had that dream more frequently,
until one day a strange stain appeared on the wall that was the opposite of the
one in my aunt's room.
Over time I could see that it took the form of a person,
until over the course of a year, it looked just as my aunt would look with her
shawl on her head.
I ultimately refused to sleep in that room again, so I
begged my parents to change my room, after all we had three more to spare. My
mother dismissed my pleas, however, strangely enough, my father and sisters
interceded on my behalf, so my mother had no choice but to grant my request.
Shortly after, my father told me that I was not the only one
affected by my mother's changes in behaviour, but that she also did not speak
to him as usual. My sisters told me that it was my father who made them notice
the change in my mother's attitude, because that same week he made them a stew
that they liked very much, while we had to make do with leftovers from the day
before.
Once we finished moving, my father suddenly came up with the
idea of going for a
walk to clear our minds of the gloomy and melancholic atmosphere of the house,
which we all happily agreed to, except my mother, who made the excuse that she
had to stay home to clean.
More by force than by will, we took my mother outside, and
it happened that she began to smile in a way that we had not seen. It was then
that my father excused himself to us and ran off towards the Basilica . After a
few minutes he returned with a small glass bottle in his hand, however, he
tripped and the contents of it flew out towards Mom, who ended up soaked.
“Now I have to change, thanks, love,” my mother said
sarcastically.
“Of course, I'll go with you,” my father replied. “Children,
come with us inside.” Confused, we obeyed, once inside, we noticed that my
mother did not stop smiling and even offered to prepare something for dinner
that we all liked.
It was then that my father told us that the day I had the
nightmare, Mom had begun to treat him in a contemptuous manner. On one occasion
she even began to growl at him, like Aunt Karen used to do.
Worried, he went to the Basilica to seek help. The priest
who heard what had happened to us advised us to get Mom out of the house,
because it was filled with Aunt Karen's presence, and her soul was ready to
invade the nearest guest.
As soon as we managed to get her out, I had to sprinkle holy
water on my mother. If she was back to normal, the next day we would have to
bless the house and pray for the eternal rest of the deceased. That's what we
did the next day, and when we finished, just out of curiosity, I went to my
room: the stain had disappeared! With that I knew the nightmare was over.
Years later, I moved out of my parents' house, got married and
had a stable job. My sisters did the same, and one of them is already the
mother of a beautiful child.
I sometimes call my father, since he was recently widowed
and stayed at my grandfather's house. I call him to see if he hasn't had any
trouble sleeping, and up until a week ago he told me he hadn't. However,
yesterday I spoke to him, and he told me that he thought he heard grunting in
what was my first room, and shortly after that I heard it here, in my house.
Right on the wall of my room, on my side of the bed, I just saw the outline of
a woman begin to appear, that of Aunt Karen.
Copyright © 2019 Debopam Rai Chaudhuri
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, or stored in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or any other method, without the express written consent of the author. This includes, but is not limited to, publishing in any format (print or digital), translation into any language, adaptation, or any other form of distribution.