I Live In The Darkness And It Lives With Me

It’s been a long, long time since I had The Dream, so I had forgotten all about it until my father called just last night. It didn’t seem all that important at the time. After all, we all have one or two nightmares we remember vividly from our childhood. This is reality. This is not something to concern oneself with.

But this one was different.

I was 12, and very sick. It was a particularly bad bout of strep, one that landed me in the hospital just a few days later. Because of that, I had been sleeping fitfully, regardless of the time, passing my days in an array of feverish dreams.

I only remember one.

It was night. I had opened my eyes to find myself in my little cot, the wrought iron of the bed frame cold to my touch – or perhaps it only felt that way because I was so hot. My throat was screaming in pain and, despite my better judgment, I was drawn to the idea of water. It would be painful at first, but maybe it would help? My feet touched the icy floorboards as I crept into the hallway and down the stairs.

I reached the ground floor and wandered into the living room, wondering if my father might still be awake. I began to shiver, my arms wrapped around me like a blanket. I let out a rancid breath and was greeted with white fog.

It was freezing.

Now, I may live in Minnesota, but August isn’t that cold. In fact, August is usually quite hot. I stood there for a moment in the living room, staring at the frost on the walls, wondering what the hell was going on, or maybe I was going insane?

Suddenly, I began to walk.

I crept out the back door, my feet carrying me by instinct even further into the cold. It felt like walking through death. The grass was glazed over with a thick sheet of ice. The leaves on the trees had crystallized into tiny frozen sculptures. As I walked around the house towards the backyard, I felt little needles of ice forming on my eyelashes.

It was in the backyard that I saw my father.

He was standing solemnly next to a large pit. Had that always been there? I wondered. No, of course not, and yet… it didn’t seem out of place. The pit took up the whole of the backyard, yawning deep into the earth. I crept closer and closer, keeping my eyes on my father’s lonesome figure. He, too, was patterned with frost, the skin on his arms turned blue with the cold.

I was only a few steps behind him when I cast my eyes into the deepest part of the pit.

It looked blue, at first. A light blue color that I hate even now. It took me a moment to match the blue in the pit to the blue on my father’s skin… and to realize that skin was exactly what I was looking at.

They were writhing, their limbs snapping back and forth, their tongues lolling out of their mouths. Perhaps they would have moaned or screamed if they were able, but they weren’t breathing – somehow, I could sense that the air was too frozen to work its way into their lungs. There was no tears, no pleading, only the frozen dance of torment and torture to greet my senses.

But the most terrible part was the sound.

It filled the air. It was a crackling sound… the sounds of their brittle limbs snapping with each and every jerk of their bodies. They ruined themselves, shards of skin cracking and flaking away with each motion.

It sounded like the crackling of a great fire.

At that moment, the moment of my greatest horror, my father sensed my presence. He turned around and stared at me. His eyes had gone cold, as cold as whatever surrounded us. He watched me as I opened my aching throat and screamed.

The next thing I remember was my mother sitting next to my bed. She told me I’d had a terrible nightmare, poor thing, and had screamed in my sleep, which must have hurt my delicate throat. Indeed it did – I don’t remember ever being in so much pain in my life. But it didn’t matter…as long as I was awake from that awful nightmare, I could relax, if only just a little.

With time, I forgot the nightmare. Or, rather, stopped thinking about it. I don’t think I can ever forget a sight that awful, but the image dulled over time. But that coldness always stayed imprinted on my mind. The farm was never a warm place again for me.

The dream came back when my father called me last night. His gruff voice was weaker than I remember, and I knew the sickness was taking a toll on him. Is that why I wasn’t surprised by his demand? Perhaps I’d known all along. Perhaps it had taken only a little prodding to open my mind.

“Barbas, it’s time to come home.”

I mustered a voice of confusion, although something inside me already seemed to understand. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m fading, and you know this. You can feel it. It’s time to resume your duties. Remember the dream. Remember the ice, Barbas.”

And then, everything fit together. And the world became whole. Because I understood.

Today, I am resigning from University. I will return to the farm to work in my father’s company – he was, until recently, a very successful businessman, after all. And I will assume his post, which he will be vacating for me shortly.

I tell you this. And I remind you: Dante was right.

The ninth circle of hell is frozen.

Perhaps I will be seeing you soon.

For potentially haunted emails, sign up for the Creepy Catalog monthly newsletter!