u/cesly1987

I'm currently paying off a 20,000 dollar protection spell I purchased to keep my daughter and me safe from my abusive ex-husband. 

The spell was enacted by the only neighbor on my street, and the local wise woman. She was one of the only remaining residents living in a house three down from mine in our derelict and abandoned neighborhood. 

Urban decay had hit the area badly, but I desperately needed a place to stay or I would have been homeless with a 6-month-old baby girl. So my realtor friend set me up in a cheap rundown house to hide from my monster husband. 

I was hopeful I could lay low and save money for a fresh start while the court and the cops tried to deal with Tobbie. Meanwhile, my daughter Marissa and I would gather money for our escape plan together.

Tobbie was still on the run from the cops from the last reign of terror he had brought down on my family and me. I was staying at my mother's with our son after the last beating he had given me. He had shot my mother's dog on the front porch when Mama stood up to him. He even set fire to Mama’s house before the cops came. He has been on the run ever since.

I couldn’t put my mom through that sort of drama or danger again, so I went from my unsafe apartment to motels every other day.

I was terrified when 3 months later a letter was dropped through the mail slot of my triple locked apartment door. The letter had no return address and was written in his scribbly handwriting. The note read, "What God has bound to a man in holy matrimony no person shall rebel against God and separate. An angry God shall smite them down!"

I knew he would come for his daughter and me eventually. I don't know if he was still in town or out of state sending messages from afar. He had become so demanding and unpredictable. All I knew was that he was coming eventually to take Marissa, and hurt me, maybe even kill me.

 At first, I thought giving birth to Marissa would calm him down in our marriage.  Because Tobbie always talked about having children and securing his "legacy".  And when I told him I was pregnant he showered me with gender neutral baby gifts. He was even happy when we found out her sex. He declared her a “daddy’s girl” and told me constantly that she was “deeply attached” to his voice. He never laid a hand on me for those precious 9 months, but after Marissa was born, all bets were off.

So that’s why I needed a protection spell. Tobbie had resumed beating me after my pregnancy and seemed to have stepped it up in harshness. It had been 6 months of hell and I think if I had stayed one more day he would have killed me.

My tipping point, the last thing he did to get me to leave him, was I had been taking care of a fussy Marissa all day. She was teething and had kept me up since 3am. Now it was coming around to 4 pm.

Tobbie had come in from his landscaping job and was mad that the stew I had set out for him had gotten cold.

“Oh, I’m sorry babe. I meant to set it to simmer until you got home,” I said,  as I hurried past him to turn the knobs on the stove. I made the mistake of leaving my back open to him.  “ I’ve just been so tired today.“ I stammered, “I could have really used a nap…”

I felt his forearm wrap around my neck and fit under my chin, with his other elbow putting tremendous pressure at the base of my skull. I could smell the sweat coming off him from being outside all day, and I could still hear Marissa crying loudly. But the saddest part was that I knew exactly what he was doing to me from multiple prior experiences.

I woke up on the floor sometime later. Tobbie was sitting in the living room with Marissa happily bouncing on his knee. He looked at me and told me he had ordered pizza, and I should clear off the kitchen table.

I know it's a hefty price tag for something most people would think is a scam, and I can't even afford my own place or a better car right now. But my neighbor said I can pay off the debt I owe her in monthly payments.

Money is tight, but if I have to choose between a light bill and paying the resident witch… I’m paying the witch her money. This decision was driven by a mixture of being grateful for the help during my time of need, and also being completely terrified of her.

I never wanted to cross her or offend her in any shape or form again. You would feel the same way too if you experienced what I experienced with Tobbie and her. She scares me more than my ex-husband, and he was still as cruel as they come. 

This will all make sense once you hear my story.

I lied when I said I had an ex-husband. Officially, in the state of Illinois, I was still married to him. He refused to sign any divorce papers, thinking of me as his God-given property. I refuse to accept that man as my husband anymore. We were only legally married because some damn paper in a dusty courthouse said so!

For 3 years he abused me. I can't remember what exactly the fight was about, but I do remember it was for nonsensical reasons that he started on our honeymoon. He constructed the disagreement between us so he could "lay down the law early in our marriage.” it was his excuse to put his hands on me. He made it very clear how terrible my life was going to be from that point onwards. It was like the person I had fallen in love with was just a con, and he was reveling in my despair, my defeat, my submission. 

All this is what caused me to run to this dilapidated and empty neighborhood. Well, near empty.

Don’t get me wrong, I was super grateful my friend Alyssa used her realtor connections to pretty much get me a free house, but there was a catch. She said all the empty houses were built in the 80’s for low-income families, and left to degrade. Now the communities had been relocated to newer areas while the old houses were condemned to be bulldozed by the City…eventually.

So I lived in a ghost town (well neighborhood), that was left to rot. The area rarely got Sheriff patrols and the people that did come out here were usually vagrants or thieves.

I was just using this house as a staging area to save up a chunk of cash so I could put a down payment on a safer home for my daughter and me.

You still may think it was stupid of me to drop 20k on froo-froo magic when I was hurting so bad financially. But I have to tell you about the escalation of danger at the house, and I have to tell you about Letty.

I had gotten a part-time job working in the office of a car dealership. I was hoping it would turn into something full-time. Even though it wouldn't last forever, I was glad the house I was staying in was free (all I had to do was pay the utilities). But the fair weather wouldn't last. I knew my husband would darken my life by literally darkening my doorstep. 

After a short Saturday at work, I picked up my daughter from the daycare nearby. Once together we took the exit to our lonely home in the forsaken part of town. I still hadn't gotten used to the sudden change from the relative normality of the city to the desolate, run-down, apocalypse looking neighborhoods. The route to my house looked like something in The Walking Dead.

The only person I saw was an older black woman standing at the intersection to turn onto my street. A large muscled Doberman sat next to her without a leash. Both she and the dog stared intently at me as I made my turn towards my house.

Her dog projected an aura of aggression and barely contained violence. It's unnerving glare tracked my passing but other than the movement of its head, the canine sat deathly still. 

The animal felt like a racked shotgun with a hair trigger, or an executioner's axe raised high above and waiting for a king’s order to unleash the killing strike. The pup was massively muscled with shiny black fur. It had cropped ears and a red collar with gold tag that gleamed in the sun.

The old woman slowly nodded her head at me, like she had answered a question I had asked her. It was weird, and it put me on edge. It might have been an omen of things to come.

The house that was gifted to me was on a street with a cul-de-sac.. The garage door was jammed shut, making me have to park by the side of the curb.

 I was still paranoid of my surroundings as I stepped out of my car, looking up and down the empty street for any sign of anything that could be hiding my husband’s crouching form. Other than the strange woman and her dog, the street was empty. Once I was sure enough that the coast was clear, I got the kiddo out of the back car seat and walked (not ran)  towards my house.

I could see it automatically from the street. Pinned to the front door was a red envelope. It froze me in my tracks.

When Tobbie and I first started dating, Tobe would always use red envelopes to send me love letters, and this continued throughout our marriage. I would get them on anniversaries, birthdays, Valentine's, and even more frequently, during the love bombing after he abused me.

My heart skipped a beat and I did another quick scan of the outside surroundings. I knew in my deepest heart it was from my maniac husband. My grip involuntarily tightened on my baby and I felt her gasp in surprise and discomfort.

All in the span of a few moments my mind raced with panicked thoughts. I wished I had a gun! I wished I had a knife! I wished I lived closer to society! I wished I had one of those Ring Doorbell things. I wish I had a badass Navy SEAL/ Hells Angel boyfriend or buff gay bestie I could ask to stay with me!

I felt mentally exposed, but I knew I had to calm down and get inside. Other than mentally, I was very much physically exposed as I stood outside on my front lawn. Maybe the old lady was a lookout and Tobbie could just drive up from anywhere, and throw me in the car.

I moved quickly to my front door while carrying my daughter. I snatched the red envelope and quickly ducked into my house. I threw the damn letter on my couch and backed away from it like it was radioactive. I had to make sure Marissa and I were safe before I fooled around with Tobbie’s endless mind games.

I gently placed Marissa down in her playpen that was also in the living room by the couch. She immediately started crying, because she was hungry and this is when I fed her.

“Shush, Rissa. I’ll be right back,” I told her in a soothing voice as her little face reddened and tears bubbled up in her squinted eyes. “Momma just gonna check the house for a monster.”

I snatched up the fire poker from the neglected fire place. I turned to face down the long hallway of the house. I knew Tobbie could be waiting in one of the rooms. Maybe he was planning to sneak up on me because he thought I would be distracted reading the letter he sent.

“Hey Tob!” I called out down the hallway, “ The 911 lady told me their sheriffs were already in the area. Two cops are on their way right now. I’d say you have.” I paused to make a fake calculation in my head, “ I’d say from the time I called them outside, it puts it at about 7 minutes before they get here to check on me.”

There was still no answer from the stillness apf my house. I crept further down the hallway with the poker at the ready. I peeked in my bathroom on the right side of the hall, before moving in, ready to swing. I checked the bath by dramatically throwing back the shower curtain. It was all clear, but Marissa could hear me moving around and was trying to get me to return by cranking up the volume on her screaming.

“Just hold on, Honey,” I said out loud. I quietly went to check the room on the left side of the hallway. It was Marissa’s room with the last room being my master bedroom at the very back. 

My room checked clear. I threw open my closet doors and checked under the bed. I felt like I was playing Russian Roulette by counting down the hiding places my violent husband may be hiding. I was narrowing my odds down to the final squeeze that blew my head off. My anticipation heightened to a fever pitch. I was afraid that Tobbie was going to jump out as I moved back to check the final room.

Alas, there was nothing in the Marissa’s room either. I checked Marissa’s toy closest and checked to see if the window was still locked. But I noticed things had definitely been moved around on the changing table next to the cradle. It appeared someone taken some of the diapers?

That’s when it hit me, the silence. I just noticed that Marissa had suddenly stopped her loud crying. It was abrupt, and unnatural. Like a radio playing at full blast then turned off. I froze in place for a horrible moment and craned my head to listen for any sound coming from the living room. 

My teeth clenched, my grip on the poker tightened, and a shiver ran down me as I realized I could still hear her! My baby was muffled like something was covering her mouth!  And I could hear something else coming from the living room. The sound was a man giving a sharp, “Shhhhush!”

Without any thought for my own safety, I flew out of the baby room and down the hallway. I rounded the corner to the living room, and I was ready to lay into Tobbie. I prayed that he hadn’t hurt her! 

I  stopped instantly at what I saw.

The person I saw was considerably taller than Tobbie. The tall man had turned away from me, and obscured me from seeing my daughter. His bald head turned quickly to give me a cutting glare from over his shoulder. He turned nonchalantly to reveal he held Marissa in his arms, with one of his boney hands hand over her mouth.

“Get your hands off my child, asshole!” I said, but I didn't dare to move closer to him.

The stranger smiled with crooked teeth. He slowly removed his hand from her mouth, and the wailing commenced, thricefold. His hand went to a dirty coat pocket and produced a pacifier.

“I need to have a word with you about a mutual friend of ours,” the stranger said. The man then gave my daughter the pocket pacifier. She latched onto it and her crying instantly cut off. 

“Now we can have a chat without the brat’s crying!” the man said with a ugly grin.

His comment struck me. I couldn't tell whether I was more enraged or fearful.

“What does my husband want?” I spit out. I already knew who this man was referring to and I wasn't going to play the “cat in mouse” tease game with the strange man in my living room. I already knew the lengths my ex would go to get what he wanted.

“This is more of a courtesy call. We just want to set the field,” the stranger said. “ It will help keep you from getting any unnecessary ideas. We don’t want too many unfortunate casualties.”

“Your husband has evolved since the last you saw him. He has been accepted into a brotherhood.” 

The man smiled his ugly smile again like he thought of something clever. “He became my brother when joined. So this makes you and me almost like family, I suppose.”

“I’m divorcing him!” I said quickly.

The stranger ignored me and continued his monologue. “Unfortunately your husband can’t be present with us to help sort out this ‘family issue’. But don't worry because I've been told he will be making his way here soon.”

My mind raced as I tried to comprehend what the guy was talking about. I figured Tobbie was in jail because of all his active warrants he had before I escaped him. 

I figured he had been arrested and this was some sort of Aryan Brotherhood thing. 

Although he may have been interested in the gang before going to jail. That would have made the weird tattoo of the black bird make sense. He had recently gotten the bird on his neck. I wondered if this bird was a Nazi dog whistle or something.

“This little visit is to dissuade you from running away or trying to relocate in the vain attempt to make it harder for us to find you. Because we will find you, and it will just make it much harder on you if you do run.”

His smile stayed stamped across his face during his whole talk. “ So don't run. Stay put. We have many crows all over watching you.”

Crows. What's with the crows? Maybe that's what Tobbie has gotten tattooed on his neck. I looked closer at the ugly man in front of me and saw that he too had the same crow tattoo as Tobbie. It was peaking out from his collar below his left ear.

My blood froze with fear. But I was mad and scared. I was mad that this fear was back in my life. This jerk stood so cocky in my house, and held my baby so I decided to fight dirty and hit low.

“You know Tobbie's grandparents are Jewish, and he is half Dominican. It’s not a tan if that’s what he’s telling you!” I blurted out, feeling stupid and a littleguilty as soon as I said it. But if I got Tobbie kicked out of his skinhead spy club it was worth all the cringe..

A look of puzzlement spread across the ugly stranger's face as he slowly turned towards the couch and gently placed Marissa down on the seat cushions. He turned back to face me and stepped closer in a long single stride.

“That doesn’t matter, my fresh meat,” he said under his breath as he moved within arm's length of me. “We aren’t that sort of brotherhood.”

I thought I was clever and pulled a kitchen knife from behind my back and brandished it. I was the one I had stashed under my pillow. I'd picked it up when I was sweeping the house.

“Then what are you exactly?” I asked nervously as I held the shaky kitchen knife straight out in front of me with both hands in an attempt to keep him away. My eyes kept looking back and forth past the man’s large frame to my daughter on the couch behind him. I was mentally judging if I could rush past him and get to her as he kept creeping dangerously closer and closer.

He waited till my eyes went to my daughter and in a flash of sudden motion he flew within my personal space and seized my wrists in his iron grasp. He squeezed both my skinny wrists together with one large hand while the other wrenched the knife away from me. I let out a yelp of pain as my arms were yanked straight upwards and the horrible man pulled me close enough to breathe down on me. 

He held my arms up so tightly with such raw strength that I had to stand on my tippy toes. With his other hand, he slid the knife under my chin and pressed the cold flat of the blade along my neck, making me crane my head away awkwardly. As if my daughter could sense my need to scream, she spit out the paci and let out her own scream.

“Your husband has promised me little things for helping him with his marital affairs while he is gone away,” said the horrible stranger. “We’ve always been big on sharing.” He leaned in with his awful breath and turned the knife edge to bite sharply into my neck. There was just enough pressure to scare me.

“When the night comes, I’ll show you exactly what sort of brotherhood we are.” He said darkly. And with that, he let go of my arms quickly and I collapsed to the ground. He pretty much performed an about-face and walked straight to the front door, swung it wide open and didn't even close it behind him as he strolled out the house. He walked away like he didn't have a care in the world.

I held back the tears until I was sure the evil man was gone. And I only allowed myself to cry for a few moments. It was just a quick outburst of tears filled with fear, rage, and frustration. I was so tired of feeling this way. I was so tired of feeling hunted and trapped. Then I finally picked myself up and hurried over to check on my baby.

It took two and a half days for me to open the red envelope that was left on my doorstep. I was too upset and maybe in a little denial about the whole situation. I just needed to let my nerves unwind before I jumped back headfirst into my husband’s sadistic mind games.

But part of me knew his mind game was already working on me. The red envelope seemed to call from where it lay at the top of my dresser. And I felt it calling in every room I was in. It bugged me at all hours of the day. 

The envelope could have important information that I needed to know to keep my daughter and me safe, or it could be empty. It could just be a sick joke in his twisted way of controlling me.  Regardless, it was like my tell-tale heart beating incessantly through the floor.

When I decided to open the envelope, I had to mentally prepare myself for the emotional assault that was sure to follow whatever was inside, even if it was nothing. The envelope contained a single white card with Tobbie’s scratchy handwriting upon it in red pen.

The note read, “Don’t fight. Don’t run. It will only make it worse for you. Just accept the consequences of your actions.” 

I must have stood there and read the short message 50 times. My eyes flew over the red ink and I began to mumble the message out loud to myself. Still, no matter how many times I reread it, or rephrased its wording, it still only baffled me.

Tobbie truly believed I deserved all this! I knew this in my heart. It wasn't just an abuser's mind game to gaslight the abuse. He was coming to hurt or kill me, then kidnap my daughter. While doing all this he believed he was in the right. He believed I deserved it, and God was on his side!

I scowled and crumpled the note in my hands. A cold feeling slowly fell over me. It was a feeling I had never felt before. My slight shaking ceased and my breathing steadied. It was a feeling that both strengthened and worried me.

My deranged husband believed I would comply with his twisted demands. And the truth was, the old me would have given in. I would have done anything to quell his legendary temper. But I’m different now. I’ve become a mother and I have to protect my child.

I realized the new sensation I was feeling was the urge to protect. This urge was stronger than the fear Tobbie had been using as a whip to keep me in place for so long.

I decided right then that I was going to fight his control. I was going to “make it hard on myself.” I was going to protect my daughter and kill him if I had to!

“Big talk for a girl that took 3 Taebo classes,” said the pessimist voice in my head. Or was the voice just a realist. “He will kill you if you fight him!”

“I have to try! I have to do something!” I argued aloud to my negative inner monologue. I went to pick up Marissa and hold her close for comfort, and considered my options.

“What can you do? How much time do you have?” asked the inner voice. “You’re being watched, so doing anything drastic will cause him to come quicker! How much time do you really have?”

“I don’t know,” I said quietly. The exciting feeling of determination began to taper off and the old fear wormed its way back in. 

“We have to break free! We have to try!” I said as I pulled Marissa in closer.

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ceslystories/s/r9RAPU2Bir

I dropped Marissa off at her daycare and tried to go to work on zero sleep. Three hours into my shift I knew I had to go home. I was exhausted and my nerves had given me a stress headache like crazy.

I suffered through my day of work with a lot of caffeine and went to get Marissa. We both started ourlong drive home. It only took 10 minutes but it was the longest 10 minutes ever. I was terrified to go home, but I didn’t want to be at work and separate from Marissa.

When I pulled onto my street I saw her. The hunched form of Letty Monreaux. She was standing in her front yard like she was waiting for me. No dog this time. As I drove by her I could see a smirk on her face. 

I parked the car and planned my rush to my front door. I did not want to talk with my neighbor at that time. Certainly, I didn't want to talk after the crap from last night and her whole belief that I owed her money for “protection”. I didn't like the fact that she reappeared like a thin and scheming scarecrow that had come to collect on her debt. I just wanted to shut everything out for a while, and maybe get some sleep.

I scooped up Marissa and walked quickly to my door. It was still locked, and none of my cameras had picked up motion while I was gone to work. Even though I was trying to get away from my neighbor, I still paused before rushing inside. 

I stopped at the threshold like I hit an invisible wall. Everything appeared normal but there was a sudden twist in the vibe that hit like a train. I swung the front door all the way open and peered within.

 I tried to turn on the entryway light, but nothing greeted me but a subdued click of the light switch not working and even more darkness. My power was out.

 I watched for any sudden or hidden movement from something hidden in the dark. I weighed my options about the dark house before me. I listened for any usual sounds as I considered just turning around and getting a hotel room.

Screw it! Hotel tonight.

I begrudgingly realized I still needed to enter my home in order to get some things for Marissa. I just needed to run to her room to grab a few things. The best time to do it was now while I still had daylight from the outside illuminating some of the inside of the house.

Once more into the breach! Once more into the mad house! I hugged Marissa tight and braced myself for whatever was to come.

I slowly stepped in with Marissa. The feeling felt like I had walked into a wake. The dark shadows seemed darker, and I could feel my neck muscles tense. The worst thing was that the sickly sweet smell was back. It made my mouth salivate like you do before you throw up.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness of my house and I saw one of my kitchen table’s chairs sitting in the middle of the hallway.

Who moved it there?!

 I took tentative steps further in without shutting the front door behind me. I needed the door to remain wide open so the Sun could shine its last rays inside.

Soon my eyes adjusted to the surrounding shadows. As I moved closer to the chair I could see a white box sitting in the chair. A green light appeared on it with a muffled click and fizz of static.

It was my baby monitor. The other half of the one not taken during the tornado of chaos around Marissa’s bed. The last time I had seen the monitor was in my bed this morning. It was the audio receiver end and it was made irrelevant when the other half (the transmitter) flew out the window.

Why would anybody or anything set this useless gadget on a chair in the hallway? Was it supposed to scare me? Was there an obvious reference I didn't get?

I bent down to turn off the monitor and realized its volume control button was all the way down. Curious, I turned it up some. What I heard made me jump back from the chair in surprise.

A scream came out of the monitor. It was a deep man's scream. I could hear the tears in the scream as his yells of pain always ended in sobbing. Again came the horrible scream. And again,and again, and again..

“Please, let me go!” a shaky voice said. When I heard his voice I knew it was Tobbie. I had feared hearing that voice behind me in the dark, on the other side of a strange call, yelling at me in a public space. That voice let out another yell of pain.

“What do you want? Please please!” he begged. As if to answer, there was a solid thump and a loud grunt of pain from Tobbie. Robbie started letting out a gagging and choking sound. I could hear banging and the sound of rocks or gravel being disturbed. 

Finally, the choking and frantic movement stopped with Tobbie coughing loudly. There was another sound of a thumping impact, causing Tobbie to start throwing up.

I realized I had moved much closer to the baby monitor and was now on my knees, holding Marissa over my shoulder, and completely locked-in to the sounds coming from the small machine. The Sun waned behind me, causing my dark home to be highlighted by the rays of twilight orange. Wind rushed through the open door, wrapping a cool wave around my body. 

I just kneeled there. I had found myself stuck in sleep paralysis. Except I was still in control of my body. Nobody in heaven or hell could pull me away from what the baby monitor was saying.

“Let me go! Please, please! I can pay, I can pay you! I wasn’t going to hurt her! I wasn’t!” There was a noticeable pause, and Tobbie didn’t immediately respond with screaming. I could just hear Tobbie’s sniffling and lightly sobbing.

“I was going to kill my bitch, for sure,” he said weakly. This too was followed with a pause, and it seemed to embolden Tobbie.

“T-the woman, my wife,” Tobbie weakly mumbled, “I was gonna snatch her with my daughter and kill her off site! I figured Chip and the boys would have fun and then help I’d with disposal,” his statement was followed by more silence. The monitor buzzed with deafening.

“I was gonna keep the girl,” Tobbie continued. His voice transmitted clearly. “I know the Crows have a thing about killing kids. But I would never! She’s my daughter regardless of the rules. I was taking my child back!

There was more silence. The monitor on his end must have been close, because I could hear his fearful breathing and snotty sniffling.

 “So if you are with the organization, just let them know I wasn’t going to hurt my daughter. She’s fine! She’s my world!” Tobbie unleashed with a passion that made me believe in his toxic love for Marissa. I absolutely believed he loved her. Or he thought he understood the concept of love well enough to direct the emotion towards our daughter.

“Are you with the cops?” I heard Tobbie ask meekly, like a kindergartener asking to go before he pissed his pants. After a moment Tobbbie scoff at his own idea. “N-no, not cops.”

There was a commotion on the other end of the line. The sound of loud banging and rocks and dirt being kicked around pushed out from the monitor’s volume. ”Where the hell am I? Where?” I can’t see! I can’t breathe!”

Thump! Thump! He was banging on something hollow and wooden.BANGBANGBANGBANG! More rustling sounds as I heard Tobbie’s breathing become more frantic. His nervousness was so much that I started to freak out on my end. It seemed like he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Not cops!” He gasped and stopped his banging momentarily, “It’s her! She p-paid you! I-it was her!” The banging returned harder and louder. Tobbie was furious.

“Forget whatever that bitch told you! Don’t listen to a word from her!” Tobbie said with anger. He sniffed furiously in an attempt to clear his sinuses. Tobbie was still crying, but his hatred for me brought out a stronger emotion, if only for a moment.

“I’ll pay you anything! I can work up whatever amount for you! I'm good for it! My friends will help me,” he said, and then listened for a reply to his propositions. The silence drove on and Tobbie’s breathing became erratic and impatient. 

“I could even get you work. You're good. Tell me you don't like doing this! Please, just let me go! It’s whatever you want!”

I notice none of the suggested options my beloved husband had were for him to leave me alone and not kill me. Even being tortured wherever he was, he never let go of his bloodlust.

“Hello?” He said, and then started banging again. “Where are we? How are you touching me? Let me out and we can talk”

“ He brought a knife,” whispered a raspy voice right behind me. The heat of somebody’s breath on the back of my right ear. I spun quickly to see nobody. I only saw the open door with the quickly fading Sun outside.

Silence as I looked around the dark for the voice. Tobbie yelled. His piercing voice almost made me jump out of my skin. I screamed in return. My scream caused Marissa to jolt awake with her own crying scream. Tobbie kept screaming and was the loudest of us. 

“Stop! S-stop! Tobbie’s voice would call out between the cries. He was full-on crying and begging. “I swear I’ll do it! I’ll do whatever you say-GHAAAAAH!”

I began to tremble in fear. I didn't know exactly what was happening to my ex, but I knew something was hurting him. I was 99 percent sure it was with a knife. Tobbie had always liked knives.

Stahp! Please! Pleeease!” Another ear-ripping round of screams. He began to lose his voice, but he screamed anyway. It was a gurgling and pathetic sound. I rocked Marissa and wanted her to drown out the noises that came from the man who had frightened me for so long

Tears began to roll from my eyes, much like the tears Tobbie no doubt had. Mine was a mixture of fear and catharsis. The things happening to Tobbie sounded terrible, but they were being enacted on him. The phrase, “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy” did not apply to me in regards to Tobbie.

For some reason, I felt obligated to listen to the torture. I had to witness the grunt, screams, and curses. I just lowered my head, cried, and rocked Marissa with her father dying in the background. The soothing rocking was for me as much as her.

I knew the baby monitors had about a 1000-foot radius on them, so Tobbie had to be stashed up somewhere in one of the surrounding houses. He was locked somewhere dark and cramped. I pictured him stuffed in a wardrobe or under the floorboards of any of the houses. He could even be in the walls. The way Tobbie was yanked out the window meant whatever had him was capable of moving him anywhere.

After what seemed like forever, Marissa did quiet down and slept. Somewhere Tobbie quieted too. He had ended to the sound of rattling breath and a wet thumping sound. He let out one last pitiful moan and then exhaled. Then there was quiet.

I felt Tobbie die. I just knew he was dead at that moment. My emotions were in a fury. I almost stood up and turned off the baby monitor receiver, but I thought I heard something elses coming from it.

It sounded like quiet mumbling or whispering. Whoever was saying it was speaking extremely fast. The inaudible speech kept going and I leaned in closer, but I still couldn't make anything out. I made sure to crank the volume all the way up. The only thing I could make of the language was that it sounded frantic and hateful. 

I put my ear closer to the tiny machine. It’s green “on” light reflecting off the side of my face. The gibberish had little laughs in it now. It spilled on for a few moments before cutting off completely.

“You’re welcome” said the voice. It was the same voice from the wicked thing that stood in the hallway of my dream. It was the same voice that spoke the words in my ear just minutes before.

I jumped back from the monitor as my front door slammed shut behind me on its own. Both Marissa and I screamed as the power also returned. The lights, fans, and air conditioner all thrummed to life instantlu. We screamed again, but this time Tobbie couldn’t join us.

 Later, I fed and put Marissa in her pen to play. My nerves were tied in knots and I would cry on and off. I was relieved and in mourning at the death of Tobbie. I was also terrified of the thing that killed him.  

But the spell was to protect me, right? I couldn't believe it was real. The magic spell was real!  I shuddered at the thought that the terrifying old lady had the power to do these things.

Was she evil or just doing business? She did protect me. That was something nobody else had done. I tried to remember the amount of money she wanted.

My phone began to ring. I saw it was a number I didn’t recognize, but I knew I needed to answer it.

“Hello.”

“I see my services have been rendered,” said the smoker's voice of Letty.

“Yes, um-I was just thinking about”

“I know. That’s why I called.”

“Oh, oh. Right. W-we talked earlier about some sort of payment.”

“You’re right. 2000 dollars for a protection spell for you and your kid. The kid should have cost you extra, but I made it work for both of you. Call it a neighborly discount,”Letty said matter-of -factly.

“I-i don’t have that on me,” I said, a little afraid of getting her upset.

“We can do payments. They will be high. I needed that 2000 yesterday when you sabotaged my other client from paying. He had 20 bands in cash, ready to go.”

“I’m sorry. I truly am. I didn’t know he was on the street for you! You see I was right to be paranoid. My crazy ex came in the back window to kill me,” I blurted out with honesty.

“Yes, child,” Letty cackled, “you were right. But don’t worry about making me mad, worry about Cerebus.”

“Who is Cerebus?” I asked.

“You have already met him,” said Letty, and I knew she had a smile on the other end. “ He is my familiar. He watched over you.”

Fear ran through me like a lightning bolt strike. Cerebus was the tall hat man, the hater of Bibles, and the torturing murderer of Tobbie, and her freaking dog!

“Don’t fret, child. He helps me with the business. He’s very protective and particular about things. I can control him most of the time. He tends to get offended on my behalf. If he feels I’m being cheated he may do terrible things.”

I tensed in fear and felt like she could tell through the phone. The thought of this Cerebus thing returning terrified me to no end. The traumatic image of Tobbie being snatched out the window like a Raggedy Ann doll, and the memory of terrible screaming coming from the baby monitor, and its raspy fried voice just inches behind me.

“I’ll- I’ll pay anything. Just please keep it away from my daughter and me,” I said with a quiver in my voice. She laughed on the other end. Her smoker's voice created a cracking sound.

“You’ll be fine, honey. Just don’t mess with my business and we will be great neighbors.”

PART 4

I dropped Marissa off at her daycare and tried to go to work on zero sleep. Three hours into my shift I knew I had to go home. I was exhausted and my nerves had given me a stress headache like crazy.

I suffered through my day of work with a lot of caffeine and went to get Marissa. We both started ourlong drive home. It only took 10 minutes but it was the longest 10 minutes ever. I was terrified to go home, but I didn’t want to be at work and separate from Marissa.

When I pulled onto my street I saw her. The hunched form of Letty Monreaux. She was standing in her front yard like she was waiting for me. No dog this time. As I drove by her I could see a smirk on her face. 

I parked the car and planned my rush to my front door. I did not want to talk with my neighbor at that time. Certainly, I didn't want to talk after the crap from last night and her whole belief that I owed her money for “protection”. I didn't like the fact that she reappeared like a thin and scheming scarecrow that had come to collect on her debt. I just wanted to shut everything out for a while, and maybe get some sleep.

I scooped up Marissa and walked quickly to my door. It was still locked, and none of my cameras had picked up motion while I was gone to work. Even though I was trying to get away from my neighbor, I still paused before rushing inside. 

I stopped at the threshold like I hit an invisible wall. Everything appeared normal but there was a sudden twist in the vibe that hit like a train. I swung the front door all the way open and peered within.

 I tried to turn on the entryway light, but nothing greeted me but a subdued click of the light switch not working and even more darkness. My power was out.

 I watched for any sudden or hidden movement from something hidden in the dark. I weighed my options about the dark house before me. I listened for any usual sounds as I considered just turning around and getting a hotel room.

Screw it! Hotel tonight.

I begrudgingly realized I still needed to enter my home in order to get some things for Marissa. I just needed to run to her room to grab a few things. The best time to do it was now while I still had daylight from the outside illuminating some of the inside of the house.

Once more into the breach! Once more into the mad house! I hugged Marissa tight and braced myself for whatever was to come.

I slowly stepped in with Marissa. The feeling felt like I had walked into a wake. The dark shadows seemed darker, and I could feel my neck muscles tense. The worst thing was that the sickly sweet smell was back. It made my mouth salivate like you do before you throw up.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness of my house and I saw one of my kitchen table’s chairs sitting in the middle of the hallway.

Who moved it there?!

 I took tentative steps further in without shutting the front door behind me. I needed the door to remain wide open so the Sun could shine its last rays inside.

Soon my eyes adjusted to the surrounding shadows. As I moved closer to the chair I could see a white box sitting in the chair. A green light appeared on it with a muffled click and fizz of static.

It was my baby monitor. The other half of the one not taken during the tornado of chaos around Marissa’s bed. The last time I had seen the monitor was in my bed this morning. It was the audio receiver end and it was made irrelevant when the other half (the transmitter) flew out the window.

Why would anybody or anything set this useless gadget on a chair in the hallway? Was it supposed to scare me? Was there an obvious reference I didn't get?

I bent down to turn off the monitor and realized its volume control button was all the way down. Curious, I turned it up some. What I heard made me jump back from the chair in surprise.

A scream came out of the monitor. It was a deep man's scream. I could hear the tears in the scream as his yells of pain always ended in sobbing. Again came the horrible scream. And again,and again, and again..

“Please, let me go!” a shaky voice said. When I heard his voice I knew it was Tobbie. I had feared hearing that voice behind me in the dark, on the other side of a strange call, yelling at me in a public space. That voice let out another yell of pain.

“What do you want? Please please!” he begged. As if to answer, there was a solid thump and a loud grunt of pain from Tobbie. Robbie started letting out a gagging and choking sound. I could hear banging and the sound of rocks or gravel being disturbed. 

Finally, the choking and frantic movement stopped with Tobbie coughing loudly. There was another sound of a thumping impact, causing Tobbie to start throwing up.

I realized I had moved much closer to the baby monitor and was now on my knees, holding Marissa over my shoulder, and completely locked-in to the sounds coming from the small machine. The Sun waned behind me, causing my dark home to be highlighted by the rays of twilight orange. Wind rushed through the open door, wrapping a cool wave around my body. 

I just kneeled there. I had found myself stuck in sleep paralysis. Except I was still in control of my body. Nobody in heaven or hell could pull me away from what the baby monitor was saying.

“Let me go! Please, please! I can pay, I can pay you! I wasn’t going to hurt her! I wasn’t!” There was a noticeable pause, and Tobbie didn’t immediately respond with screaming. I could just hear Tobbie’s sniffling and lightly sobbing.

“I was going to kill my bitch, for sure,” he said weakly. This too was followed with a pause, and it seemed to embolden Tobbie.

“T-the woman, my wife,” Tobbie weakly mumbled, “I was gonna snatch her with my daughter and kill her off site! I figured Chip and the boys would have fun and then help I’d with disposal,” his statement was followed by more silence. The monitor buzzed with deafening.

“I was gonna keep the girl,” Tobbie continued. His voice transmitted clearly. “I know the Crows have a thing about killing kids. But I would never! She’s my daughter regardless of the rules. I was taking my child back!

There was more silence. The monitor on his end must have been close, because I could hear his fearful breathing and snotty sniffling.

 “So if you are with the organization, just let them know I wasn’t going to hurt my daughter. She’s fine! She’s my world!” Tobbie unleashed with a passion that made me believe in his toxic love for Marissa. I absolutely believed he loved her. Or he thought he understood the concept of love well enough to direct the emotion towards our daughter.

“Are you with the cops?” I heard Tobbie ask meekly, like a kindergartener asking to go before he pissed his pants. After a moment Tobbbie scoff at his own idea. “N-no, not cops.”

There was a commotion on the other end of the line. The sound of loud banging and rocks and dirt being kicked around pushed out from the monitor’s volume. ”Where the hell am I? Where?” I can’t see! I can’t breathe!”

Thump! Thump! He was banging on something hollow and wooden.BANGBANGBANGBANG! More rustling sounds as I heard Tobbie’s breathing become more frantic. His nervousness was so much that I started to freak out on my end. It seemed like he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Not cops!” He gasped and stopped his banging momentarily, “It’s her! She p-paid you! I-it was her!” The banging returned harder and louder. Tobbie was furious.

“Forget whatever that bitch told you! Don’t listen to a word from her!” Tobbie said with anger. He sniffed furiously in an attempt to clear his sinuses. Tobbie was still crying, but his hatred for me brought out a stronger emotion, if only for a moment.

“I’ll pay you anything! I can work up whatever amount for you! I'm good for it! My friends will help me,” he said, and then listened for a reply to his propositions. The silence drove on and Tobbie’s breathing became erratic and impatient. 

“I could even get you work. You're good. Tell me you don't like doing this! Please, just let me go! It’s whatever you want!”

I notice none of the suggested options my beloved husband had were for him to leave me alone and not kill me. Even being tortured wherever he was, he never let go of his bloodlust.

“Hello?” He said, and then started banging again. “Where are we? How are you touching me? Let me out and we can talk”

“ He brought a knife,” whispered a raspy voice right behind me. The heat of somebody’s breath on the back of my right ear. I spun quickly to see nobody. I only saw the open door with the quickly fading Sun outside.

Silence as I looked around the dark for the voice. Tobbie yelled. His piercing voice almost made me jump out of my skin. I screamed in return. My scream caused Marissa to jolt awake with her own crying scream. Tobbie kept screaming and was the loudest of us. 

“Stop! S-stop! Tobbie’s voice would call out between the cries. He was full-on crying and begging. “I swear I’ll do it! I’ll do whatever you say-GHAAAAAH!”

I began to tremble in fear. I didn't know exactly what was happening to my ex, but I knew something was hurting him. I was 99 percent sure it was with a knife. Tobbie had always liked knives.

Stahp! Please! Pleeease!” Another ear-ripping round of screams. He began to lose his voice, but he screamed anyway. It was a gurgling and pathetic sound. I rocked Marissa and wanted her to drown out the noises that came from the man who had frightened me for so long

Tears began to roll from my eyes, much like the tears Tobbie no doubt had. Mine was a mixture of fear and catharsis. The things happening to Tobbie sounded terrible, but they were being enacted on him. The phrase, “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy” did not apply to me in regards to Tobbie.

For some reason, I felt obligated to listen to the torture. I had to witness the grunt, screams, and curses. I just lowered my head, cried, and rocked Marissa with her father dying in the background. The soothing rocking was for me as much as her.

I knew the baby monitors had about a 1000-foot radius on them, so Tobbie had to be stashed up somewhere in one of the surrounding houses. He was locked somewhere dark and cramped. I pictured him stuffed in a wardrobe or under the floorboards of any of the houses. He could even be in the walls. The way Tobbie was yanked out the window meant whatever had him was capable of moving him anywhere.

After what seemed like forever, Marissa did quiet down and slept. Somewhere Tobbie quieted too. He had ended to the sound of rattling breath and a wet thumping sound. He let out one last pitiful moan and then exhaled. Then there was quiet.

I felt Tobbie die. I just knew he was dead at that moment. My emotions were in a fury. I almost stood up and turned off the baby monitor receiver, but I thought I heard something elses coming from it.

It sounded like quiet mumbling or whispering. Whoever was saying it was speaking extremely fast. The inaudible speech kept going and I leaned in closer, but I still couldn't make anything out. I made sure to crank the volume all the way up. The only thing I could make of the language was that it sounded frantic and hateful. 

I put my ear closer to the tiny machine. It’s green “on” light reflecting off the side of my face. The gibberish had little laughs in it now. It spilled on for a few moments before cutting off completely.

“You’re welcome” said the voice. It was the same voice from the wicked thing that stood in the hallway of my dream. It was the same voice that spoke the words in my ear just minutes before.

I jumped back from the monitor as my front door slammed shut behind me on its own. Both Marissa and I screamed as the power also returned. The lights, fans, and air conditioner all thrummed to life instantlu. We screamed again, but this time Tobbie couldn’t join us.

 Later, I fed and put Marissa in her pen to play. My nerves were tied in knots and I would cry on and off. I was relieved and in mourning at the death of Tobbie. I was also terrified of the thing that killed him.  

But the spell was to protect me, right? I couldn't believe it was real. The magic spell was real!  I shuddered at the thought that the terrifying old lady had the power to do these things.

Was she evil or just doing business? She did protect me. That was something nobody else had done. I tried to remember the amount of money she wanted.

My phone began to ring. I saw it was a number I didn’t recognize, but I knew I needed to answer it.

“Hello.”

“I see my services have been rendered,” said the smoker's voice of Letty.

“Yes, um-I was just thinking about”

“I know. That’s why I called.”

“Oh, oh. Right. W-we talked earlier about some sort of payment.”

“You’re right. 2000 dollars for a protection spell for you and your kid. The kid should have cost you extra, but I made it work for both of you. Call it a neighborly discount,”Letty said matter-of -factly.

“I-i don’t have that on me,” I said, a little afraid of getting her upset.

“We can do payments. They will be high. I needed that 2000 yesterday when you sabotaged my other client from paying. He had 20 bands in cash, ready to go.”

“I’m sorry. I truly am. I didn’t know he was on the street for you! You see I was right to be paranoid. My crazy ex came in the back window to kill me,” I blurted out with honesty.

“Yes, child,” Letty cackled, “you were right. But don’t worry about making me mad, worry about Cerebus.”

“Who is Cerebus?” I asked.

“You have already met him,” said Letty, and I knew she had a smile on the other end. “ He is my familiar. He watched over you.”

Fear ran through me like a lightning bolt strike. Cerebus was the tall hat man, the hater of Bibles, and the torturing murderer of Tobbie, and her freaking dog!

“Don’t fret, child. He helps me with the business. He’s very protective and particular about things. I can control him most of the time. He tends to get offended on my behalf. If he feels I’m being cheated he may do terrible things.”

I tensed in fear and felt like she could tell through the phone. The thought of this Cerebus thing returning terrified me to no end. The traumatic image of Tobbie being snatched out the window like a Raggedy Ann doll, and the memory of terrible screaming coming from the baby monitor, and its raspy fried voice just inches behind me.

“I’ll- I’ll pay anything. Just please keep it away from my daughter and me,” I said with a quiver in my voice. She laughed on the other end. Her smoker's voice created a cracking sound.

“You’ll be fine, honey. Just don’t mess with my business and we will be great neighbors”

 I finally rescues my daughter from the Sergeant. He told me that detectives may be in touch and advised against my leaving town anytime soon. That’s when I realized the cops were gonna give me the side-eye about the stranger whose insides were smeared all down the street. It didn’t matter how good I’d answered their questions regardless of my charisma or dice rolls.  Life wasn’t a game because a game had logic and rules to follow.

On one hand, I was afraid the cops would stick me with a murder charge when they couldn’t find anybody else. But in my mind, there was a quieter and colder voice that made me glad of the suspicion and eyes monitoring me. I knew if Tobbie finally committed to unaliving me, the cops would be quicker to notice my absence and immediately know where to start looking. I realized that all I had to do to get the cops to take me seriously and start patrolling the area was to have one of my stalkers explode in front of my house. 

I laughed nervously to myself at the utter insanity of the entire situation and hugged Marissa close. I was treating her like my emotional support doll when I knew it should be the other way around! I had to be strong for her, not her for me. But what happened outside terrified me beyond reason.

I knew what the stranger looked like. I knew what the physical damage of the back window told me. I wasn’t a detective but that didn’t stop my mind from painting a strange and highly improbable picture. The story my mind landed on filled me with a deeply sickening dread. It broke my tenuous grasp on reality and feeble understanding of how things were supposed to be.

I tried to break it down to its basics in order for it not to seem insane. Was it possible the strange man I'd met earlier had reentered my house to wait until me and my daughter returned home? Was it possible that he was pulled out of my house by something? And that something killed him in the street, because of a spell?

 For the first time in forever, I was more afraid of something other than my insane ex. I was afraid of what my mind had put together to be true. I felt like I was being held hostage again, but not by Tobbie and his new stalker cult, but by a cranky old lady who dealt in spells and death.

That night I was surprised to find the terrible incident had made the local news. The cops were asking for any help finding anyone connected with the “hit-and-run” that killed an unidentified man.

A bizarre dark though passed my mind. I thought of calling the new network and telling them that the strange man with snake tattoos and passion for pinky rings had trespassed into my house for the second time. This was why he was dead outside. He had been splattered against the asphalt like he had driven a helicopter. His body was spiked against the ground like he was a football after the winning touchdown!

I know it didn’t make sense. But I know what I saw. Now my brain was stuck with memories I unwillingly stored in a place I would never forget. The grotesque mosaic of the man’s exploded body would haunt me forever. I was far from a CSI/ crime scene analyst from the TV shows, but I know what I saw. It wasn’t a hit-and-run vehicle accident as the TV said. For a scene so violent a vehicle would have front-end damage and the road should have drag marks caked in blood.

No answers to my disturbing mystery came that night. I was glad a police car was stationed outside while they worked the scene of the “vehicular homicide”, but they wrapped up around midnight and took down the yellow tape and reflective roadblocks.

I had almost calmed enough to let Marissa out of my sight for a moment. I put her in her crib and I retired to my room with the baby monitor cradled in my arms as Marissa’s replacement. The receiving end was beside her head in the crib with her. Lastly, the ring camera was positioned above and stationed on the wall above her, and streaming live visuals to my cell phone.

I lay in my bed and watched Marissa from the camera I had mounted in her room. Even though I could see her through the app on my phone and she was literally a couple of steps away, I still cradled the receiving end of a baby monitor. This way I could listen to her breathing while I watched her sleep.

My fear kept boiling up and then simmering out over and over during my self-imposed vigil. My cellphone’s screen was the only thing that illuminated my losing fight with sleep. The deeply ingrained momma bear attitude to protect my baby refused to let my brain turn off. But in the end, my body betrayed me and I fell into a troubled sleep.

That's when something terrifying happened.

I had never experienced sleep paralysis before in my life. But I’d seen all those spooky YouTube videos on what to expect when having one. I knew it had something to do with your brain waking up while your body was still being frozen from a chemical that pumped through you. Your brain would fight to move in a locked up body. 

Awake but dreaming. That's how one of my friend’s that suffered from the condition describes it.  She would lament on how quickly dreams could turn to nightmares.

My eyes opened into a dream. My entire world was bathed in blurry green, like the color of the night vision on the camera streaming Marissa’s room. The borders of my room blended in and out of focus, like they were video game graphics popping in and popping out of reality.

At first, I easily sat up, threw back my covers, and walked out into the hallway. I glided down to Marissa’s room. I looked in and saw, well, nothing. I stared into a dark pit that should have been a cozy baby’s room.  It’s like my brain didn’t remember to load in what her room looked like. 

Terror shot through me and I was instantly transported back to my bedroom under my covers.

I tried to get out of my bed again, but couldn't make pit of my room and into the closet. When I reset I always appeared back in my bed. Over and over I fought the loop, until I thought to just stay put and sleep.

I heard my worst fear commence. It was the baleful cries of Marissa. It wasn't a normal cry. It was a cry of pain, a lot of pain.

I had to get to her! I had to wake up and get to her! It could be all in my dream or it could be real! Either way, I had to be sure she was okay!

I don’t know how many times I did this repetitive cycle of “waking up” and then realizing I was in a dream and teleporting back to my bed.  The dream always felt indistinguishable from base reality. I could feel my air conditioner (always set to cold at night) cooling my skin when I jumped outta bed. I felt and heard my bare feet thump against the wooden floor and change when I walked over my carpet. The tiniest details of reality were copied.I began to panic that I was stuck in this monotonous cycle for eternity.

Every time I appeared back in my bed, gasping and straining, I began to feel this looming sense of danger draw closer.  This unseen presence made me feel that it specifically wanted/hated Marissa.  Cycle after cycle, try after try, I fought against hell as my blanket pinned me down and my limbs got heavier each time I restarted in my bed.

The unseen growing hatred told me I had to get to Marissa. My momma bear instinct grew to oppose it. The presence grew stronger and I pushed myself to wake up! I hoped each reset was the one I really would awake in!

On one repetitive cycle, it had arrived. I felt it's ominous arrival before I laid eyes on it. Its aura suffocated my dreaming brain. The feelings of cruelness and despair burned its presence into me.

I could tell it was standing in the hallway by my daughter's doorway. I couldn't look straight at it, but there was a black mass standing there. I could feel the malice it directed at the innocent thing lying in its crib. But for some reason it just watched. The vicious killing intent was there, like a guillotine blade looming above a prisoner’s head, but the bloodlust, thankfully, was not acted upon. 

I couldn't look directly at the shadow because my body was made out of 10 ton weights now. Slowly, I struggled to angle my head to look straight down the hallway. 

All the while It pumped out hate and hunger like a vicious attack dog straining against its leash. Its teeming violence was just barely held in check 

The twisted thing in the hallway drenched me in despair and helpless thoughts. I felt its wicked intent also stabbing at my defenseless baby in the other room.

It was terrifying but I had to get to Marissa regardless of how many times I was put back in bed! I had to get between the two of them. 

My God, the screaming!  My poor baby screamed so loud! I tried to sit up but it was like a million weights held me down! Marissa’s screams began to falter like she was losing her voice or passing out. I continued to push to move. I gagged on a scream that was locked inside a mouth that I couldn’t open

With all my strength I  pulled my head up enough to see what creature in the hallway. My mind’s eye could barely make out a figure in the darkness. It was a darker shadow. The darkest shadow.

The shadow resembled a tall and lanky person. It swayed gently on its feet. The thing crooked its head to peek into Marissa’s room.  The monster was so tall that it had to lean so the top of its head wouldn't scrap the ceiling. 

“Better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea," the tall man said with obvious vitriol. I heard the thing’s voice right in my ear. Its mocking voice was low and cracking, but clear and heavy as it spoke. 

The thing said let out a vile curse, or maybe it was just a grunt, but it felt to me like an insult worse than anything that could be described in human language. There was a sound of ripping paper and the hat man threw something to the ground with 2 solid plops. The tall shadow glided out of sight and into Marissa’s room. Marissa’s screaming doubled in volume.

 “Just l-let me g-gget up!” I said to myself and prayed to whatever benevolent being that was listening. If this evil thing were real, there had to be the goodly opposite, right? “Oh pl-please, just let me hold her before she d-dies! L-let her know I didn’t a-abandon her! Oh God, plea-“

It was like a light switch flipping on, Snap! I was instantly rocketed out of my paralysis and crashed into the waking world. I had no drowsiness or stutters like had inflictedme in paralysis.

 And yes, it definitely was in reality and not a very convincing dream. Dreams didn't copy minor annoyances. I had a stuffy nose only in my left nostril, I'd stubbed my right toe earlier and I had just started this month. Oh yeah, I was awake.

 I bolted upright and my eyes raced to the hallway, expecting to see something horrible looking back at me. I saw nothing and my lungs exhaled a breath I didn’t know I had been holding.

I lingered in the darkness of my quiet room a moment before I reached to turn on my lamp beside me. The bright light caused me to momentarily squint and I covered my eyes. Everything was fine.

With a shock, my mind finally processed the stillness around me. I was so happy to be conscious again and out of the torturous cycleis forgotten why I had beenfighting. Why wasn’t Marissa crying like she was just moments ago? Had the crying just been in my dream? Had my nightmare just tortured me with the sounds of my daughter being hurt?

Whatever the case, I bolted out of bed and almost slid past Marissa’s doorway. I clung to the edge of its frame and pulled myself inside and frantically scanned the room for any signs of danger.

Marissa lay in her cradle sleeping peacefully. She slept, well, like a baby. She looked so untroubled and beautiful. I took this as a small victory. I took her undisturbed innocence as an island of positivity in all this dread. I cried as I picked her up and hugged her close.

My heart finally stopped racing after a few moments of pacing Marissa’s room while cooing to her. Her delicate body weight and warmth grounded me back to calmness and clarity, 

I finally noticed things were different in the room. Firstly was a stench that I knew had not been in the room before. It was a rancid miasma that made the air thick and sat at the tip of your tongue or gathered at the back of your throat. I recognize it as the disgusting smell of road kill or something dead. It was something animal and dead.

Another thing I realized was that the baby monitor that had been in the crib was gone. While I checked the floor around the crib I finally spotted the window at the back of the room.

I put Marissa back in the crib and approached as wind blew through it like waves in the ocean. I approached the bellowing curtain like it was a sleeping tiger. I was only feet away when Mother Nature killed all the tension and pushed the curtain out to reveal only darkness beyond an open window.

 I knew it wasn’t open before I went to bed! I thought about the open window I'd found just like this before the body showed up in the street. 

Now wouldI find Tobbie dead in the street next, I thought grimly? 

I looked at the window ledge and didn’t see any scratch marks like the other window had. I know I had closed it!  This meant that Tobbie or one of his goons had just opened it!

 I wanted to keep peering out the window to see if I could spot  a  prowler, but the darkness beyond scared me on a primal level. The void outside felt like it could literally reach in and snatch me out of the well-lit safety of my home, only to be whisked away into the terrible dark sky beyond.

I knew I needed both my hands to slam the window shut. I cracked my knuckles and slammed it closed before any hands or monster claws shot in and grabbed me!

I got my heart to stop its attempt to break through my rib cage. I just stood in the middle of the room and tried to make sense of things. 

Marissa progressively got fussier and fussier. She tried to get my attention and cooed and swung her limbs around fruitlessly. 

I knew it was solely my fault that she was in a foul mood. I had pretty much jumped out of bed, snatched her up from a peaceful sleep, immediately put her back down, and then slammed the bedroom window closed with a loud bang!

I realized I was gonna be up all night with my fussy baby, so I resigned myself to my fate. I walked over to comfort her and pick her up. On my way to her crib, I checked the floor for the elusive baby monitor that should have been in the crib right next to her.

While I scanned the floor for the shape of the baby monitor I noticed something else I hadn’t seen when I entered before. I saw 2 rectangular objects. One lay in the hallway and the other was inside the room.

I approached and saw it was a book that had been ripped in half. It had been a thick book, both halves could have been a novel in themselves. The exposed pages on the 2 halves showed pages jammed with blocky paragraphs and written in a tiny font.  The pages looked old and thin, and I could see some of the sentences were the color red..

“Oh my God! You've got to be shitting me! It’s a Bible!” I exclaimed loudly in my house. I realized I had taken God's name in vain at the exact moment I probably really needed his help. I cursed at myself again and bent down and picked up the 2 halves of the ripped apart Bible. Within seconds of examining them, realization and grief hit me as old emotional wounds were reopened.

I had forgotten I had a Bible in the house. It had been my grandma’s. She had given it to me the last time I visited her in her old house before she had to go to hospice. Inside the old Bible, she had tucked money, food recipes, and some of her own poetry all in its dog-eared pages. The last time I had seen this sacred tome (to me at least) was when I put it in a box before I moved.

 I wasn't very devout lately.  I had pretty much abandoned my church since Tobbie came into my life and Grandma had died. Tobbie was always mocking of my Grams faith and it hurt me to return to her church once she passed. 

Grams and I always went to church together. We were just two church girls. Which infuriated me now was that Tobbie uses his new faith in his psycho toolbelt. He spat verses at me in judgment. Now he was a “holier than thou” prick. 

Somehow someone or something had found my Gram’s Bible amongst the towers of unpacked boxes. It was something sacred to me and it was sought out and destroyed.

Anger and sadness flooded over me as I held the two pieces of my destroyed book. The figure in my nightmare made more sense. It had mockingly read from the Bible before tearing it in half and throwing it to the floor.

I had no idea what I had gotten into. This magic thing that old crone had forced on me was deeper and darker than I thought. Now I had to deal with spirits and demons along with actual psychos. 

I thought I had a protection spell placed on me. That thing in my dream didn't want to protect me. It wanted me dead! It wanted death and torture for both Marissa and me. Why was I being haunted by this demonic creature when I was supposed to be kept safe? Didn't I get a guardian angel or something?

I found some duct tape and taped it to the spine and reattached the halves of the Bible in an attempt to fix it! It was the obvious thing to have when a demon was around, and it was also a family relic.

I pulled Marissa’s cradle into my room so she could sleep next to me. I put Gram’s re-attached Bible under my pillow. These things struck me as the 2 things I should've done from the beginning. But they say hindsight is 20/20.

I figured I wasn't going to get any sleep for next year or so. I also didn't want to return to the waking nightmare of being terrorized by the dark hat-wearing entity. So I accepted that I was going to work in the morning with no sleep. I knew I would have to get one of those nasty, but effective, energy drinks.

All this didn't stop me from trying to sleep as I closed my eyes and lay there in the dark. I tried to quiet the noise in my head while listening to Marissa’s soft breathing in her crib next to me. I felt like a trance-like state of calm enveloped me as my brain slowed down into a state of clarity.

Suddenly a sharp mental image of Tobbie, his mouth stretched open to a breaking limit and his eyes clenched shut as liquid red flecks began misting his face. I couldn't hear the scream, but I felt it, as his mouth began to tear as his jaw continue to open and open. His suffering visage quickly started turning red as clumps of red meat liquid began to color him like spray paint.

 The two seconds of this horrible show flashed on the backside of my eyelids before winking out of existence. The details were so clear and the colors so vibrant. To this day I could describe or freehand every tiny detail.

 I wondered if this visual clarity was what it was like for people with photographic memory. But photographic memory happened for everything and not just one disturbing reel that burnt itself into my mind’s eye.

A strong curiosity came over me to check the feed of the camera high up in Marissa’s vacant room. I fumbled for my phone lost somewhere in my bed. I found it and opened up the live camera feed from

its app.

I watched the camera feed of the room from its elevated angle. Green shone into my squinting eyes as I sat patiently, not knowing what to expect.

My brain sluggishly pulled a thought into station and I began tapping away in the app's options and settings. I found a dropdown tab that let me go backwards in the night to around 

I knew the camera didn't get the hallway because it was higher on the same wall as the doorway. Still, I knew I had to see if it captured something. I thought that maybe the audio caught the voice that was quoting Bible verses in my dream.

I highly doubted the audio idea as I clicked the point in the recorded timeline that showed me when I was in Marissa's room. I was investigating everything before I snatched her up, cradle and all, and moved her into my room..

I clicked 10 minutes before the moment I came into her room. I figured I needed to see what happened during my new affliction of night terrors, or some BS. I dropped the cursor back 10 minutes and propped my phone on my chest so I could sit back and lie down and watch it.

Green. Just quiet and still, as a green tint washed over everything. Marissa slept peacefully and the seconds ticked by.  I clicked on some icons and thought of putting it on 2x speed to get through the monotony.

I didn't have to wait long until I noticed something. The pixels blurred in an attempt to capture the tiny movements at the back window. I watched as, slowly but surely, the window slid open. A couple of moments passed while I held my breath in anticipation. I thought I might have caught a ghost on camera. It was lame and easily debunkable but it was enough for me.

I realized then that I believed there was a supernatural reason to all the strange things happening. It must have been the nightmares I had, all the magic talk that everybody was telling me. They had me spooked by ghosts. 

My brain had thrown out Occam's razor.  I was thinking of demons instead of abusive husbands. I heard zebras approaching, not horses. So I felt genuine terror when a booted leg swung in through the open window. 

“It's Tobbie!” I screamed and bolted upright in my bed. I didn't see him! That means he is still in the house!

“I'm calling the cops, you asshole!” I screamed down the hallway from my bed. I zipped over to my bedroom door and slammed and locked it shut. Just like planned hundreds of times in my head, I grunted and pushed my drawer up against the door in order to become a makeshift barricade.

“I got a gun, Tobbie!” I yelled the lie so loud that he could hear me from any part of the house. “I’m good with it too! I'll shoot your balls off if you try anything!”

I stood by Marissa’s crib after I retrieved a knife I had stashed under my bed. I held the knife out in front in a defensive posture while my offhand held my phone. I couldn't listen for signs of Tobbie because all the noise was drowned out by Marissa screaming at the top of her lungs from all the sudden commotion I had caused..

I looked down at my phone and realized I had to exit out of the current camera app to call 911. I stopped and pulled my phone closer to see the screen better. I was completely confused at what I saw.

The camera feed showed Tobbie standing right by my daughter’s crib. He was standing… at attention. My mind raced down memory lane in order to remember if he had ever told me he was in the military, high school ROTC, or just a military fanboy. Anything would work to make sense of why he stood with his arms straight down and snuggly pinned to his sides, he stood tall without his usual hunched posture, and his head was locked in and looked straight ahead. 

I squinted and pulled my phone in closer. Through the pixilation caused by tiny movements, I could barely make out that Tobbie’s mouth opened and quickly closed, I could see his jaw muscles ripple as he clenched his mouth shut and mashed his teeth together. I could make out his little dark pupils, reflected to glow bright in the night vision, as they frantically darted around in his head.

I figured it had to be some cult stuff. He went to prison and joined a cult. That’s where he learned this military bearing. I guessed he was performing one of their weird rituals by standing frozen while making dumb faces!

I knew this was a terrible explanation to what was happening on the phone screen in front of me. With all the spooky stuff that had happened today, I wanted no more of it. 

I almost jumped out of my skin when Tobbie vanished. It was like something out of a horror movie. First he snapped his head up and over to look in the direction of the camera. He looked right into the camera lens. He was looking at me.

I could see absolute terror and confusion in his wide eyes. Tears began to form in his eyes and blood trickled down his chin because he was biting his lip( a bad habit he had). His eyes pleaded with me to help him.

 Anybody else would make me feel sorry. But not Tobbie. Screw him.

It felt like my dismissal of Tobbie was a the cosmic cue for some sort of action. Like signaling for the garbage to be taken away, or an executioner to swing the axe, he was gone.

Even on my twentieth re-viewing of what happened, my brain refused to believe and compute what my lying eyes had watched. I was in shock and terrified, but I was doing miles better than Tobbie. 

My phone screen showed that for one second Tobbie was on my screen. The next thing he was folded up and yanked away from the crib with immense force. It looked as if somebody had parked a vehicle outside and attached an invisible tow cable around Tobbie’s waist, before gunning it.

The best way my brain could relate it visually was when movies used the wire pull trick. It was mostly in Westerns or 80’s action movies. The wire trick was when somebody got shot and they flew backwards into the wall.

 One second Tobbie was there, the next he was jerked across the room and through the window he had previously entered through. It would have been comical if it weren’t real life.

It took me a while to move out of my room. I sat in my room and watched the unreal footage over and over. Tobbie moved so fast that it blurred the pixelation on the camera. The look of complete and helpless terror he gave the camera before he was taken was now burned into my mind. 

In my infinite instant replay on my phone, I realized things were taken with Tobbie. The blur of what I figured was the missing baby monitor, a few toys, and Marissa’s blanket.

Maybe it was false. Maybe the camera malfunctioned. I tried every lie my imagination could conjure, but in my deepest heart I knew they were lies and there was something far more evil than Tobbie in my house on that night.

I stayed up the rest of the night. I remained vigilant for any noise coming from my house. I replayed the footage over and over and over.

Tobbie had come to take Marissa and maybe even kill me. Something had protected me. Something terrible.

The next time I thought of Letty was one day at work. I was sitting at my desk filling in information on my computer. 

In a few seconds, my whole body broke out in goose flesh and a cold shiver shot through me.  I felt a violent case of shivers seize me where I sat. As I shook I had the dreadful feeling of an imposing presence right behind me, looming over me. It reminded me of how Tobbie made me feel in the tense moments right before he was about to spring into violence.

“Out!” a deep voice announced in my ears. I probably jumped a foot out of my chair and spun frantically to scan my office. Of course, I was alone in the small room but all my senses told me an intruder was nearby. 

My senses began giving me phantom signals . A sudden chill tickled every inch of my exposed skin. I could smell the baby powder I used with Marissa. I could taste the blood in my mouth that I knew all to well from being married to Tobbie. I thought I smelled the disgusting smell of the tall guys breath from when he held me close.

My heart pounded as I considered the mysterious word that was shouted from nowhere.  It was “Out!” Was it like “Get out” or something was “Outside” or somebody was “Out of prison.”

Along with the ghost word a mental image flashed in my head. It was a crystal clear vision of my daughter sleeping with her pink blanky. The picture of Marissa appeared fully formed into my mind’s eye like it was a firework with 4k resolution. 

I just knew all this had something to do with Tobbie. I knew he was behind it, even if I had no proof to support my belief. I didn’t know if his involvement was part of the supernatural thing that happened or just my paranoid intuition.

I felt the need to go pick up my daughter from daycare. I quickly checked the clock on my phone as I saw there was 2 more hours of my shift left. and 2 and a half before I would usually pick up Marissa.

“Screw it!” I said decidedly as I snatched up my car keys. “It seems I woke up feeling a little under the weather! I’m gonna have to take an early day.”

After telling the boss I was feeling nauseous, I b-lined it straight for the daycare to get my daughter. When I walked in the front desk the receptionist had some troubling news for me.

“Oh hello,” she said with a bright smile. “Are you here to sign up your brother?”

“Brother? What?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were coming in early to put Marissa’s uncle on the list of people who were allowed to pick her up from daycare.”

“No-no, I don’t know anything about that. What are you talking about?” I replied.

“Hmm oh well, a Clinton East called saying he was Marissa’s uncle and he was coming to pick her up early,” said the woman in a cheerful voice.

“Oh my God, did you let him take her?” I asked in a harsh and louder voice than was socially acceptable.

“No ma’am,” the woman said defensively. She instinctively leaned back from the aggressive mom I was becoming. “You have to be personally approved by the primary caregiver to be added to the list of people who can pick up the specific child,” The receptionist had corrected me with practiced patience. “A person can only l be approved if you come to the premises and sign them up.” She gave a slight pause, “ I thought that’s why you were here so early.”

The receptionist's words tumbled around in my head for a bit before it all clicked into place. Thank God Marissa was still here and not abducted by this “Clint East-Whatever”.

“Okay, from now on I’m the only person who can pick up Marissa. I had no family or super close friends near me. So I am the only adult that should want to get her,” I rambled to the young receptionist as she politely listened and smiled.

“Oh, and never, I mean never, let her go anywhere with her father!” I insisted.

“Oh yes!” the receptionist began, “I remember you having a highlight in your file that warns about the father. Do I need to add something else to Marissa’s file, or maybe even call the cops?”

“No, no,” I said. “Just let me know if anyone calls for Marissa again. Nobody should be picking her up but me,” I reinstated in a calmer voice.

“ Well, the reason I’m here is to pick Marissa up for a doctor's appointment,” I added.

“Doctor’s appointment? It wasn’t written in the calendar,” the receptionist said as she turned to activate her computer.

“Well, an appointment just came up. So I need to check her out for the day,” I said with a tone of finality. The receptionist just blinked and gave her practiced smile before she called for someone to bring Marissa out.

Not long after, Marissa was cooing in her car seat behind me as I drove the short distance back to our quiet and empty neighborhood. If it wasn’t for my strange voodoo neighbor living a couple of houses down from me, it would be like I was living on a secluded island.

 I thought I would be safe by hiding way out here . But I quickly noticed the cons of being out here. If I needed help quickly it would take forever for anyone to arrive. 

As I turned onto my street I brought my car to a slow roll. I rolled down my window so I could hear outside. I scanned all the houses around me even though I knew they were empty.

An idea struck me. How easy it would be for Tobbie or his freaky sidekick to be squatting in one of these abandoned houses. I imagined them watching me all day. I shivered at the thought of the two standing at a window through crooked blinds as I went about my routine.

After I parked on the curb I got out with Marissa held tightly in my arms. Everything seemed okay from the outside, but my nerves kept telling me something was wrong. 

As I walked closer to my front door the uneasy feeling only grew. My mind showed me a vicious dog waiting on the other side. Marissa began to give a soft whimpering cry. The fear within me grew along with Marissa’s tears as they dampened my blouse.  But I stiffened my resolve and moved forward. I wasn't going to let Tobbie control me through fear ever again!

I unlocked and popped open the door just like it was every other day. I scanned the inside with eagle-like perception, trying to find anything out of the ordinary. From where I stood at the entrance of my house I could see the living room, combined kitchen, and the back hallway. 

Immediately I could see something was off with the back hallway.  I saw dark puddles of red on the ground. Some of the liquid was smeared across the tiles like something heavy had been dragged toward my room at the very back of the hallway.

I put Marissa down in her pen that was stationed in the living room. I spun back to face the hallway while aiming my new tiny container of pepper spray. The tiny keychain pepper spray had just come in 2 days ago. I thought about doubling back and getting the bigger can I had that was currently in my glovebox in the car.

I cursed myself for not getting a gun. I should have just asked my brother to borrow one of his. Lord knows he had enough! But that would have been a weird conversation to have to break the ice over 5 years.

 Or maybe I should just grab Marissa and call the cops from outside. Then I would have to wait forever until they showed up and checked what was literally right in front of me.

Tons of anxious thoughts and racing fears pelted me. I steadied myself and used my right arm to brandish my pepper spray to aim down the hallway, like I was a priest wielding a cross to repel demons. With my left hand, I dialed 911. I looked down one more time at Marissa to confirm that she was safe at the moment.

I began to slowly scooch down the hallway with my phone ringing in my ear while I scanned for any movement or noise.  My nerves were already causing the pepper spray to shake in my hand.

 The 911 operator answered with practiced professionalism and calm. I whispered to her all my details and realized I was speaking too low for the dispatcher to understand me. The smeared red liquid led me to stop right outside my door, which was eerily ajar. The dispatcher asked me for my address again. I took a deep breath and made up my mind.

“I live at 840 Nickel Way!” I said loud and clear as I shouldered through my bedroom door with an explosion of movement. My body tensed as I barged into my room, my pepper spray ready to mess up an intruder's day. 

I was met only with my empty room. The back window was wide open and the knick-knacks that were atop the nightstand under had been tossed all about my room. A lamp was lying on my bed, the power cord stretched tight from the wall, and it was blinking on and off, creating an eerie ambiance. 

For some reason not finding Tobbie or that other freak in my room felt worse. It would have brought this whole nightmare to a violent finale. I desperately wanted this to end, but now it was back to more waiting.

“Um, oh yeah!” I said, my mind snapping back to the moments. I realized I’d been asked multiple questions by the 911 dispatcher. 

I walked up to the open window at the back of my room. I looked down at its ledge to see 3 deep scratch marks raked across the wood. Pools of what I can only assume was blood drying in the trenches created by someone’s hand.

Whoever the scratch marks belong to, the person desperately clawed at the window. The 3 finger marks dug so hard into the wood that I could see 2 fingernails and bits of skin left in the tracks.

The sight terrified me. I asked the dispatcher if she could stay on the line with me until the cops arrived. I quickly exited the room and went to scoop up Marissa, as if holding my innocent bundle of joy could somehow erase the horror around me.

10 minutes passed agonizingly slowly as I paced back and forth in my living room. The dispatcher on my phone told me that a squad car would be on my road at any moment. I tried to calm myself along with trying to soothe Marissa as she started to get cranky from hunger. Another 5 minutes passed and the dispatcher and I had a forced conversation to fill the silence. The waiting was getting ridiculous.

“Where the hell are those cops!?” I demanded from the dispatcher.

“They are on their way, Ma'am,” came the practiced and calm reply.

“Well, how far out are they?” I asked, not allowing her to stonewall me with her approved script of dialogue. “There’s what looks like wet blood on my window! It hasn’t even dried yet! The sicko could still be close!”

“Okay Ma’am,Let me check with the officers and see how far out they are.” There was a click of some sort and the line went silent for a while. I looked out my blinds like that would make them arrive any faster. 

I craned my head to look down the street. I thought I could see the flashing of red and blue lights. The cop car was just sitting there in the middle of the street! I felt my face flush hot with anger.

“Hello, are you still there?” asked the dispatcher as she popped back on the line. I bit down my initial harsh reply. I realized my fear was making me angrier, so I decided I would give them a chance to explain themselves.

“Yes, I’m here,” I replied flatly.

“It-uh, it seems,” the dispatcher stuttered like she wasn’t sure how to tell me something. “It seems like- um, the responding officers to your call have come upon the scene of an accident. There may be injuries or fatalities, so the officers will have to stop and render aid first.”

There was a pause like she was expecting me to respond. I just stared out my window at the “responding officers” with my mouth open in shock. They were on the road I’d just driven down to get her. What kinda accident could have happened? I strained my eyes to see that 2 cops were now standing outside their vehicle and gesturing frantically to each other.

“I can send another unit to take your report since I don’t know how long they will be on the scene of the incident,” said the dispatcher.

“No-no, I’ll wait. I’ll just walk outside and go talk to them myself,” I said in a distracted way. I heard the dispatcher desperately advising me to stay inside, but I hung up on her and hurried out into the cool weather.

I did a double-take back to my house and considered bringing Marissa from her playpen, but I didn’t know what the situation was outside. I told myself I’d get back quickly! I thought if I left the front door open I could hear Marissa better. That actually encouraged me to get a baby monitor and latch on to my belt so I could hear her even outside the house within a short distance. I still hated that I had to take my eyes off of her.

The cop car was far down the road and out of sight from where I stared put the window but close enough for my baby monitor to pick up the one in Marissa’s crib. As I walked out onto my lawn I realized they were parked in front of Letty Monreaux’s house.

An involuntary shiver ran through me that wasn’t  because of the chill. I walked down the street to a cop that had his back turned to me. The cop was looking at something on the ground and talking frantically on his radio.

I finally saw what was in the road just as another female cop came around from the back of the squad car with a big roll of yellow crime scene tape in her hand. Her eyes widened in alarm as she saw me walking up on the grisly scene.

“Ma’am, I’m gonna need you to go back to your house. This is an active cri-“ she had begun to order, but I'd seen the horrible site they were standing over and my scream cut her off. 

I began backpedaling away from the bloody horror that was in front of me. My body instinctively wanted to make distance between me and the thing I saw.

My last sight, other than the terrible thing I saw, was the male cop’s expression of alarm once he noticed me. He took a step towards me as the back of my heels hit the street curb behind me. My vision faded at the edges. The involuntary scream that was escaping my lungs only stopped once the darkness completely overtook me.

I came back into lucidity as an  EMT asked me to follow his light with my eyes.

“Well, good news. She doesn't seem to be suffering from a head injury,” the EMT said matter-of-factly to someone standing behind the blinding light. “You said she fell backwards into the grassy yard and not onto the street, right?”

“Yah, she saw the body and tipped over backwards. I think it was the shock that knocked her out, not from banging her head,” answered a gruff male voice. “I mean, she might even know the guy.”

I blinked rapidly and began to put 2 and 2 together. I looked at the cop next to the EMT. He was the same cop I’d saw earlier. I realized I was sitting in the back of an ambulance with a cop and the medic holding the light. I sat at the back of the ambulance that was parked in the middle of the street. I looked around and recognized my house further down the road was mine.

 That's when I remembered what the cop was standing over and what I had seen just moments ago. I craned my head to look around the 2 first responders that were standing in front of me. I saw the flashing cop car I had called for 911 for. Now there was a blanket covering something the body lying inthe road. They had put up yellow tape around the area.

“Oh my God, what happened to that person?” I asked in a breathless whisper.

Before the EMT could answer I heard the chilling sound of my baby crying. I looked around in panic before I remembered it was coming from the baby monitor I had attached to my belt.

“Shit! I gotta get back to my daughter!” I said to the 2 in front of me. Before I could stand up I heard another voice coming from the monitor. This one was an unfamiliar man’s voice.  The voice made cooing sounds to my crying daughter.

Fear shot through me and in an instant all grogginess was gone. I jumped up so fast that I hit my head on the roof of the ambulance.

 “Help! That’s my daughter! You have to come with me!” I yelled at the twoifront of me. The cop began patting the air in a “calm down” gesture, and the EMT began shaking his head “no”.

“Your child is fine, Ma’am,” said the cop. “That’s the Sergeant with her.” He placed a calming hand on my shoulder and the EMT let out one of those nervous laughs.

“Yeah, doesn’t he have like 20 kids and 100 grandkids?” The EMT asked with a smile.“ She’s in good hands. Its the best police officer you could ask for to look after your daughter,”  he reassured.

Now that I was a little calmer about my daughter I carefully forced myself to focus on what I'd seen before I passed out. I’d seen a person's body smashed open and spilt all over the street like roadkill.

 These morbid memories almost made me faint again. I remembered seeing steam rise from the person’s exposed innards. The steam waft gently upwards like a foggy aura. It rose up from the mounds of meat that had once been a living person.

I was wondering who the person was and what could have done so much damage to a human body to mangle it so badly. My paranoid mind automatically began trying to find the connection between the voice in my ears commanding “Out!” and the strange man calling the daycare and trying to pick up my baby. I also tried to factor in my room’s open window with scratches dug into the ledge.

Suddenly a vision hit me. I never possessed a photographic memory but a bizarre image flamed to life in my mind’s eye, and the clarity of what I saw must have been close to what people say the photographic memory is.

The vibrant image once forced me to look upon the broken body in the street . It was a crystal clear memory of what I saw before I passed out and they covered it.

I saw the blood and intestines splattered out in every direction, blood forming into red puddles and flowing out through newly cracked concrete. The origin of the gore and smashed pavement was a human body lying face down. The face was totally obliterated, but I could surmise the victim was a male because he was tall and had a bald head now colored red with blood.

 It looked like a man had dove headfirst out of a helicopter just to smash into the pavement with the speed  of a bullet.

I didn’t know why my mind was showing me these things again until the same person said an image flashed in my mind again, and this time it focused on something specific. My attention was pulled to the dead man’s neck. My attention was fixated on the tattoos of snakes crawling up the man’s neck. The serpent was barely visible due to the corpse’s shirt collar that was stained with blood.

“It’s him,” I whispered to myself. “It all makes sense,” I confirmed to myself as I mentally compared the dead body's appearance to the freaky stranger that had been in my house.

“But what about my window?” I mumbled to myself. I tried to surmise whether his being dead here had anything to do with my window inside my house.

I also figured the steam that wafted off his exposed insides meant whatever jibbed him had done it recently. I believed this meant he hadn’t been busted open for long when I saw him first. 

“Wait. What?” asked the cop snapping me back to reality in the ambulance. I saw his neutral expression switch to one of suspicion. That was when I realized that my quirky habit of talking to myself might get me thrown in prison.

“Um, nothing,” I replied quickly. I knew what I said might make me look even more suspicious, but I had to know.

“Did the man…have snake tattoos on his neck?”

The cop paused for a moment, like he was trying to remember. Then he pulled out a digital camera and began cycling through the pictures on its tiny screen. He stopped on a certain picture and his eyebrows rose in surprise. He then narrowed his eyes and gave me a suspicious look.

“Yes. It appears the victim had snake tattoos on his neck. How did you know this?

“I um, had seen him in the area before,” I told the cop. I knew some of the best lying is done with elements of truth mixed in. I needed to make a story up on the fly so the cops wouldn’t think I had anything to do with killing the guy.  

 “Obviously there is a lack of people around so when I saw him in the area I made a mental note of it. He might have been squatting in one of these empty homes,” I told the cop, and I shivered realizing that this psycho could have actually been squatting right next to me and had been watching me for however long.

The cop didn’t seem completely convinced by my story, but we were graciously interrupted by Marissa crying loudly over the baby monitor that was clipped to my belt.

Marissa’s cries came out of the monitor so loud that when I turned the volume all the way down I could still hear her bellowing from the open front door to my house. I guessed she must’ve finally gotten tired of Officer Sergeant Friendly.

“I really need to go check on my daughter!” I said and motioned towards my house trying to exaggerate my anxiousness. “Can I go?” I asked.

“Well, you refused to go to the hospital and your pulse is still high, but acceptable,” said the EMT. “What do you say, Officer?” the EMT said with a side glance at the cop.

“Sure,” the cop said, stretching out the word as he gave me a suspicious glare. “Go save my Sergeant from your kid.”

“Thank you!” I said quickly, as I maneuvered around them. “You two be safe out there. Please keep me in the loop if any of this turns out to put me in danger, or whatever,” I said, motioning towards the covered body.

“Oh one second, ma’am,” said the cop while I was attempting my escape by powerwalking away. I spun on my heels to turn back and look at him with a forced smile.

“Why did you originally call us again?” the cop asked.

“Oh, I think it was a false alarm. When I got home my front door was kinda open,” I said, thinking quickly for a believable story. “As I was waiting for you to arrive I checked the house and found nothing missing or out of place.”

 I forced a small laugh,” But I guess it’s good that I called because you found this poor man. Maybe you can find whoever did this to him.”

“Oh, whoever huh?” the cop said. He narrowed his gaze to study my reaction. “You think his condition is because someone murdered him, not because it was some sort of freak accident,” 

“No reason!” I forced another fake nervous laugh. “I guess my mind went to the worst situation first. Too much First 48 on Netflix, I guess.”

I finally peeled away from the cops on the street and made it back to my house. On the way I made a wide berth around the body covered with the tarp on the road.

I was on the edge of the road, scooting past the body. I looked at the ground and walked carefully, trying not to step on a the many tiny pieces of gore that spread outward from the tarp. The Small bits of blood and viscera that seemed to explode outwards from the body had spattered the surrounding area in red. I tried not to step on one of the bigger chunks and walked like I was navigating a landmine field. 

That's when I saw something gold glittering in the grass by the road. I stopped and leaned closer the look at what was reflecting so bright. It was a large red collar with a golden circular nametag on it. The nametag said “Cerberus”.

I recognized the collar to be the same as the one worn by Letty Monreaux’s giant Doberman. The last time I saw them I wasn't close enough to read the name on the collar, but it had to be the name Cerberus.

I gave an automatic jump and high pitched yelp when I saw what was only inches away from the red dog collar. It was a bloody dismembered hand. A white hand. Someone’s left hand. There was a gaudy diamond ring on the pinky.

My sudden noise and commotion brought the cop to race right up to me. Before he could ask what was wrong I frantically pointed at the hand and continued walking away. I had had enough of seeing bits and pieces of humans today. I was gonna leave and let the police handle it.

“Oh shit!” said the cop when he saw what I was pointing at. “I found the missing hand.” He said matter-of-factly to his female partner who was already getting out with plastic evidence bags.

I walked faster to my house.

That's all I could post right now. There will be more from me. I'll be sure to let y'all know the crazy that n that happened.

I'm currently paying off a 20,000 dollar protection spell I purchased to keep my daughter and me safe from my abusive ex-husband. 

The spell was enacted by the only neighbor on my street, and the local wise woman. She was one of the only remaining residents living in a house three down from mine in our derelict and abandoned neighborhood. 

Urban decay had hit the area badly, but I desperately needed a place to stay or I would have been homeless with a 6-month-old baby girl. So my realtor friend set me up in a cheap rundown house to hide from my monster husband. 

I was hopeful I could lay low and save money for a fresh start while the court and the cops tried to deal with Tobbie. Meanwhile, my daughter Marissa and I would gather money for our escape plan together.

Tobbie was still on the run from the cops from the last reign of terror he had brought down on my family and me. I was staying at my mother's with our son after the last beating he had given me. He had shot my mother's dog on the front porch when Mama stood up to him. He even set fire to Mama’s house before the cops came. He has been on the run ever since.

I couldn’t put my mom through that sort of drama or danger again, so I went from my unsafe apartment to motels every other day.

I was terrified when 3 months later a letter was dropped through the mail slot of my triple locked apartment door. The letter had no return address and was written in his scribbly handwriting. The note read, "What God has bound to a man in holy matrimony no person shall rebel against God and separate. An angry God shall smite them down!"

I knew he would come for his daughter and me eventually. I don't know if he was still in town or out of state sending messages from afar. He had become so demanding and unpredictable. All I knew was that he was coming eventually to take Marissa, and hurt me, maybe even kill me.

 At first, I thought giving birth to Marissa would calm him down in our marriage.  Because Tobbie always talked about having children and securing his "legacy".  And when I told him I was pregnant he showered me with gender neutral baby gifts. He was even happy when we found out her sex. He declared her a “daddy’s girl” and told me constantly that she was “deeply attached” to his voice. He never laid a hand on me for those precious 9 months, but after Marissa was born, all bets were off.

So that’s why I needed a protection spell. Tobbie had resumed beating me after my pregnancy and seemed to have stepped it up in harshness. It had been 6 months of hell and I think if I had stayed one more day he would have killed me.

My tipping point, the last thing he did to get me to leave him, was I had been taking care of a fussy Marissa all day. She was teething and had kept me up since 3am. Now it was coming around to 4 pm.

Tobbie had come in from his landscaping job and was mad that the stew I had set out for him had gotten cold.

“Oh, I’m sorry babe. I meant to set it to simmer until you got home,” I said,  as I hurried past him to turn the knobs on the stove. I made the mistake of leaving my back open to him.  “ I’ve just been so tired today.“ I stammered, “I could have really used a nap…”

I felt his forearm wrap around my neck and fit under my chin, with his other elbow putting tremendous pressure at the base of my skull. I could smell the sweat coming off him from being outside all day, and I could still hear Marissa crying loudly. But the saddest part was that I knew exactly what he was doing to me from multiple prior experiences.

I woke up on the floor sometime later. Tobbie was sitting in the living room with Marissa happily bouncing on his knee. He looked at me and told me he had ordered pizza, and I should clear off the kitchen table.

I know it's a hefty price tag for something most people would think is a scam, and I can't even afford my own place or a better car right now. But my neighbor said I can pay off the debt I owe her in monthly payments.

Money is tight, but if I have to choose between a light bill and paying the resident witch… I’m paying the witch her money. This decision was driven by a mixture of being grateful for the help during my time of need, and also being completely terrified of her.

I never wanted to cross her or offend her in any shape or form again. You would feel the same way too if you experienced what I experienced with Tobbie and her. She scares me more than my ex-husband, and he was still as cruel as they come. 

This will all make sense once you hear my story.

I lied when I said I had an ex-husband. Officially, in the state of Illinois, I was still married to him. He refused to sign any divorce papers, thinking of me as his God-given property. I refuse to accept that man as my husband anymore. We were only legally married because some damn paper in a dusty courthouse said so!

For 3 years he abused me. I can't remember what exactly the fight was about, but I do remember it was for nonsensical reasons that he started on our honeymoon. He constructed the disagreement between us so he could "lay down the law early in our marriage.” it was his excuse to put his hands on me. He made it very clear how terrible my life was going to be from that point onwards. It was like the person I had fallen in love with was just a con, and he was reveling in my despair, my defeat, my submission. 

All this is what caused me to run to this dilapidated and empty neighborhood. Well, near empty.

Don’t get me wrong, I was super grateful my friend Alyssa used her realtor connections to pretty much get me a free house, but there was a catch. She said all the empty houses were built in the 80’s for low-income families, and left to degrade. Now the communities had been relocated to newer areas while the old houses were condemned to be bulldozed by the City…eventually.

So I lived in a ghost town (well neighborhood), that was left to rot. The area rarely got Sheriff patrols and the people that did come out here were usually vagrants or thieves.

I was just using this house as a staging area to save up a chunk of cash so I could put a down payment on a safer home for my daughter and me.

You still may think it was stupid of me to drop 20k on froo-froo magic when I was hurting so bad financially. But I have to tell you about the escalation of danger at the house, and I have to tell you about Letty.

I had gotten a part-time job working in the office of a car dealership. I was hoping it would turn into something full-time. Even though it wouldn't last forever, I was glad the house I was staying in was free (all I had to do was pay the utilities). But the fair weather wouldn't last. I knew my husband would darken my life by literally darkening my doorstep. 

After a short Saturday at work, I picked up my daughter from the daycare nearby. Once together we took the exit to our lonely home in the forsaken part of town. I still hadn't gotten used to the sudden change from the relative normality of the city to the desolate, run-down, apocalypse looking neighborhoods. The route to my house looked like something in The Walking Dead.

The only person I saw was an older black woman standing at the intersection to turn onto my street. A large muscled Doberman sat next to her without a leash. Both she and the dog stared intently at me as I made my turn towards my house.

Her dog projected an aura of aggression and barely contained violence. It's unnerving glare tracked my passing but other than the movement of its head, the canine sat deathly still. 

The animal felt like a racked shotgun with a hair trigger, or an executioner's axe raised high above and waiting for a king’s order to unleash the killing strike. The pup was massively muscled with shiny black fur. It had cropped ears and a red collar with gold tag that gleamed in the sun.

The old woman slowly nodded her head at me, like she had answered a question I had asked her. It was weird, and it put me on edge. It might have been an omen of things to come.

The house that was gifted to me was on a street with a cul-de-sac.. The garage door was jammed shut, making me have to park by the side of the curb.

 I was still paranoid of my surroundings as I stepped out of my car, looking up and down the empty street for any sign of anything that could be hiding my husband’s crouching form. Other than the strange woman and her dog, the street was empty. Once I was sure enough that the coast was clear, I got the kiddo out of the back car seat and walked (not ran)  towards my house.

I could see it automatically from the street. Pinned to the front door was a red envelope. It froze me in my tracks.

When Tobbie and I first started dating, Tobe would always use red envelopes to send me love letters, and this continued throughout our marriage. I would get them on anniversaries, birthdays, Valentine's, and even more frequently, during the love bombing after he abused me.

My heart skipped a beat and I did another quick scan of the outside surroundings. I knew in my deepest heart it was from my maniac husband. My grip involuntarily tightened on my baby and I felt her gasp in surprise and discomfort.

All in the span of a few moments my mind raced with panicked thoughts. I wished I had a gun! I wished I had a knife! I wished I lived closer to society! I wished I had one of those Ring Doorbell things. I wish I had a badass Navy SEAL/ Hells Angel boyfriend or buff gay bestie I could ask to stay with me!

I felt mentally exposed, but I knew I had to calm down and get inside. Other than mentally, I was very much physically exposed as I stood outside on my front lawn. Maybe the old lady was a lookout and Tobbie could just drive up from anywhere, and throw me in the car.

I moved quickly to my front door while carrying my daughter. I snatched the red envelope and quickly ducked into my house. I threw the damn letter on my couch and backed away from it like it was radioactive. I had to make sure Marissa and I were safe before I fooled around with Tobbie’s endless mind games.

I gently placed Marissa down in her playpen that was also in the living room by the couch. She immediately started crying, because she was hungry and this is when I fed her.

“Shush, Rissa. I’ll be right back,” I told her in a soothing voice as her little face reddened and tears bubbled up in her squinted eyes. “Momma just gonna check the house for a monster.”

I snatched up the fire poker from the neglected fire place. I turned to face down the long hallway of the house. I knew Tobbie could be waiting in one of the rooms. Maybe he was planning to sneak up on me because he thought I would be distracted reading the letter he sent.

“Hey Tob!” I called out down the hallway, “ The 911 lady told me their sheriffs were already in the area. Two cops are on their way right now. I’d say you have.” I paused to make a fake calculation in my head, “ I’d say from the time I called them outside, it puts it at about 7 minutes before they get here to check on me.”

There was still no answer from the stillness apf my house. I crept further down the hallway with the poker at the ready. I peeked in my bathroom on the right side of the hall, before moving in, ready to swing. I checked the bath by dramatically throwing back the shower curtain. It was all clear, but Marissa could hear me moving around and was trying to get me to return by cranking up the volume on her screaming.

“Just hold on, Honey,” I said out loud. I quietly went to check the room on the left side of the hallway. It was Marissa’s room with the last room being my master bedroom at the very back. 

My room checked clear. I threw open my closet doors and checked under the bed. I felt like I was playing Russian Roulette by counting down the hiding places my violent husband may be hiding. I was narrowing my odds down to the final squeeze that blew my head off. My anticipation heightened to a fever pitch. I was afraid that Tobbie was going to jump out as I moved back to check the final room.

Alas, there was nothing in the Marissa’s room either. I checked Marissa’s toy closest and checked to see if the window was still locked. But I noticed things had definitely been moved around on the changing table next to the cradle. It appeared someone taken some of the diapers?

That’s when it hit me, the silence. I just noticed that Marissa had suddenly stopped her loud crying. It was abrupt, and unnatural. Like a radio playing at full blast then turned off. I froze in place for a horrible moment and craned my head to listen for any sound coming from the living room. 

My teeth clenched, my grip on the poker tightened, and a shiver ran down me as I realized I could still hear her! My baby was muffled like something was covering her mouth!  And I could hear something else coming from the living room. The sound was a man giving a sharp, “Shhhhush!”

Without any thought for my own safety, I flew out of the baby room and down the hallway. I rounded the corner to the living room, and I was ready to lay into Tobbie. I prayed that he hadn’t hurt her! 

I  stopped instantly at what I saw.

The person I saw was considerably taller than Tobbie. The tall man had turned away from me, and obscured me from seeing my daughter. His bald head turned quickly to give me a cutting glare from over his shoulder. He turned nonchalantly to reveal he held Marissa in his arms, with one of his boney hands hand over her mouth.

“Get your hands off my child, asshole!” I said, but I didn't dare to move closer to him.

The stranger smiled with crooked teeth. He slowly removed his hand from her mouth, and the wailing commenced, thricefold. His hand went to a dirty coat pocket and produced a pacifier.

“I need to have a word with you about a mutual friend of ours,” the stranger said. The man then gave my daughter the pocket pacifier. She latched onto it and her crying instantly cut off. 

“Now we can have a chat without the brat’s crying!” the man said with a ugly grin.

His comment struck me. I couldn't tell whether I was more enraged or fearful.

“What does my husband want?” I spit out. I already knew who this man was referring to and I wasn't going to play the “cat in mouse” tease game with the strange man in my living room. I already knew the lengths my ex would go to get what he wanted.

“This is more of a courtesy call. We just want to set the field,” the stranger said. “ It will help keep you from getting any unnecessary ideas. We don’t want too many unfortunate casualties.”

“Your husband has evolved since the last you saw him. He has been accepted into a brotherhood.” 

The man smiled his ugly smile again like he thought of something clever. “He became my brother when joined. So this makes you and me almost like family, I suppose.”

“I’m divorcing him!” I said quickly.

The stranger ignored me and continued his monologue. “Unfortunately your husband can’t be present with us to help sort out this ‘family issue’. But don't worry because I've been told he will be making his way here soon.”

My mind raced as I tried to comprehend what the guy was talking about. I figured Tobbie was in jail because of all his active warrants he had before I escaped him. 

I figured he had been arrested and this was some sort of Aryan Brotherhood thing. 

Although he may have been interested in the gang before going to jail. That would have made the weird tattoo of the black bird make sense. He had recently gotten the bird on his neck. I wondered if this bird was a Nazi dog whistle or something.

“This little visit is to dissuade you from running away or trying to relocate in the vain attempt to make it harder for us to find you. Because we will find you, and it will just make it much harder on you if you do run.”

His smile stayed stamped across his face during his whole talk. “ So don't run. Stay put. We have many crows all over watching you.”

Crows. What's with the crows? Maybe that's what Tobbie has gotten tattooed on his neck. I looked closer at the ugly man in front of me and saw that he too had the same crow tattoo as Tobbie. It was peaking out from his collar below his left ear.

My blood froze with fear. But I was mad and scared. I was mad that this fear was back in my life. This jerk stood so cocky in my house, and held my baby so I decided to fight dirty and hit low.

“You know Tobbie's grandparents are Jewish, and he is half Dominican. It’s not a tan if that’s what he’s telling you!” I blurted out, feeling stupid and a littleguilty as soon as I said it. But if I got Tobbie kicked out of his skinhead spy club it was worth all the cringe..

A look of puzzlement spread across the ugly stranger's face as he slowly turned towards the couch and gently placed Marissa down on the seat cushions. He turned back to face me and stepped closer in a long single stride.

“That doesn’t matter, my fresh meat,” he said under his breath as he moved within arm's length of me. “We aren’t that sort of brotherhood.”

I thought I was clever and pulled a kitchen knife from behind my back and brandished it. I was the one I had stashed under my pillow. I'd picked it up when I was sweeping the house.

 

“Then what are you exactly?” I asked nervously as I held the shaky kitchen knife straight out in front of me with both hands in an attempt to keep him away. My eyes kept looking back and forth past the man’s large frame to my daughter on the couch behind him. I was mentally judging if I could rush past him and get to her as he kept creeping dangerously closer and closer.

He waited till my eyes went to my daughter and in a flash of sudden motion he flew within my personal space and seized my wrists in his iron grasp. He squeezed both my skinny wrists together with one large hand while the other wrenched the knife away from me. I let out a yelp of pain as my arms were yanked straight upwards and the horrible man pulled me close enough to breathe down on me. 

He held my arms up so tightly with such raw strength that I had to stand on my tippy toes. With his other hand, he slid the knife under my chin and pressed the cold flat of the blade along my neck, making me crane my head away awkwardly. As if my daughter could sense my need to scream, she spit out the paci and let out her own scream.

“Your husband has promised me little things for helping him with his marital affairs while he is gone away,” said the horrible stranger. “We’ve always been big on sharing.” He leaned in with his awful breath and turned the knife edge to bite sharply into my neck. There was just enough pressure to scare me.

“When the night comes, I’ll show you exactly what sort of brotherhood we are.” He said darkly. And with that, he let go of my arms quickly and I collapsed to the ground. He pretty much performed an about-face and walked straight to the front door, swung it wide open and didn't even close it behind him as he strolled out the house. He walked away like he didn't have a care in the world.

I held back the tears until I was sure the evil man was gone. And I only allowed myself to cry for a few moments. It was just a quick outburst of tears filled with fear, rage, and frustration. I was so tired of feeling this way. I was so tired of feeling hunted and trapped. Then I finally picked myself up and hurried over to check on my baby.

It took two and a half days for me to open the red envelope that was left on my doorstep. I was too upset and maybe in a little denial about the whole situation. I just needed to let my nerves unwind before I jumped back headfirst into my husband’s sadistic mind games.

But part of me knew his mind game was already working on me. The red envelope seemed to call from where it lay at the top of my dresser. And I felt it calling in every room I was in. It bugged me at all hours of the day. 

The envelope could have important information that I needed to know to keep my daughter and me safe, or it could be empty. It could just be a sick joke in his twisted way of controlling me.  Regardless, it was like my tell-tale heart beating incessantly through the floor.

When I decided to open the envelope, I had to mentally prepare myself for the emotional assault that was sure to follow whatever was inside, even if it was nothing. The envelope contained a single white card with Tobbie’s scratchy handwriting upon it in red pen.

The note read, “Don’t fight. Don’t run. It will only make it worse for you. Just accept the consequences of your actions.” 

I must have stood there and read the short message 50 times. My eyes flew over the red ink and I began to mumble the message out loud to myself. Still, no matter how many times I reread it, or rephrased its wording, it still only baffled me.

Tobbie truly believed I deserved all this! I knew this in my heart. It wasn't just an abuser's mind game to gaslight the abuse. He was coming to hurt or kill me, then kidnap my daughter. While doing all this he believed he was in the right. He believed I deserved it, and God was on his side!

I scowled and crumpled the note in my hands. A cold feeling slowly fell over me. It was a feeling I had never felt before. My slight shaking ceased and my breathing steadied. It was a feeling that both strengthened and worried me.

My deranged husband believed I would comply with his twisted demands. And the truth was, the old me would have given in. I would have done anything to quell his legendary temper. But I’m different now. I’ve become a mother and I have to protect my child.

I realized the new sensation I was feeling was the urge to protect. This urge was stronger than the fear Tobbie had been using as a whip to keep me in place for so long.

I decided right then that I was going to fight his control. I was going to “make it hard on myself.” I was going to protect my daughter and kill him if I had to!

“Big talk for a girl that took 3 Taebo classes,” said the pessimist voice in my head. Or was the voice just a realist. “He will kill you if you fight him!”

“I have to try! I have to do something!” I argued aloud to my negative inner monologue. I went to pick up Marissa and hold her close for comfort, and considered my options.

“What can you do? How much time do you have?” asked the inner voice. “You’re being watched, so doing anything drastic will cause him to come quicker! How much time do you really have?”

“I don’t know,” I said quietly. The exciting feeling of determination began to taper off and the old fear wormed its way back in. 

“We have to break free! We have to try!” I said as I pulled Marissa in closer.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ceslystories/s/qOJqicVmac