Karen had inherited the house from my grandparents years before I was born, and for as long as I could remember we had always gone there to visit for a week or two every summer. The house itself was massive, with three full stories and a large basement, and it sat nestled in two hundred acres of countryside that was so removed from what we were used to in the city that it might as well have been a fairytale land from one of the fantasy books Rusty loved so much. For her part, our aunt seemed to love the company, and every visit she always had fun activities planned and seemed sad to be left alone in the house when it got time for us to go.

The last time we went to stay at the house, everything was different. It was early November, and our father had packed us off to stay with Karen in the aftermath of our mother abandoning us all to leave the state with some guy she had met through work. Aside from the emotional toll that took on our family, it left a massive financial hole as well. We were going to lose our house, and our father was trying to get a raise or a better-paying job while also figuring out where we were going to be living long-term. To take some pressure off and buy him the time we needed, Karen agreed to let us come stay with her for as long as was necessary.

Karen was still a sweet, loving woman who seemed happy for our company, but she had grown visibly weaker in the last year. We had found out during that year’s summer trip that she had been diagnosed with cancer, and while she was hopeful that the chemotherapy would help, her chances for recovery were slim. The house we loved, that had always seemed so filled with laughter and fun, now seemed coated with some kind of…residue. A taint of sadness and loss and worry that put a heavy film on everything. We would talk to Dad every night for a few minutes on the phone, and we tried to sound positive because of how sad he had been lately, but by the third day we were spending most of our time outside despite the cold and the wet. Exploring the woods and playing games outdoors seemed the easiest way of keeping our mind off all the bad things that were going on.

Then one day we stumbled upon the monster.