She gave an embarrassed smile and shrugged. “It just never felt right, you know? I tried going away one time, but after a month I started getting sick, even still using safety candles every night. I finally came back here, and by the next morning I was fine as paint. I don’t know if it’s because of my leg or not, but I don’t think I’m meant much for living anywhere else but here.” Just then she looked up as she heard my mother’s footsteps approaching. Giving me a sly wink, she whispered. “Let’s keep our little talk just between us, okay?”

I nodded, and in the twenty years since I’ve never talked about it to anyone.

But then six months ago my grandmother fell and broke her hip. She was in her nineties by then, and while we called her trip to the nursing home “rehab”, we all knew she wasn’t coming out again. Still, she was in good spirits over all, and once we briefed the night staff on her routine of having a candle lit at the door and window of her room, my grandmother seemed content.

I lived farther away by then, and it was three months before I made it back to see her. I had intended on arriving by mid-afternoon, but it was well after dark before I entered the nursing home and found my way to her room.

The room was dark and silent, the only sound the light noise of rain starting to hit the window outside as I stepped further in. Looking around, I fumbled for a light without success as I tried to distinguish the shadows in front of me by the dim ambient light of the hallway. There was the bed, but where was she? For that matter, where were her candles?

creak creak

I looked around at the noise. “Grandma? You here?”

Nothing. It wasn’t a large room, but it felt massive and oppressive in the dark, almost like I was back…

creak creak creak

The pain as she bit down on my neck felt like it was going to split me apart, and I would have collapsed then if not for her strong, long hands wrapped around my arms and holding me upright. I distantly heard a woman yell somewhere behind me, and then I was falling for what felt like a very long time.

When I awoke, three days had passed. My grandmother had apparently had “an episode” and attacked me before fleeing out into the stormy night. As of then, or now, she hasn’t been found.