Each time she closed her eyes, the cabin came into view and all she could hear was the woman’s screams in her mind. But when she couldn’t bear it anymore, she picked up the remote, raised the volume even higher, and closed her eyes again. It was a trick she learned when she was younger, when the thoughts continued to haunt her. She focused on the sound, on the people talking on TV, until she finally drifted off into sleep.

***

She stood in front of the cabin, the woman’s screams hitting her like shards of glass—each one sending a stabbing pain through her body. She tried to inch forward—she wanted to help her—but with each step, the screams grew louder, sending her body into agonizing pain. She closed her eyes hard, focusing on the inside of her eyelids until the screams faded into a whisper and nothing could be heard at all.

But then, suddenly, the screams began again. They started quietly, building in volume upon each one and as they became clearer, Tara realized the screams were different. They didn’t sound like a stranger’s screams at all—they sounded like her mother’s.

She opened her eyes and all she could see was darkness, except for a light shining from beneath a door in front of her. She was in a closet. She could smell the soft leather of her mother’s jacket that she wore everywhere she went, and as Tara looked down at her feet, she was met with the cold, bare feet of her younger self—the feet of a little girl.

Her mother’s screaming got louder and Tara reached for the doorknob. She held it in her grasp for a moment as it vibrated in her shaking hand, but she was too afraid to turn it. Suddenly, her body jumped at the sound of a door flung open in the distance. She heard one more agonizing scream, and then it faded into nothing, until it was replaced by a whimpering that Tara recognized as her father’s.

She hadn’t even known that her father was home and the sound of his cries frightened her, for she had never heard her father cry. Maybe he was looking for her. Maybe he was scared too.

Tara stepped out of the closet and walked down the hall—following her father’s cries—but her feet stopped short as she felt a warm liquid between her toes. She looked down and her mind suddenly swirled into a haze. Blood covered her feet, and as she looked toward the living room, she was met with her mother’s blank stare, and a pool of blood.

Her father stood over her mother, and for a moment, he didn’t even realize Tara stood in front of him. He just looked down at her mother, a blank stare in his eyes, until he slowly picked up his head.

His eyes moved to the corner of the room—an area Tara couldn’t see from the hallway she stood in—and he stared at it longingly until he spoke to it.