Closer

by Fiona Murphy

When the lockdown came, Grandpa scooped me from Cork city for seclusion in the Kerry mountains.

I had not been back home for years, but I soon uneasily began to settle back in, distracting myself through toiling on the farm or catering to my grandparents, as I had done a decade previously (before I planned my escape.)

The isolation, with no streetlamps, sirens, nor another soul for miles, startled me at night.

We felt like the last people alive, with our ability to live off the land, and no technology whatsoever. I could not even get signal for my cell phone. Well, at least it was one of the safest places on earth, I bitterly thought to myself.

Mere days after my arrival, Nana fevered; the cottage became narrower, colder, darker.

Holding her hand, I remembered her stories of a female phantom called the Banshee, or how she would regale me about soldiers’ spirits, and the fate of those abandoned at the crossroads.

The Banshee frightened me worst of all though. According to Nana, she was the spirit of a blind, ragged old woman, who would wail outside a home where a bereavement had taken place.

Nana swore that The Banshee came when Ma and Pa’s car was hit by the drunk driver, but I really didn’t entertain that, and we had a huge row about it, one of many.

I had been a baby when that happened. Pa had the sense to throw me between his legs, leaving me the sole survivor. Nana reckoned the Banshee was angry that she didn’t get everyone that she wanted that night.

Anyway. No more stories from Nana. No more anything. Grandpa kissed her moist brow; closed her eyes.

A scream ripped through the stillness.

Was it coming from the fields? I covered my ears.

Grandpa was confused, he could not hear anything. The animals were strangely silent too.

It went on all night. It felt like the sound was on the move and getting closer.

Each evening, at the same time she died, the sound wailed around the fields for hours.  

Closer. Closer.

When the house was quiet, it was too quiet.  

We could not bury Nana with the rituals she wanted. We were not allowed to have a decent funeral. It was just Grandpa and I, overlooking her burial from a distance.

That evening, I collapsed into Nana’s armchair. The crucifix leapt off the adjoining wall, shattering on the beamed floor.

Was Nana unhappy that we were not allowed to have a wake?

But this didn’t feel like her warmth, her inability to take up space; this presence felt new, and it loomed as sinister and desolate as a tomb.

Every time I talked to Grandpa about it, he told me to stop ‘messing’.

Every evening, the screams got closer.

Closer. Closer.

I wasn’t able to get a good night’s sleep for what felt like weeks. It couldn’t be weeks, could it?

The one time I did fall asleep at night, I woke with a jolt. Behind me, a ragged nail scraped up and down the windowpane, rattling in the wind.

The screams got closer. Closer. Closer. Closer.

When I slept during the day, someone came to me in my dreams. All I could remember, was she had holes where her eyes should be. 

Another evening. I tried to doze on the couch, the blanket firmly over my head.

I heard the door swing open and shut. Maybe Grandpa was wearing his slippers, he sounded light compared to the usual tread of his hob-nailed boots.

I felt a dip in the cushions as someone sat next to me.

The blanket was torn from me, a chill touched my forehead, but no one was there.

I tore upstairs to find Grandpa.

To my horror, he was ailing in bed. His temperature was 38 degrees. I wept, taking his hand.

As I did so, shrieks vibrated the house, moving up the stairs in waves.

Closer. Closer. Closer. Closer. Close!!!

I stayed with him all night, my hands over my ears, an armchair wedged against the door.

He recovered: like clockwork, the shrieks stopped.

The next night, the clock chimed the usual time, but nothing happened. Relieved, I stoked the fire’s dying embers.

It was over.

I summoned the energy to brush my teeth, carry my heavy body upstairs, go to bed.

I woke up, feeling like I was falling through mist.  

She glided through my door, a wizened woman, translucent, holes for eyes, beckoning her skeletal claw.

Closest.

She opened her ghastly mouth to scream.

I realised.

She had finally, come for me, instead.