The Creamery’s Toll

Our family’s pilgrimage to the heartland began with a funeral and ended with something far more sinister. My grandmother, a woman of quiet superstitions, had passed, and we made the long drive from the coast of South Carolina to the flat, windswept plains of Missouri. We stayed with my uncle’s family in a creaking farmhouse that had been in our bloodline for generations. My cousins were there: Meredith, the brooding nineteen-year-old; Clara, the sixteen-year-old with a taste for the macabre; and little Rosie, just eight, with eyes that seemed to see too much.

From the first night, the house felt wrong. The air was thick, smelling of old wood and something acrid, like burnt sugar. On the second night, I saw the kitchen light flicker on and off, rhythmically, as if someone were toying with the switch. My father dismissed it as faulty wiring, but my mother’s face went pale. A few days later, my parents claimed they saw the baby gate at the top of the stairs swing open and shut on its own, with no breeze to move it. Rosie, in her innocent lisp, pointed to the corner of her room and asked, ‘Who is the lady in the blue dress?’ We all laughed it off, but I noticed the way my uncle’s jaw tightened.

In a jocular attempt to regain some control over the eerie atmosphere, my aunt brought home a board game from an antique shop in town. It was a Ouija board, and she thought it might be a morbidly fun way to pass the evening. That night, after Rosie was safely at a neighbor’s house, we sat in a circle in the dimly lit living room. The board was old, the wood warped, and the letters faded. We placed our fingers on the planchette, our knuckles white with anticipation. At first, the planchette moved in hesitant, jerky gestures. We made contact with my grandmother, and her spirit felt warm and familiar, telling us she was at peace. But then, something else came through. The planchette slid swiftly to ‘S’, then ‘A’, then ‘M’. ‘SAM’, it spelled. We asked for the last name. It spelled ‘I-W-I-G’.

My aunt gasped. ‘That’s the name of the dairy farm just outside town,’ she said. ‘Sam Iwig. He was the founder, back in the 1800s.’ The planchette began to move faster, more forcefully. We asked Sam what he wanted. The planchette spelled: ‘THE TOLL.’ We looked at each other, confused. ‘What toll?’ my uncle asked. The answer came: ‘THE CREAM.’ A cold draft swept through the room, extinguishing a candle in the corner. My uncle laughed nervously and said, ‘Maybe he’s just a friendly ghost who wants his ice cream back.’ We tried to end the session, but the planchette flew to ‘NO’ and then spelled ‘YOU WILL PAY.’ The air grew thick, and the light in the hallway flickered violently. We yanked our hands away, and the planchette fell to the floor, sliding face down.

The next morning, we found the refrigerator in the kitchen empty. Every ounce of dairy had vanished—the milk, the butter, the cheese, even the half-gallon of ice cream that had been in the freezer. The containers were there, but they were empty, licked clean, almost as if something had drained them. Rosie, back from her friend’s house, looked at the empty fridge and said, ‘The man in the tall hat came last night. He told me to drink it all.’ My aunt’s face went white. We tried to rationalize—a raccoon wouldn’t have been able to open the fridge, let alone drink three gallons of milk. But the unease settled into our bones.

That night, we decided to pack up and leave early, but as we prepared to go, we heard a low, guttural sound coming from the old dairy barn at the edge of the property. We hadn’t noticed it before, but it was there, dilapidated and overgrown with ivy. The sound was like a cow’s moan, but deeper, more human. My uncle grabbed a flashlight, and we hesitantly followed him to the barn. The door creaked open, and inside, in the faint light, we saw strange symbols painted on the walls in what looked like dried blood. In the center of the barn, there was a stone altar, and on it, a single, rusted milk can. The can was full, but when we tipped it over, a thick, black liquid spilled out, and it smelled of sour milk and decay. Clara, the one who always delved into the occult, whispered, ‘It’s a payment. He wants a soul in exchange for the cream.’

We fled back to the house, my heart pounding. We called the police, but when they arrived, they found nothing—no symbols, no altar, just an empty barn. They dismissed us as stressed from the funeral. We decided to leave at dawn, but that night, we had the most terrifying experience of all. I woke to a strange sound, a rhythmic slurping, coming from the kitchen. I crept downstairs and saw the baby gate swinging gently. In the kitchen, little Rosie stood by the open fridge, holding a gallon of milk, now empty, her lips and chin coated in thick, white cream. She turned to me, her eyes glazed, and said, ‘He said I could have all I want if I stay with him.’

We didn’t sleep that night. We packed the car under the cold, indifferent stars and drove away as fast as the gravel would allow. We never spoke of it again, but I still dream of that dairy farm outside town, its name like a curse. The last thing my grandmother ever said to me, before she passed, was a warning: ‘Beware the ones who bring the cream.’ I understood too late. The Toll was not in milk or money, but in the innocence of a child, and we had left Rosie behind. But when I called my uncle on the drive back, he said she was beside him, humming a nursery rhyme. When I asked what she was humming, he said it was about a man in a tall hat and a cart of cream. I hung up, and I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that when I look into a glass of milk, I see not a pure white, but a pale, translucent face staring back. And I know, somewhere in the heartland, the creamery still calls for its toll.