The Second Visit

It had been nearly four months since I first saw the crawling girl. I had almost convinced myself she was a product of a sleepless night, a trick of the moonlight through the curtains. Life had returned to normal, or as normal as it gets when you live in the attic conversion of your grandmother’s house, with your father and two younger sisters in the main house below. My name is Daniel, and I was eighteen, my sisters Jess and Sam were seventeen and sixteen respectively. We were used to being left to our own devices, but this particular weekend, our father had gone on a business trip, leaving us under the nominal supervision of our grandmother, who was more than happy to let us run wild as long as we didn’t disturb her afternoon soap operas.

The house was an old Victorian, creaking with every step, and the attic had been converted into a single large room for me, with sloped ceilings and a small window that looked out over the backyard. It was my sanctuary, a place where I could escape the chaos of my sisters. Sam was a notorious sleep-kicker, and Jess was a talker, so I often sought refuge up there to get some peace.

That Friday evening, we decided to have a movie marathon. We ordered pizza, ate an entire bag of gummy bears, and laughed until our sides hurt. By midnight, we were all exhausted. Sam, who had been staying in my room because her own was being repainted, had already zonked out on my bed, her limbs splayed like a starfish. Jess claimed the couch bed in the living room, and I was about to settle into an armchair when I remembered I had left my phone charger in the attic. I trudged up the narrow stairs, my footsteps echoing on the wooden steps.

The attic was dimly lit by a single bulb, and the floorboards groaned under my weight. I grabbed the charger and was about to head back down when I noticed the window was slightly ajar. A cold breeze made the curtains flutter, and I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. I walked over to close it, and as I leaned out to grab the handle, I saw her.

She was at the edge of the yard, just beyond the fence, crawling on all fours like a spider. Her head snapped up to look at me, and I saw the same pale face, the same black eyes that had haunted me months before. I froze, my heart hammering. She smiled, a wide, lipless grin, and began to crawl toward the house, her movements jerky, her joints twisting at unnatural angles. I slammed the window shut and fumbled with the latch, my hands shaking. I backed away from the glass, and when I looked again, she was gone.

I convinced myself it was a hallucination, maybe from too much caffeine. I went back down to the living room, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. I checked the doors and windows, all locked. I curled up on the armchair, but sleep eluded me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face.

The next morning, I told Jess and Sam about it, but they laughed it off, thinking I was trying to scare them. I tried to put it out of my mind, but I had a nagging dread. That afternoon, while we were in the kitchen making sandwiches, I heard a sound from the attic. It was a scraping, like something being dragged across the floor. I went to investigate, and as I climbed the stairs, I heard a faint giggle. At the top, I saw that the window was open again, the curtains billowing. A small handprint was smeared on the glass, the palm tiny and gray.

I called out, ‘Is anyone there?’ No answer. I went to close the window, and as I did, I caught a glimpse of movement in the backyard. There she was, in the middle of the lawn, her head tilted at an impossible angle, her eyes locked on me. She raised a hand and waved, then began to crawl toward the garden shed, disappearing behind it.

I knew I couldn’t ignore this. I ran downstairs and told Jess and Sam we needed to leave, but they were in the middle of arguing about something, and they brushed me off. Sam said, ‘You’re just trying to ruin our fun.’ Jess was more concerned about the chocolate stain on her shirt. I grabbed my keys and said, ‘I’m going out for a bit. Lock the doors behind me.’ But they just waved me away.

I drove around for a while, trying to calm my nerves. I called my father, but he didn’t answer. I considered calling my grandmother, but she would have thought I was crazy. Eventually, I returned home, hoping it was all in my head. As I pulled into the driveway, I saw that the front door was ajar. My heart lurched. I ran inside, calling for my sisters. The living room was empty. The kitchen was a mess, drawers pulled out, cabinets open. I ran upstairs, shouting their names.

I found them in my attic room, huddled in the corner, staring at the window. Sam was crying, and Jess was pointing, her face ashen. I looked at the window and saw her. She was pressed against the glass from outside, her face smeared with dirt, her eyes black pools. She tilted her head, and I heard a voice, not from her, but from inside my head, a whisper that said, ‘You came back.’

Before I could react, she pulled back and scurried across the roof, out of sight. I rushed to the window and looked out, but there was no sign of her. We ran downstairs, grabbing our things, and drove to my grandmother’s house. She was in the living room, knitting, oblivious. We told her we were staying there for a while, and she just nodded, not asking questions.

That night, we couldn’t sleep. We sat in the living room, the lights on, trying to make sense of what we had seen. At around 3 a.m., we heard a scratching at the front door. It was slow, methodical, like fingernails dragging across wood. Jess whimpered, and Sam hid her face in my shoulder. I peered through the peephole and saw nothing. The scratching continued, from the bottom of the door. I backed away, and then it stopped.

A moment later, there was a tapping on the window behind us. We spun around, and there she was, crawling up the outside wall, her head twisted to look at us. She opened her mouth, and a high-pitched giggle filled the room. Then she crawled onto the roof, and disappeared.

We spent the rest of the night in the kitchen, the table pushed against the door, the lights blaring. We didn’t sleep. The next morning, we told our grandmother, and for the first time, she looked scared. She said, ‘You saw the crawler?’ She told us a story about a little girl who lived in these woods decades ago, who went missing and was never found. Legend said she became a vengeful spirit, crawling on her hands and knees, searching for the warmth of the living. She would visit those who were alone, or those who had done her wrong. None of us knew what she wanted.

We packed up and moved to a motel in town, calling our father to come home early. When he arrived, he listened to our story, his face grim. He said, ‘I thought I saw something too, a few weeks ago, in the garden. I thought it was a raccoon.’ He hired a priest, who blessed the house, but we knew it wouldn’t end. I could feel her eyes on us, even as we drove away.

A week later, we were back in the attic, the house silent. We had all agreed to stay together for a while. I was packing some things when I felt a cold draft. I turned, and she was there, crouched on my bed, her head tilted. She whispered, ‘You can’t run.’ And then she was gone, but I knew she was right. She was part of us now, a permanent fixture in our lives. I tried to sleep, but I could hear her scratching, beneath the floorboards, in the walls, a constant reminder that she was still waiting, patient and hungry.

Days turned into weeks, and we learned to live with the fear. We never went out after dark. We never left the doors unlocked. But sometimes, in the quiet hours, I would catch a glimpse of her in the mirror, or hear her giggle in the attic. And I knew, she would never let us go. I named her in my mind, the Crawling Girl, and I wrote about her, hoping to understand. But all I know is that she came to me a second time, and from that moment, our lives were forever changed. She was the face in the window, the whisper in the dark, the constant companion we never asked for.

The last thing I remember clearly is looking out the attic window, seeing her silhouette against the moon, and realizing that we had become her playground. And that there was no escape.