OLD HAG SYNDROME Tim Dankanich
For the last twenty years, Annette Chambers has been haunted by the same recurring nightmare of her beloved twin sister’s death. When a cryptic stranger warns Annette that she is in danger of being murdered -- just like her sister -- by an ancient evil that dwells between dreams and reality, Annette initially dismisses the idea until she is attacked in her sleep by an unseen entity. Annette soon learns what she experienced is known throughout history as Old Hag Syndrome, a horrifying affliction that causes victims to awake, paralyzed, unable to scream while they are tormented by hallucinations. Soon Annette realizes the Old Hag she faces is real and has been killing off her friends and family. Her nightmare becomes a frightening reality where the only hope of survival lies somewhere between death and madness. Old Hag Syndrome is based on a real and terrifying condition that affects thousands worldwide.
Hitting the Screen in May 2015 HTTP://WWW.THEOLDHAGSYNDROMEMOVIE.COM/
CHAPTER 1 She closed her eyes knowing it was only a matter of time until she saw her sister die, again. The nightmare always started the same way. It began with the same innocent normalcy embedded within the brief moments before death or madness. Crawling closer each and every night beyond the memory of childhood and dwelling in wait within the dark veil between dreams and reality. If only it were just a nightmare. With the smell of dead leaves still in her hair, Annette Chambers had almost fallen asleep. She was ignoring the ghostly whispers of the wind outside that quietly confessed to dismantling the autumn-colored bed of leaves in the front yard that her twin sister Rheanna helped rake up as the sun was going down. Just before their mother had called them inside for the night, they both stole one last swan dive into their greatest leaf collection ever. Being eight years old and being raised by a single parent now seemed to grant some pleasantly unexpected leniencies within their mother’s tolerance level. The twins welcomed these small parental permissions and generosities that were never there before. But it did very little to distract them from missing their father. That was the unspoken reason why they felt the need to continually challenge their mother’s endurance under these difficult circumstances. It was their childish attempt to better understand something that may never make sense. So the seemingly overnight correction in their mother’s patience and behavior demanded to be fully tested and taken advantage of once they learned the full extent of what they could now get away with, because in a strange way, they missed their mother as well. The twins knew they were never supposed to go far from the house and never get too crazy with things due to Rheanna’s breathing problem, but tomorrow they had secretly plotted to steal all the leaves from all the neighbor’s yards and build a mountain of leaves as high as their Victorian-styled
home. They also planned to hold hands as they fell through it together. Afterward, they would brush themselves off, rake up and repeat. The faint lullaby of those same dried leaves scraped across the shadow-strewn New England street outside her second-floor bedroom window as Annette was on the verge of falling asleep, but something was keeping her awake. As if Annette Chambers knew without knowing that a horrifying unacknowledged nightmare remained buried and breathing just beneath the mausoleum of dead leaves she was so close to dreaming about. But despite her overwhelming exhaustion and the comforting fabric-softener perfume of her warm blanket, she still couldn’t sleep. Annette slowly opened her eyes, and without knowing, Annette knew Rheanna was still awake in the bunk bed below her. Annette felt her twin sister’s thoughts and emotions restlessly invading her own, all thanks to what her father used to call their psycho powers, which he explained as being a very special bond often shared between identical twins. Their psychic link first manifested itself three years ago during their first real family vacation outside of Rhode Island to a magical, candythemed wonderland called Hershey Park that was located in a weird, faraway place called Pennsylvania. It was there, within the heart of the park, that Annette and Rheanna stumbled upon the rows of midway carnival games after a long day of thrilling rides and memorable sights and sounds of excitement. Both their parents were tired and happy to get a chance to sit down at a picnic bench along the midway. The twins were fixated on a game booth that consisted of a row of brightly colored numbers on a shelf in front of the booth where a man was spinning a large standing wheel that contained the same numbers within brightly separated colors. The man spun the wheel, and the flexible little arrow on top made a neat chattering noise as it hit all the little pegs separating each color and number. They watched the game being played and quickly understood how it worked. You simply picked a number, placed twenty-five cents on the shelf that contained the exact number that the arrow would point to once the wheel stopped spinning, and you won a prize. After jumping up and down begging each of their
parents for a quarter, their father handed over the currency in exchange for resting his feet a bit longer. As they ran to the game booth, the twins scanned through the various stuffed animals decorating the walls around the number wheel. They both decided to win the large teddy bear. They both stared at the wheel and saw the same number and color that seemed to separate itself from the wheel and stand out from the rest. The twins placed their quarters on the same spot on the shelf that had the number five in a bright green square. The man spun the wheel that chattered then clicked as it slowed down and finally stopped with the arrow pointing at the number five in its bright green glory. The man applauded their luck, and after collecting other children’s quarters on the row of numbers, he reached under the shelf and handed the twin sisters each a strange, small swath of fur with glued-on eyes as their prize. They both pouted to the man about wanting the teddy bear, and to their delight, the man explained that they needed to win two of the small prizes first and then bet those prizes on a number in order to win one of the large prizes. Annette and Rheanna agreed to these rules, and after inspecting the wheel once more, they both placed their small prize on the bright red number eight. The wheel was spun, and the twins happily waited as the chattering slowed down to a clicking and saw the arrow stop and point on their selected bright-red number eight. The twins squealed with joy as the man collected all the other quarters on the shelf along with the two strange pieces of fur, which he placed back under the shelf and handed over the teddy bear without saying a word. They both took turns hugging the stuffed animal in front of the booth as other children with quarters in their hands approached the game. One observant young boy who had noticed their good fortune quietly asked them which number he should pick. By the time their parents walked over to the booth after losing sight of the twins among the hoard of children that had gathered around the game, there was a massive mound of fur with many glued-on eyes piled on a single section of the shelf. All of the children quietly held their breath as the wheel clicked to a stop, then let out a collective scream of happiness as the arrow once again landed on the exact number the twins
told everyone to place their bets on. The man gave the twins and their parents a look of utter contempt as he handed away one large prize after another. Annette held one of the teddy bear’s paws and Rheanna held the other as they were parentally shuffled away from the booth. The twins told their parents how easy that game was, but couldn’t quite explain why it was so easy. Annette and Rheanna later learned they shared a powerful and personal psychic connection that their father encouraged them to practice and perfect, much like any other special talent that a proud parent recognized within their children. Their mother, on the other hand, took a far less paranormally romantic approach toward their inseparable strangeness. Rheanna and Annette loved their mother’s simple explanation of identical twins being hatched from the same egg, therefore sharing the same looks, the same mind, and the same soul. However, what she failed to mention was how identical twins were also expected to share the same household chores. But they quickly learned to take advantage of the time they spent washing dishes or folding laundry to practice playing mind games with their psycho powers. After all, practice makes perfect. Which was how Annette knew Rheanna was still currently awake, which also meant Annette knew what was going to happen next. Sometimes shared psychic abilities were just annoying. “Annette, you awake?” “No…” Annette closed her eyes when she heard the familiar sound of Rheanna trying to be quiet as she climbed out of her bottom bunk, silently opened the bedroom door, and tip-toed down the hallway. For a moment, Annette felt a sudden sense of fear and anxiety but couldn’t decide if that emotion belonged to herself or Rheanna. In fact, that wasn’t the first time the shared psychic sensitivity she had with her sister caused her to question the validity of her own thoughts and feelings. She remembered a few weeks ago when, out of nowhere, she felt a sharp pain in her leg, which caused her to limp all around the house, only to find out that Rheanna had fallen and scraped her knee on the very same
leg where Annette felt the phantom pain. Annette sat up in bed, silently inspecting the darkened room from atop her bunk. She found herself examining every shadow, as if waiting for one of them to move. Annette pleaded to her sister to hurry up by clearly yelling the phrase in her mind. Even though Annette knew her sister had heard her projected thoughts, she still jumped when Rheanna rushed back in and quietly closed the bedroom door. Rheanna plugged in the nightlight she had just stolen from the wall near the stairs, and their bedroom became filled with a soft, comforting glow that instantly alleviated their shared sense of childish fear. “You know Mom’s going to get mad right?” Rheanna smiled at her twin sister. “Mom’s always mad.” Their rebellious fun and games seemed to last forever within the childhood anarchy of staying up past bedtime. They held hands and spun around the room, silently singing along to the various songs only they could hear that played in stereo within their young minds. After they got dizzy, they fell to the floor where they sat and talked about growing up. Annette had decided that she was determined to become a doctor, which, in turn, influenced Rheanna’s sudden decision to become a nurse so they could work in the same hospital together. Then they pretended to perform open heart surgery on their prized teddy bear with complete success and expected a quick and healthy recovery for their patient, Mr. Sniffles. Afterward, they played their favorite card game where they had to accurately guess if the hand-picked card contained a square, a cross, a star, a circle, or squiggly lines. They both took turns picking cards, and no matter how chaotically the cards were shuffled, their guesses were always accurate. Then they played an old game of mirroring every movement of the other in perfect synchronized unison while they sat on the floor across from each other. Rheanna removed the red ribbon which held her hair back in a ponytail and stuffed it into the front pocket of her matching pajamas. Together they brushed their long, brown hair in perfectly synchronized unison, which gave the illusion of only one little girl sitting in front of a large mirror and sweetly singing a harmonized duet
with her reflection. “There was an old woman who swallowed a fly. I don’t know why she swallowed a fly. Perhaps she’ll die. There was an old woman who swallowed a spider that wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly, I don’t know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she’ll die…” On and on, the two continued reciting the rhyme until it ended in an explosion of laughter. After an overextended fit of the giggles, Rheanna started to cough and turned pale as she struggled to breathe. Annette stopped laughing, ran to Rheanna’s nightstand, and quickly retrieved her sister’s inhaler. For all their identical similarities, the only real difference between them was that Rheanna had asthma attacks. Annette caringly rubbed her twin’s back as Rheanna slowly caught her breath after taking several puffs from her inhaler. “Don’t worry. When I grow up and become a doctor, I’ll find a cure and fix you.” Rheanna tried her best to smile. “Promise?” For no apparent reason, they both turned and stared at the bedroom door in nervous anticipation. Without knowing, they both knew they were in trouble. The door swung open, and their mother, Pamela Chambers, burst into the room wearing a long nightgown under their father’s old cardigan sweater. Pamela turned on the bedroom light with a look of anger and shock across her tired face. “What are you two still doing awake?” Without a second of hesitation, the startled twin sisters answered their mother at the same time with flawless simultaneous speech. “We’re not awake. You’re still asleep and just dreaming all of this.” This double-talk as their mother called was a powerful tactic of cuteness that had never failed to win their mother’s smile. “Bed! Now! Copycats.” Rheanna scurried into the bottom half of the bunk bed as Annette climbed the small ladder leading to where she had tried to fall asleep in the first place.
“But Rheanna can’t sleep, so I can’t sleep. Don’t blame us; blame our psycho powers.” Pamela directed her own sleep-deprived attention to the glowing nightlight plugged into the wall. “And what have I told you? This belongs in the hallway.” As she walked over to confiscate the stolen nightlight, Rheanna quickly panicked. “Mom, no! Please?” “Rheanna, really, you’re too old for this.” “Oh but we’re not old enough to stay awake past bedtime?” Annette mumbled. “Hey. Don’t you even start.” “Mom, please, it keeps the bad thing away.” Rheanna looked to her mother with desperately innocent eyes while fidgeting with her inhaler. Pamela sat down on the bed to tuck in the blankets around her daughter and gently caressed her face. “Rheanna, it was just a nightmare. That’s all it was.” “But I was awake the whole time. I swear!” Her eyes begin to well up with tears. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. And it wanted to hurt me. Mom, please, it was so scary.” “But, honey, it wasn’t real.” Annette’s hair hung upside down next to her mother as she leaned over the edge of the top bunk. “Dad would’ve believed her.” Pamela lowered her head, and her expression instantly changed from a concerned and caring mother to a newly single parent trying her best to not resort to the same type of abusive discipline inflicted upon her as a little girl. Pamela sternly issued a simple “Goodnight!” as she stood up and took the nightlight from the wall. She turned off the bedroom light and slammed the door closed behind her. Annette knew Rheanna was staring at the wooden base-board and support beams holding up the bed above her. Annette felt her sister’s eyes drilling a hole in her back. “Why did you say that?” Annette slid her arm down between her bed and the wall, searching around for her sister’s acknowledgment. “You were thinking the same
exact thing.” Rheanna took hold of Annette’s hand as a gesture of appreciation and comfort from the dark. This was the way they used to fall asleep every night after their father had surprised them with bunk beds on their fifth birthday. Holding hands together while falling asleep separately. “And what am I thinking now?”Annette knew without knowing that Rheanna was certain she could’ve sweet talked their mom into submission, but now she blamed Annette for the room being dark and scary again. She also knew that Rheanna wanted to sleep in the top bunk next to her. But Annette was awake now, and she wasn’t done playing games yet. “First you have to guess how many fingers I’m holding up.” Annette held out her hands in front of her and smirked as she purposely switched and varied the number of digits she displayed as soon as she knew Rheanna was close to seeing it in her mind. Rheanna held out her middle finger up toward Annette’s bed. “No, you guess how many fingers I’m holding up.” Annette paused for a moment to think and clearly saw the forbidden gesture. “Ooooo…I’m telling Mom.” “Please? I’m afraid to sleep down here tonight.” “Fine, but I’m not trading pillows with you again.” Rheanna quickly climbed the small bunk bed ladder and jumped into the bed. Annette hugged her sister and gave a quick kiss to her cheek. As they finally settled into the bed, Rheanna looked inquisitively at Annette as they lay side by side. “You’re scared too.” “Just stop thinking about it.” “You believe me then?” “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything bad ever happen to you.” Rheanna took her sister by the arm and proceeded to wrap and tie her red hair ribbon into a bow around Annette’s wrist. “This is for you. For always protecting me.” “But, this is your favorite one. It was my stupid fault for losing mine.”
“Well you better not lose this one.” “I promise I’ll keep it safe forever. Just like how I promise to keep you safe, so let’s just try to get some sleep now.” “I wish Dad was here.” Annette missed her father as well. She realized it felt much longer than a month since he left. At least their mother had relented on trying to convince them that separations or divorces between parents were in no way the child’s fault. “I know.” Annette attempted to fill her mind with mundane thoughts and small expectations of tomorrow. She reminded herself to finish her English homework on the bus ride to school. She also remembered she forgot to tell Mom they were out of peanut butter again. She let all these random thoughts drift in and out of her mind, knowing they would serve as small distractions that hopefully eased her sister’s mind enough to fall asleep. The twins wiggled, trying to get comfortable in their small section of bed. Unconsciously moving around with their eyes closed until they were both lying on their left sides in the identically same position, mirroring each other right down to the way they both had one hand under the pillow and the other hand resting in the same position on the blanket. Annette soon felt her consciousness crossing through that dark veil separating the real world from the dream world. Before she knew it, they had both fallen asleep at the same time. That night, Annette never dreamed of the dead leaves. Instead, she found herself trapped within a labyrinth of darkened hallways of some abandoned hospital. Every doorway along the hall was unlocked, but inside each room, there was only one old hospital bed behind every door. Some hallways led to dead ends with a locked gated doorway in the middle of the hall. At first, she thought she was alone in this unsanitary maze, but the loud echo of one of the doors slamming open from some other hallway close by was all it took to frighten her into running to find a way out. But no matter where she ran, no matter which new direction or new hallway she chose to run through, there was no escape. She knew she was not alone anymore. She knew there was
someone or something following her. Something that must have been hiding in one of the rooms she had walked by. Something she had woken up and was now hunting her. She ran as fast as she could through the empty halls, trying to find a way out. Until one slip of her foot caused her to fall, and just before she hit the dirty floor, she instantly crossed back through the dark veil and opened her eyes. It was the middle of the night. Annette realized she must have been accidentally awoken by Rheanna twitching and mumbling in her sleep next to her. She contemplated waking her sister up and saving her from what looked like her own bad dream, but she knew if she did, Rheanna would not go back to sleep again, which meant there would be no more sleep for her tonight as well. Annette decided that the best thing to do would be to try and get some more sleep in the bottom bunk before she had to wake up for school. She was tired and her limbs were heavy as she carefully removed herself from under the covers. She made her way toward the foot of the bed and worked her way down the small ladder, watching her step to avoid that one creaky rung. Had she looked back at her sister as she slowly descended from the top bunk, she would’ve seen that Rheanna was now sitting up in the bed at an unnatural obtuse angle, with her mouth stretched agape in a silent and horrible scream, as her unblinking eyes were open wide with unrecognizable fear. Annette dropped herself into Rheanna’s bed, attempting to get comfortable. “I hate this pillow,” she whispered to herself. Annette quickly drifted back into the dark veil, but instead of completely crossing over into unconsciousness, she became aware of the faint sound of slow, uneven footsteps that were approaching from down the hallway. The sound of these footsteps continued getting closer until their bedroom door slowly squeaked open upon its hinges. Annette opened her sleepy eyes to the darkness blanketing every corner and negative space so that it became thick and heavy, as if a viscose black ink had begun seeping from the shadows and casting even
darker and more disturbing forms of obscurity throughout the bedroom. Annette thought she was dreaming as she heard the strange and irregular breathing sound of one consistent inhale that entered the room. The dry and raspy noise emanated from a large shadow of an indefinable form that gradually moved over her as she slowly realized she wasn’t dreaming. It was the unmistakable sound of that one creaky rung on the small ladder that caused Annette to open her eyes completely. At first, she thought the strange breathing sound was just her sister’s asthma, but she sluggishly realized she could also hear Rheanna’s struggled breathing as well. Annette knew she was completely awake when she heard the sounds of something climbing into the bed above her, loudly compressing the mattress springs with every slow step. Listening to Rheanna’s breathing become louder and more desperate underneath that abrasive and endless inhale, Annette’s blood froze in her veins as her stomach twisted into knots. Fear and panic bled from every screaming pore of her skin. She knew the noises were real, the darkness was real, and her fear was real. She knew without knowing that Rheanna was awake as well and frightened beyond anything her sister had ever known. Annette felt the presence of that thing in the bed above her, and for the first time in her life, she truly understood the definition of sensing true evil. She thought and hoped that at any moment, her mother would wake up and save them from whatever was in the room. The noises were so loud, their mother must’ve heard the breathing sounds, or just must have known, simply known that her daughters were in danger. But somewhere within the unknown darkness of her young mind, she knew her mother wasn’t going to save them. Annette wanted to scream, she wanted to run, but most of all she wanted to help her sister. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t make a sound, and she could do nothing to help. Annette tried to reach out to Rheanna with her thoughts, but there was no reply. All Annette could do was tremble under her sister’s blanket, listening as her mind repeatedly shattered with fright against the uncomfortable pillow beneath her head. Listening to something unimaginably horrible
crawling atop the groaning bedframe. Listening to something unimaginably horrible happening to her sister, because no one listened or believed her story about being attacked by the bad thing that wanted to kill her. No one believed her, including Annette, who secretly felt that her sister might be telling the truth but tried her best to ignore it as kindly as their mother did by repeating over and over to her sister and to herself that it was just a bad dream, simply because Annette was too afraid to believe it could possibly be anything else. But now, there was no denying it was real. It was in the room. It was hurting Rheanna, and she wasn’t dreaming any of this. Suddenly, the strange breathing stopped at the same time as Rheanna’s strangled breathing stopped. There was no sound in the room. Annette tried to force herself to be brave and do something, anything but lay there listening to the torturous silence of something waiting in that awful darkness. But she couldn’t move. She felt completely paralyzed, frightened, and alone. Without warning, the wooden plank and support beams above her cracked and splintered from sudden and extreme pressure. The enormous crushing sound caused a small struggled scream to escape from behind Annette’s clenched teeth. Annette quickly shut her eyes pretending to be asleep, while trembling with shock and fear as something large crawled down from the bed above her. With her eyes sealed shut, she listened to it breathing again with the sound of one, consistent inhale as it slowly moved closer to her. Annette’s eyes began to slowly open unintentionally. Within that darkness, a horrifying silhouette of a shrouded face shrieked violently with the decaying static sound of Rheanna’s own scream.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tim Dankanich was born within the state of Pennsylvania, a state which happens to be (in his opinion) the insane little sister of historical Transylvania. Without any formal training or education, he is a completely self-taught author, screenwriter, and artisan with a pathological obsession toward the dark, frightening, unexplained realms of the unknown. For more cryptic information visit: www.timdankanich.brushd.com