The Devil's Lullaby

by Chris Scalise

  Though she hadn’t yet opened her eyes, she could sense that it was very late. In her exhaustion, she may have slept a full twelve hours or more. That would make it at least one in the morning. She wanted to open her eyes and check the clock radio on the nightstand, but she had a strong feeling that she wasn’t alone. She couldn’t see, but she could sense that something was once again terribly wrong.

  All I have to do is stand up, run over to the door, and flick the light on, she reasoned. I don’t have to open my eyes.

  She lay frozen for another minute or so, and then slowly sat up in her bed. Just as she dragged her leg to the edge of the bed, her eerie silence was interrupted by something far more alarming. That horrific xylophone melody. The chilling notes once again played on the clock radio beside her bed, muffled by a thin layer of white noise. Then, just like before, the little girl’s voice began to sing on pitch with the melody:

  The devil creeps into my room

  To sing a lullaby

  He softly whispers

  Pleasant dreams

  For soon it's time to die

  Cassidy’s eyes shot open. Without another moment’s hesitation, she kicked the large comforter to the foot of the bed, jumped to her feet, grabbed her phone and diary from the nightstand, and raced out of the room dressed in only her blue floral-print pajamas.

  She rushed clumsily down the stairs, twice nearly losing her balance, and slipped into her shoes as she fumbled with the deadbolt on the front door. As soon as it opened, she grabbed her keys from the hook beside the door and rushed outside, slamming the door behind her.

  As she stumbled across the patchy bed of dirt and grass and dived into her Lexus RS, she gazed momentarily back at the second-story window of her bedroom. The decomposing face appeared to be staring down at her as she started the car and raced across the cul-de-sac and onto Eastern Ave.

  The digital time display on the dash read 3:17. She couldn’t believe how long she had been out. She sped several blocks along the empty street at nearly double the speed limit and turned east on Flamingo. She knew it was far too late to catch a movie at even the most lively of casino cinemas, but her mind was less fixated on a destination and more plagued by her own growing sense of hopelessness.

  Even as she turned along major streets and changed course no fewer than six times, she had no idea where she was headed. She just wanted to get away, whatever that meant.

  After nearly half an hour of wandering, she found herself at a twenty-four-hour IHOP restaurant on Boulder Highway. The building was painted in a sandy earth tone, its windows and entrance topped with blue awnings. Despite the late hour, the restaurant was well-lit and filled with patrons—most of whom appeared to be truckers. Under normal circumstances, Cassidy would have scoffed at the thought of eating at a diner full of unwashed truck drivers on a street lined with RV parks and mobile home communities, but tonight the sight brought her comfort.

  She pulled into the dusty, dimly lit parking lot and parked alongside a semi-trailer truck. She wasn’t hungry, but she could order coffee and wait for the sunrise. Waiting for the sunrise had become a regular routine for her, and she wondered if her sleep pattern would ever again return to normal.

  She stepped inside, embarrassed by her disheveled hair and floral pajamas, and was greeted by a smiling young hostess. The hostess seated her at a booth with a view of the Sam’s Town and Boulder Station hotels off in the distance. She ordered a coffee and asked if she could borrow a pen, realizing that she hadn’t brought one with her. When the hostess brought one to her, she opened the wrinkled diary and started writing. These days, it was the only thing that calmed her.

  Dear Mom,

  It’s like 3:30 in the morning and I’m sitting at IHOP. Long story, but I’ve already told it to you a hundred times, so I think you can guess why I’m here. Just between you and me, I’m starting to wonder if God can even hear my prayers, or if he’s even concerned about the problems of one tiny person. When you pray until your knees hurt but nothing changes, you have to wonder if maybe the whole thing is your own fault. I know that, in some way, I’ve allowed this nightmare to happen.

  I should have told you years ago about Dad and what he was doing to me, but Mom, I was scared. We were both living on his money, and I knew that if you found out he was hurting me, you would go after him. But then what? Would he kick me out of the house and take the money away from both of us, leaving us on the street? Could he hire some goon with a gun to take us out like in those old gangster movies? Maybe these seem like stupid fears, but they don’t sound stupid when you’re a teenager and you’re living with an abuser who seems like the most rich and powerful man in the world.

  And so, I told you everything was fine. I lied. I thought it was to protect you, to protect us. I didn’t know I was just letting this demon grow inside me. Letting it take over. Maybe it’s too late. I hope not, but if it is, I need you to know how sorry I am and how much I love you. If I could turn back time and do everything over, I would do whatever it takes. I love you and I miss you.

  Cassidy closed the diary and wiped the faint moisture from her eyes. Setting the book aside, she retrieved her phone from the left pocket of her pajama pants. Now it was time for some answers.

  Her initial thought was to dial her new friend Andrea for prayer and moral support, but she couldn’t bring herself to make the call at such an early hour. Instead, she opened up the web browser on her phone and—with trembling fingers—typed the words that were still echoing in her head on a continuous loop: “The devil creeps into my room to sing a lullaby he softly whispers pleasant dreams for soon it’s time to die.”

  She hesitated for a moment and finally tapped the “Search” button.

  As she waited for the search results to load, a heavyset waitress approached the booth and asked if she wanted anything to drink. Without looking up from her screen, Cassidy asked for a cup of coffee. The waitress said “You got it” and then trotted away.

  After what seemed like forever, the page loaded in her web browser. Most of the search results were just lyrics pages for various heavy metal songs referencing death and the devil, but none were an exact match.

  Then, about halfway down the page, she saw one result that caused her to stop cold. The title of the link read, “The Devil’s Lullaby — Not Just an Urban Legend.”

  Beneath the link was a brief description of the web page content: “If you hear this song on your radio late at night, it may already be too late.”

  Cassidy tossed her phone on the table and bit her lip. She stared at the screen, terrified to click on the link but desperate to know what it contained. The waitress returned with a cup of hot coffee and a bowl filled with coffee creamers. The phone’s backlight dimmed from inactivity. The waitress asked if Cassidy wanted to order food. Cassidy ignored her. The phone screen turned off. The waitress finally walked away. Cassidy’s awareness was now limited to the ringing in her ears and the intense beating of her own heart.

  She raised a hand to the phone.

  She stopped herself.

  The whole episode reminded her of the last time she had felt this kind of dread while staring at a mobile phone.

  It was shortly after her eighteenth birthday. After a long and stressful month of final exams, she decided to head out to her father’s Santa Monica beach house for a week of sunbathing and relaxation along the shore. She took the family’s Yorkshire terrier, Frisky, along for the journey, as she and the dog had developed quite the bond.

  The first day of the trip was relatively uneventful. She shopped for designer clothes at the Third Street Promenade, had lunch with some old friends at her favorite Cuban restaurant, and played fetch with Frisky on the sand.

  On the second day of the trip, everything went to hell. Cassidy was walking Frisky along the promenade, admiring the talented street performers and dodging the throngs of tourists with their Forever 21 bags and assorted Starbucks cups.

  While making her way toward the busy intersection
of 3rd and Wilshire, she was stopped by two clipboard-wielding hipsters seeking signatures for an environmental petition. As she listened to their pitch, Frisky began to pull against his leash. He was seemingly fixated on the seagull eating discarded crumbs just a few feet away.

  “Frisky, no!” Cassidy shouted. She then continued to listen to the young man and woman as they recited statistics about the number of plastic grocery bags that end up in landfills each year.

  As the female petitioner presented photographs of plastic bags polluting the Pacific Ocean, the handle of the leash was ripped from Cassidy’s hand. Frisky had broken free and was now barreling at full speed toward the hungry seagull.

  “Frisky!”

  As Frisky came within inches of the bird, the seagull flapped its wings and glided toward the intersection, quickly disappearing against the blue California sky.

  Frisky tried his best to keep up with the bird, but the chase led him right into the crowded intersection, where he was crushed almost instantly beneath the massive tire of an oncoming Chevy Silverado. The last thing Cassidy heard before screaming inconsolably was the sound of Frisky’s final muffled whimper. The truck just kept moving along as though nothing had happened.

  Twenty minutes later, she found herself seated at the nearby Starbucks inside Barnes & Noble. She knew she would have to call and break the news to her father, the man who loved that dog more than he had ever been capable of loving any human being. Overcome with grief but also fearful for her own safety, she sat quietly and stared at her phone on the table. Ten minutes went by. Then half an hour. Then two hours.

  Finally, she made the call. Her father picked up and answered with his usual bleak hello, sounding characteristically irritated by the disturbance.

  Cassidy tried to respond, but no words would come out. As she attempted in vain to find the words, she began to sob. She could almost feel her heart breaking as she thought about what had just happened to her beloved pet and dear friend.

  “Cassidy, are you okay?” Her father actually sounded genuinely concerned. “Where are you?”

  She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m not okay.” Her uncontrollable weeping made the words almost incomprehensible. “Frisky got away and ran under a car. He’s dead.” Her sobbing grew louder and more guttural.

  Her father’s response stunned her.

  “But are you okay?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” she muttered through the tears. “I’m not hurt, but I want to die. I let Frisky get away, and now—” She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the cold table.

  “Listen to me,” her father said. “If he got away, it’s not your fault. The important thing is that you’re okay. Please just come home.”

  And so she cut her vacation short. Her father’s shocking display of equanimity had helped to calm her, but she still blamed herself for what had happened. Frisky had been more than just a dog to her. All those times when her father had lost his temper and used her as a punching bag, Frisky was her one source of comfort. He was always waiting to rush into her lap and lick her crying face. Sometimes he would even lick her wounds. He seemed to know, and he seemed to genuinely care. Now his death was destroying her from the inside. He had always been there for her; why hadn’t she been there for him?

  It was about a five-hour drive back to the ritzy suburbs of northwestern Las Vegas. When she arrived at the massive Spanish-style house where she begrudgingly lived with her father, she wept at the thought that Frisky would never again be waiting in the foyer to greet her.

  She opened the front door to find her father seated in the living room, watching CNN with his back turned to the door. Immediately, he rose up from the couch, rushed over to the entryway, and threw his arms around Cassidy in a firm embrace.

  Once again, Cassidy wept with reckless abandon. “I’m so sorry,” she said over and over again.

  “He was a great dog,” her father whispered. “I know you loved him a lot.”

  Cassidy shook her head and reached over her father’s shoulder to wipe her eyes. “I did,” she said.

  He leaned back slightly and looked her over. “But you’re okay?”

  Cassidy nodded faintly.

  “Good. Because I really loved that dog too, and I’d feel terrible about beating the shit out of someone who was already injured.”

  Before Cassidy could even process what he had said, he grabbed her throat with both hands and choked her with all the force he could muster. He was a thin man, but his rage afforded him a terrifying amount of strength. He pushed both thumbs tightly against her windpipe, causing her to drop to her knees in a state of shock and terror. Then, with a look of raw hatred in his eyes, he kept one hand firmly pressed against her throat and used the other hand to deliver a beating unlike any she had ever experienced.

  10

  Now, at an IHOP restaurant in Henderson, Nevada, she awoke from her reverie—tears in her eyes. She was seated in a position almost identical to the one in which she had found herself at that Barnes & Noble coffee shop on one of the saddest days of her life: trembling and broken, with bloodshot eyes and an inconsolable disposition, staring down at a mobile phone on the table in front of her. She knew that nothing good could come from picking up the phone and opening Pandora’s box, but at the same time, she knew that she had no choice.

  She might soon learn the truth about the terrifying song that serenaded her in absolute darkness despite her most desperate efforts to keep the lights on. And according to the web page description, it might already be too late for her.

  She took a deep breath, picked up the iPhone, and activated the display. Then, with hardly a moment’s hesitation, she raised her thumb to the display and tapped the hyperlinked headline, “The Devil’s Lullaby — Not Just an Urban Legend.”

  She was taken to a crude-looking web page that appeared to be an entry on someone’s personal blog. The oversized white text was juxtaposed against an unsightly brown background, suggesting that the website belonged to someone who either didn’t understand basic web design or had lazily opted for a free generic blog template—probably both.

  The article on the page was dated June 4th, 2016. The title read “My Encounter With the Devil’s Lullaby.”

  My name is Marlene Rossi. I’ve been really hesitant to write about this whole experience, but with everything that’s happened, I really feel like I have a responsibility to share my story. If it wasn’t for other people offering their help and guidance to me, I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be alive right now. So where do I start?

  Maybe you’ve heard the urban legend of The Devil’s Lullaby. If you’ve found this page on Google, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve at least heard of it. I did a little research, and it seems that this story has been around at least since the fifties. Well, I can tell you from personal experience that it’s not just some urban legend. It’s completely true, and completely terrifying.

  There are a lot of versions of the story, but at least from the ones I researched and encountered, they all have a few things in common. The song is only ever heard on the radio, and it always comes on between 3 and 4 a.m. Sometimes it breaks through while the person is listening to the radio, and sometimes the radio just starts by itself. That’s how it happened to me.

  In every case, the song is the same. It’s 16 notes repeated on a creepy kid’s xylophone with reverb. And there’s a little girl singing these lyrics:

  “The devil creeps into my room to sing a lullaby

  He softly whispers “Pleasant dreams, for soon it's time to die.”

  And then it stops. The whole song is only a few seconds long. Sometimes it repeats. Sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s always the same.

  Honestly, I didn’t know anything about the legend until it happened to me. As a kid, I always thought my house was haunted. For as long as I can remember, I would see shadows that were unexplained. There were weird noises and I always felt like I was being watched. When I was 15, I tried t
o talk to the ghost. I really wanted to communicate with it, but I was totally shocked when it answered me. Like, in a human voice.

  It happened in the middle of the night. I went to the bathroom without turning the light on, and when I looked in the mirror, I could have sworn I saw two eyes looking at me from behind. Then, as I went back to bed, I heard creaking footsteps following me to my room. When I closed the door and got back in bed, I heard breathing. Finally I just said, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  At first, the thing didn’t say anything. But then, when I closed my eyes, it said, “I’m watching over you.” I opened my eyes and looked around the room, but I didn’t see anybody. As I laid down again, it started to talk again. It said, “Let me protect you from the evil.”

  I opened my eyes again and said “Ok.” I don’t know if it’s because I believed it, or because I was too scared to argue. Looking back now, I realized that by saying that, I had actually let the thing in. And that’s when I started to lose control. It was subtle at first, like I was just more emotional than usual, more angry and fearful and sad. But then after a few weeks, it started using my voice to speak. And one night at dinner, I physically attacked my dad for no reason. It took me almost three months to realize that I had been possessed by this thing that claimed to be protecting me.

  Long story short, I did a ton of research and was able to find a Protestant minister who did exorcisms. I took buses all the way to Minneapolis to meet him, and he spent three hours praying over me, performing rituals, and confronting what he called “the demon Abaddon.” It was the most agonizing three hours of my life. Imagine getting surgery while awake and with no anesthesia. I thought I was going to die.

  Thankfully, or so I thought, the whole thing was a success. When it was over, I felt like this huge weight had been lifted and I was once again in control of my own body. I was like a whole new woman.

  But it wasn’t over.

  As soon as I got home, I started seeing terrifying visions of a monster with rotting flesh. At first I thought I was just paranoid, but it happened almost every night. The first time I heard The Devil’s Lullaby, I knew it wasn’t just a figment of my paranoid imagination.