GRANDMA’ HORROR STORY

When my parents told me I had to spend the summer with Grandma June, I thought I was being punished. My grandmother lived in a crumbling Victorian house perched at the edge of the forest in a forgotten town called East Hollow. No Wi-Fi, no neighbors, and a musty smell that clung to your skin the moment you stepped inside. Grandma June was quiet, almost unnaturally so, and spent most of her time in her high-backed rocking chair by the window, knitting. Always knitting. She never spoke unless you spoke first, and even then, her replies were clipped and strange—as if words were a foreign thing to her.

The first night was oddly silent. No insects chirping outside, no rustling of leaves. Just the steady creak of that rocking chair from the living room below. I lay in the guest room, blanket pulled up to my chin, staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to the rhythmic creak-creak-creak that never stopped. At some point, it felt like the sound was coming from closer—up the stairs, maybe right outside my door. But when I got the courage to check, the hallway was empty, dark, and colder than before.

The next morning, I found Grandma June in her usual spot, needles clacking away. I asked her what she was making, and she just muttered, “Something warm.” I looked closer. It wasn’t wool. It was stringy and pale, and looked… wet. I blinked and it was just regular yarn. Beige and boring. My stomach turned. Maybe the old place was just getting to me.

Later that day, I explored the house. It was filled with porcelain dolls, some missing eyes, some with cracks down their cheeks. Grandma kept them on shelves that reached the ceiling in nearly every room. One small room was locked. When I asked her what was inside, she snapped, “That room’s for family only.” Her voice was deeper than before. Too deep. My skin prickled.

That night, I woke up to whispering. Soft, hoarse, like someone trying to remember how to talk. I froze. The whispers were coming from the hallway again, from the shadows just outside the guest room door. Then the creaking started. This time, slower. One long groan. I crept to the door and pressed my ear against it. Nothing. But when I opened it, I saw her—the shadow of my grandmother rocking back and forth in that chair at the end of the hallway. Except… the chair wasn’t upstairs. It was supposed to be downstairs.

I blinked again, and the hallway was empty.

I tried to convince myself it was a dream. The next morning, I found a small bundle of knitting on my pillow. It was a tiny sweater, far too small for any human. The yarn was damp and cold. I stormed downstairs, holding it out. “What is this?” I demanded. Grandma didn’t even look up. “Gifts should be appreciated,” she whispered. “Or they get… upset.”

I threw the sweater in the fireplace that evening. It hissed when it burned.

That night, the house groaned louder than ever. I couldn’t sleep. I felt something watching me. I opened my eyes and saw it—her rocking chair—at the foot of my bed. But it wasn’t just the chair. She was in it, knitting furiously, face covered in a black veil. I screamed, but my voice didn’t come out. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I was paralyzed. Her needles moved faster. Her hands weren’t hands anymore—they were bone, skin stretched so tightly I could see the tendons flexing with each movement.

Suddenly, she stopped and looked up. Her eyes were gone. Just empty sockets filled with something writhing. She smiled with teeth too sharp for a human, and said, “Now you’re warm enough.”

I blacked out.

When I woke up, it was morning. Everything was back in its place. The chair was downstairs again. Grandma was humming in the kitchen like nothing had happened. I checked the fireplace—the tiny sweater was gone. So was the ash.

I called my parents, begged them to take me back. But the line crackled and died every time I tried. The town had no cell service either. I was trapped.

The third night, the dreams started. I saw her in her younger days, standing in the forest, wearing a white dress stained with blood. She was chanting something. Around her were children, pale and unmoving. One by one, she would thread something through their mouths, their eyes. Binding them. The yarn wasn’t yarn—it was intestines, veins, hair. She looked right at me in the dream and said, “Knitting is how I keep my family together.”

I woke up screaming. My bedsheets were tangled with beige yarn. Real yarn. I hadn’t seen her carry anything up the stairs.

Desperate, I broke the lock on the forbidden room the next day while she was outside tending her lifeless garden. Inside, the air was thick with dust and rot. The room was filled with rows of tiny knitted figures. Hundreds of them, dressed in miniature clothes. All of them were shaped like children. And each had a name stitched onto them. I found one with my name—“Eli”—stitched across the chest. My heart stopped. I turned it over, and inside the hollow cloth body was a tooth. A real one.

I dropped it and ran, nearly falling down the stairs. She was waiting for me at the bottom. “Did you meet the family?” she asked, head tilted, eyes glowing faintly under the veil. “They like you. They’ve been waiting for a new cousin.”

I shoved past her, bolted out the front door, and ran. I didn’t stop until I reached the town’s edge. But there was no road. No cars. Just forest. Endless forest. I turned around. The house was there—but different. Bigger. Twisted. It looked like it had grown overnight, branches and vines wrapping around it like veins.

I wandered in circles for hours until finally I passed out. When I woke up, I was back in my bed. My hands were bleeding, full of splinters and needle marks. The rocking chair was in the corner. Empty. But it rocked. Slowly. Mocking me.

The days blended together after that. Each night, more yarn appeared in my room. Each morning, more dolls. I began seeing children outside the window—silent, gray-skinned things, watching me. And always, always, that chair creaking in the night. She never ate. She never slept. She only knitted. Knitting my name into something I couldn’t see.

On the seventh night, I heard the voice again—only this time, it wasn’t hers. It was the children’s. “Help us,” they whispered. “Burn her heart.”

I knew what I had to do.

The next morning, I waited until she left the room. I went to the kitchen and grabbed the sharpest knife I could find. Then I went to the fireplace and broke the wall behind it with a fire iron. I had seen something odd in my dreams—a hidden compartment. Sure enough, there it was: a blackened heart, still beating faintly, wrapped in crimson yarn, inside a glass jar. It was warm.

I didn’t hesitate. I smashed it.

The entire house screamed. Every wall, every window. The dolls fell from their shelves and shattered. The lights exploded. And somewhere in the house, I heard her roaring—no longer in pain, but in rage.

She appeared in the hallway, taller than before, bones cracking as she moved. Her mouth opened unnaturally wide, and she hissed, “You’ve undone it! You’ll take their place now!”

I ran, fire licking the walls behind me. The house was burning. The dolls shrieked. The children’s spirits, glowing faintly, flew from the ashes and vanished into the light. I escaped just before the roof collapsed.

When the fire trucks arrived, there was no trace of Grandma June. No body. No rocking chair. Just ash and bones.

My parents didn’t believe me. They thought I had a breakdown. I never spoke of it again.

But sometimes, late at night, I hear it again.

Creak. Creak. Creak.

And when I look out the window, I swear I can see her—sitting in a rocking chair under the trees, knitting something warm just for me.