The Things Betwixt...

Boggelmann

"Daily Flash Fiction Challenge"  Winner! 11-27-15

It was during my time in Bavaria that I took interest in the wickedness of life. I studied law at Ingolstadt, under the famed Professor Weishaupt. I worked for the post then, delivering mail to those surrounding hamlets of Wangen. I recall a lonesome stead, Hinterkaifeck was its name. The family living there was a lovely bunch. Six there were, until that night.

The house was in disrepair, and its gray paint chipped all around. A troubled child lived amongst them. Her name was Cazilia, and I only saw her once, for they kept her in a closet most days. A dark little thing she was. Eyes darted about at all times, and she held her hands over her face in fright of whatever it was we were so blind.

That night, the house was unnaturally quiet. I was torn betwixt the urges of continuing my route, but a voice whispered to me in that darkness. It urged me to enter the derelict place. I noticed the previous Saturday’s post, still in the spot I’d left it, but there was something else. Little footprints in the snow, from the edge of those spiteful woods to the stead, but nothing led back.

I found her that night. Cazilia huddled herself in a corner, crying, and gripping the bloody handle of a mattock. Her family lie about, lifeless within a crimson pool of resentment. She raised her eyes to me that night. Yellow they were within the dark circles about them.

“The Boggelmann is here,” her voice was a fierce hiss, not soft and childlike, but hot and wicked.

“Go, Postman, lest you suffer the same as these evil creatures!”

I ran that night, from the house into the empty dark. Behind, a feint scream echoed. Bogglemann killed them… all of them.

Word Count - 300

Hinterkaifek was a farmstead between the university of Ingolstadt and the town of Shrobenhausen, Bavaria. A family of 6, including the 7 year old, Cazilia, was murdered with a mattock on March 31. The owner told his neighbors of a strange set of footprints that led to his house but never back to the forest. He never contacted the authorities. Their maid quit, claiming a haunting in the attic. Their postman claimed their post was still in the spot he'd left it the previous Saturday.

Boggelmann is the Bavarian word for Boogieman, a wicked spirit said to live in the closet, and claiming victims who misbehaved, often children.