I never thought about
what could be in the wilderness.
Hiding in the dark.
Hello.
I thought I was dreaming.
Do you see her?
I didn't think it could get any worse.
Hey!
I am the queen of every hive.
I am the fire on every hill.
I am the shield over every head.
I am the spear of battle.
Who but I am both the tree
and the lightning that strikes it.
I never thought about what could be in the wilderness.
Hiding in the dark, or...
Or what it'd take for me just to survive.
This deserter was found at the edge of the wood
with our provisions stolen from the storehouse.
Justice demands penance for his betrayal.
For he is but a cloven beast,
rotting in the mire and muck,
as unclean as his festering soul.
Speak, pig, speak!
Let him be purified.
Seize her!
Lee brought her to the hospital.
And when she woke up, Shelby told the police
a lot of wild stories...
about when she got to the human sacrifice.
They sent an officer out to investigate,
but they couldn't find anything.
They also told the nurses to take some blood
to check and see if Shelby was on drugs.
Hallucinogens.
She was clean.
Bam.
I like my teddy bear.
I should have been there to protect you
from whatever this was.
I'm sorry.
But I'm here now,
and we will find somewhere else to stay.
I promise you that.
No.
I think it was one of the mountain men.
The whole thing was an elaborate hoax.
They are desperate to scare us away, Matt.
Look at me.
We can't let them.
We can't leave.
Not when every cent we have is tied up in that house.
If it was a fight they wanted,
it was a fight they were gonna get.
Looking back, I understand why the court
gave Mason full custody.
What kind of mother does the things I did
during those times?
It's my great shame; I hate myself for it.
I didn't want to bring her to the house.
Not with everything that was going on.
Mama says this was a farmhouse.
Where's the chickens and the pigs and stuff?
Come on, baby.
But I was really trying to reconnect with Flora,
regain her trust,
that special mother-daughter bond.
Bye, Daddy.
I figured if I kept her inside,
and kept a close eye on her, it would be all right.
Ah! Good one.
Hey, you hungry?
Okay.
I'll be right back.
You can put my little girl anywhere,
and she will make herself at home.
She will make any place her place.
She's gonna hurt us?
Baby?
If I give you my doll, will she stay away?
Hey, baby.
Who are you talking to?
Priscilla.
She's my friend.
I heard this happens a lot with children of divorce.
They start making things up.
Acting out.
It broke my heart to think I had done this to her.
So what were you and Priscilla talking about?
Or is that a secret?
She's gonna make a bonnet for me
just like hers if we help her.
Oh. A bonnet.
Help her do what?
Make it stop.
Make what stop?
She said she's tired of all the blood.
Stay right here.
¶ ¶
What's your sister thinking?
Uh, she wants to see her kid.
You know how Mason is.
She don't want to give him a reason to keep her away.
She thinks I'm full of shit.
She knows you're under a lot of pressure.
She knows I'm not lying.
She was in the basement with me when those inbreds
came into our home and hung those things.
I know.
I agree. We're not gonna lose our life savings
on account of these assholes.
We fight.
At least until we can sell.
Hey.
Are you sure that's what you want to do?
We might not have a choice.
Good night.
I felt a little guilty.
Matt knew that I wasn't happy there,
and I knew that Lee thought I was making up stories.
It was easier to believe that.
I mean... the alternative was scary.
Someone didn't want us in that house,
and they were gonna make damn sure that we left
and never came back.
Shelby?
Shelby, what are you doing?
Someone's outside.
What? Yeah, I'm going out there.
Are you crazy? No. I'm not crazy, I'm pissed off.
I'm not gonna sit here cowering under the covers this time.
Shel.
I don't see anything. Shh-shh-shh-shh.
What did you hear? Listen.
Hello?
Who's out there?!
Show yourself!
Shel.
Shelby!
I just wanted it to stop.
I wanted them to know that they couldn't scare me,
that we wouldn't be bullied.
Damn it.
Matt? Matt?!
Matt?
Shelby?!
Shit.
Shelby!
You hear about people getting lost in the woods, but...
that's how quick it can happen.
Matt?
Matt?!
Shelby?!
Hey. You okay?
No.
This was beyond having a cross burned on your lawn.
You okay?
There was something demonic about it.
Matt called the police, and we directed them to the spot.
This time, the cops had to believe us.
What if the fire had spread?
What if our house had burned down?
Would you have even bothered?
Hey, we're sending units around
to track down Ishmael Polk and his sons.
Once we find them, we'll bring them in for questioning.
Questioning?
Is that the best you can do?
Once they're out, they're just gonna come back again.
Who knows what they'll do next time?
There is nothing protecting us from retaliation.
If you let these people come after us again, we will have
no choice but to go public.
Oh, I'm putting a squad car in your driveway.
You'll have 24-hour protection
until we know what we're dealing with.
Shelby was fierce.
I almost felt
sorry for the cop.
But the police protection was long overdue.
We felt like we could finally relax and get some sleep.
Hello?
Please.
Who is this?
They're hurting me. Hello?
Why do you let them hurt me?
Hello?
No. No.
Mm. No.
I don't want it.
Please stop.
You'll take it and like it.
What the hell is this?!
What's the trouble?
Margaret refuses to take her medicine.
Who are you people?!
Is that true, Margaret?
It makes me ill.
Was that back talk?
It was.
You've been warned.
I thought I was dreaming.
I had to be dreaming.
"M" is for Margaret!
It was after
3:00 in the morning when the noise outside woke me.
Hey! Hey! Hey, wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! There's someone in our house!
She shot her! She shot her! She's dead. What?
I couldn't understand how anyone
could have gotten into the house.
Not with a cop sitting right outside the door.
¶ ¶
Sir?
I don't understand.
They were just here.
You must have been dreaming.
Started to think
that maybe I had suffered some sort of neurological damage
from the attack back in Los Angeles.
I... secretly hoped that I had.
At least that would have made sense.
My brother and sister-in-law
were fast getting the reputation of being kooks.
Kooks who liked to cry wolf.
I knew the next time the cops
might not be so quick to respond.
So many weird things were happening. It...
It's amazing how long a person can rationalize the irrational.
Is she ready?
Yeah. Her things are.
Come.
Seems to be playing a surprise game of hide-and-seek.
Flora invented her own special version
of hide-and-seek when she was three.
Flora? It's time to go, baby.
She wouldn't tell us that we were playing.
Where are you hiding?
Part of the fun for her...
Sweetheart? Baby girl? Got to go.
Was seeing how long it would take us to realize
she was hiding.
For a second, it made me feel nostalgic.
- Flora? - Both of us, I think.
Take her.
I got you!
Where'd she go?
Where did who go?
Priscilla.
The little girl with the funny clothes.
I was offering her Mandy.
Oh, your doll?
Why would you do that?
As a trade.
So she wouldn't kill us.
They're going to kill us all.
And save me for last.
Mason! Mason, please!
Just let me kiss her good-bye!
Come on! Put your seatbelt on.
It's okay. No!
She's not coming back here.
How does an eight-year-old even know
how to say that? "Kill me last"?
I don't know what's going on in this house,
but she's never coming back here!
It's okay. Don't worry. It's o...
It's okay. It's okay. Calm down.
Please! Please! Please!
I'm calling the judge. I don't want to leave. Daddy, please.
Stop!
That's the day I fell off the wagon.
Someone's downstairs.
Oh.
I'm sorry, Shel...
Shelby.
I broke your bowl.
Oh, shit.
I didn't mean to.
Lee, have you even been to sleep yet?
What the hell, Lee?!
Shit.
I didn't do that. Okay.
Uh-uh. All right, come on, come on.
Neither one of us believed her, but people do
strange things when they are under the influence.
Hell, I've done plenty myself.
But it opened my eyes, seeing her like that.
I mean, Lee was always the strong one.
She always took care of things.
I mean, my sister was the rock of our family.
You got to get your shit together, girl.
Come on.
You don't think I know that?
I'm trying, but I'm weak.
You can't... you can't let him find out. Okay.
Now, now, come on. Or I'll never see my daughter again.
Calm down. Stop. Stop.
Don't think about it. No.
We'll figure it out, okay?
Just let me take of you for once, all right?
- Oh, shit. Oh, shit. - Matt?
- Shh, shh. - Could you come here, please?
Just rest. Rest, girl. Rest.
Do you see her?
I see her.
Matt?
There's something there.
I was three sheets to the wind,
but I knew Matt had left the room.
I felt...
I sensed something...
Someone... watching over me.
We didn't know who that little girl was.
The way she was dressed, we figured
she had to be a member
of that hillbilly Polk family.
We were worried that maybe they put her out there
to lure us into a trap or something.
But we both felt, whatever was going on in that cellar,
we were going to find out.
Together.
It was like someone had been living down there.
Who knows how long ago or...
for how long?
It made my skin crawl.
The girl didn't lead us there as a trap.
Mm-mm. She wanted us to find that camera.
What we didn't know was why.
What was on that tape that she wanted us to see?
I am not what I am.
This...
is not what I envisioned when I first came here.
But there are forces that will not let me sleep.
They keep coming to me, showing me horrible things,
escalating every night,
until it got physical. Look, look.
Here's what they did to me.
I'm too afraid to go back into that house now.
I fear that whatever malevolent force is there
intends to kill me.
So... I'm living here in the cellar.
It's-it's cold. It's smelly.
And-and despite appearances, I am not crazy!
I am an academic. I am an author.
Is this the same guy you saw in the video in the woods?
Yeah, that's him.
What he said on that tape
sounded insane.
But...
looking into his eyes as he told the story...
we were immediately pulled in.
Okay, from the beginning.
Today is October 11, 1997.
This recording will be my last testament. Maybe.
Um, I want to tell the truth, as much as I know of it.
My name is Dr. Elias Cunningham.
I am a professor at Bradley University.
I came here two months ago
to begin research on my new book, a, uh...
a true crime novel in the vein of Helter Skelter.
Uh, my initial subjects were two nurses,
Miranda and Bridget Jane.
They were sisters who spent every waking moment together.
They couldn't bear to be apart.
They worked in an assisted living facility in Rochester
in 1988.
It was suspected but never proven that they were behind
the mysterious deaths of two elderly patients.
They quit their jobs before any charges could be filed,
and they wound up here, in, uh... in North Carolina,
where they opened a assisted living facility of their own.
The house they purchased
had previously been unoccupied for 15 years.
The family before... a father, a mother, two daughters...
Had lived in the house only for a brief time
before they suddenly vacated.
They left all their possessions behind.
They left no forwarding address.
But this ominous history didn't deter my subjects.
It may have even drawn them to the house.
The living facility they opened was cheap,
which ensured a bounty of applicants, but they had
their own unique criterion for accepting applicants.
They wanted families who were tired of
taking care of their relatives, families who just wanted
a place to store them until they died.
But the most bizarre criteria for accepting a patient
had to do with the letter of their first name.
They chose people and murdered them
because they were using the letters of their names
to spell out their favorite word.
"R" is for Roger.
"E" is for Eunice.
"M"
is for Margaret!
I found Miranda's diary.
What started as a sick sisterly game
soon became an act of defiance...
Against people, against society, against life itself.
Miranda became convinced that each soul they took
would add a lifetime to their passion
and ensure that their love would...
would eclipse eternity.
October 29, 1989,
police were called to investigate the facility.
Apparently some relatives
became concerned when no one answered
the telephone there for three weeks.
Bridget and Miranda were gone.
They found not a single personal item in the house.
They alerted the FBI, even the Mexican police,
but the nurses had disappeared.
The only thing they left behind was a word, unfinished,
on the wall.
"Murder."
The house was put up for sale.
They tried to make it presentable.
They put in new carpeting, repainted all the walls.
But each time
they covered the letters, even if they looked away
for a minute, the word would reappear again.
What, Matt?
"M" is for Margaret. What?
"M." "M." "M" is for "Margaret."
Matt.
What are you doing?
It's here.
It's here. She said it.
I saw it.
Matt, what are you talking about?
It seemed...
totally crazy.
But everything he said on that tape was true.
The letters on the wall proved it.
And he wasn't finished.
There is an official story,
and that story is about two homicidal nurses
who killed five elderly patients and fled the country.
They got away with murder,
but I know the truth now and I am convinced
that is not what happened.
They didn't leave, they were stopped.
Something got to them
before they were able to take their final victim
and finish spelling "murder."
Not by the police, by something
even more evil than they were.
Something here.
Everywhere.
In the air.
In the woods.
In that house.
I haven't set foot in that house... in days.
But I'm going back in there.
I don't know if I will survive,
but I have to see exactly what it is.
I know you're in here.
Show yourself.
Okay. All right, okay.
Show yourself!
Oh, my... Turn it off.
Wait, wait, wait.
What was that?
We wanted out. We wanted our money back.
We wanted our lives back.
The bank sold it to us,
and the bank was just gonna have to take it back.
I just called their rep and said
we needed to discuss our options.
No choice?
Well, of course we have a choice.
We could sue you for fraud.
Some nurses ran a facility here
and they killed their patients, under this roof.
Why are we finding all this out now?
Let me explain this once more.
When you bid on this house,
you committed to buy the property as is.
Any due diligence needed to be
complete by the time you raised your hand.
It wouldn't have made a difference though, would it?
We found out about the nurses, Googled their story,
but it doesn't correspond with our house.
Why? Because you changed the street address.
What else are you trying to hide?
You entered a contract with this bank, ma'am.
I'm not a realtor.
I've met my obligations here.
If you decide to sell, we can offer your buyer
very competitive rates.
We were railroaded.
There was no going backwards.
We were trapped.
We'll never get back what we paid for this.
Those swamp people would buy it tomorrow
if we gave 'em a holler.
No way.
Oh, I feel sick to my stomach.
I didn't think it could get any worse.
Then it did.
Is that Lee?
All right, here we are.
When I saw Lee with Flora...
All right, come on, baby.
I was looking at my sister committing a felony.
I just wanted to see her.
But then there she was.
Next thing I knew,
we were driving back to the house.
I'll get you something to drink.
Okay.
Lee... Oh...
There's nothing that we need to talk about.
Does Mason know?
Mason does not control my life.
Hey, Flora, why don't we do your homework
in the other room and you can have a snack in a minute.
Okay. Okay.
Come on.
Hey.
Okay.
Are you drunk?
I would never endanger my child
by driving with a drop of alcohol in my system.
Then you must have lost your mind.
He's going to the judge.
He's gonna make sure I never see her again.
Not after this stunt.
Lee...
Lee, you're a police officer.
And technically this is kidnapping.
He's gonna go to the cops, if he hasn't already.
This is bad, Lee. This is really bad.
There could be an AMBER Alert out on you right now.
She's my daughter!
I have a right to see her!
You have a custody agreement.
Which he is trying to break.
Yes, yes, Mason, she's here.
She's safe.
No, Flora's doing her homework right now.
Yes, I know that you are angry.
You have every right to be furious.
Lee...
No, no, no, no, no, Mason.
Please don't involve them.
You don't want Flora to have to see
her mother dealing with the police.
It wasn't malicious.
She just wanted to see her daughter.
Yes, of course, yes.
We'll be here.
Okay.
Bye.
It's gonna be okay.
He's really pissed,
but I think I talked him off the ledge.
Well, thank you for that.
I'm so sorry.
Hey.
I understand.
Really I do.
I know what I did was insane.
Did I really want to be on the run with an eight-year-old?
To turn her life upside down, even more than it was?
To hide her away from her father forever?
Flora deserved better.
Let me say good-bye to Flora.
Before he comes for her.
It's the right thing, Lee.
She's in the living room.
We looked everywhere in that house.
My baby was gone.
Where are you?!
Flora!
Flora?
Did you hear that?
Oh, my...