When I was a small child, I grew up in rural Ohio. The nearest neighbor was one mile away and the nearest store was fifteen. The house me and my mom lived in was old and rundown. It was always quiet though, the only sounds to be heard were the goldfinches humming away in the trees. Occasionally, they were accompanied by screaming cicadas when it started heating up outside. I remembered catching them off of the trees and listening to the consistent screams that somehow reverberated out of their little bodies.
My mom let me indulge in my silly cicada endeavors while she would sit out on the back porch. Slowly rocking back and forth in her squeaky rocking chair as she read from the newspaper. I never understand the appeal as nothing interesting ever happens around here but I listened to her ramble on about random local gossip, watching the setting sun make her golden hair and eyes twinkle brighter. Sunsets in our area were beautiful. I’d cuddle up in my mom’s lap and lay my head against her slowly rising and falling chest as we watched the sun cover the acres of trees and grass behind our house in an orange blanket of light.
My dad had left months before I was born so I never got to know him. I resented him for the pain that he had caused my mother. Her stern eyes would fill with pain whenever I asked about him. She’d always respond calmly, saying, “He’s gone now, hon. All we’ve got is each other”. Her lips would lift in a gentle smile towards the end and the soft look on her face told me everything would be alright.
When I turned 5, my mom sat me down at the kitchen table and surprised me with a box wrapped in bright paper, a little string bow sitting on top. She told me how bad she felt seeing me wander around with nothing to do most days so she got me a buddy. He was a stuffed animal that I’d named Froggie. I squealed with joy when I first saw him and since then we were inseparable. Since then, I dragged him around everywhere. So much so that my mom instinctively reminded me to wipe off Froggie every time I re-entered the house so that I wouldn’t track dirt everywhere.
When I turned 6, she got me a dog named Callan. He was an Aussie and I loved him dearly. My mom and I called him Cal for short. He was a part of the family and would accompany us everywhere we went. I’d bring him and Froggie outside where we’d explore the trees and tall grass, pretending to be pirates. My mom would watch us from the back porch on her chair. I don’t think she wanted me to know but the squeaking of the chair always let me know plus one time I caught her affectionately smiling from afar.
A few months after, my mom met a man. His permanent scowl and cold eyes made me constantly wonder how he ever got with a woman as wonderful and as sweet as my mother. He’d only spoken to me once before they married when my mom introduced him to me. The glare on his face never changed as he grumbled, “Hey there, Irene.”
I referred to him as Mr. Barker, not that I referred to him often at all. Whenever he was around, we glanced at each other and moved on. It was almost like we had a silent agreement that we would never speak to one another unless the situation was dire. I don’t think my mom ever noticed, though. She seemed entirely infatuated with Mr. Barker. I don’t even know what he brought to the table. Both he and my mom didn’t make much and he was definitely less than average personality (and looks) wise. I think she had always been looking for a way to fill the hole in her heart that dad had left but that didn’t occur to me until I was much older.
When Mr. Barker moved in, he brought along his daughter Chelsea. She was 17 and, god, the resemblance between her and her father was extraordinary. Even down to the “despising me” bit. Our house wasn’t large so Chelsea took my room and I slept in the small basement guest room. It took hours of sobbing and sniffling for my mom to convince me that she still loved me more than anything and that Chelsea wasn’t replacing me, she was just a teenager and needed more space than I did. I reluctantly agreed, not wanting to further upset my mother. I still got angry from time to time but one soft reassuring smile from my mother was all that it took to calm me.
One day while Chelsea was searching through the fridge for a snack, my childhood curiosity got the better of me and I asked what had happened to her mom before Mr. Barker remarried. She turned around and looked at me with a look of disdain on her face, curtly saying that her mom had died due to a neighbor’s violent dog getting loose. She continued, with a devious smirk on her face, to say that the body was so badly chewed up that it wasn’t even recognizable. She loudly slammed the fridge door and confidently walked back upstairs to “her” room, knowing she had successfully given me nightmares for the next week.
In my free time, I played with Cal and Froggie outside. Mr. Barker had snapped that I was too old to be playing with stuffed animals but I ignored him and did so anyway. I grumbled about how mom would never say those things to me while walking farther into the backyard. My mom had recently gotten a job as a nurse on the other side of town so I was now stuck with Mr. Barker and Chelsea almost all of the time. I’d only see my mother late at night when she arrived home and she’d drowsily kiss me goodnight before practically passing out on her bed.
One night while sneaking to the kitchen for some late-night snacks, I heard my mom arguing with Mr. Barker about Cal. He yelled about how the dog reminded him of what happened to his previous wife and said that they can’t keep him. To my relief, my mom adamantly stated that Cal was a part of the family and that they would be doing no such thing. They argued a bit more back and forth before he aggressively stomped his foot while pointing at the door, aggressively saying he was taking Chelsea and leaving immediately if my mom didn’t get rid of him. My mom put her face in her hands, tired of fighting, and quietly told him to make sure that I didn’t see him get rid of Cal. After hearing that, I ran back to the basement, letting out silent tears almost all night. I woke up early the next morning and saw my mom rub her puffy red eyes before leaving for work.
Around noon that day, Mr. Barker led Cal to the backyard with the leash that we’d never had to use before and tied it to a tree. I quietly watched from the window as he walked back up into the small garage and pulled our emergency-only shotgun. I looked on in horror as he walked back towards Cal. Cal whimpered and tried to escape as he aimed the gun. Before shooting, he glanced back up at the house, as if he was searching for something. Once his eyes caught my small face peeking out through the window, his lips turned up in a subtle smirk before pulling the trigger. I still sometimes hear the sound of the gunshot in my nightmares, years later.
Since that event, I was a bit more distant from my mom. I couldn’t believe she had let him do something like that, and frankly, was too shocked to tell her about what I saw anyway. She checked up on me when she wasn’t working and I still tried to act like things were fine just so I wouldn’t upset her. I didn’t want to break her heart. She had told me that Cal ran away but I knew he didn’t. I just dryly swallowed and nodded, trying to keep my eyes from watering.
Things were never the same after that. One night while my mom was working a night shift, I heard shuffling coming from the floor above. I slowly went upstairs, trying to avoid making any noise, and glanced around the corridor into the main living area. I was confused as I saw Mr. Barker was leading an unfamiliar woman upstairs. They stifled their drunk laughter as he took them upstairs out of my view. I was too young to understand the big issue at the time so I ignored what I had witnessed. I ran downstairs back into the basement, extremely uncomfortable, and plopped onto my bed. I eventually fell asleep.
The next morning Chelsea woke me up by knocking on my door. I groggily rubbed my eyes and told her to come inside. She walked to the side of my bed and pulled a stuffed animal I had never seen before from behind her back. Chelsea apathetically stated, “Dad told me to give this to you as a gift. Don’t tell your mom what you saw last night.”
With that, she dropped it onto my bed and swiftly left the room, only glancing back once to make sure I got the message. I was astounded. Never once have either Chelsea or Mr. Barker given anything to me. I happily played with both the new toy and Froggie that day, not understanding the severity of last night’s occurrences.
My mom started working night shifts more often, and every single time Mr. Barker would bring in a new woman. Every single one reeking of alcohol and perfume. Additionally, every single following morning, Chelsea would deliver a new stuffed animal with the same message. I happily accepted each and every single one. All the night shifts left my mom exhausted and the bright look that I longed to see in her eyes was no longer there. She seemed to do nothing more than sleep, eat, and work. No more watching the sunsets on her squeaky chair, playing with Cal, or doing anything together, to be honest. She had assumed that Mr. Barker was spending some of the generous amounts of money she was bringing in on toys to please me and that made her happier.
Around a month after Mr. Barker started bringing in random ladies at night, the stuffed animals in my room started to release a foul stench. I no longer had my mom’s constant reminders to wipe off my stuffed animals after coming back inside so I assumed that was the reason. I dragged the stuffed animals to the bathroom two at a time, slightly relieved my mom wasn’t home to possibly scold me for tracking dirt around. Once all of them were in the bathroom, I started to fill the bathtub with lukewarm water. I dumped a bit of soap inside so that there was a nice coat of bubbles on top. Excited to bathe my toys, I slowly put them in one by one.
Once the final one was inside, I wiped my dirty hands on the towel and looked back at the bathtub, prepared to start cleaning the stuffed animals. But as I took a closer look, I noticed a brownish-red color deep into the surrounding water. I was disgusted and confused about why the toys were so dirty. It’s not like I had tossed them in mud or something. I picked up the newest addition to my stuffed animal collection by its foot and looked around to find where the liquid was coming from. On the back of the toy, there were out-of-place stitches, and around them an unpleasant reddish color. I apologized to the stuffed animal under my breath and tore open the hole that had been badly stitched shut.
I felt vomit rise in my throat as I saw a severed and mangled human hand sitting inside of the stained stuffing. The warm metal smell hit me as I noticed my mom’s signature magenta nail polish on the hand. I finally vomited on the floor next to me, everything in my body going cold. I peered back at the bathtub through eyes fuzzy with tears and saw that all my stuffed animals had the same liquid seeping out through their seams— the older ones browner than the others. I dry-heaved before shakily getting up and sprinting out of the bathroom. I kept running until I was out the door and already heading down the street to the closest neighbor. From our front door, I saw Mr. Barker and Chelsea shrieking. Everything they shouted, however, sounded incoherent to my panic-stricken brain. They didn’t follow me as I sprinted a mile to the nearest house.
From there, the police were called. They told me that all evidence of my claims, including the stuffed animals, were non-existent. They brushed off what had happened as me being an over-imaginative child and simply marked my mother as missing. She was never found.
20 years later, I fully believed that I had imagined it all…until today. I now live far from Ohio and in a bustling city.
A package arrived this morning and when I opened it I found Froggie, my first ever stuffed animal, with a repulsive metallic smell emitting from him. I’ve been crying since then, too scared to step anywhere near the package while writing this all down.
I finally remembered my messed-up childhood and I think, even after all these years, the Barker family has found me.