A while ago, I decided to visit my childhood home. I had been fighting severe depression and thought maybe seeing the place would remind me of the good old days and help out. Neither me, nor my parents or sister lived there anymore. We had to move my senior year of high school. My Mom just couldn’t handle the place anymore without my Dad. I hadn’t seen the house in well over six years and I was just curious to see what happened to it. And no, I didn’t just randomly show up, knock on the door and say
“Hey, this house used to be mine once upon a time. I wanted to see it. Can I come in?”
I asked my Mom if she knew the current owners. She said that she had no idea who owned the place. She gave me the number of the person she worked with when we moved. I gave the guy a call.
“You’ve called O’hairs realty. This is Mike here. How could I help you find your future home today?” The guy said.
“Hey, this is Shane Marten, Lori Marten’s son. I was curious about the place we used to live in on Apricot lane?” I asked.
“Apricot Lane? Can you give me the full address.” I did as he asked and heard the sound of typing on a keyboard. “Well I got news for you bud. Looks like the place should be up for sale soon. The family that lived there abandoned the place according to the neighbors. Are you looking to buy it?” Mike asked me. Honestly I didn’t wanna buy the place. I just wanted to see it after all these years. But I figured that just saying that wouldn’t be enough to see it. So I lied.
“Uh yeah. I wanted to look at the place, see the shape it was in and hear the price before making a decision on the place.”
“Well, you’re in luck. No ones on the potential buying list. Between paperwork and other things, we haven’t been able to post it online. We also gotta wait to see if the family shows up before getting rid of all their possessions. So as long as you don’t mind walking around other people’s stuff, I don’t see why I can’t let you in for a walk through and answer any questions you might have.”
We decided for me to come on a Thursday since that was my day off. But since he had to spend the day at the office, he left a spare key under the welcome mat so I could come in and just email him any questions I had. When I pulled up to the place, I could already see that so many changes had been made. The siding went from brown to a baby blue, a garage added where the front porch was, and the side porch was actually replaced instead of just not existing.
I didn’t get the wave of nostalgia I was hoping I’d get but I thought maybe that would come when I got into the house. I went to the porch that was by the garage and looked under the mat, finding the key that Mike had told me about. I unlocked the house and walked in. It was weird not walking into the laundry room first thing like I used to when I lived here. Now it looked like a mudroom and laundry room put together.
The rest of the house had everything in the same place. Kitchen, master bedroom on the left, living room and dining room past the kitchen. A hallway that led to my old bedroom and bathroom and a door to the basement and the other bedroom left of that. Based on all the toys on the living room floor, I assumed the family that lived here was a mother and father and two kids.
I was going to see how much they changed my bedroom when I noticed an old school TV in the living room, still on and static playing on the screen. It had a VHS player built in. There was a tape on the coffee table. I picked it up and read the label. ‘WATCH ME’ scribbled in a bright red marker. My curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I popped the tape into the player on the TV and hit play.
The static changed into a camera I’m assuming was somewhere around the house. The kids were playing with some toys. I could hear raining in the background and based on the grayish blue painted onto the brick walls in the room they were in, I had to assume it was the basement. The kids were one boy, I’m assuming around twelve, and the other was a girl. She seemed to be around five. It was hard to tell.
“Sean, when is Mommy coming back?” The little girl asked. Sean, I’m assuming shrugged and gave her a gentle smile.
“I’m not sure Jessie. She should be home soon though.” He explained softly.
“Why can’t we play upstairs? I don’t like the basement, it’s scary.” Jessie whined.
“It’s just in case we get a Tornado. We’ll be safer down here.” That was when I noticed another noise in the background. The loud and annoying beeping and humming of the emergency weather signal.
“Tornado watch issues for line county, plane county, Ethan county, humboldt county,” the voice on the distant TV rang throughout the room and I knew that this house was in one of the affected counties. That was when I remembered something about the basement of this house. It was how bad it easily flooded during bad rain storms. My mom had lost hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars worth of stuff because of it back when we lived there.
I was pulled out of my thoughts when I could hear the sound of water pouring. I watched as Sean looked in the direction of the sound.
“Maybe that’s Mom right there. She usually uses the bathroom as soon as she gets home.” He said before looking back at Jessie. I wasn’t sure if they knew this, but I knew from all the times I played video games in the basement during the summer that you could easily hear when someone moved around upstairs. So either, the Mom was home and the microphone on the camera just didn’t pick it up. Or no one was home and a pipe burst or the basement was flooding again.
I suddenly heard the sound of glass breaking before water rushed and poured. Jessie screamed and Sean ran towards the noise. He then ran back towards Jessie and I could hear the sounds of wet carpet being walked on, as well as the sound of walking in ankle high water.
“Come on Jessie, we’ll get sick if we stay down with the water.” The sound of pouring water was louder now, and the rain sounded heavier. The two kids ran outside of the camera’s view and I watched as the basement began to fill with water. I heard what sounded like someone banging on a door, trying to open it. “Stupid fucking door, why does it have to jam now!” Sean complained.
“Sean! I’m gonna tell Mommy you said a bad word!” The little sister teased. That was another thing I Remembered about the basement. That the door would sometimes get stuck and the knob won’t turn. You have to hit it with your body to open it. You would think the people who sold this house to this family would’ve had all these problems fixed. I heard slamming and guessed that it was Sean opening the door.
At this point, the water was dangerously high, getting closer and closer to the camera.
“Sean, Open the door. I don’t want the icky water to touch me!” Jessie whined.
“I’m trying to sweetie, it’s just stuck. Would be so much easier if Mom was home.” Sean said, trying to act tough but I knew from experience that he was scared. I couldn’t understand why though. Even if the water level rose to the top of the stairs, it should just leak through the cracks in the door. Sure they might have gotten soaked in the process, but they should be fine.
A loud slam from the video snapped me out of my thoughts. It was followed by some gurgled screams. The video ended, causing the tv static to return. What a weird video to have. I shrugged it off and got up to head into where my old room was. That was when I noticed that the basement door had been replaced. At least the one that was there when I lived here.
I ignored it and went down the hall to my room. The walls were still green and the trim on the window was the same. He had a bunch of different video game posters covering a majority of the walls behind his bed. I head out of the room, thinking about checking the basement for possible water damage to whatever they did to it since I was last down there. That was when I saw a woman sitting in a recliner in the living room, staring at the TV. I jumped a bit, wondering why I didn’t see her before.
“Holy shit, hello?” I called out to the woman. She slowly turned her head towards me, tears staining her face.
“I tried.. I tried so hard to save them but I was too late. I couldn’t call the cops. I couldn’t bear for anyone to know I let my babies die when I should’ve been home…” she said, her voice hoarse presumably from crying. I guessed that this was Sean and Jessie’s Mother. Though I was confused. The video didn’t make it seem like they died.
“I don’t think it was your fault.” I said, trying to comfort the poor woman. “You weren’t home and did what you could. Your son did the best he could to protect them.” A loud slamming against the basement door took my attention. “What the fuck is that!?” I asked. The woman stood up.
“No.. That can’t be my babies, they are dead..” The woman mumbled.
“Mommm let Usss ouuttt.” I heard a soft but somewhat haunting voice say.
“Pleasssee saavvee uuss” another more high pitched voice said. I looked over at the woman.
“Umm.. What the fuck is going on? Am I being pranked?” I asked the woman. SLAM SLAM SLAM. The door was being knocked and slammed again, way more than before. I backed up, scared of whatever was behind the door. The woman went to the door.
“Stop slamming the door Sean! Mama’s here now.” She said softly, reaching forward and turning the door knob. When she opened the door there was no one on the other side. Nothing but an unusual pitch blackness. I looked over to the mother.
“I don’t mean to be rude but… what the hell is going on?” I asked. She peaked slightly into the door.
“I don’t understand.. I heard them.. You heard them, so where are they?” She said looking down the stairs. She took one step down the stairs. I heard a disturbing hiss and a growl before suddenly the woman was snatched away. I backed up before hearing a loud scream. That was the sign that I needed to leave. Whatever thing I was looking for here was not worth the possibility of dying in a home that wasn’t mine anymore.
I turned to run out the slider door when I ran into a chair and fell over it. I heard footsteps and looked at the basement doorway. Two figures, one smaller than the other, crawled out of the basement. They were a murky gray skin tone and their hair looked to be caked in clay. Their eyes were white with a red tint. Like bloodshot eyes with no pupil’s.
“We finally found Mommmmy” The smaller one said. The taller one looked at me with a devilish grin, showing sharp almost shark-like teeth.
“Yes Jessssiee. And she brought us foood” The taller one said, pointing at me. That was when I realized that these two were the kids from the tape. What the hell happened to them? And they were planning on eating me! Nope nope nope, fuck this I gotta get out of here. I got up and used the slider door to get to the back yard and ran towards the cornfield on the other side of the backyard. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed when I heard a hissing sound and looked to see that the children were wincing over the loud noise.
I started running again, this time going into the cornfield in hopes of losing those gremlin kids. I was too focused on running and it was so dark out that I couldn’t see the hole in the ground until I fell into it. Thunder roared again and lightning struck, causing me to see into the hole I was in. I saw bodies. Multiple bodies that looked similar to the children. I screamed and crawled to the top of the hole. My feet were all that were left when I felt someone claw and grab at my leg. I cried out and looked down to see the little girl trying to pull me down. She was laughing, maniacally.
“I got him Sean!” She called out before licking my leg, right where she clawed me. Her tongue felt like a cats. “He tastes salty.” She licked her lips.
“Hey!” I yelled before kicking at her hands with my free leg. “I’m salty because I work in a kitchen, not because I’m an oversized chicken!” She hissed at me and clawed at my shoe, causing it to fall off my foot. I finally got out her grip and climbed out of the hole. I ran to the other side of the field and into the tree line of a nearby woods. I heard a loud crack and looked to see that lightning struck a nearby tree. I watched as I saw it start to fall. I moved out of the way and right as the two gray kids got out of the hole, the tree fell onto them. I heard a muffled scream before silence.
Not knowing for sure if they were dead, I bolted towards the opposite side of the corn field, keeping my eyes open. Once I made it to the other side I ran towards and got in my car and drove home, telling myself to never go to that house ever again.
The next day Mike called me, asking me if I was still interested in buying the house. I told him that I wasn’t and that he should check the house’s security cameras before burning the house and the cornfield and also call the cops. He never called me again. Every now and then, when I’m driving by the road that the old house was on, I swear I could see the kids in the trees nearby as well as the mother… looking just how the kids were when they attacked me…