“She’s a witch.”
“I think you said bitch wrong.”
It’s hard to laugh when you’re exhausted, but Marti was never not able to get one out of us. Between panted breaths we laughed. Tommy’s face growing red with anger and embarrassment at the joke at his expense.
“I’m serious!” He managed to blurt when the laughter finally died down enough to get a word in.
“So am I!”
Again, laughter erupted from the bottom of our thirteen year old hearts once more breaking the silence of the forest we were supposed to be hiding in if by chance the cops were actually called as a result of our impromptu prank just a few minutes prior.
Living in a small town meant a lot of boredom. Some kids had big problems like gang violence and drive-by shootings, drugs, and crippling poverty, and even though those problems existed for your typical small town Ohio kids, at least to some extent. Our biggest problem was always boredom.
As a matter of fact, every problem that every small town had ever had could probably be traced back to boredom in one way or another. Why is that guy doing heroin behind a Walmart? Because once upon a time he was sixteen and bored, so he stole some of grandmas pills. Why did the schools football teams locker building get burned down? Because some kid was bored and decided to ruin the football team’s stuff. Why are there a bunch of kids laughing in the middle of the forest just outside of town? Same reason, they were bored and decided to ding dong ditch the senile old lady down the street.
If I’d had known for half a second . . . If I’d even had a hint of foresight about how everything would’ve turned out for us then I’d have suggested something else. Anything else, but hindsight’s 20/20. Especially for young kids.
“Guys, I’m freakin serious. Okay?” Tommy doubled down. His fists now balled up. His voice breaking a little bit with the overwhelming irritability at the laughter. “Anyone who’s ever messed with Ms. Abernanthy has been cursed.”
“Come on man.” I said trying to diffuse Tommy’s anger a little bit. “There’s a lot of places in this world, beautiful places! Jamacia, Hawaii, Switzerland. All sorts of places a powerful witch could have a good ass life, and you think there’s one living in that little brown double wide on Sycamore street? In London Ohio?”
A few more chuckles amongst the group of friends before Tommy finally resigned his argument with an exasperated sigh. As we came around from our fits of laughter and jokes we began to realize that the sun was setting.
“Wow, what a surprise.” Charlie spoke up. “No one cares that their doorbell got rang! Looks like our outlaw days are done y’alls. Just in time for dinner too. Convenient full pardons are convenient!”
“No doubt.” I responded as the group made their way out of the forest and began to cut across the large meadow towards town. “Marti, you eating with us tonight? Dad says it’s fine.”
“Appreciate it dude, but mom says we’ve got plans tonight. We’ll steal your dads Marlboros some other time okay?”
More laughter as the friend group split ways and headed home . . .
Ding
Dong
Diiing Doong
At first when I heard the doorbell ring, I just sort of brushed it off. I’d thought that maybe it was just some part of a dream I’d been having or something. Even in my almost full sleep state I knew that no one in their right mind would be ringing our doorbell at three in the morning. As I adjusted my pillow and threw my head back down on it though I heard it again. Resonating throughout the otherwise silent house in a way that was almost maliciously haunting given the time of night.
Ding
Dong
Diing Doong
It hadn’t been my imagination. There was someone at the door. Before I could even get up however, I heard the gruff and commanding voice of my father as his heavy footsteps stammered groggily past my room.
“I swear to Christ if that’s one of your goofy friends.” He mumbled to himself as he staggered past my room in his barely lucid state.
Several moments later I heard the front door open. Followed by my father shouting in surprise as several loud bangs and clashes filled the house with a chaotic cacophony of sound.
I ran out as quickly as I could towards the front room of the house to see my fathers silhouette fumbling for the light switch. As he turned it on, and my eyes adjusted to the sudden flash of light. I could see that he was intently scanning the front room. His bright green eyes bouncing back and forth like a radar scanner. Laying on the ground around him was a broken ash tray and several books that must’ve gotten knocked off of the shelf they’d previously been resting on.
“What happened dad?”
Quickly he put his finger out in a sort of ‘stop talking’ gesture as his eyes remained transfixed on the room around him. After a few moments of nerve wracking silence, he finally responded.
“There’s a bat somewhere. Flew in when I opened the door.”
“Who rang the doorbell?”
As if remembering what it was the led us to the front room in the middle of the night in the first place my dad looked back over his shoulder to the wide open front door, and the dimly lit street beyond it. He peaked his head over the threshold and looked around for a moment before closing it.
“No one . . . Some kids ding dong ditching maybe. Crazy ass teenagers, when do you guys even sleep nowadays?”
I laughed quietly at dad’s remark before looking around the front room to try and spot the bat.
“You’d think it’d be freaking out or something you know? Like, fluttering around and trying to find a way out?”
“Yeah . . . You’d think.”
A thorough search of the front room gradually turned into a thorough search of the entire house, but aside from the fallen books and ash tray in the front room there was nothing amiss. Just another normal small-town house in its small town neighborhood. Finally after about an hour and a half of searching my dad threw his arms up in defeat.
“Screw it, guess he’s staying. I gotta get ready for work anyways. Go back to bed kid, we’ll find it tomorrow. No one ever got killed by a stray bat.”
Although I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with the idea of sharing a house with a wild animal for the night. I knew he was right. It was almost four thirty in the morning now, and I was tired. Besides, if it’s afraid then it’ll probably just hide, and they sleep during the day so it shouldn’t be a huge issue . . . Hopefully.
“Alright, night dad. Have a good day at work.”
“Yeah. . . .”
Ding
Dong
Diing
Donng
I had just slipped into that sort of half realm between awake and asleep when I was abruptly brought back to consciousness by the doorbell ringing again. The red digital illumination of my alarm clock read 6:33am. I sighed to myself in annoyance and frustration as I turned over on my back to prepare to pull myself out of bed once again to try and discover who was ringing our doorbell again, and that’s when I saw her.
Suspended from the ceiling upside down was the darkened shadow of a person. Long tangled hair draped low and messy, almost touching the floor. From within the tangled mess of hair were two bright yellow eyes that burned through me like fire. As I screamed and clambered my way to the headboard of my bed to try and pathetically create some distance between myself and this horrible thing in my room the figure reached its arms out in a sort of ‘crucifix’ posture. From the aurora of its terrible yellow eyes I could see a wide mouth full of sharp teeth. I screamed again at the top of my lungs as the room filled itself with the mind numbing sound of the doorbell coming from the figures wide open mouth.
DIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG
DOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGG
DDIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGG
DDDOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGG
DIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGG
DOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGG
As the deafening noise trembled every ounce of my being the figure contorted its way off of the ceiling and plopped onto my bed in an awful and grotesque fashion. Even in my panicked state I couldn’t understand how it could’ve moved the way it did without breaking its neck and spine.
I tried to make a jump from my bed to the door, but I wasn’t quick enough. I got to the edge of the bed before I felt a tremendous weight pin me back on to the mattress and hold me down. Sitting on my chest was the figure. Those horrible eyes burrowing into my soul. That wicked mouth hanging open as if it were going to swallow me whole.
She’s a witch.
The memory of Tommy’s voice echoed in my head.
I don’t know what came over me. I don’t know if it was just the fear, and Tommy being the only name on my mind in that moment. I don’t know if I’m just a selfish coward. I just . . . Don’t know, but as that god awful thing sat on top of me. As her mouth and those evil yellow eyes drew closer and closer to my face I shouted at the top of my fear fueled lungs.
“IT WAS TOMMY! IT WAS TOMMY! HE RANG YOUR DOORBELL! IT WAS TOMMY! PLEASE!”
Suddenly, with no warning, and no possible way of occurring. The weight was off of my chest, and the figure was gone.
I don’t know how I managed to fall back asleep, maybe it was just the adrenaline dump that knocked me out, but before I knew it I was waking up to the image of my sun filled room.
After a lot of talking to myself. I had barely managed to convince myself that last nights events were just the result of a horrible dream. I had read somewhere that waking up in the middle of the night and then going back to sleep could result in very lucid dreams. That, I decided. Was what caused that awful dream.
Ding
Dong
Diiing
Doong.
I felt an anchor drop into my stomach as the doorbell rang. Slowly I made my way to the front door and with a lot of hesitation finally managed to open it.
Standing at the other side of the door was Tommy’s mom. A look of obvious concern on her face.
“Did . . . Uhm, Did Tommy by chance come to your house last night? I’ve been to everyone’s house that he knows, and no one’s seen him. I don’t understand why he would just leave the house like that. Please. If you know something, please just tell me.”
They never found Tommy. Not even the faintest glimpse of a clue. Everyone eventually stopped looking for him after about a year. Everyone but his mom, she never stopped looking. She died last year. I heard she was staring expectantly at the hospital door the entire time. Waiting for her son to come walking through . . . The police say he either ran away, or was kidnapped and killed by some vagabond who had seen us in town the day prior.
I’m the only one who truly knows what happened to him, and I’ve never been able to tell anyone that It was all my fault.
Tommy was right.