‘Old pine road is lots of fun’
‘Old pine road gets lots of sun’
‘Old pine road I heard a scream’
‘Old pine road it’s time to dream’
Turning my head I saw the source of the noise, my 8 year old brother Lucas was singing the old nursery rhyme while reading his latest comic book. Hearing him sing it now gave me chills. It wasn’t until I turned 15 last week that my parents sat me down and told me the dark history around the old pine road house.
A family of 5 had once lived in the house, back in the early 90’s it was a beautiful home. It wasn’t until the mom poisoned her whole family, and proceeded to eat them that they found 5 corpses, at least that’s what they believe after finding her suicide note. Each corpse showed poison as the main reason for death, this was a troubled family and the police could have cared less just wanted to close the case. I shuddered thinking about my own family, “Olivia can we eat lunch.” Lucas asked, standing in front of me, pulling me from my thoughts. I nodded my head yes before moving to the kitchen. I popped a frozen pizza in the oven before returning to my spot on the couch, “Lucas mom is working overnight at the diner again so it’ll just be us tonight, okay?” He nodded his head at me before returning to his comic, even with darkness creeping in through the windows I still saw his tears.
After having dinner we sat down together at the table to finish our homework. I noticed our mom had been working overnights more and more. After finishing our homework and getting Lucas ready for bed I was exhausted. I laid down to read before bed, but instead of reading I drifted off to sleep. I was awoken by something shaking my bed; earthquake?! I quickly thought before my eyes shot open and I sat up quickly in bed, only to realize the source of the movement was Lucas. “Olivia” was all he said before tears I pulled him close to me. “Lucas what happened?” I asked, rubbing his back, “she’s not here!” he yelled, causing me to jump, “Mom isn’t back yet?” I asked to check the time at 6:15 AM. She always gets off by 4 and is back here by 5 AM at the latest ensuring she can make breakfast and kiss us goodbye before school.
“Stay here let me check it out” “Okay Olivia” Was all I heard before I shut the door behind me. The loving house I had always known had become eerily quiet, I could feel my heart racing as I inched closer and closer to our mom’s door. I knocked on the door softly “Mom it’s me” I waited. Silence. I knocked again louder “Mom it’s Olivia” I waited again, silence. I pushed the door fully open and saw she wasn’t in there, her bed hadn’t even been touched since she dumped the clean laundry out to fold once she finished her shift.
I walked back to my room, Lucas looked up at me with swollen eyes. “She’s not here, but I know she’ll be here by the time school is over. Get ready, it’s almost time to go.” I watched him slowly rise and head to the bathroom, once I heard the sink turn on I got myself dressed. Once we had both finished getting ready we started the short walk to school. Lucas seemed to relax once he saw my calm demeanor, but what he didn’t know was that a horrible feeling began to creep into my gut. The rest of school went by uneventfully and we made the short descent back home, but once we got to the door I began to have the same feeling.
I opened the door expecting our mom to be there ready to ask about today’s adventure, yet the house remained as silent as it had been this morning. Lucas immediately began to panic, “Olivia she’s not here, she’s she’s..” he trailed off as tears began to fall from his eyes. “It’s okay, let’s call Daisy.” I said while giving him a hug, “I think we should” was all he said. Daisy was our mom’s oldest friend. They had been inseparable since high school, she was basically our Aunt. After our dad passed away the only family we had ever known cut us off. I know they blame our mom for the fire and for his death. But it wasn’t her fault she fell asleep with the candle on, Lucas had just turned 3 and at his check up they found the small tumor that had grown on his brain. After the surgery had been performed and he was given the all clear, the bills began to pile up. The last time I saw my dad he had been running back in to save our dog. Neither one of them made it out. Even though I was 10 my memories of my dad’s family had been hazy after that.
I was pulled out of my thoughts once I heard a voice on the other end of the phone, “Hello Mary? “Helloooo” “Hey Daisy it’s me Olivia, uh we need to talk with you.” The concern came out immediately, “what’s going on??” “Mom hasn’t come home from her overnight shift yet, we don’t know what to do” “Okay Olivia stay there I’m coming” Within 15 minutes Daisy was knocking on the door, I let her in and was pulled into a warm hug. Her vanilla scented perfume was the only comfort I had felt since this morning. “Where is Lucas?” She asked, “He’s in his room. I think he finally fell asleep.” “Okay Olivia let’s sit down and go over everything that has happened.” We moved to the kitchen and sat across from each other at the table.
“So mom had to work another overnight. She headed out for work at 7:30 PM and was supposed to return no later than 5 AM. She works this shift at least twice a week, so we already had our routine for these overnight shifts.” I swallowed, realizing my heartbeat was speeding up, “Well this morning Lucas woke me up and he told me she wasn’t home. I thought maybe she had stayed later or stayed somewhere else and when we got back from school she would be here waiting for us. But she wasn’t” I couldn’t stop the tears that fell, Daisy rubbed my arm “I think we should go check the Diner and see if she’s there, if not we can go to the police station.” “Okay let me go get Lucas” Once we were both ready we hopped into the car and sped down the road.
The diner was a short drive from our house, we pulled into the busy parking lot. After a quick scan we found her car. “Kids stay in the car” “Okay we will” we watched as Daisy walked slowly over to our moms car. After looking in the windows I saw her face change into something along the lines of fear and anxiety mixed. She walked quickly back to the car, and threw it into reverse before speeding out. “Daisy what did you see?” Her skin turned white from gripping the steering wheel. She dropped her voice to a whisper “Blood” was all she said. At that moment I knew something was wrong.
After sitting down and telling the police the same story, they escorted us out before bringing Daisy in alone. After a slow hour of waiting she finally came out, I knew the redness in her eyes was a shared feeling among us. “Come on kids you’ll be staying with me for awhile” After trying to eat dinner but failing after a few bites, I crawled into our makeshift bed and drifted off to sleep. I awoke to a knock and Daisy answering the door, after a few moments of hushed yelling I heard footsteps coming towards the room we were staying in. She opened the door and we locked eyes, “Olivia your grandparents are here to pick you up” She said with a strained smile. “Grandparents?” I asked, “yes your dads parents, you remember don’t you” I shook my head yes still confused why they’re taking us. “Daisy please I don’t want to go” “I know” she replied sadly “but they’re family and I have no legal right to keep you from them” “Wake Lucas up and come down after you’re ready, we’ll be in the living room” with that she shut the door and I heard her footsteps recede heading towards the living room. After getting Lucas up and ready we prepared ourselves.
Heading into the living room I saw Daisy sitting with two older people and a younger man seeming to be in his late 30’s. As the younger man turned to completely face me I saw the resemblance, knowing it had to be my Uncle James. My grandmother jumped up and pulled us into an over perfumed awkward hug. After a quick chat, we were ushered out the door. I barely managed to give Daisy one last hug before being shoved into the backseat of their car.
After a rather long drive out into the country we pulled up to an old farmhouse. I had no idea where we were or how long they had lived outside of town. Last I knew they lived in a different state, the car stopped and we hesitantly followed them inside. “I know this is weird kids, but I know if your dad were here he would have wanted us to be together.” She gave us a yellowing grin before heading to the kitchen, “I hope you’re hungry” and off she went heading towards what I assumed was your kitchen. “Let me grab your bags so you kids can get settled” our grandpa said while bending down to get our stuff. We followed him up the stairs, as we went up I noticed there wasn’t a single picture of our family in the house. They took it harder than I thought.
I continued up the stairs and saw where our new bedroom was. It was a small outdated room, with a bed that seemed to have been new when the house was first built. I grimaced as an intense squeaking, I turned towards the sound and saw our grandfather pushing the dresser over. “Mice come out of a small hole back here, keep it covered.” And as if to prove his point he brushed some mouse poop away with his shoes.
After he had left us to settle before dinner, we decided to come up with a plan. These people gave us weird feelings, “I want to go back with Daisy, Olivia why can’t we?” He seemed to almost plead with me, “because she isn’t blood related to us, meaning our grandparents have more of a say than she does” His sad expression broke my heart, “it’s okay we’ll figure something out. At least we’re together” I said trying to give my best fake smile, he seemed to relax after that.
Not too long after we had unpacked our stuff, we heard our grandmother yell for us. We headed downstairs to see a full course meal laid out on the table, with our family waiting for us to sit down. After we sat down we had to do a prayer before we could eat. The food wasn’t good but it wasn’t bad, I just wished our mom was here. After dinner we were allowed outside to play, but we couldn’t go any further than the treeline. The woods loomed over the house like a bad omen, something felt off about it. We played outside until the sun went down and then it was time for bed. Because it was the first day of summer break we didn’t have to worry about school in the morning.
The summer seemed to pass by slower and slower each day, besides the blood in the car which turned out to be moms there were no clues. The police began to search less and less with the case finally going cold. The detectives stopped taking our calls, and the secretary always gave the excuse ‘he’s busy, he’ll call you when he’s done.’ Yeah right. After two months had gone by I knew that she was never coming home. Lucas still had hope, and he would look for her everyday thinking at any moment she’ll be pulling down the driveway.
On the last day of summer I was helping our grandma with the cleaning, they had to go to the store so it was just Lucas and I. I was finishing up our bedroom while Lucas napped downstairs when I dropped the box of pens I was holding. I was almost done gathering all of the pens when I realized some had gone under the dresser, after getting down on the ground and pushing my arm under the dresser I could feel the pens. As I pushed further my hand hit the wall and I felt something weird, it felt as if a piece of the wall was cut out. I moved back and was just going to finish the bedroom, but something was pulling me back to the wall. I had to know. I knew I wouldn’t have a chance once they got back so it was now or never.
After struggling I managed to push the dresser over and could finally see what it was I had been feeling. It looked like a rectangle had been cut out of the wall, I decided to push on it and the front piece moved. After pulling the piece out I saw a small hole with a few items, an old newspaper clipping, a USB, and some mail. I pulled all of the items out, it wasn’t until I saw the USB with the name Mary written on the side that my blood turned cold. I had to know what was on it, so I raced to the office where our Uncle would do some of his work. Thank god he doesn’t lock his work computer, after plugging it into the computer I clicked on it and was brought to a folder with 3 videos in it. I clicked the first one and my heart dropped. It was a recording of our mom at work but it was from a word angle.
I clicked onto the next video, all I saw was darkness before the camera moved back showing me the horrible truth. The camera focused on a chair in a dark basement, tied to the chair was my mom. I cried out, she was bleeding from slashes all over her naked body. Her eyes were as big as saucers and she had been gagged. All I heard was her muffled cries, before the camera was placed on something giving us a view of both our uncle and our mother. In his hands was a metal baseball bat, and I realized what was about to happen. I looked for the power button not wanting to finish the video, but I heard a sickening crunch before it powered off leaving me in silence.
The shock was too much and I fell back, knocking over papers in his office. I tried to clean them up quickly realizing I still had the mail. Looking down I saw the address of our new home for the first time, 784 Pine Road. Pine Road NO! There’s no way, I thought. My head was swimming with way too many questions and thoughts, now that I really think about it my dad was an only child.