Just outside a small town, there is a house in the woods. No roads will take you to it and the driveway ends in trees. The front lawn might be littered with baggage of all sorts. Suitcases, clothes, maybe even an old car if you’re lucky. One thing is consistent; there is a clock that works. It changes places, but it is always ticking. My siblings and I found the place when we were very young. It holds most of my childhood memories; we’d pretend that it was our very own house, as if we were adults.
There is one thing that has been bothering me now that I am older. We made new friends there, friends that didn’t live in the town. They slept out there in the woods. We never really questioned that as it seemed like a fantastic idea and I hadn’t really thought about it much after we moved, but in moments of childhood nostalgia I’ve started realizing things. Innocence can blind one to darkness until adulthood strips it away. There were so many things wrong with those children but I cannot sift between what was my imagination and what really happened.
I was standing on a bridge, looking down at a freezing river. It would be a quick death if I hit the water from that height. My days were empty, I didn’t live for anything or anyone and an office job had already sucked the life out of me. As I stood there, thinking over my life, I recalled that house. Curiosity kept me from jumping. They say ghosts stay behind because they have unfinished business and a ghost is all I felt I was. Just as I had before, I left the bridge a tiny spark of life that would last me a week or two. I would be back, I knew that. I was so certain that I realized I needed to say goodbyes properly. My siblings and I used to do everything together, so I decided I would invite them to take a trip up to Colfax, Washington. We had found the house together, after all, and it had been a while since we all escaped from the hell that was adult life.
One of the most dangerous things a parent can say to their child is to “go outside and find something to do.” For some reason, my own parents never learned that lesson. A specific incident comes to mind. My older sister was sort of our ring leader. She wasn’t hesitant to throw us under the wheel if we got caught, but we didn’t think twice about jumping in on whatever trouble she was brewing.
One day– I can’t remember if it was due to a birthday, Christmas, or just a random gift- but I got my hands on a magnifying glass. Like any young boy at the time, I spent hours unleashing hell onto the ants in our yard. The beetles didn’t catch a break either, nor did most insects. It took me longer than I care to admit to realize that I could burn more than just annoying bugs. It was at my grandparents that I realized the focused beam of the sun could also burn paper. Not too long later, back at home, us kids received the dreadful orders after hours of playing DoubleDash on the gamecube.
Parents had a question meter and the size of it changed on any given day; ask too many and you find yourself kicked off the video games or movies and out in the backyard.
Robert was just upset that his turn was over. He knowingly filled my mother’s annoyance meter when he asked for a snack. “Go outside and find something to do.” Mom demanded.
During those days, you could count on me to always have that damn magnifying glass and a stick sword in my hand. Ready for anything, or so I certainly thought as a kid. After sitting around for just a few minutes our minds grew bored and then the trouble began. It was always Jane that started it. She didn’t even need to say anything. The sun dominated a clear sky above us when she started piling sticks and leaves on a concrete slab in our backyard. There was some trash too seeing as our father was doing work on the porch itself. Papers, plastic bags, things like that.
“Dad will probably see it from work!”
“Dad is learning to fly, Bebo. He isn’t flying helicopters yet.” Jane corrected.
We knew Robert as Bebo. Can’t say when that started, there was just something about that dumb bowl cut my mother insisted on. Bebo fit. “But there are jets up there.” He was the youngest and to him everything in the sky was a jet.
“Dad is going to fly helicopters, not jets.”
Leaves burned easily, so did paper. It didn’t take long for our fire to expand to the corners of the concrete slab. Colfax is prone to forest fires, so when everyone saw the plume of smoke the fire department was called. My parents were sort of half friends with the fire chief and they gave us a hard time but ultimately we were off with a warning and a stern talking to. As you might have guessed, I got my magnifying glass taken away. Any outdoor fun I had was done with that thing so I was suddenly down to just my stick sword.
There was an area we often hiked near the house. Jane convinced our mother and off we were. When we got there, I had to put my shoes on– I liked to remain barefoot as long as possible. Jane struggled to keep Bebo from dashing on ahead and earning the well sought-after “first to get there” bragging rights (something highly sought after amongst kids). I will admit I had a hard time catching onto such things as a younger boy, but I knew what I was doing. It would just take time to get it done. I was also a nervous kid and wasn’t about to let them go on without me. They were my rock, my northern star. Without them around I wouldn’t know up from down if I’m honest. Jane knew that, even if she didn’t realize it. There was a natural responsibility that came with being the oldest and she did the job the best she could.
But Bebo could not contain his lust for adventure and raced off towards the treeline. Jane demanded I stay where I was and ran after a giggling Bebo. Many people did not understand or appreciate the power the eldest sibling held; their word was law and I wasn’t moving from that spot. Straight ahead was the forest we meant to explore. Youthful ears had a way of blending sounds, like bird noise and echoes from the busy town down the hill. All the sounds became one thing and even if they were still nearby, I couldn’t tell.
I spotted Jane and Bebo on my right, near the fenced-in cell tower. They were standing next to the fence and their faces were obscured by the chainlink. Jane waved me over. She had freed me from my spot, so I ran over to join them. I was pretty upset when they ran off without me. While I hadn’t lost sight of them, I also didn’t feel I was gaining at.
I finally lost sight of Bebo and Janes. You know when I said that sound had a way of blending together for kids? Well my little ears made me staunchly aware of a lack of sound. The woods weren’t still, though. I wish they had been. Trees still moved and each flicker of movement caught my panicking eye. A ghost, or monster; every falling leaf some creeping thing out to bring me doom.
My young self may have felt ready for anything, but that was only when I had my trusty wooden stick. Only then was I a hero brave enough to fight. I’d accidentally left that behind, however, when I had tied my shoes.
I was completely frozen. There was pressure, a charge in the air that was building. I had to turn around despite a voice in my head saying to stay completely still. I knew I would have to move at some point. Grown ups always say to stay still and not move when you get lost, that way they can come find you. But I knew right then that something was watching me. It wanted to be seen. It longed for me to turn and look. I didn’t want to though. I wanted to somehow end up home without moving a muscle. Kids often don’t have an understanding of how fragile life is. At just nine years old I suddenly had an innate sense of my own mortality.
I reminded myself that it was daytime. Monsters didn’t come out while the sun was out. I played a lot of zelda and the skeletons came out at night. Monsters didn’t come out during the day, so I had to be safe. Then what was watching me? What looked at me from around a tree trunk made it impossible to breathe. It looked similar to Jane, but several things were off. The cheekbones were different, a bit more freckles too. I don’t recall all the specifics because one glaring feature overwhelmed all others and stole my absolute, terrified attention.
She had no eyes. In their place were black pits, ones that I could feel staring deep into my own. There was no malice, no hate or anger in that stare. It wasn’t even sizing me up like an animal might. Those pits were just… watching me like I might consider a bug under a magnifying glass. A bug that I hadn’t decided whether to burn or not.
“The house.” She whispered, almost so quietly that I thought it was the wind returning. “The house. Come come and have fun.” She spoke quickly, in short chirps. “Fun fun fun.” Then she stuck out her hand, inviting, but her face was blank. “Come come come.” The girl chirped again.
Now I know that wasn’t Jane, I wasn’t an idiot, but when I heard my name being called from outside that bubble of silence, the thin hope my child brain had that this was some sort of prank shattered. “Moe?!” Jane called.
The girl with pits for eyes must have realized the trick was shattered because she dipped back behind the tree and vanished.
“Moe!” I heard my name called again, this time I knew which direction. The sounds of the forest were coming back though so, before they could drown out my salvation, I sped towards Jane’s voice. The woods were smaller than they had seemed moments ago and I quickly found myself back beside the cell tower with Jane and Bebo. Between Bebo’s running off and me wandering off, she was livid. But I hadn’t disobeyed her orders. She told me to get up. Well, she hadn’t said I should get up but she waved me over.
“You ran off!” I threw my accusation. “You waved me over and then ran off. The girl in the woods almost got me!” I think I was crying then because Jane’s fury melted away.
“Girl in the woods?”
“When you guys ran off I got lost and there was a kid without eyes! She wanted me to go to her house!”
I will commend my sister’s immediate caring attitude, but she was also just a kid after all. “Liar. There aren’t any kids that live in the woods. You just want to scare us back home so you can play games. It won’t work because mom already said no.”
That would have been something I might try to pull if I were being dishonest. “She was right in there!” I tried to explain.
“Show us then.” Jane challenged. “If there is a kid in there she is probably lost and needs help.”
I really didn’t want to do that. But it was either prove myself or be ridiculed for the length of a child’s immediate memory– which was all of thirty minutes. That was a lifetime to a kid my age, so I hurried over to grab my stick sword. My original quest to find a new stick was gone. The one in my hand was the hero’s sword, ancient because my memory could not recall when or where I found it and trusty because it hadn’t broken on me yet.
“Okay, you’ll have to follow me.”
Even if Jane thought the stick sword sheathed in my belt loop was silly, she never said anything of it. She knew better. There was one time where she had challenged me to a sword fight with a branch of her own and, being bigger than me if only by a slight amount, managed to beat my defense quickly. Before I knew it, I had been tapped on the chest with her weapon. As far as children are concerned, that is a mortal blow. The fit I threw for losing, for failing to be the grand hero I thought I was and losing to a girl, isn’t one I think I’ll ever rival. She realized what me being the middle child meant and let me have what I needed. Sometimes we need validation, even if it is in our fantasies. She was the leader, Bebo was adventure, and I was the imagination that often made me the hero.
And, unlike a hero, I led my siblings towards the evil thing in the woods. I wasn’t as scared though; children often thought danger thwarted when in numbers greater than two.
Adventurer Bebo piped up. “I don’t like it here.” Once Bebo made up his mind, it wasn’t likely to be changed. Just when Jane was about to give the order to retreat, Bebo spotted something in the woods and his mind was changed completely. “What is that?”
There was an old, ruined house built right in the middle of the woods. There was a short gravel road that seemed entirely normal until it ended abruptly. Some windows were broken on the two story house and there were things strewn about around the front yard. An old mattress, I think. There was a drawer too. What I remember specifically was a rather large clock that stood out among everything else. It was still ticking. I didn’t know how to tell time on an analog clock at that age, though, but I knew we hadn’t been out long because the sun was still high above us.
Bebo, set on exploration, stepped forward. “Can we go inside?”
Jane was hesitant. “I don’t know, it looks really old. It could be dangerous.”
Maybe if I hadn’t retrieved my sword, the vote would have been cast in Jane’s favor. Maybe then things would have been different. But the stick that made me brave was firmly stuck in my belt loop. “There might be stuff in there!”
Ultimately Jane’s decision would be final, but being outnumbered certainly swayed her towards our side. “Find, but we have to stay together. Don’t touch anything without asking me. And if we see anyone we have to leave! Sometimes homeless people hide out in these places, that’s what dad said.”
“Everyone has a home.” Bebo was as naive as everyone his age. Colfax didn’t have much of a homeless population, if any at all. “This could be ours!”
While they pressed on, I fell behind. They hadn’t noticed the little blonde little girl peeking out from a dark window. Indifferent pits stared at me before she invited us inside with a wave. We were locked in a stare, her and I, and neither one of us moved aside from that single beckon. I didn’t feel any malice. It was like dark clouds above when a storm was approaching; the floods and wind did not hate, but they swept you away all the same.
“Come on, Moe.” Jane groaned. “You can’t chicken out now. Bebo is right, there is probably no one here. This is our house, Moe.”
“Yeah, Moe! Don’t be a chickeennnnn!” Bebo began dancing in place, a big smile displaying his gapped teeth. He thought himself hilarious and giggled to get a laugh out of Jane.
She pulled at my arm. “Don’t make me tell mom you weren’t listening.” That was a death sentence, the ultimate threat. When I glanced at the window again, the little girl was gone. A little bit of my courage was restored so I took a deep breath and followed them inside.
That house had no rent due, nor did it require anything from us but to simply be children. If I could have gotten Bebo and Jane there again, then maybe we could relive those days. I’m not an idiot, I don’t expect us to truly be kids again, but I needed a glimpse of that happiness before I went. None of them suspected my suicide. Maybe if they had, they would not have turned me down.
“We don’t have anyone to watch the kids.” Jane had said; I could hear my niece crying in the background. “I’d really love to, but I need more notice than this. I really appreciate you asking though, Moe. We should get dinner some time.”
“Yeah, we should. Sorry for bothering you so late.”
“How have you been? Have you gotten out of that phone job?”
I hadn’t and it was a significant source of my severe and untreated depression. “Fine, I guess. I can’t find anything else that pays as well.” If I were honest, I would have told her that I hadn’t found the energy to look. I was going to be dead soon anyway, right? “How are the kids?”
Things went about as you expect from there. Small talk back and forth, me still standing at the end of the bridge just after sunset. She was right, a week was a severely short notice. I guess people that low put themselves in a position to be refused. Self deprivation, and all that. It was a mix of that and an urgency I couldn’t explain. I needed to get back to that house and it was about more than answers; when you are thirsty, you need water. Hungry? Food.
When you are at rock bottom, you need the light of the good days. The time we spent in that house was the best of my life and I felt a need stronger than an empty stomach.
“A trip to Washington? That would be awesome!” I couldn’t believe my luck. Bebo wanted to come! “But I can’t really get work off for that and I don’t think Luna would appreciate it.” That was the expected response. “If we can do it in a few months, I can find the time. We really need to hang out more. I know we are in different states and all, but we could find a way.”
I was trying to find a way! “Yeah, Bebo. We might be able to do that. Maybe Jane will come too if we wait a bit.”
“Yeah, get the trio back together!” There was an awkward silence. “Listen, man. If you wouldn’t mind, Luna really doesn’t like my nickname. She says that part of growing up is letting go of that stuff, you know? She likes Robert more anyway and I think I do too now. You wouldn’t mind using that now instead, would you?”
That was the name I wanted to use. But what backbone did I have? It was gone along with the rest of my sense of self and that was for the best anyway. “Of course. Sorry man, I didn’t know.”
That is how I found myself catching a flight to Spokane alone. I didn’t spend much money so I had a decent savings. With a rental car waiting for me when I landed, I could drive to Colfax and stay at the crappy motel there. I had lived in Florida longer than was healthy for a northerner like me. Mountains and hills were my scene and I felt a drop of happiness when I saw them.
Sometimes we would pretend we had a house in a valley, with a flowing river to match. Our imagination was powerful and the house in the woods had a sort of… malleability to it, if you will. We had an idea in our mind and it just made it work. I guess the mind of a child can change details, or exaggerate them. I doubt it magically changed as we used to believe. You know how sometimes when you go back to a place you used to visit as a kid and it is much smaller than you remember? A bit less color than you recall?
The house had a silver-painted door. It was quite empty too. Houses that people live in have random bits of stuff here and there that make it theirs. The house was ours to fill with both our memories and the things we would leave behind. I wondered if we weren’t the first children to find it and if the house ate their trinkets up. Would the mark we left on that place even be there when I got back?
It was on our third trip there that problems began. A young girl with a bit of red in her hair was on the top floor when we entered the house. She seemed a bit surprised to see us there but we were welcome all the same. She was the type to take charge– choosing what game we played and all– but she melded in with our trio easily enough. I liked her because she appreciated the knot work I had done on the guard of my stick sword. Now that I think about it, she commented on it a lot. That was a sign I might have noticed were my mind a little sharper. She had a brother too, but he was a quiet boy. I can’t quite remember what he looked like. I know he liked cars and enjoyed lining them up.
There was one day when, after getting permission from our parents and venturing out into the woods, that I needed to pee. Our grandfather owned a farm so we were no strangers to marking a bush or tree. I couldn’t easily get the job done with my sword so I removed it and rested the thing against a tree. Something spooked me. I don’t know if it was a sound or just a feeling, but my neck hair stood up. I finished quickly and ran back to my siblings. In my panic and haste to reach safety in numbers, I had forgotten my stick sword. It was too late, we were already at the house. Jane wouldn’t go back.
The kids, Chloe and Jamie, weren’t very nice that day. I remember that clearly. It was all normal until Jane noticed how late it was and started to get ready to leave. “Stay a bit longer? Please?”
“We have to be home for dinner.” Jane was firm.
“There is plenty of time. The sun is still up.” Chloe argued.
“You should stay with us. We can have dinner here.”
Jane put up with Chloe’s controlling nature during their games, but she put her foot down. “We have to go home. I’m sure we will be back tomorrow or something, but our mom said we need to be back for dinner.”
That was a question I should have asked a long time ago. Where were their parents? I didn’t get to voice it. “But I said to stay. You should listen.”
Jane, stubborn as ever, accepted Chloe’s challenge and marched towards the front door. When her hand touched the handle, she recoiled and cried out. “It’s hot!” She hollered, holding her hand. “Why is it hot?!”
“You have to behave! When you are guests, you follow the rules!” I never noticed those dark lines under her eyes… they reminded me of the girl with no eyes. I did not have my sword to make me brave. “Refusing dinner is rude. Would your mother want you to be rude?”
Before Jane could fight her further, a voice called from the kitchen that was two rooms over. “You kids hungry yet?!”
Bebo was the last to catch on to how weird the situation was. Even his eyes were wide. “Who is that?”
“Our mom. She made dinner for you guys.”
We had never seen anyone else there in the house, nor had either of them mentioned their mother or father. There was light on in the kitchen and I could see the shadow of an adult moving about in the other room. Something gripped me in that moment, demanding that I avoid meeting that person at all costs. I suddenly felt like a child that had snuck downstairs in the middle of the night to watch tv, only to hear my parent’s door open. We weren’t supposed to be there.
“Jane, I want to go home. It is going to get dark!”
Jane never got scared. That is what I believed. Even now, as an adult, I recognized the terror on her face. It wasn’t fear for her own life, though. I knew her better than that. It was us, the souls she was charged to protect.
“Don’t be rude, now. Dinner is almost done.” Chloe started. “Why don’t you help us set the table? And nevermind the time, the sun won’t set here so long as you want it to stay.”
We did not. Jane grabbed a nearby cloth and, although it clearly caused her pain, she turned the knob and we escaped the house. When I looked back, I saw that the door stood open. Chloe and Jamie stood in the doorway, watching us go. The sun was behind the trees and casted a shadow upon the front porch. In the dark, I could not see their eyes. It almost seemed as if there were none to find. What I could see was a taller figure standing behind Chloe, a pale hand placed on her shoulder. They did not protest our departure, but instead watched us go. No hatred, no… anything. Simply watching.
The plane touched down in Spokane. In three hours I was in Colfax. Only an hour of that was the drive, the rest was eating and looking around. I spent a bit of time in Spokane as a kid despite living in Colfax. The tiny town that was my home didn’t have a lot of outlets. We were limited to a single grocery store. So if my dad needed any hardware that Ace couldn’t provide, or anything else for that matter, we had to take a trip to the city. I went around to see what had changed and found that quite a bit was as I had left it. Riding to Colfax was pretty much the same too. Those old roads hadn’t changed nearly at all. It was Colfax itself that was different and not for the better. It seemed the youth had moved on from the town and it was dying. Even the fire department was shutting down. Stores that had once thrived were gone with no business to place them. A few brand name stores had opened up. Those businesses didn’t do much to pump life into the place. The only location that stood out was the hospital, which was already abandoned by the time I was born.
The Saint Ignatius Hospital. It is and was a hotspot for ghost tourism due to its supposed haunting. I was too young of a kid to ever try something so daring, and Jane was only tempting those rebellious years. I had only seen the place from the outside and decided I might try to buy a tour while I was in town, assuming they still did things like that.
We actually went back to knock on that silver door a few days later. Kids were sometimes quick to forget and Jane was convinced we had somehow been in the wrong. We had been rude to an adult that made us dinner, after all. We hadn’t told our parents about the house out of fear that they’d stop us from visiting. As far as they were aware, we were just playing around in the woods. There were mountain lions in the area, so I was surprised that they let us go off on our own in the first place. I’d never heard of someone in the area getting attacked so I guess it was a rarer event than one might think. Perhaps the fact that we weren’t alone deterred any potential predators? I don’t know.
Whenever we went to the house, we took the same route. I kept my eye out and found my precious sword laying against a tree. As had happened every time before, we found that the things outside in the front yard were different. A blue suitcase instead of a duffle bag. A beat up Mini Cooper instead of the derelict Ford Escape. The clock was still there, though, and it was ticking as it always was.
Chloe and Jamie weren’t there. The door was how we had found it on our first day; cracked open and welcoming. Curiously, we did find a hot meal waiting for us inside. Fries with melted cheese, as well as a bottle of bug juice. For those of you that don’t know, bug juice is a sort of gas station kid’s drink made from sugar and then more sugar. I don’t know if they have them around the northwest anymore, but it was lofted as the finest of beverages among us kids.
Our friends returned the next time we came around. Chloe was back to normal, but Jamie was a bit quieter. Their clothes were always dirty, which was something I hadn’t really noticed before. They wore the same things and never washed up. While they were for the most part back to their usual selves, there was one thing that hadn’t changed; the dark rings hadn’t gone away. It was as if their eyes were watching from deeper in their skull. While this should frighten anyone, their smiles and laughs disarmed any instincts we had to get away.
“You know, swords made of sticks won’t do much to monsters.” Jamie scooted a car along. “I can find you a pretty good one. My mom could make you one with actual metal, like a real knight!”
For some reason, I didn’t like this proposal. My stick sword did just fine and I was offended that he suggested I get rid of it. “This is a proper sword. I made it myself and it doesn’t even break when I hit things with it. Bebo and I fight all the time with sticks!”
“You hit too hard.” Bebo accused. “And you always get to use that longer stick. Why is mine always short?”
I can’t say it was by accident; I wasn’t going to give my little brother a decent chance to win and possibly lose the honor of ‘best stick fighter’ in the family. “I found my sword and made it. You’ve got to find a better one.”
He didn’t really care enough to bother. Our grandfather had gotten him a slingshot for his birthday and he wanted nothing more than to shoot cans with rocks. It was a pretty nice slingshot too, nothing cheap. It wasn’t even made from wood. A metal slingshot was a real weapon. I think it was a proper hunting tool and Bebo was certainly convinced it would do the job if he needed to protect us. In a way, I think Jamie’s words got to me. While I kept the stick sword with me at all times, I left it behind when we moved. Sure, I wouldn’t have been able to bring it anyway, but I hadn’t tried. Instead I went to the radio tower and buried my stick sword which I wrapped in a plastic bag. At the time I thought some other hero would come along and pull it from the ground. Maybe it would find the next set of kids that might wander those woods.
Due to some complications with selling the house, we had to delay moving for a few days. This meant that we could take one last hike in the woods. A chance to visit our strange house again and say goodbye. I had already hidden the sword, however, and it felt wrong to unearth it only to return it afterwards. In a way it was a grave containing the adventures we had during my youth in Colfax. To dig it up would be to disrespect the dead and that wasn’t a thing for a hero to do. I could not bring myself to pick up any of the perfectly good sticks along the way. That was in bad taste, or so my child mind said. We played for one last time with Jamie and Chloe. This time the house was on the beach and we played in the sand. Out the front door was the forest that led to our home, the back led to a land of our imagination. Warm summer water, soft sand, and even little purple sand dollars that climbed from the shallow water. We watched them, not wanting to cause them any harm. It was beautiful and I remember every moment in my mind.
So, when I felt as if a great deal of time had passed, I stood and patted the sand off my clothes. The sun hadn’t moved in the sky, but my mind said that hours had passed. We needed to go home. “Jane, should we go back? Mom said–” She had nothing to say, instead she played. “We’ve been here a while!”
“Moe! Don’t be a chickeennnnn.” Bebo chirped, but he did not turn.
Chloe was there too. “Come on, Moe. Don’t be a party pooper. No one likes party poopers.”
“I’m not a party pooper. Mom told us to not be late. I don’t want to get in trouble. Besides, I am getting hungry.”
Jamie, who had brought a toy tractor into the sand, didn’t even look up. “Mom is making a snack for us.” I tensed at the mention of their mother, who had not been brought up since the night we fled the house. “Just keep playing and we can eat soon. You don’t want to go all the way back home without eating cause then you won’t be strong.”
“You’ve got to be strong if you don’t have your sword. How else will you fight monsters?” Chloe’s friendly tone was gone and even my young ears thought they recognized a threat.
“Jane, you said we can’t be late.” She was facing away from me and said nothing. “Jane?”
“You kids hungry yet?!” A woman’s voice called from the house, which was far enough that I barely heard her. A dark feeling filled my body, a sense of emptiness that made my stomach feel as if it were full of bricks. An instinct told me to stay still, that I was safe if I didn’t move. Every hair went up, as if that tiny bit of reach would feel fingers coming to grab my neck in time to save me. I had felt that before, a long while back.
It was the same experience that I had when we found the house, when I lost my sword. My pants felt very light and I was accurately aware that there was nothing fastened to my belt loop. All the kids were facing away from me, even Jane and Bebo. I slowly spun my body, as if moving too quickly would break the tension. Eventually I saw a figure standing near the back door of the house, one too tall to fit through the door without leaning down. Even from so far a distance, I could tell she didn’t have eyes, just black pits. There was no mouth either, nor any clothes at all. Long, black hair flowed gently in a breeze brought by the sea. Monsters were supposed to be harmed by the sun, but her pale skin did not fry in the rays.
I would have to go into the house to get home. The front door was the only way back into the forest. “Jane I don’t want to go inside. I want to go home.”
“This is our house, Moe.”
Her voice wasn’t right. I turned to see a girl that looked similar to my sister, but slightly off. Everything was almost right aside from the eyes. Those were only black pits which hungered for light. The day grew darker and the sun moved along its course for the first time since arriving. It hid behind clouds, as if also scared of what might be.
“Don’t be scared, Moe.” Jamie tried to comfort me, but his voice was flat and his eyes were missing. “This place is better. You don’t want to leave.”
“You kids hungry yet?!” The voice called again in the exact same tone. “You kids hungry yet?!” Again and again. The others kept silent. “The house! The house. Come come. Come come and have fun.” Her voice faded at the end. She was almost robotic, the way her body didn’t even move as she watched. “You kids hungry yet?!”
I was not hungry, I wanted to throw up. Chloe spoke instead. “Yes we are, mother! We are very hungry!”
I then got a feeling they were not speaking about anything I wanted to be a part of. At that moment I was reminded of my favorite game, Ocarina of Time, and the redeads that tried to eat Link while he was paralyzed with fear. Was I going to be food? I wished that the things I was surrounded by were the redeads because then they would burn in the sun, but they were not. They were real monsters and they prowled both night and day.
“We can go eat, I just have to clean up my things. It is rude to leave stuff on the beach.” I hadn’t brought anything of my own, but instead a few toys from the house. When I took a step towards a sand castle mold, no one moved to stop me. My second step was the beginning of a full on sprint. Despite the main threat being at the back door, I knew I had to get inside and through the front door to ever see my family again.
I started to stumble and, if I had fallen, I wouldn’t be here writing this. When I found my footing I was a bullet. I could hear feet landing on sand behind me but I dared not look back; I knew they were on my tail. All of them. Too many footfalls for just four kids. My mind painted a picture of a host of demons reaching for my shirt, lips dripping with anticipation. They didn’t pant as they gave chase, they didn’t make a sound other than their feet. So confident were they that they would catch me that even their mother didn’t call me any more. I was hers, I had fallen for her trap.
But I had a plan. It was one based entirely on a guess, but it was my only chance. Right before I reached the back porch and the thing that was waiting for me– I could see she hadn’t moved, but I avoided looking at her directly again– I turned right. A door slammed shut and I heard chaos inside the house. When I glanced up at the windows I wanted to curl in a ball. That thing’s face watched from each window, perfectly keeping up with my race. When I was out of sight, it hurried along to watch me again. I was cutting it close. If I could get through the front door, then turn around and leave out the door, maybe I would be back home. The front of the house had palm trees and a thick jungle that wouldn’t take me home. There was no clock out front, there was nothing but sand.
I made it to the porch and didn’t check the windows. Without any hesitation, I slammed through the door. It had been shut but gave easily to my small shoulder. Then I realized that was only because a towering, skinny thing had opened it for me. It grabbed me by the wrist, but I squeezed my eyes shut.
She brought me close and her voice became slick and deep. I had seen that she had no mouth, so what was the warm breath on my cheek? “Sweet boy, give me your light and stay here with me. All you will be, it is not. Children are pure. All you could want is yours, and anything you desire. Be my child and never leave. We are so hungry. You will live here forever and feel sadness nevermore.”
I felt… drained. Not tired, just uninspired. I could not bring myself to fight and it was then I got a taste of what I currently felt in my motel room. It was a flavor of depression, the draining of will. I didn’t want to be anything, do anything. It was a twisted form of contentment that tore away ambition.
There was no need to be a hero because there was nothing worth fighting.
Then I heard a voice that became my salvation. As always, Jane was there for me in my darkest hour. “Moe?!” Her voice pulled me from my trance, bringing back a light that was being stolen from me.
“Moe? Are you in there?!”
As my predator gorged itself on what I could have been, it loosened its grip because it thought I was done. Jane’s call reminded me of, at least in those days, I lived for. I woke up every day in anticipation for the trouble we would get into. A stick fight with Bebo that would end in him telling on me, an adventure with Jane that might get the police called or get me– and only me– grounded. The mistake that the terrible entity made is not realizing kids neither had a sense of the future or the past, only whatever trouble they could get into next. The web couldn’t contain someone so innocent.
I broke free from the loosened grip and tore open the door that Chloe’s mother had shut. I was free and on the front porch, barely escaping a hand that tried desperately to stop me from leaving. Once out the door, I felt a weight leave my shoulders. I ran and didn’t look back. When I finally found Bebo and Jane, the sun was getting low enough that the sky was losing color.
Jane smacked my arm. “I told you to stay put until we were back!”
“I did! You guys snuck past me! If you weren’t always trying to mess with me then this wouldn’t happen!” I was starting to cry.
“We didn’t… we didn’t sneak past you. What do you mean?” Jane’s aggression melted. “Moe? Moe, what happened?” She was quick to hold me. “Hey, what happened?”
We never went back there. A few days later my parents sold the house and we were out of Washington, heading to Jacksonville, Florida. Jane swears they never went to the house that day, that mom and dad said they needed to stay home once Jane went back for a water bottle. I had stayed behind in a struggle to decide whether to dig up my sword or not. I think my imagination made up the entire thing, much like everything else that happened in that broken down house.
This was further confirmed when I finally hiked up that hill. There was no radio tower. Instead a sort of siren was set up, likely for forest fires, and no fence either. Worst of all were the hills that stretched in front of me. There was an utter lack of forest. The entire landscape was different, as if it had never been there in the first place. I was defeated once I had seen this, knowing that I would never get my answers. How could everything change so fast?
I’ve done some research about Colfax and asked around too. Has anyone here lived in a little town south of Spokane and, if you have, was there a forest on the east side? Did you ever see an old ruined house in the woods? I’ll be back soon with my findings. Things don’t just disappear. This is the real world and something must be written about that house. I’m sticking around in this world until I find some answers.