At the end of June, I posted here regarding a strange house that I played in as a kid. One deep in the woods, one that shouldn’t have been there. I was trying to find it as an adult and I think I did, but there was no closure. In fact, it is all worse now. But if you never read the first part, here it is. You’ll need it to make any sense of what comes after.
Colfax has a bizarre history. Most of it was lost in 1880’s when a fire destroyed most of the town, as well as all Colfax’s written records. As it turns out, Colfax is often plagued by terrible fires and, in its earlier years, floods with the potential to wash it away entirely. How did I learn any of this? It started when– after failing to find the house in the woods– I sought a tour of St. Ignatius Hospital.
At first I intended to sign up simply to satisfy a different childhood curiosity before I brought it all to an end. Like I said before, we all knew about the legends of it being haunted but were hardly old enough to see what it was all about. Signing up for the tour was something I owed to my younger self; if I couldn’t find that old house then a haunted hospital would have to do. It was so close that I simply walked there, but then again Colfax was so small that I barely used my rental car at all. I first went to visit our old house, which was on the east side of the town.
Of course I won’t give you the full address, not that it would be of any value to you. But it is important to know that I lived very close to the woods in which we found that old house. It was painted a different color and the fencing was new which makes sense seeing as it has been over a decade. I could only sit outside for so long before I’d be a bother so I went on my way. There used to be a really big tree in the backyard and I could see said yard from my vantage point. The stump was gone.
It was the tallest tree in the world, at least to Bebo and I. There was a massive bee’s nest at the top and it too was impossibly big. We were used to yellow jacket nests, which didn’t get that large at all. This one was a full fledged hive and they were often a plague on anyone out in the yard during hot summer days. Seeing as the tree was getting old, my parents had elected to cut it down. The canopy was too high for us to reach. I don’t have any idea what kind of tree it was but all the branches were bundled up top. Probably a pine of some kind I am sure. When it finally came down, our parents assured us that the beehive was abandoned and that the bees would not come back for it.
Bebo and I decided it required some investigation. “What about all the honey?”
I didn’t know, but Bebo would take any answer I gave. “I guess they took it with them or something.”
“If we brought it in our room, maybe it can make more honey. We could sell it at the store!”
That sounded like a grand idea, if it would have worked. “Dad said the bees don’t want it anymore. I don’t think it makes honey without them.”
Since the house was on a hill the tree couldn’t be cut down traditionally. They had to fasten themselves to the top and cut chunks off. Because of poor weather, it became a two day project but there was a day between when Bebo and I had full access to the sticks that had fallen from the tree. The company would clean everything up, or so mom assured us, so I was quick to get out there and find a decent stick.
Bebo poked the abandoned hive. “It is like paper.”
“What about this one?” I lifted a rather straight stick with a little nob where a crossguard might go. “This is pretty great!”
“It isn’t sharp enough.”
“Yeah I can sharpen it though. Papa gave me a pocket knife that is plenty sharp.”
I actually still have that pocket knife. It usually sits on my computer desk, serving as a weight to keep the wire of my mouse in place. I took it with me on the trip, for nostalgia. There was a small serrated knife, alongside two other knives and a screwdriver. I wondered if the tiny scratches on the surface of that serrated knife were from me carving away at that stick. Probably not, but I like to think so. With some metal wire I attached a crossguard and created the perfect stick sword. It would go with me wherever my parents allowed it and, if I was sneaky enough, it would also go where they didn’t.
When the tree was gone, there was still a stump left behind. We were a pretty poor family so we couldn’t afford to get rid of the tree and have someone come out to grind the stump. That was just fine in my eyes because the stump had a crack in it near the center. As I’ve said before, I played a lot of Ocarina of Time growing up. The crack in the stump was the perfect place to stick the weapon I had created. When Link pulls out the Master Sword in the game, he becomes an adult– well, seventeen, but I viewed that as all grown up. When I drew my stick sword from the stump, I imagined myself becoming an adult and ready to explore what wonders the world had in store. If only I could, as in the game, put the sword back and reclaim what I had lost. But the clock goes on.
I found myself on S East St, unsure of how to procure a tour of the haunted hospital. It seemed that bookings could only be made online and there was no one to speak to there. Even if I wanted one that day, it wasn’t possible. Tours were only available on two days each month and it would be nearly a two week wait and that was simply too long. I considered just breaking in and risking a charge. If I was going to throw my life away anyway, I didn’t have much to lose.
As I walked along East South St. I faced the hospital, which was south. The windows that couldn’t be reached were shattered and the ones that could were boarded up. There was no easy entrance from East South St. so I went around to the back. The back of the hospital was much like the front; both had seen better days. Windows were boarded but I did find a terrible looking bridge that led to a door. To get to that bridge I had to walk further south and through a yard that was completely overgrown. There was a house there– likely an office or something for the hospital in the past– and past that was the bridge. Rain had rotted away the wood, but it didn’t give out when I put some weight on it.
I wasn’t necessarily excited about crossing it, but the fall was only ten feet or so. It would hurt but not enough to kill me. I walked across it and found a locked door. I imagined the front door was used for tours, so I was confused as to why the back door wasn’t boarded. No one had spotted me during the fifteen minutes I spent looking for an entrance. It only took me that long to give up.
On my way back to the bridge, I would have to pass the hospital door again. You know how some people can sense rain before it comes, but they don’t know why? Something called me to try the knob once more.
To my surprise, it turned with a squeak. When I pushed it there was no resistance; it was unlocked. Sun poured in through broken windows and I could see easily. Most walls were painted white, though every surface was peeling and chipped. Some had a sort of pastel yellow that made me feel queasy to look at. I don’t like clean hospitals, much less ruined ones. The framework was exposed in places and all sorts of litter was scattered across the floor.
There were doodles on the wall. I am not sure if they were graffiti or drawn during the hospital’s many years of running. I am sure they lightened the mood when the sick were nursed, but now that the hospital was dead the art brought a feeling of unease. It was daytime and the sun was bright, but I did not feel safe. The door I had entered put me on the second floor and I passed the staircase. I was surprised at the state of the woodwork; the years had been kind to the stairs, though white dust covered everything.
On the third floor I knew I was being watched. At first I wondered if I was somehow sensing cameras on me, but that isn’t how the sixth sense worked. There were eyes and I feared the gaze came from certain black, empty sockets. Whenever I turned around, there was nothing to see but ruined halls. I came to a white room on the second floor, one with only one window, but it was boarded up. It was dark and I had to use my phone’s flashlight. Dolls and toys were strewn about, all of them seeming to stare at me.
What caught my eye was a couple of toy cars, perfectly lined up. Jamie used to do that, but so did a lot of kids. I bent down to pick one up and knew that I had seen that specific car in the house. The paint was chipped on the van, as if someone had put it in their mouth– another habit Jamie had.
I heard footsteps and whirled around. Every hair reached for the sky and goosebumps rippled. I found no one there. There was, however, a piece of paper that hadn’t been there before. The edges were scorched and I swear there were glowing embers, as if it had been pulled from a fire right before it could be consumed.
It was very old, I could tell from the poor quality. I could not, however, find a date. It was a paper clipping with news of a sawmill being built near a place called Belleville. There were no photos and instead only a bit of information.
“Locals continue to protest the Belleville settlement. Fears of violent retaliation have grown, which has made businessman and pioneer Anderson Cox nervous. Any–” there was a hole in the paper “–will be held to american justice.” Another hole “–the mill’s construction won’t be hampered. To make the settlement truly American he has proposed changing the booming settlement’s name to Colfax, after our patriotic Vice President Colfax.”
Vice President Schuyler Colfax. That meant the clipping was from somewhere around the late 1800’s. When I flipped over the paper, I finally got a picture. It was horribly distorted, but I assume it meant to depict the sawmill. Due to the damage and the age, I couldn’t really make out anything but a smiling man giving thumbs up and another person with him, one that did not seem quite so enthusiastic.
I hadn’t realized it before, but I found myself reading the paper with my flashlight. Where was the sun? There was a window right outside the room I had wandered in and I found the paper clipping in the doorway. It was midafternoon and I had only been inside for a couple of minutes. There was no way it had gone down already. I pocketed the paper and walked to the window. Outside I could see stars and a half moon, as if I had been inside for hours.
But that wasn’t it. There was enough light to see that the town wasn’t the same. Colfax wasn’t ever huge, but it was much smaller. Trees dominated the valley and nature wasn’t quite as defeated as it had been in my day.
I heard more rustling inside the hospital. Little footsteps. This time, when I turned around, I saw a small person run around the corner, barely caught by my flashlight. Having had enough of the hospital’s haunting nature, I hurried out the way I had come. It was day outside, but what about the stars I had seen outside that window? I didn’t want to think about that considering the footsteps I had heard. Either I was extremely tired, or there was some truth about the haunting of that hospital. But I could only wonder if it had anything to do with the house.
I worked my way to a local cafe. The first time I visited it was when I was writing the previous part of this story. There was no indoor seating, but that wasn’t uncommon up north. Little drive thru coffee shops were all over the place. There was one in Colfax when I was a kid, I think it was called The Daily Grind. During the rare chance our mother let us go down to get a treat, they would put a chocolate covered bean on top of the drink. I can remember the taste and wondered if the place that had taken their spot would do the same.
It was a nice day, so I utilized the small seating that was available outside. There was a girl there that I hit it off with. At first I thought it was just the stereotypical interest in outsiders that made her so curious about me, but that would have been strange since Colfax saw quite a bit of them.
“You remind me of someone.” She had said. If I am honest, she was beautiful. Red hair, hazel-green eyes. Freckles and all that. At first, I just came by to write. But I finished my post and kept coming. It was a daily habit I had created, one not because I had a need for caffeine. There was something about that girl, something familiar. It was like a nostalgic feeling or smell that I couldn’t quite place.
Her name was Selene and after only a week of knowing each other, we found ourselves walking through Colfax together. She had only been there for a few months, apparently, and was far more an outsider than me. Sure, I had been gone since I was quite young, but I could tell her about the Colfax that I used to know.
I told her why I was there and was honest about it, aside from the self harm issues I had been struggling with. She knew about the strange house I was looking for and didn’t shy away, even though it was a bizarre tale. Of course she wanted to read what I posted, but how could I let her? I think I was falling in love. That is a bit fast, I know, but it can’t be helped.
“I did some digging.” She told me one day. “Colfax has a strange history, especially in its early years. The natives here were driven out to make room for a mill. After that, there was a history of flooding and fires. A lot of information about the town was lost in a fire that took the town hall back in 1882. There was a forest here but the mill took most of it. I wonder…” Selene shook her head.
But I was willing to hear anything. “No, go ahead and tell me. I’ve got nothing at this point.”
“I wonder if the woods you saw were somehow a ghost of the land itself.”
“And the house too?”
“I don’t know. I would have to see it, I suppose.”
There were cars out front that couldn’t have been from the 1800’s. But the house itself? I wouldn’t know. “But why? How?”
“The native people that were here weren’t violent. Supposedly they gave up the land peacefully.”
“Supposedly.”
“Yeah. Those records are gone now. Maybe something angry roams these lands, something that longs for days long past. I could understand that.” She didn’t give me much about her life before Colfax, but I didn’t press it. It was sensitive, like a bruise, and when learning about her I made sure to work around the spot. “I wonder if it could be coaxed out.”
I had left out the part about the mother which had driven us from the house in the woods. She wouldn’t want me to hunt down something that might harm, or worse, kill me. “But how would we even try that?”
“I know the spot you are talking about. There was something that attracted me to that place shortly after I arrived. I guess you could call it a strange energy, or something. We could take a trip up there tomorrow night, if you want to. Maybe we can learn something about it together.” I think she could tell there was a darkness about me, thoughts that wished me harm. They had quieted, but weren’t gone. “We can get through it together.”
I agreed, but I didn’t know if I would show. I know, that is scummy, but depression had an anklet on me and sometimes it would beep, telling me I’ve gone out of the territory it would allow. So I was on my hotel bed, eating through my sizable savings sleeping in a shitty bed. I didn’t end up going with Selene to the top of the hill, nor did I respond to her calls. Suddenly I was reminded that there wasn’t a point to it all, that it would be better to lose myself in a dream.
And I dreamt of a house deep in the woods. In the field outside, there was a woman with red hair. She walked towards the front porch and I saw a clock in the grass outside, one that ticked steadily as ever.
I went to the drive thru cafe the next morning, knowing that I owed Selene a huge apology. She wasn’t there though. Someone had to cover her shift, she hadn’t shown or called. “Probably went back home. She never really liked it here.” The other girl had said.
There were no missing person signs, it was as if she didn’t exist.
I did go up to the hill, but it was the same as it had been before. There was no forest, there was nothing but the strange speaker tower and hills of grass. It had rained the night before and there were footprints in the dirt, but those could have belonged to anyone. I had a dream, but it was probably brought on by thoughts of Selene coming to the hill. She wasn’t in there, was she? She hadn’t found a way into the woods and found the house? That wasn’t possible because there was no forest.
I went back to East South St. and looked up at the abandoned hospital. Maybe I could have tried going back inside, but I didn’t want to do that. I was entitled to answers, I was owed answers and didn’t want to work for them. Humans are strange things, thinking the world has a debt to them because bad things happened. Bad things happen to everyone, but some, like me, decide to wallow rather than move on.
That night, I was exhausted and prepared for sleep. I could have slept for twelve hours and woken without earning a minute of rest, thus were how my nights went.
I woke to voices. When I sat up, I was in a larger room and laying on a couch.There was an American man sitting at a table, one dressed in a suit that told me he was a proper business man. Across from him was a Native American man, advanced in years. He wore a suit very similar to Perkins’.
“Adapt. That is what we have done, Mr. Perkins. You know most of my kin have moved further west, but west is running out. Your boss called it New America. New America means new us. We did not start these fires. I beg you, stop these hangings.”
“But the ritual?”
“Mr. Perkins, white men might call anything strange a ritual.”
“So you deny that there was one?”
I stayed laying in bed as the man stared at me. It was clear he did not know I was there as this was some kind of vision, but I still remained unmoving and barely breathing. “There are restless youth, as with any people. It is like your patriotism, it is just youthful irritation and nothing more.”
“William says something different. He says they meant to summon a devil to defend the forest.”
“You are a proper american man, Mr. Perkins. Do you believe in such things?”
“I want to know what you believe.”
The man seemed to respect this and pondered for a moment. “Form varies among different tribes, but my people believe that spirits watch over these rivers and valleys. I think they meant to have audience with those spirits so that they might drive out the children of the white man. That is what I heard. The youth believe that butchering animals would anger these spirits, raising a wrath in your city. But…” He hesitated.
“Go on.”
“They did not complete the sacrifice, nor did they end up killing any animals at all. Your man, William, found them and rounded a great many up because of the ‘witchcraft,’ as he called it. Do you know, Mr. Perkins, how many he hung from our trees that night? There is muttering that something accepted them as forbidden offerings.”
“Human sacrifices? That is what you blame these fires on, an angry spirit?”
“Not at all, Mr. Perkins. That is what I blame for taking the young in the dead of night. People have gone missing and William says it is us. It is not. We have brothers here from the south who mutter about some evil witchcraft where a man wears the skin of beasts. Many cultures have similar legends; there are dark things that wander the lands where men spill innocent blood. Are you a superstitious man, Mr. Perkins?”
“I can’t say I am.”
“Don’t be. Evil spirits want you to think about them, it gives them power. I try to adapt to this modern America, but I remember my mother’s teachings. I do think, because of the hangings, that something far older than our tribes was brought up. Something that had the land before even us. Its presence might give Mr. William what he wants. Release my brothers and sisters, who you haven’t hung yet, and we shall leave this valley. It is not safe anymore.”
Perkins nodded profusely. “I have no intention of hanging your people. I just needed to find the truth about these fires. I do have one question, though.” His tone changed. Sometimes when you are eavesdropping, there is a shift in the speaker’s tone that tells you you’ve been caught spying. That they are talking to you instead. I felt that and realized they were looking at me. “What about that red haired girl that went missing?”
“Hmm.” The man’s accent suddenly vanished, replaced with the voice of a young girl I knew all too well. “She is playing in the house.”
Mr. Perkins… he didn’t have eyes anymore. “Come come come. Come come and have fun.” He chirped in a voice that wasn’t his.
I awoke with a start and tried to sit up. There was a weight on me that made it difficult, then I felt feet on my chest as some small person leapt up and scurried out the window. It looked like a child, but starved and wild. But it was dark and I didn’t get a good look at it. What I did see was an open window, a small one and the only window in the hotel room. I quickly hurried to it, trying to catch sight of whatever had been sitting on me. All I could see was some small thing scrambling up the hillside, towards my childhood house. Towards a place that used to have a deep forest to play in.
It struck me as a chance. If that was somehow from the woods, then maybe the entrance would be there for it to hurry back in. I got dressed and hurried outside, barely preparing for the journey. I exhausted myself running uphill, but I was already behind the childlike creature and it would reach the woods first. That, or it was leading me to them. I don’t know which would have been better.
But I reached the top of the hill, then the curve in the road. Then I saw a treeline, one that had a radio tower near it that was fenced in. Right at the treeline was a small figure which glanced at me. It was a child, that was clear, and they crawled into the trees.
I wanted to follow, but I couldn’t bring myself to step inside. I sat on the grass, staring at the trees, wondering if they would fade from my vision if I stared long enough. If Selene was in there, I had to go find her. But I felt fear of those woods for the first time since I was a kid. It was what I came to find, but I didn’t want it anymore.
Then I blinked.
I was laying down on my back, staring up at a sky full of stars. The moon shined down through the trees and illuminated a terrible sight I had wished to see for the past week. The ticking of that clock in the yard made me throw up in the leaves.
We had never been in the woods at night, only during the day. The door was closed, but I saw it slowly open. I quickly got to my feet and should have fled right away, but I didn’t. Instead I watched it swing. I was still dreaming, I had to still be dreaming. The wind, however, was too real on my face. The sounds were too crisp to be a sleeping vision.
And the terror I felt when something tall leaned down to stare from the corner of the door was far too potent.
When I was a child, the thing called mother did not step foot outside the front door. We were there during the day, however. When it placed a hand on the doorframe and began to pull itself out, the trance was broken. When a naked foot as white as the moon above stepped out, I sped away. I could remember how quickly that thing caught up to me inside the house. I wasn’t a fast kid, much less a fast adult.
There was more than just one pair of footsteps after me. Leaves were being crushed all around me as a whole host of nightmares gave chase. I wished for childhood nostalgia and it responded, it would drag me back kicking and screaming.
I didn’t want to die, not like that. I wanted someone to find my body and know I died because no one cared. That is what I wanted; attention in death. Attention I felt I was owed when I was alive. Never before had I experienced as much attention. I was the focus of the entire night. Something cracked in the branches above and leaves fell down around me in great numbers. A pine cone struck my head and it took me by surprise. I didn’t want to but my instincts made me look up.
It was crawling above me. The body was facing upwards as hands and feet crawled through the forest canopy. Black pits, expressionless, kept watch from the head. The neck was twisted backwards so that the thing could watch me as it sped along.
But worst of all was its back. Latching onto loose skin were four or five children, all without eyes. Their mouths betrayed no emotion, only the slightest curiosity in me as I ran from their mother.
One let go and hit the ground in front of me with a hard thud. I leapt over her, but she reached out her hand to grab my foot. I went down and barely caught myself. White hot pain shot up my wrist, but I didn’t have a second to consider or experience the agony. I wiggled free from the girl as another kid landed on his back to my right, instantly reaching out to grasp me.
They were like ants piling on a crumb. Another landed right behind me, grabbing the collar of my shirt. My vision went white when my head hit the ground. The stick the back of my skull landed on was dense enough to nearly kill me right there.
Dizzy and reeling, I barely had the strength to fight the child as he put his hands on my forehead. Their mother began crawling down a nearby tree, glowing in moonlight. Another child, nearly a toddler, put her full weight on my injured arm. I screamed and howled, feeling a hard crunch. I wanted to pull it away, to strike at them with all my might, but every tug felt as if I was going to pull my hand from my body.
I looked towards the mother, who was just reaching the ground. My neck burned as I stretched my head backwards. She hesitated once she reached the floor. She or… or it began to groan and contort. The belly began to stretch and tear until it became a maw. There were no teeth, no tongue, only a pit of endless darkness from which warm, putrid breath assaulted me.
A long moan, full of anticipation, escaped from within. Ready for a meal, it shuttered and took a step closer.
I redoubled my efforts. The child holding down my left arm was also pinning my chest. With a desire to live like I had never felt in my life, I pulled my left arm free and grabbed a stick as my hand came up. I stuck it in the shoulder of the boy that held me down, but he didn’t react. I then pulled it out and thrusted it into his empty eye.
He didn’t make a sound, but he did begin shaking his head vigorously. When his hands released me so that he could remove the object, I quickly pushed the girl off of my other arm and then pulled the other two off. They were small, which is the only reason I was able to get free. The mother, or whatever it is, wasn’t fast with its belly opened. She struggled to get closer as I sped off into the woods.
It only took a minute or two for me to find myself back on the hill, next to a radio tower that I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. I had the answer, one that I realized only then that I did not want. I didn’t suddenly wake up once leaving the woods. Instead, I walked down the street and, when I turned around, the forest was replaced with a field of hills and the radio tower was gone.
I can’t sleep. I am terrified I will wake back up in the woods, outside a house that I once thought was mine. Selene… she has to be dead, right? But if she was then I would have seen her chasing me, I think. I assumed the kids that chased me were once alive, but had their souls sucked away. Maybe the thing just eats adults?
I don’t want to find out. I know I’ll hear calls to be a hero, to march into the forest, but I planned on flying out the next morning. If I die I want it to be on my terms.
Then Jane called me again. She’s been calling and leaving messages. I listened to one and she said it is important. I will stay until I hear what she has to say; that will decide if I go home and set my affairs in order.
I’ve lived my life afraid of making moves that puts me out of control, setting something up that might not go my way. It only stands to reason that the end would be the same. I don’t want to die in the house in the woods, marked as missing and never found again. I don’t want Bebo and Jane coming to Colfax to search for me, only to find themselves where I was.
In front of an old house with a ticking clock.