As a child, I loved digging holes. I never expected to find anything at the bottom of them, I just loved the act of shoveling dirt and making a hole out of the flat ground. Behind my house there were several acres of dense woods that were perfect for it.
My friend William and I would each take a large stick and hack a trail through the overgrowth of milkweed and thistles that covered the edge of the woods. Once we found a clearing we’d bury our shovels into the ground and begin piling the crumbly soil up around the hole’s perimeter.
We had built one hole that was significantly larger than the rest. The top of it was covered with tree branches, so we could crawl through a small opening and use it as an underground fort.
Early one summer morning, we ran out to the woods to build an addition to the fort. There was a large tree just outside the hole on the side that was opposite the entrance. Our plan was to make a lean-to up against the tree and expand the hole so that we could go in the entrance and come back above ground inside the lean to.
It took most of the afternoon but we finally finished. It was mostly dark inside the lean-to except for a few small cracks of light that came through the roof and William’s green and black sneakers that glowed in the dark. As we walked around the outside and admired the days work, I heard something that sounded like a mumbling voice from back in the woods.
“What was that? Did you hear that noise,” I whispered. William just laughed. “You always hear things out here and there is never anything.” “It was probably just the wind.” But there was only a slight breeze, and since William’s overly loud laugh the forest had become dead silent. I don’t know whether it was the silence or the forest getting darker, but something about the woods that night filled me with terror.
I sprinted down our path as fast as I could and didn’t look back. I could hear William yelling, “Chicken” and “Scaredy Cat”, but in that moment I didn’t care. The canopy of trees was blocking most of the sun from reaching the forest floor and the darkness only amplified my fear. Finally, I could see the entrance to the woods up ahead and my house in the distance. I pushed myself even harder, pumping my scrawny nine-year-old legs for all they were worth. I burst out into the open, but I didn’t stop until I reached my back door. It was only once I was inside that I realized how scratched up my legs were from running through the thistle.
When I caught my breath, I started to feel a little foolish. I did tend to be a little jumpy and I didn’t see anything in the woods. There was no way William was going to let up on teasing me about my cowardice. Even though the voice had sounded very real and fairly close, it was much easier to doubt myself when I was standing safely inside my house.
Later that night after dinner, I told my parents I’d left something outside and I needed to run and get it. I had made my mind up that I was going back in the woods to prove to myself that I wasn’t scared. Whatever I thought I heard couldn’t have been real. I grabbed a flashlight and briskly jogged to the entrance of the forest. The sun had almost set and it was difficult to see very far through the thick foliage. I crept down the path, careful to make as little noise as possible.
When I reached the clearing, the lean-to was knocked down and the branches over the fort had caved in and were now mostly covered by dirt. I didn’t know whether William had trashed it out of anger or some older kids had wrecked it. But, seeing my favorite hideout trashed made me forget about where I was and how late it was. I set down my flashlight and slowly begin pulling the tree branches out of the hole.
Once I had removed all the branches from the cave-in, I went to clear out all the dirt that had been thrown into the hole, but when I picked up my shovel, the dirt on the end of it was still soft and wet. Whoever, had wrecked our hideout had done it recently. My one track mind was so focused on repairing my fort that I didn’t stop to think about all the danger I could be in.
I had only dug a few shovelfuls when I hit something hard in the midst of all the loose dirt. It was difficult to see what it was since my flashlight was laying outside of the hole. I only had to brush a small amount of soil away before I saw something familiar glowing underneath a thin veneer of dirt. All that was visible was a small part of William’s luminescent sneakers and an inch of his pale skin just above his socks.
Fear seized every part of my body. I was kneeling in the bottom of a dark hole in the middle of the woods next to a lifeless body, and something or someone was still lurking nearby. Finally, I was able to come to my senses enough to reach up and turn off the flash light. I slowly crawled out of the hole and laid completely still, listening for anyone that was prowling nearby.
I crept slowly through the dark, by now most of the trail had been flattened enough to make the path fairly obvious. I was walking as quietly as I could, slightly bent over to keep myself as invisible as possible. Once I was about half way out of the woods, the path straightened out, so there was no longer any danger of losing my way. I slowly let out an audible breath of relief as my porch lights came into view off in the distance.
I was preparing to sprint for home when a light from behind me scanned the trees above. “Don’t forget your flashlight!,” a load voice half shouted and half grumbled. As I dashed for home, I could hear the most sickening laugh ringing through the woods.
By the time I reached home, my shirt was stained with dirt and tears. It took several minutes before my parents could understand me through my incoherent sobbing.
When the police searched the woods that night, they were able to find a small abandoned encampment just a hundred yards beyond our fort. It was littered with refuse and notebooks filled with half crazed ramblings. They never were able to find Williams killer, but some nights when my room is especially dark, I can still hear him laughing.