The next morning, I woke up feeling absolutely exhausted. I shambled out of my room and into the living room, where I found Ethan, curled up on the floor, asleep. I chuckled, “Always finds a way to be cute, doesn’t he?”
On top of the feeling of fatigue, though, I was feeling the ass-end of a massive headache. I went into the kitchen and downed a Tylenol before starting to figure out what I should do for breakfast. In the end, I just decided on the classic “Pop a couple ‘Eggo’s’ in the toaster and serve with lucky charms” route, feeling way too tired and ill to really be capable for anything else. I knew he’d be okay with it anyways.
He woke up about a minute before the waffles were set to pop in the toaster and came trotting into the kitchen, looking every bit as fatigued as I was. His skin actually looked whiter than usual; paler, with dark gray bags under his eyes. I could tell he didn’t sleep well last night.
“Hey there, Monkey!” I said as cheerfully as I could manage. He groaned in response. “You okay? How’d you sleep?”
“They kept screaming at me, Daddy.” he whimpered. “They wanted me to go into the closet. They wouldn’t leave me alone, I couldn’t sleep, so I came into the living room where they couldn’t follow me.”
I pulled the waffles from the toaster and fixed his breakfast. As I did this, I started thinking again about the incident from the previous night. I thought again about the theory of Ethan possibly having some sort of mental disorder. I wondered then if it wasn’t him I heard just before going to bed. We ate in silence, both of us feeling too exhausted to think of anything to say. Afterwards, Ethan went back into the living room, turning on the TV to cartoons.
I decided to go into my room and call Beth, at least answer ONE of my questions. She, of course, sounded none too thrilled to be hearing from me (trust me, the feeling was pretty mutual – things were pretty messy when we split). I asked her, calmly as possible, if she’d noticed anything off about Ethan or his behavior while with her; to which she responded by telling me that she hadn’t, as well as adding that even if such a thing were the case, that I’d be more knowledgeable if I were around more often. “Bitch! Not MY fuckin’ fault when I’ve been trying to find a new place, PLUS pay child support out the ass because YOU decided to split!” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, sucked this down, gritted my teeth and thanked her for answering my question before hanging up.
“Well, at least now I know things haven’t been weird with him before now.” I thought. I figured this would’ve likely ruled out any theory of mental disorder, at least for the time being. Of course, this wasn’t a whole lot of relief because now, I was back to having no answers or explanations at all. That, and it also sent my head spinning about the sounds that I’d heard, before and after the episode with Ethan.
I didn’t ponder much longer on this. I couldn’t. I had to start getting ready for work, being due in in just over an hour. I took a quick shower and got dressed. I called my mother to come watch Ethan for me. Fortunately, she didn’t live too far away from Willow lane, and she was there in five minutes, arriving right as I’d gotten my shoes on. I left some money for food and told her that I’d be back around 10:00 that night, and asked to have Ethan in bed when I got home.
I ended up being five minutes early to work, a real first for me, usually being 5 minutes late (to be fair, though, I usually end up leaving late anyways). Because of this, I was able to hang around with Eddie and a few of the other yahoos in the break room around the coffee pot before my shift started and I had to be in my office. This was how I’d first hear of Silas Caine.
See, Eddie was a HUGE sucker for spooky shit. True crime, serial killers, cryptids, ghosts, you name it; he was into it all. He claimed he and his dad actually had a “close encounter” with an alien when he was little. in other words, the guy would’ve fit right in on an episode of “The X-Files” as David Duchovny’s body double. He was amusing to listen to, though. Anything to make a 10 hour office job more interesting right?
Anyway, so he was talking about some old urban legend he read about kids that went missing in a local neighborhood. “So, the stories say;” I heard him begin, “That kids who were outside alone after sundown went missing. No one’s ever found them. Police have apparently been searching for three years now since it first started happening, back in 2019.”
“They ever have any suspects?” Kincaid, one of the other unfortunate desk jockeys like me, asked.
“Only one so far. This curmudgeon named Silas Caine. Dude was basically the poster boy for crotchety old geezers. Said he had a nice house, though.” This was where I came in.
“Did he do it?” I asked. He grinned, shrugging his shoulders.
“That’s just it. It was never proven. See, people tried to sic the cops on him. They were convinced he did it.”
“How? Did he confess?” He shook his head. “And no one saw him or found any evidence?” His grin grew, becoming excited. I’ll admit, I was actually interested (again, anything to get me in a good mood before I’m stuck the rest of the day at my desk, right? Especially after the rocky morning start).
“Nope, nope, and nope!” He proclaimed eagerly. “And see, cause of that, the cops had to drop him from the radar. But the kids kept goin’ missing.”
“How?” Kincaid asked, “Wouldn’t the parents have kept the kids inside or something?” Believe it or not, I was actually two seconds from asking this same exact question, myself.
“Well, that’s the kicker. See, at the time, folks weren’t big on lockin’ their doors at night. Also, when it got head, they’d tend to let their windows stay open to avoid having to screw with the thermostats; you know, summertime and the raising of the gas bills and all. So obviously–”
“Obviously that meant that whoever it was had easy access inside the houses, too.” I said, finishing his conclusion. He pointed and clicked his tongue at me. Kincaid then asked him what exactly happened to Silas Caine.
“Like I said, everyone thought he was the one doin’ it. Some even went so far as to say he’d perform human sacrifices to demons or some crazy shit like that. But again, nobody actually saw anything, nobody actually knew. Because of this, police couldn’t issue any kind of arrest warrant or even a search warrant. So folks got desperate and took matters into their own hands. One day, on one of supposedly VERY few occasions he actually did decide to leave his house, one of the residents jumped him, demanding to know where the kids were. When he wouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t, spill his guts, well..” He slid his thumb across his neck like he was slicing it.
Me and Kincaid looked at each other. Like I said, I was intrigued. Him, not so much. “So what; some fucker plays hero and beats an old man to death, the end?” He said this with a look of complete disbelief plastered on his face.
“No,” Eddie replied, his excitement not impeded in the slightest by Kincaid’s uninterested skepticism. “Well, for a time, yeah it was, sure. But see, that’s where things get interesting. One night, about a year and a half later after old man Caine bit it, guess what; another kid, gone!”
Kincaid scoffed. I asked how. He shrugged again. “No one knows. No one saw anybody or anything so…” He trailed off.
“Let me ask you somethin’, Ed,” Kincaid chided, “Do you actually hear yourself when you make this shit up?”
“I’m not making any of this up.” Eddie replied. “Here, I’ll show you.” He pulled out his phone and opened google to the article in question. It was from an unlisted forum with a headline reading “Mysterious and strangest crimes”. Below this was a string of news articles about kids disappearing back in 2019 and even continuing well into 2021. It was when I got a closer look at the articles that my heart was sent pounding again.
“Hey, can you send me a link to these?” I asked, growing nervous. This didn’t go unnoticed by him and Kincaid, either.
“What’s wrong, Ulrich? You lookin’ spooked. Don’t tell me this dingbat’s little campfire story’s gettin’ to ya?” Kincaid jeered.
“That’s where I live.” I said, looking to him, white-faced. “That’s Willow Lane, that’s my neighborhood!”
He cocked his eyebrow. “You’re bullshittin’”
“I’m serious. You know how I was moving, right?” He nodded. “Well, I moved into a house over there in that neighborhood.”
He stayed looking skeptically at me. “And no one said anything to you about this; kids going missing in the middle of the night?” I shook my head. I caught a glimpse of the clock and saw that I was now five minutes late (Ironic, right?), so I punched the clock and bolted out of the break room to my desk.
As you no doubt can imagine, it was next to impossible for me to concentrate on any of my work. I couldn’t get it out of my head; I was now living in a neighborhood where kids inexplicably went missing at night. Not only that, but no one ever knew who did it, where the kids even ended up, or even found any trace of them. Kids apparently vanished into thin air, and there I was, right there in it – With my own 7 year old child!
It was getting to be around 6:00 and the sun was going down for the night. With this, I glanced around before attempting to call my mother and check up on Ethan. My heart was pounding harder and harder with every second the dial tone passed without connecting the call. I closed my eyes, “God, PLEASE let everything be okay…”
I took deep breaths until eventually calming down and the call connected. “Hello? Ma, you there?”
“Hey, yeah, I’m here.”
“Okay good. Is everything going okay at home?”
“Yeah, I’m just making some spaghetti and meatballs for supper.”
“Okay, what about Ethan, where’s he? Can I speak to him?”
“Oh, he’s in the bathtub cleanin’ up right now.” She then muffled the receiver and shouted “And he better be gettin’ behind his ears if he wants cookies afterwards.”
In the background, I could just faintly hear him shout back “I am!” “Okay, well, I just wanted to check up and see that everything was alright.”
“Of course it is, hon. I’m tellin’ ya, you always worry too much–” I hung up mid-sentence. I let out a sigh of relief.
“Calm down, everything’s just fine. Ethan’s perfectly fine. Just finish up what I can here, and go home. He’ll be in bed, belly probably stuffed to bursting full of cookies.” I rubbed my eyes and let out a dry chuckle.
The rest of the night continued dragging on slowly. By the time it got to be around 9:30, I had actually managed to knock a bit of the day’s workload down and was finalizing a few of the reports for the next day, when my phone started ringing again. I looked to see it was my mother again.
“Hell—“
“Issac!” My mother shrieked, forcing me to hold the phone away. “He’s gone! Oh God, he’s gone!” She started hyperventilating.
“Wait, what? Mother, slow down, what’re you talking about? Who’s gone? Where?”
“Ethan! He’s gone! I can’t find him anywhere! Oh sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he’s gone!” She howled in grief. I was immediately thrown into a frenzy.
”Ethan, gone?” a shudder ran down my spine. “Okay, Mama, calm down, tell me what happened.”
“I-I… I,” she stammered, still hysterical. “I put him to bed an hour after dinner. He woke up and complained that he couldn’t sleep; saying that something was buggin’ him, so I read him a story and put him back to bed. Everything seemed fine afterwards, so I thought he was okay. I just went to check on him, though, and now I can’t find him anywhere!”
“Alright, stay there, I’m coming home right now.” I hung up the phone before grabbing my stuff and bolting out of the office. I didn’t bother shutting down my computer or even punch out the clock. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. My boy was missing.
The drive home, despite it being a relatively short drive, felt tense and like it dragged for an eternity. Every worst possible scenario was whizzing through my head. ”Dear God, why? Why does it have to be Ethan?! Where is he?! Where could he have gone, he was with Ma. How could this have happened?!”
“They keep wanting me to come into the closet with them…” This made my frenzied thoughts pause for a moment. ”The closet…” I wondered, ”Why the closet? What’s in there?”
I made it back to the house, all but flying into the driveway, jumped out and ran inside. Ma was in the middle of the living room, pacing back and forth; stopping once she saw me and ran to me. “Oh God, Issac,” She cried, embracing me, “I-I-I don’t know what happened! I don’t know where or how he could’ve gotten gone like this!”
I gently pushed her away and strode quickly to the bedroom. Just as I suspected (as I’d feared), as soon as I reached the threshold, the temperature was ice cold. This time, it was worse; feeling now like The room was a giant vat of liquid nitrogen. My body immediately began shivering, and I could even see my breath.
“E-Ethan?!” I called out, shivering. The room was dark. I called his name again, flicking the light on. My jaw dropped and I fell to my knees at what I saw.
The blankets on the futon had been flung to the side haphazardly and the sheet had been pulled from one corner, exposing at least a third of the mattress underneath. What was worse, were what looked like the marks of little fingernails running across the floor away from the futon.
“ETHAN!” I shouted. Nothing. I looked under the futon; nothing. “ETHAN!” I spun around wildly, throwing my head in every direction around the room; the cramped, empty, ice cold bedroom. Nothing was there, no one was there, anywhere in the room. Nowhere, except maybe…
I looked at the closet. It was shut. I walked over to it, noticing how much colder it somehow seemed to get, despite the rest of the room already feeling 20 below sub-zero. As well as this, I could hear those sounds again. The mix of crying and giggling of small children.
Shaking, both from extreme cold and sheer panic, I reached out and gripped the doorknob. As soon as I did, an image of a small dark figure silhouetted against a bright, white background flashed across my mind. This caused me to retract from the closet door. ”What the fuck?!”
That’s when the sounds started getting louder again, like who or whatever was on the other side of the door was getting closer. Then, from the jumbled mix, I heard one distinct voice that made my heart ACTUALLY freeze. “Daddy, save me! Help! They’re hurting me! Please, let me out!”
I sprang into action. That was Ethan, MY BOY, in there. I had to get him out. “Hang on!” I shouted, grabbing the doorknob again. “Hang on, buddy, Daddy’s coming!”
His voice started fading, growing distant. ”Oh sweet fuckin’ God, please don’t let me be too late!” I violently threw the closet door open, only to be met with what looked like a dark hole in the wall where the closet should’ve been. “Ethan!” I called out into it.
Nothing was there, though the sounds still echoed from seemingly everywhere within it. I started hearing the little girl’s voice again, sounding just as petrified as Ethan’s was a second ago. “Please… he’s making us do it! We had to do it, he promised to let us out if we did.”
I stood frozen. I didn’t know what to say, what to do. What was she talking about? Who the hell even was this? I couldn’t see her, only hear her pathetic little voice. Then, from deep within the back of the void, a white, glowing orb took shape.
It was blinding to look at directly. It was like the sun, only without any sort of dimension or vibrance to it, no personality; just a blazing ball of featureless light. Immediately after taking form, I watched a black, smoke-like mist get sucked into it, immediately becoming swallowed by it.
As I watched this happen, the mist was stretched and pulled apart as it joined inside the orb. Just before being devoured completely, I saw, one last time, my son’s face take shape, looking terrified. I heard his voice cry out, “DADDY!” before disappearing for good.
“ETHAN!” I screamed, hurling myself through the closet. As soon as I entered where or whatever the hell “Twilight Zone” kind of place this was, I immediately felt my body become weightless. I opened my mouth, trying to call out for Ethan again, but I couldn’t. It was like someone had pushed a “mute” button on me and I couldn’t make a sound.
Despite this, I could hear the children’s cries continue echoing all around me. They got closer and closer, closing in around me. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t escape. I couldn’t do anything!
I closed my eyes. This was it. ”Daddy’s coming, son” was my last thought.
Now, what followed is honestly a little hard to explain. It felt like a dream, yet, I know it wasn’t. At least, not in the traditional sense. In any case, it plays a big part in why I’m writing this, why I’m sharing any of this here, a whole year later.
So, there, floating in the void, unaware of anything anymore; unconscious, I guess, everything became suddenly quiet. Suddenly, I began to see what looked like two little kids running around in the street of Willow Lane. A little boy and a girl, twins. They were playing “hop-scotch” using sidewalk chalk.
In the distance, I could see what looked like an old man, watching them from his porch. He was watching them intently, concentrated solely on them. “He always watched.” a little boy’s voice called out from seemingly nowhere.
“They loved to watch. Especially us littler ones.” This time it was another boy’s voice; this one sounding smaller, from a four or five year old maybe. I began to see a large shadow take shape above the old man. “They loved to watch us, that’s how they chose.”
“Chose?” I asked, honestly shocked I was even able to speak at all. “What do you mean? Who are you, what the hell even is this? Where am I?!” My brain buzzed at a thousand miles a minute, I couldn’t stop myself.
The two little kids turned towards me, smiling; their eyes turning black, looking like two blank holes in their heads. Everything then went completely dark again as a large shadow passed over the scene, wiping everything from sight. In the darkness, I heard a mix of voices again; some of children crying, some of them even heard begging for mercy, while another, deeper, gruff voice was heard speaking in what sounded like another language.
The man’s voice was then replaced with a deep, inhuman, bellowing laughter as the crying children got louder and more agonizing with each second. “He used to force us to do things to each other.” Another voice cried out. This time, I vaguely recognized it as the little girl I’d heard before.
Before I could even attempt to ask what she meant, a new scene appeared from the darkness. At first, all I could see was the dim glow of a candle flame. Slowly, though, I saw two figures materialize. It was the twins from before. The boy was tied down to the floor by his hand and wrists. Over him, I saw the girl standing with a knife in her hand, bawling. ”DO IT!” the gruff voice shouted, causing her to jump and wail louder.
”I don’t wanna…” she blubbered. “He’s my brother, I love him. Please let us go!” The scene was washed away once again by darkness. I heard the man grunting angrily, followed by the little girl screaming, before everything went silent with a squelching sound that actually made me feel a distinct sense of nausea in my stomach.
“He hurt us real bad if we didn’t do what he said.” She said, once more breaking the silence. “He wanted us to bring all our friends over, so he could do the same to them.”
“He brought us into the room,” the little boy said, “and he wouldn’t bring us any food or water until he was ready to pick which one of us he was gonna hurt again.” I could hear sounds of heavy footsteps echo, followed by a door creaking open and a child’s voice screaming bloody murder as they trail off, seeming to be dragged away. It was quiet again.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“This was where he left us when he was done, when he got bored with us.”
“It’s where the end was…” the little girl chimed in. “That’s what he always told us. ”This is the end, and us little runts were better off here, in him; in the end.” He said little bitches like us had no place in the world. He’d lock us in here, and we couldn’t get out unless he opened it to throw someone else in.”
“In who?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I watched a tall figure take form in the center of the white glowing sphere in the distance. The figure soon got closer and closer and I began to feel my body uncontrollably be drawn towards it.
I saw it was a tall, dark figure; shaped like a man, except that it was blank. It had no face. At least no singular one. Rather, it was covered in thousands of screaming faces that twisted and writhed, screaming in agony. As well as this, it had four large gangly arms that reached out into the void.
“What the—“ I shouted, now beyond terrified. “What the hell is THAT!” I continued being pulled towards it as it drew closer and closer, reaching out for me.
“That is the end.” The little girl replied. “We were told that he was always waiting for us all.”
“What’s happening?” I cried, trying to claw at the nothingness around me, hopelessly trying to find something, anything to grab hold of to keep from being dragged along further.
“He’s trying to have you, too. He wants us all.” I looked at the thing again. It continued closer. Closer. It was damn near close enough to snatch me and pull me in.
“What do I do?”
“You have to get out. Over there…” I looked back behind me. I could see the doorway of the closet again, leading back into the bedroom. “He’s got a new one, he’s distracted, but he won’t stop so we have to get out now, while we still can!”
“What do you mean? How is he—“ I was cut off when my blood went cold again. Coming from the figure’s shadowy form, I began to hear it; Ethan’s voice.
”DADDY! SAVE ME!”
“ETHAN!” I turned and was ready to charge at the thing. I had to get my son out of whatever the fuck that thing was!
“Wait, don’t!” the little boy’s voice beckoned. I stopped.
“That’s my boy, I have to get him out!”
“You can’t! If you do, he’ll take you, too, and the rest of us.”
“I CAN’T LEAVE HIM!” My heart was spiking. My muscles were shaking, ready to charge and rip Ethan right out of the thing. Yet, I didn’t move. I couldn’t, for whatever reason, will myself to go through with this.
The little girl cried out again, “He’s the reason we’re able to get out! That’s why we begged him to come in, so we could finally get out. We’re sorry, we didn’t want to, but it’s the only way! We have to go!”
“Not without my son!” I screamed, finally finding it in me to charge towards the figure. It’s arms outstretched, ready to welcome me into it’s horrific mass. The screams were deafening as I lunged for it.
”Im comin, hold on, little buddy!” I thought, almost face to face with the thing. ”DADDY’ COMING!”
Before I could reach out to it, however, I felt something jerk me backwards, ripping me away towards the doorway. I looked back, seeing a legion of albino, eyeless apparitions of children pulling my ankles away towards the door. “NO!” I screamed, “DAMN IT, LET ME GO, I HAVE TO SAVE MY BOY!”
They didn’t stop. They just stared back at me as they pulled me away. I tried again to stop from being pulled along, to no use. Before I knew it, everything was quiet again, calm. I opened my eyes to see that I was back in the bedroom.
Everything was still. I looked around. The room was normal. ”What happened?! Where am I now?! Is it over?! Where’s Ethan?!”
I looked to the closet door again. “Ethan!” I shouted, throwing the door open. Inside was empty; a normal, quiet, empty closet. There was no blinding light, no shadow figure, no ghost children…
and no Ethan.
I started shouting his name, to the point of tearing my vocal chords, while slamming the closet door open and close repeatedly. ”He’s still in there! I have to get him out! I have to go back! MAKE IT COME BACK!”
No matter how much I tried, though, nothing changed. The closet stayed the same; an empty, quiet closet. No ghosts, no void, and no Ethan.
“ETHAN!” I screamed, crumpling to my knees, burying my face in my hands. I started beating on the door. “DAMN IT MAKE HIM COME BACK! GIVE ME BACK MY SON!”
Nothing changed. No ghosts, no void, and no Ethan. Just silence.
I finally curled up on the floor, bawling like I was little kid myself. He was gone. MY BOY was gone, swallowed by the dark forever. I’d never get to see him grow up. I’d never get to go to the movies with him.
We were gonna play at the water park together during the summer. Now that’ll never happen. I won’t get to see him get his license and drive (I was gonna buy him his first car…). Hell never see him take a pretty girl to prom. I won’t get to see him graduate. Nothing.
He was gone.
Everything I’d wanted to accomplish; working, the move, everything; I did it for him. Now, it meant nothing. Now, he was gone, forever.
I couldn’t save him. I failed him.
”I’m sorry, Ethan… oh God, please Ethan, Daddy’s sorry…”
I stayed like this until Mother came rising into the room. She asked what happened, where Ethan was. I didn’t answer, instead just remaining curled up, crying on the floor.
We called the police shortly after that. When they arrived, they asked the two of us separately what’d happened. I don’t know what my mother told them, likely the same thing she told me on the phone. Me, well, once I could (sort of) calm down enough to form coherent words, I told them simply that my son had gone missing while I was at work. Where and how, I told him I didn’t know.
I wanted to tell him what happened with the closet, of course. But I think a part of me realized, even back then, that even if they’d have believed a bit of that, I’d possibly be dooming them as well. Not only that, but others might then follow suit after them. Even if it might’ve meant Ethan would’ve been freed; it wasn’t right. He wouldn’t have wanted that, would he?
To say things got low after that would be a hilarious understatement. Time passed by in slow-mo it felt like. Hours felt like days, days like years. The house was quiet. Empty.
It got to me, and one night, coming home from work (which I was failing miserably at worse and worse each day — eventually being laid off a month later), I attempted to down the entire bottle of painkillers. I survived, though, because my mother, who refused to leave me alone after that night, still believing Ethan would come back, managed to call the paramedics in time.
I survived and spent a few nights on the 7th floor. There, they plugged me in with a therapist; who I’ve been seeing to this day. He’s been supportive and helpful — as much as he can be, anyways. I don’t think he believes the stuff about the closet, but he’s always been willing to listen and always did his best to offer advice. If nothing else, I’ll say, the best advice he gave me was moving out of the house, which I did.
I live in Dallas now, far from Willow lane and the house. The house that, despite being what I thought was a dream fulfilled, turned out to be a lifelong nightmare and a breeding ground for atrocities I wouldn’t have imagined in even my most fucked up nightmares.
It’s taken a while; a whole year to the day now, and obviously it hasn’t really gotten any easier for me. How could it? He was my world, my light, my reason for getting out of the bed every goddamn morning, and he’s gone now. Forever trapped in the darkness; in the end, alone.
That will always haunt me more than anything else. At the same time, though, I get it. Those kids, all of them; they’re free now. Ethan was their ticket to finally finding peace. As much as it hurts — no, as much as it kills me to be without my son, I understand.
I guess, because of that, I can accept it, and carry on. If nothing else, I at least can hold onto the hope that he, too, can find a way out, and I’ll be waiting for him, waiting to give him the biggest bear hug of his life.
I can see him now…
”Daddy! I missed you!”
” I missed you too!”
I’ll be waiting for ya, little buddy…