Silas Caine, probably one of the most vile men alive. What possessed God in heaven to allow a man like him to exist, I’ll never know. Hell, calling him a “man” is actually a kindness. A man wouldn’t do the things he did, not to children! He was a monster, through and through.
I’ll go ahead and say right now, the things I’m about to tell you aren’t for the faint of heart (or weak of stomach for that matter). Honestly, just on the shit he did alone, I could fill at least half a book. But that’s not why I’m here. I’m not here to “spread awareness” or anything like that. I’m here because of what happened to my son, and because, even after all this time, things have started again.
It was last year when me and my son, Ethan, moved here to Willow Ln. After Bethany and I divorced, I was living in an apartment in a rather shitty part of town for about three months or so. The reason being, the house we were living in was one her parents had helped to pay the mortgage for. In other words, HER name was the one on the deed, so SHE would, of course, get to keep it.
I had spent just about every free moment during that time trying to find a new place, if nothing else, than to sway the court into letting me have primary custody of Ethan. I remember it was late that one Friday night, around four in the morning, and I was about to give up the night’s search, another fruitless search, when I found it. Listed for only about $250,000 with a down payment of only $85,000; was a two bedroom house on 1436 Willow Ln., Weeping Willow, N.C.
Besides being the most affordable place I could find, the place looked actually pretty nice for such a low price. Not only that, but looking at Willow Ln. in general, it looked quiet; peaceful. It looked like the kind of place you’d see families on TV or on movies moving into to “get away from the noise”, you know? In short, it was perfect for me in every way.
”If something seems too good to be true…”, yeah, yeah, I know, but what the hell was I supposed to do? I needed something suitable for my son while still being affordable and well… there it was. I guess houses can have that in common with people, don’t they? You only know what’s going on outside, often missing or overlooking things that happen inside; things that can be nothing short of utterly fucking ghoulish. That’s what happened here, at least.
(If walls could talk, they’d be screaming)
Anyway, so that was it. That morning, at nine ‘o clock on the dot, I started calling the realtor. I agreed to meet up at around noon the next day with an agent to take a look at the house. When I got into Willow Ln., arriving fifteen minutes before the realtor, I noticed immediately just how quiet the neighborhood was.
Honestly, at first, I almost thought the neighborhood was deserted or something. Some neighborhood-wide getaway, maybe? (Are those even a real thing? Hell, who knows…) In any case, though, I stood corrected when I saw movement about through a few of the windows of the houses. Only a few of them, though, and it only seemed to be certain ones at the top of the neighborhood.
1436 was located just three houses away from the one at the end, there at the cul-de-sac. In person, the house looked even more to me like the setting of a movie. Though, in a different way. It looked a little more faded and worn in places. Certain areas had brown spots and its paint, which I assume was originally white in color, was starting to fade into an almost piss-yellow color. In other words, the place had clearly seen some mileage.
Still, this didn’t bother me. I still thought it looked nice in its own way. Just imagining instead of the house from something like ”The Middle”, It was more like ”The Waltons” or maybe ”Little house on the prairie”. You know, the kind of house you’d imagine your grandma living in for several generations or something like that. That’s what it was like for me.
Of course, this made me all the more curious to see the inside of the house now. ”Was it like this in there, too?” Eventually, the realtor finally arrived. It was a young looking guy, no older than MAYBE 28 (and that’s pushing it, looking and sounding more reasonably close to 25), lanky and standing about half a foot taller than me, wearing a white dress shirt and khakis.
“Hello there!” He greeted, his excitement obviously rehearsed; fake, almost like he was acting for a kids TV show. “I’m with Fareweather Realty, My name is Douglas Jones, but you can call me “Doug”, all my friends do!” He ended this with an equally plastic chuckle and wink.
“Um, I’m Issac Ulrich”, I replied, pasting my own awkward smile.
He extended his hand and, still grinning, said, “Pleased to meet ya, Mr. Ulrich!” I shook his hand, beginning to notice how distant he looked, standing in front of me, in front of the house. I noticed subtly that his eyes seemed to keep getting drawn from me to it, constantly breaking eye contact with me just to stare at it.
I cleared my throat at one point when he seemed to zone out completely. This snapped him back and he put his fake grin back on and asked if I’d care to look around inside. I agreed, but I couldn’t help but feel just a little weirded out by this. What was going on with him? Why was he constantly staring at the house?
He led me inside where I was actually kind of shocked. Not in a bad way, but in a “I didn’t exactly see this coming” way. I say that because, contrary to the aged, old timey; “classic” I guess you could say, look of the outside, the inside looked much more to what I was familiar with like back at the other house I lived in. Everything looked neat and fresh; “modern”.
“Welcome inside!” Doug proclaimed, “This is the living room. Nice and spacious, huh?” Despite his still fake excitement, I was genuinely taken aback by it. It was big or “spacious”, to quote him. It alone could’ve fit my apartment in there, twice (at least one and a half times of the living room from Beth’s house).
I could see it; Ethan in the floor with some of his toys while I watched TV or something. “In here’s the kitchen.” Doug said, leading me — a bit hurriedly, I might add. “You got your stove, microwave, sink, all the comforts of home.” He chuckled before adding, “Yes sir, though I might warn you, the pipes are a bit old, prone to givin’ out at just about any time, so go easy on ‘em.”
I looked at him for a moment. It was subtle, almost unnoticeable, but I could see it. He was trembling. I could tell he was in a hurry, for whatever reason, to get the hell out of there. ”What’s this guy’s deal?”
After the kitchen, he led me around the rest of the house. Another thing I have to say about the house itself is, despite being relatively small on the outside, it looked and felt a lot bigger inside. Roomier.
The exception to this, though, was the second bedroom; the one that’d be Ethan’s. Of everywhere else in the house, this was the only one that seemed smaller than the rest. It seemed to be just big enough to fit a bed and MAYBE a nightstand inside of it. It was also a lot less “Lively” I guess you could say. By this, I mean that it was less colorful compared to the rest of the house.
”It doesn’t even have a window, for Christ sake.” I thought, walking back out into the hallway.
“So, what do ya think?” Doug asked. I looked around for a moment, once again taking in the atmosphere of the place, before replying that it was a winner. “Great, we’ll meet again Monday to sign the deed, that work for you?”
He was sweating when he said this. The sun was going down. “So, uh,” I began, “You live in the area?”
“Oh, no, I live in Blacksburg.”
“Ahh, I see…” I replied. ”Maybe that’s why he wants to leave so bad. That IS a good ways away and it’s getting late.” Something still felt a bit off though, despite this. Just the way I could tell he wasn’t actually invested in his job. In any case, I shook this off and he left.
I stayed behind just a little longer. I made one last round through the house, admiring everything again (I couldn’t help it, the place looked damn good), before heading back out to my car. Outside, I also stopped to look around the neighborhood again. Quiet; dead silent, no sort of activity or anything from the other houses.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. ”Yep, this place is perfect.” With that, I got in my car and drove back to the apartment, excited. I scheduled to have the week off that Sunday to start moving in once the deed was signed. It was early Monday morning, around 9:00 A.M., when the deed was signed and the house was officially mine.
I was set to pick Ethan up from school that afternoon, where I’d get to have the entire week with him, given that it was his last day before summer break. Something else to be excited about. I couldn’t wait to show him the new house.
In the meantime, I moved the last of my few personal things out of the apartment and into the house. I also started ordering things like beds, a sofa, etc. online and decided to buy the other stuff at the store during the week. I set up one of my old futons in his room until the beds arrived, while I slept on a blow-up mattress.
It was 1:30 that I picked him up from school. I remember how excited he was to see me. On sight, he came running and bounding up and into my arms. “Hey Dad!” He squealed. “Guess what? Today’s the last day of school, and Mrs. Ginny let me get TWO things from the ‘treasure box’!”
He held up a small little bag of plastic toy soldiers (one of the kind you’ll find at dollar stores for 50 cents) and a Dum-Dum. He then told me that he was saving the sucker for me as a surprise. I took it and said, “Awesome, thank you little buddy. And hey, Daddy’s got a BIG surprise of his own for ya.”
His little eyes doubles in size. “Oooh, what is it, Dad?! WHAT IS IT?!” I chuckled, ruffling his hair.
“I can’t tell you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”
“What if I still act surprised, then will you tell me?” I couldn’t help but smile at this.
“‘Fraid not, monkey. You’ll just have to see for yourself when we get there.” He groaned and his face dropped into a bit of a pout. “Hey, cheer up, buddy, I promise you’ll love it when you see it.” He looked at me again, first his eyes still looking disappointed, before starting to smile again. “Thatta boy, now let’s go, We gotta make a few stops on the way.”
“Ooh, can we get McDonald’s?!” I sighed, grinning.
“How about pizza instead?” His eyes bugged out even further at that. I took him shopping with me, letting him pick out certain things for his room.
It was around 5:30 that evening when we got back to the house. The sun had just began to set. “Ta-da!” I exclaimed, “Daddy’s got a brand new house!” His face flushed with wonder at seeing it for the first time.
“Wow! It’s HUGE!” he squealed.
“Yep, and it’s all ours. You’ll even have your own room!” He just about lost his little head at that. He started fidgeting, trying desperately to hurl himself out and to the house. “Hold on, buddy, I’m coming.” I said, going around to let him out.
When we got inside, he started running through the house. “It’s even bigger inside, Dad!” He shouted from the hallway. While he explored the house, I carried the stuff from the store in. I showed Ethan the bedroom that’d be his. “What do you think? Cool, huh?”
He looked at it for a moment, puzzled. “What’s wrong, buddy?” He didn’t say anything, just kept looking at the room. “Ethan?”
He looked at me. “Daddy, why’s the room so scary?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He pointed to the room. “It’s dark and small in here. I don’t like this room.” I looked at the room again. I couldn’t exactly blame him. Somehow, it did look even more claustrophobic than it did last time.
I couldn’t tell at the time, but for a moment, I actually felt something off about the room. Something weird, something… “scary”, I guess, quoting Ethan. Looking back, I think I even remember, for a brief instant, feeling the temperature of the room actually drop somehow, making mine and Ethan’s bodies break out in goosebumps.
I shook my head and smiled, ruffling his hair. “Well, maybe we can brighten it up with all the new stuff you got from the store while we wait for the pizza to get here.” He kept staring at the room.
I went into the kitchen and started unpacking some of the other stuff while ordering calling the number for the Pizza Hut nearby (It was Ethan’s favorite and I had coupons). I ordered three large pepperoni pies and was in the middle of placing the order for the garlic bread when I heard it. It was soft, though; almost unnoticeable, but I could hear sounds of whispering.
It was small, obviously from a child. Because of this, at first, I just brushed it off as Ethan, probably just talking to “Benny”, the imaginary friend he talked to occasionally since he was four. I finished placing the order and was putting more of the new stuff away when I heard the whispers slightly more clearly. I noticed then that it definitely wasn’t Ethan’s voice.
For one thing, it was a lot softer than his; a little girl’s voice. Who, though, was obviously anybody’s guess. Then I heard others joining in, creating sort of a jumbled mix of whispering kids’ voices. And of course, I couldn’t tell what any of them were actually saying.
“Ethan?” I called out. “That you, little buddy?” Nothing.
Again, I knew it wasn’t his voice, but at the same time, who’s was it? There wasn’t anyone else in the house. ”Who is that?” They started giggling, sounding like they came from everywhere, despite there being nothing or no one anywhere. I started throwing my head in every direction.
”What the hell? Who is that, who’s there?” Suddenly, the laughter started fading, seeming to get farther away out of the kitchen where I was. Eventually, it faded completely and everything was quiet again.
I stood in the kitchen, alert. ”Wait, what just happened? Where’d they go? What even were they?” I cupped my ear in the direction I thought I heard them trailing off to; towards the hallway, concentrating, trying to see if I’d hear them again.
I didn’t.
”Okay… that was weird”, I thought, rubbing my eyes. I took a deep breath, ”Calm down, Issac. You’re just excited, that’s all.”
I decided to turn on the TV I brought from the apartment and turned to Cartoon Network for Ethan. I called for him again. Still, no answer. ”Where is he?” I wondered. It was then, also that it hit me that I hadn’t actually heard a peep from him since I left him in the hallway. “Ethan, where ya at, buddy? Come on out, I got cartoons on.” Silence.
I waited for about ten or so minutes before starting towards the hallway. Approaching the threshold of the hallway, I heard them again; little kids, giggling. “Ethan?”
This time, the laughter slowly started changing, evolving into shrieking, sounding like whoever it was was in pain. This immediately sent me into a panic. “Ethan! Hold on, I’m coming!”
I bolted the rest of the way to the end of the hall to his room. In that moment, for some reason, it felt like either time had slowed down, or the hallway kept stretching. In other words, it felt like it took me longer than it should’ve to make it to the end of the hallway. When I did, I threw open the door to the bedroom, breathing heavily. “Ethan, are you okay? What happened, are you hurt?!”
He was sitting on the futon, facing the wall. I approached him, “Ethan? Hey buddy, are you—“ I was cut off when I heard the giggling again, much louder this time. It was coming from directly in front of me. It was coming out of him!
I froze. My heart rate started going haywire. ”What in the name of…”
“Can I come out now, please?” The words came out of him, out of his mouth, but it wasn’t his voice. It was a voice of a little boy I didn’t recognize. He started bawling again.
My mouth hung like lead had been tied to my bottom jaw. “Please, I promise I’ll be good! PLEASE!” he wailed.
“Ethan?” I finally croaked out.
“Please, I don’t want to do it! I wanna go home! Please let us go!” This time it was a little girl’s voice, bawling. Both voices sounded terrified — no, petrified! In a weird sort of way, I could almost actually see them; these children, instead of my son. I’d have been heartbroken if it weren’t for the fact that it WAS my son they were coming from. Instead, I just stood there, facing his back while this continued.
I put my hand on his shoulder, immediately retracting when, on contact, he started shaking, flailing his arms and head around violently like he was batting something away. “No, stop!” He screamed in the little boy’s voice again. “Please, don’t. I don’t wanna do it, please, I’m sorry! I wanna go home!”
“ETHAN!” I grabbed his arms and restrained him to the futon. He writhed furiously underneath me. His eyes were wide open, full of tears, looking terrified back up at me. “Let me go! Let me go! LET ME GO!” He let out a scream that damn near stopped my heart before his eyes closed and his body just abruptly relaxed.
“Ethan”, I called, shaking him, “Ethan?! Buddy?! Ethan wake up!” Nothing. He just laid there on the futon, unconscious. “Come on, Ethan, wake up!” I started lightly tapping his right cheek. Nothing.
“ETHAN!” His eyes snapped open. He looked frightened again. Though, I could tell this wasn’t like it was a second ago; looking more startled than terrified.
“Daddy?” He mumbled softly (in HIS OWN voice), “What’s wrong? Why do you look scared?” I was frozen. My mind, and heart rate for that matter, was so frenzied that it took a solid minute for me just to catch my breath. “Daddy, what’s wrong?” he asked.
”Breathe, Issac…” I closed my eyes and inhaled, slowly exhaling again. “I-I’m okay…” I said, slowly feeling my heartbeat return to normal. “Daddy’s okay, little buddy. Are YOU okay?” He slowly nodded his head.
“Yeah…” He looked down and felt his stomach, “I’m getting a little hungry, though.” I smiled.
“Me too, buddy. Here, why don’t we go into the living room and watch some cartoons while we wait for the pizza to get here?” He immediately perked up and bolted out of the room into the living room.
I just sat there on the futon for a moment. ”What the hell just happened? What WAS that?” I wondered what he was taking about. What did “I don’t want to do it” mean; Do what exactly? I wondered if maybe this was just some sort of thing like with “Benny”; a new imaginary friend, maybe.
That brought up the question, though, how long had he been doing that? Was he doing it at Beth’s house, and if so, did she ever notice it? Even if he had been doing that for a while, though, the question remained; how? How did he mimic other voices so well like that and how did he just snap and pull a 180 like he was when I shouted his name?
”Why were they so frightened?” That question, above the others, did the most to send me into a mental tailspin. I started thinking of how I shod try and approach him about this when I heard him come trodding back through the hallway.
“Daddy, the pizza man’s here.”
“Okay, give me one second, I’m comin’.” I said, getting up and walking out of the room. Right as I was walking through the threshold again, I felt it; that chill passing over my body. I looked, nothing.
A knock at the door broke my concentration and I got up, making my way out to the living room. I paid for the pizza and me and Ethan ate in the living room, watching cartoons while we did. He was, of course, enthralled with the TV and pizza, giggling his adorable little head off. Me, on the other hand, not so much; constantly brooding over the situation from just a minute ago.
”He seems just fine now…” I thought. ”Is he even aware of what happened?”
“Hey buddy?” I piped up, finally. He turned from the TV to me. “Let me ask you something, have you been making other friends, you know, like ‘Benny’?” He looked blankly at me for a moment. “What about at school? You makin’ new friends there?”
“Yeah.” He replied skeptically. “What do you mean like ‘Benny’, though?”
“Well, you know… you got your friends at school who everyone can see, right?” He nodded his head. “Well, then you have ‘Benny’, who ONLY you can see. I’m just curious if you have any more friends like that; that only you can see or play with.”
He looked puzzled for a moment before resting his chin on his hand like he was thinking, pondering something. “Well…” he began, “not really. They don’t wanna play with me or ‘Benny’.”
“Who doesn’t?” I saw his face start to sink a bit. He was nervous about telling me something. “It’s okay, buddy, take your time. Who doesn’t wanna play with you and why?” He shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know.” He said, pitifully. “But they’re kinda scary. They don’t wanna play with me; they keep screaming at me that they don’t want to.” I couldn’t help it. This sent a small chill down my back.
”Please, I don’t want to! Let me go, please! I wanna go home! I don’t wanna do it! PLEASE, LET ME OUT!”
“Do they say why they don’t wanna play with you?” I asked, actually beginning to feel tremors run through me, causing my hands to start shaking. He shook his head. I could see it on his face that my questions were making him more and more uncomfortable. “How are they scary?”
He shrugged, “I don’t know, they just look scary. They’re covered in boo-boos, like really bad ones. Some of them don’t even have eyes!”
“I see.” I replied. This made me grow more and more nervous. Why was he imagining this? “Are they mean to you?”
“I don’t know…” he said, anxious. I knew I couldn’t keep pushing him much further about this. “Not really, I guess. But they look really scary and they’re always screaming and crying. They say I have to go into the closet with them ‘cause they’re always lonely. I told them to go away though, that I don’t wanna play with them.”
He looked down at the slice of his pizza in his hand and asked if we could stop talking about this, about his “Friends that only he could see.” I smiled and said of course and we both went back to watching TV. Obviously, though, whether or not the conversation continued had no bearing whatsoever on the anxiety buzzing frantically in my head.
I was worried, to say the very least. How was I supposed to feel about what I was just told? Okay, yes, Ethan was seven years old and we all had active imaginations back then, right? Hell, I remember when I used to run around in my backyard at his age, playing “Cowboys and Indians” with imaginary friends myself (a habit that lasted until I was almost 11); so sure, no real shocker there.
At the same time, though, I’m sure most can agree there’s a pretty big difference between running around fighting imaginary bad guys or something like that, and being tormented by, what I could only imagine were, mutilated people. Not only that, but when you play with imaginary friends, you didn’t typically turn into them, right? They were just there, only seen and/or heard by you.
But that’s not what happened here. Who or Whatever that was in the bedroom – wasn’t Ethan. It was an entirely different person (people, in fact), which started to lead me to wonder if Ethan might not be suffering from some sort of personality disorder. This brought me back to the aforementioned question; had he ever had incidents like this before.
“Of course, even if that WERE the case, then why was the room so cold all of a sudden? And then the giggling…”
Eventually, despite being so caught up in thought that even the sounds from the TV became little more than white noise in my head in the background, I managed to catch sight of the time, reading a quarter till 2 in the morning, out of the corner of my eye. “Bed time, little bud–” I stopped, seeing the little monkey curled up in the floor, fast asleep, his face covered in pizza sauce. I couldn’t help but snicker a little at this (He looked adorable; curled up like he used to when he was a toddler, laying across my chest). I gently picked him up and carried him into his bedroom, laying him across the futon.
I knew something was up again as soon as I entered the room again, though, because the entire room felt like I’d just walked into a freezer. My hair stood all across my arms and the back of my neck. “What the hell? Why’s it so cold in here, did the thermostat go out or something?” After laying him in bed, I went and checked the thermostat. It read 75 degrees.
“What the fuck?”
I decided to crank up the heat to 80 – despite, you know, it was summertime, plus nowhere else in the house was cold like this – which forced me to strip to nothing but my boxers (and even then, I was still sweating like a damn pig). I then headed to bed, myself. Just before closing the door to my room, though, I heard a small, pitiful voice bawling. I stole a quick glance behind me where I heard it coming from. Nothing.
I yawned. “There’s nothing there, Issac. Just go to bed.” I turned and shut the door behind me. All night, faintly, I could hear it; the sounds of children crying.