by Brett McKay
She nodded, holding back sobs. “And you. And them.” She pointed at my house, referring to our friends.
“There’s something my old Scout leader taught me once. He said, ‘Experiences, both bad and good, make us who we are.’ And you’re an amazing person, Dawn.”
“You are too, Ret. I wasn’t kidding about your writing. You really are talented. Don’t give it up.”
“I won’t. I’ll send you my first published copy and sign it ‘Best wishes.’”
She laughed, then cringed, holding her ribs. I was saddened about her aches, but more so to know it was the last time I would hear her laugh.
We hugged again. She told me to say goodbye to the gang, and I told her I would, then she surprised me with a kiss. It was a quick peck on the lips, but it was warm and stayed with me for a long time.
I waved and watched as she hurried down the street to her house. With a lump in my throat, I stepped back into the house, and my friends turned to me.
“Was that Dawn?” Jax asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell her to get her butt in here,” Rosco said.
“Yeah, it wouldn’t be the same without her,” Gary chimed in.
“No, it wouldn’t, but her parents won’t allow it. She’s going to be moving in a few days anyway, and she wanted to say goodbye.”
There was silence for a moment.
“She’s one of us,” Rosco said. “So is Morgan.”
“Always will be,” Gary said.
“Damn right,” Jax confirmed. “Black Widows forever.”
I agreed. “I wouldn’t be here without Dawn.”
We talked for only a small moment about the events at the Crooked House, then we moved on as if it didn’t deserve another moment of our time.
“We need to rebuild the fort,” Rosco said.
“Damn straight!” Jax said, and I stabbed him with a glare.
“Don’t swear. My mom can hear us,” I whispered urgently.
“Bigger and better than the one b’fore,” Rosco said. “I got it all laid out. Been scopin’ out some of them new moguls on the other side and found a perfect one. My dad said he can get a lot of wood and two-by-fours we could use.”
“Cool!” Gary exclaimed. “We should start working on it when we get back from camp.”
“When’s Scout camp again?” Jax asked.
Scout camp wouldn’t be the same without Todd Harrison, but Rosco’s dad was appointed the new Scout leader, and Gary’s dad was his new assistant. Knowing the Scouts were in good hands helped to heal some.
“Next week. All week,” I answered.
“Shit,” Jax said.
“Jax!” I scolded.
“Sorry, man. I’m not even ready for camp. I gotta get a new mess kit and canteen. My little brother lost ’em.”
“You going, Rosco?”
“Hell yes, I’m goin’!”
“Please, guys. Not in my mom’s house,” I pleaded, and we couldn’t help but bust out in belly laughs. It wasn’t even very funny, but our laughter was loud, and we held our bellies and laughed for a good five minutes. It was a release of all the tension and fear. The nightmare that had kept the town up at night and held us all hostage was lifted, and we finally felt free to laugh long and hard, and it felt good.
Gary wiped tears from his eyes. Curled up on the couch, Jax was caught in a silent laugh, mouth wide open, eyes squinted shut, holding his gut. We all stared at him, and finally as he took in a breath, the laughter burst and filled the room again. We were all caught up again in a chain of laughs.
It was the last night I ever saw or spoke to my friends.
EPILOGUE
An Abrupt Departure
In the middle of the night, the night after the sleepover with my friends, my mom woke my brothers and me.
I peeled my eyes open and asked, “What’s going on?”
“We’re going to go on a little trip. Just for a couple of nights. At a hotel.”
“Right now?” I asked.
“Yes. I need you guys to get dressed and help me pack whatever you need to take, and don’t forget your swimsuit. The hotel has a pool.” She attempted to elicit excitement from us, but I saw the tears in her eyes, and the anxiety.
“What’s going on?” Scott sat up, eyes still closed and curly hair pushed in an awkward bunch on his head.
I didn’t understand. Something was wrong. I realized I hadn’t paid much attention to my mom that summer. I was busy in my own life and adventures. I knew she and Dad fought a lot, and I was sure what I’d put her through was stressful. But something had happened to make all of that worse.
I’d believed my mom when she said we were going to be at a hotel for just a couple of nights, but we never did return home. We went to stay at our grandparents’ for a while, about thirty minutes north of Riverton. I asked my mom a lot of questions. She gave a lot of vague answers and always promised we were only staying with Grandma and Grandpa temporarily.
Scott and I slept on the couches in the basement, and one night, I heard my mom crying and went to check on her. I stopped midway when I heard my grandma consoling her. My mom told her Dad had an affair, and she just couldn’t stay with him anymore, not after everything else.
I crept back to the basement and crawled under the covers on the couch, but I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I was too angry with my dad over whatever it was he’d done to cause my mom so much pain.
Each morning, I would wake up, eat cereal, and watch Bob Barker on The Price is Right, followed by Wheel of Fortune. Summer was almost over, and we spent most of what remained indoors. My mom had brought our bikes, but I didn’t feel like riding. We had some of our toys, but I didn’t feel like playing.
“Why don’t you call Gary or Jax?” Scott asked. He’d kept in touch with his friend Daryl and even arranged times to see him.
“No,” I said, even though I didn’t have a reason not to. My mom urged me to stay in touch with my friends, but I didn’t.
Funny thing is, to this day I still don’t have an answer. I have speculations. I may have felt too embarrassed to call them, to tell them we’d moved because my parents split. I’d harbored a hope that we would move back home before school started, then I could fit back in like nothing had ever happened.
The truth is I don’t know what I was afraid of. I do know, however, that in the first ten years of my life, my family moved six times, and each year, I had to fit into a new neighborhood and make new friends. Keeping in touch with old friends was useless. Keeping in touch with the past was more painful than admitting it was useless because even then, I’d known, deep down, that it would never be the same.
I’d done it with every friendship I’d left behind until Riverton. We would arrange a sleepover or get together maybe twice or three times a year, but we never really called each other over the phone because boys don’t do that. Before long, we drifted apart, farther and farther year after year, until eventually, they disappeared from my life for good. Why prolong the inevitable when I could make a clean break and avoid the stretch of pain?
My friends in Riverton were harder to leave behind because we’d lived there the longest. Three years had given me time to start planting my roots, and I’d deluded myself into thinking there would be no more moving. And then we’d experienced something not many people ever would in their lives—an eternal bond created by traumatic events.
I thought of Dawn. Only she could understand what I was going through. It gave me some solace to know I wasn’t alone in that sense; she was experiencing the same thing at the same time. To my friends, I must have seemed like I didn’t care, just disappearing without telling them where I went, without leaving a forwarding address or new phone number.
I’m forty-two now, and I still think of those friends today. I think of Dawn, who helped me realize the importance of friendship before love can truly exist. I met Haley many years later. She became my best friend, then we fell in love and were married.
I think o
f the lives taken that summer, of the lives changed forever by those incidents, and the town that will never be the same. I felt a responsibility for the knowledge I had of those creatures and the possibility of their return.
I also grieved for the loss of Sheriff Packard in my life. He’d been a father figure I looked up to during a period of time when my own father was absent. Packard helped fill that void for a time. I hoped he knew that. There were times when I saw someone in a crowd who looked a lot like Gary, who might have even been Gary, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask.
Was it better to let things lie? I’d thought so then, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. As an adult, I lived in forward motion, trying to stay ahead of the past that kept chasing me. Sometimes, it’s managed to catch me, pulling me back with its icy claws, making me remember, and filling me with grief and regrets. That was why I finally wrote my tale—to spill my guts and leave my regrets behind for good.
Driving through Riverton decades after leaving, I found Gary’s house hadn’t changed. The house I used to live in was still there, but its yellow paint had been covered with a dark brown, which was faded. The yellowish grass was tall and full of weeds. Rusted auto parts filled the backyard. The tiny willow tree my dad had planted in the front yard had grown giant, overwhelming the yard with too many thick limbs that needed to be pruned.
Jax’s, Rosco’s, and Dawn’s houses seemed the same but older, and Rosco’s front yard had been completely transformed into xeriscape. A neighborhood had replaced the field behind my old house, and beyond the newly built church stood Dead Man’s Hill. The hill was less intimidating, as if it had somehow shrunk. Buildings and homes had sprung up around it as the twenty-first century shut it out, like it had so many things, leaving me with only memories of what it had once been.
Homes had been built along Beck Street—developers had no doubt solved the problem of the swampy land that had caused the Crooked House to sink. I drove past those homes until I reached a dead end. Cement barricades prevented my vehicle from going farther, and two large maples planted behind them blocked my view of what I’d come to see.
I drove to the other end of the street and found a small space between two homes in a cul-de-sac. A dirt path, carved out by vehicles long ago, led behind the homes. It was overgrown with weeds and brush, but I drove my truck down the bumpy path and around the last home.
The Crooked House sat alone in the shrunken field at the far west end, more weathered and worn than before. Its bottom half was hidden by overgrown bushes and weeds, and I could barely see the top.
I parked my truck twenty feet away and walked to the house, pushing aside branches and weeds. I stepped onto the slanted and cracked porch. The front door was open just a crack. Was it open before? I couldn’t be sure. Did the house open its mouth to let me in?
I stretched out my hand to push the door inward and stopped. A strong energy hit me, filling my body with immense heat. The invisible force was either pulling me in or pushing me away; I couldn’t tell which.
Being pulled into their world through the pool had given me the gift of second sight, which allowed me to see things and communicate with the dead. But in turn, it gave me the gift of seeing them in their world, their dead, and their intentions. I didn’t see them all the time, but it had become more frequent recently, with more clarity and intensity.
A recurring dream had been haunting me for the past week, and it wouldn’t let go of me. A woman with long black hair, black pupils, and a grin full of sharp teeth was searching for me. Had we gotten them all? I thought of Joanna Anderson. During the summer of eighty-two, she’d disappeared and returned as someone—something—else, and she’d run away from her family. They never saw her again. She was still out there, and something told me she threatened our world.
I didn’t know where to look for her. She was a grain of sand in the desert. To find her, I had to visit the pool. My hope was the pool would connect my telepathic energy to hers and lead me to her, and the closer to the pool I got, the impressions were stronger. My senses were about to explode, and I knew I was on the right path. My fear and anxiety threatened to overwhelm me, but I’d come too far. I had to go forward. I pushed the door and stepped inside.
About the Author
When Brett McKay isn’t conjuring demons and bloodthirsty psychopaths to put on paper, he sells landscaping. He loves all types of music, but hard rock and heavy metal fuel him the most. He enjoys the outdoors, spending time with friends and family, and curling up in front of a good movie with his wife and a bucket of popcorn.
Brett lives in Utah with his wife and two sons. Fall is his favorite time of year because he gets to decorate his house for Halloween much too early for his neighbors.
Read more at Brett McKay’s site.
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