The Haunting of Hounds Hollow

by Jeffrey Salane

  As Lucas swatted through bushes, the bushes swatted back. “Gah, isn’t there an easier way to get where we’re going?”

  “Nope.” Bess smiled.

  “Don’t worry, we’re close now,” said Lens from somewhere ahead of the group. As soon as one body pushed through the hedges, the deep green shape bounced back into place.

  “I’m not worried.” Lucas stumbled over a knotted patch on the ground. He had to kick his foot to get free from the plant’s grip. “But are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “See for yourself,” said Bess as she disappeared through a small opening that closed like a portal of greenery.

  Lucas tried to find the same gap she’d taken, but the limbs were locked thick wherever he put his hand. “Guys? A little help?”

  A hand shot out of the bushes and grabbed Lucas by the shirt only to drag him forward through the pointed leaves that grazed his entire body like thousands of fingernails. Once he made it to the other side, Lucas stood in a hedge-walled clearing. Bess clutched his shirt collar while Lens stood in front of an old, wooden shack. The tiny house was covered with vines. The walls and roof were made of weathered, wooden slats that had rotted to a pale gray. Rickety was the nicest word that sprang to Lucas’s mind. Lens had set up cameras all around the interior of the maze, pointing toward the shack.

  “You brought me all the way out here to see a haunted shack?” Lucas wiped his hands over his arms and face to cool his skin where the branches had scraped him.

  “No,” said Bess.

  “We brought you all the way out here to see what’s inside the haunted shack,” said Lens.

  “Uh-uh, no way, I decline your invitation,” snapped Lucas. “I’m sure you can understand. I mean, one, I hardly know either of you. Two, it’s a haunted shack. Three, there are enough cameras here for you to just take a picture and send me the photo of whatever you were going to show me. And four—and I can’t stress this enough—it’s a haunted shack!”

  Bess waved Lens over to Lucas. “Tell him. Tell him why the town is called Hounds Hollow.”

  Lens stared at her, then recited a speech that he’d clearly memorized. “Hounds Hollow used to be famous for foxhunting. That’s a sport where people ride on horseback chasing a fox through the forest. Dogs—hounds, to be exact—were trained to sniff out the foxes.”

  “So?” asked Lucas.

  “Really? You don’t think chasing foxes with dogs while you ride on horseback is weird?” asked Lens. “I think it’s kinda psycho. Anyway, foxhunts eventually died out.”

  “Why?” Lucas shifted away from the shack, which slumped in the midday sun. “Did people finally realize that chasing foxes while you ride on horseback was ridiculous? Or did the world invent video games?”

  “The beast.” Lens’s voice was flat and matter-of-fact.

  “The beast,” Lucas repeated skeptically. “Like that explains everything. What are you talking about? Does this have something to do with the picture I found in the forest?”

  “For a long time,” Lens began, “like before we were even born, people here have told the story of the beast. It’s a Hounds Hollow legend. There’s a creature out there haunting the town. Every night it goes into the woods, searching.”

  Lens stopped talking, lengthening the silence.

  “Drop the dramatic effect, man,” Lucas begged. “Searching for what?”

  “We don’t know,” said Lens. “But the beast scared all the foxes away. He scared all the horses, too. And he definitely scared off all the hunters.”

  Lucas took another step back and pointed his finger at Bess. “No, this is like some practical joke, right? Like scare the new kid to death. I’ll bet you stashed those photos for me to find. Ha ha, very funny.”

  “It’s not funny, Lucas,” said Bess. “Some people think the beast is a campfire story, but we’ve seen it. And you know what?” Bess walked toward Lucas until they were eye to eye. “I think you might have seen it, too.”

  “W-what makes you think that?” asked Lucas, suddenly flashing back to yesterday’s car accident.

  Bess looked around. “Let’s go inside and talk about it.”

  Lens entered the abandoned shack. Bess followed, leaving Lucas outside by himself. The day was sunny and bright and nothing felt right about it. Lucas took a deep breath and stepped inside.

  The smell of musty, damp wood and mold made Lucas cough. Light shone through the broken windows and cast jagged shafts that cut through the single room. There was a small table with tiny chairs inside that Lucas almost stumbled over. Drawings of stick figures covered one of the walls. They all had misshapen heads and drooping eyes that stared back at Lucas. Some figures were running, some were jumping, and some were having picnics, but the stick figures did everything in pairs. There were two human stick figures in each scene, surrounded by lots of four-legged stick figures. Lucas traced the drawings and felt the bumps along the old wood walls.

  “This was a kid’s fort, wasn’t it?” asked Lucas. “But Silas didn’t have kids.”

  “We think this was Silas’s fort when he was a kid,” said Lens.

  “That’s not what we wanted to show you, though,” Bess explained.

  Lens gave her a pleading glance. “Are you sure we want to do this?”

  Bess nodded. “We can trust him. And I think we need him.”

  “Trust me? Need me? What’s going on?” asked Lucas.

  “Have a seat.” Bess sat at the tiny table and nudged another chair out with her foot.

  Lucas sat down and his knees were practically in his chest.

  From a dark corner, Lens retrieved a thick, black binder. He carried it over and placed it in front of Lucas.

  Bess covered the binder with her arms. “Before you look at this, I want you to think about your boy from the house story. I believed you when you told me. Now I need for you to believe me.”

  “Okay,” Lucas agreed with a slight waver in his voice.

  Bess slid the binder over. “This is the beast.”

  Lucas opened the book. Slippery plastic pages bent in his hand. Each one had four pictures in slots like a Pokémon card collection. The pictures were all taken outside in the woods at night—a collection of shadows. “What am I supposed to see?”

  Lens hovered over her shoulder. “Look at what’s right in front of you.”

  Lucas flipped through several floppy pages before one photo caught his eye. It was a hazy smudge. He leaned closer and felt his chest tighten. The smudge floated like a mistake in the picture, something that wasn’t supposed to be there. But it had a distinct shape: four legs, a tail, and two glowing, red eyes—not unlike the eyes he had seen the day before. He quickly closed the book and opened it back up, scanning every photo. Over and over again, the same ghostly shape was hidden.

  “I’ve … I’ve seen this thing.” Lucas looked up at Bess.

  She nodded. “I know. We’ve seen it, too. Tell him, Lens.”

  They sat quietly for a moment. Then Lens broke the silence.

  “It started last year. I was riding through the forest on my horse, Bolt, when something spooked her. I’d never seen her turn so scared in my life, and I’ve been riding her since I was six. She threw me from the saddle and took off in the other direction. I landed on my back, knocking the wind out of me. I couldn’t catch my breath, but then I turned and saw a shadow with glowing, red eyes hiding in the trees. I tried to get away from it, but it just watched, turning its head like it was studying me, or sizing me up. I screamed to try and, I don’t know, freak it out and make it run off. But this thing wasn’t scared.”

  “And then what?” Lucas was mesmerized by the story.

  “I ran for my life,” Lens continued. “That’s when it pounced.”

  Lens crossed his arms nervously, and Lucas could see the boy was still frightened.

  “But …” Lucas paused, trying to gather his words in the nicest way. “You’re, um, you’re …”

  “Alive.” Bess fini
shed his ugly thought. “Lens was lucky. I found him and scared the beast away.”

  Lucas shook his head. “Wait. How did you scare the beast away?”

  Bess held up another smooth stone. “Let’s just say I’m lucky, too.”

  Looking back down at the table, Lucas touched the photo album. “And all these pictures?”

  “You don’t live through something like that and forget about it,” said Lens. “I told my parents, and they talked to Silas. He said he’d been having problems with wolves in the area. That I’d probably stumbled on to a pack out hunting and was lucky to make it home in one piece.”

  “There aren’t any wolves in Hounds Hollow,” said Bess. “And even if there were, this thing wasn’t a wolf. It was a beast.”

  Lens nodded. “So we started hunting for proof, and you’re looking at it.”

  Lucas stared at the binder, then glanced up at the camera Lens was wearing. “Why did you take a picture of me in the barn yesterday? That was you, right?”

  Lens held up a photo. “I wasn’t taking a picture of you, necessarily. I was trying to take a picture of it.”

  The photograph showed Lucas in the barn, but he wasn’t alone. A ghostly smudge ran toward him, frozen in the white frame. But unlike the other images of the beast in Lens’s book, this hazy figure had a more realistic shape. It looked like a giant dog. Its gleaming white teeth were bared in a snarl about to snap into Lucas. His breathing became heavy and fast.

  “I was chasing the beast through the forest,” Lens explained. “Took me by surprise because I’ve never seen it out during the day. I was collecting footage from the night before when, poof, the beast was right in front of me. It was so close, but it took off. I ran after it and nearly slammed into the side of your barn in the process.”

  Lucas couldn’t take his eyes off the picture. “How’d it get inside my house?”

  “It’s a ghost, man, I dunno,” said Lens. “It went right through the wall. I snapped the picture, then heard your voice, which freaked me out. I thought you were a worker, and if I got caught lurking around Silas’s place again, my parents would turn me into a ghost, too.”

  “What does it want?” asked Lucas.

  Bess slowly took the photo from his hand and gave it back to Lens. “From the look of this picture? It wants to get inside your house. That’s why we need to get inside your house.”

  Lucas shook his head like he was trying to wake up from a nightmare. “We can’t do this alone. That’s crazy. We’ve gotta tell someone about this … this … this thing.”

  “No,” whispered Bess, and the silence of the hidden shack in the hedge maze suddenly stifled Lucas.

  “No?” he repeated. “Why not?”

  “Did you tell your mom about the beast from the accident?” Bess reached over and took Lucas’s hand. “Even with pictures, even with proof, it’s not the kind of story that people want to believe. It would be easier for everyone to say that we were crazy.”

  “There are legends from all over the world,” said Lens. “Witches, werewolves, vampires, and yeah, they might seem cool in books and in movies. But this isn’t a book, it’s our lives.”

  The feeling of Bess’s hand in his felt good, like Lucas had a connection to the real world again. She was attempting to pull him back to reality before he floated away into fear. “Okay. So if we don’t tell anyone, what are we supposed to do?”

  Lens looked down to Bess, but she didn’t take her eyes off Lucas. “We’re going to search for what the beast is after in your house and make sure it never finds what it’s looking for. I think that’s why you’re here. That’s why Silas gave you his house. We’ve got to kill the beast.”

  As soon as she said it, Lucas jerked his hands out of hers. “Whoa, I’m … I’m not a killer.”

  “Neither are we, man,” said Lens. “Plus, I’m not sure you can technically kill a ghost, but we’ve got to do something to stop it.”

  “Stop it from what?” asked Lucas. “You guys have all these pictures of the beast, you’ve got your freaky stories, I get it. But what if this thing just wants to be left alone?”

  Bess snatched the picture back from Lens and slammed it down on the tiny table in front of Lucas. “Are we looking at the same picture? This isn’t a thing that wants to mind its own business and live its own life. It’s coming for something inside Sweetwater Manor. Maybe it’s coming for you.”

  “Or maybe Lens chased it into a random house and I scared it,” Lucas offered.

  “It doesn’t look scared to me,” insisted Bess as she tapped the picture. “It looks determined.”

  Lucas stood up from the tiny chair. “I don’t care what it looks like. Does the beast freak me out? Yes. But so do jellyfish and sharks. I’m not going to hunt them down and kill them, and I’m not going to stop swimming at the beach, either.”

  “Then what do you suggest we do?” Bess asked.

  “I don’t know. We find out what it is. We find out what it wants. And … maybe we can help it.” Lucas looked at the stick figure drawings on the wall again. “Ever since I moved here, this entire place has been a mystery. But mysteries aren’t meant to be hunted. They’re meant to be solved.”

  “So let us into the house already!” snapped Bess. “Let’s start tonight. Maybe if we find what the beast is after first, then it’ll go away.”

  Lucas patted his chest and felt the small key hanging under his shirt. The desk, the key, what the beast was after—Lucas suddenly knew what he had to do. He was about to invite the others back with him when a high-pitched screech ripped through the maze and the small shack. It was so loud that the windows rattled, birds startled from the bushes, and Lucas’s face dropped.

  “W-what was that?” Lens jumped back, knocking over a tiny chair, which clacked against the floor.

  A brief silence spread over the room again, followed by another sharp scream in the distance—one that sent chills down Lucas’s spine and made him wonder if he might be better off with the beast: “Lucas Ward Trainer!” a woman yelled. “Get back here right NOW!”

  With a loud crack, Eartha Dobbs opened the front door to Sweetwater Manor. Her full frame blocked Lucas from coming into his own house.

  “Oh no!” she cried as she glared down at him. “First you mess up the entire kitchen, then you disappear, then you make me come into this house from all your momma’s hollerin’ like the manor’s on fire, and now you’re tryin’ to sneak in the house? And I thought no-flushin’ was bad!”

  “I’m not trying to sneak back in—I’m walking through the front door, like a normal person!” Lucas tried to squeeze past her, but Eartha wouldn’t budge. Lucas sighed. “Sorry about the kitchen and about the mom alarm. I just don’t see why a little exploding mustard and some spilled dog food is such a big deal.”

  “Mustard?” Eartha called out from the doorway. “Dog food? If you think mustard and dog food caused that mess, then heaven help you.”

  Lucas gave her an odd look, but Eartha shuffled him along as she went back to her cottage. “Don’t make me come in here again. You understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lucas jogged to the kitchen. “Mom, I can explain. Remember the exploding mustard and the—”

  “Not. A. Word,” Mom said in her coolest, calmest voice, which was parent code for There’s not a volume loud enough for how much trouble you are in. She stood in the middle of a wreck that used to be their kitchen. All of the chairs were knocked over, and some were even broken. Every door in the room was open, from the cabinets to the fridge to the dishwasher door. The food they’d just bought the day before was scattered across the floor. Tomatoes, broccoli, apples, grapes, raw meat, and potato chips were crushed, smashed, and stinking up the room. Uncooked chicken was even stuck to the ceiling. No food group had been spared.

  “I … ,” started Lucas, but he was silenced by the death stare coming from his mom. The kitchen was a culinary crime scene. “This wasn’t me! You believe me, right?”

  “Then who co
uld it have been?” asked Dad, walking in with a broom. “I suppose this mess just magically appeared.”

  “Maybe,” suggested Lucas. “Stranger things have happened.”

  But his father held out the broom’s handle. “Well, then maybe you can make this mess magically disappear.”

  Lucas was about to beg his mom to listen to him, but she had her arms crossed and was turning a particularly angry shade of red.

  “Tonight.” Her voice was strained and measured, a perfect recipe that told Lucas she meant business. “If this room isn’t spotless tonight, we will have a problem. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lucas leaned the broom against the wall and began picking up the plastic bags.

  His parents left him to clean on his own. Piece by piece, Lucas picked up the trash. Empty soda cans littered the floor next to sticky spills. A sideways bottle of olive oil poured down the lower cabinets and glowed in the kitchen light. Lucas ran towels over everything, mixing the smells together in a rotten, sugary horribleness that made him gag. There was even milk dripping from the ceiling.

  Lucas went to get a chair so he could reach the milk stain, when he noticed that the large box from Gale’s had been shredded open. The thick brown sides of the box looked like strips of confetti. Remembering how the box had moved on its own, he ran his hands over the paper. It was wet. Inside, Lucas found four giant, empty bags of dry dog food that had been chewed open. Extra pieces of kibble were scattered across the floor, too. He didn’t want to think about what could have made a mess like this, or why.

  Four trash bags and two hours later, the kitchen was back to normal.