by Tobias Wade
It had been a birthday present, and we were both eager to try it out. As soon as we finished supper, we raced out to the front lawn where Scotty prepared the helicopter’s first flight.
Under my brother’s inexperienced and clumsy guidance, the helicopter lifted slowly from the ground and staggered drunkenly through the air. In his excitement to keep it aloft, Scotty didn’t even realize it was heading right for Filimore’s yard until it was too late.
“Scotty!” I tugged at his arm to try and turn it off course, but that only made things worse.
The little helicopter took a nosedive straight into the hedges under Mr. Filimore’s bay window. Scotty frantically wiggled the controls, but the helicopter’s blade was stuck fast in the thick greenery.
As if he’d been waiting for us to slip up, the front door flew open and he practically pounced on the toy.
“What have I told you?” he bellowed.
Before we could argue, he’d already disappeared back into his house. Upstairs, the curtain fluttered just so, and I knew Mrs. Filimore was watching. I wanted to call up to her and ask her to get the helicopter back, but Scotty grabbed my wrist and dragged me behind him to find Mom and Dad.
When our parents went over later, he refused to come to the door.
“Don’t worry, kids,” they assured us, “next time we see him, we’ll sit down and have a real discussion about this.”
That wasn’t enough for Scotty though. I followed him up to his room and sat on the end of his bed. He paced back and forth, ranting about how unfair it all was. He was fuming and furious, and he wanted his birthday present back now.
“But how?” I asked.
He paused, his gaze sliding to his window and the house beyond. “We’re going to take it.”
It was a childish, simple, stupid plan with no thought to consequence or punishment; we were going to break into the Filimore house and get all our things back.
“We’ll do it when he goes out next. I can figure out how to get the lock open—it can’t be that hard—then we just have to find our stuff.”
“What about Mrs. Filimore? She never leaves!”
“You can distract her or something, I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”
“I dunno, Scotty,” I said uneasily. I didn’t want to disrupt a poor, sick lady for a few toys.
“Don’t worry. We’ll just be in and out. She probably won’t even notice we’re there.”
I doubted that, but I had a hard time saying no to my big brother.
Scotty put his plan into action the very next afternoon. We were playing a game of horse in the driveway when Mr. Filimore’s garage opened and his car chugged to life. He was wearing his customary scowl as he drove by. The moment he turned the corner, Scotty chucked our basketball aside and bolted across the street.
I checked to see if Mrs. Filimore was in her window and, when I saw no sign of her, I followed.
Scotty’s idea of “getting the lock open” turned out to be using a small rock to break the window pane on the door above the latch. It was something he’d seen in a movie or something. I Immediately had images of flashing red and blue lights and handcuffs, and my stomach turned sharply. My brother whispered that it would be fine.
“He can’t prove it was us! Everyone on the street hates him.”
He sounded so confident that all I could do was nod. Scotty reached carefully through the broken glass, careful not to cut himself, and found the deadbolt. It clicked out of place and he pushed the door open, letting us into Mr. Filmore’s house.
I clung to the back of Scotty’s shirt as we tiptoed across the kitchen. It was spotless, obsessively so, and smelled of cleaning supplies. Every window had something tacked over it; old blankets and towels blocked the bright afternoon sun. The gloomy darkness made the room seem small and oppressive.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to follow Scotty. Every room was the same; fastidiously clean, organized, and shrouded in shadows. The bay window that he spied on us from had a little hole cut into the heavy velveteen material, just big enough for someone to peek out. I could just picture him sitting on his plastic covered couch, watching us, waiting for us to get too close. It was enough to make me shudder.
We cleared the whole downstairs pretty quickly, but there was no sign of our things.
“Shit,” Scotty hissed. “He must keep it upstairs.”
“But Mrs. Filimore…”
“Just stay close and stay quiet, ok?”
I nodded, too nervous to say anything else.
We’d only climbed a few steps when the floorboards on the second floor creaked. Scotty immediately pressed himself against the wall and motioned for me to do the same. We listened to the soft padding of footsteps crossing from one room to another.
“Scotty,” I whispered, grabbing at his sleeve with both hands, “let’s just go!”
“No, he went too far this time! I’m going to get my helicopter.”
Door hinges squeaked from somewhere upstairs. The footsteps stopped.
Scotty pulled his arm from me and scampered up the remaining steps. Reluctantly, I followed.
We found a guest bedroom first. It was all muted colors and magazine quality furniture, void of any warmth or personality. Like it was just set up for show, never intended for use. At least it was a bit brighter up here; the windows only had a few layers of sheer curtains over them. Enough to obscure visibility, but still let in light.
The second room was obviously Mr. Filimore’s. It was the most lived in looking room of them all; at least there were some pictures on the walls and personal items on the nightstand. The bed was meticulously made, and all the clothing, most of which was masculine, hung neatly in the closet. There weren’t even stray hairs in the brush on the vanity.
I wondered how someone could live in such a cold, lifeless house.
There was only one room left upstairs, the one Mrs. Filiman must have gone into. Its door stood half open. Scotty and I traded a look: his determined, mine silently pleading to go. He took a step toward the door. I shook my head and grabbed at the back of his shirt again. He brushed me off and placed the flat of his hand on the door, pushing it open slowly.
The room was almost empty except for a large vanity against one wall. A framed wedding picture was on it, and I recognized Mr. Filimore despite being younger and thinner. In front of the vanity, posed on a tall stool, was a mannequin.
She was wearing what I thought of as a 50s housewife dress, white with little pink and green flowers all over it. She wore a string of pearls, and a blonde wig carefully combed back into a bun. Her featureless face was fixed on the mirror in front of her.
Scotty’s brow wrinkled, showing the same confusion I felt. We both heard Mrs. Filimore walk into this room, but there was no one here.
“Let’s just go,” I begged, a cold sweat starting to trickle down the back of my neck.
Scotty shifted his weight, obviously torn; the floorboard beneath his feet groaned.
The mannequin’s head turned sharply toward us.
Scotty leapt back with a yelp, an arm thrown out protectively in front of me.
“Liz,” his voice was trembling, “run.”
I stumbled back down the hall on legs that didn’t want to work. I could heard Scotty stomping along behind me and, behind him, a rapid skittering.
We skid at the top of the stairs, and I grabbed the railing to keep from falling headlong down the steps. While I righted myself, I dared to glance back down the hallway.
It was empty.
“Where’d it g—”
Something thudded against the ceiling.
We both looked up and screamed.
The mannequin was crawling, spider like, over our heads. She wrenched her head completely around, turning her blank face toward us. Flitting toward the wall, she started to descend, facing us the whole time.
I was still screaming when Scotty hooked his arm around my waist a
nd hauled me down the steps. We crashed at the landing, tripping over one another. We could hear the click of fiberglass on wood as she pursued us. I was crying, scrambling on my hands and knees across the floor. My brother was shouting for me to get up and go. He grabbed the back of my shirt and practically threw me down the hall.
Scotty started shrieking.
I spun. The mannequin was crouched on the last step, one arm outstretched. She had her fingers wrapped around Scotty’s ankle. They were tightening, tightening, until his bones started to crunch beneath her grip. He kicked at her with his other leg, but it did nothing. She started to drag him back toward the stairs.
“Scotty!” I screamed, but before I could move, he looked up at me and shook his head furiously.
“Liz,” he could barely get the word out through the fear and pain which masked his face, “run!”
I wanted to stay. I wanted to grab his hand and pull with all my might and drag him out of that house with me. He was shouting again though—run, run—over and over, until the words became a garbled mess of howling. I always did have a hard time saying no to my big brother. His terrified cries chased me out the same door we’d come in through.
It was the last time I ever saw my brother.
No trace of Scotty was ever found. My parents searched. Police searched. There were dogs, and special agents, and tons of time, money, and energy put into trying to find him. None of it mattered. It was as if he had simply vanished. Bud Filimore wasn’t a suspect very long; with no evidence and no history of any criminal record, he was let go. Scotty was dubbed a missing child, reduced to a single box of paperwork that was all too soon moved to the cold case stacks.
No one believed me when I told them what really happened. They all said Scotty must have been kidnapped on our way back from Mr. Filimore’s house. They said I was too young to really understand it, that I had gotten confused and, in my fear, made up some story using the scary thing I’d just encountered.
“Mr. Filimore’s mannequin belonged to his late wife, Sharon. He kept it after she passed because it reminded him of her. Sometimes he’d move it around, put it in a window, but it wasn’t alive. You understand that, right, Liz?” My therapist was fond of asking.
I told her what she wanted to hear, even if I knew it was a lie. The adults preferred it that way; it was easier for all of us. Maybe that’s why I never showed anyone the note that was taped to our door, typed and anonymous, which read:
I tried to keep you away.
I didn’t think it would have changed anything.
I knew, though, and I never doubted myself or the fact that Scotty sacrificed himself for me. Up until Mr. Filimore packed and moved a few years later, I would sit in my brother’s room and stare out the window at that house. I’d watch the second story window, waiting for the telltale dark figure to appear behind the curtains.
Waiting for the quiet neighbor that everyone said didn’t exist.
Going to Grandma’s
I only ever spent one night at my grandma’s house. It was all I needed to know I never wanted to set foot there again.
By the time I was born, Grandpa had passed away and Grandma had sold the house they’d spent 40 years in. They left the place where they’d raised their two sons and made all of their marital memories to return to her childhood home. The three story Victorian had been built by Grandma’s own grandfather, passed down the family line until, after the death of her brother, it wound up in her hands. She told Dad it felt right to go back and spend her remaining years in the house she grew up in.
The family tried to convince her that it was too big, too much work, too dangerous, but Grandma’s mind was already made up. I remember the day we helped her move in: cold and gray in early December. It smelled like snow. As soon as we’d finished unloading the few belongings she’d chosen to bring from the truck, she ushered us back outside.
“I’m tired and I still have a lot of unpacking to do. It’ll go faster if I do it myself,” she said.
“We could help, Mom.” Dad tried to offer, but Grandma shook her head firmly.
“I’ll have you lot back around once I’m settled. I’d really like some time alone to get reacquainted with the old place.”
It was an unusually abrupt dismissal for a woman who always kept an open door policy before. Dad said later that he thought she was just getting emotional over being back and didn’t want us to see. It made sense, really. From what Grandma had told us, the house was still very much the same as it had always been. The furniture, the flooring, the wallpaper; even some of the light fixtures were originals to the house. Dad was sure she just needed some time.
But Grandma’s previous open invitation wasn’t re-extended.
Instead, she came to us. For the first time, Christmas was held at our house. She visited for her birthday in February, and again for Easter and the Fourth of July. All the holidays and events that she always insisted on hosting were now bounced back and forth between my house and my uncle’s.
“I’m too old for that sort of thing now.” She laughed when we asked her about the sudden change. “It’s time for me to put my feet up and let you guys do all the work for me.”
My parents worried about her up in that big old house all by herself. It was on a sizeable piece of property bordered by woods, and the closest neighbor was a nice little walk down the road. No matter how much they tried to insist on visiting, Grandma wouldn’t have it.
“I’ve got the girls around today for cards,” she’d say. Or, “I’m in town for the afternoon, maybe next weekend.”
Next weekend came and went, and then the one after that, and the one after that, until almost a full year went by. Dad made brief, drop in visits during that time and, while everything seemed ok at the house, Grandma never let him stay long. When he finally demanded to know why, she put her foot down and told him that she didn’t have to explain her desire for a little privacy.
The family was a bit strained after that. Dad thought maybe Grandma was starting to get a little affected by age and it was making her pull away. Alzheimer’s had taken his father in a long, terrible process. I was only eleven, but I could see how scared Dad was of going through that again. Mom did her best to comfort him, but I saw the same worry in her eyes.
Grandma didn’t come down to our house to go trick or treating with us that Halloween, but she showed up at Uncle Rusty’s for Thanksgiving. While still not quite herself, things started to feel a little more normal.
It was just after that when the fire happened.
I was woken up late at night by the screeching smoke alarm in the hallway. I’d barely managed to sit up before my mom burst into my room, ripping me out of bed along with my comforter. She hugged me to her chest, put it over both of us, and ran for the front door. There was a flash of heat and the smell of acrid burning. Then we were outside in the cold, clinging to each other.
Dad stumbled out a few minutes after, coughing and wheezing and clutching one arm. He’d stayed behind to try and put out the fire, but it got away from him and he’d been burned trying to get outside.
There was nothing we could do but stand in our front lawn and watch our home be consumed by the growing flames.
Grandma arrived just after the fire trucks did. Mom called her from a neighbor’s house, and she’d made the usually thirty minute drive in half that. Dad was being loaded up in the back of an ambulance when she arrived and, after being reassured he wasn’t seriously injured, she hurried over to me and Mom.
“Please, Eunice,” Mom begged after Grandma made sure we were ok and smothered us in kisses. “Larry needs to go to the hospital, and I want to go with him. Take Sheila back to your place, just for tonight. We need you.”
I never thought I’d see Grandma hesitate to babysit me. She frowned and glanced from my mom to me before nodding once.
“One night,” she agreed, but it was obvious that she didn’t want to.
The drive to Grandma
’s was quiet. I sat in the backseat, still in shock, tired, scared, and hurt that Grandma didn’t want me. She kept her eyes on the road and her lips pressed together in a thin line. When we pulled into her long gravel driveway, she finally broke the heavy silence.
“You ok back there?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
“Good.” Another pause. “I know tonight was scary, but Daddy is going to be fine. He just had to get his arm looked at.”
“Oh.”
I saw Grandma look at me in the rear view mirror. “You must be very sleepy, huh?”
I shrugged.
Grandma seemed like she wanted to say something more, but she just forced an ephemeral smile and parked the car.
She held my hand all the way up to the front door, and then into the foyer. She was reluctant to let me go. While she took off her coat, I took the opportunity to look over the entryway: all hardwood and pale, striped wallpaper. An antique chandelier hung overhead, its dim light barely strong enough to ward off the darkness. The hallway before us was narrow, with one side leading up a stairwell and the other lined with doors that branched into other rooms.
I shivered, already creeped out by the unfamiliar shadows which seemed to lurk in every corner. I’d never been afraid of her old house. I wished immediately that we could have gone there instead.
I wished I could go home.
Tears sprang to my eyes at the thought of my house, now a charred shell, and I sniffled.
“Sheil?” Grandma said from over my shoulder. “You want anything to eat or drink?”
“No,” I said.
I really just wanted my mom and my dad, to be back in my own bed and for everything to be normal again. I knew my parents would want me to be brave and behave for Grandma, but the mounting realization of what we lost and how shaken I was quickly overwhelmed me. I started to cry, despite how hard I tried to control it,.
Grandma took me by the hand again and led me to the living room, a neat and formal room with more antique furnishings. We cuddled on the couch, and she reassured me that everything would be ok. I curled up against her side and cried myself to sleep.