by Peter Swift
4.
Stevie reached into his cargo pants and clutched his fingers around the squirming toy. Very cold, the thing wiggled and twisted in his clammy grip. Was it trying to get free? Or was something inside of it trying to get free? He ripped it from his pocket and pulled back his arm, about to throw the possessed thing down the steep hillside and into the uncharted depths of the forest below. At the last instant however, he heard the telltale sound of windup gears grinding together within the creepy figure.
Stevie laughed nervously at his own foolishness. His eyes watched the thing rocking in his hand like a turtle stuck on its back, and he set it down on a flat patch of ground.
"You're just a toy!" he said with relief.
The cane—which must have been the winding mechanism—spun like Charlie Chaplan's in those old black-and-white silent movies, and the toy wobble-walked in a tight circle. The bowtie twirled around like a propeller, and from inside came a scratchy-squeaky noise that might have been a laugh when the toy was new.
This was very possibly the most unsettling toy Stevie had ever seen. What kind of parent would give this thing to a child? No wonder it was left out in the middle of the forest!
"Creepy in all capitals," Stevie murmured. "Angie's gonna go nuts!"
But at the moment, Stevie had more pressing matters. Like getting home and raking the yard before it was too late. If it wasn't already too late. He jammed the toy back in his pocket with his cell phone and started to jog down the trail again.
Something sighed.
Stevie froze. He stopped and looked around, searching for what made the noise. Had he imagined it? Was it the wind? No, something had definitely sighed, but he couldn't tell from which direction. It was a loud sound, and seemed to come from all around him.
Then a scuffling noise like claws scraping rocks on the mountainside below. Something running through dead leaves. How could anything be running on that uneven ground? More importantly, why was it running toward him?
Stevie didn't wait around to find out.
As fast as he could he raced along the trail, hoping whatever it was wouldn't give chase. But he could hear it, keeping pace with him just below. Was it getting closer? He couldn't tell, but he thought so. What could possibly be keeping up with him on that severe incline? Certainly nothing human, and anything small in the forest would run away from him, not towards him. A bear wouldn't likely be able to move so quickly on the steep terrain, but rumors of cougars in Vermont made Stevie push even harder.
Then he heard another noise, this time directly in front of him. The loud screaming of dirt bike motorcycles cutting through the forest! He almost laughed with relief, until he saw the motorcycles come around a bend in the trail ahead of him.
Victor Plotts and his two henchmen.
Stevie recognized Victor's red helmet with a white skull and crossbones. He also knew Victor's motorbike. Stevie had the exact same one, though Stevie's was a few years newer.
"I'd be better off with a cougar," Stevie grumbled to himself, but at least those bikes were certain to scare anything away.
The worst combination of mean and stupid, Victor Plotts had zeroed in on Stevie since they had both started going to Newhope Middle School. Victor was big, not only because he was held back twice, but also because he was naturally built like an ape, and had the brains to match.
Although, Stevie thought, I suppose that's not being very fair to the apes.
Stevie stepped to the side of the trail and looked at the ground, hoping that Victor had better things to do. In true bully fashion, Victor evidently was willing to put aside his other plans and focus on Stevie. He gunned the throttle when he saw Stevie, and then twisted the bike sideways on the narrow trail and hammered the brakes. Leaves and dirt flew up into Stevie's face and onto his clothes. Victor's friends stopped behind him. They all turned off their motorcycles and leaned them against trees.
"Oh, look," Victor taunted, circling Stevie like a predator. "Somebody left a tiny pile of poo right here in the middle of the trail!" He pulled a finger through the dirt on Stevie's shirt, sniffed it, and scrunched up his face. "Eeew, smells worse than it looks."
"Victor, I'm just going home," Stevie said, still not looking at his tormentor. Victor had circled around behind him.
"Oh, he's just going home," Victor mimicked in squeaky tones. His friends snickered. "Nobody wants poo in the house."
"Your parents don't seem to mind," Stevie said. He knew it was stupid to mouth off to Victor, but he couldn't help it. Stevie was smart, but his brain and his mouth often worked independently of each other.
Victor gave Stevie a hard shove from behind. "What was that, pile of poo? Hey, I think that's your new nickname!" Victor's friends laughed, and he continued, "You know, Pile, nobody wants poo on the trail, either. Guess I'd be doin' my civic duty if I threw the poo off the trail."
"Civic doodie!" one of the background boys said, and high-fived the other.
From behind him, one hand grabbed Stevie's belt and the other pushed his shoulders over the edge of the trail. His weight shifted and he stared down over the edge of the steep drop at the rocks and trees below. Stevie swung from his belt dangerously, and his pants started to come down in the back. Victor almost dropped him, but then grabbed one of Stevie's ankles.
"Stop! Let me go!" Stevie pleaded. He thrashed around, knowing it wasn't a great idea to struggle against Victor and risk being dropped, but his panicked mind couldn't control his flailing limbs. "Please Victor! Quit it!"
"Pile's not so smart now. Whaddya think, guys?" Victor said. "Poo splat real good?"
One of Victor's friends laughed nervously, but the other one said, "Vic, c'mon man. Let the kid up. Just hit him or whatever and let's go."
There was a pause and Victor threw Stevie back onto the trail. "Hey now," Victor said, looking down at Stevie. "What's that in your pocket?"
Stevie didn't even argue. He reached into his pocket and pulled the toy out. "Here, take it."
"Gee, thanks Pile. Can I?" Victor asked sarcastically. He snatched the toy from Stevie's hands. "The baby's got a toy. That is one ugly toy, though. Just 'bout right for one ugly baby." He looked like he would throw it over the edge just to spite Stevie, but then he lifted the seat of his motorcycle and tossed it in the small compartment underneath.
"You got ten seconds, Pile" Victor said, pulling his motorbike from the tree and straddling the seat with a smug smile on his face.
Stevie, confused, looked at him.
"Nine," Victor said. "Eight. Six."
Stevie took off running. Behind him, the motorcycles roared to life.
5.
He was scarcely a hundred yards away when the screaming of the motorcycle engines erupted through the trees. They were on him in a second like cheetahs chasing down a turtle, but he had nowhere to go. To the left, a steep hill of rocks and trees rose above the path, and to the right, the path fell away into the tree-filled valley below.
They won't actually run me down, he thought. Will they?
He didn't think they would. Still, they smelled fear, and Stevie knew that fear to bullies was like blood to sharks. Once they smelled it, they went into a frenzy. And attacked. Why do the animals with the smallest brains always have the sharpest teeth?
So at the last second, he dropped to the ground and slid off the path to the right.
The ground disappeared. Time stopped for a second and he looked up at the trunks of the trees rising high above him. Then his body crashed against the mountainside and he rolled, bouncing painfully over rocks and roots. Eating pine needles and mud. He was out of control, and it was only through blind luck that he made it to the base of the slope without slamming into one of the many thick trees or large boulders.
He lay quietly for a moment on his back, staring up at the trees looming over him and wondering if he was dead. No, he thought. Being dead wouldn't hurt this much. The sound of the motorcycles paused, and then continued on and faded away until eventually there was only silen
ce. He no longer heard animals anywhere around him, and the sweet smell of pine was gone. The smell of damp wood and decay filled the air now.
Stevie gritted his teeth in pain, rolled onto an elbow, and from there was able to stand. Then he saw the house.
Ages ago, it must have been grand and elegant, but Stevie could never imagine it as anything but wicked. Decades of neglect had left only a dark scarred shell. Many, many long years it waited empty and uncared for, but it was more than neglect that filled him with disgust of the place.
Had this ever been a house lived in by people? A family? Laughter? Somehow he knew it had not.
The main part of the house was gray stone and rose like a massive dark monument from the forest floor. The porch was also stone, with three granite arches supporting a roof that cast deep shadows over the entrance doors.
Covering the two story building (though it seemed impossibly large for only two stories), was a steeply slanted black slate roof. Centered on top of the roof sat a bronze tower encircled by a widow's walk.
Two windows perched on both sides of the black roofline like the eyes of an enormous beast. Stevie felt the hairs on his neck prickle. He could sense
someone—or something—watching him from behind the high, dark windows.
And yet, he wondered if that were accurate. He thought the evil was greater than whatever was inside the house. Rather the house itself was the source, and maybe even the forest surrounding the ancient, vile place. But it was more than just evil. It was angry. Furious. Jealous.
"Freaky," Stevie said in awe. The other words he couldn't say out loud. Not here. Something about the place gave it an overwhelming presence, as though it were a living thing rather than just a building. Was he afraid of being disrespectful?
He brushed the dirt from his clothes and pulled leaves and small twigs from his light brown hair. His pain from the fall was all but gone, but he was sure he'd be sore tomorrow. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the stone front of the horrible house—and especially the dark, high windows. Many windows framed in rotting wood lined the first and second floor, and a number of them were broken, but it was those two sitting high above the others and filled with black glass that held his attention. They really did look like eyes staring down at him.
There was something both terrifying and hypnotic about the house, and his feet started to move toward it seemingly on their own.
"What are you doing?" Stevie hissed at himself, needing to hear the sound of his own voice. "You have to get home!"
But still he kept walking toward the place. A marble fountain, now filled with dirty sludge and covered in weeds, sat in the middle of a circular driveway. The driveway wound along the steep slope Stevie had fallen down and, though overgrown with thick weeds and prickle-bushes, he knew that a driveway would eventually lead to a road.
The wind picked up and he heard a sound coming from the house. He stopped and listened.
Though only a low moan at first, it grew into a fiendish, wailing sound that could have been the wind gusting through the broken windows or the slatted bronze tower above the old mansion.
But he knew it wasn't.
It sounded like ReeetUUUrrrrrn.
Fear twisted his stomach, and his feet—still apparently acting on their own but with new motivation—turned and ran up the driveway away from the house. The prickly-bushes tore at his clothes and flesh as he broke through or dodged around anything that blocked his path. He didn't know what had made the sound, but he knew it was something impossibly old. Something waiting. Something that might be behind him and wouldn't need to push through trees or pickers or anything else. Something that could go right through whatever stood in its way!
He charged through a large hedge and fell into the street. There was a field across from him. A big, beautiful open field of cut grass that nothing could hide in, and he fled across it.
Now he looked back over his shoulder, fully expecting to see something long dead reaching out to grab him with worm-eaten fingers, but nothing was there. Just the dark depths of The Grove. He couldn't even see where he had pushed through the hedge. Whatever hole he had made closed up behind him.
Stevie knew one thing. Whatever was in that part of The Grove didn't want to be disturbed!
But it was too late.
6.
Stevie checked his watch when he turned onto his street. Six-thirty.
"Oh man, I'm dead," he said to himself. "Dad's gonna kill me!"
Unless his father had been held up at the hospital where he was a doctor, he'd be home, probably pacing, and very angry. Stevie would just have to take whatever punishment was coming his way, and hope that maybe he could play on his father's fondness for Angie to overrule the Halloween grounding.
"Yeah, right!" he snorted. If Dr. Barton said something, you could bet he stuck to it. That was just his way.
When Stevie came to his house, his heart sank and his shoulders slumped. Not only was his father's car parked in the garage next to Stevie's yellow motorcycle, but the rake and leaf blower were outside, and big bags of leaves sat on the driveway.
Dad raked the yard himself, Stevie thought. He must be beyond mad! I'm gonna be grounded until I graduate college!
Stevie took off his shoes at the entrance—another Barton family rule—and walked into the bathroom. He washed the dirt from his hands and his face as best he could.
"Stevie, get in here!" his father called from the dining room.
Stevie's seventeen year old sister Emily, and his father, sat at the table. They had nearly finished their dinner. A Friggin' Chickn' bag sat at the corner of the table, and greasy bones littered their plates.
When his father saw Stevie enter, his eyes grew stern. Dr. Barton was not a throw-things-around-the-room-yell-and-scream kind of father. Stevie sometimes wished he was. The flash in his father's eyes and his icy tone of voice could be far more terrifying.
"I'm sorry I'm late," Stevie said, sitting down at the table.
Dr. Barton's eyes softened a little with the apology, which surprised Stevie. Wasn't he furious about the leaves? "Son, I don’t mind you going out to play after your chores are done—"
"Dad," Stevie interrupted. "I'm really sorry about not raking—"
Emily kicked Stevie hard under the table. He grunted in pain, and his eyes shot over to her. She made a subtle slashing motion at her neck with a drumstick bone, then put a finger to her lips.
"Stevie, that leaf blower is brand new. It's an expensive piece of equipment. How difficult would it be to put it back in the garage when you were finished?"
Stevie's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. They shot from his father, to his sister, and back to his father again. What was going on?
"Not... difficult," Stevie agreed, confused. It came out sounding more like a question than an answer.
"Furthermore," Dr. Barton continued. "If you're going to go out before dinner, I expect you back home by six o'clock. Those are our rules, and you know them. We eat together as a family, work permitting."
Stevie nodded.
"Why didn't you answer your phone? I tried to call."
Stevie's hands flew to his pocket. Oh no! His cell phone was gone!
"Aw, man. I fell. In The Grove. It must've come out of my pocket!"
"Well, after you eat, you'll go back and get it."
Stevie's heart filled with fear. No way was he going back into that place! "Dad, it's almost dark! I'll get it in the morning."
Stevie's father shook his head. "Thunderstorm is coming tonight. Your phone won't be much good for anything other than a paperweight come morning. Emily will go with you."
"Dad!" Emily protested. "I don't want to go there tonight!"
"Do you have a game tonight?"
"No, but—"
Dr. Barton smiled at Emily. "Well, I'm not going. And since it's not safe for Stevie to go alone, and since I'm the father, I volunteer you." With that, he smiled at his family, picked up his plate, and walk
ed to the kitchen sink.
"You're lucky I love you, Wartface," Emily said. She smacked him lightly on top of the head.
"Did you rake the leaves, too, Em?"
"Yeah, I knew after his threats last night what would happen if he came home and you hadn't done it. Again. Who's got your back?"
"Thanks, Em," Stevie said, and meant it. Some kids hated their older sisters. He counted his lucky stars for Emily almost daily.
"Don't thank me yet," Emily said. "You owe me. Big time. Especially now. Those woods are scaaaaaaa-ry!"
You don't know the half of it! Stevie thought.
7.
The dark trees of The Grove rose up in front of them like an abandoned fortress. All it needed, Stevie thought, was a hand-painted sign with bright blood-red letters that said KEEP OUT! It felt good to have Em with him, though. If he'd been alone, he'd never be able to go in.
As they walked, Stevie told her about the toy he had found and the house in the valley below the trail.
"You fell all the way down the side of the mountain?" she asked. Concern spread across her face as she tilted her flashlight and looked over the edge of the trail and into the dark depths below. "You need to watch where you're going!"
"I was watching," Stevie said. "But I was being chased."
He explained the details of his encounter with Victor Plotts.
She frowned, thoughtful. Then she said, "That kid's a little punk. One day something bad is going to happen to him. Somebody'll do something about him. Maybe it should be you."
"Me?" Stevie exclaimed, shocked. "He's two years older than me, and a bazillion times bigger! What could I do?"
"He's all mouth. I bet you could take him."
"You're kidding, right?"
Emily didn't say anything. Her forehead crinkled up in thought.
Brother and sister crunched through the fallen leaves along the trail, their flashlights waving across the path in front of them. The lights helped illuminate the path, but made the darkness outside of their beams look even darker. Without any sun, it was even colder than before, and Stevie shivered.
Neither spoke as the trees closed in around them, the long branches reaching out over the trail like cold, searching fingers. Some trees, the perennials, still had life, but most were covered with dead leaves, or bare limbs and gray trunks. Stevie again noticed the scent of decay mixed with pine, slight now, but still there.
He wondered if Em could hear the sound of his heart beating. To him, it sounded like the canons firing in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Music with guns. Good stuff. But not when it came from inside your chest.
Em put an arm around Stevie's shoulder. "You're right, Stevie," she finally said. "You should just do your best to stay away from Victor. He's not worth it."
"I know, Em. I'm used to him. But the worst part is he stole the toy I found. I was gonna give it to Angie."
Emily puckered her lips and batted her eyelashes. It looked really grotesque in the flashlight's glow.
"For Aaaaaaaaaaannngiiiiie?" she asked, following it with lots of wet kissing sounds.
"Shut up. It isn't like that." He pushed her lightly and she stumbled forward, but caught herself.
"I know," Emily said, mussing his hair.
"It was this really old windup toy. Totally freakish." He explained to her about the toy, the way it moved and spun its cane. The mechanical laugh that sounded more like a scream. He told her how weird it looked, just standing there on the tree stump in the middle of the forest.
"You know, in Japan, they think that gods and spirits and junk live in the mountains and the forests, so when loggers cut down trees, they leave little gifts on the stumps. Toys or whatever. To make the gods happy."
"Really? Is that true?"
Emily shrugged. "Dunno. Read it somewhere, or someone told me. Or I saw it on television. Hey, maybe you'll get lucky and Victor will get what he deserves. A toy with a nice demon inside to haunt him."
Stevie shivered, his hairs standing up on the back of his neck again. He didn't want to think about demons in this place! He remembered the sigh, the sound of something chasing him—claws scratching on rocks—and the horrible house. If something was haunting The Grove, Stevie didn't think it was inside that old toy.
"Where'd you drop your phone, anyway?" Emily asked.
Stevie shook his head. "I think maybe it came out when I was running from Victor, or when I fell down the mountain. I know I had it when Victor stole the toy."
"Oh, hold on a sec. I'll call it." Emily pulled her cell from her pocket and called Stevie's phone.
"Won't work," Stevie said. "There's never any reception in The Grove. It's—"
In the distance, far below them, a phone rang. Emily lifted an eyebrow at him and smiled.
"Okay, okay," he said with a sheepish grin. "We must be getting close to where I went over the edge. Keep your eyes on the side of the trail."
They walked for a few more moments when Stevie said, "There!"
On the side of the trail was a place where the dirt and leaves and pine needles had been dug into, exposing the dark soil underneath. "I slid down here. Call again."
Emily did, and the ringing came from directly below them now.
"Crud!" Stevie said. "I'd hoped I'd lost it up here on the trail when I was running."
"Looks pretty steep," Emily said, her brow knitting again.
Stevie frowned down at the steep side of the mountain. "Trust me, it is. I know from experience."
"Well, I'm right behind you. I'll keep calling the phone until we find it."
Stevie nodded, hesitated, and slid down on the seat of his pants. He used his feet to control his decent. Now that he wasn't rolling uncontrollably, it wasn't really so bad.
The ringing was loud now. He was almost on top of the phone.
"Where is it?"
"Close now," Stevie said. Then he saw the screen illuminating the ground directly below him. Luckily, it was only a little way down the hill. He did not want to go all the way down to the house. "There it is!"
He slid to a stop next to the phone, looked at the screen.
"Got it!" he said loudly. The phone stopped ringing, and he turned back to Emily.
She wasn't there!
"Emily?" He was able to stand on the steep hill, barely, and turned around a few times with his flashlight searching for his sister. She was nowhere around. "Emily!"
Then his eyes fell on the dark silhouette of the house, still a good distance below. It was just a black shape nestled in the trees, but he saw a yellowish-green light coming from the entrance door. The light shimmered and waved, almost like liquid. Then the door slowly closed!
Stevie turned and scrambled back up the hill as fast as he could! His fingernails dug into the dirt and grabbed at the rocks, searching for anything he could grip to pull himself back up. Uncontrollable whimpers came from his chest as he worked.
Had something inside closed the door to keep Stevie out? Or had something left, closing the door behind it? Something making its way up the slope behind him?
He could feel it all around him now. A presence. Was it right there? Was it reaching up with dead hands, about to wrap maggot-infested fingers around his struggling ankles?
Finally he reached the top and rolled up over the edge and onto the trail, then jumped to his feet. He searched with his flashlight for Emily, but she wasn't here either.
"Emily!" he screamed. Tears stung his dirty cheeks. Desperately he called out to her. "Emily!"
Something moaned from the darkness behind the trees. A long, low, ghastly moan.
Stevie screamed, and terror too powerful to control overpowered him. He turned, and ran as fast as he could.
He could hear the thing chasing him, its feet crashing through the leaves and dead sticks on the trail! And it was getting closer!