Among the Trees

Among The Trees 

By John W. Vander Velden 

I’ve lived my whole life on this farm.  My grandpa bought it in the twenties, it’s as much a part of the family as my Great Aunt Joan.  After my father took over the place, the first bit of land he added was an eighty-acre parcel that banked against the Salley River to the north.  He bought other pieces during his care of this place, as have I.  The farm is near a thousand acres now a days, but I can remember stories told me my whole life about that north piece, the land along the river.

I was just a boy when I first heard about the house among the trees.  The thing was dad bought that land for the thirty acres of loam it contained.  He gave little thought to the wood that covered more than half, an out of the way place few went.  As a boy I wandered out to those trees, a good long hard walk from our house, and I thought about what Mr. Gaines told me years before.

The trees there are tall and old like none I’d seen anywhere else.  I’ve been told that wood contains some of the last old forest hardwood in the state.  I wouldn’t know.  But years ago when I pushed through the brambles to get within the shade of that forest I saw no house, big or small.  But near the center, even though it was within the deep shade of the tall canopy above, was a thicket.  A large patch of hawthorn that made an impenetrable mass.

Now my grandsons have walked beneath those trees upon soil my feet have rarely trod for nearly fifty years. Even so they go there seldom.  It is not the distance, almost a mile across farmland, that keeps them away.  It s not that they avoid the outdoors, for both have a deep love of nature.  I heard a hint of why they wandered others places at dinner just last month.  Mike said, “there’s something creepy among those trees, grandpa.”  He shook his head, “it makes my skin crawl.” His younger brother Lee nodded.

I’d like to have said there was nothing to fear in them woods, but fact is I’d had those same feelings myself, each time I go among those trees.

It’s my son Robert’s farm now, but I help when I can.  The weather’s been cold this October and harvest begun early.  The other day while I helped him run corn in that back field, while the sky was the deepest blue and no cloud in sight, a small wisp of smoke rose out from among those trees.  If a body would have closed their eyes and breathed three times slowly before reopening them, they would have missed it entirely.  But I saw it and made my way into that wood that stands along the banks of the Salley River. It took a bit but I came to that Hawthorn brush and I knew.  I don’t know how I knew the smoke had come from inside that thorn blocked way, but I did.

I stood afront that bunch of brambles.  Not a leaf remained, only trunk, branch, thorn, and the red berries the birds love.  The Hawthorns heavy wit em.  That’s when I notice how quiet it was, just the breeze through the trees high above. Not a bird to be seen or heard.  Weren’t no squirrels about either.

As I stared at those thorny berry covered branches and a wonderin’ where the birds and squirrels might be I saw it.  There was an old house within that brambled mess.  I shook my head, couldn’t believe what I was a seein’ but sure enough a wood frame house had been completely surrounded by the trees.

I come back with some loppers and a chain saw the next day and me and Mike we cut us a hole through them branches and found the front door. How long them trees had swallowed up the place I could not guess, but it was strange that none of those Hawthorns or any other plants for that matter grew in a way that actually touched the house.  They grew complete around and above it but not a twig brushed against the siding or roof.

Mike told me we ought to forget that we found the house and just pick up our stuff and go.  But I said, “Now just wait a minute Mike, all we got here is some old house.”  Though I must admit that things seemed more than a bit odd.

“If you don’t mind,” Mike said then, “I’ll just wait out there.” He pointed to the space beyond. I nodded and carefully went up the steps surprised the wood held me.  I carefully placed one foot afront the other and crossed the porch to the door.

Once the house had been painted, white it seemed though so little remained of the yellowed covering, it was hard ta tell. The windows that faced the porch were full paned, not a single glass of the six light on each was broken. I took hold of the doorknob drew a breath and gave it a gentle turn. Surprised the door opened smoothly without a single creak.  But that weren’t nothing to the shock I found when I stepped inside.  Expecting a dark place full of dust and dirt and broken down stuff all over I found nothing of the kind.  It was all clean, and everything was just like a body lived there.  Not a spider’s web or dust bunny to be found.  It caused me to stop a minute and draw a breath, while my eyes became adjusted to the dimness.

There were rugs on the floor, a coupe of overstuffed chairs in the parlor as well as a sofa. Tables and oil lamps stood in their places, a magazine dated October 15, 1897 lay on the top of a table next to one of the chairs. And everything was, like I said, clean as if expectin’ company.

I looked back glad ta see the door yet stood wide open and wonderin’ if I was dreaming.  I didn’t climb the stairs, but made my way to the kitchen. Dishes were washed and put away, still sparkling clean in the cupboard.  The sink was empty, and the hand pump was primed and workin’. But the oddest thing of all was the cook stove…still warm.

I’d seen enough and glad Mike hadn’t followed.  His eyes said it all, as I come out just as fast as these old legs would carry me. “We’d best be going I told him as I picked up the chain saw, and pointed for him to grab the ax and loppers.

The door shut with a loud bang as we turned to leave.  I looked over my shoulder stopped just a second certain I could see the branches growin’ right before my eyes.  I shook my head as I hurried the boy ahead of me and we rushed out to my truck parked just beyond the forest’s edge.

We’d been home in a flash, but the fool thing wouldn’t start.  I tried again and again until the battery gave up the ghost.

The walk home was long for these tired old bones, but I had no real answers for the boy’s questions as we made our way across the open country.  I couldn’t say why, but the further we got from that wood the better I felt.  It was a silly notion to be sure.

The next day my boy Robert took us back with jumper cables and chain if that were ta fail, but the truck was gone, just gone. That was when I told my son of what we had found, of the house surrounded but not touched by the thorny Hawthorns, and what I found inside.  He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.  Truth is, if someone had told me a yarn like that I’d thought the same thing. But the truck was gone and the only tracks, other than the ones we made a commin’ headed across the rows of harvested corn stalks off toward the west fence line.

We followed those treads bouncing over thousands of rows. At the edge of the farm the tracks went on across the Mitchel’s, cutting a diagonal across the still standing soybeans. We sat there a shakin’ our heads and a lookin’, wondering who took my old truck and where they were a bound.

The next day Sherriff Andrew Dodson come pullin’ in to the farm. I’d expected him to bring us new about the Ford I’d reported stole. “Glen we they found your truck,” he said his eyes focused on me hard. “It was in Gillan’s pasture.  You know the Gilllan Farm?”

“Heard of them, they dairy over west edge of the county.” I was a wondering why somebody would take my truck there.

Sherriff Dodson shook his head. “It seems the truck run out of gas tearing up the fences and the pasture too.” He tilted his head slightly, drawing down his left eyelid halfway. “But that’s not the strangest part.”

“The strangest part?” I asked. It seemed to me that takin’ a guy’s truck fifteen miles across country only to drive around some farmer’s field until it didn’t go no more was just plain weird.

“The Gillans called saying that, what was left of their herd had run off. That I should stop by and have a look see.”

I blinked. “Left of their herd?”

The Sheriff nodded firmly. “Carl, it was an awful sight, six cows scattered across the field blood and hide all over the battered front of that brown truck of yours.”

“He use my truck to run down milk cows?”

Again he nodded. “Like nothing I ever saw before.”

It nearly knocked me off my feet. I shook my head not able to believe what I was a hearin’.

“Spent the day helping Joe and Jack Gillan find the rest.” Sheriff Dodson went on. “Joe told me this morning that though the truck is hauled away and the fences are fixed, none of the cattle will go out in the pasture again.” The Sheriff pursed his lips. “He’s blaming you.”

“Blaming me?”

“I don’t see any grounds, but be warned, Joseph is might angry.” Sheriff Dodson look around the farm. “Your truck is in impound. We’ll do our best to figure out who took it.” He turned to look at me. “What do you want us to do with your ford truck when we’re done?”

“It’s old and not worth much, I’ll come down Sheriff, and look it over. Decide then.”

But my old truck and those slaughtered cows were not the end of things. For that same night someone took off with Herman Stoke’s Massey Ferguson tractor. Drove it through Albert Morrison’s shed and set fire to it in a neighbor’s corn field. It took units from three departments to keep the blaze from spreadin’. 

Later a Mr. Kline was awakened when somebody stole his Buick LeSabere right out of his garage. He said the racket of that Buick backing right through the closed overhead woke him and the misses. When he got to the window he saw it tearing across the yard and disappear in the darkness. That old Buick was pretty beat up when they found it stuck in a bean field a few farms over.

But that night had not yet ended when a couple of teenagers parked on an out-of–the-way dirt road in Handlin County got their romancin’ interrupted by a great big green John Deere Combine that come a roarin’ across the field their way. Bouncin through standing corn without its lights, twelve rows just plugged with stalks stacked most of the way up to the cab, the diesel a screamin’ as the machine came at them in road gear. I don’t s’spect anyone’ll be courtin’ on that stretch of gravel anytime soon.

If a body were to look down across the country the next day they would see a near straight line of mayhem from the trees on Salley River west south west to where they found that John Deere nosed into a ditch in west Handlin County. A path of destruction like that of a twister.  Everybody’s scratchin’ their head on what exactly happened that night.

Days later Mike and I went back to that woods at the north edge of the farm, those trees along the Salley. It was broad daylight, ‘cause nobody with good sense would go there at night. We came near that old abandoned house that had been swallowed up.  The front door stood open and anglely, tore loose from its top hinge.  It was then I decided that those Hawthorns did not mean to keep me or others out, but to hold something evil locked away.  I guess I feel guilty that I am responsible for helpin’ whatever evil had been held there among the trees.  

11/10/2018 (2182 Words)

 

The Rembolt House

The Rembolt House  

A Halloween Story

By John W. Vander Velden             

 

I was new to the area and I stopped at the hardware for deck stain.  At the checkout an old man came up behind me his eyes moving from my head to toes.  “You bought that house on the lake.”  He said as if I didn’t know where I was living.

He swayed slightly as he drew his bushy white brows down.  “That big gray house next to the Rembolt place.”

He must have noticed the confusion in my eyes.

“That old stone house in the trees.  Nobody lives there.”

My mind went to the thick grove of trees and brambles south of my place that had swallowed an old tumbled down pile of rocks.  Part of the roof had fallen in years ago and a cottonwood grew up through the gap.  I nodded at the old gentleman.

“You’d be the sixth that bought that place.”

I understand that houses change hands, but the house wasn’t old so that fact surprised me.

“’Spect you’ll leave soon.”

Now I couldn’t remain silent.  “And why would I leave?”

“Oh, you won’t want to, but there’s something about the Rembolt house.  You’ll see soon enough.”

I noticed the cashier shake her head.

“So the place is haunted?”  I asked not being able to keep the smile from forming on my lips.

“I didn’t say that.”  The old man began.

“There’s always been stories…”  The cashier interrupted.

“Stories, Bah.”  The old man set his bag of screws on the counter and shaking his head he walked out without them.

“Pay no attention to old Charlie.”  The cashier whose tag said Misty smiled.  “He’s got a story about everything.”

“Then he’s a local?”  I asked.

“Lived hereabouts before Camden was anything more than a four way stop on the highway.”

“So he’s an old timer?”

“He’s old, that’s for sure.”

When Misty handed back my credit card, I picked up my two gallons of stain and backed out the doors to the street.  Charlie was leaning against my Chevy truck waiting.

He wore a button down shirt that may have once been white with thin green stripes, over dark green work trousers.  As I approached he held out his hand.  “I’m Charles Chapwell.”

I took his hand surprised the strength in the old man’s grip.  “I’m Marty Anderson.”

The slightest smile came to his lips as he asked.  “Any kin to Daniel and Mary Anderson?”

I shook my head.  “They from around here?”

“Were, but that’s been a while ago.  Dan was my best friend’s brother.  When we were kids you understand.”

Now looking at the man I guessed was at least eighty I didn’t know what to say for a moment.  “My family’s from Michigan.”  I said at last.

He just nodded.  “So why’d ya buy that house on the lake?”

“We wanted a place to get away.”

“Picked the wrong place.”  The smile left his face as turned to face me.

“I don’t know Charles.  This seems like a nice area…”

He leaned forward.  I feared he would fall over me.  “Yeah, this area is nice, but you’re too close to the Rembolt house.  That place should have been torn down seventy years ago.”

I tilted my head a bit.  “Why hasn’t it?”

“Legal mumbo-jumbo.  Every time some bring it up to the county council it gets shot down.  The commissioners know enough not to fight the Rembolts.  Not one of them have set foot in the county for years but that don’t matter.  They pay the taxes and maybe more and so that shack still stands.”

“Hmmm.”

“And just because the trees hide it from the road don’t mean a thing.  That place is just evil.”

I would have thought the old guy was just pulling my leg, taking the new guy for a ride, so to speak.  “It’s just an abandoned old house.”  I answered as I looked him over again.

“I’m just warnin’ ya.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a warning, or some sort of threat, not that the old man, fit as he seemed, was in any condition to threaten.

I looked him straight in the eyes.  “What makes you think that place is evil, Mr. Chapwell?”  I just tacked his name into the question to remind the guy I knew his name.

He looked down, shook his head and said, “That house et my best friend.”

I blinked, tilted my head and asked.  “The house ate your friend?”

Mr. Chapwell nodded once rocked slowly to the left and then to the right.

“It were a hot October Sunday, and I went over to Jim Anderson’s ta see if he wanted to go fishin’.”  His eyes focused on mine.  “His pa said that it was Ok so we went to the lake at the head of the little creek that runs into town.  Folks hadn’t given the Crescent Lake and Youst Creek names yet back then.”  He looked away as if trying to picture the scene.  “The lake was just across a couple of fields from the Anderson’s Farm.  We’d been fishing at the lake lots of times, so it weren’t nothing for us to grab a couple of poles and head out.”

“Was the fishing good at the lake?”  I asked.

He turned to look at me again, his eyes dreamy.  “Usually.  But not that afternoon.”  He looked down a bit and went on.  “It didn’t matter none, we wus friends and whether the fish were bitin’ or not we had a good time, talkin’ mostly.  We sat on the west bank with the sun on our back so we could see into the water better.  Didn’t notice the storm clouds that come up behind us til the wind came settin’ the trees to swayin’.”  The old man looked back into my eyes.  “Before we gathered our stuff there was lightning strikin’ all around us.  Took off running ta home, but figured it weren’t safe ta cross the open land so we decided to hole up in that old stone house.  The Rembolt’s had abandoned the place long before I was born.”

I lowered my right eyelid wondering if what I had heard was true, that Charlie Chapwell could tell a good yarn and if he was busy weaving me one.

“I told Jimmy that we oughtn’ to stay away from that place.  That there were plenty of stories even then about the strange things that happened there.  But the storm was a howlin’ and the thunder like ta shook my ribs outa’ my chest.  “We’ll just stand on the porch.””  I says to him.

“Come on,” he says, “it’s daylight and all.  Ain’t nothing gonna happen to us in the daylight.”

“But the clouds were so thick that it could’ve almost been night.  There was a window with a broken pane that opened to the porch.  Jimmy he looked into the kitchen and tried to lift the sash.  “Why don’t we try the door?”  I asked, and sure enough it was unlocked.”

“That’s more than seventy year ago and I still can remember how I felt as we went into that empty house.”  The old man shook his head as once again he looked down.  “The air was stale, musky and dust covered everything especially the floor.  Even though we were the first to walk those dusty floors in a long time, the hairs on the back of my neck made me certain we weren’t alone.”

The man turned facing the lake far beyond our sight and swallowed.  “I told Jimmy we had to get.  But the thunder and flash of close lightning seemed to hold us there just inside the open door.  Another flash lit Jimmy’s face, I saw it plain, a strange smile and wild eyes.  He turned and without saying a word dashed up the stairs.”

From the top of the stair and outa sight I hear him call, “Come up here Charlie…there’s something ya gotta to see.”

“You can forget that, cause I ain’t going up there.”  I yelled back.

“Then that feeling that something was wrong come over me stronger.  “I’ll wait for you on the porch.”  I shouted.”

The storm kept on, the wind, thunder, and lightning.  I watched the water churnin’ on the lake and the trees bendin’ and swayin’.  My heart was a beatin’ thump, thump, thump, I could feel it in my ears, and I kept tryin’ to get my air.  I don’t know how ta describe it, but I felt like I was  drownin’” Then Chapwell looked me directly in the eyes.  “It was then I heard the most awful sound, loud it was, louder than the storm.  Like a scream of pain or a cry for help, but somehow I knew it weren’t human.  It came outa that house.”  The old man’s eyes were wet.  “I yelled as I turned to go back in for my friend but at that instant lightning struck, where I don’t know but it was so close that I found myself on the ground later, drenched wet, lightning flash blind, and thunder deaf.”

“I lay there afraid, finally able to crawl on all four all the while the storm raged around me.  If any other sound came from that cursed house, I couldn’t hear it.”

Chapwell looked skyward.  “We never found any trace of Jimmy…nothing.”

I looked hard at the man leaning against my truck.  “You expect me to believe that your friend was swallowed by some old house?”

The man straightened, drew his bushy eyebrows down.   “What you believe…that’s up ta yu.  I’m just tellin’ you what happened that day.”

I shook my head not accepting any of the nonsense I’d heard.

“You got your doubts.  Well fine, just go to the marina.  There’s a fella that works there.  Barney’s the best outboard mechanic in these parts.  But he won’t tell ya so cause he ain’t said a word in nigh on forty years.”  He leaned closer.  “Not since he got drunk and bragged he was gonna knock out the glass of the last window of the Rembolt House.”

I blinked.

“Well the glass got broken but Barney ain’t said a word since that night.”  Chapwell turned but as he left he said over his shoulder.  “You should ask him…maybe he’ll tell ya.” 

Now I didn’t give much credence to the story Charles Chapwell told me that morning.  Though I found myself looking out of my bedroom window late at night.  But I saw nothing more than brush and trees.  But I was glad when on my weekly trip to Harriet’s Café on the corner of Leeper and Main that Manny Wilcox was seated at the counter.  He welcomed me to join him and his friends so I sat.  After the introductions I asked Manny.  “I know you have a boat, do you get it serviced at the marina?”

“Sure, when it needs work, which isn’t often, I take it over to Carl’s.”  He said with a smile.  He ribbed me.  “Bout time you get a boat.  I know of a real fine Master Craft…”

“Maybe next summer,” I interrupted.

I placed my order of eggs and hash browns and then asked the question I wanted answered in the first place.  “You ever meet the mechanic there?”  I couldn’t remember the name.

“You mean Joe or Barney.”  Said Leo Parker who sat on the other side of my friend.

That was his name.  “Uuhh…Barney.”  I said at last.

“Barney’s great with outboards, but if you’re got a sterndrive or inboard, Joe’s the one you want.”

“But you guys have met Barney?”

A chuckle moved through the group.  “Yeah we all know Barney.”  Manny said.

“I’d like to talk to him.”  I stammered.

Manny tilted his head, “About what?”

“My dad has an old Johnson, real old,” I lied, “and I might want to get it fixed.”

“He’ll be able to fix it, that’s for sure, but he’s not going to talk about it.”  Laughter erupted as if a joke was shared by them.

“What do you mean?”

Manny calmed down his friends.  “Barney can’t talk.”

I blinked as I feigned surprise.  “Born mute?”

That’s when the guy at the end of the counter, Greg Garrison his name, spoke.  “From what I heard he was a chatty kinda’ fella…once.”

“Really,” I asked, “he have an accident?”

“No one knows for sure.”  Nanny answered.  “He won’t tell.  I guess he could write something out, but he doesn’t.”

“There are sure a lot of stories about Barney.”  Said Harold James that sat between Nanny and Leo.

“If you’re curious,” Greg added, “Charlie Chapwell is the one to ask.”

Now there was just the person I wished to avoid.

“Have you met Charlie?”  Nanny asked.

“Yes,” I said, “what do you think of him?”

Nanny smiled as he looked my way.  “Old Charlie is alright.  He gets worked up from time to time.  But he knows everything about this place.”

“And he’s more than willing to tell you or anyone else.”  Harold chuckled.

I moved the conversation to other subjects, the weather and golf.

After Church I caught up with Nanny again.  “Why hasn’t anyone torn down that old abandoned house next to me?”

“Oh, you have been talking to Charlie.”

I looked toward the sky an instant.

Nanny smiled.  “You have to know that the Rembolts owned the lake and all land around it.  They held it with an iron fist.  The county wanted to develop the whole area.  What’s the use of having a piece of water as big as Crescent Lake and no access?  That’s when they struck a deal.  The Rembolts sold everything but where their house was, on the stipulation that it be left as it was.  I don’t know the reasons, since nobody from the family has set foot in that place in forever.”

“So the county will not even consider…”  I began.

“If you had any idea how much taxes this county gets from all those houses like ours… Well it just makes sense.  What’s one old place?  You can’t even see the place from the road or the lake most of the year.

I will admit that the things I had heard set me to thinking.  But we had lived there for nearly two months and hadn’t seen anything unusual, so I kept my concerns to myself.  Didn’t seem any reason to upset my wife.

Sunday afternoon, my wife Lisa and I were sitting on the deck admiring the lake reflecting the blue of the sky.  She had just brought me some coffee when she said.  “Did you know that old place beside us is cursed?”

I nearly gagged, the hot coffee burned in my nose.  “What?”  I asked as soon as I could clear an airway.

She looked over my way as if she had just announced that it was Sunday or something.  “While you were talking to Nanny Wilcox, Janet Waters came over and told me.”

“Told you that the old place beside us was cursed?”  I tried to be nonchalant.

“Well, she didn’t just come over and say, “You live beside a cursed house,” if that’s what you mean.”

My hand began shaking slightly so I set my coffee down.  “But she did tell you, right.”

“We were talking how the new shutters on the Adam’s house were the wrong color.  You know you just can’t put green shutters on a blue house and get away with it.”

I had no idea where this conversations was heading and how Joe and Iva Adam’s house up the street had induced such revulsion that the concept of house cursing flowed out of the conversation.

I tried to focus on what was said, green shutters?  “What does shutters have to do with cursed houses?”

“Nothing silly,” she said with a smile.  But Milly Danver overheard us talking and came over.”

I couldn’t put a face on whoever Millie Danver was.  “So this Millie told you about the cursed house?”

“Of course not.  She just said we were lucky that there were no neighbors on that side of our house.”

I waited a moment but she just took a sip of coffee.  “Then Janet told you about…?”

“Your just jumping ahead again Mike.  It was Mrs. Lawton.”  Lisa said with a slight shake of her head.  “You know the older woman with the blue hair stacked up.  She was the one wearing the yellow dress.  It really didn’t become her…”

“And she told you about…”

“You know I don’t like it when you interrupt.”

“Sorry, but I hoped you would get to the point.”  I was beginning to feel anxious.

She set down her coffee and stared at me.  “You have heard something?”

I shook my head.  “Nothing about the place being cursed.”  I said doing my best to give the appearance of total innocents.

She rocked a bit in her chair.  A sign she didn’t quite believe me and I was to tell her….EVERYTHING.

So I told her about Charlie and how his friend had vanished and told her the rumor about Barney’s not speaking.  When I had finished she said.  “Well it all makes sense now.”

I had to blink.  How did any of this make sense?

Lisa shook her head.  “Well it does to me.”  The left corner of her lip curved up.  “I suppose it will to you too if I tell what Agnes told us.”

I shook my head.  “Agnes?”

Her brows came down a little.  “Mrs. Lawton.”

“Oh that Agnes.” I said as if I had any idea who Mrs. Agnes Lawton was.”

“She told how two hundred years ago, maybe not quite, but it was a long time ago.  Mr. Horace Rembolt shot a young man for trespassing.”

“For trespassing?”

“That’s what she said.”  She looked at me with that ‘You’re interrupting again” look.

With the most penitent face I could muster I said, “go on.”

“Anyway, the boy’s father put a curse on Mr. Rembolt and the house.”

I blinked wondering if that was all to the story and if it was, what I had missed.

She must have saw my confusion for she said.  “The boy was the son of some old trapper or hermit or something.”

I tried to imagine how a hermit had a son.

 “Well, this hermit, or whatever he was, and his boy lived deep in the woods.  Everyone in the valley knew the guy was an odd one and were happy that he kept to himself.

“Just because some loony guy said the house was cursed….”  I looked at Lisa as I shook my head again.  “You don’t believe any of that stuff, do you?”

She leaned back, picking up her cup she took a sip from her coffee.  “Well, a few days later Horace Rembolt fell down the steps of that house and died two days later.” 

She looked my way as if the house being cursed was the most logical conclusion the earth had ever seen.

“Come on Lisa.”

Her mouth fell open.  “Oh, I forgot to tell you the most interesting part.”

I rolled my eyes, more interesting than a cursed house.

“Those two days he kept saying how he had been pushed down those stairs…”

That seemed the most logical part of this story.

“That the house pushed him.”

“Pushed by a house?”  I shook my head for the umpteenth time in disbelief.

Lisa drew her eyebrows down and I knew I was in for it.  “You can make fun all you want Marty, but weird things have happened over there for years.”

I’d already told her about Jim Andrews and Barney at the marina, so I wondered what other “weird” things she was talking about.  “Like what?”

“Well for one thing, Mr. Jackson’s dog won’t even walk past the place.”

Mr. Jackson had a Pomeranian, cute dog but not a killer you understand.  If something frightened the dog it wouldn’t make the papers.

“And talking about dogs Amber’s Rocwelier just growls and barks at the brush there.  Amber thinks he knows something wrong about the place.”

We need to respect a dog’s opinion, I thought to myself.

“I know what you’re thinking, Marty, but dogs are smart that way.” 

Just as the sun was setting I wandered the south edge of my lot looking at the briars and raspberries that form a thick uninpenitratable wall between us and the ruins beyond, I tried not to take too seriously the ramblings of an old man, the rumors about a mute and other things, or the behavior of dogs.  It was the twenty-first century for crying out loud.  I had to get real.  So pushing, all that I had convinced myself was nonsense, into a safe box within my mind, I felt at ease when I returned to the house that evening. 

Gave no thought about what lay behind the brambles out of sight for nearly a month when I was awakened out of a deep sleep.  I had no idea what had woken me as I looked over to see Lisa sleeping soundly at my side, but I had the strange sensation of being called.  I checked my phone, nothing there.  Moved quietly downstairs to the doors. There was nothing out front, the light down the street shown bright in the early morning.  From the back deck I saw that a mist was coming off the lake a gray sea of moisture that slowly blanketed the backyard.

Confident that all was well I turned to return to my bed when I sensed it again.  A call felt not heard that sent the hairs on the back of my neck to standing.  The darkness that surrounded me was silent.  The stars above shown bright in the indigo sky as I calmed my breathing, my heart thumping in my ears. 

I felt it again.

The calling came, I was certain, from the brush land to my south. Panic overtook me and I rushed indoors, locked the door, leaned against the frame, my breath racing.  Fear like I had never felt before seemed to prevent me from leaving that spot in the kitchen as I blinked and wiped the perspiration from my brow.

I had seen nothing…heard nothing.  Forcing logic to take control I returned to the bedroom relieved that my beloved yet slept.  But the call came yet again, and moving to the south window I caught sight of a flash of light.  It came from beyond the brambles.  A moment later it shown again.  A soft yellowish flicker of a light that remained only a few brief instants and then fade to black.

I did not sleep well for weeks.  Always expecting the un-hearable call, I often sat for hours at the south window.   But I never saw the light again.

It was the second week in October when I felt the tingling at the back of my neck again.  I jumped like a cat from the bed, so violently that Lisa sat up as well. 

“What’s going on Marty?”  The words of the half awake, slurred but understandable.

“I thought I heard something.”  Perhaps I had, but the sensation familiar.

The room grew still.  “It’s nothing,” she said while settling back and straightening the covers.

I was not so confident.  “I’d better look around.”

Everything was as always.  Inside and outside of the house things were completely normal.  But I felt the call.  It tugged at me.  I moved to the back deck my eyes devouring the night, the shadows and wedges of light that spilled through the trees.  The moon but a sliver gave no aide as I stood with my pulse raging.

Something caught my eye.  I dashed inside for the five cell maglight I had purchased after the first night’s calling.  The bright beam aimed at the row of thorns along the south border.  A gap had been cut in the wall of briars.  Clearing my head as I resisted the call that drew me there, I allowed the beam to sweep over the entire back yard.  Again a thick mist was over the water, rising slowly coming my direction.  The mist, the gap, the constant call, I panicked with my back against the door, trembling.

I knew that the calling came from beyond the trees, from the Rembolt House.  But a blackness swelled out of the rising mist, like a great hand, cold and hard, that wrapped itself around me.  The darkness squeezed my chest and I found myself struggling for breath.  I heard my heart thundering within my head as gasping I drew one breath and then another.  I could move in only one direction and I fought the hand that wished to drag me deeper into the blackness, pushing myself harder back against the door.  Yet all the while I could not take my eyes off the gap in the thorns, as if the force that assailed me waited there…would come for me…from there.

Lisa found me, cowering unable to open the sliding door, most of an hour later when she turned on the kitchen light.  I couldn’t speak as I shook more from the terror than the cold damp night air.  Her eyes were wide as she shouted words I could not understand, words that could not penetrate the calling that only I heard, a calling that wished to possessed me.

How pale she looked, my Lisa.  There was panic in her eyes as well.  Panic driven by a different source than my own.  I stumbled inside and tumbled to the floor in our kitchen when she had finally could wedge opened the door.  And while Lisa did her best to return me to a right mind, I lay pulled up in a fetal lump on the cold tiled floor.

I remembered little of the ambulance ride or the kind men that did their best to straighten me out and lash me to the stretcher.  But in the morning I was as right as rain, and fully aware of what I had seen and felt.  There was, Charley had said, something evil amongst the stones next door.  Something I could not explain. 

 

***

 

I faced two days of observation.  Thousands of questions, the answers would not be fully acceptable.  I answered carefully.  Told them truthfully that I had been frightened by something.  What it was I had no idea.  But I did not speak of the calling.  The subconscious pull that I had fought and on that occasion had beaten.  It seemed those type of words would get me a ticket to a room with padded walls, and I was sane…still.

I could not say which day of the week I returned home.  I felt confused and out of touch.  Lisa had taken off work and her eyes followed every move I took.  I spent the time wondering if I had the strength to resist when the calling came again.  For I was certain it would come…again.  And if it were as much stronger the third time as the second was stronger than the first I doubted I could keep from answering that evil request.

In the afternoon I convinced Lisa to walk with me about the yard.  When we came to the midpoint of the south side of the lawn, I pointed out the hole cut through the thorny barrier that separated our property from Rembolt’s, and told her everything I had seen and felt that night.  Her mouth flew open at the sight of a well-worn footpath that led through the trees.  And our eyes followed that newly tread trail and to the stony crumbling remains of the house so long abandoned.

“We’ll have a fence built.” She said, the slightest tremble in her voice.

“We’re selling the house.” I replied.

We stayed in a hotel that night, never would I sleep in our gray dream house on the lake again. 

(4670 Words)  10-21-2017

 

 

 

  

 

Crawford's Creek

Crawford’s Creek          

By John W. Vander Velden

Throughout my life there have been stories about the woods along Witkins Road at Crawford’s Creek.  I place no stock in such tales…yet they persist.  The common thread ties in the unfortunate death of one Arnold Witkins more than a hundred years ago.  No one remembers the exact details, other than his bloodied body was found beside the bridge at the edge of the stream.  Some say that he simply fell off the bridge on a foggy October night, having partaken too much hard cider.  Others say he jumped.  Dying so would seem unlikely considering a height of only eight feet separate the bridge rail from the place he was found.  But the most common notion, among the locals, is that he was attacked, slain, and cast over the side.  

Even today that stretch of road is little traveled.  It goes and comes from nowhere anyone would want to be.  But the tale that Mr. Lyle Kindig told has given the stories new life.  It seems that one night Mr. Kindig got turned around, sidetracked, or though he would never admit to it, lost.  He had lived his 54 years in the county but had never traveled Witkins Road…before.  Going aimlessly about the dirt byways of the county for most of an hour his Ford pickup stalled on a narrow road just as he reached a bridge within a particularly dark wood.  Now he tells of how his headlights flickered and went out and of course turning the key didn’t even give a click, let alone engage the starter.  He sat there in that dark pickup rummaging for the flashlight he felt certain was buried among the tools and trash on the passenger side floor.  Seems nobody rode with Mr. Lyle Kindig.  When he found the flashlight he cursed, for it didn’t work either.

The man wondered what he should do but finally opened his door with a creak that seemed to echo in the silence around him and stepped out onto the dark bridge.  He tells how dark it was.  How the branches of trees on each side of the road had grasped each other overhead.  That their tangled and woody fingers intertwined so tightly to block out the sky.  “It was dark as a cave, on that bridge. And I oughta’ know, been in some…” is how he began to tell me the story.  I had bumped into Lyle at the corner café on a Saturday morning.  I’m not certain what set my old neighbor to talking. 

“When I stepped out of Lulu, my old Ford, had no idea what I wuz gonna do.  It wuz too quiet.  I mean weren’t not a sound commin’ outa the woods or down the road.  I could hear my heart thumpin’, that’ll tell ya just how quiet it wuz.  A fog had come up out of the creek.  Not that I could see it in the dark you understand, but I felt the wet air on my face and when I breathed it in it wuz thick like.”  The man paused looking into his coffee, and I waited.  He drew a breath and went on.  “I didn’t know what ta do.  The truck was dead that wuz for certain, but I didn’t know where the heck I wuz or which way ta go fur help.” Lyle swallowed shook his head slightly, drew another breath and let it slide out between his teeth.  “Just when I figured ta go back the way I come, I heared them.”

“Heard them?” I asked. 

He nodded firmly. “Voices…arguing voices.  The words just bounced around, couldn’t tell which way they wuz a commin’.  But they weren’t fur, no sir, not fur at all.  

“Your going stop seeing Betsy, you hear me!” Them the first words I made out clear. 

Another voice answered, “That’s for your sister to decide.” 

Then there came a third voice, deeper than the other two.  “She’s who sent us.” 

“I don’t believe you.”  The second voice said.  He sounded real close. 

The deep voice answered him. “Oh, you better believe us Arnold.”  

They seemed to be getting’ closer all the time. 

“Bess needs to tell me herself.” The second voice sounded riled up. 

“She’s afraid of you, Arnold, so we told her we would see you understood that you aren’t to come around no more.” That was the first voice.  He sounded as if he was standing less than an arm’s length away. 

“You’d best listen,” the deep voice said then, “‘cause if we see you bothering her again, well you won’t be leaving.” 

The second voice answered then. “You boys don’t scare me none.” 

That’s when the one guy started cursin’ and yelling.  I wus still standing just outside my truck holdin’ the edge of the open door.  It wus so dark and I couldn’t see a thing, but he had to be standing right next ta me, screaming.  “I’ll show you, you worthless piece of scum.” 

“Something hit the truck, thrown into it I ‘spect.  I felt ole Lule shake.  Sounded like things got fierce.  Things changed then and I couldn’t see a thing, but all around were the sounds of a fight.  There wuz a gruntin’ and a grabbin’, pushing and such. The door got tore from my hand and slammed shut.  I felt like I wus in the middle of things.  The sound of fists hitin’ their mark and feet scuffing the dirt.  I needed to get out from among those boys, so I grabbed the door handle but pickup’s door wouldn’t budge.  I yanked and pulled and then I felt someone thump against me, nearly knocked me off my feet.” 

The old man looked directly into my eyes as his coffee cup trembled in his hands. “Mister there ain’t much I’m a feared of, but I’ll confess that night….”  He set his cup down upon the counter. “When I found Lule's door handle again I wus able to pry the door open.  When I scrambled inside the door got slammed again nearly catching my leg.  The key wus still in the ignition, and I didn’t even remember how the thing wouldn’t start…cause it did.  Crammed the old Ford into reverse and sceedaddled.  Lucky I didn’t slam ole Lulu inta a tree or something. 

Now Lyle was known to be a storyteller so I asked the man.  “Lyle, you telling me a tale?” 

He shook his head firmly.  “If’n I wus I would have told ya I saw fiery eyes or bony fingers or such as that, but I didn’t see a thing…nuthin’.  What I’m a tellin’ ya is what happened…gospel truth.  And before ya start thinkin’ I had a bit too much drink.  I ain’t touched the stuff in sixteen years.  You can ask anybody.” 

I looked at Lyle and wondered.  Just the telling of the story seemed to have left him shaken.  The coffee had gone cold in his cup and he pushed it away, drew a breath, left a tip, and got up.   

“Believe me or don’t, makes no difference ta me.” He said as he looked into my eyes one last time.  “But you can bet I ain’t going ta drive that road again…never.  Not even by accident.  I learn’d my lesson about them woods at Crawford’s Creek.  And if’n ya got any brains in that scull of your’n you’d give that place a wide berth too.”  He shook his head and left Marcy’s Café.  Even with the dinging of the bell and the closing of the door the room seemed to hold its breath.  No one knew what to say about Lyle's adventure at Crawford’s Creek. 

Well, that was almost six years ago, and like I said, I don’t put much faith in urban, or in this case rural legends.  But last week Lyle Kindig’s old Ford pickup was found abandoned in the woods on a little traveled dirt road.  On Witkins Road to be exact, right on the center of the bridge that crosses Crawford’s Creek.  No one has seen hide nor hair of the man since and so the stories are a flying once again.  Maybe ole Lyle is pulling one over on us.  But if you were in Marcy’s that Saturday when he told the story…well… 

Though I roam around the countryside time to time.  I have no interest in finding that particular piece of dirt road.  Maybe it’s because I’ve a few brains in this scull of mine…maybe…. But it seems that Lyle couldn’t keep the vow he made to me that day, for one way or the other that truck found its way back to the bridge at Crawford’s Creek.

(1445 Words)                          9-15-2016—10-25-2016