A Halloween story.
The proud new parents took their newborn son home and began a new chapter in their life. They had wanted to have children right off while they were young, and their son had come a short time after their first anniversary. All was well, and as he grew, he seemed to be an unusually bright little boy. He passed quickly through the stages, and his teachers all said he was very smart.
But the nightmares came.
At first, he'd wake up in the night, and his mother and father would comfort him, telling him it was only a bad dream. After they persisted they took him to a child psychologist. But it was no use, the nightmares came often. Then he began to talk about the "before time" and his other family. But most disturbingly, about his "bad daddy" from the before time, who hurt the family.
"Look son," his father told him lovingly, "I was there in the room when you were born. You're our child, nobody else's, and we love you and wouldn't let anyone hurt you."
The little boy would nod his head and things would be normal for a while. Then one fall day the little boy was in the back yard while his father was cleaning up some sticks that had fallen from the trees. He'd gather up a bundle for kindling to use in the fireplace, and each bundle he'd tie up with some jute twine, then stack it on the wood pile with the firewood. The little boy saw his father take out a small pocket knife to cut the twine, and asked when they would go to the other house so he could get his pocket knife from where he'd hidden it from the bad daddy.
"Look son, I thought we'd settled that stuff. There is no other house and other daddy, bad or good. It's was all a bad dream you had. "
"But there is!" the little boy shouted. "There is, there is!"
The boy grew obsessed with the the other house, and finding his pocket knife that was hidden from his other, so called bad daddy. The man and woman took the boy back to the child psychologist and he listened carefully.
"Well, take him over to the town he said he lived in, and when nothing looks familiar to him, he'll realize it was all a dream. It's only an hour drive, humor him and he'll drop it when he doesn't find anything."
So early on a Saturday morning, the family set out on a drive through the rolling countryside. Fall was in full swing, with the trees turning orange and red. Arriving in the small town, they drove slowly down the main street. The town was old, and many of the buildings looked as if they had been there at the time of the Civil war. Brick and brownstone buildings from a century before. In the back seat, the little boy was excited.
"There's the post office where mommy used to mail stuff. We lived right down that street, right down there!" he yelled pointing his finger. His father turned down the road, and found himself driving down a narrow wooded street with tall old Victorian homes set back on tree shaded lots. At the end of the road, it came to a dead end, at the driveway of an abandoned old Victorian. An air of desolation hung on the home, with empty broken windows staring down like blind eyes. Deep shadows hung over the house and grounds from huge old knarled oak trees. It was apparent that the house had not been inhabited for many years. They slowly got out of the car and stood looking at the wreck of a house.
Suddenly, the little boy jerked his hand out of his mothers, and ran toward the house, shouting that he wanted his pocket knife. The parents ran after him, but he beat them to the gaping front door, and darted into the abandoned house. His father, right on his heels, paused for a second, looking at the debris in the house, of the empty whiskey bottles, graffiti spray painted on walls. Then he saw his young son starting up a garbage littered stairway. Chasing after him, he prayed his son wouldn't fall through a rotted stair or floor. Right behind him, his wife was in the chase. They made their way up the creaking stairs, then up yet another lever where they could hear their son running up stairs.
At the top, they came to an attic room, and found their son frantic, pulling on a board in the floor of the debris scattered room.
"Daddy, help me! It's in here, I hid it here to keep my bad daddy from taking it." The little boy cried out.
The father strode over to his son, and went to pull him away, but then he saw that the board was not nailed down, but was just laying in it's spot in the dirty floor. The little boy was crying now, in a full tantrum, insisting that the board has to come up. The father, exasperated at this point, looked to his wife. She looked back, totally bewildered by the rapid turn of events, and shouted at her husband,
"Oh for God's sake, go ahead and get that board up so we can show him there's nothing there. I'm sick of all this, end it now!" she shouted at her husband.
The father got down on his knees, and took out his pocket knife. Using the small pen blade, he carefully worked up the floor board until he could get a hold of it with his fingers. To his further surprise, it came up easy, exposing a hollow space under it. There was spider webs and mice droppings, but to the father and mothers shock, there was also a small cloth wrapped bundle.
"My knife!'' the little boy shouted.
The father gently unwrapped the bundle. The cloth was filthy, but as he unwrapped the bundle, the cloth under the layers was clean and dry. Finally he came to a small two blade serpentine jackknife. The old bone handles were in good shape, and the blades had only a very fine spotting from age. It had been well protected in it's hidden spot. The father and mother looked at one another with a mixture of shock and bewilderment. The little boy was grinning and happy now, and begged for his knife. The father handed him the pocket knife, and they made their way down the old staircase to the outside. Once there, the parents took a deep breath of the clean fall air.
"What does it mean?" the wife asked.
They slowly walked back up the driveway to their car, and looking over to the next house, they saw an old black man raking the leaves in the front yard.
"I don't know what it means, but I do want to find out about this old house." the father said.
They walked over to the old man raking the yard. He looked up at their approach, and they could see he was elderly, but still stood straight and was unbowed by his years. His dark eyes looked out from a creased face weathered by a life of outdoor work. His woolly hair was all white.
"Can I help you?" he asked politely.
"Uh, well, yes you can. I was wondering what you know about this old house, and it's history?"
The old black man looked down for a moment, then he looked the man in the eye.
"There ain't nuthin good worth talking about that place. It's history was long ago, and not a good one. Some things are better left to die quiet like." he said.
"But we need to know! What happened here may have affected our son, and something that I have no explanation for has happened, and we both are at wits end to understand what's happened to our boy."
The father told the old man all that had transpired, and that he and his wife was in doubt now of their sanity.
"Well, when it comes to that place, I ain't that surprised. It's been an evil place ever since the..." his voice trailed off and he was looking at the boy. The father seeing the old man's reluctance to speak in front of the little boy, told the boy to go over and sit down on a large fallen tree limb and whittle with his new knife. The little boy, happy at being able to use his knife, did what he was told. The father looked at the old negro.
"As you were saying?"
The old man went on.
"When the killings took place it rocked the whole town. We all knew that Mr. Caldren was a bad man, but nobody ever thought anything like that would happen. Mr. Caldren was a violent man, he'd been arrested several times for assaulting people, gettin' in fights and hurting people. He drank heavy, and when he'd get to drinkin', he turned pure evil. Some say the drink brought out the devil in him. One night, he came home drunk, and took a hammer, and killed his whole family. Wife, both children, all of 'em. Then he hung himself right out there on the front porch. Come morning, people getting up, saw him hanging, and called the town police. It was a horrible incident, and was a real long time before people calmed down. But after, even long after, they never could sell that place. Nobody would ever stay in that house over night, and it fell into what you see now. Some kids tried to make a hang out to do their drinking and smoking whatever they smoked, but they never stayed long either."
The old man paused.
"I just wish somebody would burn that dammed place down and free up the town to forget. That's the only way to really forget what happened there, burn that place down. Aw hell, maybe I'll do it one day myself."
"How long ago did all that happen?" the father asked.
"Oh, 'bout 20 years ago. The house been standing empty ever since then."
"So what does it all mean?" the father wondered.
The old man looked at them for a moment, then spoke in a quiet tone.
"Sometimes the distance from us to the other side ain't that great. It's like the difference between day and night, there's dusk and dawn between the light and dark. Maybe sometimes, something can reach over from the other side if it's real important to someone. There was a little boy murdered in that house, along with two others. That little boy lived in a dark place, over shadowed with evil. I been a handy man around here for a long time. I knew Mr. Caldren, and he was an evil man. There was things whispered about. Maybe that little boy got a hold of something nice and shiny that made him forget for a bit about the shadow he lived in. Something that he could enjoy for a bit. maybe something like a nice pocket knife, that became his treasure. Something he prized more than any other material thing on this earth. I don't know, but I'm old enough to know that there's plenty strange things between heaven and hell that we don't have to understand. All we can do, is accept that it happened in that space between the night and the dawn. You go take your boy home now, and stay clear of this place."
The parents did as the old man told them, and drove home with their son. The old man watched them drive off, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He thought about the can of coal oil in his shed. Later that night, the old house mysteriously caught fire, and burned clean to the ground.
The father showed the little boy how to clean up the old knife with some steel wool, and sharpen up the blades on a stone. That night, the little boy slept a deep and dreamless sleep, with no nightmares waking him in the small hours. He slept that way ever after. In time, he never talked about a before time again.
The proud new parents took their newborn son home and began a new chapter in their life. They had wanted to have children right off while they were young, and their son had come a short time after their first anniversary. All was well, and as he grew, he seemed to be an unusually bright little boy. He passed quickly through the stages, and his teachers all said he was very smart.
But the nightmares came.
At first, he'd wake up in the night, and his mother and father would comfort him, telling him it was only a bad dream. After they persisted they took him to a child psychologist. But it was no use, the nightmares came often. Then he began to talk about the "before time" and his other family. But most disturbingly, about his "bad daddy" from the before time, who hurt the family.
"Look son," his father told him lovingly, "I was there in the room when you were born. You're our child, nobody else's, and we love you and wouldn't let anyone hurt you."
The little boy would nod his head and things would be normal for a while. Then one fall day the little boy was in the back yard while his father was cleaning up some sticks that had fallen from the trees. He'd gather up a bundle for kindling to use in the fireplace, and each bundle he'd tie up with some jute twine, then stack it on the wood pile with the firewood. The little boy saw his father take out a small pocket knife to cut the twine, and asked when they would go to the other house so he could get his pocket knife from where he'd hidden it from the bad daddy.
"Look son, I thought we'd settled that stuff. There is no other house and other daddy, bad or good. It's was all a bad dream you had. "
"But there is!" the little boy shouted. "There is, there is!"
The boy grew obsessed with the the other house, and finding his pocket knife that was hidden from his other, so called bad daddy. The man and woman took the boy back to the child psychologist and he listened carefully.
"Well, take him over to the town he said he lived in, and when nothing looks familiar to him, he'll realize it was all a dream. It's only an hour drive, humor him and he'll drop it when he doesn't find anything."
So early on a Saturday morning, the family set out on a drive through the rolling countryside. Fall was in full swing, with the trees turning orange and red. Arriving in the small town, they drove slowly down the main street. The town was old, and many of the buildings looked as if they had been there at the time of the Civil war. Brick and brownstone buildings from a century before. In the back seat, the little boy was excited.
"There's the post office where mommy used to mail stuff. We lived right down that street, right down there!" he yelled pointing his finger. His father turned down the road, and found himself driving down a narrow wooded street with tall old Victorian homes set back on tree shaded lots. At the end of the road, it came to a dead end, at the driveway of an abandoned old Victorian. An air of desolation hung on the home, with empty broken windows staring down like blind eyes. Deep shadows hung over the house and grounds from huge old knarled oak trees. It was apparent that the house had not been inhabited for many years. They slowly got out of the car and stood looking at the wreck of a house.
Suddenly, the little boy jerked his hand out of his mothers, and ran toward the house, shouting that he wanted his pocket knife. The parents ran after him, but he beat them to the gaping front door, and darted into the abandoned house. His father, right on his heels, paused for a second, looking at the debris in the house, of the empty whiskey bottles, graffiti spray painted on walls. Then he saw his young son starting up a garbage littered stairway. Chasing after him, he prayed his son wouldn't fall through a rotted stair or floor. Right behind him, his wife was in the chase. They made their way up the creaking stairs, then up yet another lever where they could hear their son running up stairs.
At the top, they came to an attic room, and found their son frantic, pulling on a board in the floor of the debris scattered room.
"Daddy, help me! It's in here, I hid it here to keep my bad daddy from taking it." The little boy cried out.
The father strode over to his son, and went to pull him away, but then he saw that the board was not nailed down, but was just laying in it's spot in the dirty floor. The little boy was crying now, in a full tantrum, insisting that the board has to come up. The father, exasperated at this point, looked to his wife. She looked back, totally bewildered by the rapid turn of events, and shouted at her husband,
"Oh for God's sake, go ahead and get that board up so we can show him there's nothing there. I'm sick of all this, end it now!" she shouted at her husband.
The father got down on his knees, and took out his pocket knife. Using the small pen blade, he carefully worked up the floor board until he could get a hold of it with his fingers. To his further surprise, it came up easy, exposing a hollow space under it. There was spider webs and mice droppings, but to the father and mothers shock, there was also a small cloth wrapped bundle.
"My knife!'' the little boy shouted.
The father gently unwrapped the bundle. The cloth was filthy, but as he unwrapped the bundle, the cloth under the layers was clean and dry. Finally he came to a small two blade serpentine jackknife. The old bone handles were in good shape, and the blades had only a very fine spotting from age. It had been well protected in it's hidden spot. The father and mother looked at one another with a mixture of shock and bewilderment. The little boy was grinning and happy now, and begged for his knife. The father handed him the pocket knife, and they made their way down the old staircase to the outside. Once there, the parents took a deep breath of the clean fall air.
"What does it mean?" the wife asked.
They slowly walked back up the driveway to their car, and looking over to the next house, they saw an old black man raking the leaves in the front yard.
"I don't know what it means, but I do want to find out about this old house." the father said.
They walked over to the old man raking the yard. He looked up at their approach, and they could see he was elderly, but still stood straight and was unbowed by his years. His dark eyes looked out from a creased face weathered by a life of outdoor work. His woolly hair was all white.
"Can I help you?" he asked politely.
"Uh, well, yes you can. I was wondering what you know about this old house, and it's history?"
The old black man looked down for a moment, then he looked the man in the eye.
"There ain't nuthin good worth talking about that place. It's history was long ago, and not a good one. Some things are better left to die quiet like." he said.
"But we need to know! What happened here may have affected our son, and something that I have no explanation for has happened, and we both are at wits end to understand what's happened to our boy."
The father told the old man all that had transpired, and that he and his wife was in doubt now of their sanity.
"Well, when it comes to that place, I ain't that surprised. It's been an evil place ever since the..." his voice trailed off and he was looking at the boy. The father seeing the old man's reluctance to speak in front of the little boy, told the boy to go over and sit down on a large fallen tree limb and whittle with his new knife. The little boy, happy at being able to use his knife, did what he was told. The father looked at the old negro.
"As you were saying?"
The old man went on.
"When the killings took place it rocked the whole town. We all knew that Mr. Caldren was a bad man, but nobody ever thought anything like that would happen. Mr. Caldren was a violent man, he'd been arrested several times for assaulting people, gettin' in fights and hurting people. He drank heavy, and when he'd get to drinkin', he turned pure evil. Some say the drink brought out the devil in him. One night, he came home drunk, and took a hammer, and killed his whole family. Wife, both children, all of 'em. Then he hung himself right out there on the front porch. Come morning, people getting up, saw him hanging, and called the town police. It was a horrible incident, and was a real long time before people calmed down. But after, even long after, they never could sell that place. Nobody would ever stay in that house over night, and it fell into what you see now. Some kids tried to make a hang out to do their drinking and smoking whatever they smoked, but they never stayed long either."
The old man paused.
"I just wish somebody would burn that dammed place down and free up the town to forget. That's the only way to really forget what happened there, burn that place down. Aw hell, maybe I'll do it one day myself."
"How long ago did all that happen?" the father asked.
"Oh, 'bout 20 years ago. The house been standing empty ever since then."
"So what does it all mean?" the father wondered.
The old man looked at them for a moment, then spoke in a quiet tone.
"Sometimes the distance from us to the other side ain't that great. It's like the difference between day and night, there's dusk and dawn between the light and dark. Maybe sometimes, something can reach over from the other side if it's real important to someone. There was a little boy murdered in that house, along with two others. That little boy lived in a dark place, over shadowed with evil. I been a handy man around here for a long time. I knew Mr. Caldren, and he was an evil man. There was things whispered about. Maybe that little boy got a hold of something nice and shiny that made him forget for a bit about the shadow he lived in. Something that he could enjoy for a bit. maybe something like a nice pocket knife, that became his treasure. Something he prized more than any other material thing on this earth. I don't know, but I'm old enough to know that there's plenty strange things between heaven and hell that we don't have to understand. All we can do, is accept that it happened in that space between the night and the dawn. You go take your boy home now, and stay clear of this place."
The parents did as the old man told them, and drove home with their son. The old man watched them drive off, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He thought about the can of coal oil in his shed. Later that night, the old house mysteriously caught fire, and burned clean to the ground.
The father showed the little boy how to clean up the old knife with some steel wool, and sharpen up the blades on a stone. That night, the little boy slept a deep and dreamless sleep, with no nightmares waking him in the small hours. He slept that way ever after. In time, he never talked about a before time again.
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