Halloween Special: No one Lives Here

 

Sonya

The restless Autumn wind came in whistling through the leaking windows. Raindrops ran down in little streams into the cold kitchen from the holes in the roof. All the windows were covered with thick black curtains that secluded us from the world outside. I took a look at Patrick who was resting on the moldy living room couch and after making sure he was asleep, I dared to pull the curtain back and peek out. Even though, it was only six o’clock in the evening, the surrounding forest was pitch-black. Far in the distance, behind the tree trunks, I saw lights in the darkness. I knew they were candles burning inside our neighbor’s jack-o’-lanterns. I would have like to put a lantern outside our cabin as well but I knew Patrick would never allow me to do that. We were suppose to be hidden from the world, disappeared, drowned in the bottom of a great lake. No one was to know that any living soul nested in this 1800’s shack. No one lived here, so they believed, and that was for the best for us. I took an old brass bucket and placed it under yet another leaking hole. I wished I could at least fix the roof or burn some wood to warm the place up as it was freezing. I went to the living room, took a sheep’s hide and pulled it up to cover my sleeping son so he would not get cold. It was too small to reach the stern, robust body of a twenty-five-year-old from head to toe.

Only ten minutes later someone knocked on the door. I felt my heart stop. No one could know we were here. During the eleven months we had spent in the cabin, no one had come near to it. Was the police on to us? I felt nauseous. I peeked out between the curtains and sighed in relieve: there were two little children standing in the wooden porch, no older than ten, I guessed, with Halloween costumes on and tiny baskets full of candy dangling from their hands. I knew I was not supposed to open the door but I could not resist. They were little children, no little children could harm us.

Carlton

“No one lives there”, Carlton told Max who was already running through the overgrown forest trail towards the abandoned shack. Carlton could not make up his mind whether to follow his friend or not. Max disappeared into the darkness and suddenly Carlton got scared standing there all alone. He ran after his friend yelling:

“Wait for me, Max!”

Carlton recalled that the shack had stood there forever. No one had been living there for decades, Carlton’s mom had told him once. She had explained that years ago local teenagers trashed the place and before that, when Carlton’s mom was his age, satanists used the place to perform rituals. Carlton was not sure if he believed the story but he definitely did not want to go near the damn hovel. Carlton and Max had visited all the houses in their area but Max was still hungry for more and wanted to be absolutely sure there was no one in that shack that could offer them candy.

“Ew, the place is creepy, let’s go back”, Carlton begged but Max’s eyes were sparkling in the subtle, pale moonlight as he was mesmerized.

“There is a witch living here, for sure!” Max yelled in excitement and jumped on to the wooden porch. The old and decayed wood swayed under his shoes and Carlton was afraid it would crack.

“No there isn’t, don’t be stupid. I already told you, no one lives here”, Carlton answered frustrated but Max knocked on the door, nonetheless. A moment passed. In the silence of the forest, the rain drummed against the metal roof. Carlton was holding an umbrella that was constantly pulled by the wind. His sneakers as well as his socks had gotten wet while running on the mossy forest trail. Max had no umbrella of his own and his dark, wet hair hung glued to his big, pale forehead. His blue eyes gleamed in the dim moonlight.

Then Carlton noticed something moving in the corner of his eye.

“Did you see? Someone was at the window!” Max shouted and knocked again. The wooden door opened in the middle of him knocking. It made a creak. In the doorway stood an old woman with short, blond hair and a tired face. She must be at least fifty, the same age as my mom, Carlton thought. The woman had opened the door just enough so she could peek outside.

“Trick or treat!” Max yelled. Carlton felt frozen. He stared at the woman suspiciously. No one was suppose to live here, he repeated to himself in his mind.

“Oh my, you look so cute! A skeleton and what are you? A monster? I’m so sorry, I don’t have any candy but wait a second...” The woman said and closed the door. She had not recognized Carlton’s green Hulk costume and that disappointed the boy.

“What did I say! She’s definitely a witch!” Max giggled and Carlton lift his finger to his lips nervously. Right then the door opened again.

“My apologies, this is all I have”, the woman said while offering two bruised and brown oranges to the boys. How miserable, Carlton thought but took the fruit anyway. The woman smiled pleased.

Sonya

“How can you be so reckless, mother! Do you want me to go to jail?!” Patrick yelled all red and hit the kitchen table with his fist. I hated confrontation but I tried my best to stay calm.

“They were little children, Patrick. They will tell no one or even if they do, no one will think anything of it. Children tell stories all the time. No one cares if there’s someone living in a cabin in the woods”, I explained to him.

“Children precisely tell everyone, they gossip! And then some parent gets worried and comes snooping around. And when they recognize us, the police is gonna be here in that instant and I will be thrown in to jail! I can’t believe you put us in danger! Don’t you understand how it would be for me to be in jail for child murder? I would be beaten to death!” Patrick screamed.

“I don’t want that, honey. Besides, you’re innocent and we’re gonna prove that one day”, I told him calmly.

“No we are not. We didn’t before. And even thought they had no proof that I was guilty, they we’re still ready to judge me. People want to see me hurt, mom. Don’t ever open the door to anybody again, promise me!”

“I promise. I’m sorry, honey”, I said sincerely. Patrick sighed in anger and left the kitchen. There was no place to escape in the cabin though, as it only had three little rooms: a kitchen, a living-room and an alcove.

I felt bad for Patrick. I believed my son was innocent to the crime everyone wanted to blame on him without proper evidence. It had been a brutal murder of a young boy that lived in our neighborhood at that time. I remember how the boy was stabbed to death, full of holes like that, he reminded a voodoo doll. It had been a true hate crime by the looks of it. He had been stabbed several dozen times and there was so much blood. Patrick found the body and immediately came to tell me. I was the one who called the police. I could not have ever imagined that Patrick would be blamed for the killing. Patrick’s fingerprints were all over the scene but I thought it was obvious since he had been first at the scene. There was no real evidence. Patrick was an easy one to blame though, as he was not a bright boy. Even when he had been little, he always struggled to keep up with everyone else.

The police thought that Patrick’s motive was the fact that the victim had spread a rumor that I was having an affair. It was all nonsense as Patrick would never be so petty that he could murder someone over such a little thing. Patrick was nineteen at the time and the victim, Thomas, was thirteen. The police and the media made Patrick look guilty from the very beginning, trying to paint as bad of a picture of him as possible. The trials lasted two years. During that time my husband suffered a heart attack and died. Maybe that was a relieve compared to what we endured in the following years.

It seemed likely that Patrick was gonna go to jail for a crime he did not commit. So we came up with a plan. We staged our deaths. I made sure every detail was taken into consideration: weeks prior we talked to our friends and family about suicidal thoughts we were having. We wrote a note explaining why we felt a need to end our lives together. Then we rode the car to a near by lake and made everything indicate that we had drowned ourselves into the freezing water. The lake was huge and deep and I was well aware that the police had no resources to search the whole body of water. As months passed by, our demise seemed to satisfy the media and people started to believe in the story. Newspapers stopped writing about us. We lived in abandoned buildings, stayed on the move, constantly traveling but only during nighttime. Eleven months ago we found this little cabin that seemed like a perfect hiding place. Even though, the nearest neighbor was at a seeing distant, we made sure no one ever saw any movement inside. In the safety of the darkness of the night, we hunted little animals and went through the neighbors’ trash. That was how we got enough food to keep ourselves alive.

I do not know what came into me, why did I open the door for the children. I had felt isolated and lonely for such a long time, I guess. And I loved children, always had. I did not think anything bad could come out of it. Was I wrong? I pulled the curtain back and watched how the first snowflakes rained down in an otherwise black night. They looked like white flowers. Winter was coming and soon we would not be safe here anymore. The snow would reveal our footprints and it would bury us and the cabin under a cold blanket.

Carlton

The feather-light first snow glistened in the sun showcasing all the colors of the rainbow. It was truly amazing how fast the Autumn’s pitch-black darkness had turned into a Winter’s bright whiteness.

“I dropped my keys last night, lost them. I guarantee you they’re somewhere in the forest around that witch’s shack”, Max told while the boys were making a big pile of snow with little shovels.

“Was your mom mad?” Carlton asked.

“Sure, she was. But I’m gonna go back there to find my keys. Of course the snow has covered everything but maybe that woman found them and she’s holding on to them or something. Or I could ask her to keep her eyes open, just in case”, Max explained.

“You want to come with me?” Max asked then. Carlton did not. He wanted to decline the offer but he did not like the idea of Max returning to that place alone. The woman could indeed be a witch. She could throw Max into a cauldron or cast a spell turning him into a frog. So Carlton answered:

“Yeah. I’ll go with you.”

Sonya

I was taking a nap at the time. My throat felt sore and I was so cold, I thought I might be getting sick and tried to rest. I was wearing three quilts and these, ragged, dirty, old woolen socks that I had found in the shed. I was freezing regardless. I was half asleep when I heard someone scream. I jumped up and dropped the quilts to the floor. I ran the few steps to the kitchen and saw Patrick standing there, an angry expression on his face and a knife in his hand.

“Those bloody kids are back! I told you so! They recognized us and came back to snoop around!” Patrick hissed at me with a coldness in his voice.

“Why are you holding a knife?” I asked shivering. I felt nauseous.

“We can’t let them go, they’re witnesses, mom. You don’t want me to go to jail, do you?” Patrick said in a voice that made me tremble in fear.

“What are you talking about, Patrick. They’re just children, for God’s sake! Give me the knife. I’ll talk to them”, I begged him but something inside me warned me. The old feelings of doubt, I had tried to avoid and forget all these years, came back to me suddenly. I reached my hand towards my son. Then, someone knocked on the door.

“Mom. Go back to the other room”, Patrick ordered me and took a step towards the door.

“No, don’t!” I yelled and launched at him but he pushed me aside effortlessly. I tripped and hit my head in the cabinet, hard.

“You should’ve listened to me, mom”, I heard Patrick’s voice telling me. The whole world was black for a while, my ears were ringing. I heard how the door was opened and then this, inhuman, high-pitched screaming. Slowly my sight came back and the world stopped spinning so that I could make out what I was looking at. My son was bend down next to a little boy’s body. The boy’s dark hair was stained with red blood and the lifeless blue eyes stared straight at me, blind. Everywhere was so much blood, oh God how much blood. Patrick had stabbed the boy repeatedly, shredding him into pieces. The tears of horror rose to my eyes and blurred my vision.

“You really did do it”, I whispered crying.