The Crawford House sat in an isolated stretch of woods about a quarter mile from the pit. Long before they’d been born, the house had served as the town’s funeral parlor.
Sid didn’t like the house, not that there was much to like. It had been abandoned for well over fifty years, and for whatever reason, the townspeople had never cleaned it out after the owners had died.
Sid had heard rumors of coffins still sitting in the basement and a hearse in the garage where the roof had collapsed and smashed the windshield. He and Ashley had crept around the house a few times. Mostly they went there to scavenge wood for their forts.
“Here, look at this,” Ashley said.
She unfolded a piece of paper and thrust it into Sid’s hands.
He looked at a makeshift raccoon hut complete with a steepled roof and a little archway for the raccoons to crawl in and out.
It appeared to be suspended from a tree.
“Why isn’t it sitting on the ground?” he asked.
“Because other animals might eat the babies,” Ashley said, as if it were obvious, and when he thought about it, it kind of was.
“But how will we get it to stay in a tree?”
Ashley pointed a finger at the tree in her picture. “We’ll put it in that fat oak tree by Carl Lee’s rock. The one with the low branches. That way we can reach it, but it will be sturdy enough to hold the hut. And I brought some rope from my garage.”
“What kind of rope?" he asked.
Ashley shrugged. “I don’t know. It looked like an old ski rope. My mom hasn’t water-skied ever, so I’m pretty sure she won’t miss it.”
Sid nodded. “But what if the babies fall out?”
“They won't,” Ashley insisted. “Look at the drawing. We’ll build a little gate in front of the door, like a foot high. They won’t be able to climb over it.”
Sid nodded, though he wondered if Ashley’s design wasn’t a little beyond the scope of their capabilities.
He’d brought a hammer and ten nails from his dad’s toolbox, a roll of duct tape, and an old blanket, but other than that, their supplies were limited.
As they stepped into the clearing where The Crawford house stood, Sid’s breath hitched.
Solemn fear swept over him in a wave as he gazed at the withering, derelict house.
The windows that were still intact were grimy. Some of them were smeared with graffiti while others were nearly hidden by vines. The tall nearly flat roof supported layers of fuzzy green mold, the type his own father tackled every summer with a spray bottle of bleach and the garden hose. In the center of the roof stood a cupola, the windows gone, black voids in their place.
The front of the house was flat and square, but a huge crumbling stone porch and stairs protruded beneath a double front door that Sid knew was wide to allow hordes of people through during funerals.
Sid had only been to one funeral in his life. His Grandpa Quinn had died several years before. They had held his service in a modern church with chairs instead of pews and a coffee station next to the glass doors that opened into the viewing area. He’d walked to the casket with his brother, their parents standing behind them.
As Sid had leaned down to kiss his grandfather’s powdered cheek, he’d heard the croaking sound of ‘help me.’ Sid had stood up so quickly, he’d stepped on his mother’s toes, probably already pinched in her black high heels and she’d cried out in pain. Zack had snickered as their parents led them to their seats, and Sid realized it had not been the disembodied voice of his Grandpa Quinn, but his maggot brother playing yet another shitty joke on him.
The house before him held no resemblance to the church he’d attended.
Everything about The Crawford House whispered doom and dread. He tried to imagine the house as it had been: pale green brick, windows shining, pots of flowers on the wide stone porch, but in his mind the flowers moldered to black. In every window, ghoulish faces appeared, some white and wispy, others with flapping skin and jowls hanging.
“That house is haunted,” Sid murmured, eyes darting from window to window, sure at any moment, a face would peer out. As he stood, he realized it was not any face he searched for, but the pale face of the boy in the woods.
The face of the monster.
“Help me with this,” Ashly grunted.
She’d gone to the shed, which had mostly collapsed. She tugged at a board still nailed to the frame.
“Let’s just use these,” Sid said, kicking at a pile of boards that had already fallen away.
“Those are rotted,” she said. “These are still in good shape."
He frowned and grabbed the edge of the board. Together they yanked and twisted until it pulled free.
“Do you think there are ghosts in there?” Sid asked, after he caught his breath,
Ashley glanced at the house.
“Yeah, definitely. But that’s why we’re out here. They’re probably trapped inside.”
Sid nodded. Ashley always said things with such confidence that he simply accepted them at face value. Sure, she believed in ghosts, but she wasn’t scared because they were trapped in the house.
A bit of his fear subsided as they tackled the next board and then the next until they’d ripped ten from the shed.
“This is enough,” she said, hoisting seven of the boards into her arms.
“I can carry more than three,” Sid complained.
“You’ve got the back-pack,” Ashley said, starting into the woods without him.
He quickly snatched up the remaining three boards and followed her.
As they walked away from the house, Sid tried to ignore the sense that eyes followed them.
6
“Maxy,” Jake said, giving his younger brother a loving rub on the head. Max slapped his hand away and their mother tisked. “Frank Welch came to see me yesterday. He said you were down at the station a few days back shouting conspiracy theories like a madman.”
“What?” Max and his father blurted at the same time.
Jake grinned. “His words not mine.”
“That guy’s a Neanderthal,” Max huffed, taking a plate of potato salad from his mother and setting it on the table. She’d added Sunday night dinners to their schedule as Eleanor’s due date approached. Max’s mother wanted to ensure they made up the future missed dinners ahead of time.
“Why were you at the police station, Maximilian?” their father asked, looking somber.
“Because we’ve had two students disappear from Winterberry Middle School in six months. Two!” He held up his fingers as if his brother and father might not understand the number. “I wondered if they were following any theories. It seemed strange to me that nothing has been posted. I haven’t seen an article in the newspaper. There are no safety precautions being offered to kids or parents.”
He looked at his brother and father with indignation, growing furious all over again at Detective Welch.
Herman Wolfenstein frowned. Jake cocked his head sideways.
“Any chance you’re making it bigger than it seems? Welch implied they’re runaways, no connection at all. And Max, you can’t save everyone.”
“Jake,” Max spat, “they’re kids. No money, no resources. One of them has been missing for months!”
“Okay, yeah. That’s pretty suspicious,” Jake agreed.
“And what do you think is going on, Maximillian?” Herman asked.
“Honestly, I don’t have a clue. But there are people who take kids. That’s what scares me. Is there a bad man in our town and the police are keeping it all hush meanwhile the kids are out on summer break in two days? They’ll be roaming the streets, the woods. If there is someone taking them, hurting them, whatever. The town should be aware of it.”