Ms. Jessica Hill

Here is Jessica Hill's entry:

Let’s Go Haunted Housing

We shouldn’t be here.

This is the only thought that seems to be able to make its way into my numbed mind. Leaves crunch under my sneakers as the four of us make our way through the woods, away from the lit torches that keep my nose and fingers thawed and away from the comforting sounds that remind me that we’re near humanity and civilization. I haven’t smelled the wood burning for several minutes now and the trees moan against the wind and drown the noises from the trail. And we still haven’t reached our new destination.

I think about speaking up to suggest we turn back to the trail, but I know what response I’ll get in return. Actually, it would be more like taunting than a response. “Don’t be such a scaredy cat, Krissy,” they would say.

Scaredy cat? Please. I just seem to be the only one of the group who has any sense sometimes. There’s a reason people aren’t supposed to come out here, why what we’re currently doing is trespassing. Although, at this moment, I wonder how much sense even I have since I keep going along silently rather than speaking up, or turning back on my own.

I almost walk right into R.J. when he stops abruptly. “We’re close,” he informs us in a whisper while pointing ahead.

We all look at the old house that is just a darker black looming against the night sky, but we can see it’s there. We start walking again.

Once we are close enough to see more clearly, it amazes me that we find the house still standing at all. It’s obvious that the house has been uninhabited for decades, with the paint faded and peeling and the house reaching towards the right, searching for a place to lean its weary body.

“Why haven’t they torn this place down?” Brooke asks.

The two boy’s only response is a shrug apiece.

I resume following behind R.J.

It’s not until we are already around the side of the house that I realize we have split off from the other two.

“R.J.,” I whisper, “where are Brooke and Justin?”

R.J. shrugs again and continues walking. Not wanting the house’s shadow to swallow me alone, I follow.

We make our way across the overgrown backyard to the decrepit shed behind the house. When R.J. enters, I hesitate. Only when I see the light from his cell phone do I walk into the claustrophobic space.

We shouldn’t be here.

Just as the thought enters my mind again, I hear a scraping behind me.

I turn on my heel. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” R.J. replies as he turns to investigate.

The scraping sounds again, and I realize that it’s not coming from behind me, but rather from above me.

I lift my head to see the same moment that R.J. turns the light towards the ceiling and a disturbed family of bats flies directly towards my head.

Screeching, I duck just in time for them to fly above my head and out the half-open shed door.

R.J. laughs and after a trembling moment, I join him.

Because of the laughter, we barely hear the bloodcurdling scream that follows.

“Brooke!” I don’t think, I simply move. Bolting through the door, I hear it slam against the side of the shed once, then twice as R.J. follows hot on my heels.

I nearly run straight into Brooke as we round the corner to the front of the house.

“I heard you scream,” we both say simultaneously, panting, hands bracing against our knees.

“No, I heard you,” I insist.

Brooke gives me a confused look and points behind her. “Krissy, we were down in the woods. It came from uphill.”

“Okay, well it came from downhill here.” I turn to R.J. to back me up who nods solemnly.

“What?” Justin asks, squinting at R.J.

“If it came uphill for you guys,” R.J. says slowly, “and downhill for us, there’s only one place it could have come from.”

Seeing where this thought is heading, I finish it for him. “It came from the creek.”

R.J. simply nods again.

After all, the creek is the whole reason people aren’t allowed to come here, the reason why the house sits in ramshackle and no one cares. And, of course, the creek is the whole reason the boys wanted to come out here tonight in the first place. Sure, we’d poked around the house and hadn’t gone anywhere near the creek, but it was the real attraction to this place.

The creek, where that girl had died so many years ago.

She had been playing with her older sister when they were separated. Trying to find her sister, the little girl stumbled into the creek, swollen above the rain soaked banks, and drowned.

We shouldn’t be here.

“Maybe it was a coyote,” Justin reasons with R.J.

“Or squealing tires,” Brooke adds.

“Yeah,” R.J. agrees, a little too quickly.

We. Shouldn’t. Be. Here.

The thought becomes urgent and panic rises in my chest.

“Let’s just go back to the trail, okay?” I say, voice quivering.

No one calls me a scaredy cat, and no one objects. We all simply turn and walk back through the woods towards the flickering flames and the fake screams that lead to laughter.

We walk away from the threatening unknown towards life.

No one mentions what had happened again. We don’t talk about what that noise might have been. No one tries to refute that it was a coyote or perhaps squealing tires. No one suggests what it may have truly been.

There is only one thing that sound could have been. And while we all know it, not one of us is willing to give voice to it. Not one of us is willing to say that what we heard tonight was the scream of an eight-year-old girl who’d fallen into the creek to her death.