Rachel’s first
sight of the house happened under a gloomy autumn sky, the threat of rain heavy
in the air. All she knew about the place was from rumors in town, and a folk
story the old people used to scare kids.
This was the home
of a murderer. So they said. He had lived here with his sister and her husband,
back in 1904. Supposedly, he had been sweet on a girl from town, and kept
courting her; but in the end she chose a farm boy. The day of their wedding, the
jilted lover followed them up the mountain and through the woods, right past
his sister’s house, chasing them down, until they fell, horse, wagon, and all,
into a sinkhole, now known as the Murder Hole.
That was the
extent of the story. The man insisted he had been trying to warn them of
danger; that they had been driven to their deaths by “the watcher in the woods”,
an even older legend about a vengeful forest spirit. The judge decided the man
wasn’t in his right mind, and sent him back home so his sister could care for
him.
But it seemed
there was more to it. Rachel had looked through some old genealogy books, and
found the name of the man that was supposedly the Sinkhole Murderer. The page
was marked by a very old, very yellow newspaper clipping.
“His body was
found in a tree near his sister’s house. The sheriff believes he was attacked
by wild animals. A small funeral service will be held at…”
It was certainly
intriguing, and Rachel couldn’t resist a mystery. To her parents’ lament, she
was a very abnormal teen. She spent her time watching the “educational”
channels, especially when a program focused on true crimes. Unsolved cases drew
her in, especially when they had one in their own town. James Abbott, the
sheriff’s brother, had disappeared one morning, his car abandoned on the
mountain. That was twenty years ago. No one had seen or heard from him since.
He had disappeared into thin air.
And that was why
Rachel was here now. Because James Abbott’s car was found next to the murder
house.
Rachel picked her
way through the overgrown yard, trampling firmly on thorn bushes and lifting
her arms almost over her head, until she made it to the porch, creaky and
rotted. People had tried to live here over the years, and ten years ago a young
couple started fixing up the place; but they left after their toddler fell down
the stairs and died. It had been abandoned since.
She stepped up to
the door, confident at least that the porch would stay intact, then tried the
handle. It was locked, but a brief shove was all it took to open the door. She
slipped into the musty entrance hall, then pulled a flashlight from her pocket.
It was the first thing she had grabbed when she decided on this excursion. That
and her digital camera.
Now she shone the
light around. The house was small. One door lay straight ahead; two others sat
on opposite sides of the hall. Though she wanted to move straight, she chose to
explore the one to the right. This led only to the kitchen. It was empty except
for a very old square table, unadorned, except for what appeared to be burn
marks all over the surface. Rachel ran a finger over the marks, then felt a
sudden chill run up her back.
Nerves, of
course. She had expected them. She was in a mysterious old house all alone. To
get the shivers wasn’t surprising in the least. One other sensation she hadn’t
anticipated, though. It felt as though eyes were boring into her back. She gave
into the impulse to turn around and look, but all she saw was the small window
above the kitchen sink, looking out into the woods.
Rachel left the
kitchen and walked into the other room. This was a sitting room, with a small
fireplace set into the wall. She edged closer; she didn’t want to risk stirring
up a snake’s nest by accident. But she saw only ashes through the grate. Then
she paused, looked closer at the brick. Ash was swirled in a pattern, almost
like letters. She focused her flashlight and leaned in.
“He…” Rachel
squinted. “He did it.”
That was it?
Mysterious, but hardly revealing. Rachel pulled out her digital camera and
snapped a picture. It was blurry, but it would do.
She stood, looked
around the room, once again feeling a slight shiver. Was it darker? But no, she
hadn’t been here that long. Yet when she slipped back out into the entry hall,
she saw that it was evening.
How did time slip
away so fast? Rachel gave her head a shake. No matter. She only had one other
room to investigate. If she found anything, should she call the police? Would a
hundred year old murder be worth solving?
Unless she found
evidence of a more recent murder. And what else could that ash be referring to?
It had to be…
No. The young
couple? Did the father really murder his own son? But no, that wasn’t possible.
The parents had both been downstairs. Surely they wouldn’t have conspired
against their son. Then that meant there was a third party involved…someone who
had never been caught…
Rachel gave her
head a shake and moved on to the room at the end of the hall. If someone had
murdered that poor child, then they wouldn’t still be here. That would be
ridiculous. Rachel turned the knob with a soft click, swung open the door, and
shone her flashlight into the room.
With a gasp, she
stumbled back, dropping the flashlight. It wheeled away across the floor,
momentarily casting crazy shadows along the walls. She stood back, shaking,
hardly daring to breathe, or even move. Then, regaining her sense, she picked
up the flashlight and looked back into the room.
All across the
wall, interrupted only by the window, were words, written over and over in
large letters.
“THE EYES THE
EYES THE EYES THE EYES THE EYES THE EYES THE EYES”
Rachel stepped
in, crept toward the wall, then examined the letters. They were written in some
type of brown substance. Rachel glanced down at the floor, saw more of it caked
on wood, and suddenly realized what it was.
Blood. They were
written in blood.
Rachel swung the
flashlight around the room, heart pounding, looking at everything. It was evidently
a bedroom, but the bed sat on only three legs, and the old dresser was
collapsed, as if something heavy had fallen on it. Some old yellow papers lay
scattered across the floor near the dresser, and Rachel walked over and picked
them up, glad to get away from the bloody wall.
Call the police
now? Get arrested for trespassing but maybe help solve a murder? But she didn’t
know how old that blood was. It could have been there for ages. Surely the
couple noticed it when they bought the place.
Something wasn’t
right here, and for whatever reason Rachel was uncomfortable with calling the
police right away. She sifted gingerly through the papers, and realized many of
them were the small paper found in diaries. Very old diaries.
Steadying her
light, she squinted at the old handwriting and skimmed the documents.
“I wish my brother would not moon over
this girl, yet he will not listen. I fear for his health…”
“He will go to the wedding, though I have
warned him against it. What he means to accomplish I do not know.”
“Dead, and he insists he did not do it!
Yet how am I to believe his story? The Watcher is a story. A story we were told
to keep us out of the woods. My brother will not speak to me anymore. He stays
in his room. He insists on keeping all the curtains shut. He says the Watcher
is always outside now. That he is coming for him. I do not understand him…”
Then, a last
page, abrupt and frantic, handwriting losing its form and barely legible.
“he was right my brother was right the
watcher was here he killed him no it killed him what is it what does it want
what does it want we must leave this place leave before it comes for us as well
god save us all”
Rachel dropped
the papers and rubbed the goosebumps from her arms. God, does everyone just go
crazy here?
Then she spotted
it. Lying by the bed. A wallet.
Shaking, she
flipped it open with a finger. The license in it read “Abbott, James”.
Rachel started
taking pictures like crazy, of the blood, of the room, of the papers, of James
Abbott’s wallet. Then, she knew she had to leave, call the cops, because now,
this was immediate, this wasn’t just some stupid adventure, this was real,
maybe he was killed here, maybe it was the same person that shoved that child
down the stairs…
She stopped in
the middle of her mad activity. On the window, she noticed a mark. She knelt
down, and found it was merely a stick figure. From her child’s eye view, it
appeared as though the figure was placed directly in the trees behind the
house. What, did the child see the murdere—
And then Rachel’s
heart was in her throat.
For now she saw a figure, standing at the edge
of the forest. The man was very tall, and very thin, almost freakishly so. And
it appeared he was wearing a suit.
Feds. Rachel breathed a sigh of relief.
The house was getting to her, and here she was flipping out over some FBI
agent. Probably doing some double checking on the James Abbott case. She was in
trouble, but she’d explain herself well enough. She left the room, slipped
outside, and rounded the house.
She paused.
The man was gone.
Did he see her leave? Did he think she was dangerous? It was getting dark, and
Rachel wondered where he was now. She held up her hands shakily and called out.
“I’m not armed or
anything! I was just looking around!”
No answer. Did he
have a gun trained on her? But surely he would just come right out and arrest
her if he thought she was doing something wrong. Rachel lowered her arms.
Well, she’d just
head back to her car. She jogged down the steep drive, deciding right then and
there that she needed some friends, and a social life, and less hiding in her
room. That would do the trick.
Then Rachel let
out a strangled scream. The man was standing in the middle of the drive. He was
closer now, much closer, and it occurred to Rachel that there was something
utterly wrong about him. The way he
stood there stiffly, unmoving, as though he’d been waiting, yet a moment
earlier he hadn’t been there at all. And how tall he was…no one was that tall.
He must have been eight or nine feet. What was he, some mad circus freak?
When she realized
he was wearing something pale that concealed his face, she knew he was a mad
circus freak. This must be the killer, though a fleeting burst of logic told
her he couldn’t possibly be connected to the killings in the early 1900’s, the
child’s death, and James Abbott’s disappearance. But all she knew at that
moment was stark fear, and she darted back up the drive, sudden panic giving
her the energy to make it up that hill.
Her cell phone
wasn’t getting a signal. It wasn’t even turning on. Where to go? The house? No,
he’d find her there. The neighbor’s? Could she make it that far? She’d have to
go through the forest. With that thought, she turned her steps, still
sprinting, into the woods, fumbling with her flashlight until she could see
where she was going, shoving aside branches with impatience. He must be pretty
fast, but he wasn’t that fast. She had a good head start. Rachel leapt over a
log, dodged a tree, and…
The Murder Hole.
She nearly toppled over into it, but caught herself last second. Inside lay the
skeletal remains of a horse and the rotten wood of a wagon. She twitched her
flashlight around to find a path away from the sinkhole, then paused.
Slowly, she
raised her flashlight higher and higher into tree next to the Murder Hole. What
she saw petrified her with horror.
A man’s body lay
in the branches of the tree, blood dripping from a large wound in his chest,
forming a puddle of blood in the grass. Without a second thought Rachel turned
to flee.
And suddenly, he
was there. Rachel wasn’t aware of any footsteps, but just a few feet away stood
the same tall man, still unmoving, still absolutely wrong. It was then she
realized…he wasn’t wearing a mask. There was simply nothing there.
Something broke
inside Rachel’s mind, and she threw herself into the forest, a loud,
high-pitched sound filling her ears, and she thought maybe it was her own
screaming, but it didn’t matter, because that
thing was still here, it was the Watcher, it must be, she could feel those
eyes on her back, the eyes that weren’t there, oh God, was this why the kid
fell down the stairs, so terrified he wanted only to run, no matter where, no
matter how…
The forest gave
way to the overgrown lawn. Stars wavered above her head, but Rachel kept
stumbling on, gasping for breath now, steps taking her straight to the house.
She dragged herself up the stairs, into the house, and to the only open door.
As if acting
under some other influence, Rachel mechanically shut the door, locked it, then
drew the ratty curtains over the window and backed away. Safe. Finally safe.
Finally alone. Away from the eyes that weren’t there.
Rachel felt
something behind her. She turned. Floating above her in the darkness was a pale
orb. She didn’t have time to scream.
For several
weeks, the small town was abuzz with the news. “That poor girl”, neighbors
clucked, bringing casseroles to the bereaved parents as well as whatever new
gossip they could glean from the sheriff’s office. It wasn’t much. The police
were absolutely puzzled. What the girl had been doing in the woods, how her
body got in that tree, why James Abbott’s body was found in the same place and
who in their small little place would do such a thing?
The sheriff was
puzzled by the fresh wounds found on his brother’s body, but he was also puzzled
by something else.
The girl’s camera
had been recovered. It held some pictures of nature, blurry flowers, and then,
suddenly, pictures of the house. The fireplace inside, with something written
in ash. And then, a bedroom with crazy writing on the walls and a ground floor
window looking out into the forest, a stick figure drawn on the glass.
Funny, the
sheriff thought. It almost looked like the stick figure was really a man in the
woods.
