Mr. Bones Horror Zone!

Chapter 1

You find yourself walking down an old cobbled road as the sun has just started to dip below the horizon, coloring the sky a soft purple and gray. Your boots make audible clicking noises against the cobbles and as you glance around at the tightly packed homes along either side of the road you feel a sudden tightness in your chest.
You don’t know where you are. You spin on your heels to look back the way you came, but it’s simply the same road boxed in by the same houses as far down as you can see. You try to remember how you came to be here, but your memory is blank. You don’t even remember why you’re out walking alone. As you attempt to reign in the panic that is threatening to overtake you, you decide to ask someone where you are, but as you glance around, you realize that no one else is on the road. No one is standing or sitting outside any of these homes, and as you look closer at each one, you realize that none of them have any lights on inside. None of them have any curtains pulled back, none of them have any cars in their tiny driveways. As you continue to walk, you realize that you can hear no sounds coming from any of them, either. In fact, you realize that you don’t hear any sounds at all, other than the clicking of your boots against the cobbles of the road.
You keep walking, unsure of what else to do, but rationalizing that this neighborhood, this strange stretch of homes can’t possibly go on forever. You rack your brain as you walk, trying desperately to remember how you came to be here, why on Earth you would be walking alone down an unfamiliar street. Nothing comes to you. It is utterly blank.
A cold breeze brushes past you, chilling your cheeks and ears and making your eyes water. You pull your heavy coat tighter around you.
The sun has gone completely now, and without any street lights, it’s almost impossible to see beyond the next bit of road in front of you. Your heart begins to beat faster than it ever has. You have the overwhelming sense that something is closing in on you. That something has, in fact, been silently watching you the entire time, and that now with you full cover of the dark it can strike. You try to convince yourself that this is your imagination, that it’s merely a result of the fear you already felt, but you can’t shake the feeling. A long hiss fills your ears, and you at first tell yourself it was just the wind. But then you realize that you felt no breeze against you this time, and you want to scream the terror you feel right out of you.
A light, bright and pulsating suddenly appears in the distance. You immediately break into a run towards it. You don’t care what it is or where it’s leading you, it is infinitely preferable to the all consuming darkness and whatever horror lived inside of it that you’re rapidly leaving behind.
The light, as you soon see, is coming from one of the houses. It is identical to all the others, except for the light, pulsing as if in time to a beat. You can hear no music, or indeed, any sound other than your heart inside your own chest. You walk up to the front door, thinking these people may be able to help you. Tell you where you are and how you can get back home. You think about how much of a relief it would be to have the door swing open and be greeted by another person, a room full of people.
The door swings open as soon as you knock twice. It creaks loudly as it does, and you don’t quite understand what you’re seeing once it fully opens. There is no one there, and no foyer as you expected, but instead a simple room with a desk at the end and a large red velvet chair behind it. You don’t see any other doors inside this room, but that doesn’t make sense to you. This tiny room can’t be the entire house. Feeling the darkness at your back, you hop inside, and the door closes itself behind you. You turn around as you hear it click lightly, as if it had locked, and try the old bronze handle. It is indeed locked. You look for a way to unlock it, but see none, and don’t understand. Why would it only be able to be locked from the outside?
“Welcome, traveler,” comes a not unpleasant voice from behind you. You whirl around and yelp at what you see. There is a skeleton in a black suit now sitting in the red velvet chair. The absurdity of this gives you some pause, before the thing rattles to life and begins speaking. You scream, and the skeleton takes this in stride.
“Yes,” it says, “that’s to be expected.” It reaches underneath the desk it sits behind and pulls out a large book. It sits the book on the desk with some difficulty, then opens it to a seemingly random page near the middle. You can see that the book is old, worn, with yellowed pages, and  has some water damage.
“What are you?” you whisper hoarsely. “Where am I?” Your heart is beating fast and your back is pressed up against the locked door. You remember the darkness outside, and you suddenly want to cry. There is nowhere for you to go.
“I am Mr. Bones,” the skeleton says. It waits with its jaw open and head cocked. After a moment, it shrugs. “No one ever laughs,” it laments.
“You are in a very special place,” it explains, “a place only accessed in transient spaces on transient days.” You shake your head.
“I don’t understand,” you say.
“You are here to hear these stories,” it says, pointing a finger bone to the book. “You don’t remember?” You shake your head again. The skeleton shrugs.
“Maybe it will come back to you,” it suggests. “But that is why you’re here. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Now. Sit down there, on the floor.” Despite everything, you do as Mr. Bones says. You sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the desk, looking up at a skeleton and its very large, old book.
“This first one is just okay,” it says, almost apologetically. “But it would be a mistake to begin with the best tale anyway. This one is from the late nineteen-nineties, I believe. It is called  

                                                  The Night Mr. Grant Died

Thunder roared and a flash of lightning briefly lit up the cemetery. Robert grimaced and gripped his flashlight and shovel tighter, then continued to make his way past the rows of headstones. He knew that a storm was ultimately in his favor, considering what he was about to do, but it still unnerved him. The entire ordeal unnerved him, but Robert was truly desperate for the money he had been offered. His father had often repeated the phrase “Whatever it takes, Robert” when instructing him on how to survive the cruelness of the world, and he had never forgotten that lesson.
At last, Robert stopped in front of the headstone he had been looking for. It was new, much sleeker and with none of the wear of years that the others had. “James W. Grant” was the name etched into it and the death date was the current year. Robert set the flashlight on the soft grass next to the fresh grave, then started digging with no hesitation.
“Whatever it takes.” he said under his breath, tossing dirt over his shoulder.
Memories came to him as he dug deeper; memories of his father. They had been poor, and Robert had been unplanned. Unwanted too, or at least that’s what his father had always said to him in drunken, angry moments. There had been a lot of them. His father had struggled to make ends meat with an honest job, so, as Robert had later learned, he had turned to less honest work. He had robbed several graves by the time Robert was three years old, taking the valuables and trinkets that people were buried with and pawning them for cash. He had never been caught, but the paranoia of being found out one day had taken a toll on him. He drank at home, only ever at home, and when money became tight as it often did, he had taken his fear and anger out on Robert and his mother. At first, when Robert had been very young, his mother would shield him from the worst of it. But, as the years dragged on, she had cared less and less every time. Robert never blamed her for that. He had understood how hard it must have been.
Lightning peeled across the darkened sky once more, but this time heavy rain followed. Robert cursed, even though he knew this was good for him. The storm would keep others away, and make it harder for those passing by to see his work. The heavy rain would even make the digging easier for him. As he sunk deeper into the grave, closer to the coffin, more memories sprang into his mind.
He had been seventeen when he had robbed a grave with his father for the first time. He had gone willingly, vainly hoping that he could earn the old man’s love or admiration if he helped. Everything had gone smoothly enough, until a dog that had wandered into the cemetery began to bark madly at the two of them, causing Robert’s father to bolt, leaving his son behind. Robert had made it home without being caught, but was met with a beating for coming back empty handed. Robert never forgot that moment, and the realization that he would never earn anything but contempt from his father.
The grave was growing taller around him, and his hands were slick now from the rain. He was nearly there, though, and that kept him going. He was nearly there, and then he would have his money from that woman.
It had only been a few months prior that Robert had crossed paths with Dr. Cushing. She was an older woman, with gaunt features and a clipped, crisp way of speaking, and Robert had first encountered her in a pawn shop downtown. He had been there selling off a few minor things he had stolen from a rich woman’s grave, and she had seemingly been there to buy something, though she never did. She took an immediate interest in him, and after several failed attempts to make her leave him be, she offered him money for, as she said, “to retrieve for me a few items that belong to someone else”. He had been wary of this and refused at first, but her offer was too good, and after some deliberation, he had agreed. The robbery had been simple; the simplest Robert had ever done to his great surprise. He had never thought robbing from the living would have been easier than robbing from the dead. Dr. Cushing had made good on her end, giving him more money than those books had surely been worth.
Over the months, she had requested several more robberies of him and he had done each of them with relative ease. Then, she had asked him for something much more familiar yet also more horrible, completely out of the blue. “A corpse, preferably very fresh, if you can manage” had been her exact words. He had, at first, thought she was joking. However she made it very clear that she was not, and that if he didn’t do this, she wouldn’t work with him again. Then, she had told him the price she was willing to pay. He would never have to rob another grave or house, if he did this for her. So, he had agreed. He had known immediately where he would get the corpse, and that it would indeed be very fresh.
At long last, his arms aching and feet chilled to the bone despite his boots, he hit the coffin. He uncovered it quickly, then used the shovel to crack open the lid. He hesitated for a moment before opening it completely, afraid of what he might see. He pushed this thought away with a grunt. He knew exactly what he would see, and when he opened the lid, he was not surprised. It was the face of his father, James W. Grant, lifeless and pale and more groomed than he had ever been in life. As he reached to lift his father out of the coffin, fear gripped him again, but he shook it loose. The man was dead. He had watched him die, gasping for breath as his body seized up with a heart attack, begging Robert to call an ambulance. He hadn’t. He had just sat there, and watched. He had watched him struggle, fear and hatred on his pained face, until finally he had stopped moving. The fear and hatred never left his expression, and Robert had grimly thought that had been fitting.
After stuffing the body in a black bag, he began to shovel the dirt back into the hole, as quick as he could. The rain was still coming down in fat drops, chilling him to the bone despite his heavy coat. He took a moment to pause, and give his aching arms a rest. The only sound in the lonely cemetery was the rain hitting the ground, as it seemed the thunder had stopped.
“Robert.” came a voice, clear as day piercing the stormy night, and Robert swung wildly around. His heart was racing, and he was gripping his shovel tight, but he could see no one near him. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the cemetery at all. He continued to search, picking up his flashlight and scanning the area. He had heard the voice as if it had been right beside him. After a few minutes of careful inspection, he finished filling in the hole, guessing he had just imagined the voice.
With his burden on his back and his shovel and flashlight in hand, he made his way from the cemetery to his car, parked just outside the gates. He put everything, including the black bag containing his father’s corpse, in the back seat, then hopped in the driver’s side. Certain that no one had seen what he had done, he started the car and began the drive towards Dr. Cushing’s place. He drove slowly and carefully, the heavy rain obscuring his vision of the road despite his wipers.
Nearly halfway to his destination, Robert heard something other than the rain. It was a shuffling noise, almost like a plastic bag moving. With that thought, panic seized Robert once again. He listened for the noise intently, and to his horror, heard it coming from behind him. It was something in his back seat. At once, he attempted to rationalize it, telling himself that it was just the bag moving around because the car was moving. He instantly dismissed this, as the car was driving smoothly, and the noise was becoming increasingly violent, as if there was something trying to get out of the bag.
His heart racing, he knew there was only one way to ease his mind, and prove to himself that this wasn’t actually happening. Taking his eyes off the road for a moment, he turned to look at the bag in his backseat. Instead, he was greeted by the corpse of his father, sitting up and reaching out to him.
“Robert.” it croaked, as Robert screamed and the car slammed into an embankment, flipping over.
Robert awoke in a painful daze, a bright light shining over him. He could see a figure standing nearby as well, but couldn’t determine who it was. His entire body hurt, but his head most of all. He couldn’t move, and assumed it was due to the crash.
“Oh, you’re awake.” said the figure, who he was then able to recognize as Dr. Cushing.
“Cushing. What?” he managed to say, his throat dry and voice ragged.
“You were in a terrible car accident.” she said, coming into view. “Luckily, close enough to my place that I heard it as it happened.”
“Body.” he said, his memory of what caused the crash coming back to him and causing him to panic once more.
“Yes.” Cushing said, dryly. “The body you procured for me was utterly ruined in the crash. It is completely useless to me now.” This actually caused Robert to breathe a short sigh of relief. Dr. Cushing grabbed a syringe from a nearby table. “Thankfully, I have a replacement right here.” As she turned the syringe towards him, Robert slowly realized what she was implying.
“No, what? Stop!” He tried to scream, but was still too weak, and as he now could feel, strapped to a table.
“I know, this seems rather grisly. I never intended to murder anyone in pursuit of my goals. But, I am willing to do whatever it takes to get results.” She said, jabbing the syringe into his neck. Desperately, he tried to rip himself free from his bonds or scream, but his body refused to comply, and after the injection it became more sluggish, as did his mind. As his vision went black, he heard Dr. Cushing, or maybe his father, repeat “Whatever it takes, Robert.”
   

End

“That was better than I remembered, actually,” Mr. Bones mutters as he turns the page of the old book. “Do you have a preference for the next tale?” he asks of you. You are still sitting on the floor, legs crossed, but your mouth hangs open. It had felt real to you. It had been as if you were right there in the story, not merely watching it happen, but feeling the rain and smelling the dirt. You shake your head slowly.
“None at all?” the skeleton asks. “One with a monster? A ghost? A witch?” You close your mouth and consider it for a moment.
“A monster, I guess?” you suggest, then change your mind quite suddenly “No, wait, a ghost. Or. Whichever.” Mr. Bones nods, and flips through the heavy pages of the book before stopping on a page near the center. You vaguely remember the first story was near the center as well, and wonder how he flipped through it to land right back where he was. It doesn’t matter, you suppose. He’s a talking skeleton, it’s hardly the strangest thing about the circumstances.
“I quite like this one,” he says with a rattle of excitement. “I’m not sure of the date, but it’s a timeless type of story. Young men, a small town, and the woods. Something horrible in those woods. And, of course, as promised, a ghost. Or, wait, a monster? We’ll see. The story is simply titled

Just Outside

1.

Dean Bowman first heard about the house near Cypress Swamp the night his parrot died. The bird, named Benji, had been his boyfriend’s pet for years, and thus became his as well when his boyfriend moved in with him. Dean was only a little sad to see Benji go, and that was mostly because of how upset the death had made Will. Dean had never really bonded with Benji during their short time together, but Will was more attached to it than his own mother. There were a lot of tears, many heaving sobs, and while Dean felt pain for Will, he also couldn’t help but be glad that he would no longer have to clean out the birdcage. He felt guilty for thinking it, but it was true nonetheless.
It was nearly ten o’clock when Dean closed the door to his study, having been assured by Will that he was fine and just wanted to be alone for a while. As he opened up his laptop at his desk to catch up on what he had missed for the past few hours, he saw exactly one unread email.
“House Near Cypress Swamp” was the subject line, and the sender was one of his regular contacts for interesting stories. He opened the email.
“Dean, got an old house near Cypress Swamp that might be up your alley. Haven’t checked it out myself, just heard about it. Abandoned for at least ten years, pretty out of the way. The old lady that lived there last, just disappeared. She used to shop for groceries down in Saunderwood, but stopped coming. Don’t think the police ever investigated, but no body at the house or anything, I guess. Could be a good write up for Halloween, or maybe a tragic angle if you can dig up more info on the old lady. Let me know if this sounds good, I’ll send you the address.”
Dean was, as his contact had guessed, interested in the house. It sounded like the perfect next piece for his column in the paper, however he decided to spin it. He messaged his contact back at once to get the address, and once he had it, started to make plans to go down into Saunderwood to properly investigate.

2.

It was the following Monday morning when Dean and Will drove into Saunderwood. Will was still in mourning for Benji, but it had been three full days, and the tears only came in small spurts now, at random hours of the day. Dean had asked him if he would rather spend the day with his friends, watching a movie or playing board games, but Will had insisted on coming with him as he wanted to see the creepy old house near Cypress Swamp.
“My dad and I used to go to the park in Saunderwood in the Spring; we’d pass Cypress Swamp on the way there,” Will said, looking wistfully out the passenger side window. “Dad said the old-timers thought the whole swamp was haunted or cursed or something. I was always scared of it because of snakes, though.”
“And the humidity?” Dean added playfully. Will’s lips curled into a grin while his brown eyes narrowed.
“I haven’t complained once today about it,” he said. Dean smiled and shook his head.
“Not yet, but it’s coming,” he said.
“The humidity is awful, though,” Will said, and Dean opened his mouth wide and pointed an accusatory finger at him. Will pointed one right back. “That doesn’t count!”
“Lived here your entire life, and you complain about the humidity like you’ve just moved in from Alaska or something,” Dean said. Will rolled his eyes, but his grin remained as he turned his attention back to the trees flying past as they closed in on Saunderwood.

3.

It was a typical small Southern town, with a downtown strip of old brick buildings with faded Coca-Cola murals and more pawn shops than there reasonably should have been. A library and a post office stood next to one another, so close that it was as if they were leaning against each other for support. A large, white Baptist church loomed over them across the street; the parking lot of which was the largest of any in town. A small bridge, still wooden and at least partly rotten, laid over a tiny creek that the locals called Possum Belly, though it wouldn’t say that on any map or Google search.
It was over the bridge that Dean took his car- as slowly as he could while Will remarked on how much bigger it had seemed to him as a child- and onto a dirt road that led to a bait and tackle shop. If the shop had a proper name, no one knew it, and everyone referred to it as “Jim’s Tackle” as it had been owned by Jim Harper for nearly forty years.
The old man was standing outside when Dean pulled up, parking in the shade of a large oak tree nearby. Jim was a man in his sixties, with a slight hunch, a prodigious beer gut, and as long as Dean had known him, a single outfit. He wore a faded and worn out baseball cap, and a pair of denim overalls over a white shirt. The cap had once professed his love for the Bulldogs, but now was just a light blue with the slightest indication that there had been a patch on the front at one point. The old man waved as Dean and Will ambled out of the car.
“You boys finally want some bait?” he asked in a strained voice, as if a boot were permanently standing on his throat. Dean smiled and shook his head.
“Not today,” he replied. As they approached, Jim nodded once to Will, his rheumy blue eyes taking him in.
“How’s your dad doing, Willy?” Will gave a perfunctory smile.
“He’s good, keeping busy with his garden,” he answered.
“Growing corn?” Jim asked.
“Yep,” Will replied. “Corn and okra.” Jim nodded at this.
“And you,” he said. “Uh, you keeping well?” His small, watery eyes flicked back and forth between Dean and Will. Will’s fake smile dropped entirely.
“Yeah,” he answered. “We’re doing great, still.” Jim nodded, and then turned his eyes fully back to Dean.
“So, who you wanna know about now?” he asked with a sigh.

4.

Jim Harper leaned back far in his wooden rocking chair, causing it to creak so loud the birds in the trees flew away. He made a guttural noise in the back of his throat, then leaned forward again and spoke.
“Dorothy Smith,” he said at last. “Yeah, it was Dorothy Smith that lived in that house.” Dean wrote the name onto his pad, while Will wandered around the inside of the shop in the air conditioning.
“Did you know her?” Dean asked. Jim shook his head.
“Just seen her around, heard other people talk about her,” he said. “Nice old lady.”
“She just disappeared one day, right?” Dean asked. Jim nodded. “Any idea what might have happened?” Jim readjusted himself on the chair, causing another round of creaking.
“Well, nobody knew for sure,” he said. “Just a lot of rumors. There was no body up in that house, but her car was still there. So, most folks think she went out into the swamp and got swallowed up by it.” Dean jotted this down on his pad.
“Did the police ever check it out?” he asked. Jim shrugged.
“Sheriff came out, looked the place over,” he said. “Put her down as missing, I think, but never looked any harder for her. I guess she had no family around here, and no close enough friends to go into Cypress Swamp and look for her.” Dean chewed on his lip as he looked over the notes so far, trying to find the right angle for the story.
“What about more out there theories about what happened to her?” Dean asked. Jim was silent for a beat.
“You mean the ghosts?” he asked, as if it were another mundane topic. Dean stifled a laugh, and he was glad Will was out of earshot. Dean nodded.
“Yeah, sure, the ghosts,” he prompted.
“Well, lotta folks say Cypress Swamp is haunted,” Jim said. “Full up with angry ghosts of indians, slaves, anybody else that got unjustly killed around here.”
“So, some people think that the ghosts- what- killed her?” Dean asked. Jim shifted a bit, and a look of discomfort crossed his wrinkled face.
“Now I don’t know if I believe in all of that, you know. Ghosts and all that,” he said self-consciously. Dean waved a hand.
“I know, but other people in town do?” he asked.
“Other people do, yeah.” he answered. “Other people swear they’ve seen things in Cypress Swamp at night. Like the trees rattling around when there’s no wind, or voices when there ain’t nobody else around.” Jim paused for another beat, his watery eyes looking past Dean. “Had a cousin that went into Cypress Swamp at night when he was, oh, maybe sixteen. Came back scared. Hollering about how “they” had seen him. Wouldn’t tell nobody who “they” were.”
“Does your cousin still live around here?” Dean asked, excited about spinning a second story out of this single lead.
“Nope,” Jim said plainly. “He died, few weeks after that. Car accident.”

5.

“I think a Halloween story would work better, really dig into the ghost aspect of it,” Dean said as they drove through more of Saunderwood. Jim Harper had given him the name of a man that he thought would know both more about Dorothy Smith, and also any strange happenings in Cypress Swamp.
“Yeah,” Will said, listlessly. Dean looked over at his boyfriend, staring out the window.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Will answered in the same tone. “I’m just remembering how much this place sucked when I was a kid. And that got me thinking about Benji again.”
“You want me to drive you back home?” Dean asked, hoping that Will would say no, as he didn’t really want to lose the momentum he had going.
“No, it’s fine,” Will said. “I’ll get over it. I think the ghost story is a good idea. I don’t think this place has anything worthwhile in it, other than ghosts anyway.” Dean said nothing, not wanting to potentially push Will into a worse mood. He had never really understood Will’s disdain for Saunderwood and places like it. There were some bad memories attached, of course, the type of bullying typical of small, Southern towns, but Dean couldn’t get past the charm of the place. Perhaps it was the city kid in him, or perhaps his love of weird history, but places like Saunderwood appealed to him in a way that nowhere else could.
Dean turned down an old road that led up to a ranch style home with potted plants surrounding it like a fence. He and Will got out of the car and approached the front door, which was adorned with a placard that read “Bobby and Susan Wainright”. As Dean held up his fist to knock, a lock clinked on the other side and the door opened. A tall man, about the same age as Jim Harper, appeared in the doorway. He had wide, brown eyes that radiated intensity, gray hair cut militarily short, and a scar over his upturned nose.
“Whatcha want?” he asked gruffly. Dean cleared his throat and put on his best smile.
“Jim Harper told me I could ask you some questions about Dorothy Smith?” he asked.
“What for?” he asked, his hawkish eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“I write a column for the newspaper, I was thinking that Dorothy’s story, and the story of the house where she lived, would be interesting,” Dean answered.
“Ain’t a damn thing interesting about that place,” the man responded. “It’s just cursed. Dorothy found that out, bless her soul, and that’s that.” The man went to close the door, but Dean stepped forward.
“Please, could you just tell me a little about her, and why you think the swamp is cursed?” he asked quickly.
“Swamp’s cursed ‘cause it is,” he spat. “And if you wanna know more about Dorothy-” the old man was abruptly cut off by a tinney shriek of a voice.
“-Bobby, who is it?” An old woman came up by Bobby, with short gray hair and large, square glasses. Dean saw a second chance.
“I was just wondering if you could tell me about Dorothy Smith?” he asked. Recognition lit up in the woman’s eyes like a fire.
“Oh, Dottie Smith,” she said slowly. “I haven’t thought of her in years.” Bobby sighed next to her, defeated. “Why don’t you two come in?” Dean turned to look back at Will and flashed him a wink and a smile, but Will didn’t see it. He was looking out into the yard at a gathering of crows. They stood in a crude semi-circle around the corpse of a single crow, as if in mourning of it.

6.

Bobby and Susan Wainright’s home was as cozy as a home could be, with a shag carpeted living room that smelled of cedarwood, and fresh lemonade on the table. At Susan’s insistence, Dean sat down on a worn down couch the color of tree bark, and she sat next to him. Will stood next to the couch, arms crossed over his chest, looking as if he were trapped on the only safe piece of land in a field of lava. Bobby sat in a large chair opposite all of them, his hawkish eyes never leaving them.
“Were you friends with Dorothy Smith?” Dean asked as he got his pen and pad of paper ready.
“Oh, yes,” Susan replied. “Well, as much of a friend as she had, I think.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. Susan gave a little sigh, as if apologizing for what she was about to say.
“Well, Dottie was an odd one, tell the truth,” she said. “Sweet as could be, but she didn’t like socializing all that much. That’s why she bought that house, way out where it is, away from it all. Told me once that she had seen enough of people over the years and didn’t care to see any more.”
“But she saw you?” Dean asked. Susan smiled.
“She did,” she said. “Y’see, I volunteered at the library back then, and Dottie came in every month or so and got a pile of books.” Susan’s smile widened. “Always one Nora Roberts book in that pile, and I love my Nora Roberts books.”
“Smut,” Bobby coughed out. Susan turned to him as fast as a striking snake.
“Hush up, Bobby!” she snapped, and he did. She turned back to Dean, as pleasant as she had been before. “So, one day I asked her what she thought of the last one. She gave a very short answer, but I offered my own opinion, and well,” Susan shrugged. “Well, that got her going, I guess. An hour later, she left with those books as well as a new friend.”
“Did you two talk on the phone, or just at the library?” Dean asked. Susan shook her head.
“Dottie didn’t have no phone, so we would talk at the library, and sometimes we’d go out and get a bite to eat,” she explained. “Few times I tried to get her to come out more, try to make more friends, but she wasn’t having it.”
“And did she ever say anything to you about the swamp or her house being haunted?” Dean asked, as conversationally as he could. Susan’s warm smile faded.
“I told her, I think the third time we talked together, I said, “you know they say Cypress Swamp is cursed?” and she said to me “If there’s any ghosts up here, I ain’t seen ‘em yet.” But, later,” Susan trailed off, then cleared her throat. “Later she did see something up there.”
“A ghost?” Dean asked, after a beat of silence. Susan shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “She told me, “Susie, I think that swamp is haunted after all. I saw something, and Susie, I think it saw me.” I don’t know what she meant. I never talked to her again after that. She just up and vanished. It was about a month later that I finally asked the sheriff to go check out her house. He did, and didn’t find nothing up there at all.”

7.

“Please tell me the next stop is the spooky house,” Will said as soon as the engine revved.
“What, you didn’t like Bobby and Susan?” Dean asked, putting on a thick Southern accent. Instead of throwing out playful banter, Will merely shook his head, his mood clearly soured.
“Babe, you okay?” Dean asked, once he pulled the car out onto the road proper. Will let out a long sigh, his eyes focused on the scenery outside.
“I didn’t think coming into Saunderwood would bring back all those bad memories so strongly,” he mumbled.
“Anything bad ever happen to you here?” Dean asked, treading carefully. Will sighed again.
“No, not really,” he said. “It’s the type of place that Saunderwood is, you know? Small, Southern town where everybody knows everybody and everybody’s got the same backwards, stupid ideas about things.” Dean took a moment to decide what to say next.
“Jim Harper and Susan Wainright were very nice to us, Will,” he said slowly, and it was only halfway through his next sentence that he regretted saying anything at all. “I think your personal experience in a small tow-”
“You always do this, Dean!” Will snapped. “It is not just my own personal experience, it is like that all over! And besides that, Jim Harper tolerates us because he knows my dad, he does not like us and definitely doesn’t approve of-”
“Okay!” Dean interrupted. “Okay, you’re right, nobody in any small town is good and they all secretly hate us because we’re gay. Is that right?” Will leaned back in his seat dramatically.
“Oh my god, that’s not- you know that’s not what I’m saying!” Will said. Dean realized he was white knuckling the steering wheel and made a conscious effort to relax. “You don’t see the same things I do because you grew up sheltered. I swear you wouldn’t recognize danger if it was right in front of your face and it’s just…” Will stopped and took a long, deep breath. He put his hands over his face. “God, I wish Benji was still here.”
“I know,” Dean said after a beat. “And I-” Without warning, the windshield was assaulted by a handful of objects. Dean cursed and swerved off the road, pulling the car into a shallow ditch while the car behind him honked angrily as it continued to drive past.
“What was that?” Will asked, breathlessly. Dean just shook his head, also breathing hard. He looked out the window and saw what had hit them, scattered all over the road. Blue Jays. There were four, all dead, lying on the asphalt like broken toys. Dean glanced up at the sky, his mouth still open, but saw nothing but a few clouds. Will leaned across Dean, and let out a gasp as he saw the dead birds.
“How did that happen?” he asked quietly. Dean shook his head again.
“Weird,” was all he could think to say.

8.

It took about twenty full minutes of driving down backroads before Dean finally saw the house. It was deep in the woods, surrounded by trees, shrubs, and tall grass. Given that it was only a stone’s throw from the actual swamp, Dean was certain the place would be swarming with mosquitos as soon as they got out of the car as well. As he pulled the car as close to the house as he could- the old driveway had long since been grown over with weeds and kudzu- he realized that the old house was in startlingly good condition. While it did not appear to be lived in, the weeds and kudzu stopped just short of the place on all sides, as if someone had put a fence of poison around the house which was still active.
Once out of the car, Dean and Will began to trudge through the tall grass towards the front door. It was slightly ajar, with one of the hinges broken but not gone. Dean took a moment to look around just outside, jotting down some notes about the state of the exterior of the place.
“Hey,” Will said, glancing around at the tops of the trees. “Do you hear that?” Dean listened for a moment, but heard nothing at all. He shook his head.
“What is it?” he asked. Will’s lips drew tight together.
“Nothing,” Will said. “No bugs, no animals, no birds.” Dean listened again, and looked around. Will was right, there were absolutely no signs of life at all. The woods were completely silent. A shiver ran down Dean’s spine.
“Okay,” Dean said. “That’s weird.” Will said nothing to this, but his lips were still pursed and his brow was knit in deep concern. “You stay out here, I’ll just be a minute anyway.” Dean offered, and Will nodded, though he did not look relieved. Dean entered the house by way of the rotten, wooden door and was hit with a wave of musty, stale air. He appeared to be in the living room; a large recliner sat in one corner with a table and lamp right next to it, as well as a large green rug and strangely empty mantleplace. Everything was coated in a layer of dust, with cobwebs strung in every corner of the room, top and bottom. Dean walked to the recliner, and saw an indentation in the cushion, as if Dorothy Smith had only gotten up to leave a few moments ago. On the table, next to the lamp, he saw a pair of reading glasses, and a hardcover book. It was a Nora Roberts book. A pang of sadness hit Dean in the gut, then.
Dean picked up the book, and truly wondered what had happened to Dorothy Smith. The thing that made the most sense based on what he had gathered was that she had left her house and wandered into the swamp proper, where she had gotten lost, hurt, or immediately killed by something. It was frustrating to Dean that he would never know exactly what caused her to leave her house that night, or what exactly happened to her afterwards. All he or anyone could do was speculate.
He opened the book to the first page and his heart nearly stopped. Scrawled in the margins with a blue ink pen were the words “God help me” over and over again. Dean flipped the page and saw that it was the same. He flipped through several more to see it perhaps hundreds of times, covering up every blank space on every page. Eventually, his eyes caught sight of something different, and when he read those words his blood ran ice cold.
“They aren’t ghosts,” was written huge across page one hundred thirteen, over the text of the book itself. Dean flipped through the remaining pages, but saw no more scribbled phrases. He shut the book and tucked it under his arm. He took a deep breath, and a nervous laugh escaped his throat. Dorothy Smith had gone insane, clearly, and now her disappearance began to make more sense. A rush of excitement tinged with a smidgen of guilt raced through him. The story he was going to write was sure to be a Halloween hit, especially with pictures of the authentic book that Dorothy scrawled her final, mad words into.
Dean turned to leave the house, but stopped short as something caught his eye. At first, he didn’t recognize what he saw through the window on the far side of the room as a face. It was so different from any face, human or animal, that he had ever seen that his brain simply refused to register it as such. Unfortunately, it was only a moment, and in the next his eyes adjusted and his brain saw the truth of the thing that peered at him through the window.
Two giant, lidless eyes bulged out of an oblong-shaped head which appeared to be the color and texture of a rotten pear. What must have been the thing’s body hung down from some unseen place above the window, as multiple yellow ropey tendrils bound together. Each tendril moved independent of the other, however, coiling and uncoiling from one another like worms trying to untangle themselves from another.
The thing seemingly realized that Dean had seen it, as it pulled itself upwards, disappearing from view in an instant. For a second, Dean stood stock still feeling his heart pounding against his chest. Then he ran. In a second he was outside the house, barreling towards his car and screaming his boyfriend’s name. It was only as he frantically pulled the keys from his pocket that he realized Will was nowhere to be seen.
“Will!” he screamed again, looking all around the oppressive greenery. He paused, listening hard for a reply, but all he heard was his blood beating in his ears. He screamed Will’s name again, more desperately this time; more prolonged. Dean paused again, but this time heard the gentle rattling of branches knocking against each other. His first, natural thought was that it was the wind. There was no wind, however. There was not so much as a light breeze, and yet the rattling became louder and the tops of the trees began to sway dangerously far back and forth.
Adrenaline surged through Dean, propelling him into the car and locking the doors. He turned the key, but heard nothing but impotent clicks. He tried again and again, to the same effect. He cursed and hit the steering wheel so hard he thought he broke his hand. He knew what he had to do next, and cursed again, loudly, as he threw open the door to the car and broke into a run down the grassy trail. His legs pumped hard and lungs burned, but he didn’t dare slow down as the branches above him rattled like the chattering of a massive insect. He dared to hope that he would make it as he saw the backroad just ahead of him, but that hope was crushed as his legs were pulled out from under him.
Dean’s face hit the ground hard, and pain exploded in his nose as blood gushed out of it. He was pulled upwards so far and so fast that his stomach flipped. Blood from his nose covered his eyes, and he let out a feeble yell like a toy running out of batteries. He wiped his eyes- and wished he hadn’t. Dozens of the monstrous things surrounded him, their enormous eyes staring, and their tendrils squirming eagerly. He yelled weakly again, and the thing closest to him- the one holding him upside down above the trees- gave a response. The bottom of its oblong, wrinkled head cracked open like an overripe fruit, exposing a three pronged mouth with razor-sharp teeth. A noise came from it; a deep and horrible grunt of excitement that Dean felt vibrate his bones.
As the thing’s mouth enveloped his head, Dean Bowman wished his final thoughts were of Will, or his career, or his parents, or any pleasant part of his life. Instead, they were only of hot, wet suffocation and teeth cracking open his skull.

9.

Police, after being informed of Dean Bowman and his boyfriend, William Coleman’s disappearance from their home, investigated and traced their whereabouts to Saunderwood. Eventually, they found their empty car parked just outside of a house near Cypress Swamp. The two men were never found, nor were any bodies ever recovered from the woods or swamp. When questioned by police, many residents of Saunderwood said that the two men should never have gone to the house in the first place. Cypress Swamp and its surrounding woods are cursed; filled with angry ghosts that keep the birds away and rattle the trees when there is no wind.

End