This is a revamp of a story I worked on originally years ago in 5th and 6th grades, Sadly the floppy disk and Commodore 64 computer are both long gone.
Here's the first Chapter for your entertainment.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
My parents had just decided to move us all to the west end of the city from its east end, desiring a change in scenery and the ability for my father to have a shorter commute to work. The move was virtually unannounced to my older sister and I, as we only found out that they had bought a new house and sold our own one week before the move. Yet here is the annoying part: both the sale of our house, and the offer on the new one, had been over a month earlier. So needless to say, we were both unimpressed. Our parents were taking us out of the environment which we were used to living in, and dropping us into what we saw as a foreign land.
As we left the main highway and began driving down the main street which would bring us closer to our house, I glanced around, seeing plenty of houses, along with a small strip mall. ‘Okay, not too bad, I suppose,’ I thought before feeling the car start to decelerate as my dad put on the turn signal. We turned right onto a narrow side road with only trees on either side. There were no driveways that I could see out of the right rear passenger seat. Only dark trees which climbed up and reached out with their branches to intertwine above the road, effectively blocking out many of the sun’s warm late June rays. It seemed more foreboding than anything else.
“We’re almost there kids! Just a couple of bends in the road, and we’ll see our new family fixer-upper home,” my mom suddenly said with excitement, although my older sister Haylee and I were completely ignoring her. We were both still very much angry at the thought of having been uprooted without justifiable cause from our old home. My friends and I had gotten together at my old school for a lengthy hangout, and skateboarded in the tennis court area for a while, before shaking hands and parting ways. I wish that I could be back with them, sipping soda outside the convenience store while munching on Doritos, and then skateboard around the neighborhood. Fun times.
I honestly didn’t care about what my parents desired. The only thing which I was interested in, was moving back to the east end and getting back together with my friends as quickly as was humanly possible, because I couldn’t see myself making any friends in my new neighborhood. Heck, what constituted for the neighborhood out here in the boonies?
Suddenly, the road became bumpy. Looking outside of both the windshield and my window, I could see that the road had transitioned from paved asphalt, to being a simple one lane gravel road. Just where were our parents taking us? It was bad enough that the trees were making it appear almost as if it were nighttime in the middle of the day, but now we were on a road that civilization had yet to seemingly reach towards and draw out of the dark ages.
We then turned into a driveway which was simply marked by a lone red reflector post, before driving deeper into the woods. After a few moments, we came around a bend and saw the house which my parents had proudly been hailing as our “new home”.
“Here we are kids,” my dad said as he parked the family car up in front of the house.
I looked at it, and the first words out of my mouth were simply “This thing?”
I should have paid closer attention when my parents had mentioned it being a “fixer-upper” I suppose, given that that basically translates to “free child labor to help rebuild something which should have been demolished centuries ago, in order to put the structure out of its misery.” The place looked like it hadn’t been touched by anyone in decades. Trees and brush were growing everywhere, save for the driveway, which I’m guessing is because my dad had probably arranged for someone to clear that area for him before our move-in date. In all likelihood, that was probably the only contractor he would hire for the entire project, because he hated spending money where he didn’t have to.
The house appeared to have been built in the early 20th Century, and was mostly wood siding, with a stone base. There was a front porch with two broken halves of a hanging porch bench, the kind you would see hanging by chains or by rope from the roof overhang, which reflected how rotten much of the wooden structure was at this point. Moss and mildew were visibly present on the dingy pale yellowish white walls of the house, as was some nice graffiti of an unmentionable sort. The front door was missing, and part of the roof at the front had caved in.
“Now I agree that it does need a little bit of work” my dad continued, “but it certainly is a nice summer project for the family, don’t you think, kids?”
There’s something you need to know before I continue with this story. Firstly, recall that my dad hates spending money where he doesn’t have to. And while it baffled my mind as to why they would have spent any money whatsoever on this dilapidated structure that they called a house, the bigger issue is that he decided that we as a family were going to spend the summer fixing this place up. This from the guy who took three years to renovate the main bathroom at our old home. Oh, he gutted the old bathroom fixtures in a single weekend, but he then became sidetracked with other weekend projects, such as painting the master bedroom, or changing a light fixture in the front hall; and so we were all stuck using the ensuite bathroom in the master bedroom for that entire period of time. It also should have been an earlier red flag to my sister Haylee and I, when our parents insisted that anything other than cell phones, clothes, and personal hygiene materials, all be placed into a mobile storage unit for a few months.
“Dad, you can’t be serious” my sister protested. “I don’t do manual labor.”
“Come on,” he replied. “It’ll be fun. Just think of how easy it will be. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?”
We hadn’t even gotten out of the car yet, and the house already had an answer to my dad’s question. Not even a second after finishing his question, he was interrupted by a loud crashing bang. Looking towards the house once more after flinching, we saw that more of the roof had caved in. An eerie silence entered the car, before my mom finally broke the silence.
“Well,” she said as she clasped her hands together in excitement. “Let’s get started then, shall we? We need to get an idea of what tools and lumber we’re going to need in order to start fixing the entry area, porch, and front hallway.”
“Question. Where are we going to sleep while the house is being “fixed-up”?” I asked, curious to see what my parents had planned. In hindsight however, I regretted almost immediately having asked that question.
“We’re going to get back in touch with nature,” Mom explained.
Uh oh. This wasn’t looking good. I dreaded what she was going to say next.
“Daniel, we’re going to be camping outside in the tent that we’ve brought with us. We’ll be in our sleeping bags, and then we’ll air the bags out during the day while working on the house. Of which we do have some electricity, but keep in mind that because the wiring is old, it is just going to be used sparingly at the moment for powering electrical tools. No TV, no cell phone charging, and no video games Daniel for the time being. Oh, and as for washing and toilet use, we have a camping shower and portable toilet on hand, of which Haylee, you can hook up the hose from the shower to the spigot on the side of the house. Thankfully, they’ve already turned the water supply back on for us.”
Haylee smacked her head on the back of dad’s seat in frustration at both the lack of communication, and having to use a camping shower.
“So how do you expect us to be able to chat with our friends? And more importantly, how do you expect me to shower using a camping shower? Those things are too small and narrow.” My sister was clearly becoming more frustrated by the minute as the realization of the hell with which she and I had been introduced to, was dawning upon her mind.
“Oh, don’t worry. Your dad can take the phones with him to his work and charge them there during the day, and then bring them home with him at night. And should there be any signal issues here, the phones can transmit those messages while he’s at work for you, thus killing two birds with one stone. So it’s all good. We’ve thought of everything to help keep you two both connected to your old friends. Isn’t that wonderful news?”
Haylee groaned in frustration. "This is the worst," she moaned in disapproval. This was clearly not going to be getting either of us anywhere with the logical arguments which we were bringing up in protest. “And how are we going to store and cook food?” she added in an annoyed voice. Haylee was now living in denial that this was even happening to her, as well as the fact that she suddenly realized that there wasn’t any food in the car save for the contents of a small cooler which had been placed in the back of the station wagon.
“We have a large and spacious ice box by the side of the house. Indeed, I’ve got several bags of ice in the cooler back there, as well as some pork chops for dinner tonight. We also have a fire pit behind the house. So Daniel, you and your father will also have to chop some wood for the fire so that we can cook tonight.”
For me, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “Oh come on!” I complained. “I can’t do that! I don’t know the first thing about building a campfire or what wood to use.”
“Of course you can! Just look for any dead branches and let your father know. If they need trimming, or need to be cut down from a tree, he’ll use the chainsaw that he’s going to be picking up at the hardware store in a short while. Like we both said, this is a fixer-upper that you are both going to need to help us to finish as a family.”
Dad then opened his door. “Alright then, let’s get going. The sooner that we all get started, the sooner we will be done with today’s tasks. And the sooner that I can start making notes.”
“Making notes?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just focus yourself on what we need to do to help restore this house to its former glory. I mean, look at it! Don’t you want to see a house which is older than any of us, be restored to look like it did when it was first built? It’s just crying out for us to help it return to its former glory.”
“More like it’s crying out to be put out of its misery with some gasoline and a match,” I muttered.
To be fair, I’m sure that the house at one point did look fantastic, as it had two floors plus the attic, and by the looks of it from a windowless gap in the foundation, a basement as well. And yet, even as I got out of the car begrudgingly, something about the house, even simply beyond its physical condition, was putting me off. I couldn’t really explain it. It was just a funny feeling in my gut, as if someone, or something, didn’t want us there.
While Dad and Mom began unpacking the cases and cooler from the back of the car, Haylee and I continued to gauge the house and look over it as if trying to make sense of everything.
“Apart from the obvious, what do you think” Haylee asked me calmly.
“You mean apart from thinking this place should be torn down? I dunno. It just feels weird, I guess.”
She looked at me with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean?”
“It just feels like we shouldn’t be here. Like, something wants to keep us away.”
After a brief pause, Haylee burst out in laughter.
“What is it” Dad asked.
“Daniel thinks that there are ghosts in the house. That we’ve moved into a haunted house.” She said this in her best spookily sarcastic voice.
“Shut up!” I replied, before crossing my arms over my chest.
“Oh, don’t worry." He then smiled before patting me on the shoulder. "Son, there are no ghosts that I’m aware of inside of this house.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I replied.
“Anyway, I need the two of you to take the cooler over to the ice box which is over on the left side of the house, and start unloading the bags of ice into the upper compartment. Once you’ve finished that, put the pork chops in the lower compartment and ensure that both doors are fully sealed shut. And don’t try to use the ice box for hide and seek or such things. It’s an old locking mechanism on the door which if you close it when inside, you’ll be trapped in an airless compartment.”
With a sigh, Haylee and I then carried the cooler between us over to the ice box. “So, do you still think that there’s something here that wants us out?” she asked while we walked.
“Just drop it, will you?” I asked, not wanting to be ridiculed for a second time by her today. “And I don’t mean the cooler. Damn, this thing is heavy.”
As we finally reached the ice box, which resembled a small fridge and freezer of olden days, we set the cooler down before Haylee reached out and unlatched the upper compartment, swinging it open to expose an empty unit. As for me, I was swinging my arms to try and restart blood circulation and get some feeling back into my arms.
“Right, so we just put the ice in here” she said, as she opened the lid of the cooler.
It was almost entirely filled with bags of ice which mom had purchased from a store before we left. No wonder it was so damn heavy. Haylee took hold of the first bag of ice, and put it into the compartment. It then fell down below the lip and settled into place. “One down, five to go.”
After the rest of the bags had been put into the upper compartment, Haylee closed it, hearing it latch shut, before turning her attention to the lower compartment. As she opened it, we noticed several webs and dead spiders inside the compartment.
“Just my luck,” she groaned before wiping out all of the webbing and dead carcasses. We then proceeded to place the pork chops gingerly down upon the top rack, feeling some cool air already as the ice began to cool the air within the lower compartment. After closing the door to the ice box compartment, Haylee closed the lid of the cooler.
“Let’s head back then and see what else they want,” she said as she reached down with one arm to take hold of a handle on the cooler.
Grabbing the other handle myself, we lifted the cooler between us, relieved that it now was much lighter than it previously had been.
We then returned to the car with the now empty cooler, and set it down before mom called us over to the porch. Making our way over, I was about to step on the bottom-most step, before Dad cried out to me.
“Careful!” he said. “That bottom step is rotten. So step carefully onto the next step up.”
I looked at my dad, then to my mom, and finally to Haylee, before shrugging my shoulders. Very gently, I raised my leg even higher and rested it down on the second step. Putting my weight down upon it, I then lifted myself up, before then stepping on the third step, and finally up and onto the porch.
“Welcome to the porch,” Dad said as he made a note of some of the tools and supplies which he was going to need purchase from the hardware store to start this project. “So, we’re going to need to get pliers, hammers, crowbars, a few power saws of various sorts, nails, screws, screwdrivers, a drill and various-sized bits, outdoor paint, paint brushes, sander, sandpaper, wood stain, tape measures, half inch chain links, plywood, various plank sizes, electric chainsaw, workers gloves, mold and mildew remover, putty knives, and carpenters glue.” He then glanced over at me.
“Daniel, you’re coming with me for this supply run.”
“Whatever” I replied, not really interested. But at least I would be getting some time away from this decrepit house.
“While you’re both away, Haylee and I will work on removing some of the old items from the porch area,” Mom added.
“Sounds like a plan,” Dad replied, before patting me on the shoulder. “Come along Daniel. Let’s get going and start our adventure to the hardware store.”
He was completely enthusiastic, but I was not, as evident by my rather simple and shrugged reply of “Meh.”
Carefully stepping down, we made our way back to the station wagon, with yours truly getting into the front passenger seat, before we proceeded to head out towards the main road. We then turned left and began the somewhat long journey towards the hardware store.
“Well son, now that the ladies are out of the way, what do you honestly think about the house right now?”
His question took me by surprise, but I guess he was just trying to make small talk during the drive.
“To be honest, I still am confused as to why you two decided to buy this house, when it needs so much work done to it. And why did you two decide suddenly to up and drag Haylee and I over to this place from where we were comfortable?”
These were perfectly valid questions to be asked, and I felt that I truly deserved an honest answer.
“Well, the best way to explain it is that your mother and I have a secret. I can’t share it with you right now son, but rest assured, when the time is right, you will find out about it.”
His answer left me with more questions and confusion than what I had started out with.
“Uh, Dad? Are you feeling alright?”
“It’s perfectly simple. You see, when a man and a woman love each other, the man is quite willing to do whatever the woman asks of him.”
He really was making no sense to me at all by this point.
“You’re losing me here Dad. I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Good talk, son” he replied, before giving me a thumbs up.
“Okay… Dad.” I was getting weirded out by this conversation, and a part of me was glad that it was being left there for now.
After about 35 minutes, we arrived at the entrance to the hardware store Beaver Lumber. An odd name for a hardware store, I’ll admit, but it was a bonus that it included a drive-in lumber yard to stock up on the much needed lumber for our...project.
We went inside first to pick up various tools and other materials, of which we struggled with two full carts to wheel it all back to the car. We then dropped the center seats and loaded the materials in, before we got ourselves back inside the car. Dad drove into the drive-in lumber yard section and began pulling a few sheets of plywood which he laid upon the car’s pre-installed roof rack. We then struggled, but somehow managed to load up the roof with a few hundred pounds of lumber, which we tied down with twine.
Heading for the exit, the attendant looked over what we had loaded and tallied it up, before giving Dad the total.
“Alright, your total today is $8, 185.32” the attendant said, before my dad reached out of the window and handed him his credit card. “I’ll be back in a moment with your receipt,” the man said as he walked over to a nearby bench with a computer on it.
While waiting for the attendant to return with Dad’s receipt, he once again struck up a conversation. Thankfully this time however, it wasn’t an awkward or nonsensical one.
“So Daniel, what do you say we go and take a look at the school you will be transferring to in September, on the way home, as well as grab a bite to eat without telling mom or your sister?”
“Sure. That sounds good.” As long as I could keep my mouth shut around Haylee and mom with regards to something like this, we were good to go.
We stopped at a local burger joint named Harvey’s and went inside. It turns out that it’s similar to those sub shops in that once you order the burger, they prepare the burger with toppings in front of you so you can dictate how much or little you want of any given topping. When our order was complete, they wrapped the burgers up for both of us, and bagged them, before the two of us sat down to eat. Dad was keeping an eye on the load atop our station wagon of course, both to ensure that no one tried to steal any of the lumber we’d just purchased, as well as to ensure that the load remained stable and hadn’t shifted during the short drive from the store.
As we ate, dad took out a pen and grabbed a napkin from the dispenser at bar where we were sat looking out, before he began doing an extremely rough sketch of the new house. He then circled the area of the porch.
“Alright, so we will start pulling up the old wood and then take a look at the support frame underneath. I want to get an idea of how that wood is doing, in case we need to replace any of that as well. I’m going to need your help on this, Daniel. Now, as you know, I will be at work during the week and will only be able to help you, mom, and Haylee out with work on the weekends. I need to know that I can trust you to help out and not slow your Mom down while I’m away at work during the week.”
I looked up into my Dad’s eyes, and saw a look of concern and compassion, as if in a way, he could understand the issues which Haylee and I were both experiencing and handling in our own unique ways.
“Dad, all I want to know, is why. Why did you two decide to buy something that we can’t even live in yet? Heck, I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to live in it, because I doubt we’ll get done before the winter time with just the bare minimum that we would need to do to be able to live in there. I can clear the brush and trees around the house from what I’ve already seen, no problem, although I’ve yet to see what the other two sides of the house have in store for us, let alone the inside of that house.”
As we continued to talk, an older man, probably in his 70s, sat down one chair over from Dad, and began eating his own meal. At first, I really didn’t even notice him, and nor did my Dad for that matter.
“The house was a practical steal of an asking price, son. The owner was practically giving it away. $20, 000 for a nice house like that, and in the woods. I mean sure, it’s the only house on Harwood-”
My Dad was interrupted as the older man began coughing on the drink that he was sipping. After he had coughed a few times rather vocally, my dad turned to see if he was alright.
“Are you alright, sir?”
“Young man, did you say that you had bought the old Farmington house on Harwood?”
“Yes. I take it you have heard of the place.”
The man looked at both my dad and I with a grave look of concern.
“You had best be careful. That house has a past which is darker than you may want to hear. It was empty for a long time for a reason. Every family who moved into that house from the time it was built, would suffer a tragedy within 1 year of moving in. Not a single family has ever been fortunate enough to escape that. If I were you, I would leave the house alone and find somewhere else, before it’s too late.”
Well, the old man’s statement was certainly awkward, if not incredibly creepy. My mouth began to drop open in shock and awe, while my Dad simply cleared his throat.
“I’m sure that’s just a local legend to scare people off, but I thank you for your concern.”
It was clear that my dad was trying to brush this man off as a crazy lunatic, but that his attempts weren’t working.
“Do you mean, mister, that people have died in that house” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“At least one person from each family. But if your father doesn’t believe me, he’s welcome to check the archives over in the local library.”
My Dad was clearly not impressed, and decided to end our outing right then and there.
“Come along, Daniel. Let’s get back to the house now.”
“But what about the school” I asked. Not that I was really interested in seeing the school right now, however I was honestly in no hurry to return to that-for lack of a better word-‘House.’
“Not today. We’ve got far too much to do, I’m afraid,” was his reply, before proceeding to usher me quickly out of my seat and out of the restaurant, hurrying to the car, where he pulled us out of our parking spot as soon as we were both seated and the engine had started.
Making our way home, Dad took a deep breath and sighed. “I want you to promise me, Daniel, that you won’t tell mom or Haylee about the fact that we stopped to get a bite to eat, but also that we had had the run-in with that strange man. And don’t tell Haylee about the history of the house.”
“Wait! You mean, those things really did happen?”
There was a brief pause, before my Dad again let out a deep sigh. “Yes, it’s true. Those things have happened in the past. But it doesn’t mean that we are going to suffer such a fate. After all, there has to be a logical explanation for all of the previous disasters in that house from long ago. It can’t have been paranormal in nature.”
He was clearly shaken in his voice as he told me all of this in confidence. Great, now I was stuck with a secret which Dad expected me to keep to myself.
As we got back onto the main road, my Dad breathed a heavy sigh of what seemed to be relief. This was going to be a long, fun evening, I could just tell.
Here's the first Chapter for your entertainment.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The House at the End of Harwood
Chapter 01: Why Me?
Chapter 01: Why Me?
My parents had just decided to move us all to the west end of the city from its east end, desiring a change in scenery and the ability for my father to have a shorter commute to work. The move was virtually unannounced to my older sister and I, as we only found out that they had bought a new house and sold our own one week before the move. Yet here is the annoying part: both the sale of our house, and the offer on the new one, had been over a month earlier. So needless to say, we were both unimpressed. Our parents were taking us out of the environment which we were used to living in, and dropping us into what we saw as a foreign land.
As we left the main highway and began driving down the main street which would bring us closer to our house, I glanced around, seeing plenty of houses, along with a small strip mall. ‘Okay, not too bad, I suppose,’ I thought before feeling the car start to decelerate as my dad put on the turn signal. We turned right onto a narrow side road with only trees on either side. There were no driveways that I could see out of the right rear passenger seat. Only dark trees which climbed up and reached out with their branches to intertwine above the road, effectively blocking out many of the sun’s warm late June rays. It seemed more foreboding than anything else.
“We’re almost there kids! Just a couple of bends in the road, and we’ll see our new family fixer-upper home,” my mom suddenly said with excitement, although my older sister Haylee and I were completely ignoring her. We were both still very much angry at the thought of having been uprooted without justifiable cause from our old home. My friends and I had gotten together at my old school for a lengthy hangout, and skateboarded in the tennis court area for a while, before shaking hands and parting ways. I wish that I could be back with them, sipping soda outside the convenience store while munching on Doritos, and then skateboard around the neighborhood. Fun times.
I honestly didn’t care about what my parents desired. The only thing which I was interested in, was moving back to the east end and getting back together with my friends as quickly as was humanly possible, because I couldn’t see myself making any friends in my new neighborhood. Heck, what constituted for the neighborhood out here in the boonies?
Suddenly, the road became bumpy. Looking outside of both the windshield and my window, I could see that the road had transitioned from paved asphalt, to being a simple one lane gravel road. Just where were our parents taking us? It was bad enough that the trees were making it appear almost as if it were nighttime in the middle of the day, but now we were on a road that civilization had yet to seemingly reach towards and draw out of the dark ages.
We then turned into a driveway which was simply marked by a lone red reflector post, before driving deeper into the woods. After a few moments, we came around a bend and saw the house which my parents had proudly been hailing as our “new home”.
“Here we are kids,” my dad said as he parked the family car up in front of the house.
I looked at it, and the first words out of my mouth were simply “This thing?”
I should have paid closer attention when my parents had mentioned it being a “fixer-upper” I suppose, given that that basically translates to “free child labor to help rebuild something which should have been demolished centuries ago, in order to put the structure out of its misery.” The place looked like it hadn’t been touched by anyone in decades. Trees and brush were growing everywhere, save for the driveway, which I’m guessing is because my dad had probably arranged for someone to clear that area for him before our move-in date. In all likelihood, that was probably the only contractor he would hire for the entire project, because he hated spending money where he didn’t have to.
The house appeared to have been built in the early 20th Century, and was mostly wood siding, with a stone base. There was a front porch with two broken halves of a hanging porch bench, the kind you would see hanging by chains or by rope from the roof overhang, which reflected how rotten much of the wooden structure was at this point. Moss and mildew were visibly present on the dingy pale yellowish white walls of the house, as was some nice graffiti of an unmentionable sort. The front door was missing, and part of the roof at the front had caved in.
“Now I agree that it does need a little bit of work” my dad continued, “but it certainly is a nice summer project for the family, don’t you think, kids?”
There’s something you need to know before I continue with this story. Firstly, recall that my dad hates spending money where he doesn’t have to. And while it baffled my mind as to why they would have spent any money whatsoever on this dilapidated structure that they called a house, the bigger issue is that he decided that we as a family were going to spend the summer fixing this place up. This from the guy who took three years to renovate the main bathroom at our old home. Oh, he gutted the old bathroom fixtures in a single weekend, but he then became sidetracked with other weekend projects, such as painting the master bedroom, or changing a light fixture in the front hall; and so we were all stuck using the ensuite bathroom in the master bedroom for that entire period of time. It also should have been an earlier red flag to my sister Haylee and I, when our parents insisted that anything other than cell phones, clothes, and personal hygiene materials, all be placed into a mobile storage unit for a few months.
“Dad, you can’t be serious” my sister protested. “I don’t do manual labor.”
“Come on,” he replied. “It’ll be fun. Just think of how easy it will be. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?”
We hadn’t even gotten out of the car yet, and the house already had an answer to my dad’s question. Not even a second after finishing his question, he was interrupted by a loud crashing bang. Looking towards the house once more after flinching, we saw that more of the roof had caved in. An eerie silence entered the car, before my mom finally broke the silence.
“Well,” she said as she clasped her hands together in excitement. “Let’s get started then, shall we? We need to get an idea of what tools and lumber we’re going to need in order to start fixing the entry area, porch, and front hallway.”
“Question. Where are we going to sleep while the house is being “fixed-up”?” I asked, curious to see what my parents had planned. In hindsight however, I regretted almost immediately having asked that question.
“We’re going to get back in touch with nature,” Mom explained.
Uh oh. This wasn’t looking good. I dreaded what she was going to say next.
“Daniel, we’re going to be camping outside in the tent that we’ve brought with us. We’ll be in our sleeping bags, and then we’ll air the bags out during the day while working on the house. Of which we do have some electricity, but keep in mind that because the wiring is old, it is just going to be used sparingly at the moment for powering electrical tools. No TV, no cell phone charging, and no video games Daniel for the time being. Oh, and as for washing and toilet use, we have a camping shower and portable toilet on hand, of which Haylee, you can hook up the hose from the shower to the spigot on the side of the house. Thankfully, they’ve already turned the water supply back on for us.”
Haylee smacked her head on the back of dad’s seat in frustration at both the lack of communication, and having to use a camping shower.
“So how do you expect us to be able to chat with our friends? And more importantly, how do you expect me to shower using a camping shower? Those things are too small and narrow.” My sister was clearly becoming more frustrated by the minute as the realization of the hell with which she and I had been introduced to, was dawning upon her mind.
“Oh, don’t worry. Your dad can take the phones with him to his work and charge them there during the day, and then bring them home with him at night. And should there be any signal issues here, the phones can transmit those messages while he’s at work for you, thus killing two birds with one stone. So it’s all good. We’ve thought of everything to help keep you two both connected to your old friends. Isn’t that wonderful news?”
Haylee groaned in frustration. "This is the worst," she moaned in disapproval. This was clearly not going to be getting either of us anywhere with the logical arguments which we were bringing up in protest. “And how are we going to store and cook food?” she added in an annoyed voice. Haylee was now living in denial that this was even happening to her, as well as the fact that she suddenly realized that there wasn’t any food in the car save for the contents of a small cooler which had been placed in the back of the station wagon.
“We have a large and spacious ice box by the side of the house. Indeed, I’ve got several bags of ice in the cooler back there, as well as some pork chops for dinner tonight. We also have a fire pit behind the house. So Daniel, you and your father will also have to chop some wood for the fire so that we can cook tonight.”
For me, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “Oh come on!” I complained. “I can’t do that! I don’t know the first thing about building a campfire or what wood to use.”
“Of course you can! Just look for any dead branches and let your father know. If they need trimming, or need to be cut down from a tree, he’ll use the chainsaw that he’s going to be picking up at the hardware store in a short while. Like we both said, this is a fixer-upper that you are both going to need to help us to finish as a family.”
Dad then opened his door. “Alright then, let’s get going. The sooner that we all get started, the sooner we will be done with today’s tasks. And the sooner that I can start making notes.”
“Making notes?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just focus yourself on what we need to do to help restore this house to its former glory. I mean, look at it! Don’t you want to see a house which is older than any of us, be restored to look like it did when it was first built? It’s just crying out for us to help it return to its former glory.”
“More like it’s crying out to be put out of its misery with some gasoline and a match,” I muttered.
To be fair, I’m sure that the house at one point did look fantastic, as it had two floors plus the attic, and by the looks of it from a windowless gap in the foundation, a basement as well. And yet, even as I got out of the car begrudgingly, something about the house, even simply beyond its physical condition, was putting me off. I couldn’t really explain it. It was just a funny feeling in my gut, as if someone, or something, didn’t want us there.
While Dad and Mom began unpacking the cases and cooler from the back of the car, Haylee and I continued to gauge the house and look over it as if trying to make sense of everything.
“Apart from the obvious, what do you think” Haylee asked me calmly.
“You mean apart from thinking this place should be torn down? I dunno. It just feels weird, I guess.”
She looked at me with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean?”
“It just feels like we shouldn’t be here. Like, something wants to keep us away.”
After a brief pause, Haylee burst out in laughter.
“What is it” Dad asked.
“Daniel thinks that there are ghosts in the house. That we’ve moved into a haunted house.” She said this in her best spookily sarcastic voice.
“Shut up!” I replied, before crossing my arms over my chest.
“Oh, don’t worry." He then smiled before patting me on the shoulder. "Son, there are no ghosts that I’m aware of inside of this house.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I replied.
“Anyway, I need the two of you to take the cooler over to the ice box which is over on the left side of the house, and start unloading the bags of ice into the upper compartment. Once you’ve finished that, put the pork chops in the lower compartment and ensure that both doors are fully sealed shut. And don’t try to use the ice box for hide and seek or such things. It’s an old locking mechanism on the door which if you close it when inside, you’ll be trapped in an airless compartment.”
With a sigh, Haylee and I then carried the cooler between us over to the ice box. “So, do you still think that there’s something here that wants us out?” she asked while we walked.
“Just drop it, will you?” I asked, not wanting to be ridiculed for a second time by her today. “And I don’t mean the cooler. Damn, this thing is heavy.”
As we finally reached the ice box, which resembled a small fridge and freezer of olden days, we set the cooler down before Haylee reached out and unlatched the upper compartment, swinging it open to expose an empty unit. As for me, I was swinging my arms to try and restart blood circulation and get some feeling back into my arms.
“Right, so we just put the ice in here” she said, as she opened the lid of the cooler.
It was almost entirely filled with bags of ice which mom had purchased from a store before we left. No wonder it was so damn heavy. Haylee took hold of the first bag of ice, and put it into the compartment. It then fell down below the lip and settled into place. “One down, five to go.”
After the rest of the bags had been put into the upper compartment, Haylee closed it, hearing it latch shut, before turning her attention to the lower compartment. As she opened it, we noticed several webs and dead spiders inside the compartment.
“Just my luck,” she groaned before wiping out all of the webbing and dead carcasses. We then proceeded to place the pork chops gingerly down upon the top rack, feeling some cool air already as the ice began to cool the air within the lower compartment. After closing the door to the ice box compartment, Haylee closed the lid of the cooler.
“Let’s head back then and see what else they want,” she said as she reached down with one arm to take hold of a handle on the cooler.
Grabbing the other handle myself, we lifted the cooler between us, relieved that it now was much lighter than it previously had been.
We then returned to the car with the now empty cooler, and set it down before mom called us over to the porch. Making our way over, I was about to step on the bottom-most step, before Dad cried out to me.
“Careful!” he said. “That bottom step is rotten. So step carefully onto the next step up.”
I looked at my dad, then to my mom, and finally to Haylee, before shrugging my shoulders. Very gently, I raised my leg even higher and rested it down on the second step. Putting my weight down upon it, I then lifted myself up, before then stepping on the third step, and finally up and onto the porch.
“Welcome to the porch,” Dad said as he made a note of some of the tools and supplies which he was going to need purchase from the hardware store to start this project. “So, we’re going to need to get pliers, hammers, crowbars, a few power saws of various sorts, nails, screws, screwdrivers, a drill and various-sized bits, outdoor paint, paint brushes, sander, sandpaper, wood stain, tape measures, half inch chain links, plywood, various plank sizes, electric chainsaw, workers gloves, mold and mildew remover, putty knives, and carpenters glue.” He then glanced over at me.
“Daniel, you’re coming with me for this supply run.”
“Whatever” I replied, not really interested. But at least I would be getting some time away from this decrepit house.
“While you’re both away, Haylee and I will work on removing some of the old items from the porch area,” Mom added.
“Sounds like a plan,” Dad replied, before patting me on the shoulder. “Come along Daniel. Let’s get going and start our adventure to the hardware store.”
He was completely enthusiastic, but I was not, as evident by my rather simple and shrugged reply of “Meh.”
Carefully stepping down, we made our way back to the station wagon, with yours truly getting into the front passenger seat, before we proceeded to head out towards the main road. We then turned left and began the somewhat long journey towards the hardware store.
“Well son, now that the ladies are out of the way, what do you honestly think about the house right now?”
His question took me by surprise, but I guess he was just trying to make small talk during the drive.
“To be honest, I still am confused as to why you two decided to buy this house, when it needs so much work done to it. And why did you two decide suddenly to up and drag Haylee and I over to this place from where we were comfortable?”
These were perfectly valid questions to be asked, and I felt that I truly deserved an honest answer.
“Well, the best way to explain it is that your mother and I have a secret. I can’t share it with you right now son, but rest assured, when the time is right, you will find out about it.”
His answer left me with more questions and confusion than what I had started out with.
“Uh, Dad? Are you feeling alright?”
“It’s perfectly simple. You see, when a man and a woman love each other, the man is quite willing to do whatever the woman asks of him.”
He really was making no sense to me at all by this point.
“You’re losing me here Dad. I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Good talk, son” he replied, before giving me a thumbs up.
“Okay… Dad.” I was getting weirded out by this conversation, and a part of me was glad that it was being left there for now.
After about 35 minutes, we arrived at the entrance to the hardware store Beaver Lumber. An odd name for a hardware store, I’ll admit, but it was a bonus that it included a drive-in lumber yard to stock up on the much needed lumber for our...project.
We went inside first to pick up various tools and other materials, of which we struggled with two full carts to wheel it all back to the car. We then dropped the center seats and loaded the materials in, before we got ourselves back inside the car. Dad drove into the drive-in lumber yard section and began pulling a few sheets of plywood which he laid upon the car’s pre-installed roof rack. We then struggled, but somehow managed to load up the roof with a few hundred pounds of lumber, which we tied down with twine.
Heading for the exit, the attendant looked over what we had loaded and tallied it up, before giving Dad the total.
“Alright, your total today is $8, 185.32” the attendant said, before my dad reached out of the window and handed him his credit card. “I’ll be back in a moment with your receipt,” the man said as he walked over to a nearby bench with a computer on it.
While waiting for the attendant to return with Dad’s receipt, he once again struck up a conversation. Thankfully this time however, it wasn’t an awkward or nonsensical one.
“So Daniel, what do you say we go and take a look at the school you will be transferring to in September, on the way home, as well as grab a bite to eat without telling mom or your sister?”
“Sure. That sounds good.” As long as I could keep my mouth shut around Haylee and mom with regards to something like this, we were good to go.
We stopped at a local burger joint named Harvey’s and went inside. It turns out that it’s similar to those sub shops in that once you order the burger, they prepare the burger with toppings in front of you so you can dictate how much or little you want of any given topping. When our order was complete, they wrapped the burgers up for both of us, and bagged them, before the two of us sat down to eat. Dad was keeping an eye on the load atop our station wagon of course, both to ensure that no one tried to steal any of the lumber we’d just purchased, as well as to ensure that the load remained stable and hadn’t shifted during the short drive from the store.
As we ate, dad took out a pen and grabbed a napkin from the dispenser at bar where we were sat looking out, before he began doing an extremely rough sketch of the new house. He then circled the area of the porch.
“Alright, so we will start pulling up the old wood and then take a look at the support frame underneath. I want to get an idea of how that wood is doing, in case we need to replace any of that as well. I’m going to need your help on this, Daniel. Now, as you know, I will be at work during the week and will only be able to help you, mom, and Haylee out with work on the weekends. I need to know that I can trust you to help out and not slow your Mom down while I’m away at work during the week.”
I looked up into my Dad’s eyes, and saw a look of concern and compassion, as if in a way, he could understand the issues which Haylee and I were both experiencing and handling in our own unique ways.
“Dad, all I want to know, is why. Why did you two decide to buy something that we can’t even live in yet? Heck, I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to live in it, because I doubt we’ll get done before the winter time with just the bare minimum that we would need to do to be able to live in there. I can clear the brush and trees around the house from what I’ve already seen, no problem, although I’ve yet to see what the other two sides of the house have in store for us, let alone the inside of that house.”
As we continued to talk, an older man, probably in his 70s, sat down one chair over from Dad, and began eating his own meal. At first, I really didn’t even notice him, and nor did my Dad for that matter.
“The house was a practical steal of an asking price, son. The owner was practically giving it away. $20, 000 for a nice house like that, and in the woods. I mean sure, it’s the only house on Harwood-”
My Dad was interrupted as the older man began coughing on the drink that he was sipping. After he had coughed a few times rather vocally, my dad turned to see if he was alright.
“Are you alright, sir?”
“Young man, did you say that you had bought the old Farmington house on Harwood?”
“Yes. I take it you have heard of the place.”
The man looked at both my dad and I with a grave look of concern.
“You had best be careful. That house has a past which is darker than you may want to hear. It was empty for a long time for a reason. Every family who moved into that house from the time it was built, would suffer a tragedy within 1 year of moving in. Not a single family has ever been fortunate enough to escape that. If I were you, I would leave the house alone and find somewhere else, before it’s too late.”
Well, the old man’s statement was certainly awkward, if not incredibly creepy. My mouth began to drop open in shock and awe, while my Dad simply cleared his throat.
“I’m sure that’s just a local legend to scare people off, but I thank you for your concern.”
It was clear that my dad was trying to brush this man off as a crazy lunatic, but that his attempts weren’t working.
“Do you mean, mister, that people have died in that house” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“At least one person from each family. But if your father doesn’t believe me, he’s welcome to check the archives over in the local library.”
My Dad was clearly not impressed, and decided to end our outing right then and there.
“Come along, Daniel. Let’s get back to the house now.”
“But what about the school” I asked. Not that I was really interested in seeing the school right now, however I was honestly in no hurry to return to that-for lack of a better word-‘House.’
“Not today. We’ve got far too much to do, I’m afraid,” was his reply, before proceeding to usher me quickly out of my seat and out of the restaurant, hurrying to the car, where he pulled us out of our parking spot as soon as we were both seated and the engine had started.
Making our way home, Dad took a deep breath and sighed. “I want you to promise me, Daniel, that you won’t tell mom or Haylee about the fact that we stopped to get a bite to eat, but also that we had had the run-in with that strange man. And don’t tell Haylee about the history of the house.”
“Wait! You mean, those things really did happen?”
There was a brief pause, before my Dad again let out a deep sigh. “Yes, it’s true. Those things have happened in the past. But it doesn’t mean that we are going to suffer such a fate. After all, there has to be a logical explanation for all of the previous disasters in that house from long ago. It can’t have been paranormal in nature.”
He was clearly shaken in his voice as he told me all of this in confidence. Great, now I was stuck with a secret which Dad expected me to keep to myself.
As we got back onto the main road, my Dad breathed a heavy sigh of what seemed to be relief. This was going to be a long, fun evening, I could just tell.
