by Brett McKay
“I do need to brush up on my bike tricks,” Gary said.
“Exactly! That’s what we need to do! We can put on a show and charge people money to watch it.”
Finally looking interested, Jax said, “How much should we charge?”
“Like a buck or something.”
“We can make some money.” Gary got excited.
“I’ll make a sign,” I said.
We rode to the Moguls and practiced for our show. The jump at the bottom of the second hill, which was a smaller version of Dead Man’s Hill, gave us the most air and the opportunity for a good trick.
We stepped out into the neighborhood where the streets crossed and held up our sign. It read Bike Show 2:00 pm $1. Three cars passed by in twenty minutes, and even with our hollering and spastic gestures, we couldn’t get anyone to look our way, let alone stop for the show. An hour later, and in our moment of despair, Devin and two of his friends showed up.
“Devin!”
We practically attacked him.
“You gotta come see our show!” I said.
“Yeah, it’s about to start!” Gary said.
“What show?” he asked.
“We’re doing a show. It’s pretty cool. You get to see all of our stunts and tricks for a dollar.”
“A dollar?” he exclaimed. “I don’t have a dollar.”
“Fifty cents then,” Gary said.
“I don’t have that, either. Come on.” He nodded to his friends, who started to turn away and ride in the other direction.
“Wait!” I stopped them. “How much do you have?”
“A quarter. Maybe.”
“Okay. A quarter then. This time,” Gary said.
“I’m not going to waste my quarter on that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Devin. You’re missing the best show.”
We didn’t win him over.
“Okay...” I dug deep for my last-ditch effort. “You can come see our show for free. Just this first one.”
“Yeah, it’ll be our practice show,” Gary said.
Devin still wasn’t excited, but after much nagging, we got him and his friends to watch our pitiful show.
Jax went first. He started at the far end of the Moguls and bounced up and down in the distance as he hit each bump and hill, wailing like a madman. Then he crested the final hill and soared down it. He jumped and landed with a lackluster finish, to a bored audience.
Gary went next, with the same results. Then it was my turn. I had to impress them and finish the show strong. I bounced through the Moguls like the rest of them had, feeling powerful like Evel Knievel, then I came to the last hill.
“This is it!” I announced. “The moment you’ve all been waiting for!”
Devin yawned.
I drove my bike down the hill and hit the jump. High in the air, I lifted one hand and twisted my bike for show, but I had hit the jump at the wrong angle. The twist sent me and my bike in the wrong direction. When I came down, I saw nothing but brown wooden planks. My bike hit the fence, and I tumbled over the handlebars.
As I got up and dusted myself off, I heard Devin and his friends cackling with unsuppressed laughter.
“You were right!” Devin giggled. “That was the moment I was waiting for!”
“Well, I aim to please one way or another,” I said sheepishly and picked up my bike. Fortunately, my bike wasn’t damaged.
“What’s going on?” A different voice, deeper, spoke out, and I turned. Matt Griffin and his friend, Wes, approached. They were two years older than us and, therefore, much cooler.
“Hey, Matt,” I said, walking over to them. They weren’t on bikes. Too cool for that. “We were just putting on a show.”
Devin and his friends started to ride away, and Jax and Gary chased after them.
“Hey what about our money?” Jax hollered. “That was at least worth a quarter!”
“I heard about your gang.” Matt gave me a sly grin.
“Yeah, we’re pretty tough, all right.”
“The sheriff really came to your house?” Wes asked.
“Yes.” My face went red. “He told me not to run the gang anymore.”
They both laughed.
“Oh my hell! First, a gang, and then this?” Matt gestured to the Moguls. “A circus show?”
“It’s not a circus show.” Jax walked over, coming to my defense. “We’re doing bike tricks and stunts. Dangerous ones.”
“Dangerous,” Wes mocked. “What did you do? Hit your nose?”
“Huh?” Jax asked, perplexed.
“Why do you sound like that?” Wes pinched his nostrils, causing his next words to come out nasally. “Like your nose is plugged up.”
“Shut up,” Jax mumbled.
I should have defended Jax. They were mean and rude. But they were older kids, and I didn’t want to start anything.
Matt was a semi friend of mine. When I’d first moved to Riverton, Matt and I had hung out together for a while, and sometimes, I’d hung out with both Matt and Wes. But there was enough of an age difference that Matt and Wes had grown tired of me and left me behind to pursue different interests.
I always had the underlying feeling that if Jax and I weren’t friends, things would be different. Wes and Matt didn’t like Jax, and they made no effort to hide that fact. They made fun of him, and because I was with him, I wasn’t included anymore.
“You guys are pretty pathetic,” Matt said.
“You guys are.” Jax had balls.
“We are?” Wes puffed his chest out in attack mode. “You calling us pussies?” Wes stepped within inches of Jax’s face, his fists clenched.
“No, no one’s saying that.” Gary stepped in. “Right, Jax?”
Jax, clearly frightened, nodded. “Yeah, I’m not saying that.”
“Easy, Wes,” Matt said, trying to cool him down.
“You guys are the pussies!” Wes said as he backed away from Jax.
“Hey!” I said but added nothing more.
“Wes is right.” Matt nodded. Mischief stirred in his eyes. “I don’t know if there’s anything these guys can do to keep from being pussies.”
“No. They were born that way,” Wes concluded.
“Bullshit!” Jax said.
“Oooh, such a big boy because he can swear.” Wes gestured with his hands, pretending they were shaking with fear.
“No. Maybe there is something they can do...” Matt said.
“What?” Gary asked, sounding afraid of the answer.
“No, it’s too dangerous, and these guys would never do that.”
Matt had put out the bait, and we snapped on it like hungry trout.
“What? What’s too dangerous?” I asked.
“Nothing’s too dangerous for us!” Jax said.
“Well...” Gary didn’t seem so sure.
“We’ve done it, and our older brothers did it.” Matt hooked a thumb at Wes. “But, it’s so scary, I’m not sure you guys are up for it.” He gave Wes a crazy look. “No, no, you are too young. You should at least be fourteen before doing something like this.”
“Just spit it out,” I said.
“The Crooked House.” Matt put out the words that silenced the air.
Even Wes shut up. We stared at each other in awkward silence, waiting for Matt to elaborate.
“You gotta spend one night in that house.”
Wes laughed way too loudly for something that clearly was not funny.
“In that house? Why?” I asked.
“You don’t want to stay pussies, do ya?” Matt said.
“Yeah, but on the second floor,” Wes added. “No sleeping by the front door so you can run out like little babies.”
“You’re cra—” Jax said, but I cut him off.
“Okay. One night. You’re on.” I turned to my gang. “Nothing to it.”
JAX AND GARY WERE PISSED at me. They didn’t say it, but they didn’t have to. We left the area silently and slowly. Heat rose in my face and
arms from too much sun exposure. I hadn’t put on sunblock, and I was going to look like a lobster the next day. So were my friends. I saw it shade their faces.
We couldn’t back out now. I’d made a promise. I put it out there, so we had witnesses, and if we chickened out, the whole neighborhood would know about it.
I told my parents I was sleeping over at Jax’s, and both Jax and Gary told their parents they were sleeping at mine. Nothing would go wrong unless our parents called to check on us, then the jig would be up. I had a backup story just in case. I would play stupid and say we changed our minds at the last minute and stayed at someone else’s house, along with “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d have a problem with that.”
It wouldn’t keep us from getting into trouble, but getting caught sleeping in the creepy, abandoned house on Beck Street would be a ton worse.
It wasn’t just the kids who feared the house; the parents were scared of it too. They never talked about it. One time over dinner, I’d asked my parents what they knew about the house and its history. They’d glanced at each other with a look of hidden truth but didn’t want to share it. They wanted to protect their children, so they’d answered, “We don’t know anything about that house other than it’s a money pit. Once it started to sink, the people moved out. That’s all.”
The house stood before us at the end of Beck Street, tall, brooding, and alone. The structure was narrow, but the sharp gable and extended roof beyond it gave it the illusion of being taller than it was, and the roof was barely holding on to the last few shingles.
Over the years, weather had warped the wooden planks of the exterior, and what little paint was left had turned pale. The rest of the house was gray, except for the south side, which had been scorched black by flames. How the structure had survived a fire, no one would ever know—and that only fueled the ghost stories saying that evil intervention had saved the home.
A brick chimney, also scorched black, scaled the entire height of the house on the south side. The covered porch stretched halfway across the house, covering the front door and then some. The decorative carvings in the railing and the surrounding columns were unique, and like the rest of the home, at one point, the woodwork had been beautiful and exemplified wealth. Since then, it had deflated, darkened by neglect and a violent past, stuck in the middle of weeds.
The walnut tree stood nearly forty feet tall, its trunk nearly as thick as two men. The leafless branches seemed to claw at the house and anyone who got near it. The bark was riddled with damage from long winters, hot summers, borers, and carpenter ants that had killed the tree off from the inside. Many branches were broken, and the tree’s lost arms were scattered across the ground.
Nothing in the vicinity of this house was alive, and even more perplexingly, the weeds, although tall and overbearing, were also dead. Weeds were the devil’s garden. Nothing stopped them from growing, and normally, when they died, strong winds blew them away. Not the weeds around the Crooked House, though. Not a single one was green; the devil wouldn’t allow anything green near the house, including weeds. Although yellow and dead, they stood strong like hay stocks and outlasted strong winds and punishing weather.
We sat on our bikes several feet from the house, pillows and sleeping bags scrunched under our arms.
“Are you sure about this?” Gary asked me.
I heard the fear crack his voice and knew I had to reassure him. “It’s nothing. Really. It’s all just ghost stories to scare kids. And we’re not kids, are we?”
“Hell no,” Jax said defiantly.
“We’re sorta kids,” Gary said. “Not even teens yet.”
“Then it’s time we become men.” Though it was corny, the line boosted my courage, and I hoped it did the same for them. “Let’s pretend it’s just an ordinary house. We’ll tell jokes, talk about the girls we like, things to do this summer. The key is to keep talking. Did you guys bring some snacks?”
“I brought some licorice,” Gary said.
“Perfect. I brought a bag of nuts and a couple of sodas.”
I pedaled my bike toward the house, and the others followed. The sun slid down the sky toward its hiding place for the night, its bleeding colors painting the clouds. We needed to settle into the house before the sun was gone. That would make the transition easier, or so I thought.
“I like that new girl, Suzy. She’s the one in Mrs. Benson’s class,” Jax said.
“There ya go,” I said, pushing as much cheerfulness into my voice as I could. “She’s pretty cute.”
“Not my type,” Gary chimed in. “She’s a little too tall. I like Chloe.”
“Chloe’s the one with the really long hair? She’s cute too. She’s quiet, but she’s pretty.”
“Who do you like?” Jax asked me.
I didn’t have a girl picked out, but I felt like I needed to say someone’s name since they both had.
“Sammy. The blonde in Mrs. Jenson’s class.”
We made it to the house, dismounted our steeds, and parked them. Without thought, I walked up the creaking steps to the porch. Immediately, the porch tilted to the south.
The door stood open slightly. Was it open before? My mind played tricks on me. Did the house open its mouth to let us in? Wary of opening the door, I pushed it open all the way, like ripping off a Band-Aid.
My friends tensed up behind me. The air inside was thick with dust, and the sunset struck the windows on the west to illuminate the floating dust particles. The musty odor wafted over me, like the smell of an old shirt that I hadn’t worn in years and just pulled from the bottom of the dresser drawer.
I stepped inside. The wooden planks beneath my feet creaked, warped from age and moisture. To my right was the parlor, with fancy old furniture, a couple of lamps, and a desk. They were all gray with dust and cobwebs, but some of the red on the velvet couch showed through.
An archway on my left led into the living room with a fireplace, a couch, two chairs, and two more lamps. The others followed me through the room, stepping around the furniture. My legs and hands trembled, and I tried to force away my anxiety. The fireplace was ornate, from another age, like a living creature staring back at me, ready to pounce. I gave it a wide berth as I continued on through the archway, which led to the dining room. It consisted of the usual stuff: a long table, chairs and a heavy, lavish china cabinet. No dust covers. Nothing out of place. Everything was where it should be, ready to welcome new guests.
My stomach churned. I turned to the other guys, whose faces were white. They both looked sick.
“Let’s not do this,” Jax said. The strong-talking warrior had gone weak. “I don’t have a good feeling.”
“Me, either,” Gary said.
The warped wooden floors let out a screech, causing us all to jump. Gary and Jax scuttled to the front door.
I ran after them and stopped them on the front porch. “Hey, we can’t quit now.”
Jax looked at the ground shamefully. Gary turned to look past me and cocked his head quizzically.
“What’s that?” Gary asked. I turned to follow his gaze, and Matt Griffin’s house caught my eye. The front porch had a perfect view of the houses that lined the border of the field. The raised porch on the back of Matt’s house gave it a direct line of sight into the abandoned hell hole we stood in. I knew Matt’s family owned a pair of binoculars because he’d brought them on campouts with the Boy Scouts before, and I suspected Matt and Wes would be spying on us. I saw a glint of light, and I knew it had to be them, standing on the porch, watching us.
“Shit.” I pointed to Matt’s house. “They’re watching us.”
“Bastards,” Jax said.
“They’re gonna watch us all night,” I said.
“Well... maybe that’s good,” Gary said, and we turned to him.
“Good? What do you mean good?”
“I mean,” Gary said, “if anything happens to us, then they’ll know. They’ll tell our parents or the cops or something to help us.” He shrugg
ed. “Maybe the ghosts won’t come out ’cause those guys are watchin’.”
His logic didn’t make sense, but we were desperate enough to cling on to any hope, no matter how ridiculous.
Jax turned in the direction of Matt’s house and flipped the bird.
“What’re you doing?” Gary asked.
Jax shrugged. “Just in case.”
“What if they decide to come kick the crap out of us now?”
“I dare ’em to.”
WE JOURNEYED FARTHER into the dark domain. We took it slow, inspecting every square inch of the place—except for the basement. There were limits to our bravery.
The staircase was in the foyer, set into the wall of the front room. In usual Victorian-mansion style, there were fourteen steps, narrow and steep. At the top was a large landing that branched off into short halls to the left and right. They led to the bedrooms. We took the right hall first. The walls were lined with faded patches where pictures used to hang, and the wallpaper peeled back like skin after a sunburn.
Graffiti in red and black paint, most of which were crude images, marked up the walls, and kids had written curse words and phone numbers in permanent markers. The bedroom walls were faded and dingy, outlined with years of soot and dark grime, and holes and cracks revealed the house’s wooden frame.
The floors groaned when we walked, and because of its sinking foundation, the house tipped to the south. My head and stomach spun with sickness after a while, but I couldn’t be sure if my equilibrium was off or if the anxious terror of what might appear behind the next corner was causing my nausea.
We returned to the landing and took the left hall, which led to the bedroom that faced our neighborhood. We felt safer if every now and again, we could look out the window and know that Matt and Wes were watching us. None of us would ever tell them that in a million years.
“A million and one, maybe.” Gary chuckled.
We all laughed, and I felt the mood lighten.
The hardwood floor was covered in small rocks, dirt, and broken glass. A broom, dusty and filthy but clearly purchased recently, leaned against the wall, and the swirled traces in the dirt on the floor made it clear other kids had brought the broom to clear space to sit or camp. There were also numerous cigarette butts, squashed soda pop cans, beer cans, and candy wrappers. It was sad to see people had left such a mess without care, but on the other hand, it gave me solace to know people had been there before and survived.
