by Sam Best
Proving its existence was made all the more difficult by the fact that it had the power to vanish at will; not just from sight, but from the house entirely.
Tommy’s family owned a large two-story house on Cedar Street. Cedar was the only major residential road in Falling Rock and started at Main Street almost directly in the middle. It wound up toward the peak of Mt. Hodges and was dotted with homes along the way. There was a flat stretch of road halfway between Main Street and the peak, about half a mile long, lined with the majority of homes in Falling Rock. Tommy’s house was at the end, right before a sharp bend in the road and a steep incline that led to the peak. Only two other houses were farther than Tommy’s from Main Street, and they belonged to rich people who only visited the small mountain town one month out of the year.
He was unsure where the monster went whenever it wasn’t hiding under his bed, but Tommy suspected it ran off into the woods near his house. He pulled back the curtain once again to look outside.
Night.
The sun had disappeared entirely and its last ambient light was extinguished. A dull orange street light stood vigil next to Tommy’s house, its dim glow barely illuminating the sharp bend in the road. It also revealed the entrance to an unused hiking trail that started at the edge of the trees next to the bend and disappeared into the dense woods surrounding the peak of Mt. Hodges.
Thick bushes overgrew the entrance and almost completely shrouded its existence. Tommy only knew about it because he was an explorer. He liked to take long walks by himself and discover new places, imagining that he was the first person ever to see that particular clearing, stream, or tree. He had at least a dozen forts scattered throughout the woods near his home. The old hiking trail had been one of his most exciting discoveries of all time.
The entrance to the path was mostly covered by thick branches, and if you were driving by in a hurry you would miss it completely. Pushing aside one of those branches, however, revealed a thin trace of path which must have seen a lot of use back in its day. When Tommy first found the trail, any sign it had once been a walking path was all but gone—only a faint hint of bare gravel on the ground every few feet suggested it had been there at all. His parents smiled and blushed at one another when he told them about it, clearly hiding some secret they thought he was too young to hear. If it was about what his parents did when they were alone, they could keep their dumb secret.
His father told him not to go down the path all the same, saying that it was dangerous and that going off into the woods alone was cruisin’ for a bruisin’. Tommy listened—mostly. One of his favorite forts was only a hundred feet down the trail and about twenty feet off the path. It was all grown over with berry vines and needed practically no clearing-out when he stumbled upon the location.
As he looked out his window that night at the entrance to the path, nothing had ever seemed more scary to little Tommy Bridges.
A wind blew through the trees. It slowly rocked the big branches covering the trail back and forth—but it was too quiet. Tommy strained to hear the sound of the leaves but could not. The orange glow from the street light fell heavily on the path’s entrance and went no farther into the night. The next light was five houses down, toward Falling Rock, its own weak glow barely reaching the ground.
Tommy watched as the wind slowed to a stop and died. The branches hung motionless in the dim light at the end of his street and his mind showed him a hundred terrible images. He saw the monster, covered in jellied slime, emerge from the woods. It looked like a cross between a skinned dog and soft-shelled turtle. It opened its jaws to reveal rows upon rows of serrated teeth. The screech that escaped its lips froze Tommy to the bone.
The monster looked right at him and smiled.
His mother was shaking him awake.
“Tommy!”
His eyes bolted open and he sat upright, gasping for air. He shoved aside the curtains near his bed and looked at the entrance to the path. Soft wind moved the branches; the monster was not there.
His mother touched his arm and he jumped in surprise.
“You had a nightmare,” she said calmly. “It’s okay.”
He nodded and sank back down into the blankets. She pulled his bright red comforter up under his chin and kissed him on the forehead. “Get some sleep.”
She stepped out of his room, but before she could turn out the hallway light, Tommy sat up.
“Mom!” She turned back quickly, then smiled. He waited while she walked over and knelt down next to his bed. She lifted the edge of the comforter from the floor and peered into the toy-cluttered space below his mattress.
“Hmm,” she said. “Nope. All clear. You get some sleep, okay?” She winked at him and left his room, making sure the door was only half-closed behind her.
Tommy hesitantly laid down, drawing the blankets over his head for protection. He knew the monster would be back as soon as his parents fell asleep. He would just have to stay awake all night to make sure it didn’t get him. As long as he was awake, he was safe. There was always the long drive to his grandparents’ house in a couple of days; plenty of time to rest in the car. If he could stay alive long enough to leave Falling Rock, maybe the thing under his bed wouldn’t follow him to a different city.
He pulled himself into a ball and waited for morning, certain beyond doubt that he could already hear the slow, deep breathing of a monster.
7
The house that Ben’s father built had two bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs, all accessible by doors off the main hallway which ran the entire length of the second floor. The ground level of the large home had the most square footage, and much of that was taken up by several large, open rooms, the first of which was visible the moment one stepped through the front door.
A spacious sitting area greeted all visitors. Its ceiling extended upward, unimpeded, past the second floor to the vaulted roof above. Two overstuffed couches and a large recliner—Ben’s favorite as a child—were carefully arranged to receive maximum benefit from the large stone fireplace built into the wall to the left of the main entrance. An ancient double-barrel shotgun rested across two wooden pegs punched into the wall above the fireplace. Ben’s father had used it to scare away the wolves every winter. Several rocking chairs and an end-table filled the empty spaces of the room and completed the impression that the area was larger than most homes altogether; “The benefit of building your own house,” Ben’s father said on many occasions.
A set of loud, wooden stairs that led up to the second floor started ten feet inside of the front door. The stairs divided the bottom floor of the house between the kitchen on the right and a hallway that was lined with doors for a bathroom and storage closet on the left. Underneath the staircase on the kitchen’s side was a door which led down a shorter, narrower staircase. The basement in the Howard home was small and had been used primarily for food storage over the years; Ben’s mother was fond of jams and would turn any fruit she got hold of into one of a wide varieties of preserves.
Taking a right just inside the front door and walking past the stairway and sitting room brought one to the kitchen. Above the island in the center, rows of pots and pans dangled from metal hooks next to a magnetic strip lined with old knives. All four sides of the island were lined with cabinets. A door next to the end of the long counter that was pressed against the back wall opened on the overgrown backyard and set one onto the hazardous wraparound porch.
Over the large sink in the back counter was a single-paned window that looked out to the backyard. Sparse weeds covered the ground—which had once been a small garden—for twenty feet before meeting taller grass. The tall grass led to a dense treeline which flanked the back of the house and represented the visual end of the thickest part of the valley forest.
Continuing inside the house and walking past the back door and out of the kitchen led one to the Howards’ dining room. Within that room, the wall bordering the outside of the house was almost completely filled by a large, single pa
ne of glass. It looked out over the side of the yard and at the small tool shed by the edge of the forest. The shed was under constant threat of being swallowed into the woods.
The centerpiece of the warm dining space was a large oak table and its eight accompanying high-backed chairs, all handmade by Ben’s grandfather. A chandelier containing two dozen candle holders hung low from the ceiling and, when fully lit, cast a comforting glow on its surroundings. The warmth of a thousand family meals clung to the walls like a thick coating of invisible paint and worked to inexplicably soften the hard edges of anyone who spent more than five minutes in the room.
The house, on the morning after Ben and Annabelle’s arrival, was quiet. Another benefit of building one’s own house is the choosing of its location, a choice Ben’s father never once regretted. There were plenty of cheaper lots closer to town available when the time came for him to buy land. He was a quiet man, though, and preferred the serenity of nature to the bustle of what he thought would one day be a busy little city. He also had it on good authority that the city council was close to passing a law which stated that no civilian residences, besides the one already attached to the church, were allowed to be built for the next hundred years.
It took some convincing, but once his wife acquiesced, Ben’s father set about building the last house in the valley.
* * *
Annabelle was awakened by the warmth of a bright ray of sunlight as it slowly moved across her face.
She opened her eyes and pushed aside a tangle of blonde hair so she could look out the window. Her daddy was still asleep, rolled into his sleeping bag on the bed beside her and snoring softly. She was so excited that she wanted to wake him immediately, but also knew he was tired from driving them all the way across the country.
Anna thought about it hard, her small forehead wrinkling with the exertion of concentration. She decided to let her daddy sleep for a little while longer and as slowly and carefully as a four-year-old could manage, crawled out of her sleeping bag and plopped to the floor. She tiptoed out of the room and closed the door behind her.
The first thing she did was peek inside the big room at the end of the hallway. She already knew where the bathroom was because she had to use it in the middle of the night, but she had been waiting forever to explore her big new house.
Most kids would have been super mad to leave their home and move someplace they had never heard of, but not her. She could make friends anywhere. Being in her old house made her think of her Mommy, which always made her cry. Annabelle hated crying; she never saw her daddy cry so she never wanted to cry. But she was only almost five-years-old! Sometimes she couldn’t help it.
She opened the door to the big room at the end of the hallway and walked inside. A bright shaft of dusty sunlight cut through the room over the large bed. The door kept swinging after she let go of the handle and banged against the wall. Annabelle cringed and turned back to look down the hallway. After she heard her daddy roll over in his sleeping bag, he coughed and went right back to snoring.
Next to the bed was a small two-drawer dresser, on top of which rested a faded black-and-white photograph. Annabelle walked softly over to the dresser and folded her arms on the top to peer at the picture, resting her chin on her arms. A dark-haired couple sat posing in a studio. They wore old-looking clothes and were barely smiling.
Annabelle always smiled for pictures. Daddy said she was naturally photogenicist or something, just like her Mommy.
In the photo, the woman balanced a young child on her knees. He was definitely younger than Annabelle, practically a baby, but she thought she could see some resemblance to her daddy. Could those be his parents, Ma-Ma and Pa-Pa, who she supposedly met when she was little but could not remember? She reached forward and swiped a line of dust from the glass over the child’s face with the tip of her finger. If she turned her head just right, she was sure it was a picture of her daddy.
Annabelle heard a loud rustling in the grass outside. The only window in the room was over the bed, so she put the picture down and hoisted herself up onto the creaking mattress. Each step she took toward the window sent up a cloud of dust particles which spun through the shaft of light and dimmed the room momentarily. She figured out a good way to walk quietly on the loud mattress was to step down on the outside edges of her feet and roll them inward. It felt a little funny but she didn’t want to wake her daddy.
She had to stand up on her tiptoes to peer out of the window. There were a lot of weeds in the backyard and some really tall grass that grew toward the forest. Annabelle looked around the yard and noticed that the wind wasn’t blowing. She thought that maybe the noise she heard was a bird swooping down into the grass to catch a worm; the Early Bird from one of her stories.
She waited for Mr. Bird to come soaring out of the grass with an evil worm in its beak, but he never did. Instead, a patch of tall grass right near the edge of her new backyard moved back and forth slowly. None of the other grass was moving. Annabelle saw a quick flash of white underneath the grass and got immediately excited.
Snow!
She hurried as quietly as her racing little mind would allow and scrambled down off the bed. After that, she forgot her own self-imposed mandate to let her daddy sleep and ran loudly past his room and down the stairs. The back door in the kitchen was locked and she had to stretch to reach the top deadbolt. After it clacked to the inside, she pulled open the door.
Annabelle stepped onto the back porch and into the crisp morning air. Her loose yellow sundress and beige leggings should have been thin enough to make her shiver, but she was so excited that she didn’t notice.
Snow was one of Annabelle’s most favorite things. Ever since she was old enough to talk she begged her parents to take her down to the big hill near their house to go sledding. They would spend entire days sliding over the steep embankments. Daddy used to take pictures of her and Mommy sitting in the little plastic sled. Annabelle would lean back when they went really fast and lay against her mommy. The perfume that Daddy bought her every Christmas rubbed against Annabelle’s clothes and lingered long after they returned home from sledding.
Her daddy had kept a half-used bottle of that perfume in the mirror cabinet of his bathroom at their house in Baltimore after her mommy died. Annabelle wondered if he brought it with him to Falling Rock.
She was about to run over to the snow in her new backyard before she remembered how important it was to always close the door behind her. If she got a toy for every time her daddy reminded her of that, she would never have to ask for another Christmas present again.
She pulled the door closed and walked across the porch, being careful to avoid the big splinters poking up from the wood. The planks were cold on her bare feet, but she was so excited that she had forgotten to put her shoes on. Annabelle hoped the snow wouldn’t freeze her feet to the ground.
The short grass in her new backyard was cold and wet, but she didn’t care. She could go whole days without cleaning her feet or her hands, but her daddy never could. He was always scrubbing her hands and feet after one of her adventures outside.
Ahead of her, the tall grass was motionless. As she got closer, she realized the straw-colored grass was about a foot taller than her; she couldn’t see beyond the thick line that bordered the backyard.
Annabelle couldn’t remember where she saw the snow. She walked over to the line of tall grass and tried to find the white patch on the ground. The blades of grass were scratchy on her soft hands so she only used the tip of each forefinger to spread them apart.
Annabelle looked behind her at the house and saw the window she had been looking through upstairs. If she had been looking directly down at the grass, then the snow should be—
She turned back around to look at the grass and heard a rustling straight ahead; the same noise she had heard while upstairs. Slow footsteps distinguished themselves from the rustling, and Annabelle started to realize that something was walking toward her. She took a step back a
nd let go of the grass. Her heel hit a rock and she plopped to her butt on the ground. She never took her eyes off the grass before her.
A moment later, the nose of a huge white dog slowly, ever so slowly, poked out through the line of tall grass. It sniffed hesitantly and moved its snout from side to side, sampling the air. The head of the animal emerged from the grass and it looked directly at Annabelle.
It wasn’t a dog at all. It was a wolf!
Annabelle smiled and the wolf huffed loudly, then quickly withdrew into the grass.
She got to her feet but didn’t run. Annabelle loved animals and had never seen a real wolf before, let alone a white one. They were like dogs, mostly. At least, they looked like dogs on the T.V. shows she had seen. She had never read or seen anything where wolves were the bad guys. They always made friends with young boys and helped them hunt or fish or whatever. She was no boy, but she guessed the wolf wouldn’t care. Maybe they had never even met a girl before.
She took a step forward and stopped.
The blades of grass separated in two places before her, several feet apart. Two identical white wolves stepped out of the tall grass. They stared at her with deep black eyes, their long mouths tightly closed. They turned their heads to look at each other, then back at Annabelle. The wolves were taller than she was, even if she stood on her tiptoes. Their thick coats were stark white with no yellowing at all and their powerful paws were as big as her daddy’s hands.
Annabelle bet she could ride one like a horse, if it let her.
“Nice doggie,” she said, and took a step closer. She held out the palm of her hand to the wolf on the right, just as she had seen her daddy do with dogs he was meeting for the first time. The wolf regarded her for a careful moment, staring into her with its solid black eyes.
Then it smiled.
* * *
