So a long time ago, back in my non-photogenic days, we lived in a big old house in the country. Yeah, I know it’s cliché, but it was a nice place with little trap doors and closets, old wallpaper, and grainy wood floors that felt good on your feet. It smelled very old, but in a good way, like how a grandmother’s house would smell.
I lived there with my little cousin, who was adopted by us when his parents were in a train accident. He was too little to remember them, so he was basically like a little brother to me. He and I played Barbies and Spaceman and whatever other childish game we could conjure up with plastic dolls and old boxes. It was nice outdoors, and we were able to keep chickens because the property was large and there were few neighbors to tell us what to do. Heck, my parents could have spray painted the house like green and nobody would have cared a bit.
From what we later learned, the events could have happened from when we were barely toddling, but we wouldn’t have remembered. After all, it was usually small and insignificant things at first. A matchbox car that had probably rolled under the refrigerator, or a rubber doll shoe that probably got lost playing in the yard. Even though we never found things we lost, it’s not like we had any sort of reason to believe we would ever are the stuff again. As children, my cousin and I just kind of assumed that it was a fact of life. Things just sometimes go missing and never turn up.
It wasn’t until I started going to school that I realized that things weren’t supposed to work that way. I think it began when I lost a little plastic ring at school. My teacher noticed I wasn’t wearing it and asked where it was. I said it was gone, but that was okay because that happens sometimes. The teacher laughed and shook her head and took me to the lost and found, where I retrieved the cheap piece of jewelry. I was amazed that it wasn’t gone forever. After all, didn’t they just sort of go to lost-things-land after awhile?
When I started going to sleepovers and summer camps is when I really started to realize that things only went missing at home. I was very well organized, but a stray pen or a little barrette that I could have sworn was just there was always gone in an instant. I asked my mother and father if stuff like that happened to them, but they shook their heads and told me I was just being forgetful. As my cousin and I stopped sharing toys, he found that less of his things went missing.
One of the most frightful disappearances however, was when it got my first puppy. Mother had gone with Father to a church fundraiser and my cousin was on a trip to an amusement park (maybe Six Flags?) for the weekend with his friend. I had just got a puppy, a little mutt from a farm down the road. Her name was Sophie and she was still quite small and loud.
Well, that night I was home alone, and she had been very quiet for whatever reason, a little bit more alert than usual. I sat her on my lap and began to brush her with a little wire doll brush to calm her down. I got up to use the toilet at some point, and when I came back, both Sophie and the brush were gone. Even the clumps of fur that had come out of the brush had vanished.
This was the final straw for me. I hated that house. My family was concerned and feared for my well being. I got a new dog, a burly pit bull. This one never got stolen, and made me feel a lot more secure. Things kept going missing, but not as often anymore. I started taking inventory of the items in my room, and never slept easily when something was missing.
I eventually went to college and got a career. After buying my own place, I picked up my pit bull, Loki, from my parents’ house where he was staying. We have a nice little place right now, him and me.
About a month ago, Mother called to tell me and my cousin (who is still in college) that they were downsizing and needed our help moving stuff out of the house. I didn’t want to see that house very much; it still sort of creeped me out. But I decided that if I took my dog, then I would feel more secure.
After working on moving some of the boxes out, my cousin and I decided to take Loki for a walk down the road. He was happy as a dog could be, sniffing around in the dirt and worms. But about a half-mile or so from the house, he started barking into the trees. I tried to lead him onward, but he kept barking at the same area. Confused, my cousin and I followed him through the woods until we reached a small shack. It was a little bigger than an outhouse and blackened from rot. I wasn’t sure why Loki found it so interesting.
After looking around a bit, my cousin found a dirty Rubbermaid box. He opened it and the color drained from his face. I looked inside.
It was like a time capsule, almost. My toys, accessories, toiletries, writing utensils, the glasses I lost in 3rd grade. Spare change, socks, whatever it was I lost. I was amazed, as well as super creeped out. But it wasn’t even the worst part yet.
Loki kept digging at the ground, and eventually unearthed a similar shallowly buried box. The contents of this one were much more appealing. Along with minor trinkets was a puppy carcass. The carcass had marks running down its side, which matched the spokes of the little wire doll brush.
I don’t know if I have ever wept that hard in my entire life. My cousin later helped me bury my little dog. Poor Sophie had been flayed alive with a brush, and I never even knew.
The next day, I packed up and left. I was glad my parents were leaving that house. I don’t want to see any of that area again.
You’re probably wondering why I’m posting this here, but it’s because of something that happened earlier today. I didn’t explain about the pictures I’ve been getting on my phone. Pictures of me playing in the backyard. Pictures of me inside at the family dinner table. Pictures of me doing homework, taken from under the couch. Even a picture of me from afar, packing to leave for college. And the most recent one is of me jogging this morning. I tried to send these to my family and friends but they won’t send. People are telling me that their phone won’t load the images.
A big, metal serving spoon went missing today from my dishwasher. It’s found me.
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Credits to: KickButtBallerina
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