The (Perfect) Haunted House

I lived my whole life and then some in a small town at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Woodpark. Not much to look at but then we never did get many visitors. Many? Did I say that? We didn't get any visitors. My name is Max Bennett and this is the story of the Halloween that changed my life forever.

In Woodpark, everybody knew everybody and that's the way we liked it. Woodpark School went all the way from kindergarten right up to the twelfth grade. Everyone who ever attended the school graduated, married a local, settled down in the town and sent their own children to Woodpark School.

Mary's Hair Salon on Main Street had always been Mary's Hair Salon. When one Mary got too old to lift the scissors without doing herself or someone else damage, then another Mary was there to buy the place. All purchases were done through the Woodpark Bank where one Jack after another took care of all the town real estate.

Life in Woodpark was as simple as you can imagine and like I said, that's just how we liked it. There was only one thing that got all our jaws squeaking at the hinges down at Cathy's Cafe every night. It was that house: 1313 Woodland Way, right on the corner of Woodland Way and Woodstock Street.

We all agreed there was something 'hinky' about the place. The grass was always a perfect shade of leprechaun green, the hedges always trimmed to exactly four feet high and the white picket fence seemed never to need a fresh coat of paint seeing how it always looked as though it just got a fresh coat that morning. The house itself was just as strange. With pretty green shutters and a wide front porch, it always looked as though it was newly built and waiting for some moving van to pull in any day followed by a station wagon filled to the brim with the most perfect family on earth. That never happened though. No outsiders moved to town, ever. We never saw a single soul out in that yard, yet every day, it looked perfect.

Every few years, the town council held a vote to have the house destroyed but despite the wrecking balls and all the volunteers on the demolition crew, the next morning . . . the house was as perfect as ever, just as though nobody had ever touched it. Lights came on in the windows at night even though the electricity had never been turned on. On cold nights, smoke came up from the chimney and on warm nights, a happy family's laughter drifted through the windows.

All that was odd enough all right but it was nothing compared to the rumor of what happened to that house every Halloween. When the sun sank down beyond the horizon the strangest thing was said to happen to that house. Rumor had it that the house grew older by the minute throughout the day, until it was so decrepit and worn out, it completely disappeared.

Oh, you noticed I said rumor did you? Well that takes a little explaining. See none of us knew for sure if it disappeared. Groups of kids would stand on the sidewalk across the street from the house on Halloween, some even daring to egg it or throw rolls of toilet paper over the roof. None dared stand on the same side of the street on an ordinary day. We all took extra care to stay away on Halloween just in case the rumor was true. We didn't know if the house had special powers that could suck a person into it on Halloween night. But sure enough, when it got dark, the house faded little by little until at midnight, it was completely gone. By next morning, there was the house, same as always.

The first of November was always the same every year too. None of us remembered the house disappearing. We might not have known about the bizarre happenings of the night before if it hadn't been for a Casey or a Susan pleading with Mayor Jim to call an emergency meeting in the school gymnasium. Casey and Susan owned the little book store above the cafe. Like their predecessors, they were diligent journal keepers and even ran a class every Wednesday night: "Journal Keeping to Improve Your Life." If they hadn't read about the night before, none of us would have been the wiser. But there it was in black and white every year. Some said it wasn't true. Casey and Susan were accused yearly of just trying to scare everybody, for coming up with a Halloween Hoax one day late and a brainload short. That didn't explain away the rest of the year though. The house was truly strange all the rest of the year and Casey and Susan definitely couldn't explain that. So, from November first to the following Halloween, we kept the eerie occurrence in our minds and vowed that this year, we'd remember it ourselves. Every year was the same. Until that fateful day when I was in grade six.

Not only was I the biggest kid in my class, I was the mouthiest. I bragged all the time how I could climb higher, run faster and jump farther than anybody else I knew. I wasn't lying either. But on Halloween that year, my mouth got me into a whole lot of trouble. Everyone was talking about how they were going to watch that creepy house, maybe even egg it. They shaded their eyes to look up at me swinging on the highest monkey bar and asked me if I was coming too. In my swaggering way I shook my head.

"Nope."

"Yeah, you chicken. You're not so brave," one of the other boys said. "Guess we finally found something you can't do better! Ha!"

I pulled myself up and jumped down to land right in their midst. I liked making a big splash like that whenever I could.

"I'm not standing across the street." I picked up a rock and chucked it hard at the top of the jungle gym. Just as I knew it would, it pinged and ricochetted in just the right way so that when it was done, it landed at my feet.

"Cause you're just a chick—"

I picked the rock back up, rolled it between my fingers then threw it up high in the air. "I'm goin' in," I said, then looked up and opened my hand just in time to catch that rock perfectly in the middle of my palm. If anybody could go into that house and live to brag about it, it had to be me.

Their jaws dropped. Even I was surprised that I'd actually said it. I'd thought it for a few years but never actually put my voice to it. But I was tired of being part of something I had no memory of being a part of. I imagine I egged that house myself the year before. Well, no more. I had to be the best. My reputation made it so, but more than that was the excited thrill it gave me in the pit of my stomach.

It was all anybody talked about for the rest of that day. Nobody was talking about the trick-or-treating that Casey and Susan said we did and so would do again. No one cared about the big costume ball where Milly the seamstress would win first prize for the best costume. All day long I had to listen to jeers and take the leers and ignore the whispered warnings. Everybody knew not to tell the grown-ups in case they tried to stop it.

The crowd across the street from the house that night was huge. I wondered if it was always like that or if my bravado had any effect. I told myself it was because I could draw a crowd bigger than the mayor himself. I was nervous. I was also glad my pirate costume came with a fake beard that hid my trembling chin.

"You're not really gonna do it are you?" someone asked. I shrugged but didn't speak. I took a step towards the house.

"He's really gonna do it! Nah, Max. Don't do it."

I took another step and another. I heard them calling out behind me, all voicing differing opinions. "Don't do it Max," "Go for it Max," "What if you die Max?" I kept walking. What if I died? Could that happen? I didn't want to die but I knew I'd come too far already. I knew I'd go through with it when I said as much on the playground. If I didn't, I wouldn't be Big, Brave Max anymore. I'd be Max the Coward and I couldn't bear that thought.

I thought my legs would give when I pushed the latch open on the gate. I thought sure I'd faint as I walked up the sidewalk to the already fading house. I thought I'd have a heart attack when I stood on the porch and turned to wave at the crowd across the street. They waved back though it seemed as though they were farther away than I remembered. Turning my back to them, I opened the door, stepped across the threshold and sighed with relief. I'd done it and lived. I turned around again to see all my friends and neighbors gazing at me with awe and admiration but that's when I got the shock of my life.

They were gone; not just the people, but everything. The sidewalk, the Halloween decorations, streetlights, houses and cars. All of it was gone. There was only me and the house. I can't even begin to describe how terrified I was. I was Big, Brave Max Bennett. Afraid of nothing and no one, yet my blood ran cold with a terror like I've never known before or since. I wanted to run back out of the house but with only a void outside the door, I couldn't make my feet move. I imagined myself falling into that void and becoming nothing, or worse; falling into that void and living for all eternity in nothing. I leaned against a perfect wall and let my body slide to the floor in a heap. I did what all braggarts do when they discover they aren't invincible. I cried like a baby until I'd cried myself to sleep.

The next morning when I awoke, I peered out the window, hoping my town was just as it should be. If nobody else remembered that night, I knew I would. I was grateful to see sidewalks, cars, streetlights and people. But instead of it all being familiar, I didn't recognize a bit of it. I stepped out onto the porch, letting my eyes follow the toilet paper rolls hanging in the gnarled trees in the front yard and looked still further up to the rows upon rows of tall city buildings. I gazed at the once perfect yard. Dead grass and weeds choked the sidewalk from the porch to an old rusted gate that creaked on its hinges in the cool breeze. The green grass and white picket fence were gone. I spun round to look at the house and it was a falling down wreck of weathered boards and smashed windows. I looked down at myself, praying I hadn't likewise aged. I was glad to see I wasn't a wrinkled old man but I was a man, not a boy. Somehow, in one night, I'd lost at least twenty years of my life.

After a few years spent in an insane asylum where no one believed my story, I learned to keep the truth hidden and made up a whole new past for myself. They declared me sane and set me free on the world. I tried for many years to find Woodpark but I never did. If the maps and books were right, the Woodpark I'd known and loved all my young life, didn't exist. I learned to move on, put it all behind me but there's one ritual in my life I've never altered one iota since coming here. Every Halloween at about seven o'clock at night, I sit in that old house and wait for Woodpark to greet me in the morning, all the while crying like a baby until I cry myself to sleep.