When it is the 1950s and you are five years old, the son of a sharecropper, when you are an adventurous little kid, when the occasional whack of a hickory stick against your behind does not deter you from ignoring your mother’s instructions … sometimes you might take things a little too far.
I was that five-year-old kid.
There were many things I was not supposed to do when I was outside the house. Some of them were: aggravate the chickens, play around the well, and the most important one was … never go down that one-lane dirt road that went past our house and then on down toward the old abandoned house in the woods.
But that was some of my favorite stuff.
I got my behind whacked by a hickory stick for aggravating the chickens, for playing around the well, and for going down that dirt road. All the times before, I got caught on that road before I made it out of sight of the house. But this time, late on Halloween evening, just before sundown, I ignored everything I had been told about that house and headed out for one final time. And this time I was gonna make it all the way there.
According to my daddy, that house was haunted. He told me about that one day when we were riding on his big tractor, plowing up the cotton fields. We got to the end of a row and, as we were turning around, I saw an old house through the woods.
“Daddy, who lives over there?”
“Donnie, don’t you worry none about who lives at that house. That ain’t nothing you need to know about.”
“But daddy, they might have some kids my age. Didn’t mama tell you I needed to play with some kids that ain’t my cousins?”
“Ain’t no kids live there.”
“Who lives there then? “
By this time daddy had already turned the tractor around and we were heading back down another row. Sitting on his lap there, I was trying my best to see over his shoulder and get one last look at that old house.
“That house is haunted. There’s ghosts in that house, and red-eyed demons. There’s big hairy monsters in there just looking for a little kid your size to eat for supper.”
“That house got monsters that eat little kids like me?”
“Yup. You better stay away from there.”
I turned back around. “Okay, daddy. I ain’t never gonna go to that house.”
I know I should have been scared by all that, and I might have been for a few minutes. But pretty soon that is all I wanted to do: go down that old dirt road and get a closer look at that house. And the evidence of that is proved by how many times my behind got whacked by a hickory stick.
“Donnie Lee Turner, ain’t I done told you not to go down that road?”
“I ain’t going down that road, mama.”
“Then what do you thank you are doing?”
“I am just standing here looking down that road. I ain’t going down that road.”
“If I didn’t seed you and make you stop, you been all the way there by now.”
I don’t think mama believed me. In fact, the next thing she said showed me I was right.
“You go right up there and sit down on the porch and wait for me. I am gonna go cut a hickory stick.”
That was almost a week ago. So I figured it was time to go down that road again. As far as I knew, daddy was still out in the fields. He went back out there after supper to do a little bit more work before sundown. This time I was gonna be smart. I’d watch mama until she was doing something in the back room where she could not see the front yard. Then, I’d head out down that road as fast as I could go. The road cut through a thick forest. I would not have to go far before I would be out of sight.
My plan worked. I ran until I could not see our little white house no more. Mama did not even know I was gone. This time … this time I was gonna go all the way to that house and take a look inside. I ain’t afraid of no ghosts. I ain’t afraid of no red-eyed demons. And I ain’t afraid of no big hairy monsters.
It was probably about a mile down the road before you got to that house. I slowed to a walk. There weren’t no hurry anyway. I didn’t notice that it was starting to get dark. I guess my eyes were just getting used to it.
That road was a lot longer than I thought it was. Pretty soon, I was starting to have second thoughts. Maybe I did not need to see that house after all. Anyhow, as far as I knew, my daddy always told me the truth. And I guess that meant there really was some ghosts and some red-eyed demons and some big hairy monsters in that house. If one of them big hairy monsters ate me, mama was really gonna get mad. Ain’t no telling what she do to me then.
I was about ready to turn around and go back home, but I needed to pee. So I stepped off that old road into the woods and stood behind a tree to relieve myself, just like I’d seen my daddy do. When I was done, I started to notice how dark it was in the woods. I thought I saw some eyes looking at me. I got out of there as fast as I could.
But when I got back to the road, there was a problem. I couldn’t remember which way to go to get back home.
I stood there in the middle that dirt road. I looked both ways. In the twilight they look the same. I did not know what to do. I thought about calling out to mama, or daddy. But if I did that, they would know what I done. That meant mama would be cutting another hickory stick.
So I just started walking. If I was going the wrong way, as soon as I saw that old house, I would turn around and run as fast as I could, all the way back home. To my little five-year-old mind, that sounded like a perfect plan, no way to mess it up.
I kept on walking. I didn’t recognize nothing, kept feeling like I needed to turn around. In a little while I reached the end of the dirt road. There were no cotton fields and no little white house. In fact, there was not even an old abandoned house. I should have been able to figure out it was time to turn around and run as fast as I could. That is what I shoulda did.
At the end of the road was a big clearing. Up in the dark sky, the moon was shining bright, shining right down on those steps. Looking at them in the moonlight made me feel dizzy. I don’t know why, but I wanted real bad to go up those steps and see what was up there in the dark. I walked a little closer and stood there for a minute.
A cold wind started to blow. Tree limbs and leaves waved back and forth; made me feel kinda like something might be gonna jump out at me. My arms had goosebumps. Mama's gonna be mad I just wore a T-shirt. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could barely make out an old house, right up there through the trees. That must have been the house me and daddy saw from the cotton field.
Then I heard it, way off in the distance, a voice, a really, really mad voice. And it was calling me.
“Donnie! Where the heck are you? You better come here to me.”
It sounded like the voice was coming from up there, past the top of those steps in the dark. I just barely could hear it over the wind, but I knew what it was saying. I needed to go up there.
All of a sudden, the wind started blowing hard. It made a real scary sound, whistling through the trees. It seemed like a long time, but I finally made it to the steps. I guess that might have been because I was taking little baby steps, real slow baby steps, with my arms out … ‘cause I kept feeling like I was gonna fall.
I know I walked up those steps, but I don’t remember it. One second, I was down there on the dirt road; and the next second, I was at the top of the steps, staring at a path leading up the steep hill and into the darkness.
I kept thinking I could see little eyes in the woods. I kept hearing that mad voice. But now I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The wind was almost drowning it out.
My eyes started to adjust to the dim light in the woods. I could see the house. It looked just like what me and daddy saw the other day. Well, I have come this far. I am gonna get me a look at that house. I started walking up that path into the woods. And yeah, I was still taking baby steps.
In a few minutes I was standing right in front of that old house. The wind was howling through the broken windows. At least, I hoped it was the wind. That bright moon lit up the porch and the front of the house pretty good. I had not noticed all the clouds moving around in the sky. But as they moved across the moon, they cast ghostly shadows across the rotting wood. It was getting pretty scary.
The roof was caved in on the right side. Most of the windows was busted out. The porch was high up off the ground and there wasn’t no steps to get up there. I was going to have to figure out how to climb up on that porch somehow. I put both my hands on a couple of those boards and started to throw my leg up there. Then I saw a ghostly figure go past one of the windows.
I stepped back, fast as I could.
That wind was still howling through the windows and through some cracks in the walls that I could see, standing there that close. Then I looked at one of the windows, the one that was not broken yet. There was a face in there looking back at me, a big scary face with red eyes.
I wanted to run. I wanted to run out of there as fast as I could. But I couldn’t move.
I could hear heavy breathing. That thang was gonna come out here and eat me alive.
“Now I got you.”
I screamed. Big hairy arms wrapped around me and lifted me off the ground. I tried to wiggle free but the grip of those big hairy arms was too strong. This was it. I knew I should have never done this. Daddy was right. This monster is going to eat me now. I wish daddy was here to save me.
“Donnie, Donnie. Settle down, son.”
I recognized that voice. It was my daddy. It was his big hairy arms that picked me up. I relaxed. Daddy bent over to put me down on the ground.
“Don’t put me down, daddy. There is a monster in there. He’s gonna get me.”
“Okay, son. Here you go. I ain’t gonna let that monster get you. I gotta get you back home, so your mama can jerk a knot in your tail.”
He put me down just long enough for me to turn around, and then he picked me right back up. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on tight. In a few minutes we were back on the road toward home.
“Your mama is mad at you and me both. I was supposed to be watching you. She knew you was gonna pull something. I had to make a run to the outhouse for a little while. By the time I got back you was already gone.”
After we walked a few hundred feet, daddy put me down and told me I had to walk the rest of the way. It felt good to have his big rough hand holding mine. We walked in silence for several minutes.
“Daddy, you mad at me?”
“I was worried about you, son. Mama was too.”
“You think mama is still gonna be mad at me?”
“Yeah. And at me too.”
“You think she is gonna cut a hickory stick?”
“Most likely.”
“You think she is gonna jerk a knot in my tail?”
“Yep.”
“What does that mean, daddy?”
“Don’t know, son. But I guess we both are about to find out.”