Darren sat at the edge of his bed, looking at the house across the street.

He was 10, and things like a house weren’t supposed to scare him, but the house across the street was different. It was the oldest house in the neighborhood, and no one, at least none of the kids he knew, ever saw the man that lived there. The closest he had ever come was a couple of months ago when he was getting ready for bed and noticed a man in a black overcoat and hat pass through the this mass of hedges in the front. All he could see from his window was the peak of the roof and the two front second story windows, shuttered tight like black eyes. Everything else was blocked from view by the hedges and twin oak trees that twisted in front of everything like wooden sentinels. The entire scene made for a house that no one in the neighborhood talked about, looked at, and certainly did not go near.

Except for today.

Darren and the rest of the kids from Briarcliff Avenue had been playing stickball all summer against the kids from Munson Drive. The Briarcliff kids were the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Munsie’s were the Yanks, having their own subway series. Ralphie DiMartino, the Munsie’s answer to Yogi Berra, hit a beautiful pop fly that arched back towards Darren, who was playing left field (the curb by the Mitchell’s). Darren raced along the street to catch it, eyes up and glove out, but out of the corner he saw he had passed the Mitchell’s and was coming upon that sinister wall of green. His foot caught the curb and he sprawled out on the grass between the street and the sidewalk.

Flat on his stomach, he watched as the ball hit the sidewalk, bounced, and then rolled under the hedge in front of him.

There were hoots and hollers from behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Ralphie rounding second base already. Only Kenny Mitchell turned to yell at Darren. “Get the ball! Hurry!”

Darren scrambled to his feet, all fear vanishing at the prospect of that fink Ralphie gloating all summer about getting a home run off of a pop fly. He dashed to the thin gap in the hedges and into the yard. Thankfully, the ball had rolled through the hedges and was only half covered in the dense, unmowed lawn. Darren raced over, scooped it up and hurled it over the hedge with a grunt. “Comin’ at ya!” he yelled, praying to God that they caught it and tagged Kenny out.

Once the ball left his hand, he realized that he was standing in the forbidden zone. In fact, it didn’t look like anyone had set foot in it at all this summer. The grass was tinged with brown from the heat and at least ankle deep. He was standing on what passed for the walk, right between the twin guardian oaks that loomed over him. There were a couple of other balls laying in the yard that other kids obviously hadn’t bothered to go in after. But here he was, and he had just waltzed in without a second thought.

He turned, and then there it was.

It was smaller than he had imagined, with dirty white paint, and each of its dozen windows shuttered tight like the two that stared at him from across the street. He saw that trim used to be green, but had faded and cracked into a cancerous black. Even the door had faded to that color, except for a light patch of dark green high in the center, where the door-knocker was supposed to be. A screen porch snaked around the left side of the house, but most of the screen was shredded to bits, and the only thing on the porch was a rusted out patio chair, tipped over like a turtle.

Everything was still. He realized that he had been holding his breath for so long his heartbeat was pounding at his temples. He let it out as slowly as he could, careful not to make a sound. He was drawing in his next breath just as slowly when he saw it, lying on the front porch, just past the top step.

It was a brown shoe, just a little smaller than his.

He took a step forward, squinting, trying to make sure his eyes weren’t fooling him. It was a girl’s shoe, he realized, and that the only thing that made the shoe stand out, aside from the obvious, was that it was the only thing in the entire yard that was new, not rotten, faded or broken.

He shuffled his feet, desperately trying to get them to work, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

Down at the corner of the house, almost hidden by the tall grass, was a small basement window. In the corner of that window was a tiny white speck.

It was an eye, narrowing at him under a thick, bushy dark eyebrow.

That was all Darren’s feet needed to start running.

He raced between the hedges, rounding them to find the entire game had stopped and all of the kids were staring at him. He couldn’t tell if there were so slack-jawed over the fact that he had been in that yard or that he had made it back.

“What. . .the. . .frick?” DiMartino said.

“I was gettin’ your hit, pansy,” Darren said.

Some of the other kids let out low whistles, others just shook their heads. “Balls,” DiMartino said, tipping his cap. “Big frickin’ balls.”

That night at dinner, things were quiet. At first, he thought his parents had been fighting, but then he realized that they were glancing over at him every time they thought he wasn’t looking. Had someone ratted him out? Did they know where he had been? There had been something in the air for weeks, it seemed. They were always asking him where he was, where he had been, if he had seen anything strange. He hadn’t thought anything of it before, but now he knew.

They were afraid.

“Darren,” his father finally said, and he felt his rear clench at the thought of how many swats they would give him for trespassing.

“Yeah, Pop?”

“Have you seen Suzie Morris around lately?”

“What?” he said.

“Doesn’t she go to your school?” his mother piped in, tapping at her plate with the tip of her fork.

“Yeah, she’s a grade behind me.”

“Have you seen her?” his father asked again.

“No, I haven’t. Why?”

“Well,” his father started, but gazed across the table. His mother stopped tapping her fork. “She was supposed to spend the weekend with her Aunt, on Maple Street while her folks were out of town. She didn’t make it, and no one noticed until yesterday. Her Aunt thought her parents had taken her along, but her folks let Suzie walk there herself. So you’re sure you haven’t seen her?”

“No,” Darren said, putting his silverware down.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Darren pushed his plate forward. “I’m not hungry. Can I be excused?”

His parents looked at each other, and then his Mother nodded. “Sure thing. Do you want to watch Sullivan? Rosemary Clooney is going to be on.”

Darren made a face and shook his head, carrying his plate into the kitchen. “I’m gonna go upstairs.”

He stayed up there, door closed, watching the house across the street for the rest of the night. He could hear his parents arguing over the turned-up television, his Mom blaming his Dad for upsetting him, and his Dad saying it was serious and that they needed to know, and Rosemary Clooney warbling out that song his mother liked so much. Later, his Mother poked her head in and told him it was time for bed, and he went through the motions of getting ready and saying goodnight.

Of course, instead of sleeping, he just sat in bed watching the house across the street as twilight turned into night. The streetlight out front clicked on and began its night-long hum. His eyelids began to droop, and he realized that trying to maintain a vigil through the night was pointless.

With a giant yawn, he got out of bed and went over to the window. It was hot and muggy, like most New Jersey summers, but there was no way he was going sleep with the window open tonight. He shut it as quietly as he could, not wanting his parents to hear and wonder what he was still doing up.

Just as he turned to head back to his bed, the light from the lamppost flickered. He turned, pressing up against the glass, scanning the entire street. There was, for a second, something dark moving out of the circle of light and heading towards his Dad’s Hornet in the driveway. He stood there for at least five minutes, mashing his face against the glass to try to see down the house and into the driveway. There was nothing but darkness.

It was stupid, he realized. If there was anything out there, Mom and Dad would have seen or heard it. He turned and crawled back into bed. When he got back into bed he found that sleep had left him. He tossed and turned, and after a couple of minutes he realized he was humming that stupid Rosemary Clooney song she had been singing on the Sullivan show.

Irritated, he kicked the sheet off and rolled over, still trying to get comfortable.

“Come on-a my house, my house-a come on. . .”

Darren snapped up in bed, eyes scouring the room. The voice had been faint, but he had definitely heard the deep rumble of a voice that definitely wasn’t his fathers. He couldn’t see a thing, the light from the streetlight not even making a dent into the oppressive darkness of his room. Only the tiniest beams of light flickered through the window, and not even the light from the hallway was coming under his bedroom door.

The room was a silent as it was dark, the only noise being the tiniest whisper of the curtains as they brushed together in the light breeze. His eyes passed over them at first, but then darted back.

The window was open.

He should have screamed then, he realized, but his eyes still darted from side to side, trying to make out anything in the darkness.

“Come on-a my house, my house, I’m gonna give you candy . . .”

It was so faint that he almost thought he was imagining, but he knew that even in his darkest dreams he wouldn’t have been able to imagine the rumbling, cracked voice that was whispering to him in the dark.

He drew in a breath to scream, knowing that getting his parents attention was his only chance. Before he could even make sound, the darkness on the far side of the room exploded towards him. The was a rustle of fabric and then something clamped down on his throat, and it took him a second to realize that it wasn’t a steel vice but a gloved hand.

“Shhhhh,” the harsh whisper came from all around him.

“You wanted to see, didn’t you?” the whisper said. “You came and you wanted to see, isn’t that right?”

Darren tried to shake his head, but the grip on his throat was too tight. His chest burned with the trapped air in his lungs, and all he could barely make out the face in front of him.

“Don’t you lie to me, boy!” The face was wrapped in a black scarf, with a black, wide-brimmed hat pulled down as far as it could go. Between them, he could almost make out the single eye that had stared at him from the basement window. “You want to see Him, I will show you Him. I will make you see.”

Darren’s chest was constricting so hard that he thought his swollen lungs were going to crush his own heart. Before that could happen, there was a flash of silver out he corner of his eye, and then it slammed into his temple, and then again. Everything, even the tiny flames, were swimming in his vision.

He felt himself being effortlessly hauled over the man’s shoulder, and the last he heard before the darkness completely overtook him was his whispered singing.

“Come on-a my house, my house, I’m gonna give you everything. . .”

Copyright Thacher E. Cleveland