THALIA LOVES HAUNTED houses. One of the reasons she loves Halloween so much. But when Stella picks out the place it's not very fun. It sometimes gives off an unsettling feeling in your stomach, like when you get to the top of a roller coaster and you drop, your stomach drops too. That's the feeling Thalia got when she walked into the Bellow's estate for the first time.
The eerie setting just didn't sit right with her. Something is going to happen tonight. Something horrible.
Thalia lifts her head off Chuck's lap as The Corvair Monza parks on a secluded dirt road. The grass has grown long. Years of neglect, or perhaps avoidance. All the teens begin to exit the car and walk towards the entrance fence.
"You weren't kidding." Ramon said taking in the view of the house and its surroundings.
"Told you it wouldn't disappoint."
Thalia notices a worn-out sign hiding behind vines. It says, "Keep out of the area"
"Guys, are you sure were allowed to be here? The sign says keep out." Auggie agrees with her.
The others shrug them off. "I don't know, you'd think on Halloween, this place would be hoppin'." Ramon says while following Stella.
"Oh, it was for a while, then some kid went missing, so they boarded it up. I think it's being torn down for a mall or something." Chuck informs the boy, stating the knowledge he thinks that he knows.
"Hey, guys." Stella catches their attention; she motions towards an opening int eh fence.
"Clowns and angels first" Chuck chuckles. Auggie and Thalia look at each other unimpressed then they look at Chuck with the same look.
"Really?"
"Completely unnecessary."
Chuck enters after Stella and Ramon, Auggie and Thalia following hesitantly after. They walk up the hill getting a closer view of the house.
"Okay, there, we saw it. Can we go now?" Auggie asks nobody in particular. Just wanting to leave.
Chuck scoffs, "Who ordered the chicken?"
"Because I don't like to spend my nights in a house where a child murderer lived?" Chuck starts clucking like a chicken at Auggie.
"Leave em' alone. I don't want to go in there either." Thalia crosses her arms.
Chuck looks at her, "I thought you liked haunted houses?"
"I do. This one just isn't like the other ones. It feels alive, I don't know why." she responds taking in a deep breath.
"Someone was killed in that house?" Ramon interrupts. "That's pretty dark." Chuck slips his cold hand into Thalia's warm one. "Who lived here?"
"The Bellows." Stella responds to him. "One of the first families to settle here in the late 19th century."
"Built the paper mill that pretty much put this town on the map."
Ramon and Stella jump up onto the platform in front of the house. Auggie tries to carefully step onto it. Thalia was being helped up there by Chuck.
"Thanks." she whispers to him. He nods and they all walk to the door.
"Could of at least look for stairs." Auggie states pretty annoyedly. "Just as I thought. They got this place locked up pretty tight." he says looking at the large lock hanging on the front door.
"Anyone got a pen?" Ramon asks.
Chuck pulls out his pen from his pocket. A picture of a woman in lingerie on the side "Meet Lola. She's madly in love with me. "
"Yeah, your hand maybe." Auggie tries to joke.
"Nice." Ramon takes the pen apart and uses the nib to pick the lock. He jiggles it around for a good 5 seconds, then you hear a click. The lock unlocks and he pulls the big chains off of the door.
Ramon pushes the door open with little to no effort. The door makes a loud creak, Stella and Ramon both walk in.
"He's so much dreamier than you." Chuck whispers teasing Auggie, who pushes him into the house.
The rest of them enter the dark house. No light, fairly cold, and mega creepy.
"The Bellows had a secret: a daughter that they never allowed to leave the house. The myth is that there was something really off about her." Stella begins to tell the story.
"A really scary part is that her family erased her from every single portrait. To this day, nobody's ever found a picture of Sarah." Chuck says in a mysterious voice walking around with his hand still enclosed with Thalia's.
"They disowned her." Everyone looks at Stella with sad eyes.
A scream echos in the room. Auggie and Thalia both jump, it was just Chuck messing with them.
"Better run, Angel and Clown! Better run!" Chuck lets go of the Milner girl's hand and runs up the stairs with Auggie and Thalia hot on his tail
"Shit! Let's go!" Auggie and Thalia chase after him.
Ramon and Stella chuckle at them.
"Bet you can't catch me!" Chuck's voice calls from the dark hallway where Auggie and Thalia hesitantly start walking.
"Chuck, if you jump out at me, I'm going to punch you in the throat." Auggie deadpans walking with Thalia next to him. "Same here."
The two continue to walk down the dark hallways in search of Chuck. While downstairs Stella and Ramon start exploring places.
Chuck finds a room and creaks the door open, he goes into it.
"You're not going to scare us." calls out Auggie from outside the door. "Chuck?" Thalia calls out.
Chuck tiptoes through the decrepit remains of what once was an extravagant master bedroom. As the footsteps of Auggie and Thalia are heard approaching, Chuck quickly climbs inside a large 18th century French armoire.
Chuck stifles a laugh and hides inside. He peeks out the open door. Auggie and Thalia walk past the bedroom, unsuspecting.
"Chuck?" Auggie calls out again.
Chuck seals himself into the darkness, trying not to laugh. The sound of Auggie's and Thalia's footsteps come back. Chuck cracks open the door again, only to see -
The entire bedroom is now vivid in color and texture. Exquisite antiquities adorn the walls and cover the room. As if everything is suddenly restored to its 1921 condition.
In startled awe, Chuck opens the armoire further to witness -
A gaunt matriarch with a wide green ribbon around her neck, lies sick in bed, ominously staring back.
Chuck gasps and seals the armoire doors. Unable to catch his breath. Heart pounding. Did he see what he thought he saw? He goes to peek again, when -
Auggie throws open the doors scaring Chuck to death.
Chuck walks out of the cupboard looking around the room with scared eyes.
"What?"
"Where's the old lady?"
"And the dog" Chuck pants trying to catch his breath again.
"What old lady?"
"What dog?"
Both Auggie and Thalia ask him confusedly.
Chuck starts panicking. "We gotta get out of here." he hurries out of the dark room with Thalia and Auggie following him.
"Stella! Stella! We got to get out of here!" Chuck shouts hurrying down the stairs back to the entrance of the house. "Stella, let's go!"
"Guys, you've gotta see this! Come here." Stella calls out from the room she and Ramon are in.
The three walk into the room to see Ramon put a lighter on the table. Chuck gulps before walking in.
"Did someone order the chicken?" Auggie taunts him back.
"Shut up."
"This is where her family kept her. Locked her away from the world. All alone as some sort of freak. She must have just sat right here and told her stories to the kids through this wall." Stella tells the spooked teens what she and Ramon were talking about before they walked in.
"How have we never seen this before?" Chuck asks.
"Yeah, I mean this is where she was kept. How come we didn't know anything about it?" Thalia then asks.
"I don't think anyone wanted us to?" Auggie said, well more so questioned.
Stella walked over to another part of the room and picked up an ivory music box. She winds it up and the box releases a gentle melody. Flipping over the music box the initials of Sarah Bellows reside on the bottom of it. Stella places the box back on a table.
"Can we get out of here now?" Chuck requests beggingly.
Stella walks over the bookshelf, moving the torn curtains and grabs a worn-out book. It scrapes against the bookshelf as Stella pulls it off of it.
"What's that?" Ramon questions, now over by the shelf too.
Stella opens the cover of the large book.
In writing it says,
'This Book Belongs To Sarah Bellows'
"I can't believe it." Thalia, Auggie, and Chuck walk over to the two. "It's her book of scary stories."
"She had a book?"
"There's no book in the version of the myth I heard." Chuck says out loud.
"Well Chuck, there can be many different versions of this myth. In which, one can have a book in it." Thalia reminds the curly haired boy.
"Exactly. There's a book part to every version of the myth. And.... that it was written in children's blood." Auggie tries to keep his cool while saying that.
Chuck closes the book. "Well, kids died hearing these stories, okay? Look, let's put it back where you found it and let's just get out of here now." Chuck begins to walk backwards towards the door.
The door slams shut, and the lighter goes out, scaring all of them.
"Shit!" Chuck shouts out of frightened.
"I got it, I got it, I got it. Everybody, okay, everybody just shut up." Ramon tries to take control.
"Oh, no. It's the old lady and the dog!" Chuck grabs a hold of Thalia out of fear.
But then familiar laughter can be heard, coming from the other side of the door.
It's Tommy Milner, holding a baseball bat, drunk and savoring. Behind him is Ruth, her comely dress wasted on the occasion.
"Tommy, stop it, okay?" her voice was muffled. "Just let them out."
"Ruth, is that you?" Chuck's voice comes out muffled as well due to the door being there.
"Tommy, open the door!" Thalia shouts to her brother. He doesn't give it one thought.
"Joke's over. If you don't open it... I'll tell the chief." Ruth tries to be threatening towards Tommy.
He turns to her tapping his bat on the floor. Ruth breathes shakily as he comes closer to her.
"Why would you do that?" Tommy walks closer to her.
"This isn't funny!" Auggie calls out from inside the room. "Tommy, come on!"
"It's my little brother." Ruth meekly responds to Tommy. He just leans his face closer to hers. The smell of his drunk breath makes her eyes water. "Please."
"Open the damn door!" Auggie calls out again.
"Open it." Tommy says softly to Ruth.
"Ruth! Down here. Let us out!"
Seeing he won't help, Ruth opens the hatch.
But Tommy kicks her down onto the others, Ruth screams and falls into Auggie's eager arms.
"You're trash anyway." Tommy sneers at her. He then breaks the hatch with the end of his bat.
"Tommy, I'm sorry about the burning shit, man!" Chuck desperately apologizes.
"I hope you find a way out." Tommy drunkenly makes his way down the stairs and out of the house.
"If he hoped we'd find a way out, then why did he lock us in here?" Thalia questions.
"He's being sarcastic, Thal." Stella reprimands.
Auggie lets go of Ruth. She leans up against the door which unfortunately was covered in spider webs, which were pretty active.
"Get it off me!"
"Oh, you're fine!"
"No! Get it off of me!"
Ruth continues to scream while Auggie tries to get the webs off of her.
"Hey!" Ramon shouts shaking the door.
"Get it off me!"
"Get it off me!"
"You're fine. I got it. It's fine" Auggie helps take the rest of the web off of Ruth.
"Something's bit me!" she yells.
"Hey, can you guys help me with this?" Ramon asks Thalia and Chuck.
"The spiders are gone." Auggie says to Ruth.
"Thank you."
He just looks at her. Chuck walks past him, "Jesus, Auggie. Okay, you're such a horndog. Can you lose your stiffy for a second and help us get out of here?"
"Not funny! There's a lady present. Ladies.... present" Auggie motions to the girls. Thalia follows Chuck to go and help Ramon.
"Come on, come on! You gotta push harder."
"Come on."
While Ramon, Chuck, Auggie, and Thalia try to get the door open Ruth waits patiently for it to open. Stella opens the book that is still in her hands.
She softly says, "Sarah Bellows, tell me a story." Stella looks around, she spots the rocking chair in the dark corner. "Tell me a story." An ominous darkness spreads over the chair and to the walls.
"Wait, wait, wait. I hear something."
"Someone's here."
"He came back."
"Tommy!"
"You got..."
"We're sorry, we're real sorry."
"Thank you!"
"I... I take back everything I ever said, man.
"Sorry, man!"
They continue to bang on the door.
"Tommy, please!"
The darkness no one sees covers the hatch on the door suddenly unlocking it. Ramon pushes the door open.
They all walk outside. "Ruth, why would you date a psychopath like that?" Chuck asks after taking a look at Thalia who has her head down in shame.
"Better than fishing for turds." Ruth retorts.
"So, who unlocked it?" Auggie asks the #1 question.
"Maybe it was already unlocked? It might have just got stuck, maybe Tommy only did that to scare us." Thalia tried to think of something that could debunk the open hatch on the door.
Auggie shakes his head in denial.
"Who cares? Let's just get out of here." Ramon interrupts them.
"Nice Pierrot costume." Ruth complements Auggie.
"Thank you," Auggie says appreciably to her. Finally, someone realizing it's not a clown costume.
Stella shuts the door to the house and follows everyone else back to Ramon's car.
"Well, that was fun." Ramon says sarcastically.
The group walks back down the hill they went up earlier.
Thalia sees it first; she covers her mouth with her hand and taps Ramon on the shoulder.
"What?" she points to his totaled car. He runs to it shouting profanities under his breath.
The car's hood was up, the windshield was cracked and broken, the tires were slashed, and written on the front and back of the car is the word 'Wet Back'.
"I'm really sorry about all of this." Stella apologizes to him.
"Why did he do this?" Ramon questions all of them.
"This is low, even for Tommy, like 'farting in my milk carton and making me drink it' kind-of-low. It was the fifth grade." Chuck shares an unnecessary comment.
"It was ninth." Auggie corrects him.
"I-is there anything I can do? I mean, I'm with Tommy all the time. He's never done something like this. I-I can help get it fixed up for you-" Thalia is interrupted by Ramon.
"I got it. It's fine, thank you, though."
"I'll just stay here until the morning. Get it into a shop." Ramon sighs out.
"We have a sofa in the basement." Stella says to him. "You're welcome to use it."
Thalia nudges Chuck to look at them. She raises her eyebrows, he chuckles.
"Well, I have to get home before Tommy does. Bye, I wish you luck with your car Ramon. Bye Ruthie, Auggie, Stella." Thalia bids them goodbye.
Chuck rushes to her side, "I'll walk you. It's too dark to be walking alone."
Thalia smiles at him.
They start walking. Not really making much conversation until Thalia says out of the blue, "He wants to be a soldier."
Chuck looks at her, "Who does?"
"Tommy," she responds with a smile. "That's all he used to talk about. Our parents weren't keen on the idea, but I loved it for him. Earlier today, he got a notice saying that he had been accepted."
Chuck looks shocked. Shocked because he wouldn't think that someone like Tommy would want to be a soldier.
"He told me that he wanted to protect the family. He obviously doesn't show it, but he has stuff going on. Tommy can't always process everything like everyone else. That is why I always stick up for him, because no one really knows what is actually going on. There's no way in hell I approve of anything he has done to terrorize people but I guess he does it for a reason. A reason that I don't know. But I want to help him."
Thalia smiles sadly at Chuck. He doesn't know what to say.
They just continued walking to Milner's residence.
Once they get there, Thalia stops and hugs Chuck. She squeezes him in a comforting hug as if for the last time. He hugs her back, just as tight. Thalia kisses him on the cheek, for the second time that day.
"Thank you for listening. You're a true friend." Thalia smiles one last time at him, she turns and walks into her home where her mother was watching television.
Chuck just stands there for a minute thinking about what had just happened. 'You're a true friend.' that's not what he wants. He sighs and starts walking home.
After a good two hours after Thalia got home, Tommy wasn't home yet. Thalia was reading her book on the armchair in the living room when she saw her mother storming out the front door. Thalia puts her book on the cushion and gets up to look out the window.
She saw Tommy. He finally gets home but looks worse than how she saw him earlier.
"Tommy Milner! It's late! Are you drunk again?!" Mrs. Milner shouts at her son.
"It's Halloween." Tommy says, dazed and wobbly.
"You were supposed to deliver eggs to the Wolvertons!" She turns and walks into the house.
"Now?"
"Now!" Mrs. Milner shouts a final time going back into the house.
"Is he okay, mom" Thalia asks her mom.
"He's drunk again. Can you follow after him? You're the only one that can stop him from doing crazy things. I told him to deliver the eggs to the neighbors." Mrs. Milner asks her youngest child with tired eyes.
Thalia nods, walking up to her room to put on her shoes. She puts them on and grabs a light jacket.
The Milner girl goes out the front door and straight for the corn maze, knowing that Tommy would probably go there after dropping the eggs off.
'Tommy has hated that scarecrow all his life. He took the eggs and left for the last time.'
"Tommy!" Thalia shouts but gets no answer. She rushes straight into the cornfield in search of Tommy.
The dark sky absorbed the pearly moon, making it more difficult to see outside.
"Tommy!" Thalia calls out once more, becoming more anxious and nervous.
The wind picks up outside, creating a faint howling through the slats in the barn walls. The cawing of crows. Tommy perks up.
Thinking it was nothing, he returns to feeding the chickens when he sees a figure standing between the barn doors. Tommy squints to see
It's the scarecrow standing upright. Harold takes an unnatural step forward, jerky. Tommy nearly trips over the chickens.
Thalia begins to hear the yelling coming from the other side of the maze.
She runs to where the shouts are coming from. She stops and sees their very own Harold stabbing Tommy in the abdomen with a pitchfork.
The air gets caught up in her throat. Eyes ghosting with tears. "Tommy!"
"Mom?! Thalia?!" Tommy screams in agony.
He chokes on something. Airway obstructed. He coughs up some hay, struggling for air. He tries to call for help, but no words come out, only hay.
Thalia looks at the scene horrified. Now the tears are streaming out of her eyes and down her face. "Tommy." she whimpers.
He runs out of the cornfield crawling out right in front of his sister.
His eyes bulge as he witnesses hay coming out of his sleeves and pants. Straw lengthens from his ears, nose and eyes.
He trembles to find the skin on his hand drying, like burlap.
Tommy looks his sister in the eyes for the final time. "I'm so-sorry..." he chokes out.
He falls as straw grows from every part of him. He reaches out to Thalia and releases a final muffled scream...
Only for hay to silently explode from his mouth.
Thalia stares at the motionless body on the ground, and she breaks down. She kneels in the grass rubbing his hay covered back with her shaky hand.
"You promised me... you promised me, you asshole." Thalia whispers to his non responding body with a shaky breath.
She reaches into her dress pocket and pulls out the birthday gift from Tommy; she has yet to open it.
Thalia pulls off the purple ribbon and opens the small box carefully. The removal of the lid reveals a necklace, a locket to be exact. She opens her heart to see a small photo of 3 year old Tommy holding 1 year old Thalia.
The photo itself would make you want to tear up, how protective a 3 year old boy was holding his 1 year old sister with a big smile on his face.
This boy would've been a soldier.... but he decided to die.
'What a "great" birthday....'