Myrtle Lane
Demo
You had an uneventful childhood. You played when you wanted to, you laughed without a care, and you never felt the lingering need to look over your shoulder at every noise- until the summer that changed everything.
Return to the neighborhood that provided you with some of your favorite memories, visit childhood friends, met the strange family who moved in down the road, and learn what truly happened the night you were left with the scars physically and mentally that you still carried with you.
Warning: This story contains potentially triggering content. There will be violence, horror, mental illness, and mentions of death.
[[Begin]]
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<<set $quiet to 0>>Intro:
I remember running. Well, I remember the sounds of running. The heavy breathing, the quiet sobs, every branch that snagged at my clothing, the sounds of the leaves crunching under every step you took farther away from the nightmare. Why were the leaves so loud every step? Was that me? Did anyone else get away? Or was the man behind me?
I never turned around to get my answer, I couldn't. I just knew I had to run, or I'd be next. I knew what happened to Elliott. I saw it for myself. He was killed. We were attacked. I was attacked. The blood running down my arm was proof of that, but Elliott tried to help me. As soon as he pushed the large man away from me, I knew what would happen.
I froze as I watched these long, pitch-black fingers crawled up to Elliott neck. I had never seen a man with hands like this. There were no details, no skin, anything. I only briefly took in the details of this man and noticed no face. Time briefly stood still as reality sunk in. This wasn't any man; this was a monster with the shape of a man. A true monster. And we were all done for.
The last sounds I heard was the scream let out by Harper and whimper that Elliott let out, and his last word as he looked at us with wide eyes full of pain and fear, "Run".
[[I ran]]Everything from there on was a blur. I made it out, I made it to the end of the street. I stopped running as soon as I was under the first light post, and I felt the whole world crumbling around me and yet expanding all at once. I could finally breathe. I don't know how I knew but the light just felt like home. I was safe and the monster wouldn't get me.
I sat under that lamp post for what felt like eternity. I now know it was only 20 minutes until I left it. Harper had emerged from the branches shortly after me and was understandably a mess. The monster luckily never touched her, but she was there with us. She saw what happened and ran for her life just as I did.
My forearm was still bleeding at the time, but I don't remember the pain. I remember the numbness that covered my body as we sat there together. We sat with each other in silence for an hour before one of us broke the silence. We knew we had to find an adult, had to call the police.
[[I insisted we had to go home]]
[[She insisted we had to go home]]
Once I finally collected myself as much as any 11-year-old could, I grabbed ahold of Harper and got her to look up at me. It broke me to see her usually happy and expressive eyes so dim under the night. I explained that it was time for us to go get help, we couldn't sit here forever.
I had taken Harper to the closest house to us, which just so happened to be her house. Her parents knew something had happened the moment we walked in the door. From there on, everything happened so quickly. Her father, Mr. Phillips, called the police and her mom took us into the backroom where she cleaned my arm and wrapped it up for me and checked us from head to toe for any other cuts and bruises.
The police had shown up in masses, going in every direction of every street and had asked us questions for hours.
I had taken the lead in the questions. I was scared but so was Harper. And it seemed like finding the right words was a struggle for her more so than I. I let the attention stay on me for as long as I could. Every time I told them what happened, they would let out these groans of frustration. They wouldn't stop asking about an animal, and I kept telling them there was no animal. It was a real monster. I told them everything I saw and heard but it meant nothing to them. I had gotten louder and louder with them, explaining that they needed to listen. But they never listened.
[[Then Elliotts mom showed up]]
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Eventually Harper was the one who got my attention and explained that it was time to go. I was still in shock and was unable to give her the response she desired so she took my hand and led home down the road. Her house was closest and made the most sense for us to seek refuge.
Her parents knew something had happened the moment we walked in the door.
From there on, everything happened so quickly. Her father, Mr. Phillips, called the police and her mom took us into the backroom where she cleaned my arm and wrapped it up for me and checked us both from head to toe for any other cuts and bruises.
The police had shown up in masses, going in every direction of every street and had asked us questions for hours.
Neither of us had found our voice yet, but we tried our best. "Monster", "shadow", and "man" were a few of the only lines I remembered either of us muttering. They had asked us about different animals in the woods, and what kind of animal it was. They asked so many times, and every time we would shake our heads and again tell them they were wrong. I remember the annoyance that was showing on their faces. Speaking had only become harder when I realized that the effort going into this was wasted. They didn't believe it. The answers meant nothing to them.
[[Then Elliotts mom showed up]]
<<set $quiet to $quiet + 1>>We were sitting in the backroom away from all the adults. The cops had left us, and we had sat in silence with our bodies just barely touching with how close we were to each other. Harpers dad had this clock that had different small birds along the edges of it, and it ticked. I counted each tick, and watched each bird with such interest that I almost forgotten who I was for a moment, I was hypnotized by it.
Suddenly the door swung open, and Diana, Elliotts mom stared at us without moving. It was as if she was confirming there were only 2 children and not 3 sitting there as her eyes darted back and forth from us. I can't remember how long she stayed there like that, until she rushed forward and placed her hands on each of our arms and screamed. She demanded we tell the truth, to tell them what happened to her son. She reminded us of Andrew, Elliotts twin brother, and told us that we will destroy him and his life if we don't speak up now. We'd never see Andrew, nor Elliott ever again because of our choices to hide the truth from them. Tears ran down her face as she gripped us tighter and tighter every time she asked what happened to her son.
I can't remember if either of us spoke after, I just remember the cops ushering her away and Harpers parents comforting us. My grandmother was also there, I wasn't aware she had been there yet, but there she was. Staring at us from the doorway as it all happened. She watched our reactions, and our every move with what seemed more like curiosity than worry. She never truly said anything about the events that took place that night.
[[The next morning at 5am, she woke me up and told me to pack my bags.]]
It's been 11 years since I visited my grandma. I spent a month out of every summer since my birth visiting my grandma who lived at the beginning of Myrtle Lane, and suddenly I was banned. I never truly got to say goodbye to Harper, Andrew or even Riley. So many summers exploring the woods with the Thorton brothers, and Harper. So many summers trying to convince Riley to join us even if it was usually no, I do wonder what would've happened with Riley was there that night. If Andrew hadn't had the flu and had been there as planned. But everything happened too quickly, and I would never truly know. I was always met with silence when my grandma would visit my dad and I and I'd ask her for updates on my old friends, or tried to talk about what happened that night.
Last I heard, the police decided to brush everything under the wrong. Three kids went too far into the woods and got lost. According to the markings of his body, a bear found us before adults could, and the 2 remaining children were so frightened that they created these exaggerated stories. We had been marked as liars, and no one believed us. No one wanted to hear the truth about what happened because only children believed in monsters.
I tried to move on from that night and make a life for myself, but the nightmares returned and reminded me of it. I couldn't mentally escape even if I did physically escape with only one visible scar from it. I had 3 long, thin lines going down my forearm as the reminder. I was supposed to be the one it caught, but I was saved. Elliott saved me, and I lived. I was told that I'd never come back by both my parents and my grandma, and maybe they were right. Maybe I shouldn't have returned, but here I was. Standing in the doorway of my grandmother’s house, now empty, and forced to face the horrors of Mytrle Lane.
[[The End]]
Thank you for reading the introduction!
I hope you enjoyed it, even if it was very short and to the point.
Please let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions that I could make over at my blog,
https://www.tumblr.com/myrtlelane-if