Memoirs of a Girl Wolf (4 page)

“Right now?” Max asked.

“Yeah,” she replied.

They all looked uneasy. “Not right now,” Joe said.

Sydney crossed her arms and pursed her lips as she said, “Why are you guys scared or something.”

I could tell Max was eyeing me. Once Sydney questioned whether or not the guys were scared, Max puffed out his chest, flexed a little and stepped forward. He walked across the deck and down the short wooden steps calling for us to follow him.

Sydney squealed, excited that she had gotten her way. She grabbed on to Joe’s arm as they ran a little to catch up to Max’s long strides.

“Are we really doing this?” Kristen whispered in my ear as I passed her.

I shrugged. I knew she felt just as apprehensive about it as I did. We were both pretty spooked by seeing that light earlier in the night and now we were headed in the direction to find out the source. No, thank you. But still we followed the others and while Kristen dragged a little behind walking next to Seth, I ran to the front to walk with Max. He was waiting for us at the opening of the woods. He stood with his arms crossed next the trunk of a tall, skinny tree.

“Ready?” He asked me when I caught up.

I nodded. I wasn’t nervous anymore. Wandering around outside at night in search of a haunted house seemed, at the moment, a lot more nerve-wracking than being alone with Max Fender.  His arms fell to his side and he held my hand as he helped me over a fallen, rotting branch.

Together, with the others behind us, we entered the dark, abyss of the woods.

Chapter 4

The further we walked away from my house emitting bright light behind us, the quieter and darker the woods grew until it was almost silence except for the echoing sounds of us trampling over leaves and snapping twigs under our shoes.

The pine scent of the trees intensified and their tall, knotty trunks and bent branches cowered over and around us enclosing us on the uncharted trail we walked on. I was no longer hot and thankfully stopped sweating, but a new problem arose: I was uncomfortably cold. I folded my arms around myself and did my best to keep my teeth from chattering as the cool Michigan breeze picked up around us and played flirtatiously with my red hair.

Max must have noticed my discomfort because he pulled his yellow hooded sweatshirt over his head and handed it to me. I took it eagerly and although it was large on me, I was instantly warmer once I slipped my arms through the long, baggy sleeves. Whether or not he was cold in his short sleeve Abercrombie t-shirt, I didn’t know, he hid it well.

For some time we walked in silence listening to the flapping of wings, a hoot of an owl, and chirping insects around us. We were a way ahead of the others, but suddenly we could hear Sydney’s sonorous laughter echo through the tops of the trees and swirl around the two of us

“Should we wait for them?” I asked coming to a stop and leaning lightly against the trunk of an oak tree.

Max looked over his shoulder, but it was too dark to make anything out. We could only hear them. “I guess.” His shoulders rose and fell.

He stood next to me and placed his hand against the tree to support himself, but once he did this we were only inches away from one another. Sydney’s plan had worked after all; she really did get us alone.

He looked down his straight nose at me and I looked up at him only briefly. My stomach started to roll with anxiety again. My heart banged in my chest and my eyes went in and out of focus as I felt increasingly lightheaded. I swayed a little. Losing my balance, I stumbled forward and fell against his warm chest. He caught hold of me with one hand and set me up right.

“Too much to drink?” he asked.

I laughed lightly, trying to hide my embarrassment. “No, I haven’t had any. I don’t drink.”

“I don’t either,” he said.

My lips stretched into a pleased smile I was liking him even more.

“I don’t want to jeopardize my scholarship for college,” he added.

“U of M, right?” I asked.

He nodded, apathetically.

“Cool. I want to go to MSU. Go green . . .” I trailed off once I noticed his fingers where in my hair. I wasn’t sure why until I saw a green leaf in between his fingers that he had pulled from my hair. He smiled at me as he crumbled the little leaf in his fingers.

We were silent again staring at one another with only the soft light of the moon highlighting our place next to the towering tree. But I averted my eyes quickly as I focused on the overgrown dogwood to the right of us and then on a dead leaf with a broken spine under my foot. My eyes moved anywhere, but to his face because I could feel him staring down at me and smiling at me with that goofy grin. I was afraid in an excited nervous way about what may happen if I looked up and into his calming blue violet eyes.

Just as I thought I couldn’t avoid him anymore and my first kiss only seconds away, Sydney and Joe stumbled into the clearing where Max and I stood followed by Kristen who looked stone frozen in fear that she was left alone with Seth who looked bored.

Sydney held out the glass bottle of peppermint schnapps that she and Joe passed back and forth. We could smell their overwhelming minty breath mixed with the smell of the pine trees as they breathed in our faces and laughed about something, an inside joke, that the rest of us didn’t get.

Looking at me, Max stepped forward and took the bottle from Sydney’s loose hold. She hiccupped as she protested a little by pouting her lips and placing her hands on her hips.

“Max Fender what are you doing?” she slurred.

Max glanced over at me before tipping the bottle over and pouring the liquid out into a puddle on the damp, clay soil. Sydney and Joe stared in disbelief with their mouths open.

“You guys have had enough. She should probably stay the night,” Max said to me.

I nodded in agreement. “Joe can stay too,” I said then noticing Max was looking at me with a curious expression I added, “In the guest room downstairs.”

Sydney upset, dramatically grabbed hold of Joe’s arm and pulled him ahead as they kept walking forward on the trail. Not bothering her hide her irritation, she talked loudly about us and every few seconds threw her head back to glare at us. Narrowing her almond brown eyes at us and a scowl on her pale face, she shook her head and let us know she was not at all pleased with Max’s performance.

Max and I were no longer on our own. Seth and Kristen stayed close to us. The guys walked in front and Kristen and I stayed a little behind.

Suddenly, I heard a rustling behind us. The others didn’t notice when I stopped, but I could have sworn I saw something out of the corner of my eye cross our path something with yellow eyes. Tilting my head, I listened as best as I could to the sounds of my surrounding’s. A breeze picked up and sent shivers down my spine as the moon disappeared behind dark clouds and now even the glow of the moon was gone and no longer was there light to console and guide us.

Kristen, noticing I was no longer beside her, turned around and saw me a few feet back. She walked quickly over to me and grabbed my elbow.

“Keep up. You’re gonna get left in the woods,” she scolded.

“I thought I saw something,” I said, looking into my friends hazel eyes which widened with terror.

“Don’t say that,” she whined. “In the middle of the dark woods-do not say that!” She grabbed me closer as we walked together at a fast pace to catch up with the others who had come to a stop once they reached an opening. Finally, we stood in the front, overgrown yard, of the abandoned house.

For a minute we all stared at one another uncertain what to do. There was the house before us as shabby as I had pictured from my view safely on the back deck of my house, but now here I was a feet away from the run down house that had become a popular type of ghost story among town.

Unlike the windows in the back of the house which were broken in or cracked, the front windows were boarded up with rotting, crooked planks of wood. The porch, like the roof, was sunken and four broken steps led to a wooden faded red door. The door was slightly ajar and lopsided, but what caught all of our attention was what appeared to be a light coming from the upstairs. Kristen and I glanced at each other certain it was the same light we had seen earlier.

“Let’s check it out,” Sydney said. She grabbed Joe’s arm and lurched forward, and although he pretended to be as brave as our friend, Sydney, I could tell from his hesitant expression that he didn’t want to go anywhere near the house.

              The rest of us stayed put, the only movement we elicited was that of our eyes as we followed Sydney and Joe as they disappeared around the house. Joe turned his head and gave us one last pleading look before we could no longer see him.

              “I guess we should follow,” Seth said.

              “Yeah,” Max agreed.

              But all they did was shift their feet a little and cross their arms over their chest. I found myself shaking my arm out of Kristen’s grip and walking forward. Before disappearing around the house, I turned back toward the three of them and flipped my red hair over my shoulder. I wanted to impress Max with my bravery.

              “Coming?” I asked with a sly smile.

              Slowly, and with some detectable resentment, they started to follow me.

              Once we rounded the house, we noticed Sydney and Joe kicking the glass out of double doors.

              “What are you guys doing? You can’t do that,” Kristen said, she looked around us as if the police were going to jump out at any moment.

              “Who cares? No one lives here,” Sydney said.

              Max put his hand on the door and pulled on a rusty door knob. The doors creaked open and released a powerful musty smell. Sydney covered her mouth and coughed as she strained to open the doors wide enough for us to enter.

              “I’ll just wait out here,” Kristen said, but that didn’t last long as soon as the rest of us where in the house and she was by herself outside. We laughed when she followed us into the room.

              From what I could tell from the pathetic glow of my cell phone, we were in the basement of the house. To the right of us at the back of the room was a dilapidating stair case with a broken railing and missing steps.

              All of us coughed into our hands due to the amount of dust that covered everything in the room. There was some furniture: a wide wooden table that was covered in a black plastic tarp and the tarp was kept in place with large crystal rocks.

              The floor was cement, I thought, but upon closer inspection I made it out to be chipped tile. Peaking my curiously, was a drain in the floor near the table and on the wall close to the drain a faucet, covered in silver cobwebs, but no sink.

              Mostly we were all silenced by the smell. We kept our hand in place over our mouth, but the cool night breeze blowing into the room through the open doors, helped reduce potent the smell that had transformed from musty to rancid. Max said it was probably a dead, decomposing squirrel. We nodded. That made sense.

              Just as we were about to clumsily adventure up the weak stairs, the moon moved from behind gray clouds and a steady sallow light streamed into the room. We weren’t as dependent on our phones and we continued to investigate using the moon light to our advantage.

              Sydney found a wall with pictures. The glass in the frame was cracked and the photo faded, but it was of a black and white photo of a young woman with dark hair that flowed over her freckled shoulders. Blunt bangs covered her forehead. A dimple on either side outlined her warm smile as she gazed downward. Her shirt was lifted up over a protruding bump. Small hands and long fingers, caressed her pregnant stomach.

              I knew instantly that she was the woman who was killed. The neighbor mom wouldn’t talk to me about and I wanted to tell the others what I knew about the photo, but before I could I heard Kristen scream. I turned quickly from the photo and looked around the room frantically in search of my friend.

              Sydney ran forward and I followed. Kristen was still shrieking, but I couldn’t see her. They were in the very back of the basement, and the further we ran down a hall, the lower the ceiling sunk.

Then Sydney came to an abrupt stop which caused me to bump into her, nearly knocking her over. I mumbled an apology as I rubbed my shoulder, but she didn’t appear bothered or like she had even noticed my assault. She stared at something in front of her, as still as the others. Kristen stood with her hands over her eyes whimpering.

              “What?” I asked, trying to steady my breathing.

              Without looking at me Max lifted his finger pointing before him at a wall. I straightened up and stepped forward, preparing myself and there in chains, hanging on the wall before was a skeleton of what looked like a dog, but what was even more alarming was the dried, dark red stains streaked across the white wall around the old bones.

              “We have to leave,” Sydney said. She backed away slowly and whispering said, “This is some kind of torture house.”

              “No,” I said. “It’s abandoned.”

              “This has been here for years probably,” Max said.