Monday morning, bright and early, the alarm clock rang like the cry of a banshee. A banshee, I had learned from one of my books, was a spirit whose wail spelled disaster for anyone who heard it.
That’s how I felt—like I was heading for catastrophe.
Alex and I loaded the luggage into the trunk while Mom made sandwiches and snacks for the road. I packed two big boxes of comics, magazines, and books. Mom said I didn’t need to bring that much, but I insisted. Alex, of course, brought along a mixed assortment of his favorite action figures.
Trunk space dwindled fast, and I had to reposition the suitcases and boxes a few times to make sure everything fit. Mom’s laptop computer was the last snug-fitting piece of the puzzle. I wedged it between a couple of suitcases—carefully! Mom was more protective of the computer than I was of my comics. I didn’t know why she wanted to bring it along, though, since this was supposed to be a vacation.
With the car packed, we were on our way.
There was no talking Mom out of the trip.
“Tell you what,” Mom said as we rounded a curve. “Why don’t you check under your seat. I got you something that might cheer you up. I was going to wait until we got to your aunt and uncle’s place, but I’ll go ahead and give it to you now.”
I’ll admit, she piqued my interest. For a half-second, I wondered if she’d gone ahead and gotten me a couple of the DS Lite games I wanted. That wasn’t much like my Mom, though. My thirteenth birthday was only a couple of months away, and she liked to make me wait for gifts like that.
I leaned forward, reached under the seat, and found a heavy object wrapped in a plastic shopping bag.
Definitely too heavy to be new video games, I thought.
I unwrapped the package, revealing a thick hardback book. The cover featured a spooky-looking, run down house sitting atop a lonely hill.
Ozarks Ghosts and Legends,
read the title, written by W.D. Goodwin. I ran my fingers lightly over the raised printing.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Open it up and see for yourself,” Mom said. “I marked a couple of chapters I thought you’d find interesting.”
I cracked open the book and turned my attention to the pages Mom had noted with several neatly-cut slips of paper. I flipped to the first marked chapter, and the title nearly jumped off the page.
“Crooked Hills,” it read, “The Most Haunted Town in America.”
THE TOWN OF CROOKED HILLS became more interesting page-by-page.
Haunted houses. Ghostly voices in the dead of night. Spectral shapes flitting through the shadows. Every page was chock-f of blood-curdling stories of spirits, monsters, and macabre happenings. Each tale sent a shiver of fearful delight up my spine. I’ve always been a sucker for spooky stories (especially if they’re supposedly true) and, according to the book, Crooked Hills had more ghosts than any other town in the country!
The first story I read was titled, “The Wandering Loverboy of Crooked Hills,” and it told of the spirit of a young man who haunted back roads in search of his lost love. Always seen carrying a bouquet of yellow and red flowers, the ghost flagged down unwary drivers as they drove past. When someone stopped, the young man rushed to the driver’s side, leaning down to gaze through the window, as if expecting to find someone he knew. The smile would droop into a frown, and the flowers, as if aging fifty years in the space of a few seconds, wilted and turned brown. “You’re not her,” he would mutter through cracked, dry lips as his face wasted away, the skin turning gray and flaky as he changed into a desiccated, horrific apparition.
Pretty gruesome!
Feverishly, I turned the page.
One tale told of the haunted gallows tree. Years ago, criminals were hanged from the branches of the tallest tree in the county. Ugh! I rubbed my neck. What a way to go! Now, on nights when the full moon shone brightly through the branches, the ghosts of the criminals appeared on creaking ropes, swaying back and forth as they proclaimed their innocence in mournful, rasping voices.
Next I read about a group of evil witches who poisoned local crops and livestock with their magic. Feared by every man, woman, and child in the area, the worst of their number was Maddie Someday. To this day, no one said her name aloud without spitting twice to ward off her ire. A witch of the cruelest variety, Maddie was the sort of vile creature destined to become the subject of campfire ghost stories. Known for kidnapping children in the dead of night, she wore a large ruby ring on the index finger of her right hand. The jewel glinted in the moonlight as the witch wandered the darkest part of the woods. Whenever someone saw the ring winking like a bloody eye in the darkness, they knew to get home quick unless they wanted to become one of Maddie’s victims.
This was the first time I heard about Maddie Someday...
If only it had been the last.
THE DRIVE TO CROOKED HILLS took several more hours. If not for the book, it might have been one of the most boring trips of my life. I read as many of the local legends as I could, but eventually I started to feel just a little carsick. Reading and riding along twisting roads didn’t go well together. I had to put the book aside for a while. Still, I couldn’t believe we were vacationing in such a haunted place. Maybe the trip wouldn’t be so terribly dull after all. If I got lucky, I might even see a ghost. I got goose bumps just thinking about it.
“Charlie?” Alex shifted restlessly in the back seat. “Don’t you want to play the cow game?”
I turned in my seat to look at my little brother. “You never give up, do you?”
Alex smiled. “Nope.”
I felt a little bad for ignoring Alex for so long, and I’d been acting like a jerk with my mom, too. I reminded myself that I was “the man of the house” when it came to my family now, and I needed to be a little more understanding.
“How many cows have you got now?” I asked my brother.
“A bunch. Something like a hundred and fifty.”
About that time, we passed a roadside billboard advertising a restaurant called Chauncy Burger. The sign featured a happy cartoon character chowing down on a hamburger.
I quickly yelled, “I make hamburgers out of all your cows!”
“Gross!” Alex yelled, but he couldn’t help but laugh.
Signs of modern civilization such as shopping centers and fast food restaurants grew more and more scarce, while stretches of thick, dark woods grew more and more common. We traveled the winding road through farmland and then into hill country, where rocky slopes cast ominous shadows over the highway.
“My ears feel funny,” Alex said.
Mine felt strange, too, like they were stuffed with cotton.
“Crooked Hills is in the foothills of the mountains,” Mom said. “The altitude can cause your ears to pop. You’ll get used to it. Charlie, get some gum out of the glove compartment.”
Chewing a stick of gum helped, even though it was peppermint-flavored—my least favorite—and it also eased my carsickness. Before long, I forgot all about my popping ears and flip-flopping stomach. I spotted a signpost on the side of the road.
WELCOME TO CROOKED HILLS
“We’re here!” Mom piped.
I sat up straight and looked out the window. Maybe I’d spot a ghost or ghoul before we even arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house. I doubted it, though, since it was still daylight, and most spooks and specters only came out at night.
Crooked Hills didn’t look like much of a town to me. In fact, I hardly saw any houses as the car followed the snaking road through tree-covered hills. Tree limbs loomed overhead, dappling shadows over us. Eventually, I spotted a few mailboxes along the roadside, and paths cutting through the trees. Every now and again, I glimpsed a house tucked away in the woods, but those looked even more rundown and decrepit than the haunted house on the cover of my book. Paint peeled from the walls like snakeskins, and the roofs sagged as if ready to buckle. I started to worry Mom might pull into the craggy driveway of one of the near-ruined houses and cry, “Welcome to our home away from home!” Luckily, she kept on driving, and I saw a few homes that at least looked fit to live in. Still, I didn’t see any signs of a town.
“There’s a few stores and restaurants up the road,” Mom said, sensing my confusion. “We’ll go into town in a couple of days, after we get settled in a bit.”
She hit the brakes, slowed down, and veered onto a dirt path through the forest. The car jostled and bumped, and pebbles clicked and clattered beneath us. The path curled deep into the woods, but we passed a few cabins, houses, and secluded pastures along the way. Low-hanging branches tapped and scraped across the roof of the car like boney fingers.
The forest opened up like a yawning mouth, and we crossed a concrete bridge. I craned my neck to get a good look at the creek below. The shore was covered in a flat bed of round, white stones, and tangles of branches bunched up around the base of the bridge. The water was so clear I could see the rocky creek bottom in most places, but a couple of spots looked dark and deep. A little ways downstream, the flow picked up speed and rushed over some large rocks and around the bend. It wasn’t like whitewater rapids, but it was close.
On the other side of the creek, the trees once again grew thick, pressing in on both sides, their shadows washing over the rocky stretch of road.
We rounded the bend and followed the path parallel to the twisting band of water. A heavy copse of trees separated us from the creek, but occasionally I caught a glimpse of water glistening from behind the veil of thick, leafy trees.
“Look up there.” Mom pointed toward the hill.
Alex pressed his hands and face up against the window in the back seat. I looked, too, and saw four deer wandering through the trees. One sported huge antlers. The deer watched as we slowly rode past, then bolted into the brush.
“Wow,” Alex breathed.
Up ahead, a mailbox sprouted out of a tangle of flowering weeds, the name “Widows” printed across the side in reflective, stick-on letters. Widows was my aunt and uncle’s last name. Our long trip was drawing to its conclusion.
To get to the house, we turned down an even narrower path. The car dipped and rocked as we started downhill. At the bottom of the incline, we even had to drive right through a couple of shallow, slow-moving brooks! The water wasn’t very deep, but I imagined the streams flooded the road in heavy rains. We started uphill again, and my aunt and uncle’s house waited for us at the top.
It was a large building, constructed of mismatched gray and white stones. The front of the house faced the forest, but the lawn was freshly mowed, and planters full of bright flowers were placed here and there around the yard. A split-beam fence separated the yard from the woods, keeping the tangled trees at bay.
Mom pulled to a stop behind the house.
A couple of metal bench swings sat in the back yard, along with a picnic table and dozens of bird houses of every shape, size, and color, mounted on tall wooden beams. The back yard butted right up to pastures stretching as far as the eye could see. Much of it was fenced-in, and I saw chickens and goats in the pens and ducks milling around a muddy watering hole. A narrow trail lined with apple trees climbed a hill that filled the horizon. Cattle grazed in the distance.
A covered shed stood off to the side. In the shed, at least a dozen plump cats prowled around shelves cluttered with tools and a rusty old tractor that looked like it hadn’t been used in years.
Before we even rolled to a complete stop, Aunt Mary came out of the house to meet us. She looked almost exactly like Mom, only a couple of years older, and she smiled so widely it looked like her face was split in half by teeth. Mom got out of the car and gave her a hug.
I turned around in the seat and looked at Alex. He shrugged, and we climbed out of the car. We walked up behind Mom and her sister.
When Mom turned toward us, she had tears in her eyes and a big smile on her face that almost rivaled her sister’s. I’m not sure I’d ever seen her so happy, at least not in the last year.
“Boys,” she said. “You remember your Aunt Mary, don’t you?”
“Look how big you are!” Aunt Mary hugged each of us in turn and looked us over from head to toe, almost like she couldn’t believe we were real. “Charlie, you’re growing into a fine young man.”
I felt my cheeks redden. All the attention embarrassed me.
Beside me, Alex drew in a sharp breath. His eyes grew as big as saucers. I followed his terrified gaze and swallowed my chewing gum when I saw what bothered him so.
A man emerged from behind the shed. He was broad-shouldered, and his arms were corded with thick muscles. He wore a pair of dirty overalls and heavy work boots. He didn’t say a word as he stomped our way.
And he held a bloody axe in his hand!
CRIMSON DROPLETS OOZED AND DRIPPED from the blade, plopping onto the big man’s boots and rolling down the dirt-caked leather to the ground below. His thick fingers flexed on the axe handle. He walked right up to us, each heavy footstep like a peel of thunder, and I thought we were goners for sure.
But instead of whacking us over the heads, the man smiled broadly. It was one of the most welcoming, friendly smiles I’d ever seen, not as wide as Aunt Mary’s, but warm and full of good cheer. I couldn’t help but grin back at him.
“How’re y’all doing?” He looked at my little brother and me. “Y’all look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I was so focused on the bloody axe that I’d failed to recognize the man as my own Uncle Shorty!
He stuck out his hand—the one not holding the axe—and we shook. I could tell he was strong, but he didn’t grasp my fingers so hard it hurt. I tried my best to return a firm handshake. He ruffled Alex’s hair and hugged my mom with one arm around her neck.
Shorty. The name didn’t quite fit. He wasn’t necessarily tall, but he wasn’t short, either, and he looked like he could lift the old rusty tractor all by himself if he ever set his mind to it.
“What on earth are you doing with that?” Mom peered at the gore-covered axe.
Aunt Mary rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, he’s just trying to make a dramatic entrance.”