Terrors of the Forest: 13 Tales from the Campfire by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE WALL IN GRANDPA'S BACKYARD

Blair Daniels

~

“Never go over the wall.” My grandpa sat in the rocking chair, massaging his bad ankle through mud-stained jeans. “This isn’t the safest area of Florida. Especially at night.”

“Okay.”

“Also, be careful with that. You could take your eye out.”

See, that’s why my nine-year-old self didn’t take him seriously. He was always warning me about various “dangerous” things. Don’t swim in the deep end of the pool; you could drown. Don’t run so fast; you could trip and break your neck.

So when—one night—I heard a voice on the other side of the wall, I wasn’t scared.

I had been playing alone in the backyard, sitting in the grass between the orange trees, when I heard it. A woman’s voice, low and soft, echoing over the concrete wall at the end of the backyard.

“Hello?”

Being the curious kid I was, I immediately ran over to it. I wouldn’t climb over—even though I didn’t believe Grandpa, I didn’t want to make him mad—but there was no harm in taking a peek, right?

I stepped up on the old stone fountain, reached for the top of the wall, and hoisted myself up. And then I peered down.

Underneath the intertwining oak branches and Spanish moss was only darkness. I squinted, trying to make sense of the shadows flitting across the dirt floor. Maybe I had imagined it—

“Hello?”

The voice rang out in the darkness, up through the trees.

“Hello!” I called back.

I heard a rustling sound, and the soft thump of footsteps. “Who’s there?”

“Amanda,” I called down.

“I’m Elizabeth.” The shadows shifted, but I still couldn’t quite make out the figure below. “And I need your help, Amanda.”

“Sure! I can help!”

“I’m thirsty,” she said. The wind picked up, and the branches swayed, scattering the shadows below. “So very thirsty.”

“I’ll get you some water!” I said, without second thought.

“Oh, that would be so wonderful, Amanda.”

I jumped down, scampered inside, and fished a bottle of water from the fridge. Grandpa didn’t even notice; he was watching some boring World War II movie on TV, rubbing his bad ankle all the while.

I stepped back up onto the fountain. “I got you some water,” I called. “Do you want me to throw it down?”

“Oh, well... it might hit me. Maybe you can come down and give it to me?”

I paused. The warm Florida air blew over my face, and there was a strange smell: sour, like when Dad’s meat freezer in the basement broke a few years ago. “I can’t. I’m not supposed to go over the wall.”

I was met with awkward silence.

“Hello?”

“Please, I’m so thirsty,” the voice said, again.

I looked at the rough concrete. Maybe I could pull myself up a bit, reach down, and hand her the bottle of water? I swung a leg up over the wall, and with a grunt, pulled myself into a sitting position.

Slowly, I leaned down, and reached my hand through the canopy of branches.

But nothing took the bottle of water.

“Hello?”

Silence. Not even a footstep, or a rustle, from the underbrush below.

“Hel—”

Something yanked my ankle.

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