The Journal of H.D. Wards by L.A. Detwiler

Author:L.A. Detwiler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lindsay Detwiler
Published: 2021-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

IT HASN’T COME TONIGHT. Dawn edges into the sky, and it hasn’t come. I sat vigil all night, the thought of its scratches on the window jolting me awake any time my head nodded. Knife in my grip, I waited to see what its sinister plans were.

But it didn’t come. The horror in that fact is almost worse than the vision I have seared into my brain of it.

Why didn’t it come?

What kind of twisted game is it playing?

June 12th

“You’re acting odd,” Mama said at breakfast. I saw a flash of Dorothy Mae in my head. Was the whole world turning against me?

I felt odd, a sort of Alice in Wonderland loopy feeling that kept me awake but not really. It felt like I was living but not living. It felt like I was me but not me, the lack of sleep and the terror exhausting my brain in hallucinatory ways.

“I’m just tired,” I murmured.

“Nightmares again? I didn’t hear you scream,” Dad said through mouthfuls of bacon.

“No. Just couldn’t sleep,” I said truthfully. You don’t have to sleep to have nightmares, though, as I’ve learned. I stared at the familiar groove in the table. I loved digging my butter knife into as a younger child. I would trace that mark up and down with my knife, imagining what had made it.

As my fingers reached out to feel the mark from the past, I felt Dad’s condescending gaze peruse me. I adjusted in my seat.

“Well, be careful. Mrs. Gibbons said Johnny started getting insomnia a few months ago, and it about drove him mad. Almost ended up in Redwood over it.” I looked up to see Mama blinking at me, and frustration bubbled. Her subtle warnings weren’t anything if they weren’t blatant, laden with ironic sweetness.

“I have to go,” I retorted, heading out the door. As the screen door slammed behind me, I scanned the yard. No odd smell. No sounds. Daylight mercifully glowed.

But as I headed for the lane, I froze outside of my bedroom window.

The fresh markings on the peeling siding were undeniable. Yet the figure they carved didn’t make sense.

It shaky scrawl, carved into the wooden siding was a 3. Why a 3? I shivered, wanting to touch it but not wanting to. I moved closer to examine it.

Had it come after all? Had it come last night? But why hadn’t I seen it?

I reached a wavering hand up to the peeling white paint, the groove of the three deep yet frenetically drawn. Slowly, carefully, I moved my pointer finger toward the carving. Like a doubting apostle, I needed to feel it with my own fingers less I pretend it was a figment of my wild, malevolent imagination.

I expected to trace the groove and to solidify in my head what my eyes were seeing—it was real. The three was carved into the siding by my window.

But when my finger slowly pressed into the siding and touched the mark, I yanked it back with a squeal.

My finger burned and swelled, inflamed from the contact.

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