Growing up I was never allowed in the woods around my house. My mother was mentally ill and would always run and get lost in the woods for days. She had schizophrenia and some other serious mental illnesses that doctors just couldn’t quite put their finger on. When I was ten, The doctors told us she had passed while in the psych ward due to suicide. Her most peaceful and favorite place in the world were those woods by our house. I miss her everyday.
“Harris! Happy birthday bro!” My best friend Zeke yelled as he ran toward me in the hallway at school. “You’re eighteen now dude. How’s it feel?” I didn’t really know how to respond to zeke considering I feel the exact same as yesterday when I was seventeen, but I didn’t wanna be a dick. “It feels good, but nothing too special.” I said with a rhetorical voice. “Well hell yeah, it’s still important. I know it’s a sad day also though since you share your birthday with your mom and everything. But I love you bro. See you later!” I watched Zeke run through the hall to his math class. But for me ? I decided to take a little personal day for myself, it is my “Big” eighteenth birthday after all.
I started to walk home and trail through the woods toward my house. It’s only about a 10 minute walk from school. As I was walking through the woods I couldn’t help but keep thinking about my mom. She would’ve been forty seven today. I paused in my tracks when I almost walked into an old barb wire fence. “Ah shit, this is our property. Gotta go around.” I started following the fence on the outside side of our property to get to my house. I would have just hopped the fence but I knew my dad would kill me if he saw me in our woods.
A few minutes after walking alongside the fence, I kept hearing whispers. I looked at all my surroundings but didn’t see anyone. I kept walking. A few seconds later it got louder. “Come here.” Is all I heard. It came from the other side of the fence. Was it my dad or sister ? No, nobody is allowed in our woods. Is there someone trespassing, I yelled out, “Yo, whoever the hell is on my property, fuck off before I call the cops.” and kept walking.
I eventually made it home. As I was walking up the driveway, I noticed my dad’s van in the driveway. Shit, he definitely knows I skipped. I walked through the front door anyways, ready to see how he responds. When I walked through the door he was standing right there waiting for me. “Well fancy seeing you here, I don’t usually condone skipping school but it is your eighteenth birthday. I’m about to go to work and I won’t be back till super early tomorrow morning, see you later. Oh, and happy birthday son. I know it’s a hard time with your mom and sister and everything but it’ll be ok. Remember, no going in the woods.” Then he walked out the door.
I was never close with my dad and we never really talked to each other. The only things he would really say to me is to get him a beer and to never go in the woods. No matter how badly I wanted to. I went upstairs to my room. 8:30am? I’m going back to sleep.
“Harris! Harris are you home? I’m hungry!” I popped up from my nap and checked my phone. 5:34pm ? Holy shit how did I sleep that long. I ran downstairs to see my little sister Alisa waiting for me. “Harris! I’ve been calling your name forever. I’m hungry!” I wiped the crust off my eyes and made my way to the kitchen to make her some ramen. “So how was your day at school Alisa?” I asked as I started to boil some water. “It was ok, I saw a woman walking alongside the bus that looked like mommy.” I paused and took a sharp, deep breath. I turned around to face her. “You saw who?” I asked sternly, she faced me, “Mommy, I saw mommy.” I didn’t know what to say. “Alisa, nobody has seen mom in years, you’ve seen pictures but you never really met her.” She looked at me sideways, “Harris, I know it was her. She was alongside the bus looking at all the kids looking out the window. Out of all of the kids she smiled and waved at me like crazy. She also looked just like the pictures you’ve shown me of mom.” “Alisa! It wasn’t her! Now stop fucking talking about it!”. She walked off with her head hanging down. I felt bad for yelling, but she sounds crazy right now.
I finished making her ramen, took the bowl and started walking to her room. I knocked and said softly, “Alisa, I’m sorry for yelling at you. I’ve just been stressed lately. Open the door. I made your ramen.” The door squeaked as it opened just a little bit. Alisa stuck her little hand out for the bowl, took it, then shut the door. I walked away to go watch some Tv for a while. I plopped down on the couch and checked my phone again. 6:30 ? Not bad. I laid down to watch some weird cop show and fell asleep due to the boringness of it.
I woke up in a cold sweat and looked at the clock. 10:55pm ? Why am I so tired and falling asleep all the time lately? Oh shit, Alissa! I ran upstairs to her room to check on her. The door was locked. I started banging on the door. “Alisa! Alisa! Open the door, I know you can hear me!” No answer. I went to my room, took the crowbar from under my bed and walked back to Alisa’s room. I swung the crowbar as hard as I could on the door handle until It broke off and the door opened. I kicked the door open the rest of the way to look in the room. Alisa wasn’t there. I ran through her room checking all possible spots she could be hiding. It was a small house so there aren’t very many places she could be. As I was looking all around her room for her, I felt a cool wind hit my back. I looked behind me to see her window, wide open. I ran to the window and stuck my head out to look around outside. There she was, standing in the woods looking straight at me with a blank expression.
“Alisa! Get back in here now! You know we’re not allowed in the woods for any reason at all! Come here!” she turned around and started walking further into the woods. I ran downstairs and out the door to go after her. I ran past the fence and deep into the woods shouting her name. “Alisa! Alisa! Where are you?!” I waited a few seconds before I heard my name. “Harris! Over here!” I couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from. “Alisa! Where are you?” I yelled again. “Come here!” It didn’t come from Alisa. It sounded like a grown woman’s voice. I stood still, realizing it wasn’t Alisa. I started to make my way back to the house. I got back to the fence and stood there, looking up to see Alisa staring at me from her open bedroom window in the house. “Alisa! Where did you go ? I’ve been looking all around the woods for you!” I kept looking at her, staring back at me. A few more seconds of looking at her I realized she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking behind me. “Mommy!” she screamed. I froze, afraid to turn around and see who she was yelling at. A soft voice spoke from behind me. “Harris, turn around. Come here.” I took a deep breath, not knowing what I was going to see standing behind me. I slowly turned my feet to turn around. “Mom?”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My own mother. “I’ve been looking for you Harris. You need to come with me. Now.” I barely understood what she had just said to me out of revelation. “No, I don’t even know you. You’re dead. I know you are.” I said with a shaky voice, on the verge of tears. I heard a voice come from behind her. “Haris” It was my sister, how did she get there without me seeing ? “It’s our time. We need to go with mommy.” I looked back at my mom, her face was so pale. I could see her features with the moonlight, but her eyes were pitch black. I looked at Alisa, her eyes were black too. “Come with us now.” They both started walking toward me. “No! You’re both sick and crazy! Fuck off!” I yelled as I ran toward the road in hopes to find someone to help me.
As I was running I could hear heavy footsteps close behind me. I tried to run faster, but they stayed right behind me. I made it down to the road, as I started to scream for help, a car horn covered my screams as it hit me.
A few days later I woke up in the hospital. I looked around the room to see my hands and feet chained to the bed. I also saw my dad right outside the room, talking to the cops and a doctor. “Dad ?” I said. He looked at me, looked back at them to say something, then walked back into my room. “Hey buddy. How are you feeling ?” I couldn’t feel much of my body so I didn’t really know what to say. “Where is mom and Alisa ? They’re crazy dad. You need to stay away from them.” He looked at me shocked, saddened and disappointed. He sat down on the edge of my bed and looked at me. “Harris, your mother died after giving birth to Alisa when you were ten while she was in the psych ward. She had an episode in the woods by the house claiming she was seeing people and hearing things. She was going crazy and trying to hurt us because she didn’t know who we were. Then her water broke in the middle of it. The ambulance came and got her, took her to the hospital, then after she gave birth she went to the psych ward where she died. Neither of them are real.”
I was in shock and had no idea what to say. I looked at my dad, “So what the fuck happened to me a few nights ago, that wasn’t fake.” He looked at me with anger. “Haris you have the same mental illness as your mother. I’m the one who accidentally hit you when you ran into the road. I was coming home. Before you passed out, I asked what happened and you told me about your day with your mother and Alisa in the woods and how they were chasing you. There was nobody else near or around you. They’re buried in those woods. That’s why you’ve always been so attracted to it.” The cops and doctor stepped in and interrupted him. “Mr. Wills, are you ready for us ?” My dad looked at me crying, then back at them, “Yes I am” He left the room. The cops looked at me and said “Ok son, we all think it’s best for everyone’s safety to do this. They injected my leg with a big syringe and pushed some sort of whitish clear liquid.
I tensed up and could feel my heart slowing down with every second passing. Right before my last breath, I heard that soft voice again. “Come here.” I was going to be with my mom again, forever.
Short Stories