Building 33 “Hidden in the Rows”

“In the time it takes for you to read this, and by the time you stop to rest your eyes, things will already have changed in ways you can scarcely imagine.

I had been so sure that things were going to be the same for me, for as long as I was going to live. My husband didn't have any medical conditions and neither did my children. We lived in a place where things stayed much the same day in and day out.

Everything was even and normal, and even special occasions were private affairs.

It took active work on our part to find ways to participate in holidays, and when winter came it was not abnormal for us to drive into town and not see anything going wrong, or anyone celebrating the solstice as people were so apt to do when I was growing up.

Everything around here seemed to be normal, and so very far away from the street that defined my childhood.

I have tried very hard not to think about that place. I am sure most people have a particular place that they dread going back to, but few, I think, really feel the sort of terror that I get whenever I will see something that reminds me of it.

There are monsters on the TV.

My children and my husband love them. But I do not. I cannot. I look at them, and I feel a wave of fear rising up inside of me, not because anything on the screen particularly scares me, but because the sight of them remind me that there are things out there, real things that exist that are far far worse.

Things that took friends from me.

Things that took family from me.

And after enough times of that happening, you eventually decide to move, and seek out somewhere else to put down your roots. Because after a while you either learn to adjust to the place, or you figure out what you have to do to help you leave.

But lately things have been coming back to me, memories that I had thought I had buried deep that are coming to the surface no matter how much I try to make them seem like a dream or a fantasy.

I could handle that. I could manage if it were to turn out that all those private little nightmares were simply that.

They were just nightmares.

But they weren't nightmares, because we don't call it a nightmare in a traditional sense if you are awake. And my eyes had been wide open, just like they are now. And I wish, gods...god knows that I wish that I was just...normal. That all those things that I left behind were behind me.

And they are, but not in the way that I want them to be.

It started off with a family about a mile down the road. Their farm had always been struggling... or...no. It wasn't always struggling, but it had been struggling for long enough to make all of the time before it was struggling seem to be irrelevant. They had two daughters, and one of them moved away.

One of them stayed...

It wasn't...the thing that made them struggle seemed to be the ground itself. There was a blight that seemed to stick with their crops and refused to let go. Year after year they would seek out advice, try different techniques, all trying to fix what was wrong with the land.

Nothing worked, and I think in the end the blight is what took their farm, one way or another.

They are all gone now.

They disappeared when the fire claimed their house.

And that would have been that. That would have been strange, but not in a way that could be considered to be out of place in the country. Things happen with the land that we don't always have control over, and sometimes the ground goes sour.

But then the sightings started.

We never noticed them at first. It seemed that they liked the crops, liked the symmetry or the smell or something like that. At first everyone just dismissed it as being the neighbors telling tales, especially after the farmhouse next to theirs was burned down and the girl went missing. It seemed like an easy thing to lie about. It was an easy thing to try and use to get attention.

And maybe that was all it was at first.

But it didn't stay like that.

And the thing is, maybe most of the reports were just lying or a public panic or something like that, but that would suggest that maybe at least a few of them may be true...

No...that's not how it works. Just because a bunch of people say they saw something doesn't mean it was actually there. That sort of evidence by number is just foolishness.

And I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

The things lurking in the rows.

You would think that after all this talk, that I would tell you about that experience. But I don't really care about that. I just want to make it clear to you that there was a sequence of events, that I didn't just come upon this state of mind out of nowhere, and that it isn't just childhood trauma coming up in strange and uncomfortable ways.

It has rained a lot lately, a hot kind of rain that feels sticky upon your skin.

I thought that if I got away that everything would end up fine, and I would never have to see those horrors return to my doorstep.

But the other night I heard a knock on my door, and when I went to look who was there I started screaming. The thing on the porch had bugs in its hair, and as it talked on the other side of the door, worms fell out of its open mouth, running along is shriveled, gray flesh, as it looked at me with those cold dead eyes.

And the thing said my name, just like I knew it would.

Even after all this time it hadn't forgotten.

I abandoned them...I ran away from my family instead of dying with them.

“You left them alone to die,” it said. And so it promised to even the score.

Every morning they are returned to me, and every night they are taken away, and every time they come back a little different, in ways only a mother or a wife could understand...

And now you have finished reading this.

And everything has changed in ways you can scarcely understand.”

The continued mention of places outside of Wellington Street continues to bother me, and I took time out to investigate these claims more thoroughly. Upon arriving at the woman's home, I found her sitting at the table with her family, not reacting to the doorbell and prompting me to knock upon the window glass.

When she answered the door she looked tired and worn out, though if that is her normal I cannot say for sure. I asked some questions, specifically about the changes in family behavior and the her claims of the visitor.

She claims that it isn't something that she would be comfortable showing me, but I insisted, and managed to spend some time with her and her family. It was a pleasant evening, by and large, and I asked her to text me whenever there was an occurrence that fell outside of the normal range of behaviors of her family.

I will spare you a full list. Of particular note was the fact that she was unable to confirm these observations when we went over it near the end of the night. I had anticipated the demise of her family, if these claims were true, and did not expect her to be helpful afterward.

She stated that her children had different hair, and other things that she believed to be true. But she also admitted that she couldn't be sure, as the changes had been so many that keeping track of all of it was an act of futility.

We were going over things when suddenly her family stood up and headed out into the fields. I followed them for a short while, but it soon became impossible to keep track of all of them. I settled on the youngest child and followed them for what I estimated to be ten minutes.

At eight o'clock the girl stopped moving.

Then she began to shudder.

Then she burst into flames.

I tried to put her out, tackling her to the ground and rolling her about in the dirt between the rows. But by the time I was finished the girl was nothing but ashes, and my arms were covered burns.

When I looked up, I saw something lurking in the dark, framed against the sunset and the tree line.

I knew better than to get involved further.

I didn't bother checking on the rest of the family, as it became clear from the smoke rising from various parts of the field that they likely suffered a similar fate. Before I went to the hospital I went and saw the woman, who was at the kitchen table, crying. In her hands were a picture of her family, except their features had been blurred and distorted.

I left her like that, and she hasn't returned my calls.

On the way to the hospital I passed by the house mentioned in two of my previous investigations. The place was burned to the ground, and no effort had been made to remove all the refuse found there.

And as I passed, I put back on my mask. Because as I drove, the smell of mold coming through the vents became overwhelming.

I received medication for the burns on my skin.

It smells like ink.