The Dark Woods (Short Story)

For all of my childhood, there has always been talk about the local, deep and dark forest lining the last block of streets in this little town. These last of these streets hold houses that have been vacant for more than fourteen years. All real estate workers gave up on trying to sell them away, but whoever would decide to move in quickly realized that they made the wrong decision and move right out. There's about five houses and they completely look terrifying. All of the trees and plants look shriveled up and dead like the houses themselves. You can see the woods swallowing up the backs of these houses. It all just looked dead.

The story of the dark woods goes like this; there have been sightings of spirits, supernatural beings. All of the children thought about vampires and werewolves and ghouls, along with zombies and just horrific things you would find in a scary movie. One of the huge things, and all adults agree to this, is there used to be a cult that performed their rituals there. And those five houses were the members, all of them neighbors. But after all of this scandalous stuff died down, the stories lived on. The entire population lives like on the other part of town. You can tell because there's a mall on one corner and a Starbuck's every other corner, but when you get closer to the woods there's...nothing.

To be honest, I've never found anything scary, well except for the neighbors and being part of a group with rituals things. But who even knows if that was true. I believed more of the myths, it kept you guessing. If there was vampires and ghosts and other supernatural things, what else could they do? Do they just assume that even if people avoid this part of town, they can't come out whenever? Well, here's the thing... Every single person in this town is pretty judgemental. The people can be nice, that's for sure. But they assume things and start to stereotype you until you have the nerve to step up and speak up for yourself, then maybe they'll change their opinion on you. My mother has been judged and criticized all of her life. I'm surprised she still wanted to live here. She was never a perfect person, but she was a perfect mother to me. In high school for her, she was the nerd. The one everyone made fun of. They found ways to haze her. Her own mother couldn't really do anything about it.

When my mother met my dad, she felt that he would protect her from anything, But they got divorced and he remarried another woman. My mother went crazy from then on because the town were whispering about my dad being a cheater, and that must be the reason why they were divorcing. I was seven when all of this happened, so I personally don't remember it very well. My mom couldn't take the rumors and finally ended up in a mental hospital, never coming out of there. As I grew up, very few whispers about my mother cross the classroom. I usually gave them a glare, wishing them to shut up and they immediately would as if I sowed up their mouths myself. Middle school was a lot harder than high school. Middle school seemed to be more about who had the most gossip stories and how easily they can make up stories. I have been called a freak. One of the names that even these kids' parents would have called my mother. Did I ever get pissed off? Yes. Did I ever want to get back at these kids and their families for what they put my mother through? Yes, so much that it scared me enough I thought I'd end up in one of those thrasher movies.

Some of these kids still do make fun of me but I try to ignore them as best as I can. After school, I go straight home to my dad and my stepmom. My dad is one of those people who can sympathize while his wife is a bit harsh. She can sometimes get on my nerves and she provokes the anger out of me. But on this particular day, I come home and she immediately starts nagging at me.

"You ran the dishwasher last night but you didn't put the dishes away," the tone of her voice angered me like she was accusing me.

"I know. But I had to go to school. I told you I would do it when I get back home," I told her right away.

I walked away but grumbled to myself. She's here all day. She has no job to worry about. Why can't she just do this one simple thing for me instead of waiting all day, doing nothing at all, for me to come home and do all the work? I finished the dishes anyway and started up the stairs.