The Other Side

When Baylor and his family moved into 272 Hydra Court, they didn't know what had happened. It had been so long anyways, so most people who knew what really happened had died long ago. But as always, parents tend to tell their kids stories, who tell their kids stories, who tell their kids stories until the story is unrecognizable.
When Baylor, his twin sister Belle, and their parents moved into the house at the end of the street, no one wanted to scare them by telling them a story that may or may not be true. This meant that the Barden family never knew what they were getting themselves into. 14 year olds Belle and Baylor were about to find out.
When Baylor, Belle and their parents Barbara and Ben moved into 272 Hydra Court, it was the summer of 1969. Summers in Rowland, Virginia were hot too, meaning Baylor and his sister were inside, escaping from the heat. And since the twins were teenagers, Barbara and Ben thought nothing of leaving the two of them home alone one sleepy Saturday afternoon.
"Belle!" Baylor groaned, splaying himself out on the cool hardwood floor of their living room, "C'mon you nerd! Let's play a game or something instead of reading some stupid book,"
"It's not stupid," Belle sighed, flipping to the next page in her book, "and anyways, its too hot to go outside."
"Not outside idiot! Inside! We can go explore that small door in Mom and Dad's room."
"What door?" Belle said quickly, her head snapping up in alarm. "There's no small door in there."
"Wow, you are even more blind then I thought you were Miss. I-have-to-be-a-stereotypical-nerd-with-glasses! There is totally a door!" Baylor lunged forward before Belle could act and grabbed her arm. He dragged his sister up the stairs and into their parents room. There in the corner, peeking out from behind an antique nightstand was the small door.
"No way! There is no way that door was there the entire time!" Belle cried.
"Dear sister, admit it! For once, I knew something you didn't. Now let's go."
The twins pushed aside the ornate nightstand, opened the door, and crept inside. Cobwebs blocked their path as they crept through the narrow crawl space. It reeked too, as if something close to death was still living in there. Soon Baylor and Belle reached a large open space. The area was dimly lit, from a light that neither of them could see, but somehow the cobwebs had been cleared from it. The awful smell was stronger than ever, yet their curiosity was strong enough to block it out. The twins wandered around, but the room was empty and they quickly became bored.
"I wonder where we are," Belle said, sitting on the ground.
"In the house, duh," Baylor responded, his lip curling upwards in disdain.
"I mean, relative to the outside of the house. A huge area like this, it shouldn't be possible..."
Snap!
"What was that?" Baylor said, stepping backwards towards his sister. Belle stood next to her brother when--
Crack!
"What the?" The room grew darker suddenly as the series of snaps and cracks grew louder and louder.
"Where's the door?" Baylor said frantically, spinning around and attempting to see through the darkness that had enshrouded them. Belle tensed as a whisp of air blew against her cheek and then proceeded to shriek when she felt a long slender something against her neck. She scrambled backwards, only to bump into something and shriek again.
"It's me! It's just me!" Baylor yelled pulling his sister close to him. The air seemed to flow around them and the room got colder and colder. The snapping and cracking sounds continued and every once in awhile one of the twins would shriek in pure terror as this creature reached out and touched them with something that neither of them could see.
They were sobbing now, loud hysterical cries of terror, unable to move from the fear that was coursing through them.
"Baylor, we have to find the door! We ha-have to!" Belle cried, clutching onto her brother's shirt. Belle knew he agreed as soon as she said it - twin-stincts maybe. They crept backwards wordlessly and then spun around, grasping the air to try and find the wall.
"Here, here! I think I found it!" Baylor cried. Together, the twins sprinted back down the hallway, searching for the little gap of light that signified the exit of this adventure gone wrong. After several long moments of frantic sprinting, Baylor was out of breath and more terrified than ever. "Where-?" he began, giving up for lack of air. It felt as though the air was being sucked out of his lungs, no matter how many breaths he took.
"It must be farther down, it must be!" Baylor and Belle continued down farther and farther, their doubt growing greater by the second. Yet just when they were ready to give up, Baylor spotted what might have been their saving grace.
"I see it!" With renewed energy they ran forward and flung open the door. They took the time to close and lock the door securely, as well as moving the white, modern night stand back in front of it. Belle felt like something was off. She looked around, trying to figure out what at it was. There was the made bed against the stark white walls. The nightstands...
"Hey. Come on." Baylor snapped, impatient. "I would like to get as far away from that thing as possible please."
"Yeah, uh me too." Together, they scrambled downstairs into the carpeted living room. Belle felt like something was off. This time she ignored it, and threw herself onto the floor next to Baylor. They sat there for hours, silent. No words were exchanged, but they both knew that the other was glad to have escaped.
"Hey Baylor," Belle said shifting in her seat on the fluffy carpet, "Do you ever feel like something's just a bit off? But you don't really know what?"
"Sometimes I guess, yeah," he replied, weary.
"Yeah," Belle sighed in a tone that seemed submissive yet defiant, scared yet confident.
Baylor looked around, "Wait-"

- -

Some say that history repeats itself. Everyone in Rowland, Virginia believed that after the summer of 1969. One sleepy Saturday afternoon, Ben and Barbara walked into their home: 272 Hydra Court. Barbara's heels clacked on the hardwood floor that was used throughout the aging house.
Ben and Barbara, despite searching their home top to bottom could not find their 14 year old twins that they had left home alone just an hour earlier. The police couldn't find them either. By fall, the police were searching up and down the eastern seaboard. By the summer of 1970, the Bardens were close to giving up.
"Are you sure you didn't see anything unusual, or out of place?" Officer Haynes questioned the forlorn parents for the thousandth time.
"No, nothing," Ben Barden sighed in defeat.
Barbara Barden glanced at her husband and then turned back to the Officer. "This is highly irrelevant, I think, but there was one small thing that seemed out of place. We have quite the old house and there are all these small doors in several places around the house that are all linked together. The real estate agent told us that they were tunnels for the slaves before the Civil War. They used them to get from one place to another quickly as well as a place to walk without being seen when guests were over. I had never heard of such a thing, to be honest. It sounded like ludicrous! I wasn't worried though, the tunnels are all sealed off-have been for years our agent said. The doors work still, but when you open them, you are met with another wall!" Barbara laughed slightly, and then, when she realized it wasn't very funny at all, she continued. "There's one of those doors in our bedroom. We always keep it closed, hidden behind a nightstand. But when I went up there, the nightstand was pushed aside and the door was ajar. It was strange, but the door leads to nowhere, so I dismissed it."
"I'm sorry to have to ask you this again, but can you state your address?" Haynes asked.
"272 Hydra Court."
"I see."