Spring Park

(4)

I still don't understand what I'm doing wrong. It's that button, right? Ok, I think I understand. Write it down on that sticky note so that I can remember. I think I left off at Mallory's sleep walking. Everything was almost completely normal for the next four years. I'd see the gas man every night except for the nights that Mallory would sleep walk and I'd see Lilith more and more in town, just walking down the street. I started to notice people who I had never seen before. They'd just walk out from a corner or out of a house or a car, and then I'd never see them again. When I was 14 in 2002, I learned of a part of town I had never seen before. Aaron had been sick that week, so he was at home. I went outside for a walk at about four in the morning, Delma had already woken up and Mallory and Aaron were fast asleep. I remembered that John usually went on his paperboy routine at four-thirty, so I walked down to my old street and stood in the street until I saw him racing down the street on his bike. It was early summer, but the air was still cold. He drove up to me on his bike and tightened his grip on the bikes brake, and it came to a stop. "Whatcha doing out here this early?" He asked. "I don't know, I'm bored and Aaron's sick so I came out here to come hang out with you." I told him. "Oh sweet, I found this weird swamp place while doing my rounds the other day, I wanted to go explore it, and now that your here, we can go check it out together!" He said excitedly. His eyes glanced around the street and then he said "I'm going to finish my round and then I'll be back here and then we'll go to the bog. I'll be back in a second." He sped off down the street, throwing newspapers to people's footsteps, sometimes missing and hitting their cars or windows. He got back within a few minutes. "Ok, let's go." I walked down the street and John drove beside me, sometimes driving speeding up or slowing down or driving around me. He pointed down a path which was barely visible behind an old gate which had a broken chain hanging on its handles. "It's right down that path." He said excitedly. I just stood there. How had I never noticed this gate. It was tall and metal and was a rusty eye sore. There were stumps in front of the gate, so I assumed that there had been trees blocking it. John chained his bike to the gate and then pulled himself up on top of it. "You gotta climb over it, it's rusted shut." I climbed up the gate and then jumped over to the other side and John followed. There was a long, winding path that led to a dock on the edge of the water, the light of a lantern slightly illuminating it through the fog. We walked down the path, eventually reaching the dock which was barely visible through the fog. A kid about my age stood on the edge of the dock right at the edge of the fog. He was digging through a boat, which I assumed was his. He was slightly taller and was wearing a black sweat jacket with grey sleeves and jeans. He had a bandana and a pair of steampunk goggles. His skin was so pale, it was practically white and his eyes were the blackest black imaginable, and his hair was muddy brown. Across the front of his jacket was the name Stige. He turned to face us when we jumped over the fence. He was holding a paddle in his hands and on the post beside him we're a few more pairs of goggles and bandanas next to the lantern. Me and John walked up to him. "What are you doing out here?" John asked. He didn't respond, he just looked at us. John tried to slip past him onto the dock, but he blocked him with his paddle, and then pointed at the goggles and bandanas. "What, do we have to buy bandanas before we can pass or talk to you?" John joked. He pulled his bandana down and made a motion with his mouth and pointed at his throat. I realized after a second that he was mouthing words like bandana and goggles and gas. I looked back at the word 'Stige' on his chest. "Are you... Stige?" I asked. He looked at me and nodded his head. "Well, we don't want to buy any bandanas, sorry." John said. "He doesn't want us to buy the bandanas, he's telling us that we need to put them on." I said. He nodded again and I grabbed a pair of goggles and a bandana and put them on, and John did too. Stige pointed into the fog at the outline of a boat, and then motion for us to go onto it. "I think he wants us to ride in the boat." I said. We walked onto the the dock and got onto the boat. I could barely see through the fog, but the goggles helped. Stige stepped carefully stepped onto the boat and then sat in the middle seat and pushed off. He paddle for about an hour and me and John just silently sat in the back seat of the boat. I examined the boat, which was mostly bare, but it had a rifle on the left side right next to Stige. There was also a gramophone in the back and behind it a small British flag. There was a record on the gramophone, but it wasn't on. In the silence, I could hear what sounded almost like footsteps in the water deeper into the fog. We came up to another land mass. Stige paralleled the boat with the dock and tied it up. We all got off, and then someone started yelling at us. "What are you people doing out here? Why are you out here?" The man yelled. There was a clearing in the fog around the man's house, and he was inside of it, yelling out at us. I looked at Stige, but he just shrugged. The man started running at us, but then started coughing and spazzing out. I looked back at Stige who looked terrified, and then started motioning us toward the boat frantically. We all froze when we heard a screech come from the fog. For a second, a split second I could make out the shape of a skinny creature. It had long arms and legs and was paler than Stige. I could see it's black veins and it's pure white eyes. Stige grabbed me and Johns arms and pulled us to the boat, and then flung us into it. The man's screams knocked me out of my trance. We jumped back in the boat and Stige quickly untied it and pushed off. He paddles as silently as possible, freezing at every sound he heard. We could hear the sound of the creatures feet quickly running across the water in all directions, but we could see nothing through the thick fog. There was a thunk and then I watched as Stige's face got paler than I even knew possibles. The boat started to fill with water, and Stige grabbed the rifle and then, as quietly as he could, pushed the boat into shallower water. He put his finger up to his lips and silently shushed us. We wadded through the water as silently as we could, stopping every time we heard a noise we didn't make. The footsteps were getting faster, they were figuring out where we were. We came up to the dock, and I could see the gate from here. Stige pushes me up and then handed me the rifle, and then pushed John up. The creatures footsteps were coming in our direction, and then I saw one of them grab onto Stige's leg as he tried to climb up. John grabbed onto Stige's arm, trying to keep him from being dragged away into the fog. I quickly aimed the rifle and then pulled the trigger. Stige and John were flung forward and the creature made a pained screech. We could hear the footsteps running away from us, in all different directions. I dropped the rifle, and then sat down and stared into the fog. I understood why this place had been sectioned off, but I had so many questions that would never be answered. Why wouldn't Stige talk? Why were they back there? What was in the fog? What was the fog? How did Stige survive in there? Did he have parents? I just looked at him, and he pulled the bandana down and took off the goggles, throwing them aside. I and John did the same, discarding both the bandana and the goggles. The three of us walked back to the gate, climbed over, and then walked all the way back to my house. About halfway there. I looked back at Stige, who was fiddling nervously with his fingers. His fingers were lined with cuts and bruises and now that I thought about it, he probably didn't know a thing about anything outside that swamp, and now he was leaving it for good. When we all got back, we explained the whole thing to Delma. The gate, the fog, Stige and his boat, the man, the monsters, and me shooting one of them. Delma gave us some glasses of water and then called the police, who obviously, couldn't do anything about it. They found at least twelve bodies, as well as Stige's boat. They gave him his gramophone and his British flag and then confiscated the rifle he had. Due to our description, they wore gas masks, but they did agree that they could hear something running around the water and one of them accidentally revealed that they knew that this place existed and that they knew people were in there. The case was ended and Mallory began building a small shed that was just big enough for a shelf, a gramophone, and a bed. Mallory would take Stige with him whenever he needed help with cutting down trees or tending to the yard, and he would join us for meals. Randomly at night, the lights in Stige's hut would flicker on for a second, and then go out. Him and Aaron also got also got along well. They'd do the same thing that Aaron and my neighbor did before he died. They'd just sit in a room or outside with two chairs and just stare off into space, never saying a word. It soon became clear that Stige was mute or something, he could make any vocal noises. He never tried to learn sign language either, he'd just talk with hand gestures and faces. I also noticed that he'd go and watch Mallory did holes when he did, and that Mallory started doing it more often, and the gas man started showing up less often, even when Mallory wasn't digging. I don't think anyone but us, John, and the police even knew he existed until I took him into town one day with Aaron to get some candy. No matter how much he was outside, he was still ghostly pale. Halfway to the candy store; John, Lizzie, and Alex walked up to us and John excitedly explained that was who he was talking about and that that was Stige and that he used to lived in the swamp that no one knew existed. "What up?" Alex said and extended his hand, but Stige seemed almost scared by the sudden movement. "Does he know how to do a handshake?" Alex asked me, and I replied with "he can hear you, he's not deaf." Alex then re-extended his hand and gave Stige a step by step guide on how to shake someone's hand, and then repeated it, like, three times before Stige finally grabbed Alex's hand and shook it. "Good job!" Alex sarcastically congratulated. We talked a bit more, everyone introduced themselves to Stige who gave them a big smile, and then we parted ways. About a week later, Delma told me to go over to Stige's hut and tell him it's time for lunch. Stige would stay up until midnight and then go to sleep, only to wake up at about lunch time the next morning. I stepped out of the house, took in a whiff of the warm, summer air, and walked toward Stige's house. It had one window which pointed toward our house. Through the window I could see absolutely nothing but darkness. I walked up to the hut and pulled the door open. Light from the inside poured out as I looked around the room. Stige could understand English, but he most definitely couldn't write. The walls were covered in drawings with words on them. All of the pictures were of dark smudges or red streaks and the words were things like pain, darkness, Hell, and death. I looked underneath the bed to see a terrified Stige who I then pulled out from under the bed. He quickly left the house and when I was out, he shut the door behind him. He never went back into that house. After that, Mallory turned it into a shed and Stige just slept on the couch in the living room, but when Mallory went out there, there were no drawings to be seen.