The Unknown

Part 2

II

My parents used to take me and my sister to the beach. It is tradition since I was born. My father loves the beach and always wants to make us share his amusement of this place. My grandfather lived with us in our house. I can't forget how badly he kept refusing to come with us on our vacation. Once he knows it is in Monterey city, he shivers and changes the subject in no time. I never stopped thinking about what prevents him from coming with us. I felt bad every time we left him alone behind. He kept missing the spectacular view of the sea besides the golden sand. When I was twelve, two weeks before our trip, I entered his room. He put down the book he was reading and raised his eyes above his glasses to look at me.

"Cody Miller, how dare you open this door without knocking it?" he asked sarcastically.

"I am sorry, it was already opened," I replied.

"Yes, it was, come in," he smiled.

I entered the room and climbed his bed. I sat for several minutes saying nothing before I collected my courage.

"Grandpa, why don't you come with us to the beach every time we go there?" I asked.

He hesitated before he returned.

"Because the road to Monterey city crosses Macvils" he replied

I thought for a minute of the name. But I didn't recognize it at all.

"Macvils?" I inquired.

"Yes, it's a small town where I grow up before moving in here with you all" he said.

"That's good. You have a chance to see where you were grown up again. I can tell dad to stop by it and take a tour inside" I smiled with a cheer.

Something of disappointment showed up on his face. It was obvious then that it was hard for him to explain the matter to his grandchild, or he didn't want to seem like an afraid man.

"No, I can't go to Macvils." He sighed.

"Why not? You just said it's where you grew up." I said.

Now his stubborn concealment has become the best motivation for my curiosity.

"What happened there that you don't want to talk about?" I insisted.

I think I inspired this form of question from the detective stories I never stopped reading.

He considered the matter for about two minutes, until he gave up. He took off his glasses and put them on the table next to him. I looked at him deeply in the eyes, ready to pay all the attention I possessed.

"I never told this story to anyone, even it's almost 21 years since it happened. I don't think anyone who existed in the same time and place mentioned anything about it as well. Macvils was a small town, a poor one. That didn't much matter because the familiarity between each of its individuals made it easier for us. I was 32, your mother was only two years old. I used to work with two of my friends in a carpentry in the middle of the town. Amir and Theodore, Amir was Egyptian. He moved in to the town with his parents since he was eight. I knew him for more than twenty years then.

Theodor was from California. And he had just moved in across my street. I didn't really like the guy, but he was our friend, anyway. He once told me that he robbed a local shop, and he is here to disappear, to start a new life. He was getting ready to become a good man. My life was normal, stable and most of the time boring. 14 June 1981 was the specific day when everything started. Your grandmother woke me up terrified, as if there was an earthquake. She told me they found a child's dead body in front of house 32.

I jumped from my bed and wore my clothes in a few seconds. I ran all the way to house 32, although it was about three kilometers away from my place. The scene was tragic more than it was dramatic. A thirteen year old boy torn in three pieces. I couldn't imagine what would be so brutal to do this to a human body. We don't have a single wild animal here in the whole state. Was it a pedophile? A sick person that had lost all his psychological manners. No one knew what it was. The poor boy was one of our friend's son. He had become very miserable after the incident. None of our attempts managed to bring back his mind. He left the town, and I never saw him again. Four police men were informed to enter the house and search it. I was there that day, standing to watch the result to all of this. Once they disappeared inside the house the door shut behind them. We heard all of them screaming as if they were burnt alive. It was all a matter of seconds until the noise disappeared, as if it didn't exist before. People started running all over the streets away from whatever this danger was, the danger that they don't know.

Myths about house 32 never stopped since that ominous day. It was brown dirty house with broken windows and filthy appearance. No one has ever lived there that I had heard of. Some people say it's possessed by the souls which used to live in it, other say there is a rapid lion lives in it. Stories never stopped and who's ever curious enough to drag his feet through the house's opened door, never comes out of it alive. Even when tourists came, the passing people always warned them from getting close to the entire area.