The Timber House

Lucas could see flickers of light beyond the smashed windows, but no sign of inhabitants. And why would anyone be inside such an aged dump at this late time on a cold Halloween night?

This old home rested on the edge of the town’s deep wood next to a pumpkin patch lit up by a scattering of fresh jack-o'-lanterns. Oddly, the pumpkins appeared every Halloween alongside the remains of decayed pumpkin patches. And gone by the first light of November. 

The dead areas were like a forgotten memory. 

Some freshly laid orange pumpkins, which were not there on Hallows Eve, had started to collapse inward with shades of black already. Almost like any life here decayed rapidly. As rot permeated the entire area. Other areas of the pumpkin patch bordering the broken stone path to the house door showed signs of residue where pumpkins once rested. Dead, dry stems protruded from a few spots like skeletal fingers.

For the local Irish villagers, the place was only a derelict, best forgotten and sour place that rested on dead, twisted rotten vines. 

Lucas felt the eerie silence stabbing at his courage to take more steps. 

Thankfully for him, it was Tim’s job to enter the house, having lost a bet. A simple coin toss. Lucas was glad not to be the first, as the silence broke when desiccated vines rustled as a breeze brewed. The eerie, unwelcome feel of the house and its pumpkin patches sent cold chills through Lucas.

Both Lucas and Tim yelped at the caw of a crow from a nearby tree.

Lucas rubbed his head. “Fecks sake. Let’s get this over with.”

The air felt very heavy with both the weight of time and the pressing fear building inside Lucas.

Children had apparently disappeared here. Some say the abandoned house had taken them. It lured them in by playing on innocent curiosity. Something far from benign. Every Halloween, kids dare each other to enter the crumbling house. The parents of missing kids believed this house took them.

And kids were warned.

Parents believed something from the town’s dark history had cursed the house. And it showed itself as summer faded into the colder months of winter at the end of the light season and into the dark months. For some, that evil was believed to have started with an ages-old Halloween legend. The belief that evil druidic spirits inhabited the house and waited for innocent, unaware kids to visit.

Theories based on legends dating far back to Celtic times.

The dark faeries.

Here they remain, so the villagers say. While only active on Halloween, the faeries are eternal residents in this otherwise beautiful emerald isle town; so the locals say. Just waiting to play tricks on unsuspecting kids who dared to enter the timber house. Lit jack-o’-lanterns appear ‌every Halloween night. No-one in the village knew who or what placed them there. And the town’s history speaks of how this pumpkin phenomenon has repeated itself for many centuries. Here at this old house. Fresh pumpkins appear on All Hallows Eve and decay to rotten vines by November’s first dawn. Believed to be trickery by the resident faeries, parents warned the town’s kids to stay away.

But that warning only sought to dare kids to brave the house. Many vanished, and the locals blame the timber house.

And the kids still visit. They tip-toe past the rotted door and enter the darkest of places.

Each disappearance occurred here on Halloween night. But the missing kids’ mystery failed to stop other kids with a desire to tempt fate. They dared each other to enter the ruined carcase, once a home to someone for years. 

Yet history has no record of whom. 

Hell’s Gate. That’s what the region’s media newspapers call the house with the town’s history of kids disappearing going back many centuries. And folks believe that venturing into this darkened abode is the culprit. 

All that the local people determined was that the line between the other world and Earth blurred on Halloween. This enabled many nasty faeries to cross over that boundary. There is a firm belief that a supernatural presence is at its strongest here during the night before Samhain or November 1st, during Halloween night or Oíche Shamhna as it’s known in Ireland. 

And this decrepit house was believed to be spook central on Halloween.

Today, the dares continue at the behest of the elders. And so ‌the tourists keep coming, wanting to find out more about the town’s Hell’s Gate. And the town shops and bars love the business they bring.

“It’s probably nothing.” Lucas said to his more lofty yet also more petrified friend, Tim. He adjusted his uncomfortable zombie face mask and regarded the dilapidated abode and the lit pumpkins that illuminated the garden patch, each with a distinct face cut into the fruit. “If there really is an evil faery here, it has no problems with jack-o'-lanterns. Aren’t they supposed to scare them?”

Tim huffed. “This has been happening to kids around here for several hundred years. You know what the media calls our town, don’t you?”

“Of course. Hell’s Gate. It’s bait for tourists. Come on, get in there. The faeries aren’t gonna give you a fecking invite.”

“Scared enough. Don’t be telling me that shite now. Why doesn’t the council just pull this house to the ground?”

Lucas scoffed. “You know how many tourists around this time of year come here, don’t you? Just to look at a reputed haunted ruin. None of them ever go inside, though. Well. I think. But all end up in the town bars, hotels and even that casino where I’m pretty sure my dad hides on weekends. Many dark faeries in there? Spare me. But let’s find out what is in there?” Lucas stretched a finger out toward the crooked door.

“Jaysus. Will you be quiet with that shite?”

Lucas reached a finger under the mask to scratch his chin. “All the kids who came here, like us, were dressed up. If the stories about this place are true, that didn’t save them from the evil spirits here, either. Pretty sure that’s what wearing costumes is about.” He waved a hand. “But I just find it hard to believe. I want to know for sure.”

Tim’s chest heaved. “Yeah, well, it seems the known evil spirit wards don’t work here, if it’s all true. This dressing up thing is bollocks, anyway.” 

“I still wonder if it’s all bollocks. Faeries. Jeez.”

Tim had walked to the path edge but spun and charged at Lucas, finger pointed at his face. 

“So shut up now about faeries and evil spirits.”

“Bet lost. You got to go in, so,” Lucas whistled as he pointed at the door again, chuckling inside, “in you go.” Lucas tugged at his costume mask. “Why zombies again? Always fecking zombies. And this mask is causing my face to itch. My choice next year.”

“The undead are grand. What’s up with ya?” Tim peered at the flickering pumpkins. “Who puts those there? Nobody says they came here and laid those. But someone came here.” 

“Must be the evil faeries that lurk in the woods and live in this house, ooooh.”

Tim clapped and grinned at Lucas. “Screw it. I’m off.”

Lucas placed a palm on Tim’s heaving chest and lifted his zombie mask so Tim could take in his grin. He ruffled his already messy red hair and sighed in a windy mock. “Ah, ah, bet’s a bet. Come on already. If it were me who’d lost, you’d be goading me now.”

Tim rubbed his face. “Okay, but no more of that faery shite as I walk through that door. Got it?”

Lucas, with a naughty smirk, nodded. “No bother. Back on the path then, Tim.”

Lucas peeked a curious eye over the prickly hedge and gazed at the eroded stone path to the house. Dry-rot fungus had eaten the wood bit by bit to a decayed, abandoned shell. A place lost in the erosive path of time. Yet it had looked this rotten way for years, perhaps longer.

“How the feck has this house lasted? It’s rotten, but it still stands after so many centuries.”

Tim scowled. “You better not say it stands still because of…”

“Faeries, No. Of course not.” He chuckled and stared at the cracked surfaces; he wondered if the faeries did truly occupy it. What once occupied its interior? What kept dust off the floors and lived where the fragrances of border flowers mingled with the rot? The only signs of life bloomed with no proper care and added some beauty to its withered walls. The only signs of any attention to the ruin came from the lit lanterns. An oddity. And where a local legend believed to have started.

The myth of the faeries that may have never moved out.

To many, the tales were no myth, especially the parents who still looked for their missing kids and placed posters up on lampposts. Neither the residents, including the police, nor anyone else could find the missing teenagers.

Same fate for all the kids who ever vanished over so many Halloween nights.

Yet the daring kids kept coming.

Chills brewed in Lucas as he rolled his eyes; those smashed windows felt like they looked back. 

“Who puts those lanterns there? And why? Okay, I admit it’s creepy as feck. Never been this close to this pathway like you. I’m creeped out.” Lucas slapped Tim’s shoulder. “Right, we’ve got the place to ourselves for now. Others will be coming. Some must have been and gone earlier. Make me believe an entity lit those lanterns. I really need to get convinced. Just go in, discover it’s bullshit, come back, and we leave too and let the folks know it’s only a shitole. And those missing kids were not taken by a dark force that’s been here for centuries.”

“Okay, okay, Jaysus.” Tim rubbed his hands, killing a little time. He glanced at the dead pumpkin patches alongside fresh grimacing ones on either side of the path.

“Only a Halloween gesture of affection from someone for the old house, Tim. Someone put those there. You can’t believe the bullshit folklore.”

“You’re trying to make me feel better. Just projecting your fear. You’d be frozen if it was you going in.”

Lucas sighed. “It’s Halloween. All I see is a scary box of rats.” Lucas bellowed while burying his actual dread of the place. “Get in that place. I’ll be right here. Bet is a bet.”

“Shut your face. I’m on it. Few have the balls to come here after so many went missing.”

“They believe without question the kids went missing here, that’s why? Spooked by our folks.” 

Tim stammered. “Got this feeling…we’re fecking…idiots.”

“Get on with it. Come on. For a few years now, we’ve come here but never entered. Never been this close to going in. Scared off by faery tales. Not this time. Be the first to go back and tell all that it’s nothing. You’ll be the hard man at school on Monday, Tim. No dark faeries, for fuck's sake. So. Sorry, pal. You lost the toss. Look, it’s an empty piece of shit. No-one is in there.”

“Oh, yeah. The abductions have been happening for centuries. And everyone points at this house. You’re not convincing.” Tim had paced forward a few steps. “Then who? Who, Lucas, bothers to place these jack-o'-lanterns? All the kids in recent years who have vanished said they were coming here on Halloween.”

“According to old wives' tales and our newspaper. Boy.” Lucas called out at the house. “Hey, faeries. Kids here. Come get us. See if you can.”

“Shut the hell up.”

“There’s no one in there, Tim.”

Tim gasped. “I still think the faeries story is what is up here. I dunno. No-one ever owns up and says they lit them.” Tim frowned, teetered on the edge of the worn path. “When I asked around, nobody knows.”

Lucas shrugged. “Yes, well, someone obviously does. But it’s a big town secret. Makes the place more interesting, so people come from even Belfast to see this…this sorry excuse for a house.”

“Yeah. One for the tourists. Probably what this is all about. And someone chuckles over it somewhere. But, the missing kids. All the parents say they went missing…”

“On Halloween. Right here. After coming here.” Lucas shrugged. “Yes, Tim, I know.”

Tim gaped at the rotten wood. “Small town we live in, Lucas. Someone knows how those lanterns get there. And look. Clearly, these were arranged and recently today. None of them were here yesterday. We checked.”

“Stop bleating and wasting time. Get in that place.”

“Going, Lucas. But listen. We’re among few of the town’s eejits dumb enough to come up here this year. Folks get wiser by the year. Too many vanishing kids. Just this past few years. Kids we’ve known.”

Lucas threw his hands up. “Look, hurry. Many have been and gone. Nice to have this moment to ourselves for a change at this time on Halloween night. Told you. But more are on the way. Right now, we get some peace before some gobshites like Sean and Finn show up. Those two morons said they’re coming here, earlier in school.”

“How d’you know? You never talk. You hate Sean.”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “He’s told me he does. I bragged about coming here and going in during Maths class. That day you were off sick. He called me a lying shitbag. Well, I’ll prove him wrong.”

Tim buried his fists in his sides. “Wait, a second. I’m the shitbag who’s going in. You’re just standing here gobbing off about going in. Take me place then, and you can tell Sean…”

“Bet’s a…”

“Bet.” Tim cut through, waving a whatever gesture.

“Yes. Hurry. It’ll be fecking November the first soon. Unless you want to buy me that scooter if you don’t.” Lucas goaded poor Tim.

“No chance.” Tim stepped forward, one nervous foot at a time.

He crept along the cracked stone pathway, a hesitant saunter to the crooked front door. Stems of dead branches had blown across the path. The trees consumed the house as gnarled branches slid through every crack and piece of bark; twisted wooden arms that reached down further and further each year. 

A branch crackled. 

What was that? Lucas thought.

Tim jerked his head back and forth, looking for the origin of the sound.

Several grinning jack-o’-lanterns glowed on the cold stone.

Tim’s hands slipped through his ash brown hair. Lucas could see what troubled him. He was sure none were on the path a minute ago as Tim walked. And he noticed something else. A feature that had failed to meet his attention before. Hair. Tufts of small hair pieces on the top of the pumpkins; different shades of colour from blonde to brown to dark.

Tim approached the door, outstretched hands, tremulous knuckles. “Place stinks. Feck.” The acrid smell of rot hit his nostrils, a dry and searing musty odour. Several Jacks lined the doorway. He had to step over a few to reach for the door.

“Shit. I didn’t see these pumpkins here just now. I’m sure of it. Sure of it.”

Lucas wanted to agree but didn’t want to scare him further, now that Tim stood at the doorway. He also noticed that this little creepy development had spread further.

Many more glowing grins from the jack-o’-lanterns now lay scattered across the path.

“What…did you see…?” Tim pointed at the lanterns in confusion and paced back. “Where the hell did they come from?”

“Yeah. Weird. They were not there when we arrived. Surely. Anyway, Hey!” Lucas threw a frustrated finger at Tim while fear brewed at the sight of pumpkins sprouting up. I’m sure those were not there just now.

Tim kicked the door open. A creak as the door opened. He entered. 

The door creaked shut behind him.

Many minutes passed.

Lucas stepped onto the pathway with an impatient tap of a foot. A curious glance or two regarded the entrance and twisted weeds of the patch.

“Ay. What in the name of…”

More pumpkins had popped up.

More jack-o'-lanterns. Each wore a different ghoulish sliced grin and now littered the front of the house. He’d kept one thought from Tim: he was too terrified to walk any further.

“What the hell?” Lucas gasped.

Now far more scared as more Jack-o'-lanterns popped up in random positions across the patch and path.

“Tim!” he shouted as his chest tightened. Then a yell. “Tim!”

Lucas tiptoed further along the pathway and stopped about halfway to the door.

“Stop fecking about. You can come back now.”

Silence.

A sound. Organic. A soft series of crackles. Something behind. Lucas swung around. His breathing, a series of rasping breaths.

Dozens of Jack-o’-lanterns covered the patch and blocked his exit, each with eyes and mouths shaped like wreathed expressions of malevolence.

“Oh, fuck this. Tim. Come on.” He yelled.

A yell met with the silence of the house and rustle of leaves above it. Lucas sent one pumpkin a curious stare, another that was not present a minute ago, one close to the door. Its own stretched grimace and a tuft of ash brown hair pierced the top.

Something struck him as familiar about that hair.

“No messing, Tim. Well done, you did it. Let’s go now.”

No response. Nothing to hear but the brewing wind. Lucas felt his blood chill.

“Tim!”

A creak followed as the door groaned inwards.

A throaty voice flowed. 

Come join us, Lucas.

Lucas studied the pumpkins and was sure that the words emerged from the patch where the jack-o'-lanterns flickered with their fixed ghoulish grimaces. 

A nearby rustle.

He turned to face two boys who emerged from the forest and neared the pathway. Lucas frowned as he realised Sean and Finn were here.

Sean laughed as a breeze messed up his loose black, mottled hair further. He gazed at Lucas, frozen on the path.

“Go on then, Lucas. In you go, hey.”

“Yeah. Man up, boy.” Finn’s voice struggled through a plastic vampire mouthpiece.

“Okay. Fucker. Love the scary voice. And your bols are as fake as those fangs, Finn.” Lucas snorted. “Let’s see you try, Sean.”

“Testing me, are you?” Finn raised a fist.

Sean tapped Finn’s fist, a gesture to get him to lower it. “Down now, boy. Let’s see the mighty Lucas go into the scary house of the forest faeries.”

“No problem.” Lucas faced the door again, hiding a gnawing fear. “Ditch the stupid voice. If that’s you, Tim, shove it. I’m coming in.”

A pause. Lucas slapped his cheeks. He shook his fists.

“Okay.”

Lucas knew the fear overwhelmed him. Every fibre in him wanted to disbelieve in vicious dark faeries existing here. He closed his eyes.

“Come on, I can do it.”

“Oh, for fuck's sakes, outta my way.”

In a brisk stride, Sean passed Lucas. He bashed his shoulder with a hand, which knocked him off balance, and Lucas stepped off the path. Then Sean stopped by the door. Lucas, angered by Sean’s shove, stayed there, panting heavily; stuck between the anxiety of anger at Sean and that of an almost calming slight relief that Sean pushed his way ahead.

“Now, look here, both of you. I’m going in then both of you follow me.” Sean wagged a stern finger.

Finn’s fighting fit expression fell to an alarmed droop.

“You hear me, Finn.”

Sean walked through the open doorway.

It closed with that same groan.

Finn approached Lucas, his eyes on the closed door.

Both Lucas and Finn regarded each other for a moment as fear blossomed further for Lucas. It was his turn again. Finn sniggered to hide the worry.

“So, you following your sister?” Lucas smirked.

“Sod you, Lucas. You’re scared shitless. Not going in? That it? All too much when facing this place, is it, hey? Where’s your bols then?”

Finn’s face, distorted with malice, glared at Lucas.

“Any more questions, Finn? If you say so, but I’ll tell you this, something is up here. These pumpkins started…frigging popping out of the ground. Never saw that before in previous years coming here. Seems… as we placed a foot on this path, we started, noticing things. More lanterns popping up. I’m not going mad. At least I hope not…”

Lucas let his jaw drop at the sight of a new pumpkin, just inches from his feet, with a tuft of black hair on top.

He tapped Finn’s shoulder. “Look.” He pointed at the jack-o-lantern.

“What’s up now?”

“Look for feck’s sake.”

Finn followed his finger, but just shrugged and giggled. “What, these jacks? And you’re all in on the stupid myth about faeries.” He tapped the door. “Hey Sean.”

No answer.

Lucas smoothed his chin as no sign of Tim at all for many minutes grew into more of a concern.

“Tim.”

“You saying that Timmy is in there?”

“He entered there just before you mugs got here.”

Finn tried to get a glimpse of the interior past the shattered windows. Only darkness met his prying eyes. “Hey Sean. Come on, no fooling. I gotta get back soon.”

As Lucas too tried to see past the darkness beyond the windows, the ominous sensation grew, a stomach pit weighted with fear that warned of menace. The fear inside bulged and spread with not only dread, but a powerful instinct to stay away from this place.

“Bols to this. Sean, come on.” Finn approached the door.

As he did, the creak, as it opened inwards, and a voice came, the same throaty one earlier.

“Come join us, Finn.”

Lucas edged away. The fear had given way to wisdom. “Finn, don’t go in there.”

Finn swivelled his hips. An overconfident expression met Lucas. “Oh, feck you, Lucas, and feck all of you. Not scaring me, Sean.”

Finn entered.

The door creaked shut.

Lucas stepped forward and nearly kicked a Jack-o'-lantern that had popped up at his feet.

“That…was…also…not…there a minute ago.” A frail voice but even more brittle as he spoke. Lucas found the abject terror inside too much.

He bent down to peer closer at the pumpkin, the blonde hair tuft on this one more flaxen - much like Finn’s.

Lucas stepped over it and edged a few more tentative steps towards the door.

It opened with its same low groan.

“Come join us, Lucas.”

Lucas froze as he looked at the pumpkins.

All stared at him.

Malevolent grins taunted his already inescapable fears. That ominous feeling now was a loud alarm bell that told him to skedaddle. A revelation, a terrible one, ran through his head, one that said leave now or be forever snatched from the world. 

His mouth stretched, and drew back, as a slack jaw trembled.

He whispered. “The missing kids…are here…shit…”

Lucas regarded the pumpkin with a tuft of ash brown hair strands protruding out from the top; at its grimace, a face sliced by whatever inhabited the decayed forest house. Candles flickered inside each pumpkin. Lucas held a stare on this one jack-o'-lantern, with the familiar brown hair, at its golden glow against the darkness of the woodland around.

“Tim. Can’t be. No fecking way. Now I am seeing things.”

He turned around and strode back towards the path edge, a slow but surefire sprint about to spring forth to send him far from the forest, and away from this horrible place.

Only seconds before a break into a sprint and hop over the many pumpkins.

“Fuck this. Sorry, Tim. Got to go.”

He strode forward, but as he did, roots of vines from the patch earth reached up and entwined around his legs. 

“Aghhhh.”

Lucas fell forward onto his stomach, a hard fall.

You can’t leave us now, Lucas. Join us.

Many rapid inches at a time, he was dragged to the now open doorway, beyond which lay a deep, empty darkness.

“Help. Help. Anyone?”

Dragged and dragged, Lucas’ feet were now inside the doorway.

His unheard screams continued.

As the vines pulled him further into the dense darkness beyond the doorway, he glimpsed at the jack-o’-lanterns. Each now bore faces of kids, one or two he knew, the most recent missing kids from previous years. The pumpkins had morphed into terrified glistening teenage faces, each crying out in terror at their damned existence. 

Some pumpkins still wore malevolent glowing grins.

Lucas struggled and cried out. 

You’re with us now, Lucas.

In a last pull, Lucas was dragged into the darkness.

The door groaned shut.

A pumpkin pushed through the ground near the rest of the pumpkins. With a big grin and a tuft of red hair on its top, it glowed, seated on the patch with the others.

An hour passed.

A couple approached the path from the hillside. A middle-aged man and his cursing wife.

“Bloody hell, I’m slipping about here. Oh, here it is. This is what this big local folklore is all about. Really? Look at it. It’s almost as dead as that garden.”

They then smiled at each other as their eyes met the decayed old wood and glowing pumpkin patch that belonged to the timber house.

“This must be the place.” She said.

They smiled at each other.

“Oh. Only ten minutes to midnight. Ready.” He spoke quickly.

They clutched each other’s hands.

“Ready.” The lady said.

“Let’s go in.”

And they stepped onto the path.