Revenge - 1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Hunter, Ryder, and Savannah, would you please come in here,” my mother called out. “Your father and I have something we’d like to talk to you about.”

By the way, I’m Hunter, Ryder is my eleven-year old brother, and Savannah is my six-year old sister. After hearing our mother call us, we all rushed into the living room to see what was so important. It wasn’t often that our parents wanted to speak to all three of us at once, probably because of the age differences.

“I have some news to share and I hope you’ll all be happy with what I am about to say,” Dad began. “I’ve accepted a position with another company, which means we’ll be moving to another state shortly after you kids get out of school for the year.”

“I don’t want to move,” Ryder immediately screamed. “I like it here and don’t want to leave my friends.”

“I want to stay here too,” Savannah added with a pout.

I’m not sure she fully understood what was happening, but she joined in on Ryder’s protest. Although this announcement had come as a total surprise to me as well, and most kids my age would probably have been upset by the news, I was actually happy with the idea and wasn’t about to complain. Even though I was just finishing up my freshman year, I hated the school I was currently attending. I hated the other students and I hated the teachers, but most of all I hated the principal and other administrators. For that reason, I was ecstatic that I would soon be escaping from my private hell.

“When did all of this happen?” I wondered, since I hadn’t seen it coming.

“I believe you know that I've taken several trips out of town over the past few months,” Dad explained, “and even though I told you I was going away on business, I was actually being interviewed. I'd spent several months sending out my resume in an effort to find a more responsible position with better pay so I'd be able to put more aside for you three to go to college. Whenever I was offered an interview, I would take a vacation day or two so I could travel there. In the end, I received a couple of different job offers, so your mother and I talked it over before I accepted the opportunity that we both felt would be best.”

“So where are we moving to?” I followed, since I was curious if we’d be going someplace that was more open-minded than where we currently lived.

“We’ll be moving to Maryland, where I’ll be the Mid-Atlantic regional human resource director for a larger company. Even though I’ll be working in Baltimore, we won’t be living in the city. I’ve purchased a home for us in the suburbs where you three will have plenty of green grass, fresh air, and lots of room to be kids.”

“But doesn’t that mean you’ll still have to do a lot of driving to get back and forth from work every day?” I wondered, since Dad had always complained about the time he spent in traffic.

“Yes, that’s true, but I'll feel better knowing the three of you aren’t enrolled in an inner-city school. I don’t want you to have to put up with attending crowded, under-funded schools, and I don't want your mother or I to fret about the crime rate and other things you might be exposed to if we lived in the city. I’ll put up with the drive, as long as it makes life better for you kids.”

I was satisfied with what I’d heard thus far, so I went up to my bedroom, which I shared with my brother. I left the other two still arguing with Mom and Dad, as they attempted to talk them out of doing this. I felt sorry for them in a way, because I’d hate to leave my friends too, if I had any, but this was definitely going to be better for me.

Maybe I should take a minute to clarify the situation and explain a few things. As I said, I’m a freshman in high school and just turned fifteen a couple of months ago, but I happen to be one of the shortest guys in my grade. I’m barely five feet tall (153 cm), and I don’t even weigh 100 pounds (45 kg) soaking wet. Even though I’m small, I’ve been told I’m cute, but I’m afraid the girls telling me this were thinking of me more as little-boy cute, rather than boyfriend cute. It doesn’t really matter, though, because I’m gay, and that brings me to the reason I hate my school, teachers, and the administrators.

Since I’ve always been small and not very athletic, the other kids have always picked on me. They call me gay, homo, and faggot even though they’ve never had any real basis for those taunts, but it’s been a constant problem for me since fifth grade. Although it was fairly obvious that I was being bullied, none of the teachers or school officials ever did anything to stop it, even though my parents and I had lodged formal complaints. Besides being called those names in public and having had similar slurs posted on my Facebook wall, I've also received numerous threats, both in person and in cyberspace.

At school I’ve been pushed, punched, and tripped, but I’ve also had my belongings defaced with homophobic slurs. One day in P.E., just as the class ended and after the teacher had left the gym, I was grabbed by some of the macho jocks in our class and they pulled my gym shorts and underwear off. Then, they took those things back to the locker room with them, laughing as they went. I was left trying to pull my t-shirt down to cover myself as best I could as I made my way back to the locker room to change.

When my parents found out about what had happened, they came to school and filed another complaint, but nothing was ever done about it. Everyone there treated the incident as a harmless prank and none of the boys involved were ever disciplined for what they'd done. The incident, however, left me emotionally scarred and totally humiliated. That was due to the fact that a lot of others, including a group of girls, had either seen it happen or they saw me trying to discretely sneak back to the locker room. Quite a few of them even saw my privates, so I became the brunt of a lot of jokes. Besides the usual slurs, I was now called stubby, baby dick, and moon man, and I was mocked incessantly.

The only bright spot at school was a cute boy who’s also gay, even though no one else knows about it. I’d talked to him a few times and he'd admitted to me in private that he was gay, but that happened before I got pantsed. After that incident he started to keep his distance, and now he'll only talk to me on the phone. He'll also text, tweet, and send emails, but that's it. He’s afraid if he’s seen hanging around or talking to me then the bullies will start treating him the same way. He definitely wants to avoid that, if at all possible, so he figures discretion is the better part of valor. Of course I understand his concerns and won’t hold it against him, but it sure would be nice to have at least one friend while I’m locked up in this educational prison.

Fortunately for him, he has never had to face the same type of ridicule and abuse that I’ve endured. Even though he’s not much taller or more muscular than me, he is definitely more athletic. He plays soccer and baseball, so the others tend to leave him alone. Maybe I should have tried harder to fit in, but I probably would have been so bad at sports that no team would want me. If I did get chosen, I’d probably stand out just as much as I do now. I guess it would be a no-win scenario for me.

You see my family has lived in Texas for the past several years, after my dad became the district human resource manager for this area. It isn’t a particularly gay friendly location, and those suspected of being gay aren’t generally treated very well. This is big football country, so as long as you’re an athlete you pretty much avoid scrutiny, unless you’re caught doing something totally unmanly. Unfortunately my size, build, high squeaky voice, love of reading, interest in the arts, good grades, and lack of coordination and athleticism all worked against me. I might as well have painted a target on my forehead, because that's what I’ve become.

It’s also the reason it didn’t bother me when Dad announced we were going to move and why I was the only one who didn’t complain or throw a tantrum. I was hoping a new environment might give me a fresh start, and hopefully I won’t be treated as badly at the new school I'm enrolled in.

Over the next couple of days, my dad told us about the house and even showed us some photos of it too. He said it was originally a brick farmhouse, built in the 1800s, but a contractor had recently gutted the interior and completely remodeled it. The best part about it, at least according to my father, was that it came with ten acres of land. He said the former owners had refused to split the property into smaller lots because it had been passed down through the family for generations and they wanted it to remain as one parcel.

Although the last owner had been in a nursing home and hadn’t lived in the house for a number of years, he'd put a stipulation in his will that anyone inheriting the property had to keep it intact. His primary beneficiary happened to be a contractor, and he decided the only way he was going to make any money on the place was to gut the house and completely remodel it. He knew it would increase the value of the property and help attract a buyer, otherwise he realized he'd only be paid for what the land was worth. Since he and his crew could do the work, he felt it was worth the investment of time and labor, and it paid off for him in the long run.

I have to admit that the photos of the interior looked really nice, and the house was huge. It had four bedrooms, so my brother and I wouldn't have to share a room any longer, and an addition had been built onto the back of the first floor. The exterior was brick and constructed in the Federalist style, but it also had a huge porch that ran across the front and along one side of the house. Since it had lots of land, we would have plenty of privacy, and that was a major plus in my book, in case I wasn’t accepted at the school there either.

If that happened, I could invite any friends I made over to the house and we'd have plenty of room to do things close to home, where other people would be less likely to bother us. Otherwise, I could just hang out alone, or do stuff with my sister and brother. That wouldn’t be ideal, but it would be better than being totally isolated again.

When school was finally out for the summer, we started getting ready to move. Unbelievably, we didn’t have to do very much, because the company my dad would be working for had paid a moving company to do most of the work. We merely packed up our personal belongings, most of which we took with us in the cars. The moving crew packed up everything else, loaded it all in an 18-wheeler, and drove it to our new home. When they got there, they carried everything inside and placed each item in the correct room, so all we had to do was unpack the boxes and put things away.

The living room, dining room and kitchen, which also had a breakfast nook, were on the first floor, along with a bathroom and the den, which my father was planning to use as an office. Built onto the back of the original house was a pretty big addition, which contained a sunroom and a family room. The sunroom had windows along the two outer walls, which would let in the sunshine and fresh air, and it would primarily be used during the spring and fall seasons. The family room had a huge fireplace located on the outer wall and would be the room where the family would spend most of our free time together.

Upstairs were the four bedrooms. My parents had a large suite, with a huge, private bathroom, and the rest of us had our own rooms too. I got the biggest of the three, seeing I’m the oldest, and my sister was given the smallest. There was also a full bath the three of us were going to have to share, but I didn’t feel that would be a big deal. By the time my sister got old enough to start hogging the bathroom, I’d be in college or on my own, so it was a problem my brother would probably have to deal with, not me.

The first night in the new house was kind of strange, though, because it was totally different. Since the neighbors weren’t close by it was kind of quiet, but the house seemed to make its own noises. I guess all houses do that, and even though this one had been completely remodeled, it was still an older home. I guess that’s why my little sister woke up in the middle of the night and started screaming for my parents. It didn’t, however, explain why she accused me of coming into her room and trying to scare her.

“I saw Hunter in my room and he was making noises to scare me,” she kept insisting as she flashed me a disgusted and hateful look.

“I didn’t come in here, I swear,” I countered. “I never left my room until I heard her screaming for you guys.”

Fortunately, my parents believed me and did their best to calm her down. “Savannah, you probably just had a bad dream and thought you saw Hunter in here. Go back to sleep and I promise everything will be ok,” my mother offered soothingly.

“Don’t come in here again!” Savannah yelled, directing her comment at me.

After assuring her I wouldn’t leave my bedroom, things calmed down and we all went back to sleep. That was until Savannah started screaming again, just before sunrise. We all rushed to her room and found her trembling and crying.

“What’s the matter, honey?” my mom asked as she caressed my sister and attempted to calm her down.

“When I woke up there was a boy in my room, but it wasn’t Hunter,” she sobbed. “He was looking at my things and disappeared when I called for you.”

She was visibly shaken and it was obvious that she believed what she was saying, so we all attempted to allay her fears. While Mom stayed with her, Dad, Ryder and I searched the house for an intruder. Dad went to look around the first floor, while Ryder followed behind me as we checked out every nook and cranny on the second floor. None of us discovered anyone or found any signs that an intruder had come inside, so we concluded that Savannah had just awakened from another nightmare.

This happened a couple more times during the following week, but we assumed Savannah was just having difficulty adjusting to our new house, which in turn was causing her to have these nightmares. That was until things started to disappear. At first it was some of Ryder’s belongings, but then some of my stuff went missing too. There were also a couple of times when my mom or dad couldn’t find their car keys or other items, but they figured they'd just misplaced them, because everything turned up again later. Even though their keys were found in really strange locations, like in the refrigerator or under the couch, my parents figured they'd just been distracted and absent-mindedly left or dropped them there. It was either that or one of us kids were playing a practical joke on them.

After a couple of weeks, Ryder confided in me that he also thought he'd seen someone else in the house, but every time he went to see who was there, he never found anyone. The following week, I thought I saw someone lurking about too. When I didn’t discover an intruder, I concluded Ryder’s suggestion had thrown my imagination into overdrive and I'd begun to hallucinate those imaginary sightings. Although Ryder had mentioned these occurrences to our parents as well, I never did. I figured it was merely my imagination – that was until I heard my parents talking about seeing shadows moving throughout the house. Could it really be that this old house was haunted?

Although my parents didn’t believe in ghosts or paranormal events, I was open to the idea that there were things that couldn’t be explained by other means. I’d seen enough of those paranormal programs on TV that highlighted events that couldn’t be explained by science or logic, so I felt there might be something to this. Even though I didn’t want to spook my sister or brother, I considered there might be something supernatural going on here.

As we got settled in, I started investigating the property to see how much we really owned. I quickly discovered the land went back quite a ways and there was a pretty sturdy old barn fifty yards (about 46 meters) behind the house. I had just finished a cursory inspection of the barn and was getting ready to check out the area behind it when I met one of the neighbors. I guess he'd seen me looking around and thought he’d come over to introduce himself.

“Hi, I’m Jacob and I live over there,” he said, pointing at the house about 100 yards (about 91.5 m) to the right of our house. “Did you just move in here?”

“Yes, my dad took a new job in Baltimore and bought this place for us to live. I’m Hunter and I’m glad to meet you.”

“Same here. You look to be about my age, so are you going to be a freshman too?”

“No, actually I’m going to be a sophomore.” My response caused Jacob’s face to contort into an odd expression. “I know I look a lot younger, but I’m really 15.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that. I was just wondering if you’d mind hanging out with someone a year younger.”

“Not at all. It’s better than hanging out with my six-year old sister or eleven-year old brother.”

“That’s good, because I don’t have any brothers and sisters, so it gets kind of lonely around here, especially during the summer.”

“Aren’t there any other kids who live nearby?” I challenged, while staring at him intently.

“Not our age, except for the asshole who lives a couple houses down from you, but on the other side of the street,” he spat out.

“I take it you don’t get along with him?”

“Nah, he’s a real bastard. He’s a year older than you and he’s making it his goal to carry out Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest, but not the brightest. His name's Dirk, but he calls himself the Terminator and says he’s out to exterminate all of the males who don’t meet his standards. He calls them fags, so he and his friends call him the ‘Faginator’ in private, but they try not to let others hear them use that term.”

“Fuck, he sounds like a complete jerk,” I muttered absent-mindedly.

“He is, and his father is just as bad. I guess that’s where Dirk gets it from.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“I can’t believe someone’s finally living here again. Your house has been empty for longer than I’ve been alive, at least until they began fixing it up.”

“Yeah, my dad said it had been abandoned for a while.”

“Yep. After that kid was killed here, the other people who moved in never stayed for very long. Most people around the area say the property is haunted, so that’s why I was surprised when your family moved in.”

“Wait! They think our house is haunted?” I gasped as I thought about all of the unexplained events we'd already witnessed.

“Yep. No one has ever lived there for more than a few months before they got scared and moved out. I’ve heard my dad talking to my mom and some other people about it. He says a couple of the families even moved out in the middle of the night and only came back long enough to get their things a few days later, but they did it in the daylight.”

“So what happened here?” I wanted to find out what my family might be up against.

“I guess it all began on Halloween night back in the 1980s. The boy who lived here was murdered, but they didn't find his body until a few days later. He was a boy around our age, and he lived in this house with his family at the time he was killed. They never learned the reason why it happened or found the person who did it.”

“Did it happen in the house?”

“They didn't think so, because they found his body in the old well that once stood about halfway between your house and the barn. It’s filled in now, but at one time I guess there was an old, open well there. You know, the kind with the round, stone base about waist high with the wooden roof and a crank with a rope and bucket attached to it that they used to haul up the water.”

“Maybe it was an accident and he just fell in." I preferred to think that he died in an accident, rather than having been murdered.

“Nah, he was killed. When he went missing everyone in the area started looking for him, but they never found him. Then a few days later his father spotted the body in the well. When they pulled him up, the medical examiner said he'd been severely beaten and part of his skull had been crushed. The coroner also explained that there wouldn’t have been so much damage if he’d just fallen in.”

That dashed my hopes, at least about how he died, so I had to learn more about the other people who had lived there.

“So how many people have moved out and what did they give as a reason?” I was hoping he had the answers.

“My dad says that once the boy's family moved out, because they couldn’t stand living there knowing it was where their son had been murdered, they rented out the place to others. Dad said there were about half a dozen other families after that, but none of them ever made it through a full year. They all said strange things were happening inside the house and they were seeing a figure moving around. They also said there were too many accidents and other incidents happening that couldn't be explained or written off as purely coincidence, and they thought that whatever was there was trying to harm them.”

“Fuck! This is unbelievable! My sister said she saw a boy in her room the night we moved in and thought I was trying to scare her. Then my brother and I thought we saw someone in the house as well, but we could never find anyone. This is getting spooky.”

“Damn, I always hoped they were wrong about this, but if you’re seeing things too, and the house has been abandoned for about twenty years, then maybe the stories are true.”

I talked to Jacob for a little while longer and got to know him better, but I was pretty shaken up by what he’d told me. That night I took Mom and Dad aside and filled them in about what I had learned. My father was still unconvinced.

“Hunter, I think nearly every community has at least one place they claim is haunted, but it’s mostly because the various stories have been embellished and certain facts fabricated to make it believable. I’m sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for everything that has happened, so don’t go blowing this out of proportion.”

I wasn’t buying it, but I promised I wouldn’t continue making a big deal about it or tell Savannah or Ryder about what I'd learned. I wasn’t convinced Dad believed everything he'd just told me either, and sensed he might be having his own doubts, but I knew he wasn’t about to admit it, at least not to me.

Things went about the same for the next few weeks, but then the situation began to escalate. It all started when the entire family was sitting in the family room one night watching TV. The only light in the room was a small lamp, since we wanted to avoid the glare on the television screen.

“Hey, quit poking me!” Ryder called out, sounding annoyed.

“Who’s poking you?” Dad asked confused. That was because Savannah was sitting on the couch between Mom and him, and I was in a chair on the opposite side of the room from Ryder.

“I thought Hunter had snuck over here and was doing it,” Ryder admitted, but now he looked shocked and embarrassed when he realized I had never left my chair.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just springs in the chair pushing against you?” Dad followed, in an attempt to put this behind us.

“I don’t think the chair could poke me like that or reach over my shoulder and poke me in the chest,” Ryder reasoned.

“Well there’s no one near you, so I’m not sure what you felt,” Dad responded, while looking at him puzzled.

Ryder looked perturbed that no one seemed to believe him, so he slunk down in the chair as he continued to watch the program. A few minutes later it was Dad’s voice that garnered our attention.

“Very funny, Ryder, but you’re not going to convince me by playing those types of tricks,” he stated, but then abruptly stopped when he saw Ryder looking at him from his chair. Then, he quickly looked over at me.

“What’s up, Dad? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I felt someone slap the back of my head and thought Ryder was doing it because I'd downplayed his claims,” Dad answered. “Now I’m confused, since none of you have moved from your seats.”

We had just started watching the program again when Dad jumped up and faced the back of the sofa. It caused the rest of us to turn and stare at him.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Mom asked concerned.

“It happened again,” Dad announced. “Something slapped the back of my head and it obviously wasn’t any of you.”

At this point, we all got up and began running around the room looking for the culprit, but of course we didn't find anyone there. After several minutes of this futile effort, we all sat down again. I never brought up the possibility of a ghost or that the house was haunted, because I didn’t want to upset Savannah or Ryder. It was still in the back of my mind, though, and I think the same thing had occurred to Mom and Dad as well.