CHAPTER ONE
An Unusual Hiding Spot
On the far side of the country, clear to the east, with its back to the sea, was built a quaint town. In the very center ran a bustling main street with its many shops and charming storefronts. Surrounding this conglomerate of commerce, dotting the flat landscape, were seen modest homesteads with their thatched roof cabins erected in the middle of both farm and pasture lands, boxed in with petite white fences.
Over the years as most towns are prone to do, it began to grow. It developed factories and shipyards. More people arrived to work and soon the memory of the modest town was altogether forgotten, as one by one the cute shops disappeared, and the charming store fronts morphed into strip malls and shopping centers. The dusty roads were paved into heavily trafficked concrete highways. Skyscrapers and high-rise apartment buildings towered over everything, creating a canopy of steel and window glass.
As the city grew upward it also grew outward. Suburban planning committees formed, and swaths of old countryside were converted into rows of neat houses and fine neighborhoods.
Among those developed was the Kestrel Ridge Community. It attracted the wealthiest families as a place to escape the cramped stressful life of the city. Kestrel Ridge was a pleasant district with tree lined streets and lush green parks. In the spring, cherry blossoms transformed the neighborhood into a dazzling scene of pinks and whites. And when Autumn rolled around, the splatterings of oranges and yellows decorated not only the branches, but the pavement as well. In the evenings, antique streetlamps softly illuminated the quiet streets.
The only stain on the place, as neighbors often remarked, was the old graveyard on Hampton Lane. A conspicuous reminder of life before. Within its stoned walls was a world untouched by residential expansion. Its boundaries protected by local law; it had remained whilst everything around it changed.
A “For Sale” sign hung on a house across the street until recently, as news spread of a young family buying the place and subsequently moving in. 10 Hampton Lane, despite rumors it would never sell, was finally occupied.
The neighbors soon found John Bennett to be a polite but reclusive man. His wife Kate, always holding their newborn baby girl, was simply charming and a superb delight to the residents of the street. Theo, their oldest, as most young children are, was filled with ceaseless energy. As the Bennett family got settled into their new surroundings, they couldn’t have been happier.
It wasn’t long though, before the exhilarating highs of moving had vanished, replaced by the more normal contentious arguments and bickering’s of daily life for a young family.
“If no one wants me here anymore…than I’m leaving!” Theo yelled to his parents as he stormed to the front door.
“Theo! Come back here this instant and apologize!” His father yelled in equal opposition from inside the living room. Theo, fuming, paid little attention as he yanked open the front door.
“Let him go John,” he could hear his mother say. “Theo!” She called after him. “Be home before dark!” Theo slammed the door.
He inhaled the humid summer air as he tried, unsuccessfully, to calm his racing heart. He had hoped moving would be the chance for a fresh start. Now, as he stood on the doorstep of their new home, he scoffed at the idea. Nothing, it seemed, would be able to change his relationship with his dad.
A man jogged past and waved at him from across the street. Theo awkwardly waved back and speculated why anyone in their right mind would run on that side of the road. For it was on that side which loomed the eerie scene of the perpetual graveyard.
Theo gulped as he gazed past the small stone wall, a barrier from what he had deemed the horrors within, to where numerous gravestones popped out of the ground like grotesque teeth. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining mummies, tangled in their bandages, ripping up through the dry grass. Or spooky spectral outlines of ghosts floating through the air.
And if his imagination wasn’t enough from stopping him from entering the chilling cemetery, there was the graveyard caretaker. Elmer… Or Elmo? Was his name…Edgar? Theo never could remember the crusty man’s name, even though his mom always went out of her way to say hello.
Theo thought the caretaker looked like he had just popped out of his own grave. His clothes were stained and his greasy hair, what little was left of it, was plastered to his scabby scalp.
The old man didn’t live on the premises but spent most of his days listening to a portable radio from inside a small tool shed near the front of the graveyard. When he wasn’t cooped up in there, he could be seen hobbling amongst the gravestones trying his best to keep things tidy and well groomed. Today must have been a shed day, Theo thought, as he didn’t see the old man anywhere.
“Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to be out on his own,” Theo heard his father strongly protest from inside the front door.
“You’re going to make matters worse,” his mom replied. “Besides, we live in the safest neighborhood in the city. He’ll be fine.” Theo could hear his dad’s footsteps coming closer.
“I’ll be back when I find him.”
“If you insist. Try checking at the park, he likes playing underneath that old oak tree behind the monkey bars.”
Theo panicked. A rough scolding and a tediously long time out were surely what awaited him if he was found. He looked around for a hiding spot. There were the potted plants. No, too small. The bush on the left. He shook his head. He’d be spotted for sure. The heavy strides of his dad sounded closer still.
Theo flew down the porch steps. He needed something…something. Then his heart sank. He knew exactly where to hide. It would be the last spot his dad would look for him.
As the front door opened, Theo was already across the street, and with all the courage he could muster stepped under the metal arched gate and curled up behind the petite stone wall of the one place he least wanted to be.