Mystical One-Shots

Surprise in Derry

You know when things are bad, and you think they can't get worse and surprise! They get much worse.

Two years ago, my mom decided for us to move to Derry as we were evicted from our previous home. Why? Because my mom is a drug addict – only for cocaine – as well as a dealer. The landlord found out and kicked us out as he didn't want to get into a mess with the police.

My family had a house in Derry but surprisingly clean since everyone left the house. It was bigger than the other houses since drug dealing done right makes lots of money, but the inside was just like the other houses.

I don't hate my mom for what she did, but I'm profoundly disappointed in her as I had no choice but to lose contact with all my friends.

After two years of living here, I haven't made a single friend, except for talking once in a while with a girl named Beverly. She has beautiful long red hair and freckles on her face. People think of her as a slut that goes around sleeping with all the boys. However, she is very kind and funny. I don't understand why people make up lies about a person they never bother to interact with. There are also these kids I talk to, like once a week, but still, not people I consider as friends.

My house is located close to an actual abandoned house. The wooden walls are falling apart, trees and vines grow over it, and I'm certain animals as well as homeless people have used it as a temporary house.

For some reason, I am always attracted to that house. Call it curiosity or stupidity, but I am never scared of its ominous dilapidated look. Instead, I use it as a refuge of sorts when my mother used too much cocaine since she turned into a nuisance. The broken wooden floor and walls, the many spider webs that decorated the corridors and rooms alongside the dead vines, gave the place a sense of a home in need of someone to call it such.

I cleaned most of the house, but it was still dirty as there were too many dead leaves, even some dead rats and birds for my taste. Then, to my surprise, I found a mattress in one of the rooms upstairs. It had dirt and dead leaves all over, but it was still usable. I lay on it when it gets dark – using an old bed sheet under me – and use the blanket that I brought to warm myself.

There were some days I would rather stay in an abandoned creepy house than back home. And during recent nights, I began to notice weird things happening in the house, both inside and outside.

The wooden walls would creak loudly as I read a book on the mattress to try to catch some sleep. My only source of light is an old oil lamp I found in our garage. I know an old, wooden house is bound to creak every once in a while, especially during the windy days. But I've been sleeping here almost every week for the past two years, and it hasn't been this regular.

Those loud creaks are the ones I make when I walk on the rotten wood. It scared me at first, but after one week of it happening continuously, I just thought it was an animal that got inside and found the house a pleasant place to stay.

One week later, a boy went missing, Georgie Denbrough. He last was seen staring down at a sewage hole next to an old lady's house. His brother – Bill Denbrough – was the most affected in his family. Even though I'm a couple of years older than him, I noticed some of the boys in my grade – Henry Bowers and his gang – stopped bullying after the event. So I guess they did have some compassion.

Three days later, another kid went missing. Five days after that, another one was missing. Days later, another one, then another one, then another, another. And now, after six months, dozens of children were missing, their posters plastered on almost every electric pole and side of buildings.

My mom wasn't worried at first, as the children missing were around five and ten years of age. But after some kids of thirteen and sixteen years of age went missing, she got worried, since I'm now sixteen years old. But once she took in her cocaine, her worries flew out the window.