Silence is a superpower for those who are truly brave

Immediately defending ones-self or jumping to conclusions happens too often

Learning when to speak and when to listen has become a lost art

Everyone has their own story and own mind and are quick to jump in

Never really stopping the flow to consider that others have more to say

Calling the shots instead of following the lead of a friend

Engaging in conversation should not be such a competition

Sometimes we are so caught up in ourselves, we forget our supporters

Anybody worth keeping around requires some relationship maintenance

Veering off topic can prevent those closest to you from asking for help

Even if they don't need saving, they might need to feel heard

So silence, though difficult, is a superpower for friends in need

A smooth and soft skinned pale old man worked behind the counter dressed oddly formal for his role., He had greeted the children as if he had waited all day to see them. “Good to see you all this afternoon! I suppose you might want to go down that back isle and pick yourselves out one of our locally made brownies or imported saltwater taffy!” He laughed and then winked. With that, the children shuffled to the back isle, passing the bread and pasta, and finding the shelves with the sweet stuff. The back of the store had chained off the staircase with strangely spaced steps. Each plank looked as if it had just barely been thrown down with gaps destined to swallow loose change. The tile just at the very back underfoot was brown and scuffed from the rubber of wheeled carts and cheap sneakers. The shelves were wooden instead of the usual metal the children were accustomed to at their home stores. After each child made their selections, they shuffled to the counter to pay and then one by one went back out into the daylight with an angelic ring of the door.

Instead of going back down the road passed the pub and around the corner back to their lodgings, they decided to go around in a big loop straight down away from the store. There were small, old buildings lining this road which stood parallel to Aunt Minnie’s. The buildings were bars, barbers, or repair shops instead of houses. Many of the buildings that once were a business appeared to have shut down and been abandoned. The boarded windows covered in graffiti and the signs were destroyed or half ripped. At the far corner, there was an old bank that had met this cursed fate of failure. The two steps up to the door in chains were crumbling and exposed. Half the cement had cracked off and sunk along with a hole just big enough to look through. Curiosity caught Axel’s attention and he shoved his face down into the hole to try to get a good look. “Whoa!” he cried out. The hole was a portal exposing a deep drop into the basement of the building, faintly illuminated by the natural lighting. Each child took their turn to look in, gasping at the sight.

“When we are grown up, we should come back here and look for gold. I bet you everyone has been too afraid to go into this haunted bank and get the treasures waiting in the vault.” Baxter whispered. He was the eldest of the group and the bravest, obviously. He had dark hair and a pale, freckled complexion. His eyes grew intense as he spoke, and near obsessively he could not stop sneaking peaks down into the abyss.

Written by Morgan Duggan

The floorboards creek on the step into the kitchen from the living room. Somehow when the lights are out, the air seems to escape my lungs and the deafening silence rings throughout the entire house until disturbed. Again, with the gentle distribution of pressure from the step to the floor, a creek rings out. Thud. Thud. Thud. My stillness becomes stiffness as I am alarmed to hear the thuds. It is only my own heartbeat. I turn around but cannot see into the empty blackness of the room. The power must be out in the street as well. No light from the lamp posts creep in around the blackout curtains as they normally do. I feel my way around the room, quieting my steps with the gentle rolling of my foot on the ground. Tip-toe, balls of feet, heel, and repeat.

"Hello?" His voice rings out from the other side of the kitchen.

"I thought you were asleep." I admit breathlessly. He fumbles around. I hear his feet dragging from the room on the other side into the office. He slides open a drawer and pushes things around, feeling with his fingers for something. A light flickers on. Once again, I am holding my breath.

"What are you doing up this late?" He questions me. How do I tell him? I have been awake having vivid hallucinations of a man trying to crawl up into our home from under the step. He will be furious I did not wake him to help me. The light is shining at me. I block the beam with my hand, which in turn he lowers the light.

"Nothing." My voice calls out meekly. Damnit.

"You should be in bed! You are pregnant and you need to rest for the both of you." He pauses and raises the light up once again. "Why are you so pale right now? Do we need to go to the hospital?" He is worried.

"Nightmares." I respond. I am sure that is all it is. The baby hormones are making me crazy and I am having a waking nightmare because of the hormones. "It was awful." I clutch my bump and make my way to the chair at the kitchen table. He rushes to my side and pulls the closest chair directly in front. I feel his hand on my shoulder and run through my hair.

"What was it of, my love?" He asks, sweetly.

"There was... This dark mist. I had the TV on and I was just resting, but the mist it starts to grow in the corner of my eye. I look over at the stair from the living room to the kitchen and I just knew something was going wrong. I sat up and stared for a moment and could see something... someone. They were clawing up from beneath the step. It was like I could see it was human hands, but I couldn't be sure that I was seeing what I was seeing. I heard the most horrific noises. Snarls or some growling." I pause.

"Do you think there is another squirrel stuck under the house?" He cocks his head to the side.

"This was not an animal. He dragged his body up the step and into the kitchen." I whisper. We both look around the room. "And then the lights went out."

"That's a horrible dream, I'm sorry babe. Did the lights going out wake you up?"

"Well, no. I had stood up when he crawled away and then the lights went out. I was still standing up. I think I was dream walking or something." This prompts him to jump to his feet and run straight into the bedroom. "Where are you going?" I begin to panic.

"I woke up because I thought you were crawling into bed!" He shouts. I feel the blood draining from my face and down my body. A coldness overcomes me and my throat becomes so dry I cannot swallow. I want nothing more than to run over to him and hold on for dear life, but I am worried what we might meet and that I will be in the way given my current condition.

"Hayden?" I call out.

"I thought it was you and then the cat. Where is Shadow?" He shouts. I had yet to think where the cat might be.

"I don't know where my phone is. I need a light to look for Shadow." I call out while pulling myself up off of my chair. My body is still cold and my joints are feeling stiff.

"Where did you have your phone?" He comes out of the room with the light, looking around.

"The nightstand." I respond quickly. He turns back to look. "It was on the charger!" I call.

"It's not here!" He shouts and runs out. He runs over to his Xbox and looks for his phone. "My phone is gone too." He runs next into the living room. "What the actual hell?" I am now standing alone in the dark. I begin to follow him into the living room but feel petrified to go in again.

"Can you look for Shadow?" I ask, realizing he has the light and crawling around on the floor to find the cat will not work for me in the dark and when getting up and down is difficult.

"Grab his treats!" He commands. I fumble towards the cabinet across the kitchen where we store cat supplies in the top portion and cleaning supplies in the lower. I feel to the very left for the bag of his favorite treats and begin to shake it furiously.

"Here, baby. I've got treats for you! Pst, pst, pst. Little muffin!" I call to our cat. He usually makes a clicking noise on the hard floors with his little claws as he walks, but it is dead silent. "Hayden?" I realize suddenly the silence is odd. I walk over towards the living room doorway and see the light down behind the couch. I follow the beam to the source and find the light. Where is Hayden? "Hayden!" I scream. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I feel as if someone is behind me. I pick up the light and turn to face the threat. My chest is tight as a clenched fist and my heart is pounding so loudly I don't even notice I'm not bleeding.

I see a man dragging his body across the threshold. I turn to run for the back door. Maybe Hayden had been frightened by the same imagine and got himself outside. Maybe he is out trying to find help. The door is locked. Hayden would have made a noise leaving. I turn again to find the intruder but am unable to see where he could be. "HAYDEN!" I scream and begin to cry. I try to unlock the door, but it will not move. The lock is somehow stuck and I am unable to twist the handle even a little. I kick the door and hit it with frustration. As I cannot see where the man has drug himself off to, I think of my options. Do I want to go see if he has done something to Hayden? I need to get out. Hayden isn't responding. I will try to go out the other door. If he drags himself at me again, I will use the rocking chair in the corner to get up into the window and break out.

I take the flashlight and wrap the strap around my wrist. I squeeze it firmly so I can use it as a club and it won't be taken from me. He will see me coming though. Should I leave the light here so he won't see me coming? I place the light on the ground once again, just in the spot Hayden had left it. There is enough light illuminating into the other room that I should be able to quickly escape. This time, when I approach the step into the other room, I am cautious to stick close to the wall and skip the creaking step up. I peer around the corner into the kitchen and see nothing. Edging along the wall, I make my way for the door and find it unlocked. How can this be? I had locked the door myself before Hayden went off to bed.

In a quick motion, I grab the doorknob, turn and pull. I feel some pressure as I am pulling and jump backwards. Shadow comes barreling inside and runs into the bedroom. Shadow is never allowed outside, how did he get out there? Suddenly, I feel the need to slam the door. Perhaps the man had drug himself outside while I was struggling with the other door. Maybe he came in from the door to begin with and I only thought I saw him coming up from under the step?

I don't want to leave Shadow. Maybe Hayden is outside right now trying to find the bastard. I don't know how he could have passed me, but its entirely possible I lost track of things in the dark. I need the light. I need to go back for the light. I leave the door half opened and make my way back into the living room. I run down the step and feel a hand wrap around my ankle. "Eeeeeeeeeeek!" I shriek on my way down. The room rushed before my eyes. I throw my hands out at the bottom of the step to catch myself on the arm of the couch. My hands make contact and my head slams down into the cushion. The cushion isn't very plush, so I still feel the impact of my face hitting the top of a board under the cushion. My ankle is still being held as I am dragged towards the step. Panic sets in and I try to grasp at the arm of the couch. My fingers slip against the upholstery and I have to catch myself on the floor.

I now have to worry about the potential harm to my unborn child as my body is hurling towards the concrete floor. I barely manage to catch myself, but being unstable, I cannot reach for the bottom of the couch. The hand holding my ankle is digging into my skin with its nails and I feel a warm rush against my cold petrified skin. I am bleeding. With my free foot I begin to kick. I kick against the top of the step and look back. There is a hole under the step that was not there before. A beam has been removed exposing an opening to under the kitchen. "Help me!" I shout, knowing there is wind howling outside and no neighbors close enough by to hear me. "Somebody help me please!" I cry out.

With all my might, I twist my body over, realizing from the position I was in that I couldn't see what was pulling me under and that I could not hold myself any longer. I am dragged under the house on my back. There is about a two foot drop down. I land on my lower back and bottom. Instinctively I have thrown my hands up over my head and tucked my chin down. I try to curl myself up, but being dragged, parts of my body are getting caught in dirt and tangled in God only knows what. I reach out and try to grab onto support beams. "Please stop!" I cry. The hand lets go. I continue to cry and sit myself up. My back is in pain and my leg is throbbing from where I had been punctured and squeezed violently.

"Mya." A voice whispers out. "Mya please come here."

I am worried that I am going to be falling for a trap if I go, but more so I am worried that I will find something I can't bare to see. The voice is coming from the far side of the space under the house. I do my best to stay low and crawl at the same time. My stomach is grazing the ground and despite what I had just gone through I begin to fear I will be bitten by a poisonous spider. "Hayden?" I whisper and stick my hand out. A hand grabs mine in return. "Hayden!" Huff, feeling the familiarity of his palm in mine. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I think I hit my head." He responds weekly. "Where the hell are we?"

"We are under the kitchen."

"What the actual fuck?" I begin to weep. I feel for the rest of him and make sure he has his parts. He moves to get closer to me. We embrace and I begin to sob heavily.

"He pulled me under too. We need to get out of here. You need to go get help!" I suggest. "We will both go for the step to get out but if he stops one of us, it needs to be me. I won't be able to rescue you if he gets you." I reason.

"We will both get out." He insists. "My head is killing me. I don't know the way, do you?"

"I was pulled straight in and then I think I passed under a pipe to get here. We should be able to see the flashlight once we get close. You have to go first." I insist. "I don't want to slow you down." He listens and goes past me. We work our way forward and find the light seeping out from the step. Hayden crawls up and quickly turns around to offer me a hand. I am unable to fit through this time without squishing my stomach. Hayden rips the top of the step up to set me free and pull me up and out. He grabs his flashlight and we run to the front door.

"Did you ever find shadow?" He asks once we get out the front door and begin running.

"He was outside. He came in when I tried to leave. The door was unlocked. I thought you left after the man." He squeezed my hand as we ran to the neighbors house. We knocked on the door of the first home, but no one answered. We ran to the next house and rang the bell. A man in his mid-50's answered. I had not seen this man before, but we were new to the neighborhood and had not had much opportunity to meet anyone yet.

"Please, can you call the police?" Hayden asks through the screen door. It was obvious the man was holding a weapon out of sight. "A man was in our home two door down. He did not follow us out, he might still be in there." His large bulging eyes gazed at us with suspicion and fear. This man had a worn face with wrinkles drooping under his big eyes. His hair He gave us a once over and lingered at my round baby bump that I was once again instinctively cradling. Neither of us were wearing shoes and we were covered in dirt.

"Alright, wait here while I go grab my phone." He finally spoke. He closed his door once again and we heard him rustling around inside. "There is a young couple outside that claims someone broke into their house. They look like hell. Call 911." We heard him say through the closed door. He returned and invited us in. We walked in to their living room and were invited to sit on the couch. The man was holding a gun and we could now see his wife on the phone with police. Despite having a gun out and slightly angled at us, a huge wave of relief ran over me. Once again, I began to cry. Hayden wrapped his arm around me. Their home was illuminated by a few camping lanterns. There were photos on the wall of family weddings and young children.

"I'm sorry y'all are having such a difficult night. People go crazy during the power outages." The man attempted to comfort us.

"There was a man under our house. I don't even know how he got in." Hayden replies.

"There is something that just ain't right about that house. A couple years ago a bunch of girls gone missing in the area here and then the man who lived there disappeared. That's when the house went into foreclosure." He informs us.

"The police said they are on their way." His wife joins in on the chair next to her husband. "Are you kids alright?" I looked down at my bloody ankle. Then I remembered Hayden had his his head and looked up at him to inspect him in the lighting.

"Is your head bleeding at all?" I ask with growing concern.

"I don't think so, I just got my bell rung real good." Maybe he wasn't bleeding, but there was still the large possibility he had a concussion since it seemed he lost consciousness.

"Do you want to go over and find the son'bitch?" The neighbor offers, now seeming to relax a little and trust we were not there to harm them at all.

"No, we just need to wait for the police to come. I cant imagine what sort of monster is waiting back at our place for us." I insist. Very few minutes pass until the police lights illuminate the windows. All four of us make our way outside to meet them. We explain the situation and the police head into our house. A few more minutes in the cold pass and there are a few more cop cars on scene. They use battery powered lights to light up our whole place and look around for this mystery assailant.

"There is no one in the house." They tell us.

"He was under the kitchen." I cry.

"I'm not sure how that is possible." The officer responds. "But I guess we will look into it. We will have to break down the stair to get in."

"What?" I gasp. We are allowed back in to the house to see. Through all of the excitement, the power comes back on. The stair in the living room is once again in tact, except for the top of the step where Hayden had to break it to get me out. "This part of the step was gone before. He took it off and must have boarded it up while we were gone again!"

"We can go ahead an look if you want but it will mean breaking the step off."

"Fine, do what you need to do. We were both dragged under the kitchen. He might still be down there. I don't want to be stuck in a house he still could be at." Hayden asserts. The police use a crowbar to pull out the side of the step to get themselves in. It does come off easily, but with more resistance than expected for something that was used swiftly to get in and out of our home. After a few minutes of two officers crawling around under the home, we heard them calling up on the radio.

"Sir?" The voice called. "There appears to be human remains down here." With those words, the blood drained from my body once again. This time my vision started to blur into stars and I felt like I was fixing to fall over at once. I drop down to my knees and wait.

Over the course of the next few hours, seventeen skeletons are discovered buried under our house. There is no evidence we had an intruder aside from the cuts and bruises. We have no idea how to explain what had happened to us. There were sixteen horribly decomposed female bodies and one male. They said it's likely the male was the previous owner of the house. They believe that he had been responsible for all of the missing girls and he had either gotten himself stuck under the house, committed suicide, or he was killed by one of his victims.

I can't help but wonder if it was all just a nightmare. Hayden thinks this has all been a haunting. We have been living on top of a mass grave in a house of horrors. The best thing for us to do is to leave and never, ever come back. We will sell and be rid of this horrible experience. We still have a healthy little girl on the way and we need to feel safer in our own home. I can't help but weep for the girls killed in such a senseless way. I can imagine their fear as I we too were attacked in that house. The escape was nearly impossible. The fear was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. The scar on my ankle will stand as a reminder of this day. and all I desperately want to be able to do is forget.

I now believe ghosts are real, that the phantoms from beyond their grave never give up nefarious habits. But if true evil can live on, perhaps so can true good. I hope the demon who touched us rots in hell for eternity, and I hope those girls finally find peace.

My memories are clouded with grey

Clearly vivid on every lousy day

Not once while young did I believe

Any love I could achieve

Disappointment in my mothers eyes

Praise became my father's lies

My sisters sang behind my back

Every flaw or character I could lack

Toxic beings love company

Eagerness is what would come from me

I tried to please, hoping for ease

Nothing... nothing... came from these

I let myself out, but not far away

Found myself a place to stay

I made a friend wise and true

That clapped and cheered what I could do

My love had grown with a shiny spine

I made choices solely mine

One drop of sunshine is all it took

For me to give me a second look

I grew to see past grayscale demise

Found trust in what took to my eyes

Distance and fonder

It helped me grow stronger

Learning to say no

Daring not to even go

Choosing myself when I was in need

Accepting to deny an often good deed

I put myself first, though struggling with guilt

Until I saw what strength was built

Peace overcame me when I saw

The hatred for me had been me, most of all