Ding Dong Ditch

Lou wasn’t sure what made him more nervous, the dilapidated house with broken down cars and metal scraps as a lawn, or the encroaching darkness of the forest slowly closing in on him as night fell. He rubbed his left knuckle with his hand and swallowed a lump.

“Are you sure about this Reggie?”

“Don’t be such a wimp. Just do it!” Reggie said.

“What if they call mom and dad?”

“We’re all the way down Marlow Road, whoever lives here has no idea who we are.”

Lou looked at the house and wondered if it had been beautiful once, with dark green paint and a flower bed, maybe a swing set in the back yard. Maybe the people who had lived there had been happy. He wondered what had happened, what could have gone so wrong. Or maybe, Lou thought, it had simply always been this way.

“Can you go first?” Lou asked.

“It’s my birthday and I say you go first!” Reggie replied, then he punched Lou in the arm.

“Ow! Hey!”

“Shh! They’ll hear us!”

Lou rubbed his knuckles with more even more vigor.

“Look. It’s easy. You sneak up, press the doorbell, then run back here.” Reggie said.

Lou didn't move.

“You can do this Lou! Be brave, I promise this will be fun. Trust me.” Reggie gave his brother a tap on the shoulder.

Lou bit his lip, exhaled, and said, “Okay. Okay here I go.”

Lou crept out of the trees towards the house. He stayed low, imagining himself as a ninja moving onto enemy territory. He reached the side of the house then snuck around to the front, keeping his body against the wall. He noticed old paint chips sticking to his sweater and rubbed them off. He crouched even lower as he reached the front window. Light from a television set danced light on the drawn red curtains. Then, Lou stopped. His stomach churned as a rancid stench hit his nose. He started to gag.

“What are you doing! They’ll hear you!” Reggie said in a loud breathy voice.

Lou covered his mouth and pinched his nose and froze in place. He looked down and saw that he was stepping on something dark and squishy, with hard off-white chunks in it.

“Common Lou! You’re almost there!” Lou stepped over the squishy ground, hopped up the two concrete steps and pressed the doorbell.

Ding dong

Making no attempt to be sneaky about his retreat, Lou sprinted back to the forest fringes where Reggie waited.

“Oh my god that was awesome!” Reggie said as suppressed giddiness leaked out of him.

“Yeah, yeah it was!” beamed Lou.

The front door of the house creaked open, and the brothers ducked down, covering their smiling mouths with their hands. They peered through the twigs of their camouflage as the door opened a few inches. Lou squinted. It was very dark inside, and he thought he could make out a bony hand holding the doorknob. After a moment, the door gently closed. The boys snickered through their hands.

“That was crazy!” Lou said.

“Yeah, yeah so crazy,” Reggie replied.

A silence fell over the boys. Lou opened his ears to the nothingness, looking for sounds other than his fast-beating heart.

“Do it again.”  

“What? No! It’s your turn now!”

“It’s my birthday and I say you do it again.”

Lou looked out through the twigs. The tv was still on. The yellow light above the front door flickered.

“I don’t like it here, Reggie.” Lou said.

“You just said it was exciting!”

“I said it was crazy.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“It smells bad over there.”

Reggie turned and bore holes into Lou’s skull with his gaze.

“Do it, or I tell mom about the magazine.”

Lou’s eyes went wide.

“What magazine?”

“The one you keep in that crack in your closet. The one with the boobies.”

Lou felt his stomach tighten into a knot. He turned and looked at the house again.

“Fine, but only one more time. It’s getting dark.”

“You have to ring it five times.” Reggie said.

“What? Common Reggie!”

“If it’s the last one, you have to do it five times! Or else…”

Reggie cupped his hands on his chest and made a squeezing motion with his fingers. Lou scowled and slowly stood up.

“When my birthday comes up, I’m going to make you regret it.”

Lou moved out from behind the bushes and moved towards the house again. He covered his nose and his mouth in anticipation of the wretched stench and moved around the slimy stuff. Reggie put his hands to his mouth to hide his giggles. He watched as Lou hopped up onto the concrete steps and put his finger on the doorbell. Through his smiling teeth he counted Lou’s pushes in quick succession

“One two three four-”

The door opened and closed so quickly that all Reggie saw was the blur that used to be his brother, now gone. Lou’s green shoe lay on its side on the concrete. Reggie’s smile evaporated.

“Lou?”

The yellow light flickered again.

“Lou, common man quit playin’ around!”

Reggie waited.

“Lou, Lou!” Reggie yelled, coming out of his hiding spot.

Reggie took a step forward before his blood stiffened him in place. Through the blinds he saw a face, long and emaciated, with eyes the colour of his mother’s lipstick. It look straight at Reggie and smiled.

Ding… dong… The face mouthed, but Reggie heard it as if it were right there next to him, breathing hot air right into his ear. Reggie turned around and ran back through the woods, down the old overgrown dirt driveway, his breathing fast with panic.

Ding…dong…ding…dong ding dong ding dong!

Heavy footsteps cracked the branches on the ground behind him. Reggie started to cry.

“No! No please!” Reggie sobbed.

Ding dong ding dong dingdongDINGDONGDINGDONG!

Reggie tripped on a dead log and fell to the ground with a thud. He felt long cold finger grab his head from behind and cup his eyes. Reggie screamed.

“Hey! Who’s there?” The fingers let go and Reggie covered his head, still screaming. He felt a hand on his back and he screamed again.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay!” The voice said.

Reggie’s screams turned to sobs. He looked up and saw a man in his forties with a reflective tracksuit on and a headlamp. Reggie tried to form words but could only form slobbery vowels.

“Lou…Lou I’m sorry!”

-

Lou sat on the couch in his living room wrapped in a blanket, with a neighbour next to him. He could hear his mother crying in the bedroom. He couldn’t hear his dad. The police had gone to the house and told Reggie that it had been abandoned long ago, that there was no tv and no smell and no doorbell. They said they would search the woods for Lou early in the morning.

The police left and his mother cried herself to sleep. His father put on his boots and jacket and said he was going to go look for Lou. He didn’t look at Reggie.

Reggie didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep or what time it was. All he knew was that it was still dark outside. The lamp next to him flickered.

He heard a shuffle outside, like footsteps. A faint disgusting smell hit his nose. He heard something like breathing.

The doorbell rang.

Ding dong.