House on 223 Maple RD.

The evening air was nice and cool with a mild breeze blowing through the willows that encircled the old house that sat on top of the hill on 223 Maple RD. The house had been sitting abandoned for at least twelve years, the window shutters where barley hanging on by their hinges. The green paint on the old house had been peeling away for some years now. In its time the house was quite a Jewl, there was an upstairs balcony that overlooked the acers and acers of golden wheat fields and an old dirt road lined with dogwood trees that appear to have been planted the same time as the house had been built. There was a wraparound porch that was held up by very detailed bright white Victorian pillars. Yes, the setting on this old house looked so inviting for one to come and sit on its porch swing to enjoy a nice sunset on any given summers evening.

Tommy Groves had been eyeballing this old Victorian home for some time. He finally saved up enough money to put a down payment and move his family of four out of the city and into the quiet surrounding of the county side. Tommy had told his wife Julia that the house needed some work but once they got started fixing up the place, the ideas would be endless to make it their own. Julia was a little skeptical about the venture that they committed to but went along with the idea since she trusted Tommy whom she had been married to for four and a half years.

As the young family pulled up to the house, little tommy noticed the old tire swing that hung from a willow tree and thought this would be his very own getaway spot. Little Susan was more focused and excited to see her new room that would be on the third floor. The lights had been turned on earlier that morning before they had arrived. Julia walked in and said that the floors were still in great shape, a light oak floor that still had a shiny gleam under the dust that had settled there for years.

"Well, the quicker we get our stuff unloaded and moved in here, the quicker we can go investigate the property" Tommy said as he set the box he had been carrying down on the floor. Julia grabbed a box of dished and headed to the kitchen where she said that she would get lunch started.

"Thump"! Julia jumped to the loud noise and ran out of the kitchen to see what had been dropped. " Is everything ok " Julia yelled out.

"Sure, is sweety, why?" Tommy replied as he set the heavy box down in the big dining room.

"You did not hear that loud thump?" Julia asked.

" No, sure didn't".

Julia brushed it off and went back to the kitchen to finish cleaning the stove so she could finish making lunch. Julia was caught off guard when she walked back into the kitchen and noticed the four glasses that she had set on the counter was shattered all over the kitchen floor. She was sure that she had set them in the middle of the counter. Julia brushed it off thinking that she must of somehow nocked them off when she rushed out of the kitchen to see what the loud noise was.

After getting the kitchen clean and lunch started, Julia and Tommy worked together and got the dining room floor mopped, hung the curtains then set up the dining room table. "I think a mauve color would help bring back the Victorian look in here". Julia told Tommy. "If Mauve is what you want, then mauve it will be" Tommy replied as he kissed his wife and went back to hauling more of their stuff into the house.

As tommy got the last of the boxes off the truck and headed back into the house, he turned and yelled at Tommy Jr. who was playing on the swing under the willow tree that sat in front of the house, to go in and wash up for lunch.

Tommy set the box in the living room and headed to the dining room telling Julia that he had already told Tommy to come in and get ready for lunch. "He is already at the table" Julia chuckled. "I just seen him on the swing in the front yard" Tommy Sr. said with a confused voice. "You must have a wilder imagination than little Tommy does". Julia replied as she put her husband's plate at the end of the table telling him to get washed up before his hamburgers got cold.

After the couple had cleaned and unpacked the majority of their things, they both went out to enjoy the evening on the front porch swing. "How long do you think it will take to get this house scraped and painted?" Julia asked as she rested her head on Tommy.

"Well after the moving truck comes tomorrow with the rest of our things, I will go into town and get an estimate on how much the paint will cost and see if I can find a helper to get the old paint scraped off."

As the evening slipped away and the wind played its final tune through the willows, the small family settled down for the night in their new home.

BAM, BAM, BAM!!! Tommy jumped up out of a deep sleep. There it was again, BAM, BAM, BAM!!! Tommy rushed to the front door to see who or what was banging on the front door. Tommy flung open the door without looking out the curtain and yelled at the man standing there with his fist up getting ready to bang on the door again. "Who the hell are you, and what the hell do you want?" Tommy shouted at the man. "Do you realize it is three o'clock in the morning"? Tommy said as he stood there is his underwear.

"MY boy, have you seen my little boy?" the man with scraggly hair and clothes that looked to not have been washed for months, shouted back at Tommy.

Tommy turned on the front porch light and told the man he would be right back after he got his robe on. Julia asked Tommy what the hell was going on as Tommy grabbed his robe and headed back to the front door. "I don't know yet" Tommy told his wife.

When Tommy had returned to the front door, he noticed the porch light was now off, he went out on the porch and yelled for the man, but the man was nowhere to be found. Tommy turned on the porch light, but it did not come on, so he went to check the bulb, but the light bulb was missing, it had been shattered all over the front porch.

As the sun rose the next morning, Tommy climbed out of bed and headed to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. The moving van would be there at nine thirty AM and Tommy wanted to be ready. As Tommy put the coffee grounds in the filter, he heard a little boy's voice coming from behind him, "Good morning, Tommy boy" Tommy said as he turned around expecting to see his son. there was no one there, so Tommy went upstairs to little Tommy's room to check on him. The little boy was in bed sound asleep. "Thats weird" Tommy thought to himself.

After the moving van came and everything was unloaded and put where it belonged, Tommy told Julia that he was going into town to check on the paint and try to find a helper to get started on scaping the paint off of the house Saturday.

Tommy went inside the hardware store and asked the guy behind the counter for a quote on outdoor paint. "Hello, my name is Sam Wurth, you must be new in town" the man behind the counter said. "Ya we just moved here and bought the old house on Maple RD." Tommy replied.

"Oh, you bought that old place? Did you hear what happened there around about twelve years ago?" Sam asked.

"No not really, is there something I should know?" tommy replied.

"Well, there was a family of four, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and their son and daughter. Thier son went missing and was never found. That drove Mr. Jones crazy, and he ended up hanging himself out in front of the house, from an old willow tree."

"Then one day Mrs. Jones died of a heart attack and the daughter was sent to a foster home. The old house had been sitting there empty ever since."

The men chatted for about thirty more minutes and Sam gave Tommy a handy man's phone number to call. "Thank you for everything MR. Wurth. I will be seeing a lot of you, that old place is going to take a lot of work to get it back to the way the house was originally built."

Julia was cleaning the downstairs bathroom when she heard a knock on the door, it was a loud knock, the kind a police officer would do. When Julia came to the door, she looked out the curtain and seen an older man with scraggly looking hair with dirty clothes on. "Can I help you?" Julia asked through the door. "My son, have you seen my Littleboy?" the man asked in a hysterical voice. Julia let the curtain down and opened up the door. To her surprise the man was gone. Just then there was a loud thump coming from upstairs. Julia ran up the stairs and seen that both or the children was fine. THUMP! There it was again. This time she could tell it was coming from the attic. Julia quicky got the children and ran downstairs.

Tommy pulled up to the house just in time to see his wife Julia running out the door with their children. "Tom, there is someone or something in the attic!" Julia shouted. "Calm down, I will go and check it out". Tommy replied.

As Tommy started heading up to the attic, he heard a loud THUMP. There was something defiantly in the attic Tommy thought to himself.

Tommy pulled the hide away latter down and began to climb up. Just as Tommy got to the top of the latter and stuck his head into the attic, an old dresser mirror that had been leaning against the wall came crashing down, shattering all over the attic floor.

Scared but still curious, Tommy entered the attic. The light would not turn on but the light from the two windows lit up the room just enough to see. THUMP! There the noise was again; this time he could tell it was coming from an old chest that was stored behind a big pile of boxes in the corner. Tommy noticed an old TV and VCR that had a tape in it sitting on a dusty old dresser. He pulled out the tape and looked at the tittle that read "Bad Little Boy". "What the hell?" Tommy thought to himself. Thump!!! Tommy couldn't take it anymore, so he went over to the chest and opened it up. There in the chest was a skeleton of a young child. Startled, Tommy jumped back. CRASH! A vase went flying by Tommy's head. "GET OUT!" a lady's Voice screamed.

Tommy didn't waste any more time and climbed down the latter as fast as he could. As he ran towards the front door, it slammed shut. Tommy tried to open it, but it would not budge. Pictures started to fly off the walls, dishes started flying across the kitchen crashing and shattering all over the kitchen floor. "OPEN THE DOOR! Julia screamed, but Tommy was too busy dodging things to hear her.

finally, there was a break in things flying around so Tommy quickly went into the dining room and threw a dining room chair out the window and climbed out. He grabbed his family and put them in his truck and quickly drove away.

Tommy did not realize that he still had the old VCR tape in his hand. He drove to the local sheriff's office and told the sheriff what had just happened. The sheriff looked at him like he was crazy. "Here, I found this tape up in the attic". Tommy told the sheriff as he handed him the tape. The sheriff put the tape that was titled "Bad Little Boy" in a VCR and pushed play, what they saw was something so disturbing Tommy got sick to his stomach and could not watch any more. Mrs. Jones was recording herself torcher Ing the poor little boy, her own son. It finally dawned on Tommy the Old man that came looking for his son was MR. Jones.

Needless to say, The Groves left all of their belongings and never returned to the house on 223 Maple Road.