The Notes

It was only last night that the rain was pouring and trees were like hands smacking against the windows while thunder boomed as if there were drums in the sky.
Well strangely enough there was no evidence of that today, today it wasn’t pouring, but it also wasn’t sunny, today was just, well grey.

I was in town when I noticed this, but that wasn’t all I noticed, on this very day Tokoroa was nothing, there was no one in town apart from the few roaming around, and I mean few, literally there were only about two to four people down each street, seriously, this was spooky.

I took a stroll down 5th Avenue, ha! I wish, it was only Leith Place, I thought if I wandered down here I would see perhaps a newly opened shop or something so amazing that had drawn everyone to make one big crowd, but I guessed wrong there was no one, really I didn’t know why I was in town but I had an idea to drag myself into Men’s and Boy’s Wear for a look anyway.

Billie was in there as per usual, standing behind the counter. Not one thought entered my mind to look at anything in particular, so as I passed hanger, after hanger, after hanger I expected something wonderful to catch my eye, but nothing did. At last I made up my mind on a nice blue t-shirt, and that was my decision made.

I dawdled on up to the counter where Billie was, take note I said ‘was,’ and in place of where she stood sat a note reading: 8:00pm I’ll be there. What does this mean? I wondered as I stood puzzled at this strange sight, this day just kept getting more, and more weird. Well it was only 12:30pm when I saw the note so 8:00pm was still a while away, with my free shirt and the note in my back pocket I walked out of the store. Later on, into the afternoon of my strange day, Brooke came over and we decided to go for a walk. “Hmmm, how about we get my Mum to drive us out to the swing bridge, out at Arapuni?” Brooke suggested as we tossed up ideas of where to walk.

“Alright then” I sighed, the note still in the back of my mind, “I guess a nice view won’t hurt.”
‘‘Hey, um Jordyn, what’s that piece of paper in your back pocket?’’ Brooke asked as she spied the note. “Ahhh nothing to worry about, I’ll show you later,” I said, hoping the subject wouldn’t carry on for too much longer. We waited for Brooke’s Mum to pick us up and in time no more than 30 minutes we were standing at the start of the bridge enjoying the glorious view. Slowly Brookes mum backed away, she was going to find a better parking space. As we watched the car pull away it seemed to almost vanish in the distance. We stood there all alone, no worries whatsoever, except suddenly out of the corner of my eye, hiding behind the bushes, I could see the outline of a house. “Quick Brooke, follow me.”
“What?”
“Just come.” We ran up with the path leading to the strange house,and came to a halt when we saw that the house seemed to be getting further, and further away, it seemed like we were getting nowhere. Ten minutes passed and we still stood there, we decided not to give up so back on the path we got. It felt like we had been running for hours, when suddenly we stopped to see that towering over the top of us was the old worn down house. Finally we were there. There we stood, surrounded by piles of broken floorboards, outside of the gate.

At this point, we sort of regretted going there, but it was too late to give up, being scaredy cats would be silly, so we decided to go in. With a loud screech, the rusty gate scraped against the cracked concrete. Vines covered the brick walls of the house, most windows were shattered or stained, mouldy, musty curtains hung and cobwebs dangled off the window frames and remnants of the glass dressing it like delicate white lace.

Being very cautious with each step, we crept up to the oversized oak door watching out for broken glass and prickles along the way. Soon we were standing on a welcome mat, when I spied out another note, this time reading: It’s 7:00pm. WATCH OUT! My heart started beating, a million beats a second, it wanted to escape from my chest, I wanted to escape from this place, but too late the gate was already shut stiff, and it was too high to jump. This time I showed Brooke, we both went into panic mode, we didn’t know what to do, so we knocked on the door. Tap!Tap!Tap! It slowly opened like a ghost was pulling it from behind. We stepped in and the door slammed behind us. An eerie silence took over the room and a damp smell lingered in the unairconditioned mess, floor boards were missing from under our feet, and above swung a half working chandelier, no help to the situation. That was it, we were trapped, trapped in a mysterious room we had never yet seen before. Something caught my eye, this time I knew exactly what it was, another note: It’s 7:50pm, I’m close.
I checked my watch, it said it was only 7:55pm I had five minutes to run. Quickly I turned to Brooke who was sitting under the table, her knees under her chin, and rocking back and forth, I was on my own now. I took a chance, and with all my might threw myself up against the door. Nothing. It didn’t budge. It was official we were trapped, I took one last glance at my watch 7:59pm. An alarming SMASH! that sent a chill down my spine got me off my feet. Finally Brooke got up and suddenly we felt like ants in a deep, dark hole.

We ran up to the windows, now somehow boarded up, and behind us we could tell, someone was there, we looked back and there was Billie, looking more pale than usual “I want you” she repeated over and over, we couldn’t worry, all we had to focus on was getting out. The boards held a note this time slightly longer giving us the following message: I lived here once, and if you dare to disturb my house again, I’ll come for you! “Come on Brooke, we have to go, now!” I cried out.

“You could have said that sooner” she screamed, shaking with fear.
I grabbed her by the arm and we ran as fast as our legs could carry us. We kicked the door, and carefully ran through the front yard then knocked down the gate, and there, we were free, out into the clouded night we ran, high up the moon a bright hole in the sky, lighting the path like a torch from above. We sprinted for our life, and since my memory is a sieve and couldn’t remember the way, we just kept going until we reached the bridge at last. Oh no Brooke’s Mum, she was expecting us back by 4:00pm, every so often we checked to make sure she wasn’t there, and she wasn’t. The bridge came back into sight and we both knew that we were safe again. We continued to run, across the bridge, we dodged each tree and there was the carpark, sitting in the middle was Brooke’s car “Are you two alright?” her Mum asked, we too shaken to answer. “I was just reading the news, it said a few hundred people from Tok have gone missing including a shopkeeper.” We still stayed quiet. Well we were just happy that we could drive away knowing that we would be home soon.

So does anyone know what happened to the people from Tokoroa? No.
Does anyone know what happened to the house? No.
You know, the story still goes untold of how people mysteriously get drawn to this house, and how people vanish into nowhere on the nights of when this house pops up, but that will always be a secret.

You've reached the end of the book

Read again

Made with Book Creator