I followed Ricky back to his house, and we snuck back in through the window and tried to go to sleep. His parents were none the wiser. At first I couldn’t stop thinking about the woods and that baby, but after a while the warmth and fluffiness of Ricky’s bottom bunk’s quilt cuddled me into a deep sleep. Eventually the lullaby of our snorts and snores drifted out of the cracked window into the night. The next morning at home I took advantage of my mom’s tiredness, asking her after a long night awake with my sister if I could stay at Ricky’s again next Friday.
“Unless you want us to both stay over here?” I wriggled my eyebrow at her. “What’s one more kid in the house, right?” I say.
Mom turns to me, giving me an offended smile. “Don’t you pull that crap on me, Aidan Stewart. I would have said yes, if you didn’t try to reverse-psych me.” She joked, kissing me on my forehead as she walked past. “I’m glad you two are such good friends.” She added before leaving the room entirely.
The school week was long, and uneventful. It seemed to drag on and on. You know how things get when you’re really looking forward to something! Things become a blur with the end goal in sight. I did all of my homework and went about the motions, mentally counting down the days, then the hours, then the minutes until Friday. The day had come! I came to school more prepared than last week. I had extra batteries, TWO flashlights just in case, even some nighttime snacks and Gatorade. It would be just like we’re going night hiking! If that’s even a thing, which I’m pretty sure it’s not. I brought the game that Ricky had wanted to borrow too, and we met up and rode the bus to his house just like last week.
We went through the evening, having what they called ‘Mr. Doyle’s famous golden chicken breast’ this time. The excitement had eaten away at my stomach over the day, and I didn’t eat as fast as I ate the spaghetti. Mrs. Doyle had bought some mini cupcakes at the store, and gave us two each. We played some video games to keep ourselves occupied until his parents went in to their room. Before long we were out in the night air again. It was cold tonight, but in a different way. It was the kind of cold that my mom says will settle into your bones, whatever that means. My breath came out in puffs, and my teeth were trying their hardest not to chatter together with chills. I shook it off and pulled my jacket tighter around me, my hood over my head again like some kind of thief or ninja.
The vastness of the woods can be confusing, and it’s easy to get turned around in there, but I felt less worried when we passed by the weird car. We both had our flashlights, and I breathed a little easier because I knew we were on the right path. I had no idea where we were going though. I was just walking, hoping to hear the crying. Now I know it sounds crazy to want to stay, but I had a plan. I had made sure my Dad’s phone was charged the night before, and I took advantage of my parent’s new baby exhaustion…again. I tiptoed into my parent’s room like a ninja this morning to grab my dad’s phone, turn it off and then put it in my backpack without anyone seeing. But it was all so that, when we went back in the woods, I could actually record the crying or any other creepy stuff.
This time we didn’t stop at, or even mention, the car as we passed by it. Our once-treasure of a find gave way to a bigger mystery as soon as we got a little further down the trail. I got the phone out and turned on the flashlight feature, my excitement slowly turning into fear. I felt like I could totally puke right then, but I didn’t. Ricky would have loved to use that excuse to leave the woods, so I tried to stay at least kinda calm. The thing that had caught our attention just after the car was a hatch, like the kind on those bunkers in war movies. We started to cautiously approach the metal hatch, which was positioned on the ground. We could see the moonlight glint off it from a couple of feet away, and I barely listened as Rickey begged me to walk away.
Then I heard it.
A noise startled us, something that sounded like a rock being thrown on concrete, and then the loudest scream I had ever heard in my life came from inside. The volume was so intense and distorted that it almost didn’t even sound like a baby anymore! We scrambled back, and I dialed the police emergency number on my phone. I told them where we are and what our names and ages are, and when the dispatcher asked what the problem was I held the phone out towards the metal.
I yelled, practically screaming into the phone, “We’re alone in Neumack woods, and there’s a baby and this metal door thing! I think it needs help!”
Common sense told me that an unattended baby underneath a metal hatch would not have survived over the week from when we had last heard it, but it sounded so real! As we
were waiting for the cops a figure came running towards us through the woods. I haven’t ever been good at fight or flight; ‘freeze in place’ is more of my
