The House on Dogwood Street

I lived in a small and sheltered house located on the outskirts of West Virginia, in a underpopulated town that only attracted families who wanted a peaceful and quiet life surrounded by dark and dense forests filled to the brim with grim trees and a looming sense of mystery that set a creepy aire to the town. I still remember that day in ‘79, the day was relatively slow as most days appeared to be. With dry and humid air, paired with a sun that was partly covered with puffy grey clouds, which from what my mother had told me signaled that there would be rain later in the day. Everyone saw the pale white truck with the words, “Greg’s discount Moving” in bright red print, and everyone saw the dark green caravan that followed closely behind it, and everyone saw the seemingly happy, but intense family, with one father, a mother, and a tall daughter whose head was dressed with sleek, oiled black hair that reached down to the heels of her feet that hid her deathly skinny figure. I estimated she was around 14 years of age, though no one would really know since she scarcely came out of the looming wooden mansion that was surrounded by neat rows of dogwood trees and long unkempt grass the color of straw,which we called “The Dogwood House.” Though some people said that they had seen a tall, skinny figure late at night wandering around the town, with her face hidden within the confines of long hair that almost blended in with the dark night sky. Some even said they saw a ashen face with bloodshot eyes, and a gaping mouth filled with yellowing crooked teeth with a trickle of deep black scarlet spittle trailing down past their dirty skin and stained their boney body, looking into the window of their home. But everyone knew that the family was strange,  for while the adults all sat on my family’s porch conversing and sipping on wine, watching the children who played manhunt and clap in the woods where they could have long games hiding in the trees. The family in the Dogwood house was never seen although they were continuously invited to parties and events. Then perhaps the first accountable occurrence that happened since the family moved in, ten acts started small at first. Numbers printed on signs, drawings of stick figures wearing red bows dotted with smears of red crayon and a tan line hanging from her neck. Then the Hudson’s girl, Rachel, started acting strange. It once again started small, saying words in strange languages, clicking her teeth at people. Strange little things like that. Then the drawings started, Rachel drew the same girl that someone had hung on the streets, a girl with a red bow and a tan line hung around her neck, though this time a scribble of black on the top of her head, reaching to the floor and a gray triangle to symbolize a dress where added to the drawings. This, however, just got worse for the day after she started drawing Rachel, who was at the time 15, had ripped her clothes clean off and ran through the streets yelling, “Goghhyu Isok. Zita is coming! Zita is coming! Goghhyu Isok GogIsok!” Her body bony and bruised. Than the same thing happened with the Stevenson’s girl and again with the Fisher’s girls, all 15 and from well- known families. Than younger children started to disappear. Their mutilated bodies found hanging from the flimsy branches of dogwood trees that littered the forests. Than the girls who started with the drawings and shoutings of the strange words through the streets sat in a circle, naked in the woods sitting, waiting their bodies skinny and practically all bone, bruised and pale. Until a girl with pale skin, long black hair, blood shot eyes, a skinny frame, and a gaping mouth dripping deep brown ooze. Sat in the circle with them, and the girls almost routinely joined hands, closed their eyes and muttered, “Sofghhhy Donnghhht Foola…Astah Gonnnat losta.” The girl with black hair placing a bright red ribbon in the middle of the circle, continuing the chant. The Ribbon fluttering up into the air and the girls chanting as they slowly were raised off the floor, their chests being forcefully thrusted to the air as their mouths filled with deep brown substance and trickled out of their mouths as they slowly choked on the substance. The only girl still changing was the black haired girl as the other girls started to die out. The black haired girl finally giving into the force. Her eyes dimming as she thrust her neck completely in half and to the side. Her legs sliding behind her back and completely down to her buttocks. Her eyes popping out from the very sockets they sat in. Her skin ripping clean in half as a small, shadowy figure crept from the tearing skin, their oily hair reaching close to the feet of the black haired girl, the white body of the emerging girl dirty as they fell to the floor, and grabbing the bright red ribbon, tying it around her hair, plucking the dress of one of the girls off, a light grey dress that reached down to her knobby knees. Sticking her long finger into a pool of brown  liquid dripping from one of the girls floating corpse, and writing, “Zita is here.” Wandering from the site as the bodies dropped down into the circle