PURE FICTION
One Night in the Woods (backstory)
Story of my HeArt Pure Fiction Challenge
My aunt’s house in Arkansas in the 1970’s was about a quarter mile from a very busy railroad track, with trains coming through regularly every night.
If we visited in summer, we would often stay outside and play hide and seek in the warm humid twilight, catch lightning bugs and sneak up the road to stand defiantly on the railroad tracks.
At bedtime, if the wind was whipping around the corner, it was the perfect backdrop for telling the younger kids scary stories with the lights off.
They’d be huddled together on pallets made of hand-stitched quilts and fluffy feather pillows. Straining their ears for every whispered scary word I carefully chose and timed.
Occasionally, the shrieking after the final “boo!” was enough to get Uncle Jake’s attention, and he’d open the bedroom door, flip on the light and sternly tell everyone to go to sleep — or else!
At dusk one night is when I first heard the story…
At dusk one night is when I learned the story about the boy who’d never come out of the woods. Some say he was abducted by aliens because there was a strange streaking lightning without sound that night.
Some say he ran away because his stepfather was beating him.
He was supposed to meet his buddies later that day, but when he didn’t show up they just thought he’d got in trouble at home again.
My cousin Ricky told me he saw Lenny’s stepdad in the woods near the last sighting and he was carrying a shovel, but my brother says Ricky was just trying to get attention.
Being a natural story teller, I’ve often wondered what really happened the night Lenny disappeared. This was my chance to write the story, yet still leave open the haunting possibilities of that night in Arkansas. The comments I received on the story made me feel just as proud as I did when my little cousins used to shriek after the final “boo”.
Writing the story now after all these years brings back not only special memories of happier, carefree times, but the realization that not everyone was so fortunate in their home life. Your friends miss you, Lenny.
Thanks to JA Vassili and KL Simmons for this Pure Fiction challenge!