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Malum

I was eleven when three children went missing after they were last seen near Malum Cotton’s abandoned house. Their souls gone without a trace. Only never to be seen again. It begins in the summer of 1974. The summer when Malum Cotton’s secrets came into view. The summer where the secrets of Guthrie just began.

To put a disclaimer on the story I am about to tell you, you should know that I write this story with such heartache and loss that I still do not know what to do with. I do not want to leave a single detail of the story out, so prepare for great length. This has been my fifth time trying to write what had happened to my friends and I back in the summer of 1974 and what has happened afterwards. I can still hear our bicycles hitting the gravel. I can still hear their laughter. I can still see Malum Cotton’s house towering over me. I can see it all. It is still eating at me like a still carcass to this day. I give Guthrie the credit.

Guthrie, North Carolina. Population: 910. To me, even now, it seems crazy to think that as much as 910 people lived in the little town of Guthrie. Main street didn’t take up more than two blocks. All that was available to us was Al’s Drug Store, a couple of clothing shops, a movie theater, public schools and two burger joints. If you wanted to go celebrate with a steak, you had to travel up the mountain to the city. If you asked someone that worked in a restaurant in Guthrie if they served steak, they would laugh in your face. I presume that this is how it is still like in Guthrie, given that I haven’t been back in thirty years or so. Either way, that is how it was in the summer of 1974. The summer where the story begins.

In the late month of May, I was already looking towards summer. Elementary school was suddenly fading behind of me while middle school was in the clear. Thoughts of making the baseball team with Jesse filled my heart with hope for my middle school future. Those were my exact thoughts as I sat in Miss Davies’ fifth grade class, ignoring her lecture on fractions. I wondered if I would be lucky enough to become the pitcher.

“Mikey?”

I can still hear her voice to this day. A voice that sounded as if it had been drenched in candy. I snap out of my daydreams and look up at her peering over at me in her round reading glasses. The class has already snapped their necks in my direction. I can feel a hot flush rising to my cheeks.

“Yes, Miss Davies?”

Miss Catherine Davies will always and forever be the prettiest teacher I ever had. While she was very plain looking, there was something about her that always made you want to smile. As she looked at me, her hazel eyes flickered with amusement. She knew she caught me in one of my day dreams. From beside of me, I could hear my best friend, Jesse, snickering. I cut him a quick glare, but that doesn’t stop him.

Jesse Albright, my other half. He was just as scrawny as me, only he was taller. His red hair stood out like a red stoplight. You could never miss Jesse. Especially with his loud laugh, horrible jokes and his great height for an eleven year old.

“Can you tell me the answer to this problem?” Miss Davies asks.

I have always been bad at math. As my heart jumps to the middle of my throat, I quickly see a movement coming diagonally from my right. A paper is pushed in my direction where I see a fraction that is circled two times. I take the chance and I jump.

“Eleven over twelve?” I offer pathetically.

Miss Davies gives me a knowing smile before writing down the answer underneath the problem on the chalkboard before she goes on to the next equation. I look at the paper that was pushed in my direction once again and see that it belongs to Samantha Samuels. She looks over her shoulder and gives me a quick smile before offering a shy glance to Jesse. I smile back. Samantha Samuels was a shy, quiet girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. She lived with her father, who was known for his violent outbursts here and there. Samantha Samuels wasn’t pretty or good looking. She was beautiful. Despite her hand me down clothing and unstyled hair, she was beautiful. I could agree to that much. Jesse did too. Given the red that he was trying to hide on his face.

The bell rang almost instantly. It didn’t take long for Jesse and I to be out of that school and over to the bike racks where our bikes were parked. Only one more week until summer vacation. We were almost free.

“Eleven over twelve,” Jesse mimicked with a boyish grin. “You were blushing so hard that you looked like one of my mom’s tomatoes!”

“I could say the same for you,” I threw back at him as the two of us hopped on our bikes. “Your face turned ten different shades of red whenever Samantha Samuels looked at you. I’m surprised your eyes didn’t pop out like a cartoon character.”

Jesse’s boyish smile faded as the two of sat on our bikes. I couldn’t help but laugh as I looked at the expression on his freckled face.

“Shut up,” Jesse spat. “Samantha Samuels is gross. If anything, she’d turn my face the color green.”

“Well, I think she’s pretty.” I lamely offered.

Looking to my right as we began to ride our bikes, I see Samantha Samuels sitting on the school steps while tying her old sneakers. Connie Bridgeway and Patty Carson pass her while laughing to one another. I watch as Samantha Samuels’ face flushes a deep red. I look back to Jesse and see that he is watching, too.

Jesse shrugged before changing the subject. “Mom’s thinking about sending me to that church camp my cousin goes to. Hell will freeze over before I go to that.”

“Hey, I’d consider myself lucky if I went there. I’d love to be away from home.”

“The only upside of church camp is that the place would be a Janie free territory.”

Janie, who usually went by Janie May, was Jesse’s bug eyed and very annoying little sister. Yet she was only six in 1974. But to us eleven year olds, she had to be the most annoying thing on the entire planet.

The North Carolina air was already getting thick with sticky humidity as Jesse and I drove past the cinema and Al’s Drug Store. Cutting across the road to where our houses weren’t even three blocks away, we knew we had to make a little pit stop. Just as we always did every single afternoon after school. Pine View Street was quiet and pretty much deserted, except for the occupied two storied home that housed Mr and Mrs Lancaster, who had lived in Guthrie since the damn town was given the name Guthrie. Children’s laughter could already be heard from the other block. Yet it was almost empty in a way, just as it was distant. I can still remember the feeling of stopping my bike in front of Malum Cotton’s. The world went quiet and cold. A chill still runs up my spine to this day whenever I think about it. The two storied peeling white columned house with broken windows and a long wrapped around porch that was clearly sinking in. The shutters were a faded blue and the curtains that hung behind of the broken windows were the color of piss yellow. Just standing in front of the house that was on Pine View Street made you feel as if you were about to vomit. I am guessing that most of you are wondering what the hell is a Malum Cotton. If I were you, I would be guessing too.

The story has went around Guthrie for generations. A story that has been spread through my grandparents, my parents, and me. This was a story that would be whispered in the school hallways or told by a campfire on a chilly Halloween night. This was the story of Malum Cotton.

As the legend went, Malum Cotton’s real name was Lucille Dresser. She was a very beautiful and popular socialite in the town of Guthrie in the 1930’s. She came from a well respected family who attended church regularly and was well to do with Guthrie’s community. Lucille had caught many eyes of men, yet was never particularly interested in any of them. By the time she was twenty two, her family was beginning to worry if she was to settle down or not.

Lucille met Jonathan Cotton through a meeting that her parents had arranged and the two hit it off instantly. Jonathan was a prominent railroad owner near Asheville and was quite wealthy. The two eventually married and moved into the same two storied white columned house that Jonathan had built for Lucille, since she wanted to stay in Guthrie so she would be close to her family.

Throughout their first ten years of marriage, they had lost two children about a month or so after they were born from unknown causes. While the couple managed to work it out, all things went into chaos when the third child was clearly born healthy, and died mysteriously just five months after it was born. Jonathan became distraught of his third child’s death. He began to become suspicious of his wife after finding an odd symbol that was burnt onto the baby’s thigh that matched a symbol that was on one of Lucille’s broaches.

Jonathan went to his wife to confront her with the accusation of her killing their third child and quite possibly their other two. She denied his allegations time after time again with her telling him that she would never do such a thing. Deep in sadness, however, Jonathan stormed out of the white columned house and never saw his wife again.

Lucille instantly became distraught. She waited for her husband to come back to her day in and day out. After a month or so, she was no longer seen in the public of Guthrie. She had withdrawn from her family all together. After her parents and last remaining relatives had either moved or died, Lucille cut her ties from the rest of the world and lived in pure isolation.

Rumors began to spread that Lucille had became an active member in the occult. While often having close friends borrow books from the library about the matter.

Children began to go missing in 1948. Twelve, to be exact. All who were last seen near Malum Cotton’s. It was then that the people of Guthrie had began to see Lucille once again. Yet she was always out at dark, walking around the streets of Guthrie with a shawl pulled over her head to where no one could see her face. As she would walk, people have said that she would whisper a terrifying rhyme.

On looking up, on looking down. She saw a dead man on the ground.

And from his nose unto his chin, The worms crawled out and the worms crawled in.

Then she unto the parson said: “Shall I be Malum when I am dead?”

“Oh yes, Oh yes!” The parson said.

“You will be Malum when you are dead!”

I later find out that this was a very old nursery rhyme from 1842. The rhyme had been heard so many times by her, the people of Guthrie soon began to call her Malum Cotton. With half of the people not knowing what Malum meant in Guthrie, it only took one quick dictionary search to have a chill run up your spine. Malum is a latin phrase meaning wrong or evil in itself.

Of course the people of Guthrie suspected Malum Cotton of the missing children, yet no one could prove it. Even though children screamed about seeing Malum Cotton peeking into their windows at night. As the years went by, children still went missing. Yet it was never like the Guthrie Child Vanishings of 1948. When Malum Cotton died in the 1960’s, no one had known that she really had died. It wasn’t only when a high school teenager called the police when she walked by Malum Cotton’s house after smelling a rotten odor. Malum Cotton was at her end. Her decomposed body was found in her bed. Rumors say that her body had literally turned into stone. Some say that there were bodies of children hidden throughout her house. Yet I had always doubted that much.

While Malum Cotton had died of what seemed to be natural causes, the legend didn’t stop there. After she was buried under her original name, Lucille Dresser Cotton, the hauntings and sightings began. Children who walked past her house swore to hear the terrifying rhyme coming near the house. Some even claim to have seen her decomposed face peeking at them through the window with a leery smile. Whatever was true and what was not, the legend lived on strongly. It didn’t take a whole lot for a bunch of kids to go throwing rocks at Malum Cotton’s house while calling her a baby killer before running off shitless.

I thought of this as Jesse and I stared up at Malum Cotton’s skeleton of a house.

“I gotta baby in my backpack for your supper!” Jesse called out with a snort.

“Dude, stop.”

“What?” He asked wide eyed. “Oh,” He laughed. “I get it. I shouldn’t tease her.”

I rolled my eyes with a smile as I pushed up my glasses. The heat was already starting to make them fog up.

“Baby love, my baby love…” Jesse sang loudly towards the house.

I threw a pebble that was caught in my bicycle’s basket at him which made him laugh.

“Y’know, I’d just like to see the old cow once,” Jesse drops his bike. “Just to see if she really is rotting like everyone says she is. I bet she isn’t.” His eyes flicker with amused mischief. “How would you feel?” He crossed his arms and pretended like he was being serious. “If the entire town was calling you a decomposing corpse?”

“You’re so full of shit that I’m surprised your eyes ain’t brown, Jess.” I laugh. “If you saw Malum Cotton you’d be running for the hills.”

“Nah, I’d be wondering how she made her witches brew.”

The two of us laughed as we hunted for rocks to throw at Malum Cotton’s windows. I know it was wrong. But hey, we were eleven year old boys.

“On looking up and looking down, she saw a dead man on the ground!” Jesse threw a rock. “And from his nose unto his chin, the worms crawled out and the worms crawled in!”

I threw a rock as far as my skinny twig of an arm would allow. “Could you imagine having worms crawling in and out of your body?” I winced. “If I were dead, I would haunt those worms.”

Jesse picked up another rock and threw it strongly, hitting a window dead in the middle. He smiled proudly before looking over at me.

“I’m not going to be buried,” Jesse stated. “I’m going to be frozen under Disneyland like Walt Disney.”

“That’s bull.”

“Oh, really? Tell that to the news, Mikey Harrison!”

“Fine,” I laugh. “I’ll tell both of our moms that whenever we die, we want to be stuffed into a freezer.”

“Like in that one comic,” Jesse points out. “Then when it’s the year 3000, someone can thaw us out.”

“And ride jet packs all day?”

“And ride jet packs all day.”

“I wonder what Miss Davies will say about being frozen,” I wondered aloud. “She’s smart, maybe she’d know.”

Jesse curled up his nose. “Miss Davies might be a babe, but she won’t know that much about frozen dead bodies. And besides,” He chuckles. “She’ll probably send you in the loony bin if you ask her about that.”

It was then that I start to think about my dad.

“I don’t want no fairy for a son,” He would tell me as he would watch me try to draw a character out of one of my comic books. “Go get Heath to throw the ball with ya.”

“I just got back from practicing baseball, Dad…”

“You and I both know that baseball is a lame excuse for a sport,” He snarls in disgust as he already makes his way away from my room. “Put up the fairy books and come outside. I’m not asking, I’m telling!”

I’m not asking, I’m telling!

His words echo throughout my brain. I can see Heath’s face, giving me a smart ass knowing look as Dad walks away. For eighteen years old, he acted even younger than me at times. But that didn’t matter. Nothing ever mattered if you were the high school quarterback. Or if you had been nominated Homecoming Queen two times, like my older sister, Judy.

I throw a rock so hard that my glasses almost fall off. “I’m already in the looney bin,” I tell Jesse.

I can feel Jesse’s eyes on me. I turn back and see that I was right, he was staring at me with concern and worry. He offers me a friendly half smile and hands me the biggest rock that is in his pile. I return the smile as I accept the rock.

“Heath might be a good football player,” Jesse begins. “But you’re smarter. Heath is a dumb ass.”

“Everyone must love a dumb ass, then.”

“Your old man’s a dumb ass too. Dumb asses love dumb asses.”

“And dumb asses hate smart people?”

“Hell yeah they do,” Jesse firmly stated. “Your old man is intimidated by you. He probably doesn’t know what to say. Same with Heath and your mom.” He then snickers. “And especially Judy.”

Pushing up my glasses, I let out a sigh of pure stress. “Sometimes I just think they hate me.”

“Well, I don’t hate you.”

The two of us shared an awkward friendly look before quickly turning the conversation to something else.

“I totally saw through Miss Davies dress today.” Jesse offered.

“Liar, liar. Pants on fire.”

“Oh, really? Ask me what color underwear she was wearing?”

“What color underwear was she…?”

“Hey, Fags!”

The voice of the devil himself interrupted me like a loud firecracker. The voice that belonged to David Link. The biggest bully in the fifth grade. He was already thirteen, with him failing the fifth grade two times in a row. I can still remember his greasy brown hair and his dirty brown eyes. Beside of him stood Travis Danforth, who was my age and was also in the fifth grade. While he was also a bully, he was David’s follower. Wherever David Link went, Travis Danforth went. Travis came from a good family, unlike David. It had always surprised Jesse and I how a somewhat decent kid like Travis was doing hanging out with the likes of nasty David Link.

It was far too late to run. David and Travis were already ten feet away from us on their bikes. David’s grin showed Jesse and I his rotten teeth. Jesse and I ran to our bikes, but like I said, it was far too late.

“You two making out with Malum Cotton?” David Link grins as he drops his bike and turns his hands into fists. Travis does the exact same.

“Well, we were just about to until you rudely interrupted us.” Jesse the smart ass replied.

I could see that Travis was trying to hold back a laugh. David turns and gives him a look that makes him stop.

David suddenly grabbed Jesse by the shirt. Travis did the same for me, only he offered me a quick punch in the gut that made me cry out.

“Hey!” Jesse called out. “I’d watch it if I were you, Danforth! Won’t Mommy put you in timeout?”

David pushed Jesse down and kicked him in the side, making Jesse wince in pain. While trying to fight back, Jesse knew it was impossible. David gave him a punch to the side of his eye and another in the gut. Travis only busted my lip and freaked the fuck out when he saw that it began to bleed.

“I’ll kick the smart ass outta you,” David punched Jesse in the nose. I tried to get up to help but Travis only kicked me back down. “I’ll kick the smart ass outta you, I’ll kick the smart ass outta you…”

I could taste the bitter taste of blood as I hazily watched my best friend pathetically offering punches to the much stronger and larger boy. His nose was already bleeding. It made me wonder if it was broken.

The second time I tried to get up, I was successful. I pushed David off of him, yet only I was to be pushed back down once again and be pin held by Travis. I thought we were dead men. I really did. It wasn’t until I heard a sweet, sing song voice fight for our defense.

“Hey!”

David and Travis look up. Somehow, Jesse and I find the strength to do the same. Standing there at corner of the block is none other than Samantha Samuels. She is glaring at the two boys, who are merely glaring right back. Yet there is caution in their glares.

“Leave them alone or I run to the police station!” She threatens as she runs over to the four of us. I see her wince at the blood.

David laughs like the devil himself. “Go ahead, girly. I’d like to see you run a mile and back.”

The two boys share a laugh while Samantha’s face turns a bright red.

“Leave… her alone…” Jesse manages to croak out, which surprises me.

Travis raises his eyebrows in amusement. “Oooh, are we messing with someone’s girlfriend?”

“Is Jesse cheating on Samantha Samuels with Malum Cotton?” David joins in.

“If you don’t leave them alone, I’ll scream my head off.” Samantha states plainly. “I’ll scream bloody murder until someone comes. And I’ll tell! I’ll tell on the two of you hicks!”

“Oh, really?” David pushes. “I would like to see you…”

Samantha’s scream didn’t only burst your eardrums, it made the birds in the trees stop singing. I was surprised to see that no cars stopped by the sudden nails against a chalkboard noise. The four of us covered our ears as she did, in fact, scream bloody murder.

“Okay, okay!” David stops her as we all lower our hands down. “Ain’t you a bitch…”

“Hey!” Jesse croaks once again.

David pushes him back down. “I’ll be back for your ass.” He then looks at me and jams his finger into my chest. “And yours, too!”

Jesse and I sit up on the road in front of Malum Cotton’s house as we watch David and Travis disappear around the corner on their bikes. Once they are truly gone, Samantha holds out both of her hands and lets us up.

“Thanks, Samantha.” I tell her as a I wipe the blood off of my lip with my shirt. “We’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you.”

Samantha smiles and it lights up her entire face. “No problem. And it’s Sam. I hate it when people call me Samantha.”

“But Miss Davies calls you Samantha.”

“I told her to call me Sam but she always forgets,” She shrugs. “My friends call me Sam.”

I smile. “Okay, Sam.”

Looking over at Jesse, I catch him already staring at Sam.

“Y’know, I think we pretty much had it under control,” He laughed, even though he had a bloody nose that had blood running all the way down his neck. His damned teeth were even red. “But, hey. It’s always good to use an extra hand.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sam raised her eyebrows. “You two sure did look like you had it under control.”

The three of us stand in silence for a moment. While it should be awkward, it wasn’t. It was a comfortable silence. A silence as if the three of us had known one another for a lifetime. It was soon broken by the touch of Sam’s hands on both of me and Jesse’s arms.

“Maybe you guys should go to the hospital,” She said with worry. “You guys look terrible.”

Jesse didn’t listen to a thing she said. Right when she touched him, his eyes got as round as pancakes before snatching his arm away as if she were on fire.

“Oh, I think we’re alright.” I tell her with faked confidence. “A little blood ain’t all that bad. Is it, Jesse?”

“Not bad at all,” He agrees while looking like an idiot while he is smiling with his bloody teeth.

“What are you doing over here anyways?” I curiously asked. “I didn’t think you lived near Pine View.”

Sam’s pretty face suddenly became nervous. “Oh, um…” She stops and thinks. “I was just walking around town before I heard David Link’s voice. I peeked over the corner and saw you two. I couldn’t just walk on by, you know.”

I nod and accept her answer as a perfectly reasonable explanation.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t just walk by.” I confess.

She blushes as she smiles.

Jesse hits me in the side while giving me a what the hell are you doing look. I shrug.

“Want to go over to my house with us?” I ask then as me and Jesse retrieve our bikes. “I got some new comic books for my birthday that we were going to look at.”

Jesse and I watch as her face lights up like a Christmas tree. “Oh… I…” She stops and smiles brighter. “That’d be okay, I guess.”

“Cool,” I grin. “We’re just gonna have to sneak into the back door so me and Jesse can wash up. My mom will have a cow if she sees us like this. You’re gonna have to hop on the front of Jesse’s handlebars. I’d let you ride on mine, but they’re already loose.”

Jesse’s face matches his hair as I tell Sam this. Sam smiles and instantly hops on once Jesse is all set to go. So there we go, two bloody kids and a pretty girl down Pine View Street, leaving Malum Cotton’s house behind. Yet as we were leaving, I could have sworn that I saw one of the curtains slowly move. I take a double look at the curtains, yet they are as still as they can be.

“I like your bike,” Sam complimented as Jesse cut the corner in front of me to the next block. “Can it go fast?”

Without reply, Jesse only smiled before pedaling like a madman. Sam squealed with surprise as the two sped down the next block. I smiled as I watched them. I had a small feeling that this would be the start of something good.

Thankfully my mom was at the grocery store and my dad was still at work. But unfortunately, Heath was there making himself two sandwiches as the three of us unsuccessfully snuck through the back door.

“Jesus,” Heath laughed, which made the three of us jump. “Whose fists did you run into?”

I rolled my eyes at his presence. He was still wearing his jersey like it was a normal shirt and his brown hair was wet with sweat from football practice.

“Heath, just don’t tell Mom or Dad…”

“Or Judy!” Jesse shudders.

“It was David Link again, he snuck up on us.” I pathetically confessed. Although I already knew where everyone was, I still wanted to be completely sure. “No one else is home, right?”

I knew if I lied to Heath he would never believe me. It was always better if I told the truth to him. Even if I did have to suffer the consequences.

“Sure, he snuck up on ya.” He laughed. “Haven’t I taught you how to fight, kid?”

“Stop calling me kid.”

“Whatever,” He takes a bite out of his first sandwich. “Mom is grocery shopping and Dad’s at work. Judy’s at cheerleading practice. Do my chores for the next week and I tell Mom and Dad that I saw you and Ginger over there fall off your bike.”

“No way!” I objected instantly. “That’s bullshit!”

“Take it or leave it,” He shrugs. “I’d hate for Mom to march up to the school and demand to see David…”

“Fine!”

“That’s the spirit,” Heath clapped me so hard on the back that it almost flung me over. “You guys look like shit.”

We watched as he left the kitchen to go downstairs to the basement, which was where his room was. Once I knew for sure that he was down there, I groaned and rolled my eyes.

“Asshole!”

Sam offers me a sympathetic smile. Jesse is already heading upstairs towards the bathroom so that he can clean up.

“I’d help you with the chores if I could,” Sam pipes up. “It’ll be okay, Michael.”

“Mikey,” I reply. “My friends call me Mikey.”

I smile at her as we head upstairs together. It is there that I notice a small purple bruise on the side of her neck. I don’t address it, I only stare at it for a moment before turning away. She could have accidentally bumped into something. But I was smart enough to know that that wasn’t the case.

“Hey, my nose isn’t broken!” Jesse’s voice stampeded happily through the hall. “You can barely tell that ass wipe even touched it!”

He comes out as good as new. Yet he still winces as he walks. He slowly lifts up his shirt to reveal a large bruise that was the same color as Sam’s.

“This is probably gonna get worse, though.” He hisses painfully through his teeth. “But I can hide it.”

After I eventually clean up, the only thing that is visible is a very clear bruise on my hip and on my chin. When I go into my room, Jesse and Sam are already sitting in the middle of the floor laughing with one another as my comic books are spread out like toys.

“I do not,” Jesse laughed as he flipped through one of my comic books.

“Do too,” Sam said as she pulled at her raggedy shirt. “There’s still blood all in your teeth.”

“Good, I can save it as a snack for later.”

There was an instant connection with the three of us as we all sat down and looked at comic books together. Sam was clearly lost in the comic book world, yet Jesse and I were very eager to welcome her. We explained all of our favorite characters to her and what their backstories were. Her eyes lit up with excitement, which just fed into our own passion for comics even more.

We spent a good half hour looking over at comics and discussing them with one another before Sam announced that she had to be home soon.

“You really don’t have to go, Sam.” I make sure to tell her. “Jesse’s staying over for supper if you want to stay. My mom really won’t care…”

“No, it’s fine. I have to be home for my dad.”

The purple bruise on her neck.

“Well, you should stop by at Malum Cotton’s house tomorrow. We can all meet there and go exploring.”

She gives me a sweet smile. “I’ll see.”

“Heath, Mikey!” Mom’s voice boomed from downstairs, making all three of them jump out of their shoes. “I have groceries down here! Go out to the car and help me unload, please!”

“I really gotta go,” Sam said once again. “I’ll try to meet you guys at Malum Cotton’s tomorrow around nine. I can finish my chores early before then. Thanks, Mikey for having me over. Bye, guys.”

“Bye.” Jesse and I said in unison.

“Boys! My hands are absolutely full!” My mom’s voice yells once again.

After helping Mom with the groceries, Jesse offers to take Sam home on her bike. She declines and says that if her dad sees her with a boy, he’ll get mad. So the two of us watch her from the doorway as she walks down my street and past Pine View. I could hear Jesse sigh as he watched her walk away.

Jesse, who was expecting an ass whooping from his mom since he didn’t call her to tell her where he was, left after supper. He screamed gross slurs as he rode off on his bike, which made me laugh until my stomach began to ache. I went to bed early that night, thinking of new friends and opportunities. Dad came home late from work that night. I could hear the loud noises his work boots would always make. If I would have stayed up, I would have heard the sounds of his complaining grunts and groans. But I didn’t hear those since I was already asleep.

I got up early the next day. Mom, Dad and Judy were already up while Heath, surprisingly, wasn’t. I ate breakfast as quick as I possibly could. Since it was Saturday, I had the whole day laid out in front of me. I hummed The Loco Motion as I rode my bike a couple of blocks over to Jesse’s house. Janie was already out on Jesse’s front porch, playing with a big pink ball.

“Mikey!” She grinned.

“Movie it, Janie May.” Jesse said under his breath as he came out the front door. “Bye, Mom!”

“Jesse’s mean,” Janie shakes her head with a pout.

He grabbed his bike and hopped on it before I could even blink. Jesse’s mom came onto the front porch and scooped up Janie in her arms. “Jesse, I want you home to eat lunch!”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Jesse said, almost sarcastically.

Once we cut the corner from Jesse’s street, I began to talk.

“You excited to see Sam?” I ask with a laugh.

Jesse blushes as he frowns. “Why the hell would I be excited to see her?”

Laughing, I shrug. “No reason.”

“Y’know,” Jesse starts with a grin. “I bet Malum Cotton’s tongue still works…”

“Jesse…” I shrivel up my nose and laugh.

It doesn’t take long for Jesse and I to reach Malum Cotton’s. I check my watch and read that it’s already nine fifteen. Sam is sitting on Malum’s rotting steps with a book in hand, smiling when the two of us reach Malum’s yard. She closes the book and lays it down on the steps before walking over towards us.

“Sorry we’re kinda late,” I offer shyly. “So, where do you wanna start exploring?”

Sam’s blue eyes light up with determination as she shrugs. “I think I have to tell the both of you something before we start exploring.”

“Like what?” Jesse asks.

Getting it out of her pocket, Sam shows us a small broach with the weirdest looking symbol on it. When it clicked, Jesse and I gasped.

“No way!” I say in amazement. “Where did you find this?”

“Right there,” Sam pointed to a green, grassy spot. “It was half buried. If the sun hadn’t have shined on it, I would have never saw it.” She begins to fiddle with the broach. “I come over here a lot when I don’t have to do my chores. I lied about yesterday. I was already on my way to Malum’s when I heard David Link’s voice. I love to try and look in the windows.”

“How do we know if it’s the real… well, you know…”

“You can tell that it’s old,” Jesse surprisingly offers over Sam’s shoulder. “You can tell that the yellow cloth around it used to be white.”

Sam grins at him, making him blush. “I think it’s real. I’ve never seen a symbol like this before. It’s so… creepy looking.”

“Did you ever see anything inside of the windows?” I quickly asked as I hopped onto the porch.

“Barely,” Sam replied. “It’s so dark in there.”

“Have you ever tried to go in?” Jesse asks her.

Laughing, Sam raises her eyebrows. “I might be crazy but I’m not that crazy.”

I cup my hands over my face before I look into Malum Cotton’s windows. From what I could see, this would have been a sitting room of some sort. Old, yellowed sheets have been draped over the furniture. A fireplace sits against the wall with a vanity mirror hanging over it. There were also pictures hanging up on the wall. I try to get a closer look but Sam was right. It was too dark to see anything.

“See anything?” Sam wonders aloud.

“No,” I sigh in disappointment. “Just a bunch of old furniture.”

“I wish we could go in,” Jesse suggests. “Find that old Malum Cotton ourselves.”

“You and what army?” I snicker.

“It’s kind of sad, really.” Sam begins, drawing in both mine and Jesse’s attention. “To think of Malum Cotton as a monster. What if she was just… well, you know… sick?”

“What do you mean by sick?”

“I mean mentally sick. Like she needed help. What if she needed help?”

“She killed kids, Sam. She wasn’t a nice person.”

Sam is quiet for a moment as she looks up at the bright blue sky.

“I do think that she did it,” Sam confessed. “I just don’t know why. Why would such a normal girl end up so crazy? I just don’t get it.”

“Because the worms crawled out and the worms crawled in,” Jesse laughed.

The three of us shared a laugh as we sat on that porch. It is then that Jesse notices another bruise on Sam’s body. Before me this time, surprisingly. I see his eyes widen with concern.

“Sam, what’s…” He points to the bruise that is almost shaped like a handprint if you look at it hard enough. It rested on her upper leg and could be seen when Sam’s shorts would ride up just a bit.

Sam tugs her shorts down as her face turns a bright red.

The bruise on her neck. It’s still there. Jesse sees it now since her hair is in a ponytail today.

“And… your neck?” He asks slowly, almost cautiously.

Sam stares at the both of us for a long time. The silence is thick in the air. Almost feeling as if it is hanging over us like a raincloud. Tears are clouding her blue eyes. It suddenly makes me very uncomfortable, since I have no idea what to do.

“Why do you think I want to come to Malum Cotton’s so much?” She sniffles through her shaky voice.

Jesse and I are silent. We do nothing but wait for her to finish talking patiently. The moment reminded me of something my mom used to tell me. Sometimes silence is the best way to cope with certain things, she once told me. Because in certain types of silence, more than a thousand words could be explained without even trying at all.

I take my glasses off and wipe them off with the sleeve of my shirt before putting them back on.

“You don’t have to say it,” Jesse bluntly says. “We’re your friends. We understand.”

“I hate home, too.” I confess. “It’s hard. It sucks. But… it’s whatever.”

“Yeah,” Sam smiles. “It’s… whatever.”

We stayed on Malum Cotton’s porch for the next hour. Jesse begins to show his many impressions to me and Sam, making us laugh until we thought we could no longer breathe. Jesse’s impressions would focus around Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy and J.J from Good Times. We talked about Malum Cotton. We talked about the missing kids. We talked about school and summer break. We talked about home. To put it in less words, it didn’t take very long for the three of us to become best friends.

“I saw a bunch of honeysuckles down behind the library,” I offered. “Wanna go and find some?”

“Good, I’m starving.” Jesse joked, making Sam and I laugh.

Jesse and I hop on our bikes while Sam hops on Jesse’s handlebars. We leave Malum Cotton’s without looking back. Yet that was when we really should have looked back. While we are almost to the corner of Pine View Street, we pass Travis Danforth on his bike. He gives all three of us a glare. Yet it isn’t threatening. We all know that he wouldn’t do anything without the help of David Link.

The only time he goes down Pine View Road is when he is with or is looking for David Link. I could have guessed that he was on the lookout for him.

The three of us stop on our bikes.

“Any of you fags seen David?” Travis grumbles under his breath.

“Probably making out with Malum Cotton,” Jesse jokes. “Whatta ‘bout you, Mikey? Have you seen him?”

For some reason I get a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as I look at Travis Danforth. As I look at him glare at me, I try to figure it out. Yet I can’t.

“No,” I say simply, ruining Jesse’s little game. “I don’t know.”

Travis huffs as he makes his way up Pine View. Me, Jesse and Sam watch him make his way near Malum Cotton’s. His playing card that is hooked to his bike’s wheel makes a speedy motorcycle noise. We watch until the noise fades completely. This will be the last time either me, Jesse or Sam, and well, anyone, would see Travis Danforth alive.

Posted on Reddit by Ghostlypllz

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