Speaker 1: I grew up in a small, single story house on
the outskirts of town. Our house was a mudge, just
the squat little box of peeling white paint, with a
porch that sag slightly in the middle. I always thought
it looked like it was tired of holding itself up.
I didn't care, though. To me, it was home. But
what I remember most about that house wasn't the porch,
or the yard or the tiny bedroom I shared with
my younger brother. It was the crawl space. It stretched
under the entire house, a hollow, black cavity barely two
feet high, covered by warped wooden slats nailed haphazardly across
the entrance. My dad always told me to stay away
from it, said it was full of spiders and mold,
sharp bits of rusted metal waiting to slice my hands
open if I reached. My mom wanted me too, though
she was less dramatic about it, more exasperated than afraid.
But I was a curious kid. I'd kneel by the slats,
peering through the gaps, trying to see what was inside.
Most of the time it was just dirt or darkness. Sometimes,
if the angle was just right, I catch a glimpse
of the wooden beams holding up the house, or maybe
a flash of something skittering out of sight. I never
got too close, never reached inside, until one summer afternoon
when I heard someone whisper my name. I was playing
in the backyard alone, kicking a plastic soccer ball around
when I heard it, faint at first, a dry voice
slipping out from beneath the house, like a draft. When
the voice slipped out from beneath the porch, it was
so soft I almost didn't hear it over the sound
of the ball bouncing. I stopped, turned toward the crawl space,
nothing but darkness, then again, slightly louder. Come here for
a second. Any adult would have ran inside and lured
to the police or done anything. But I was seven,
maybe eight, and I that stupid childlike fearlessness that makes
kids think nothing bad can happen to them. So instead
of being scared, I was just curious. I dropped my
soccer ball and walked toward the crawled space, dropping to
my knees to press my face to the gaps in
the wooden slats. Her face stared back at me. I
just stared back. The man didn't blink. His eyes were wide,
locked onto mine, sunken deep into a skull, like he
hadn't slept in a long time. His skin was sallow
and streaked with dirt, and his hair, what little of
it I could see, was long and stringy, clinging to
his face in limp, greasy strands. When he spoke again,
his voice was almost kind. Didn't mean to scare you, buddy,
I still didn't answer. I'm an old friend of your dad's,
he said, his lips curling. Really, I finally managed. He
shifted slightly, just enough that I could see more of him,
boney shoulders, his skin a mess of wounds. He looked filthy,
like he'd been rolling into But his voice was calm, friendly,
the way adults talk to kids when they want them
to feel safe. Yeah, who used to be real close
to the family. But it's been a while since we talked.
He probably wouldn't remember me, he nodded. That made sense.
Adults forgot things all the time. Hey, do me a favor,
he added, lowering his voice. Don't tell him I'm here yet.
Let's keep it a secret for now, just between us.
Your dad might not understand at that age, I thought,
secrets were fun. I don't know why I trusted him.
Maybe it was the way he spoke, the softness in
his voice. Maybe it was because I wanted it to
be true, because of the idea of finally having a
secret of my own to keep from my parents made
it seem grand special. I didn't tell my parents, and
I kept visiting the crawl space. We just talked. I'd
go outside and kneel by the crawl space, whispering through
the gaps in the wooden slats while the man lay
on the dirt on the other side. He never came out,
never reached for me, just stayed in the shadows, speaking
in that same soft, friendly tone that made me feel
like I was talking to someone I've known all my life.
I felt safe. What's your favorite thing to do? He
asked me. Once you play outside a lot, what do
you want to be when you grow up. His questions
were harmless at first, and he listened so intently, like
every little thing I said was the most important thing
he'd ever heard. I liked that, But over time the
questions started to change. Your dad still works late. Where
do you sleep in the house? Your mom locked the
doors at night The first time. He asked that I hesitated. Yeah,
I said, she locks them every night. I thought about it.
Sometimes she forgets, I admitted. He was quiet for a
long time. Really, he finally asked, she sometimes forgets. There
was something in his voice, something I didn't understand yet,
because I was just a kid. Looking back, I can
see now that they were never just questions. They were tests,
each one peeling back another layer, gauging how much I knew,
how much I was willing to tell him, how much
influence he had over me without me even realizing it,
and I'd let him do it. I had fed him
information piece by piece, unaware that I was giving him
everything he needed. Hey, Boddy, I missed you yesterday. Sorry,
I had whispered back. I went to my grandma's. Ah,
that's nice that she makes good cookies. Yeah, your little
brother go to The question was casual, effortless, like he
was just making small talk, I'd answered without thinking. I
didn't think back then of the fact that I'd never
mentioned my little brother to him. Uh huh, he always
comes with us. Of course, can't leave the little guy
behind her, I laughed, and then I heard the screen
door creak open. Hey, what are you doing. I flinched,
jerking back from the crawl space so fast that I
scraped my knee against the dirt. My little brother was
standing on the porch watching me with wide, suspicious eyes,
his small hands gripping the wooden railing, like he had
caught me doing something I wasn't supposed to. I panicked nothing,
I said, quickly, scrambling to my feet. I was just
looking for something. His face twisted into something skeptical, his
little brows knitting together as he took a step forward,
craning his neck to look at the crawl space entrance,
looking for what. The man was silent now. I could
feel him waiting just beyond the slats, watching, listening. I
had to think fast, my ball, I said, brushing dirt
off my shorts and trying to sound as normal as possible.
I think it rolled under there. My brother's gaze flicked
back to me. Okay, I want to go play in
the treehouse, I stumbled, and just like that, he forgot
all about it. I wish he never believed me. The
first time the man in the crawl space asked me
for something, I almost didn't even register it as a request. Hey, buddy,
can you do me a favor. He was an easy question.
We were just two old friends at this point, trading secrets.
I didn't even hesitate before nodding before giving him this simple,
automatic sure, because why wouldn't I. He had never asked
for anything before, He had never even implied that he
wanted something from me beyond my company. Your dad keeps
a spare key to the shed, right. I remember feeling
the slightest pang of discomfort then, But he was vague, unformed,
like the first tremor of a storm coming, a flicker
of something wrong just beneath the surface that my young
mind didn't yet know how to identify. I hesitated, but
the response came anyway, Yeah, you know where he hides it,
of course I did. It was under the porch, tucked
behind a row of old cinder blocks near the back steps.
My dad had told me once in case he ever
needed me to get it for him, and I'd filed
the information away, never thinking it would be useful for
anything else. Yeah, I said, think you could grab it
for me. That's when I finally hesitated for real. There
was a shift, a barely perceptible change in the air
between us, A tiny crack and the illusion that I
had never noticed before. I didn't understand why I felt wrong,
but it did, and for the first time since I'd
started talking to him, I found myself wanting to leave.
Why He laughed, as if the answer was obvious. Ah,
it's stupid, he said, dismissing the whole thing as a joke,
as if I was the silly one for taking it seriously.
I left something in there a long time ago, something
I meant to grab, A little keepsake, you know. That
made sense to me. All the adults had little things
they didn't need but couldn't bring themselves to throw away.
Even marm had shoe boxes full of old birthday cards
she never looked at. And my dad had a drawer
full of broken watches he always swore he was going
to fix. And maybe you noticed. Maybe he sensed that
my willingness was starting to crack, because after a moment
of silence, he gave me reassurance. It's all right, buddy,
he said, you don't have to do it, and that
was the end of it until the next time. But
he didn't ask about the shed key. Hey. His voice
was lower that day, quieter, like he didn't want any
one else to hear, even though we were alone in
the back yard, just as we always were. What could
you leave the back door unlocked for me? To night?
My stomach twists thinking back to it. Why I want
to leave you a little present? Trust me, I really
liked presents, and my parents hadn't gotten me a present
since my birthday a couple of months back. And then,
before I could decide what to do, dinner's ready. I
turned toward the house, the sounds snapping me out of
whatever fog I'd been slipping into, and when I looked back,
he was gone. I unlocked the back door that night.
I don't know if it was because I started trusting
the man too much, or if I wanted a present
that badly, or maybe I was just too caught up
in the normal rhythm of family life to think about
anything beyond the present moment. Either way, it didn't matter,
because the moment came and went, and by the time
we sat down for dinner, the whole thing was already
slipping from my mind, already losing its weight. And then
without thinking I said it, I'd talk to your friend
to day. I didn't even notice the reaction I was
focused on my plate, barely paying attention, my fork spearing
a piece of overcooked chicken as I chewed slowly, distantly.
But then the silence settled and I felt it. Dad's
hand frozen mid cut, his knuckles white around the handle
of his knife. Mom unmoving at the stove, her back
to me, her posture stiff. She looked like her entire
body had gone cold. All at once, What friend? Dad's
voice was slow, careful, like he already knew the answer
but was trying to delay it. I blinked at him,
confused by the sudden change in the atmosphere. He your friend.
In the cold space, the words landed. Mom dropped the
pan she had been holding, the middle, clattering against the
stove with a loud, jarring crash. Dad's face went white.
For a long time, no one moved, Then all at once,
Dad pushed back from the table, standing so fast his
chair scraped against the floor with a shriek of wood
and tile. Without a word, he turned, walked to the
front door, and stormed outside. My father was already in
motion before I could fully register what was happening, his
movement sharp and frantic as he ripped at the wooden
slats covering the crawl space entrance, his fingers prying at
the brittle planks with a kind of strength I had
never seen before. The nail shrieked as they were wrenched loose,
the old wood splintering beneath the force of his grip.
Dad My voice came out small, but he didn't answer.
He was breathing too hard, too fast, his hands shaking
as he pulled away the last of the boards and
tossed them aside. The entrance to the crawl space yawned
open before us, a gaping black mouth cut into the earth.
Dad grabbed the flashlight from his belt, flicked it on,
and shine the beam inside. For a moment, I expected
to see him. I expected the pale, thin man from
beneath our house to be crouched in the dirt, his
sunken eyes reflecting the beam of light as he stared.
But there was nothing, just emptiness. The flashlight beam swept
across the crawl space, illuminating nothing but bare dirt and
cobwebt wooden beams. The air that wafted out smelt stale
and sour, thick with the scent of damp rot and
things that had been left to decay in the dark
for too long though, No footprints in the dirt, no
sign that anyone had ever been inside, no mattress, no
discarded clothes, no remnants of a person who might have
been living there. Maybe I'd made up the entire thing
in my head, a game of pretend that it spiraled
out of control. But then the flashlight beam passed over
something small and familiar, something that shouldn't have been there.
A shoe, tiny red, half covered in dirt. I felt
a jolt of recognition before my mind fully processed what
I was looking at. My stomach twisted violently, and the
air seemed to thin around me, the world tilting sideways
as I stared at it. Because I knew that shoe
didn't belong to me. It belonged to my little brother.
What the hell? My dad's voice was hoarse, cracking at
the edges as he stepped closer, his flashlight trained on
the single out of place objects sitting in the dirt,
his hands clenched at his sides, his whole body rigid
with tension. He turned toward me, his face pale. Where
is your brother? The words barely had time to register
before my mother's voice rang out from behind us. Who
are you talking about? I turned and saw us standing
in the doorway, looking at us with an expression of deep,
unsettled confusion. Her brows furrowed as she tugging the scene
before her. Who was in the crawl space? She asked again,
and then the screaming started. I don't remember running inside.
I don't remember how I got from the front yard
to the hallway, how my legs carried me forward so
fast that my surroundings blurred, the walls stretching long and thin,
like something from a fever dream. I don't remember how
I ended up right behind my father, or how my
mother's voice, shouting something I couldn't understand, faded into a
dull hum. At the edges of my mind, I only
remember the screaming. It was raw and high and jagged,
something too broken to come from a person, something that
didn't sound human at all, and it was coming from
my brother's room. My father hit the door at full speed,
his shoulder slamming into it so hard that it must
have hurt. The wood buckled under his weight, and for
a moment it didn't budge, but then it gave way.
He stumbled forward nearly falling as he caught himself. And
then I saw the blood. It was everywhere, splattered across
the floor, painted up the walls, in thick visceral streaks,
so much of it, more than I thought a person
could even have inside them. He was still wet, still warm,
still spreading in slow creeping rivers, beneath the flickering light
of the ceiling van and in the center of it
all my brother, or what was left of him. I
don't think I screamed. I don't think I made any
noise at all, because something inside me broke, something deep
and dark and all consuming. And as I stood there,
staring at the thing and the floor that had once
been my little brother, the thought rose up in me,
slow and suffocating, curling around my throat like smoke. I
did this. I don't know when my mother pushed past me,
or when a voice cracked into a sound i'd never
heard before, something so shattered and animalistic that it didn't
even sound like words. I don't know if they tried
to shield me from the sight, if they pulled me
back or turned me away. I don't know if I
collapsed or ran or simply stood there as the room
spun and folded inward around me, because in that moment,
all I could hear was his voice, Where do you
sleep in the house? Who mum locked the doors at night?
She forgets sometimes? Really, the realization came slowly. It wasn't
like a sudden impact, not an explosion of clarity. It
was something worse, something creeping, something insidious, something that had
been building for weeks, for months, for however long it
had been listening to me. I had told him everything,
I'd given him the key to my family. I don't
know what happened after that. I don't know who called
the police, or how long it took them to arrive,
or how many times I was asked the same questions
over and over and over again, until my mouth was
dry and my voice cracked from the effort of trying
to answer. I don't know if I ever answered at all,
because how do you begin to explain something like that.
I don't remember the funeral. I don't remember the weeks
that followed, or the way my parents stopped talking to
each other, or the way my mother wouldn't even look
at me anymore. I don't remember how I got from
that house to a different one, or how much time
had passed before my father finally packed up all our
things and moved us away. But I remember the guilt