Gordon Walters was an odious little
man with a spirit just as ugly as his countenance. He was a bitter soul, predisposed
to moments of venom. Indeed, such bitterness gave him cause enough to despise ten-year-old
boy Jordan Myers and his ball games. In fact, he despised the child so much he
would sometimes go out of his way to make the boy bawl and blubber. He did this
with a smile etched on his deeply creased face.
One
day, when Jordan Myers was playing ball, Gordon beckoned the boy over with a
slightly crooked finger, and the boy, not yet old enough to understand the true
extent of either rancour or vitriol, went to where the old man stood.
“I
have something to show you,” he said. “Something you won’t believe.”
“Oh,
what is it?”
“You’ll
see ... if you have the stomach enough to look. Sometimes children your age
scare easily, I know.” He said simply enough. “Do you scare easy, boy?”
Jordan
shook his head, no.
“And
can you keep a secret?”
Another
nod of his head: yes, of course.
“Good,”
he smiled, revealing a row of crooked yellow tombstone teeth. “Then maybe you
should come and see for yourself.”
Gordon
Walters led Jordan to an old well at the rear of his garden; the top of which
was covered with wood and eager autumn leafs. Gordon removed both and handed
Jordan a flashlight that happened to sit beside the well.
“Go
on. Take a look. Shine the light down and tell me what you see.”
Suddenly,
Jordan did not want to look inside at all. It made him feel uneasy ... made him
feel ... anxious.
Sensing
the boy’s discomfort, Gordon whispered, “You’re not scared, are you? I thought
you were braver than that.”
Eventually
the boy spoke up in a voice brimming with daring and promise. “I am brave. I
will look.”
He
leaned over the mouth of the well and shone the torch down. He saw nothing
remarkable. He sighed as he swung the torch left and right. Still he saw
nothing.
“Keep
looking. It’s there somewhere.”
As
he looked Gordon ushered himself into position. In one swift movement he grappled
with the boys ankles and tossed him in. Jordan screamed as he fell and hit the
bottom with a thud. Gordon laughed and teased a smile out of the pensive look
upon his face. The flashlight was still pinwheeling in the darkness as Gordon
covered the well.
Jordan
Myers disappearance became a notable mystery among the residents of Chestnut
Drive. A manhunt got underway for a period of days. The police came and went,
asking questions of the neighbourhood, but few were able to shed light onto the
boy’s disappearance.
He must have run away, they said, or died in some lonely place only he knew
about.
Gordon went back to the well a fortnight
later, and what he found was enough to turn even his sour stomach. There was
little left of the boy, Gordon saw, and what few pieces of him did remain were
in a state too awful to detail.
But
how he must have died!
His
arms had been plucked from their sockets. His legs gnawed to the bone. Twigs pressed
into his eyes and sewn through his lids.
He
stared back at Gordon with a sick jokers grin.
Gordon
laughed one last time, and as he turned away, grateful that silence had
returned, he was sure – no, he was positive –he had heard a voice at the bottom
of the well. More, he thought the
voice said, bring me more.
All
in good time, he thought. All in good time.
Silence didn’t
last forever.
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