The Monster in the Woods

 

Genre: Childrens/Young Adult Horror                                                           Chapterbook

I used to be a regular kid. I had a best friend and we hung out all the time.
That was before everything happened. That was before… The Monster.
It’s funny how something as simple as reading a book can turn your life upside down. How everything you thought you knew could turn on you.
I always hated nightmares, but at least I could wake up from a nightmare…

“A Creeptastic read for Goosebumps fans.” – Emily Haynes

“This story definitely gave me Goosebumps vibes.” - Sherri McCune 

Available in ebook and paperback

Free chapter to get you hooked.

 Chapter 1

 

I wish I never would’ve read that book. Maybe none of this would’ve happened. It would’ve been better if I hadn’t found out…

When I was ten years old, we lived in a house that sat beside a two-lane road. Our porch was literally ten feet from it. Even though it was a rural road, it still saw its share of traffic. You didn’t dare cross without looking both ways. Often there would be coal trucks driving through on the way to the town around ten miles away. They were usually in a hurry and took advantage of the fact that no police ever did a speed trap in our little village.

My dad used to say that these truckers thought they were driving Ferraris instead of vehicles that literally had the word ‘dump’ in it.

Around two hundred people lived in our little village. Most of them in houses just off the road like us. There was a small general store that stocked necessities. You could buy canned goods, bread, milk, eggs, and most importantly, (to me) baseball cards.

There was a sidewalk that ran in front of our house that I would try to ride my skateboard on. I say ride, but it was really a struggle to remain upright and not do a sidewalk faceplant every time I jumped on the board.

I had an actual skateboard, not one with the fancy plastic wheels. My board had metal skate wheels on it. When it rained small rocks and pebbles would wash down onto the sidewalk making it a minefield for my skateboard. Hitting a rock or pebble, was like slamming into a stop sign, it sent me flying.

It was one of the many hazards of childhood, like the ramp I built to jump my bike. But that’s another story.

Behind the house there was a small creek that ran along all the houses and separated it from the woods. The creek was around eight feet below the level of the house. I remember the time we had a major rainstorm and the water rose so high it almost came out into the yard. I could hear boulders thundering down through the creek bed being driven by the rushing water. I was terrified it was going to wash the house away. But it crested just below the level of the yard.

There were many hazards of living there, but none of them came close to the story I’m about to tell.

On the other side of the creek, there were woods. Dense woods made of trees that rose hundreds of feet in the air. I’d never been in the woods before and never had any desire to go. The woods were so dark and dense, with massive trees that could crush our house if the mood struck. It was the stuff of nightmares. My young imagination couldn’t fathom the creatures that could inhabit such a place. It was like daylight couldn’t fight its way all the way to the ground.

My best friend, Jake, lived about a half mile away, on the other side of the road. He and I would go exploring all over with a few other friends. Lots of times he would come up to my house and we would go down in the creek looking for minnows and crayfish. But we never explored the woods behind the house.

There were plenty of woods on the other side of the road, and we made trails all through them. But not in the woods behind my house. I never asked why. I never really thought about it. If we wanted to explore, we just went on the other side of the road.

I had a paper route if you wanna call it that. Do you remember those Grit newspapers they advertised in the back of comic books? I had maybe a dozen houses that had subscriptions. I would deliver them. Most of the houses I would just toss the paper onto the porch, but I always saved my neighbor’s house for last.

Mr. Mandellson was an older gentleman who had retired years ago. He and his wife had children who lived far away and didn’t visit often, so they would always welcome me in and he would tell me stories while she fed me cookies. I enjoyed delivering his paper the most. He told lots of stories about when he was younger and worked as a park ranger.

When his grandchildren would visit, his grandson, Logan, who was around my age would play hide n seek and kick the can with Jake, me, and some of the other local kids. There was a group of kids that weren’t exactly as close as Jake and I were, but they would always gather for a game of hide-and-seek or kick the can.

My bedroom was on the second story of our house facing the woods. I never really looked out at night. It wasn’t like I avoided it, I just didn’t think about it, until…