Stories from Sunshine Street

By Jordyn Taylor

1.  The Bus Stop, 2018  

Bus 43 never stopped directly in front of Sunshine Street, a cul-de-sac with a mustard-yellow “No Outlet” sign at the entrance. Miss Hannigan, the driver of the bus for the last half-decade, stopped just short of the street, so that only the nose of the bus peeked past an array of pine trees obstructing Sunshine Street from view. Everyone in the neighboring areas of Bradford, Massachusetts knew Sunshine Street was a dead end, so there was hardly any reason for them to enter the development. The final round-about was only ever used by children on their bicycles or when neighbors walked their dogs. 

The kids in the front seats of the bus always tried to get a peek of Sunshine Street by stretching their necks and pressing their cheeks against the cool glass of the windows, their curious minds getting the best of them as if mystical beings lurked behind the curtain of pine. The yellow bus was almost completely hidden from view, yet the children on Sunshine Street knew that it parked behind the trees at the end of the road at exactly 6:37 a.m. every weekday. 

There was nothing particularly interesting about the Sunshine Street kids themselves other than Tommy Johnstone, who had worn the same faded gray fedora every day for the past three years despite the rule that kids were not allowed to wear hats in school. Every day, students on the bus would ask the Sunshine Street kids why their street seemed different than any other in the town. They asked Tommy if his hat was special and if he had gotten it off of a dead body, a rumor that had circulated and which was started by Bobby Klein, the most popular kid in school. The Sunshine Street kids never indulged in such questions, as to them, it was just another street. Every day, they silently looked out the window for the entire drive to Collins Middle School. 

Opposite Sunshine Street sat a 300 acre cornfield, which further separated the street from the outside world. On the other end of the land sat a corn maze, where children would run and scream with joy once they found their way out. Sometimes, their wails were heard all the way on Sunshine Street, and Hickory Road was the quickest way to get to the corn maze—a yearly festivity nobody from Sunshine Street ever seemed to attend.  

The fourteen houses on Sunshine Street, seven spread out evenly on each side, looked like every other house on every other road in the town of Bradford. There were white picket fences and above-ground pools and dogs that would bark at all hours of the night and wake the neighbors, especially Mrs. Carlson, who hated dogs and much preferred the purring of her six tabby cats, who slept with her and her husband each night. There were houses of all shades: natural colors like whites and tans. Although there were some outliers, like Ms. Evergreen’s—which she repainted bright yellow every year so the vibrancy never dulled. There were residents of the small street that had lived there for most of their lives, like Mr. Nichols, who had lived in the same faded-blue house in the middle of the cul-de-sac for forty years. There was one house in particular that Mr. Nichols thought was interesting, as he was sure it was haunted. Mr. Nichols was a retrophiliac who spent his days diving into the history of the town of Bradford and every town surrounding it. He discovered that the house at the very end of Sunshine Street was presumed haunted for the past hundred years by a man and woman—whose names escaped Mr. Nichols’ mind yet again due to his old age—after the husband killed his wife, and then himself, in a murder suicide.  

Miss Hannigan, the driver of Bus 43, had never met Mr. Nichols, nor Ms. Evergreen, nor Mrs. Carlson, or any of the adults on Sunshine street, and yet the cul-de-sac was eerie to her for reasons she couldn’t name. Every day as she approached the street to pick up her students, she peeked down the road, a road that looked like everyone else’s, and a chill shot up her spine. She made sure to always park behind the pine trees at the end of the street, hoping that feeling would dissipate if she did. 

2. The House for Innocent Souls, 1692  

Wendy Winston was twelve years old when she was claimed to have been possessed by the devil. The girl had convulsed in her sleep, and when she awoke, she could move nothing but her eyes, no matter how hard she willed her limbs to work. Ms. Winston was accused of witchcraft on October 4th, 1692. She and three other girls—Carmen Churchill, her best friend, Miss Abigail, her teacher, and Mrs. Peabody, the pastor’s wife—were to be hanged in just eight days below Gallows Hill, on Proctor’s Ledge. The ledge was obscured by woods and buildings. Only a leather tannery and railroad operated nearby. The girls snuck out of Salem in the middle of the night to avoid their fate and headed North, stopping only nine hours into what they expected to be a multiple-day trip. It would’ve been faster if they hadn’t stopped for breaks, but they were exhausted, and the youngest girls in the group were unable to travel any further. Luckily, the girls found an abandoned house in the woods twenty miles from their home. The house, covered in wooden panels and broken windows, was concealed by miles of forest. The girls hoped they covered their tracks well enough for their safety, especially by heading north rather than south to Framingham, where they heard other girls had tried to flee. 

Wendy and the other girls had stolen money from their homes before their departure. They used their combined savings to buy provisions from a farm they found through a clearing in the woods four and a half miles from their makeshift house. The girls started a garden in the back where they found fresh soil and started to work for the farm in return for water, vegetables, and occasional meat. As months passed, more girls and even some boys found their way to the abandoned home. The “tenants” called the home the House for Innocent Souls. Anyone accused of witchcraft was especially welcomed and given a place to sleep. After a while, some wondered if anyone from Salem had cared to look for them at all. Carmen Churchill often reminded the other girls and boys that nobody was coming for them.  

“They don’t want witches in their town,” Carmen had said. “They wanted us out. They got what they wanted. And they wouldn’t want us haunting them, would they? No!” 

Wendy wasn’t convinced. They couldn’t risk letting presumed witches walk free, could they? Who knows what would happen if they did? So, she and Miss Abigail spent days boarding up most of the windows of the home. This, she assumed, would add to the abandoned aesthetic of their sanctuary and would keep the brisk air out during the winter. Furthermore, she hoped that this would keep their secrets inside rather than wandering about, risking their exposure. 

A month later, the people of Salem came upon the House for Innocent Souls carrying torches. They blocked the doors from the outside with boulders they found nearby before throwing the flames into the house through un-boarded windows that Wendy and Miss Abigail hadn’t gotten to fixing yet. There was nowhere, then, for souls to escape from the home.  

It’s now said by those who inhabited the land that the souls of the girls and boys were mixed with their bones in the ashes of the house. The ashes then became a part of the soil. Centuries later, Sunshine Street would be built on the ruins of the innocent, whom residents have claimed they’ve seen walking the streets in search of their farm or perhaps their safety.   

3. Raining Cats and Dogs, 2016  

The three German shepherds of the house next door to the Carlson’s barked at exactly 3:56 on Tuesday, September 22nd, which Mrs. Carlson noted in the little black notebook she kept in her nightstand. She was keeping the book to show the authorities at the end of the month, armed with enough evidence to force the neighbors to do something about those damn dogs. She wrote down the exact details as a sign of precision, but also, to her dismay, her lack of memory, which she found to be unreliable, especially over the last few weeks.  

When the first bark echoed into the night, Mrs. Carlson’s eyes flew open. She checked the clock on the mahogany nightstand and reached into the open drawer—which she left open so she did not wake her husband when she reached inside, even though he was quite a deep sleeper—for her pad and pencil. She turned the yellow-lit lamp on with a quick flick and jotted the time down on the next available line. When she was finished, she flipped the notebook closed and glanced at her husband next to her. The dogs were barking so loud it was as if she had left the window of their bedroom wide open.  

“How can you sleep through this?” Mrs. Carlson asked her husband. He didn’t move. His eyelids didn’t even flutter. She sighed and looked to the window, expecting to see one of her precious cats perched on the windowsill, riling up the damn German shepherds, but none were there. All of the cats slept next to her, one on top of Mr. Carlson’s chest. She heard a soft whimper from Mr. Fluffington, who lay curled at her feet. She could’ve sworn he was just on his cat bed, but she brushed off her confusion as fatigue.  

“Shh,” she cooed softly. “It’s just the damn dogs again. Momma’s here.” She stroked the fur of her oldest cat as it lay by her head. It purred softly. She noticed another, Mrs. Whiskers, jump from the bed and stride toward the door, though the cats knew by now they were never allowed out at night. Not with the dogs out there. And not since Mrs. Carlson found Mrs. Whiskers eating a dead squirrel, which she hoped was dead before Mrs. Whiskers got ahold of it. Mrs. Carlson wrinkled her nose. The litterbox in the opposite corner of the room smelled as if she hadn’t cleaned it in days, although she was sure she’d emptied it this morning. She ripped a piece of paper from the pad in her hand and wrote a reminder to herself to clean the litter box in the morning. She closed the notebook and slipped it back into the drawer, keeping the single piece of paper by the lamp.  

Before Mrs. Carlson could turn off the light, she heard licking next to her and found Little Boots stroking her husband's hand with his tiny pink tongue. When Mrs. Whisker’s noticed this, she pounced back on the bed to join in. Soon, a chorus of kisses could be heard from Mr. Carlson’s side of the bed as the cats showed their affection to Mr. Carlson. Although softer, it sounded like the pitter patter of rain—Mrs. Carlson’s favorite sound. 

“You won’t even wake up to that, huh?” Mrs. Carlson said to her husband, sighing. But her dismay was not for the right reasons. She hadn’t realized the cats were not kissing her husband but were in fact eating him. Starved from being kept in the room at all times, unfed and forgotten except for at night, the cats had resorted to eating Mr. Carlson two weeks ago after he passed away in his sleep. Mrs. Carlson couldn’t fathom the scene that was laid out beside her— Mr. Carlson’s fingers bitten down to the bone, dried blood seeping into the sheets of the bed, claw marks covering his face where Mrs. Whiskers had perched to scrounge whatever she could from Mr. Carlson’s eye sockets. So instead, her mind simply repressed it.

Mrs. Carlson held what was left of her husband’s hand as she read until the barking of the German shepherds finally ceased at 4:47 a.m. He was cold. Then again, his hands always had been. At least, she thought they had. 

“Goodnight Dear,” Mrs. Carlson whispered as she flicked off the light and dozed off to the sounds of the cats still nibbling on her husband’s fingers.

4. Ms. Evergreen, 2012  

Maureen Evergreen’s house, positioned directly in the middle of Sunshine Street, stood out from her neighbors’ homes. While the others were tinted in hues of grays or browns, hers was painted bright yellow, a shade almost as vibrant as a highlighter. Although the houses were placed in two straight lines, like the solar system, each house seemed to lead to Ms. Evergreen’s. Nobody seemed to mind the color, of which Maureen touched up every summer since she moved in four years ago. The houses next door didn’t particularly care for the appearance of their neighbor’s house as long as she kept it clean, as they did their own.  

The house to the right of Ms. Evergreen’s was home to Mrs. Quinn, an elderly woman who lost most of her sight years ago due to cataracts before many of the current residents had even moved onto the street. Mrs. Quinn navigated her house and the neighborhood with ease. Sometimes, Maureen thought Mrs. Quinn moved better than she, though she had only just turned thirty-seven. Last summer, as Maureen tended to the garden in the front of her home, she noticed Mrs. Quinn as she walked down her driveway to pick up her mail. Maureen was quiet, praising the older woman in her mind for how well she had adapted to her loss of sight, while concurrently wishing that Mrs. Quinn could see how lovely her house was and admire it along with her. Maureen had stopped arranging the flowers when she thought of her daughter, whom she’d named Daisy after her favorite flowers, which lined her house. She thought of Daisy’s love of the flowers and stroked the petals of those in her garden. She wished her daughter could see them. 

Like Ms. Evergreen cared for the outside of her house, she was even more determined to make the inside feel like home. She painted each wall a vibrant color, she swept and mopped the floors daily, and she hung pictures in frames she bought from the thrift store which she spray-painted gold. She put plants, some real and some plastic, in every room and plugged automatic air fresheners into every outlet.  

Mr. Nichols, who lived in the house opposite Maureen, often watched as every week, like clockwork, Maureen came home from the store with a new item for her house that seemed entirely too small for all of the things she collected. Mr. Nichols peered out his front window as Maureen carried her findings into her home. Her garage made a squeaking sound—or as Mr. Nichols described it, a ‘squawking’ noise—that could be heard throughout the neighborhood, catching the attention of those in the houses near Maureen’s, especially Mr. Nichols’, every time it was opened or closed. One week, Maureen brought home a bookshelf, the next a lamp in the shape of a pineapple, and the next a wagon filled with flowers. Another week, Maureen brought home a bag that seemed to be filled with books, Mr. Nichols presumed by the way she dragged it inside. Mr. Nichols often wondered what kind of books a woman who lived alone and painted her house bright yellow read. 

After wiping down the counters following her breakfast of a spinach and gouda omelet, Maureen tied her hair into a ponytail, careful not to pull any loose strands of blonde out of her head and onto the floor. She didn’t put the pan or the eggs away just yet. Instead, Maureen went for a walk around the neighborhood. She peered across the street as she turned out of her driveway and made eye contact with Mr. Nichols for just a moment before he pulled the curtains of his living room window closed. Maureen didn’t mind his peeping. She took it as a sign of admiration, especially when she spotted him starting at her bright and beautiful home. She made a mental note to ask her neighbor if he would like his house painted, too. She really disliked the muted gray tones of the rickety house that sat across from hers. It truly ruined her mood, and she knew it would ruin Daisy’s, too, especially since she had spent so much time trying to make her own home look nice for her.  

Maureen often made stops on her walks around the cul-de-sac to talk with the other inhabitants of Sunshine Street, especially the kids. She loved kids. Maureen was a second grade teacher before she moved to Massachusetts and had always made sure her classroom was inviting. Bright colors of the rainbow always scattered around the room. When Daisy was young, she had helped Maureen pick out the borders for the bulletin boards in her classroom and helped label the cubbies with the names of the newest incoming students. Daisy had loved flowers as a child and admired every color of the rainbow the same. She was a perfect fit for her name, even now as a teen. Daisy’s blonde, soft hair, Maureen remembered, matched her own perfectly.  

After her walk, Maureen prepped another omelet, swapping out the spinach for ham and gouda for American cheese. She speckled grapes on the plate before moving the bookshelf from the wall, revealing the door behind it. She unlocked the basement door with a key she kept in her pocket, swung it inward with her foot, and made her way down the stairs, careful not to drop any of the fruit on the way down.  

“Daisy?” she called. There was no answer. “Daisy, it’s time for breakfast. I made your favorite!” 

A figure crawled from behind a box in the corner of the basement. It was dark, but a stream of light cast through the window in the back of the basement, nearing the ceiling—a window far too high to reach.  

“I told you, I’m not Daisy,” a young girl with long blonde hair said shakily, moving further into the light. “Please, let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” Her arms shook as she crawled over to Maureen, her dirt-ridden hair falling over her shoulders as she moved. When she reached Maureen, the girl clutched Maureen’s legs, staining her light-wash jeans with dirt and dried blood from when she fell trying to reach the window at the back of the basement. Maureen stroked her hair. It was soft, just like she remembered. Not like the hair of the girl she brought home last month. Hers was too brittle. She was only pretending to be her Daisy. But now, after years of searching, Maureen had finally gotten her Daisy back. And once she remembered who she was, Daisy could join her upstairs to help decorate their home. She could marvel at the color of the outside and help Maureen paint it. She could even go to the store to pick out decorations. Maureen made a room just for Daisy and couldn’t wait to show her.  

“It’s okay, Daisy,” Maureen whispered. “Momma’s here.”

The girl cried into Maureen’s pants.

5. Garlic, Water, and a White Cane, 2015 

Mr. Nichols peered out his living room window as Hugh Henderson made his way down the driveway to his mailbox, his white cane tapping the pavement along the way. In addition to Mr. Nichols’ fascination with the history of Bradford, he was especially curious about his neighbors, particularly Mr. Henderson. Mr. Nichols thought that there was something off about Mr. Henderson, as the only records he could find of him were of when he first bought his house on Sunshine Street almost sixty years ago. Mr. Nichols was wary of the fact that he could find no other information about his neighbor, including how he lost his sight. His innate curiosity took over, so much so that soon he could think of nothing else. 

Mr. Henderson never spoke of how he went blind, but all of the kids on Sunshine Street asked him about it. He humored them, telling stories of witches and wizards that needed his sight for a potion, or of dragons and dinosaurs that he fought and beat, “but only with a price.” They asked if they could try on his dark glasses, but he always refused. He said that eyes don’t look the same without their normal sparkle, and he lost his years ago. Tommy Johnstone, a quiet third-grader, was a favorite of Mr. Henderson’s. They had a connection he hadn’t felt in a long time, since he was a little boy himself. 

Mr. Nichols observed Hugh Henderson closely through his side window in his bedroom and from afar when he went out. Hugh Henderson was a tall man, Mr. Nichols noted. As he walked, he gripped his white cane with his right hand, his left raised slightly above his head for fear of running into the tree branches that hung low in his front and back yards. He wore a suit daily, though he rarely left his property. He never got too close to people. In fairness, the neighbors never cared to get too close to Mr. Henderson either. They said he smelled of garlic, a very off-putting smell, and they noticed scarring on parts of Hugh Henderson’s face they could only see when they got quite close, the parts that his sunglasses didn’t fully cover. It made them uncomfortable, neighbors told Mr. Nichols when he asked about Mr. Henderson, and so he was careful to keep his distance from adults whenever possible. It seemed to Mr. Nichols that his blind neighbor was paranoid of the things the world could do, especially if he couldn’t see them, as if children were the only humans Hugh Henderson actually liked, humans that wouldn’t harm or judge him. 

Mr. Nichols noticed that the lights were almost always off in Mr. Henderson’s house, and he often had to remind himself that this was not odd as the man was blind. He didn’t need light. Mr. Nichols could hear Mr. Henderson talking at all hours of the night as they both kept their windows open for the breeze. Mr. Nichols liked when the fresh air swept through the curtains of his bedroom, and he actually enjoyed listening to his neighbor’s chanting, or perhaps praying, or whatever Mr. Nichols was eavesdropping on. 

It was years before Mr. Nichols decided to confront the old man, leaving the comfort of his own home for the sake of his own curiosity. Although he was intrigued by all of his neighbors on Sunshine Street, Hugh Henderson was the one that made him want to talk to them, which was quite a big deal, as he was most definitely a loner. When the morning came in which Mr. Nichols’ confidence was at an all-time high, he built up enough courage to ask his neighbor the questions he’d been pondering for years, disregarding any respect for privacy that Hugh Henderson was entitled to. 

He waddled over to Hugh Henderson’s house—he couldn’t move as well as he used to—and tapped three times on the door. He could hear Mr. Henderson’s cane hit the surfaces of his home as he made his way to the entrance. Mr. Nichols had to once again remind himself that his neighbor was blind and that he would have to introduce himself once the door opened, in addition to the detail that the two had never actually had a conversation. 

The door swung open swiftly. The tall man with an old, scarred, and sagging face stood dressed in a suit decorated with a striped red and gold tie. Mr. Nichols wondered how Hugh Henderson chose his ties to match his suits if he couldn’t see. He pushed the thought away.

“Hello, um, Mr. Henderson. I live across the street and I’m—”

“Nichols,” Hugh Henderson interrupted. “The Mr. Nichols. It seems you’ve finally decided to stop by.”

The greeting took Mr. Nichols by surprise. 

“How— how did you know it was me, and who I was?” he stuttered. “We’ve never spoken.”

“No, but I’ve heard your voice before. My hearing is quite good, you know. And the people of this town like to talk, especially the children. They’ve told me much about you. Please, come inside.”

Mr. Nichols hesitated before stepping into Hugh Henderson’s home. When he finally entered, he closed the mahogany door behind him and followed the man to the living room. He was nervous, and frankly surprised that Mr. Henderson had let him into his home. 

Mr. Henderson offered Mr. Nichols a seat and agreed to answer Mr. Nichols’ questions. 

“It’s not that I haven’t wanted to tell my story,” Mr. Henderson said, “but the moment never felt right. I’m often feared, and my story would not bode well for that reputation. Plus, I like children more than adults. They judge less. They’re more open minded. Like you, Mr. Nichols. I like your curiosity. And I will tell you my story if you are willing to hear it.” 

Mr. Nichols nodded intently at his neighbor’s tale, listening from a faded army-green recliner in the corner of Hugh Henderson’s living room that sat beside a window—the one Mr. Nichols had tried to look into almost every day from his own home. 

Hugh Henderson had been afraid of the dark ever since he was a child, he told Mr. Nichols, when he started seeing creatures. He was only six years old. He often awoke in the middle of the night to shadow figures at the end of his bed, monsters with claws stretching from underneath the mattress frame and a woman in the closet who opened it only to reveal her featureless face and slippery skin that seemed to peel right off her body. Hugh told his neighbor how his parents convinced him that he was having nightmares. Then he started seeing the visions in the daylight. The creatures appeared more often and well into his teens. As an adult, Hugh saw the figures everywhere he went. He felt them breathing down his neck, their scratches on his arms, which he swore were real even though others couldn’t see them. Throughout his teenage years, he saw countless therapists, but he could not rid himself of the creatures. He tried marijuana and even heroin, anything to help him escape to a reality other than his own, but they only made him more paranoid. 

When Hugh Henderson turned twenty-one, he took his mother’s crème brûlée torch and burnt his eyes until they boiled. He didn’t know that could happen until he overheard the doctor talking about his condition when he woke up in the hospital. He was in pain, and he’d never forget the sound of his eyes bursting from his sockets, but he was happy. He’d never wanted to die, just to rid himself of the creatures, and after his act, he’d never have to see them again. The darkness, for the first time, was the only thing that calmed him. 

Hugh Henderson took a long, deep breath before continuing. This gave Mr. Nichols a chance to rest his hand. He was writing notes furiously, making sure not to miss a single word, so he could go over them later. After a moment of silence, Mr. Henderson cleared his throat and resumed his story. 

A few weeks later, the creatures appeared again. Hugh described them as being in his mind’s eye—there, but not quite. He was alone with the creatures. He’d done exactly what they wanted. He could no longer distract himself with other sights.

Mr. Henderson moved to Sunshine Street when he was twenty-four years old. He had no family, friends, or pets. He had given up on any such connections after his parents tried several times to have him committed. He decided a fresh start was what was best for him. When he arrived on Sunshine Street, Hugh Henderson salted the windowsills and kept garlic in his pocket, hoping these would get rid of the creatures that haunted him. He placed glasses of water in every room of his home in the hopes that they would absorb the figures that lingered around him. He left his windows open so the entities could leave his house, hoping that one day, he would be free of them.

Mr. Henderson told Mr. Nichols that his tricks never truly worked, but they made him feel better. He described this as a type of placebo effect, and he was content up until recently when he felt a new presence in the air. He did not see this figure, only felt it. He did not want to startle his new companion with this realization but found Mr. Nichols was rather intrigued. Mr. Nichols provided his neighbor with his own discoveries, either as a warning, a sign of friendship, or out of pure excitement. He told Hugh Henderson about the couple who had moved into the house at the end of Sunshine Street three months prior to this day. He mentioned how it had been presumed haunted for almost a hundred years. He talked for nearly half an hour straight about what he thought was true and what wasn’t about the strange house, and Hugh Henderson listened as intently as his neighbor had done for him. 

As Mr. Nichols delved into the history of the house at the end of their street, Mr. Henderson heard a dog bark. He could feel Mr. Nichols stare at him as he spoke. He wondered what Mr. Nichols looked like. He sounded old, but not quite as old as him. A chill ran through his body as Mr. Nichols mentioned the murders that occurred in the haunted house. Although he was unsure of the new presence, Hugh Henderson was relieved. He felt a weight had lifted from his shoulders, as if this burden was not his alone to bear any longer. He made a note to himself to add more salt to the windowsill as soon as Mr. Nichols left. He scratched at the scars that surrounded his eyes. After he escorted his neighbor out, he went to fetch his sage, a smile lining his wrinkled face. 

6. Tommy Johnstone, 1916/2018

Tommy Johnstone had a gift, but only a few people knew about it. Talking to the dead wasn’t something he went around bragging about. He was already the shortest boy in his sixth-grade class, and his nose was crooked at the end, so he didn’t want to be picked on for anything else. All of the kids on the bus laughed at his hat, and the other kids that lived on Sunshine Street—two girls and one boy—didn’t even seem to know he existed. He felt as though the spirits he talked to were his only friends, and any living person just didn’t understand him. The spirits didn’t call him weird, and he didn’t call them ghosts—they didn’t like that word, they’d said—it was a mutual connection, like Tommy too was an invisible, unknown spirit. 

Tommy’s favorite spirit to talk to was Timothy Johnson, who was a kind of legend on Sunshine Street, like the witches that had once walked the same land. Tim was said to have killed his wife and then himself in a fit of rage, though nobody was ever able to understand why. The neighbors on Sunshine Street were convinced that the house was haunted by the couple that died there, and they weren’t wrong, but they thought this for the wrong reasons. They assumed it was the ghosts that would turn the lights on and off in the house, change the temperature, make the floorboards creak, and knock on the wall when everyone was asleep. Instead, it was Tommy, playing with his friends. Tommy hated being at home. His parents didn’t understand him. He felt like an outsider in his own family. He spent every minute he could outside of his house, often sneaking to Hugh Henderson’s like he had for the past three years or to the house at the end of the street. He’d crawl out of bed at night, his insomnia begging him to play underneath the sky’s watch, and he’d spend the night with Mr. Johnson. The house was new, renovated many times over the years. No family ever lived there for more than a year. Tommy and the spirits would try to play, but it seemed none of the homeowners found their tricks very funny. This was okay with Tommy. He liked when it was just him and the spirits. 

Tommy liked Timothy Johnson because he was misunderstood, like him. Everyone said he was a monster for doing what he did, but Tommy knew the truth. He heard it directly from the source, in graphic detail. Although young, Tommy loved the details of the story: 

Timothy Johnson hadn’t woken up when the assailant entered his home on that cold night over one hundred years ago. Back then, nobody locked their doors. He hadn’t woken up when the intruder made his way through their home to the room where Tim and Clarice were sound asleep. He hadn’t stirred when their bedroom door creaked ever so slightly and a man entered the room, and Tim didn’t move when the gunman placed his Colt Pistol into Tim’s hand. Tim didn’t have time to wake-up, let alone scream in the time it took the intruder to pull a pillow over the gun to muffle the sound, point the gun at Clarice’s temple, and fire. One shot, no screams. Dead. Before Tim could even adjust his eyes to see his wife’s brains splattered against their headboard, the second shot ran out, this one with no barrier to mask the sound. The gunman had held Tim’s grip on the gun, positioned it on his right temple, and fired. He fell from the bed, his eyes open but still, his face contorted with shock, the red from his own body mixing with his wife’s across the room. The man went out the backdoor, left no footprints, and wore gloves. He took only obscure jewelry, small bills that happened to be left around, and the fedora that lay on the nightstand. He didn’t seem to mind that it had been splattered with red. The case was open and shut, and Timothy Johnson was painted a devil, his soul the same color of the sheets stained with blood, as if that were their true color all along.

Tommy hated the man Timothy told him about, but in a way, he wanted to thank him. Without him he wouldn’t have met his friend. But he knew Timothy was sad because he didn’t have his fedora. Of course, he was sad for so many other reasons, but Tommy could see why he was sad without it. His head looked bare, empty. Tommy knew he was sad too because didn’t see Clarice very much. She was often in the part of the house she had been reserving for a nursery. It was now the guest bathroom. Timothy said not to disturb her, so he and Tommy often played alone. One day they would be at peace, he told Tommy, but today was not that day. 

In the next few months, a new couple moved in. They were old and didn’t mind the stories of the haunted house. It was cheap, and they wanted something nice and close to farmland, where they could spend the rest of their lives. They didn’t mind the noise on Sunshine Street. They were happy until they started hearing footsteps upstairs when they were the only two in the house or when the lights flickered in the halls. They even heard the wine fridge’s door open and close on its own, though when they checked, it was locked, just like they’d left it. A week before they officially moved into the house, Tommy Johnstone knocked at their door. 

“Oh, hello there,” the old woman said as she opened the door and saw Tommy on the porch. “Can I help you?” Her face was filled with wrinkles that covered even her eyes. Tommy wasn’t sure how she could see him, let alone walk around without running into things.

“Mr. Johnson left his hat here,” Tommy said. “Can I get it?” 

The woman was puzzled. The boy couldn’t have been more than eight, and there were no signs of his parents. 

“I’m not sure there’s been a Mr. Johnson here,” the older woman said. “Are you sure you’re at the right house, honey?”

“Yes!” Tommy replied confidently. “Please, Mr. Johnson told me to get it. He said if I do, I get to keep it!” The woman glanced back inside, hoping her husband would come downstairs and help her with the odd situation.

“Oh, um, sweetheart, I’m not sure, why don’t we call your—” 

Before she could finish, Tommy raced by her and up the stairs of the house. He was already in her bedroom before she could ask what he was doing. She watched, frozen, as Tommy pulled the chair from her vanity to the closet and scrambled around on the top shelf. After a few minutes, he yelped with glee and leaped from the chair with a fedora in his hands.

“See! Told ya! Mr. Johnson told me where to find it! He said he knew it was here. He just knew. Now I can be just like him.” 

The woman was shocked. Tommy climbed down off of the chair and wiped the dust from the hat. It looked ancient and had specks of red at the edges. She’d never seen the hat before and didn’t even know her husband owned a fedora. 

“How did you—”

“Thanks, Laura! I’ll tell Mr. Johnson you said hello. He’s excited to meet you!” Tommy said before running out of the room, down the stairs, and through the front door, leaving it wide open behind him. 

“Honey? What’s going on?” the woman’s husband called from the bathroom. The woman stumbled back toward the bed. How had the child known her name? She felt a breeze on the back of her neck, though she was sure the air conditioning was off. She eyed the closed windows and felt something like a tap on her shoulder. The lights flickered in the hallway. 

“Dear, have you ever owned a Fedora?” she asked her husband, her voice shaky. 

“Not that I remember,” he responded. “Although my great-grandfather used to wear one all the time.”

7. Drop-Off, 2018

At exactly 2:49 p.m., Miss Hannigan drove the kids home from school. When she reached Sunshine Street, she parked on the other side of the road, as her route coming from the school was opposite her route going toward it. She did her best to park the bus behind the pine trees, but from this angle, the street was more visible. As she came to a stop in front of Sunshine Street, Miss Hannigan peeked down the road. Today, unlike any of the others, she noticed a man with a white cane and dark sunglasses walking toward the bus. She heard dogs barking, though in what direction she couldn’t tell. The same chill from the morning made its way through her body. 

“Here we are!” She cheered to the children as she did every day, masking the fear that rose in her throat as tension built in her chest, a tension she’d never felt before. The kids began to spill out of the bus, all except for Tommy, who sat staring out the window as if in a trance. 

“Tommy!” Miss Hannigan called again, “It’s your stop!”

Tommy glanced at the mirror and caught Miss Hannigan’s eyes. He frowned and placed his worn fedora on his head before walking to the front of the bus.

“Are you okay, Tommy?” Miss Hannigan asked as Tommy went to step off the bus. 

“Mr. Johnson found peace,” Tommy responded. His fedora slid down over his eyes. “He knows who killed him, so he doesn’t need me anymore.”

Miss Hannigan’s eyes widened.

“What do you mean, Tommy?” she asked. 

“Come on, Tommy,” a voice behind Tommy muttered. Miss Hannigan hadn’t noticed the blind man come to the door of the bus. She hadn’t even noticed that he crossed the street. The blind man glanced up, as if he were looking into Miss Hannigan’s soul through his dark-tinted glasses, and took Tommy by the hand. 

Miss Hannigan caught more of what the blind man said to Tommy as he jumped from the steps before he moved to cross the street. 

“Remember Tommy, you have a gift. You were meant to help him. You were meant to find him. Why else do you think your names were so similar? It was a sign.”

“Can I help you with your creatures now, Mr. Henderson? Will they play with me?” 

“We’ll see, Tommy. Mine aren’t as nice as Mr. Johnson was.”

Miss Hannigan watched as the two moved across the street, and she lingered on Sunshine Street for a moment before continuing her route. She watched as the blind man led Tommy back to the Johnstone’s house with ease, barely gliding his cane on the ground, as if he wasn’t blind at all. Miss Hannigan’s chest tightened as she pulled away from the street. She couldn’t get rid of the feeling she had when the blind man stared at her, and she couldn’t get Tommy's words out of her mind. 

After Miss Hannigan dropped off her last student at the other side of town, where the Corn maze was being created for the next season, she, only for a moment, allowed her mind to wander, her focus on the road lost. What had Tommy meant when he said he helped find a killer? What was it about that fedora that was so important to him? Who was the blind man, and what were his ‘creatures’? 

In her moment of questioning, Miss Hannigan crashed her bus into the sea of cornstalks, colliding with one of the watchtowers in the middle of the field, shattering it into pieces on top of Bus 43. Soon after, the residents of Sunshine Street heard sirens in the distance. Mr. Nichols watched from his porch as police cars, a firetruck, and ambulances sped by their street. He reminded himself to pick up the newspaper in the morning so he could find out what was going on. It was odd, he thought. There was a lot of commotion on Sunshine Street today.