The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

scanning the obituary page. My mother died in 1979, and I came out to see her
funeral, standing at the back of her casket lowered into the ground. Mother had
always been active in the church. Nearly a hundred people turned out to pay
their last respects. It rained; nobody paid any attention to a lone stranger in black
who didn’t speak and didn’t attend the reception afterwards.
And now my father…
I had no claim on the family house and lands. Officially I was “lost and
presumed dead.” I looked perhaps thirty or thirty-five today; nobody would
believe me if I came forward and claimed to be sixty-year-old Tucker Anderson,
heir to the estate. The farm would probably go to one of our Oakhill relatives.
As I wandered through the house, I realized I wouldn’t miss it. Earlier that
night, I’d put the executor of my parents’ estate to sleep and taken his keys.
Alone, I’d driven out, looking for something—though what, I couldn’t quite say.
Dishes were stacked two feet high in the kitchen sink, and the cheap formica
table had disappeared beneath yellowing newspapers, a scattering of old tools,
and the dried-out remains of a dozen TV dinners. I could see where rats or mice
had been gnawing at the food and papers.
My parents’ bedroom was dirty and unkempt; the bedclothes hadn’t been
washed in months, probably. There was a sickly sweet smell like infection in the
air, so I opened the windows to try and get rid of it.
Then I climbed up the narrow stairs to what had once been the attic, to where
my room had been. It felt like I was approaching a gallows.
When I pushed the door open, though, I found my room hadn’t changed since
I’d left. Clearly nobody had been up here since my mother died, and dust lay like
a blanket over everything.
I stood before my bureau, studying the blocky wooden figures I’d carved as a
boy. They were crude, not good at all, but they’d occupied my evening hours
while listening to The Shadow and Jack Benny on the radio. An old Cardinals
baseball card was stuck to the mirror. Gary Lewitt, the name said, but I didn’t
remember him. Perhaps he was some forgotten hero.
I poked through the bureau drawers, wincing a bit at how worn all my clothes
had been. I’d been a ragged kid, pure hick trash. I moved to the closet. The
clothes there weren’t much better. Most should have been thrown out long
before I stopped wearing them.
As I was just about to leave, my gaze fell on a small shoebox peeking out from
under a towel on the closet floor. I’d kept my childhood treasures there, I
recalled with a sad little smile. How pathetic they must seem now.