I woke up screaming and Erin shot me a panicked look. We were still seated outside of the Toy Box.
“S-sorry…I must’ve nodded off.” I said.
Erin opened her mouth. She hesitated before saying, “I’m worried about your friends.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Why? How long have they been gone?” I asked as I pulled out my phone to check the time.
“A while… Almost thirty minutes.”
“I guess we should go check on them.” I said.
As Erin and I started on the path back towards the entrance to the orchard, I nodded in the direction of the Sawyer house.
“You think he’s gonna show?” I asked.
Erin thought about it for a moment and nodded. “I hope so. If not, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
I glanced at her, worried that Erin was about to start crying, but the look on her face was one of stoic acceptance. Realizing that I was staring at her, Erin looked up at me and we exchanged a moment of awkward eye contact. I smiled to try and play it off as I quickly faced forward.
It was then that I realized we had lost our way in the dark and had somehow ended up in the dense patch of woods that bordered the orchard. “How the hell..?”
I scanned the surrounding wilderness with my flashlight, trying to get my bearings, but I couldn’t locate the orchard or any of its accompanying structures in the darkness. Then, after a bit of what I thought had been backtracking, we ended up at the front steps of the Sawyer house.
It was a rustic white two-story; three if you counted its 6-foot elevated flood-proof foundation similar to a lot of the homes in the area. The space beneath the porch was unlit and pitch-black. Yet staring into it, I could’ve sworn I saw something moving under there.
Erin gestured at the house.
“Guess we might as well say hi,” she said.
Erin started up the steps before I could even begin to mention the many ways in which that might be a bad idea. Without hesitation, she knocked on the front door.
“Shit,” I muttered to myself as I followed her up the stairs. There was a tense beat of silence and then from inside came the sound of footsteps across hardwood floor. The door was suddenly yanked open and a middle-aged woman with gray-streaked hair and the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen was standing there, glaring at us. This must’ve been Darlene.
“You here for the box?” she said, glaring at the both of us.
I experienced a moment of intense déjà vu as Erin replied, “Sort of…”
Darlene leaned outside and glanced around, looking worried. “You better come in then.”
Erin and I exchanged a cautious look as the woman turned and started back inside, leaving the front door open behind her. Erin responded with a shrug that said “fuck it” and then entered the house. As I followed her in and shut the door, I heard something rustling in the bushes outside.