The Anniversasry

The Anniversary

The creepy old house in my childhood neighborhood is still there, outlying at the edge of a wooded area. It is a one-story, flat-looking building that, even back then, seemed too old and dilapidated. Kids used to say that an old man who chain-smoked and had emphysema hung himself from a rope at the open front door of the home. When I was young, I never saw the old man up close, but my older brother and those in his age group did. They were afraid of him, since he used to chase them out of the street block, holding a .22 hunting rifle.

I had heard that when the old man was young, he had married a pretty girl who had left him only a few months after they moved into the newly built home. They said someone had come in a pickup truck one morning and taken her and a suitcase while he was away at work and driven off. We used to argue about whether it had been a secret lover or a relative of hers she had run off with. One time, two of the most boisterous kids in the neighborhood had even come to blows over the identity of the stranger she had presumably fled with. Rumor also had it that the old man used to beat her often. They even speculated that she had been forced to marry him, since she was too beautiful for him. Some added that he was not really a man, but a beast who had kidnapped her and kept her prisoner. In any case, she was never seen or heard from again. The old man told anyone who asked that she had gone to buy groceries and would be back soon. Nobody knows for sure if this story was true. Still, it stuck over time, and most everyone thought it had actually happened, one way or another, while others said the young wife never existed except in the old man’s imagination. In time, those neighbors who claimed to have seen her either moved out, died, or forgot all about it.

I visited Sammy’s parents in my old neighborhood one Afternoon, a time when I felt somewhat melancholy while living at the other end of town. My wife had gone to stay with her ailing mother to take care of her for a few weeks. She took our two children while they were on school break. I wasn't too happy about the long days my wife and kids would be away. Nor was I too thrilled when my wife, looking me straight in the face, said we needed to take a break for a while and see if things would improve between us.

Sammy was my best friend in my old neighborhood during my childhood. He had died in a car crash when he was only eighteen. The strange thing was that the day he died, he was going to pick me up to go to a party with friends, but my parents had grounded me for having flunked a math test that prevented me from graduating in high school until I did remedial study work. Since Sammy had died, I had been going to his parents' home every couple of years or so to visit. Despite their appearance, they were still relatively healthy. They would smile when they saw me, ask me about my family, and insist that I stay to drink tea. We never spoke much about Sammy, but his presence was felt among us all, as if he were sitting there watching and talking. Then one day, I realized that his aging parents had started calling me, of all things, Sammy. At first, I wanted to correct them, then I remembered he had been their only child, and I didn't have the heart to say anything.

It was a late afternoon, when darkness seemed to rush over what was left of daylight, that I stood up and bid my farewell to Sammy’s parents. "Next time, bring the grandkids along," they said to me. "We always enjoy their visits," I said, "yes, I will." I had left my car earlier near the wooded area, where I’d taken a walk through the trails we used to play in as children. Some people had been using the woods as a dumping site. I had walked past the front of the abandoned house that belonged to the crazy old man who had hung himself, but I did not pay much attention. This time, as it grew darker and I looked at the house, something caught my attention. I saw an ancient model pickup truck slowly approaching. It stopped in front of the old man’s home, but no one came out of it. I stopped walking and stood there watching from a distance. Sometime later, I saw someone get out of the vehicle. I could tell the silhouette of a woman, and then the truck slowly drove off. It was almost pitch dark by now. I took a deep breath and walked forward. The woman stood outside, motionless at the front of the house, staring at it as if waiting for something to happen.

Suddenly, the lights inside the house came on with a faint glow visible through the windows. I stopped a few paces from the woman and was taken aback by her youth and paleness. She turned to look at me but said nothing. Then she looked again at the front door, and said softly, as if speaking to herself: “Just wait and see how he’ll come out to greet me, that dear husband of mine.” I stood there watching, unable to say a word. It felt like I was inside a vacuum, as if the world had stopped moving. Then I heard the door open slowly, letting out yellow-tinged light from the inside. A man’s figure, someone I could not recognize, appeared against the door frame. He held a rope in his hands, and he climbed onto a wooden chair just behind him. He made a loop through a beam above and placed a noose around his neck, letting himself drop as he kicked the chair away with his feet. I could hear the crack of his neck bones breaking and felt a shiver run through my whole body. I wanted to flee, but I couldn’t even move. The young woman, who seemed paler now, looked at me again and said with a sorrowful voice: “He’s a loving husband. Today is our anniversary. Look what he does for me out of pure love every year.” I was only able to recover enough to start heading toward the car, never looking back even once.