Nov 25, 20173 min read

19 The Woods – The Buyer (2015) by LV Gaudet

It’s later than he planned when Cody walks into the house from the bar in the next town. He stumbles around in the dark of the unfamiliar room, bumping into the coffee table, and finally finds the box he brought in earlier. Rummaging in the box in the dark, he finds the lantern, turning it on. It doesn’t put out enough light to light the room well, but it’s enough to see by. The batteries will have a limited life, so he has to conserve them.

Putting the lantern on the coffee table, he settles himself on the couch, looking around the room tiredly.

“Electricity would be nice. So would a T.V.” He stares blankly at the dark lifeless old tube T.V. “Tomorrow, I see about getting the electricity turned on.”

With nothing else to do, he leans forward and turns the lantern off. Lying down on the couch, he closes his eyes and is soon asleep.

It would have been more comfortable to sleep in one of the beds, but that would just feel weird. It would feel like sleeping in someone else’s bed, because he would be. He isn’t an invited guest in the home of this family from thirty years ago. He’s a stranger.

He has a fitful sleep, the couch making him stiff and sore and his sleep restless. More than once, he wakes thinking he heard noises in the house.

“Just the strange sounds of an unfamiliar place,” he says, closing his eyes again and going back to his restless sleep.

Cody is woken from a deep sleep by a loud thud.

He sits up groggily, startled, looking around the dark room. The moonlight glows in through the living room window, cold and pale.

He looks around confused and disoriented.

“Where am I? How’d I get here?” Then he remembers. The house.

He looks around the dark room, trying to figure out what made the noise

“What the hell, it sounded like it was right here, right behind me.”

Turning on the lantern, he still can’t identify what made the noise.

“Must be the house settling? I’ve never heard a house bang like that.” A sense of unease clings to him. He can’t shake it. He looks at his watch. “Three A.M.”

He gets up, taking the lantern, and moves silently through the house, checking out each room and looking out the windows, ending in the kitchen staring at the closed basement door.

A cold dread tickles at the back of his neck at the thought of going down there in the dark of night.

“What, are you a kid?” he mutters, shaking his head in disgust at himself. He opens the door, peering down into the blackness below, half expecting something to jump out at him. His arm is already reaching for the light as he steps down the first step.

He pulls his arm back. It was a reflex to instinctively search out safety in light. There’s no electricity yet. Descending the stairs carefully, lantern in hand, Cody makes a quick sweep of the basement and quickly returns to the safety upstairs, closing the door behind him.

He returns to the living room, looking around, puzzled.

“Seriously, I could swear it was right there. Right behind the couch.”

Cody returns to the couch, turns off the lantern, and settles in for a restless sleep for the rest of the night.