The Darkwood

Chapter 5: The Night of the Scarecrow

Their heads spun from all the memories fooding back. It was as if they had seen the house in The Darkwood just that day. The fve friends laid down in their beds– each at their different homes. All of them, in their own way, knew somehow– that day was only the beginning of something bigger, something darker. One by one, they were able to silence the voice in their head– a voice that said, "Don't go to sleep! There's something wrong!" and drift off to sleep anyway.

Teddy was the frst awaken. Having had a particularly nasty dream about Heather's blood and her red hair fying in shreds, he opened his eyes. Before he could remember the whole dream, it was gone. That was a relief. Teddy welcomed the disappearance of the false visions of the dream world, and looked around his room.

The posters that hung on his wall where American and Korean, as his parents always wanted him to remember his cultural roots, and at the same time not be different from all the other kids. Teddy thought it was funny because he had never been to Korea and didn't really know anything real about it. All he knew was America, and that was just fne for him. He looked down at the toys on his foor and deep down he cringed because he knew he was getting too old for toys;

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but he liked them– they were just so cool! There were little cars, trucks, and even a boom-box that would change into robots and back again. He loved to stage the movies in his head and play them out with the toy robots as they fought each other– because there were good robots, and bad robots. Most of his friends had some too, so he fgured it must be an American thing and not a Korean thing. It didn't really matter– either way they were so cool. As he was looking at the robots and imagining about a new movie scene, one of the robot heads turned and looked at him. It's eyes started to glow.

A thick metallic voice that was either coming from the toy, or speaking directly into his head– he was unsure, spoke, "That's right... You are too old to play with toys, and after tonight you will be so much older than you could possibly imagine now." The voice gave an almost inaudible chuckle.

Teddy sprang from his bed and grabbed the robot. As soon as he touched it, the eyes stopped glowing. Teddy examined the plastic toy. He sat for almost ten minutes looking all over the robot– feeling it, smelling it, tapping the eyes, but there was no way they had been glowing, was there? He dropped the robot to the foor and looked out the window. The trees were moving as if wind was moving them gently, but there was no

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wind. His window was open as it was June and he liked the cool night air, but he could feel no breeze. Despite the lack of wind, he heard leaves rustling and he went to his windowsill. When he looked closer at the trees they didn't look like they were moving at all. Then he noticed that only the leaves were moving– they were quivering and shaking– all of them. The big Red Maple tree was shaking its leaves as if in fright. Out if the corner of his eye he saw movement and looked down. His window was on the second foor so he had to lean into the window a bit and looked down next to the trunk of the tree. That's where he saw something odd– a shadow the in the grass. He looked at it for a while but couldn't make it out from his vantage point. He had decided to put a robe on and go downstairs to investigate the backyard when he noticed something hanging on the Maple tree– but that wasn't right. He looked closer– not on the tree, around the tree like someone was standing behind it and his or her hand was on the bark. He leaned out a little further– his face touched the screen. The hand– it was a hand, then clearly pulled away and around the back of the tree. Teddy jumped when the it moved and banged the back of his head on the window. It was a wooden slide, so as soon as he did that, it started sliding down on the back of his neck causing his chin bang into the sill. He quickly grabbed the edges of it with his hands, pushed it back up, and threw himself backwards onto the