The Audubon Lake Diaries

I hate small towns. You can see the same person every time you walk out of your door. How am I supposed to find interesting stories to explore when that same person I saw at the grocery store is the clerk at the library? They know the same things! I cannot get a different perspective or make a new friend.

Sheesh!

The people in this town should be tired of seeing themselves in the same circle of space multiple times of the day. I should not complain. My grandfather is my guardian until my mother and father come back from a secret mission and we have a lot of fun together. I miss my parents when they leave but love the way “secret mission” sounds. Although I cannot tell anyone they are on a secret mission. My grandfather and I just tell people my parents are away on business. The family business.

The family business is researching “questionable occurrences" whatever that may be. The last mission before the current mission was an investigation of a missing house. These things happen quite often, but the public does not get the news because it would freak too many people out. Or they would not believe that it happens and call it fake news. Either way, it was best kept under a tight tongue.

I was told by my parents when they arrived on the scene there was an eerie feeling that the home and the family that lived in it were still present, but there was nothing there. The lot was empty! My dad said you could still see the imprints of the vehicle and the house on the empty lot. He wanted to camp out on the grounds, but my mom objected, and they got a hotel room for the duration of the investigation. She said it still felt like she was intruding on someone’s home. My mom can feel out certain situations that my dad cannot. He has more of a nose for the truth. They work well together I am told.

The empty lot was just the tip of the ice burg. My mom said that as the days went by and they returned to where the house once stood. The imprints of what once was begin to fade. But that wasn't the only thing that was fading. The memories of the family that once lived there to those who knew them were gone too. When my parents first arrived, the neighbors were in an uproar of grief and fear. They thought that one day their houses and families would just disappear. One lady said she used to babysit for the family. The day that the house disappeared she was sitting in the family's living room and fell asleep. The next thing she remembers is waking up on the concrete slab.

I thought that was so funny, but my dad looked at me with his serious face and told me that it was not funny. I stifled my laugh because I had a great imagination, and I could imagine that scene and I felt what that poor lady felt. She must have thought she was going crazy! I forced a sneeze to cover my laugh because I wanted to hear the rest of the story.

On day three of the investigation, some of the other neighbor’s memory became foggy on remembering the family. The dad of the missing family was helping another neighbor out with building his deck. That neighbor’s story changed when asked about who was helping him build his deck. On the first day, the man was sure in his statements and concerns about his neighbor's whole estate going missing. When asked on day three of the investigation, the man could barely remember who was helping him build his deck.

That was not the most fascinating part. When my parents went to investigate the deck, on the first day it was not finished. On day three it seemed that there was progress made. The more progress was made, the more the neighbor forgot. When my parents asked if there was still work being done. The neighbor would tell them some guy was helping him out he met at the hardware store. The missing family's dad owned the hardware store.

My parent visited the hardware store, and you would not believe what they found. Nothing. My mom remembered when they drove into the town that there was an old run-down barn in that spot. The roofed looked like it functioned well but the paint was chipped off and the wood around the windows was rotted. The door hung a little askew, but you could probably still shut it with a little bit of muscle. The barn reminded her of the old run-down barn by the lake she played in during her childhood with my aunt and uncles. She said her brothers used to climb in the rafters on the old wooden beams her father made secure for them to play on. While she and her sister played in the hay her family stored inside of the barn because nothing else could be kept inside of it. She smiled at the memory.

My dad quickly brought me back to the most unbelievable part of the story. I could not believe it at first until he showed me the picture. The spot where the hardware store once stood the old barn was still there. I know I was confused after my parents said there was nothing there, but after further investigation, they found the hardware store. It was underground, still intact. My parents found it when they walked the land looking for clues. My dad found a shiny object on the ground and could not pull it up with his hands. So, he begins to dig around the object with his digging machine until it exposed a hard piece of wood. Using his archaeological device to find caves and objects underground. He determined that the wood piece was a part of a bigger structure.

My parents knew time was a factor because everything the missing family was connected to was disappearing. By nightfall, they had found their way down the side of the structure. The amazement kept coming for me, but my parents had seen so much in their “secret missions” that this was a normal day at work for them.

They lowered themselves into a solid portion in an opening of the structure. They found it was stable and turned on a larger light they had carried with them on the dig. My mom noted how soft the dirt became the farther they dug down. It was as if the dirt was making a way for them to discover whatever was down there. She would tell me all the time that all things were alive, and we should just ask their permission when we use them. I know she was talking to the dirt the whole way down.

When they turned on the light something happens that they never expected. They found that they were in the old run-down barn that served as the hardware store. The barn was in awesome shape to be underground. Better than when they passed by it four days ago. The dirt had not done any damage to the barn and there were no weak spots of rot or anything. When they descended the stairs everything around them went brighter than anything they had ever seen before. My dad had lost sight of my mom and became worried that she had fallen or gotten lost. He searched the brightly lit barn frantically calling her name until he heard laughter.

My mom was back in her childhood old run-down barn. She was playing with her sister and her brother were trying to catch the mice that chewed through a bag of corn they had stored for the deer. She had on her favorite overhauls and was busy talking to the dolls she had made with her grandmother. Her sister was on a swing they had hung from the stable part of the rafters of the barn. She saw their dog, Teeth, and laughed when he came near. They named him Teeth because he could not close his lips due to nerve damage to his mouth, so his teeth were always showing. She bent down to rub Teeth and just like that my parents woke up in the hotel room they were renting.

My dad only remembers seeing my mom interact with something he could not see and walking over to get my mom's attention. He says when he touched her everything went dark and peaceful. My parents quickly drove back over to where the old barn was and found a building being built. They could not understand how this was happening so fast. They were just there yesterday. When they asked the guy over the build how they erected a structure so quickly. He said that his company was building a hardware store for the town. My mom asked where the barn that once stood there had gone. The man said he knew nothing about a barn and that he was hired by the mayor to build a hardware store. My dad checked where they had accessed the barn underground and there was no evidence that they had ever done work there.

My parents visited the mayor. He was the one that contacted my grandfather for the investigation. The mayor remembered my parents but did not remember why they were there. My dad asked about the old barn and the mayor said there was a barn on the outskirts of town, but nothing like what they described.

It did not baffle my parents that everything had changed in a week. They stayed one more day and everything was seemingly back to normal, as it pertained to the resident’s everyday life. The lot where the missing house once stood no longer had the house imprint on it. The man’s deck was finished and the babysitter that was left behind in the missing family's house had moved on to another family with no memories of her last job. She didn't even remember waking up on the missing house's concrete slab. Who could forget that!

I wanted to know what happened to the family and the old run-down barn. My dad said some things can be explained today and others on another day. My mom wanted to return home to check on me, but before she headed home. She made a special trip back to her childhood home just to get a look at what was left of the old run-down barn she used to play in with her siblings.

It is time for me to go to bed and as the record keeper of my family's “secret missions” I dream of the day I can explore and have my own extraordinary stories. Until next time my friends-

- Audubon Lake