The Kids of Orwin Woods

The job at the gas station was a blessing when they called me, but it would become something of a megrim before I finally quit.

I worked the closing shift at the Fill-N-Go for the better part of eight months, and it was eight months of making coffee, stocking coolers, and listening to weary women with too many children argue about what you could and couldn't buy with EBT. My first job was construction, working as a carpenter's assistant since I was sixteen, and after the big layoff during the pandemic, I was tempted to go back. The amount of construction work hadn't changed, but the call for laborers had waned, it seemed. Suddenly, I was forced to look elsewhere for work, and my savings were starting to get dangerously low when the Fill-N-Go finally called me.

The worst part about the job wasn't even the job itself, not really.

The worst part was the walk home when the day was done.

I lived in the Shady Oaks Trailer Court, about three blocks from the gas station, and it just made sense to walk to work. I didn't have a car, it was one of the first things to get repoed when I was out of work, so if I needed groceries or booze or a bite to eat, I was walking. It wasn't much of a problem, I like to walk, but it was the sights that made the walk unbearable, especially at night.

Walking past Orwin Wood in the middle of the night was enough to give anyone the shivers.

Orwin Wood had existed long before the children's home that had given it its name, but the long-gone orphanage was why it was infamous. Established in eighteen ninety, Orwin Children's Home was a place for cast-off children from all over. The rambling plantation home, lovingly donated by Mrs. Orwin before she died, boasted thirty acres, complete with a barn, fields for growing, a pond for fishing and swimming, and a lot of room for rowdy, growing children. At its pique, it had held some hundred and twenty kids and had been a place of new beginnings and fresh starts for many lost boys and girls.

Those were not the reasons it was remembered, however.

The reason it was still whispered about in fireside stories was the fire of forty-two.

By nineteen forty-two, the orphanage had fallen into disrepair. They had some thirty-odd children they were caring for, and the consensus was that the fire may have been set for reasons of insurance fraud. Others claim it was a candle that was left lit after bedtime or a stray spark from the fireplace, but however it was started, the results had been devastating. Thirty people lost their lives in the fire, twenty-five of them children, and that was when the stories began. You could still see the ruins of the children's home as it hulked in the overgrowth, reclaimed by the forest after the blaze, and the area around the hulk was supposed to be haunted. Lots of people had seen ghostly apparitions, hand prints in the dirt on their cars, or had toys glide into the road without warning. The Orwin Woods played into a lot of local legends, and it was widely agreed upon to be a very haunted place.

I explain all this so you understand why I might have been a little eager to get home on my evening walks.

Nothing strange had ever happened to me, nothing besides that feeling of unseen eyes watching you, until last night.

Last night, I got off work to find about a foot of fresh snow on the ground.

It had been expected. I had watched it come down all day as I rang up coffees and gas for customers. I had walked to work through flurries earlier that day and had dressed accordingly. Still, I thought, as I pulled my hood up and turned to lock the doors behind me, that wouldn't stop it from being a cold, wet walk home.

The dark gas station disappeared behind me as I started shlepping home, tonight's cigarette already between my teeth. It's a terrible habit, I know, but it's about the only vise I can afford to have these days. Tonight, however, I was having a hell of a time getting the tip lit. Every time I would lift my lighter to spark it, the wind would pick up and blow my little flame out.

Cold as it was, however, the shiver that passed up my neck had nothing to do with it as I came even with Orwin Woods.

I tried not to look as I walked past, the forest a dark shadow on my left. Like almost any night, I could already feel those phantom eyes as they marked my passing, and I kept my gaze firmly ahead. My Grandma had always told me that when you sense the supernatural taking notice of you, it's best not to let it know you see it. "Some things don't like being seen, Bug. Remember that," she would say, and it made a lot of sense on nights like tonight.

I was still trying to get the cigarette to kindle, but the wind was keeping me from my evening smoke. I put a hand up to block it, but it seemed my fingers weren't even a good enough barrier for the capricious gusts. The unlit cigarette was a good distraction from the creepy woods, however, though maybe a little too good. If it hadn't been for the snow, I would have walked home without incident, but I supposed I could have also unknowingly let something follow me in too.

Suddenly I was done with the games. I was jonesing for a smoke, and I bent almost double as I tried to spark the tip. Three clicks and a lot of cursing later, I managed to get the flame to stick, but as I took that first long drag of gaseous pleasure, I noticed something beside me on the sidewalk.

It was a pair of footprints.

No, not just any footprints, a pair of children's footprints.

I don't mean shoe prints, either. I could count the individual toes on these prints, and there was a line of them beside my much larger ones. I didn't know when they had picked up my trail, and I didn't really care, either. Whoever had made them had disappeared, and I looked around curiously. It was twenty-three degrees outside, so my phone said when I left the station, and I was looking for the kid bold enough to walk barefoot in the snow. There was no one, though, and no footprints going hastily away from mine, either.

I was alone in the snow, though the fact that they had stopped right next to my own let me know I might not be as alone as I thought.

I glanced back, wanting to see if I'd been mistaken, and that's when I saw the second set. They had stopped about five feet behind me, but they were just as plain as the first set. As the wind hit me again, I tried to keep my teeth from chattering. The chill I felt had nothing to do with the weather, and I found my eyes drawn to the new prints as they waited patiently for some sign.

Two perfect pairs of tiny feet, sitting placidly in the powder.

Then, before my eyes, a third set came crunching toward me, and my cigarette made an angry hiss as it hit the fresh snow.

I was running before that third set came even with the second, and this seemed to be the sign they had been waiting for. I heard those bare feet as they slapped wetly at the concrete behind me. My head cried out for caution, it would be very easy to take a tumble out here and get hurt, but my desire to get away was up and my adrenaline was coursing in the face of this formless threat. I slid as I rounded the corner, but my sneakers held purchase as I kept showing my heels. I could feel the burn in my chest as I ran, my breath steaming like a loco as I ran for my life, and I knew if they caught me, I would never see home again. None of the stories I ever heard about the woods spoke of the children hurting anyone, but by the sounds of their ghostly feet, I guessed they weren't trying to sell me cookies.

By the sound of it, there were more than a dozen after me, and I could just imagine the intentions of this legion.

I saw the trailer park coming into sight, but that seemed to be where my luck ran out.

I came off the curb, running flat out, and when I hit the patch of ice, I stumbled and went down hard on my outstretched hands.

I was lucky, I suppose.

If I had hit my head and gone unconscious, there's no telling if I would have ever woken up.

As it was, I just gashed my hands on the concrete beneath. I could still hear them behind me, getting closer and closer, and I walked on my hands and knees until I got across the street and managed to right myself. I was running up the narrow walkway, dashing between the trailers as I saw my faded red one coming into sight. I prayed the stairs wouldn't be icy, and when my foot touched down on the first step, I was rewarded with a groan and the firmness of unfrozen wood.

I darted up the steps, crossed the porch, and rammed the key into the lock as I frantically walked into the entryway. I sighed in relief, I was home, and nothing could hurt me here. I turned to slam the door, the screen door not feeling quite firm enough, but my hand stopped.

I saw my breath as it came puffing out, and it felt as if it were thicker than usual.

There were dozens of footprints in the snow outside my trailer. Some were in the yard, some were on the porch, but all of them led to my front door. It was as if all those kids had followed me home, each of them beckoning to be let inside so they could come out of the cold. I could just picture a dozen or more half-burnt children, the snow falling on their ruined skin, looking hopefully at me as if just asking for a place by the fire.

It was all too much, and when I slammed the door shut, there was a note of finality to it.

I made a mental note that night to try and find a new route home, but the situation, it seemed, fixed itself.

I was awoken at six am the next day by my boss, telling me that Dixie, his day manager, had called to tell him she quit that morning.

"Run off with her damn boyfriend, and good riddance I say. You've been a solid night guy, but I figured I'd offer you a chance to come work days if you want. The position comes with an extra three bucks an hour, but you'd have to start today. Interested?"

I was, and the forest seemed a lot less spooky in the daylight.

I haven't encountered any more phantom footprints after that night, but I'll never forget how the ghostly mob chased me home one cold February night.