December 21, 1989. It was a cold winter in Halstead this year, but even colder with the constant snow and ice storms that had been plaguing the area for a few weeks now. Of course, the local kids could care less. They loved the snow, they loved the ice, and they loved to be home from school. There was one kid who didn’t particularly like the snow though and Maxine was her name. Maxine loved to draw and read and play with the other kids, but she just hated the snow. Maybe it was too cold, or maybe it was the other kids always blasting her with snowballs; she had a real apprehension for the outside world when winter came around.
On this day however, Maxine was feeling lonely. She saw all of the other kids outside playing and having a good time and she was stuck inside by the fire, watching the embers burn ever so slowly. She had done this enough. She thought, “Maybe ill just go outside for a little while”. With that idea, she laced up her wool covered boots and threw on her thick jacket before she marched out the door.
Tommy, Maxine’s best friend from school yelled to her as she walked out the door. “What are you doing! I thought you weren’t allowed outside!” he said jokingly. She failed to find the humor in that, but nevertheless she walked over to Tommy to see what he was up to. He and the other kids had built several snow caves and were linking them together digging tunnels underneath. She stood quietly and watched for a few minutes but started to feel apprehensive once more. She wondered why she had come outside. Tommy stared at her for a second. “What you don’t wanna build snow caves with us?” he asked her.
“I don’t know Tommy, it’s too cold to be digging through all that snow.” she murmured. Tommy agreed that it was pretty cold, and responded, “Well, let’s go hang out back or something, we can get on the rope swing or whatever”. At this point, she was up for anything. Sitting in the house bored all day was getting to be quite annoying for her, even if the house was warmer than the outside.
She and Tommy walked along the outside of the house, stepping over all kinds of things her dad had forgotten to put away. Hoses, rakes, bags of grass seed, you name it. Her dad wasn’t the neat type to say the least, but he still worked hard around the house when he had time. They made their way around to the back of the building and saw something quite weird. There was a line of trees in the forest outside of her house completely flattened to the ground. “This is crazy” Tommy said. Maxine stared in awe at the partially razed forest, wondering what could have possibly done this. “It’s like a straight line all the way back to Mr. McKettles house” said Tommy. “Do you wanna go back there Tommy?” said Maxine with fear in her voice. “I don’t know, we’ll probably get in trouble if he catches us down by the house again, that old man doesn’t like anyone these days” responded Tommy.
Maxine, in a spout of boredom and curiosity, started walking towards the downed trees. “Maxine! c’mon, don’t go back there.” yelled Tommy. “I’ll be fine Tommy” she said. “You better be careful, Mr. McKettle doesn’t like strangers on his property” said Tommy. Maxine heard what Tommy said, but she didn’t seem to care. Something about the trees had gotten her attention. “What happened?” she kept thinking. She didn’t know what to think.
With the sun halfway gone and her friend Tommy turned back to dig another snow cave, she ventured off into the gnarled forest all alone. The trees were completely flat, like something had crushed them. As she walked along she started to smell something unlike anything she had smelled before. It was bitter and it was just quite strange. Nevertheless she continued. Winding through a maze of forest following the broken trees she started to feel a real sense of fear. She was almost a mile from her house and the flattened trees just kept going. “Where am I going?” she kept repeating to herself.
She saw Mr. McKettles house on the right side of an opening in the forest, but the trees weren’t going in that direction. They were going towards the river. She thought “Well it can’t be too much farther.” She kept walking and walking until she heard the sound of water running and birds chirping. “I must be close” she thought.
She followed the sounds until she reached the end of the trees. There was something wrong. The water in the river was sparkling and popping, and she kept smelling that weird smell, only stronger now. She looked around the last fallen tree for some kind of answer as to why they were all flat on the ground, but she couldn’t find anything. She did see something that caught her eye though. On top of the waterfall leading into the stream she saw a big black rock, the size of a large boulder, but it was jet black. Curiosity had taken over at this point and while she knew she shouldn’t go near the waterfall, something was drawing her in. She felt like something was calling her.
Step by step, she climbed up the rocky ravine and made her way towards the top of the waterfall. Halfway up she heard a noise behind her. Maxine spun around to see what had made the noise, but saw nothing and almost slipped off the rocks into the water. At this point, she was so determined to see this rock she didn’t even care how high she was climbing.
Somehow, after several minutes of climbing and maneuvering, she made it to the edge of the waterfall. As she pulled herself up, and climbed over the top, she heard another noise behind her. She stood up and once again spun around, and once more saw nothing of interest. She passed it off as just her imagination, and stood up on top of the waterfalls edge and stared at the big black rock she had come all the way up there for.
It was magnificent. Completely black, and extremely shiny. She got closer to it and started to examine the rock. It was smooth with a few jagged edges, but other than that it was just a cool looking rock. She walked around to the other side, and to her surprise half of the rock was completely flat. Kind of like the trees she had followed to get there. She put her hand out and felt the smooth side of the rock. It was ice cold and when she took her hand away there was black soot all over it. She wiped it off on her pants, and noticed something underneath where she put her hand. It looked like a letter of some sort, and it was bright yellow. Thinking that there might be something else written on it, she pulled her hand into her sleeve and started wiping the black soot from the flat side of the rock.
There was a word written on the side of the rock, in bright yellow text. “What does this mean?” she thought to herself. “W M D C E” I wonder what this stands for she pondered. Just as she went to touch the letters she heard a scream from behind her. “Get down from there!” It was her father. “But dad! you have to see this!” she yelled back. “I don’t care what it is, get down from there Maxine!” her father retorted.
As she started to climb down, her father said “There’s a big storm coming this way, you shouldn’t be out her all by yourself in the woods. If your friend Tommy didn’t tell me where you went I would be looking everywhere for you!” her dad exclaimed. “Sorry dad” Maxine responded. She climbed towards the bottom of the waterfall and her dad helped her down.
They walked back through the winding forest of fallen trees, and as they got closer to the house, Maxine heard something again. “Maxine…” Maxine turned around quickly to see who it was, but no one was there. “What’s wrong Maxine?” her father asked. “I thought I heard someone call my name” she said.
Her father looked confused but kept walking alongside her until they neared the edge of the forest.
Her mother was waiting anxiously on the other side. “MAXINE!!! I thought I told you to not wonder off by yourself, you could have gotten hurt!” she said. “She’s alright Sarah, she was down by the waterfall, but I told her about not wandering off” her dad said. “Let’s go inside, it’s freezing out here and the sun’s almost down” her mother said.
As the night grew darker and darker Maxine sat by the fire and wondered what the letters on the rock meant. “W M D C E”, it’s gotta mean something, Maxine thought to herself. As she lay in bed that night, strange noises filled her ears. She heard screams and cries from the forest. She couldn’t sleep. She just lay in bed the entire night thinking about what she had seen and heard. Eventually she grew tired and slowly closed her eyes and drifted off. That night, things changed. Nothing would ever be the same.