GH5 14: Everything Explained.

August 20th, (2024)

9:00 AM

The sun was now up and we were all asleep inside the RV. After Connor's disappearance last night, we couldn't bring ourselves to stay in the house another second, minute or hour, so Dad suggested that we all spend the rest of the night in the RV he'd rented, which we did. Despite everything that had happened last night with Connor vanishing...we had all managed to fall asleep somehow. Kind of like the other night when we all slept together in the master bedroom after the cops left after failing to find anyone lurking in the home or on the property.

Dad and aunt Candace were sleeping in the driver and passenger seats, Chelsea and Adam were sleeping on the sofas, Layla was sleeping on the floor in my sleeping-bag, and Isaac, Emma and i were asleep in the bed in the back room, with Copper sleeping in his puppy-basket on the floor at the foot of the bed.

...

Later, we were all in the house in the dining-room, sitting at the table, with me holding Copper in my arms.

Adam had been the first one to wake up in the RV at 9:00 AM and he had gotten all the rest of us up and requested that we all meet in the dining-room of the house so he and Chelsea could explain everything to us about what had been going on with Connor since they moved into the 19th century home.

"Alright. Time to talk, you guys. I want you to tell us what's going on. What have you been hiding from us about Connor?" Dad said to Adam and Chelsea.

"We owe you that." Adam said. "But in order to do that...we must start by telling you about what happened two weeks after we moved into this place."

"Huh?" Dad said.

"Something happened after you guys moved in here?" Aunt Candace asked.

"What?" I asked.

"It was 2020...and we had just moved and settled into this house. It was our dream-house. Chelsea and i loved it from the moment we first saw it. Then...something happened." Adam said.

"What happened?" Isaac asked.

"Our daughter, Emma, fell out of the second-story window in her bedroom. And we couldn't understand how it happened." Chelsea answered.

"Oh, my goodness." Layla said. "Are you okay?" She asked Emma.

"I'm fine. Although i did have to spend the rest of 2020 in a wheel-chair and with braces on my legs. But other than that, it was nothing major or critical." Emma said.

"She was really lucky. Just broken legs...and some bruises." Chelsea said.

"Was she alone?" Dad asked.

"No, uh...Connor was with her at the time." Adam answered.

"Did he see anything?" Dad asked.

"No." Adam said. "We hadn't been living in the house for more than two weeks when the accident happened. Chelsea and i were devastated. Our kids were like night and day. Emma's always the calmest kid in the room. Connor is-or was at that time-insanely hyper-active. Chelsea had a hard time dealing with it. Later that night while i was in the master bedroom, getting ready for bed, Chelsea came in to talk to me."

"What about?" Aunt Candace asked.

"Emma had just finished telling me Connor pushed her." Chelsea said.

"When, at that time?" Dad asked.

"No. She said...he pushed her out the window." Chelsea answered.

"What?" Aunt Candace asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. She said she was sure of it." Chelsea said.

"Really? Are you sure it was on purpose? Maybe he accidently bumped into you or something." Aunt Candace said to Emma.

"It was no accident." Emma said.

"I agree with Emma. She said she felt Connor put his hands on her back and then he shoved her." Chelsea said.

"He wouldn't do that." Dad said.

"At that time, i believed her. He was the only person in her room with her when she fell out the window. Adam and i both wanted to believe that there was a logical explanation for why Emma would say that. That there was no way Connor would actually do something like that...no matter how hyper he was at the time. But at the same time...Emma wasn't the type of kid who would lie or make up stories like that." Chelsea said.

"When i went to go talk to Connor about what Emma had said to Chelsea...i heard whistling coming from inside his room. I'd never heard Connor whistle before. I didn't even know he could do it." Adam said. "Anyway, i opened the door and found that Connor was asleep in bed, with the covers over his body. I went over to his bed to check on talk to him and he said, and i quote. "He's under the bed". I assured him that there was nobody under his bed, so i got down on my knees and looked under the bed and saw him under it, lying on his stomach. I looked back up at the bed and pulled the covers back, revealing nobody on in it. I then heard the whistling noise again, only this time it was coming from within Connor's open walk-closet. I made my way over to the closet to investigate the matter, but before i could get any closer, i head Connor's voice and i turned to see him standing on the bed. I then went back to investigating the closet, turned it's light on, and looked around inside it for any sign or trace of someone."

"And?" Layla asked.

"There was no one there. I turned the light off, closed the closet-door, went over to Connor, we sat down on the bed, and i told him what Chelsea said Emma had told her about him pushing her out the window and i asked him if he pushed her. Of course he said he didn't. Then he said...The Bog-Man did it." Adam said.

"The Bog-Man? As in the monster he mentioned the other night when we thought someone had broken into the house?" Isaac asked.

"The very same. At the time, i was sure Connor was blaming what happened on an imaginary friend so that he wouldn't get in trouble. But there was another part of me that wondered if there was some other explanation for what was going on inside this house." Adam said.

"The next day we had a child therapist come out to the house to see Connor, which is the same therapist you all saw yesterday. He talked with her about the Bog-Man and how it was a monster living in his closet. Adam didn't think it was fair to Connor, as he said he didn't do it. I thought he was just trying to protect our son from getting in trouble. But we had to take what Emma said seriously and...i just didn't feel like Adam was." Chelsea said.

"Everything pointed to Connor doing it...but something about that didn't seem right. So, i just...i kept looking for another explanation. Two days later, while the kids were at school, i searched Connor's room for clues. I searched his closet, but there was nothing in it. When i looked under his bed, however...i found some of his old drawings. And as i went through them, i came across a weird dusty drawing. A weird dusty drawing of five young boys. There was no way Connor had drawn that picture. And i had no idea who had. It looked too realistic and too old to have been drawn by a 5-year old boy. I decided not to tell Chelsea. I didn't have an explanation for it. And i didn't want her to start worrying about Connor anymore than she already was. I wanted to ask him about it myself. So that night, when everyone went to bed, i went into his room and talked with him about the drawing. I asked him if he did it and he said the Bog-Man did it. I asked him who the Bog-Man was and he said "The monster in my closet". I asked him if it was the same monster that pushed his sister and he said "Yeah". I let him know that there was no monster in his closet. Then he said he wasn't in there now because i was there and he doesn't show himself to grown-ups. I realized that this was all confusing for him and told him good-night and that i loved him. But before i left, i asked him why the Bog-Man didn't show himself to grown-ups. His response was..."He only likes to be around kids". After i left out of Connor's room, i heard the sound of bouncing coming from downstairs and i looked over the railing and saw a red ball bouncing as it made it's way over to the bottom of the stairs. I convinced myself that a draft from an open window had pushed the ball out of the play-room. Kind of like i convinced myself to ignore the whistling in Connor's closet." Adam said.

"Wow, that's...strange. Is there more?" Aunt Candace said.

"I'm afraid so. When we first moved in-before everything that happened with Emma-Connor invented some friends." Chelsea said.

"Invented friends? You mean, like, imaginary friends?" I asked.

"Right. Two boys." Chelsea said.

"Bryan and Timmy?" I asked.

"How do you know their names?" Chelsea asked.

"Connor told me, Copper and Seth about them when we were at the mall. It was while you all were in Sears." I answered. "He also told us about these other six friends he met in 2021 named Alex, Daryl, Danny, Joey, Jeff and Jimmy. I'm guessing their imaginary friends too."

"Yeah, they are." Chelsea said. "But that's not the weirdest thing that's happened since we've been here."

"What do you mean? What else happened?" Dad asked.

"Well...one night in 2022-when Connor was 7-i got up to check on him to see if he was alright. When i opened the door, i saw him sitting in front of his closet, which was open. I knew he had to be looking at something in his closet, so i entered his room, went over to where he was, and asked him what he was looking at. And he said, and i quote, "It's another boy." I figured it was another imaginary friend he'd invented. But i thought that was rather strange that he was still making up friends after he met Seth 2020. Because usually when a child makes real friends, they grow out of the whole imaginary friend phase. But Connor never did." Chelsea said.

"So he met Seth before he made up the other six friends?" Isaac asked.

"Yeah, on the first day of school." Chelsea answered.

"That's weird. Why would you still be making up friends when you have a real one?" Isaac said.

"I thought that too." Chelsea said.

"What was the other boy's name? Did Connor say?" I asked.

"Yeah. He said his name was Jason Batmen." Chelsea answered.

"Did anything else happen after that?" Layla asked.

"Yes. And this one was the most frightening thing of all for me. At least at that time anyway. One day in 2023, while Adam was at work and i was at home with the kids, i heard Emma screaming my name from upstairs. I was in the kitchen, making dinner when i heard her, so i rushed upstairs to see what the big fuss was all about. When i made it to the top, i realized the screaming was coming from inside the bathroom, with the door closed. I sped up to the door and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. I screamed for Emma to open the door, but according to her, she couldn't. Anyway, once i managed to get the door open, i stood there stunned and mind-blown, as i saw Connor floating in the air, naked and wet all over, with his eyes rolled back into his head, and the water in the tub was black. I rushed inside, got a towel, wrapped it around his waist, got him down on the floor, and we rushed out of the bathroom and to the hospital. I told the doctor that my son almost drowned in the bathtub, leaving out the weird, freaky levitating, of course." Chelsea said.

"What did the doctor say?" Aunt Candace asked.

"That he had a clean bill of health and that there was nothing life-threatening to be concerned about." Chelsea said. "Then in 2023, when Connor was 8, he started talking to something in his closet. When i asked him about it, he said the Bog-Man was in there. I was speechless, because he hadn't said anything about the Bog-Man in three years. And then he started having nightmares about the Bog-Man every night this year."

"Did anything become of that?" Aunt Candace asked.

"Nothing, except more therapy for Connor." Chelsea answered.

"Why didn't you call me and let me know what was going on?" Dad asked.

"How were we suppose to do that? We didn't even know what was going on ourselves at the time. We still don't. All we know is that our son is missing and he's out there somewhere with a lunatic, probably scared out of his mind." Adam said.

"You've ruled this as a kidnapping?" Layla asked.

"Well, what else could it be? Kids don't just disappear from their bedrooms without a trace in the middle of the night." Adam said.

"That's true." Aunt Candace said. "So what now?"

"Now we get up and get dressed for the search party. The sheriff, cops and towns' folk will be here any minute." Adam said.

"I second that notion." Chelsea said.

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