Manhunt

Halloween was frowned upon in my church, I think it's frowned upon in most churches, so to give us something to do while all of our friends were trick-or-treating the church would have a Fall Festival. All the kids would wear costumes, the parents would bring cakes, and cookies, and caramel apples, there was a ton of candy, we'd play games...it was basically celebrating Halloween, but we'd have a prayer first.
Our church was surrounded by three other churches. There was a Methodist church across the street, a Catholic church to our left, and one of those churches where the people roll around in the aisles to our right.
The Catholic church was beautiful. It was a three story, stone building, with beautiful stained glass windows lining the sanctuary, and a 100 ft. steeple with a huge brass bell that would toll everyday at noon. I used to wish I was Catholic just so I could see what it looked like inside.
Behind the Catholic church was an old graveyard that seemed to stretch out for miles, and miles. The perimeter of the cemetery was lined with unwelcoming wrought iron fences, entangled with overgrown weeds and ivy. It was creepy.
On the night of our Fall Festival, me, my sister, my brothers, and a few of the other older kids were sitting on the front stairs of our church trying to think of something to do. "Let's play manhunt." my brother suggested. Everyone quickly agreed, but he didn't stop there. "Let's play manhunt in the graveyard."
Simultaneously, we turned and looked through the spiked, iron tips of the fence and into the dark cemetery. This was the worst idea I had ever heard, but of course I was the only one who felt this way. Before I knew it teams had been decided and we were jumping the fence to go hide.
Two days before the Fall Festival, an elderly woman in our congregation died of old age in her sleep. Her funeral was set to take place the day after Halloween, for superstitious reasons I assume.
I was so scared running through that graveyard. After about ten rounds we decided this was going to be the last one. I saw a big tombstone next to a tree and decided I'd hide there. I could hear that my brother was almost done counting, so I ran as fast as I could and dived behind the grave. In mid-air I realized I was falling into a black pit. All of a sudden I slammed into the dirt and looked up to try to see where I was. At the top of the hole I could see the tombstone, I had fallen into a grave.
I completely froze. There was dead silence up above, not even a breeze or the sound of my friends screaming as they played their game. I didn't want to look down, for fear that I'd see someones rotting corpse. I had no idea what to do. So I did what every little girl does when she finds herself alone on Halloween night in someone else's grave. I balled my eyes out.
I came from being frozen with fear to hysterical in a matter of seconds. I was screaming, crying, and pulling on every rock and root I saw, trying to climb out of the hole. It seemed like I was down there for hours when I finally heard someones voice at the top of the grave. "Megan? What happened? How'd ya get down there?"
"I tried to hide behind the tombstone and fell, please get me out." I sobbed.
His hand lowered down and I snatched it up as quickly as I could. He pulled me up out of the grave and hugged me. It was the husband of the elderly woman who had died two days before. "Let's get you back to your parents." he said to me, and walked me over to the church.
I was covered in red clay, and tears were streaming down my face when we got there.
"Megan! Where have you been? What were you doing over in that graveyard?" my mom yelled as I walked into the social hall. I tried explaining, but she cut me off. "I can't believe you could be such a bad example to your brothers and sister! You're the oldest, you shouldn't be trying to get them to run around in cemeteries!"
Apparently, while I was falling into an open grave the rest of the kids saw my mom come outside and ran out of the graveyard before she saw them playing in it. When I wasn't there, they told her I went into the cemetery. She was so mad. She told me to go clean myself up in the bathroom and then to wait in the car until they were ready to leave. So, I did.
The next day we attended the funeral of the old woman. After the funeral service the elders of the church carried her casket next door, and the congregation followed. I was confused as they led us over into the cemetery. When they stopped and set down the casket we were in a very familiar spot, it was the exact grave that I had fallen in the night before.

Bonding Time

During our entire childhood my dad worked as an orthopedic salesman for the Zimmer corporation. His job required him to work long hours and be gone 90% of the time, and the remaining 10% he dedicated to the most important thing in his life...hunting. I cannot even begin to explain how many deer heads have been mounted on our walls throughout the years. We once had a lamp made out of antlers and half of a bear that looked like it was tearing through the side of our house in our living room. Yuck.
My mother and father would fight constantly about his absence in our lives. "You're missing everything!!" was one of her frequent arguments. Eventually, and mostly just to shut her up, my dad decided to compromise. So, he started making us hunt with him. Anyone who knows me knows that I would rather die than hurt an animal, anyone who knows my brothers knows that they've probably killed more animals than they've eaten in their lifetime. They were thrilled at the thought sharing what they already did everyday with our father, and not getting in trouble for it.
One week my dad took them down to Bass Pro Shops, and they stocked up. I don't think they left until they had bought every camouflage item the store carried. Bows, arrows, boots, pants, jackets, vests, hats, gloves, even underwear, which I still don't understand.
I guess when you're super into killing animals for sport you and your friends split the cost of leasing property where you think a lot of game will be. At least that's what my dad and his buddies did. The place they were leasing was about 2 hours away from our house. It was a huge piece of land with a barn to store their 4-wheelers, a forest with a tree stand on every tree, and four lakes, each with it's own duck blind. If hunters had their own heaven, this was it.
When morning came on the day of their outing I thought for sure my brothers were going to die of excitement before they even left the house. They had been up since 7:00 am, waiting for my dad to get ready so they could head out. All of a sudden my dad's beeper started buzzing. The looks on my brothers faces as they realized their hunt was about to be called off was devastating even for me. Sure enough my dad had an emergency at work and rushed off to the hospital leaving behind two sad little boys.
My dad had set up one of those deer shaped, foam archery targets in our backyard. Determined to hurt something, my brothers gathered up their bows and arrows and went outside for some target practice. I decided I'd go with them, mostly because I had never shot a bow and arrow before and wanted to try.
It started out fun. We took turns picking a place on the deer and seeing who could get the closest to shooting it. Then, in the bushes next to the target we heard rustling.
My brothers immediately loaded and pulled back their bows, waiting to end the life of whatever came running out. I can remember watching their weak little arms shake from the tension of the strings, and the sounds of them breathing as if a Velociraptor was about to charge out of the woods. They had almost given up when their prey leaped from it's hiding place, it was my kitten Tommy. Before I could scream "Stop!!" there were arrows raining from the sky. Luckily, they had terrible aim and Tommy ran up and jumped into my arms, unharmed.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I yelled at them.
"We didn't know it was Tommy!" my brother replied "You're not supposed to let her out here anyways!"
This was true, my mom would kill me if she knew I had let her outside.
"I didn't let her out. The door must have been left open."
"Well, we're gonna tell mom you let her out and almost got her killed."
"By you! You're not even supposed to have your bows out here without dad. If you tell on me I'll tell on you, too."
"If you tell on us, we'll shoot you and your dumb cat!" my littlest brother shouted.
"Then I'll have two things to tell on you for!" I shouted back.
I decided I should take my cat back into the house before my mom saw her out there, so I turned around and started walking away. I made it about 20 ft. before hearing the sound of the bow being released. The noise was quickly accompanied by excruiating pain in my leg, I looked down to see an arrow sticking out of my left thigh.
Luckily, my brothers had two different types of bows. The older one had a compound bow, which definitely would have shot the arrow through my leg. But the younger one, who shot me, had an old longbow that only lodged it in about an inch.
I cried for about 10 seconds, and then realized the ass beating my brother would get if I could just make it inside to tell on him. It wasn't often that I truely believed there was no way I could be in trouble for this. I turned around to look him dead in the eye, and not even the tears on my face could mask my smile. I limped triumphantly to my house, up the stairs of our porch, and through our front door.
"Mom!" I screamed, as I flung the door open.
No reply. I limped into the living room, she wasn't there. I yelled up the stairs, she didn't answer. I looked in the kitchen, the dining room, the bathroom, she was no where to be found. Then I heard the metal doors on our basement slam outside. She had gone down to our freezer to get a box of bagel bites to make us for lunch. I went to meet her at the back door, as I walked through the doorway of the kitchen the feathers on the arrow hit the molding and the arrow fell onto the floor just as she walked in.
"Ben shot me in the leg with his bow and arrow!" I yelled, pointing at the cut in my thigh.
She didn't even look at the cut before responding "I saw a cut on your leg earlier Megan, stop trying to get your little brother in trouble."
"What! I have lots of cuts on my legs and they're probably all from him! This one is in the shape of an arrow tip and it's still bleeding. The arrow is on the floor!"
"So, the arrow magically ended up right next to you as I walked in the door?" she asked as she opened the box of bagel bites and laid them out on a pan "Why don't you go play outside and I'll call you when lunch is ready."
"Mom! Ben shot me in the leg and you won't even look at the wound!"
"Megan, just go to your room and calm down. I didn't raise you to speak to your mother like this or to lie to get your brother in trouble."
I was so angry, I picked up the arrow and pushed it in front of her face. "That's my blood, mom! That's my blood!!"

I spent the next five days in my room as punishment for lying about being shot, and for letting my cat outside. To this day my mom doesn't believe that my brother did anything to me.

Burnin' Up

For the past 21 years, my family has been vacationing at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. Our favorite place to stay is Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground. We are not tent people. It's hard to fit six people in a tent, and even harder to keep six people happy in one. Especially if they're my family. This is one thing that my dad definitely understood, so we started buying campers.
Our camper was a 40 ft. white and blue Starcraft trailer with two slides. It slept seven people comfortably and made our camping experience much more enjoyable. But, there was still a problem: driving from Maryland to Florida.
We pulled the trailer with a brand new black Dodge conversion van. It had three rows of seats, the back bench folded down into a bed, there was a TV, separate radios for the front and back of the car, we'd bring a cooler stocked up with food, millions of blankets and pillows, games to play, and books to read. It was as luxurious as you could get for a van stuffed full of people, and my parents really tried to make the trips bearable. But none of this was any sort of comfort as we'd start on the long, long trail to the Sunshine State, and the 20+ hr. drive usually resulted in a three day recovery period upon arrival.
When I was turning 14 my parents asked my sister and I what we wanted for our birthday. "To go to Disney!" was our response. So, they started planning a trip. They booked our campsite for a week at the end of March and we were so excited!
My dad likes to start driving in the middle of the night. "It makes the time go by faster." he always says. A few days before my birthday we were packing up the camper and van and getting ready to leave late that night. It takes me no more than 5 seconds to pack for trips and I hardly ever forget to bring anything. Following my usual pattern, by 4:00 pm I was done packing and really bored. So I started looking around my house to something to occupy my time.
Fireworks are super illegal in Maryland. You can imagine my delight when I came across a cache of 4th of July leftovers in our cellar. I immediately ran upstairs to get my brother and show him what I had found. He was less than impressed, so I grabbed some firecrackers and went off to have some fun.
We lived in a 100 year old farm house, on 16 acres of land, in a tiny little neighborhood across the street from a private airport. Our house was surrounded by a forest that went back and behind our neighbors homes on both sides, it was all our property. I decided to take my fireworks to the left of my house, behind where one of my neighbors lived. She was no less than 70 yrs. old and never left her house so I knew she wouldn't tell my parents if she saw what I was doing.
I might have picked the worst time of year to light fireworks, everything in Maryland was dry and we hadn't had rain or snow in a month or so. I set off a few strings of the firecrackers, but it started to get dark, so I walked home.
A couple hours passed, we were still packing up so we could be on the road by 12:00 am when my dad noticed something strange from our kitchen window. "Oh my God, that house is on fire!" he screamed. My brother's, sister, and I all ran to see what he was talking about. As I looked out the window my heart dropped to the floor. To the left of our house we saw flames flickering over the tops of the trees and a tower of smoke lifting up into the sky. It was the exact house where I had been lighting firecrackers just hours earlier.
My dad was on the phone with the police who said they had already received calls and the fire department was on it's way. All of our neighbors were standing silently in their drive-ways, mesmerized by the glow of the flames. My family walked outside, the smokey smell was so strong it was hard to breathe. "We need to keep packing." my mother stated. And at that we all walked back into our home.
"What's the matter, Megan?" my dad asked, "You look as pale as a ghost. Why don't you go..." I assume he would have finished this sentence with "lay down", but before he had a chance I threw up all over the living room and then collapsed on the floor.
There was a knock at our door that woke me up. My mom was sitting on the floor with me stroking my hair. I could hear my father open the door where there was a police officer standing. "Good evening, sir." his deep voice echoed through my house "I'm sure you know by now that your neighbors home was destroyed by a fire tonight. We just wanted to come by and let you folks know that the elderly woman who lived there was found dead inside the house. We're still not completely sure what caused the fire, but as soon as we know anything we'll be sure to keep you updated."
I started to get nauseous again, so my mom helped me into the downstairs bathroom where I threw up three more times before falling asleep on the floor.
When I woke up I was in the van. They had folded down the back seat and laid me on the bed. There was a bucket next to me on the floor and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol on my stomach. In sickness or in health, we were going to Disney World.
The drive was horrible. It was always horrible, but this time I had my neighbors blood on my hands. I spent the entire ride throwing up. I couldn't sleep. I didn't speak. I just kept thinking about the fire, about our neighbor, about prison.
After around 8 hours of driving we started seeing the signs for South of the Border. I remember one sign in particular making me especially sick "Pedro's fireworks...does yours?" I knew we were going to stop there, my brother's always complained until we did.
When we pulled in I stayed in the car while they stretched their legs and my brother's ran around like jerks. My dad parked at the fireworks stand and went inside to stock up on everything we didn't have in Maryland. I started crying looking at it. My mom came back to the van a few minutes later to check on me and found me hysterical in the back seat. "Oh my sweet girl, I'm sure you'll feel better once we get to Disney." she said in a calming voice, "You don't have to get so upset."
"I'm not upset about that!" I sobbed back at her.
"Well then, what's the matter?"
I started breathing heavier, I could feel my heart pounding as I gathered up the strength to confess to murdering my neighbor. Right as I opened my mouth, my dad opened the door. "I just got a call from Howard," he started, Howard was one of our nosy neighbors "I guess the old lady down the street started an electrical fire from her stove and died from carbon monoxide poisoning from all that smoke."
"Oh, that's so sad!" my mom replied "The poor woman."
All at once I felt the color rushing back to my face, my heart jumped back into place, and I smiled the biggest smile imaginable! I hadn't killed her after all! Not thinking, two words came running out of my mouth. "Thank, God!", I exclaimed.
"Megan!" my mother shouted at me, "I've never known you to be so insensitive."
"Oh, sorry......I'm gonna go pick out fireworks with the boys."