A Halloween story inspired by childhood memories
Abel Fonseca, II, is a lifelong San Benito resident and community advocate who has served students and families for more than two decades. Through his “Heart of San Benito” series, he shares stories that celebrate the people who make the Resaca City special. He can be reached at abelfonsecaii@hotmail.com.
Some childhood memories never leave you. You grow older, life moves on, and the places you once knew start to change. But every now and then, something takes you back to a moment you still cannot fully explain.
For me, that memory begins on Oscar Williams Road in San Benito.
In fifth or sixth grade, my friends and I stayed up late on weeknights. We loved being outside at night. We played hide-and-seek in the woods, hid in dark places, and dared each other to explore. Darkness never really bothered us.
But one house stood out.
Across the railroad tracks from my house stood a large, two-story house. It was old and abandoned, and no one seemed to live there. Today, Vicky’s Restaurant stands where that house once stood.
Back then, though, the house had a strange habit.
Almost every night, around two in the morning, a light would turn on from the side of the building facing my house. It wasn’t the porch light. It was on the side of the building, and as far as we could tell, it was the only light in the whole house.
It would turn on, then off. Sometimes it stayed on just long enough for us to notice before going dark again.
We would look across the tracks and wonder the same thing. Who was turning on that light?
Usually, there were six or seven of us, including my brother Tyler and our friends Richard and Donny. One night, our curiosity finally got the better of us, and we decided to find out what was inside that old house.
We crossed the railroad tracks and headed toward the house.
Up close, the house looked even bigger. Its windows were dark, and the whole place seemed abandoned. We walked around the outside, looking for signs of occupancy, but saw no one.
Then we found an open side entrance.
Naturally, we went in.
The place was a mess. Old checks, empty bottles, trash, and other debris were scattered around. It looked as though people had left things behind years ago and never returned.
At first, we explored as any group of curious kids would do. We looked around, talked among ourselves, and tried to figure out what the house might have been used for. Then we started hearing noises.
They seemed to come from different parts of the house. Sometimes the sounds were faint, and other times they made us stop and listen. It almost seemed as if the house itself was trying to speak, but we couldn’t understand what it was saying.
We kept exploring anyway.
Stairs led up toward the roof. One of my friends decided to climb them, but partway up, a stair broke beneath him, leaving him stuck. We had to help him down.
That should have been enough excitement for one night, but it wasn’t.
As we made our way through the house, I came across a somewhat hidden door I hadn’t noticed before. I opened it and looked inside. There were wooden stairs leading down.
They were narrow and seemed to go deep underground. I tried to look down, but I couldn’t see where they ended. The darkness below was so thick I couldn’t make out what waited at the bottom. And then I felt something.
I was alone at the door when I first opened it. For a moment, I strongly felt someone was staring back at me from down those stairs.
I couldn’t see anyone: no face, no figure, nothing I could point to and say, “There it is.”
It was just the feeling that someone was there. I wanted to know what was at the bottom. Part of me wanted to go down and find out, but another part of me wanted nothing to do with those stairs.
For the first time that night, I couldn’t bring myself to take another step. My friends eventually came over to see what I had found. When they gathered around the doorway and looked down, everyone went quiet.
Nobody said much at first.
Finally, I asked, “Who wants to go down there?” Nobody volunteered.
….To be continued in next week’s edition of the San Benito News.