The Radio by Ryan Anderson (books to read for 12 year olds .txt) 📖

Swinging on a tire swing is the nobleman's daughter. She wears a pretty little dress with yellow daisies on it. Up and down, up and down, up and down she goes. Laughing all the way. The tire holding up nicely for being held up there for 3 years. Satisfied with the situation I turn around to go inside when out of nowhere the radio sitting on the porch suddenly turns on by itself. Now this is no ordinary radio. It was made in 1963 by John Kanter who then sold it to the Caster family.  They owned it for only 4 months when the whole family was murdered by none other than John Kanter holding a large knife. The radio is old and broken so when it turned on it didn’t surprise me too much and when the ad for the carnival in Rome came on I thought it would be a fun idea to go. So I sent Lilly in to get her shoes on so we could go. As soon as she passed through the paint chipped door the radio abruptly stopped. It almost felt as if all the noise in the world was being chained and locked in a cold, damp vault somewhere.

As we got in my ‘67 mustang Lilly was so excited she was bouncing in her black leather seat. The drive to the carnival took longer than I thought and if it wasn’t for the GPS I wouldn’t have found my way through all the twists and turns on the way there. As I thought the drive would never end we arrive at the gates of the carnival. The banner at the top said it was a halloween carnival and the gates were covered in fake blood and spider webs. When we pull up close to them they open slowly with a high creaking sound like if someone scraped their nails on a chalkboard.

As soon as the car passed through the gate the windshield fogs up like glasses if you blow on them and I couldn’t see anything. I hit the brakes and swerved as I heard the loud and shrill screams of me hitting someone. When I get out to see who I hit I see a drunk man holding a rare wine bottle somehow unbroken in his hand. I help him up and make sure he is alright as I apologize multiple times. Finally I get a good look at him and see that he is about 6 foot 3 and is wearing rags for clothes. I figured he was another homeless man and asked him if he needed a ride. He laughs “it's the least you could do after hitting me with your car,” he says. I laughed because it was a very good joke indeed.

He starts to give me directions to wherever it was he wanted to go. Probably some bar so he could get some more to drink. He was a man who liked to brag a lot. In between the weird twists and turns I start to talk about the Caster family and how they were all murdered. It surprised me when he told me that when he was a boy he knew the Casters very well before they died. This made me curious to ask about them like if they were nice people, and if John Kanter had any reason to kill them. But every question I asked about it he would just shut up and not respond. Finally as we were approaching a tunnel I asked him what his name is and just before we entered the large tunnel I hear him say James Caster. As this hit me just seconds later I hear my daughter scream so loud my ears bleed and then it stopped all of a sudden just like that. I slam on the breaks in the dark tunnel and turn my lights on so I can see. But my daughter wasn’t there and neither was James. As I look outside I see the terrifying sight of dozens of bodies hanging from the ceiling by their ankles. each one dripping blood into a little pool on the floor. All with a dead look in their eyes. On the wall was written in a thick dripping blood was the words “I’ve got her. She will die at home just like the Casters.”

I drive as fast as I could right through all the bodies each one hitting the windshield with a sickening thud. Blood everywhere on the windshield. Once I got through the tunnel I couldn’t see anything and to my utmost horror words started to write themselves into the blood. When it was finally done it said “Too late now your mine.” As I get done reading this my car starts going faster and faster until just when all the blood had flown off, the car abruptly turns by itself right into a tree. When the car hit nothing was damaged except the windshield was broken and one long branch was stuck into the car and straight through my head. And on the windshield in the blood that was left were the words “may he rest in peace”

As the police come to the house to get Lilly the next day to tell her that her father died they have to break into the house because no one was answering. Slowly they climb the stairs and hear a subtle quiet noise in the dads room. As they open the door they see the bloody body of Lilly. Covered in a thousand deep gashes and sitting next to a long knife. And a 1963 radio playing one song over and over again. “Hush little baby don’t you cry. Daddy won’t find you before you die”

Publication Date: 11-09-2015

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