It was 1980. I was eight years old and my parents were looking into buying a new house. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about it. I wasn’t like other kids you hear about who freak out because they’re leaving their friends or whatever though. I didn’t really have friends. It’s just that I liked my old house and my old neighborhood. Plus I really wanted to just stay home and play my Atari instead of running around from house to house for weeks.
But we were moving anyway. My parents had dragged me to a house they had picked because it was walking distance from a nearby school. It was painted a weird tomato-red, and I didn’t like the look of it. But it really was a nice, pretty town, looking back on it. Lots of big trees, old quaint houses and friendly neighbors. There was even a good-sized forest with a campground at the edge of town. But I never really noticed at the time. Shame, really. I wish I could go back there.
My parents were pretty much sold on the house and I doubt they needed any more convincing when they asked the realtor if there was anything else about the place they needed to know.
The realtor looked a little hesitant to answer. He was an older black man in a nice suit and had a pretty obvious bald spot.
Eventually he said, “…Well, there is one thing you oughta know.”
“What, does the roof leak?” my dad asked jokingly.
“No, nothing like that.” He cleared his throat and adjusted his collar before answering. “…Do you folks… believe in magic?”
Both my parents looked at the realtor incredulously. “Are you serious?” my mom said.
“I’m afraid I am, ma’am. …Y’see, most people don’t stick around here too long. It’s nothing to do with the house, per se, but…”
“Hey now,” my dad said, “you’re not saying the place is haunted or something?”
“Oh no, no! But uh, you do sort of… have a… resident spirit, you might say.”
Suddenly I was interested. “Really?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry, he’s harmless.”
“Then why do people leave?” I asked.
“Can’t imagine. Maybe they just get tired of him,” he shrugged. “One time we found the house completely empty. Didn’t put it up for sale or anything.”
“Oh come on, now, we don’t believe in any of that kind of thing,” my mom said, kneeling down and putting her arm around me. “The house is wonderful,” she said to the realtor, “we’ll take it.”
“Sure thing, ma’am, just wanted to make sure you knew before you signed anything.”
The paperwork was brought out and taken care of. We were practically moved in already. Before leaving, the realtor did have one more thing to add.
“By the way, his name’s Ricky, and he’s great with kids. Just don’t make him mad. He can be a little funny.”
We left soon afterward to go back to our old house and start packing. Before we got in the car, I looked up at the house again. I could swear I saw a pair of large eyes in the window staring back at me.
...
About a week later we moved in. Most of our knick-knacks and stuff were still in boxes. I was lying on my bed scribbling with crayons on a pad of paper, wishing my Atari was hooked up.
I sensed something was in the room with me. I looked up, and there standing over my bed was Ricky.
Ricky was a raccoon. A seven-foot-tall raccoon standing on two legs to be exact. He was dressed in an oddly-patterned yellow shirt, and a pair of striped pants held up by rainbow suspenders. There was a strange little red hat on his head and an inexplicable short beard on his chin.
I didn’t scream, but I did gasp and drop my pad of paper. He stared at me with a blank expression. For about a minute he didn’t speak.
Finally he said, “You must be new around here.” He had an odd sort of cornpone accent.
I didn’t reply.
“My name’s Ricky, Ricky Raccoon. What’s yours?”
He held out a paw for me to shake. I drew back.
“You don’t need to be scared of me. I just want to be friends.”
I still didn’t answer. His arm dropped back to his side.
“There hasn’t been anybody in this house for so long. I’ve been very lonely.” He looked down at the floor, his entire body drooped. Then he looked back at me. “…Won’t you tell me your name?”
“Mooooom?”
He jumped, glancing at my door, and with a strange sort of blooping noise, vanished.
My mom didn’t believe me when I told her about Ricky. I don’t blame her- he sounds pretty far-fetched, and I couldn’t begin to describe him thoroughly back then.
I didn’t see him again until a few days later, when I was starting to wonder if I had just dreamed it. I was on my backyard swing and suddenly he was there, just sitting in an old sandbox that came with the house. He was building a sandcastle and failing at it.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Um,” was all I could say.
“But I bet it could be even nicer, don’t you think?”
He looked up to the sky, and in an instant the clouds disappeared. The sun shone brighter. But to me it was a little too bright. It wasn’t natural.
“How about that, eh?”
I still wasn’t sure about him. So far he hadn’t done anything wrong besides creep me out, and I could tell he was trying to get on my good side. Maybe this sort of thing worked with dumber, more trusting kids.
“C’mon, kid, this is too nice a day to just sit around,” he said as he stood up. “Get up and move!”
Out of the blue he stood up and started dancing. It wasn’t even very good dancing, but the strangest part was that somehow he was doing it to music. Over-the-top dixieland music with random sound effects that was trying too hard to be wacky and silly. I could hear it all around me, and yet it seemed to be coming from nowhere.
“C’mon, kid, get up on your feet! Don’t just sit there like a bump on a log!” He danced toward me and grabbed my wrists, trying to pull me off the swing. I wouldn’t let him.
“Listen- kid-” he said between grunts, “I just- don’t want you to- get fat and lazy! You don’t- want that, do you?”
I could see the clouds slowly roll back in. The wind picked up. I pleaded with him to let me go. Seeing that I wasn’t going to cooperate, he did. The weather seemed to settle back to the way it was before he changed it.
“What’s the matter with you, kid?” he asked, his hands planted on his hips. “Don’t you wanna play with me?”
I couldn’t articulate why I didn’t, so I only said, “Not that way.”
He seemed to brighten up again, and crouched down to my eye level. “Is it because you don’t like dancing?”
I didn’t know how to answer.
“Well, why didn’t you say so? How do you like to get exercise?”
“I… um… I dunno. Just… running around, I guess.”
“Say now,” he said, snapping his fingers. “That sounds like a good idea!” He stood up again. “First one to that tree and back wins!”
He took off without pausing to see if I wanted to or not. I felt too pressured to not go along with it, so I awkwardly ran after him.
Seconds later we were back at the swing. Ricky got there first.
“There now, isn’t that more fun than just sitting around? I bet you could even beat me next time!”
My mom called me in for dinner and he vanished again.
...
The next time I saw him was my first day at the new school. I was walking the sidewalk (the school was only a few blocks away) and I stopped at an intersection.
“Are you looking both ways before crossing?”
I gasped and turned with a jerk because I didn’t realize he was standing right next to me.
“I hope you’re not one of those dumb kids who let themselves get hit by a car,” he said dully.
This time I was really annoyed. “Why do you keep following me??”
His brows furrowed for a split second like I hurt his feelings. An instant later he smiled broadly.
“Your first day at school can be a toughie. I thought I might help.”
I tried to ignore him and looked both ways like he wanted.
“Be sure to listen for traffic,” he said, mantra-like.
I wanted to glare at him with a raised eyebrow, but for some reason I resisted it.
Everything was clear, so I stepped off the curb. Imagine my surprise when he reached out and grabbed my hand tightly, like he was my mom or something. I supposed he was trying to be comforting, but his grip was hard and his paw felt like old cloth. My throat tightened and I wondered if anybody was seeing this. All hell would break loose if the other kids at school saw me holding hands with a giant raccoon.
He suddenly stopped in the middle of the street and pointed towards the sky- he did it so fast I couldn’t stop in time and got yanked backwards.
“LOOK!” he shouted giddily, eyes twinkling.
I obeyed and saw a flash of something streaking across the sky.
“It’s a red-tailed hawk!” he said, swiveling and dragging me the other direction. “Let’s go!”
“W-w-where are we going??”
“C’mon, its nest has gotta be somewhere in the woods!”
He was running so fast my sneakers were scraping the ground behind him, and we soon arrived at a wall of thick twisted trees, dotted with reddish leaves.
“But what about school??”
“Aw, we can go to school any day,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go have some fun!”
“But I’ll get into trouble! What will Mom say?”
He stopped when we reached the edge of the woods. He turned to look at me with his hands on hips again, theatrically tapping his foot.
“Who wants to go boring ol’ school,” he said, glassy-eyed, “when we can play in the woods?”
His gaze was more intense than usual, even though it didn’t betray any emotion.
“The woods aren’t that great,” I said, unable to think of anything else.
“Humph,” he over-enunciated, his head flung back and his chest thrust forward like the sound forced its way out. “Shows what you know.”
Then his nose scrunched up like he had an idea.
“Look, Harvey!” he yelped, jumping up and down. “I’m a forest ranger! The red-tailed hawk needs our help, and we need to rescue it!”
I just stood there staring at him, confused. He stared back, leaning towards my face, hands in the air.
“Harold? Henry? Your backpack has an ‘H’ on it.”
“Howard,” I mumbled.
“HA!” he burst out, making me wince. “I finally got your name! I gotcha now!” He jumped around some more. “You’re Howard the boy scout! And only you can help me save the red-tailed hawk!”
He turned around again and grabbed my arm.
“I don’t want to go,” I said squirming.
He only looked back at me for half a second, but his brows were arched with anger and his eyes seemed to light up.
“Come. On.”
He pulled my arm even harder, twisting my wrist bones and giving me an Indian burn. If he didn’t give me a reason to be scared of him before, he did now.
The clouds above us seemed darker than before. For about half a minute he merely continued to force me deeper in the woods, not looking at me.
Then he snapped his head around and gave me a stare similar to the one before.
“I don’t know why you don’t like me,” he said with tightened lips. “I just want to be friends.”
He seemed to perceive my fear. His expression softened and he turned away from me.
He stopped moving and let go of my arm, and slumped his shoulders with his back towards me. He hung his head, staring at the ground.
A drop of water fell on my hand. I looked to the sky again, and I saw that it was beginning to rain.
The raccoon swung around and faced me once more. He still looked mad, but now his squinting eyes were moist.
“Nobody seems to want to be friends with me for long. They all move away.”
Somehow I didn’t want to feel sorry for him, but I did. A small part of me felt disgusted with him- and myself- and it left a sour taste in my mouth, like when my mom would make me feel guilty for cleaning the dishes for me. His hat became even droopier as it got wet with the rain.
“I’m sorry,” I heard myself saying.
His eyelids opened up.
“I can make it snow,” he said. “I can make the school close. For as long as you want.”
“Tha-that’s okay. I like going to school. I don’t mind.”
He fell silent for a moment. “Alright. I get it. You like learning.”
He stood there, both of us starting to get soaked.
“Here. You should take an umbrella.” He held out his hand, and a polka-dotted umbrella appeared in it. He gave it to me. “You don’t want to catch cold.”
I started walking backward, keeping an eye on him. When I was sure he wouldn’t follow me, I turned and sprinted away back towards school.
“Will you come play with me after you get back home?” he called after me, but I didn’t answer.
...
My first day was pretty uneventful. When the teacher saw me come in dripping onto the floor, she dried me off with a towel, and then she introduced me to the class. That was about it.
Well… except for the bully. I don’t think it matters who he was or what he did. He was big and stupid and pushed me around. Not very original.
I was pretty used to bullies by then, but after the whole thing with Ricky, I was pretty raw. You know, emotionally. So at recess I wound up sitting on a bench and crying my eyes out.
Ricky appeared again, sitting next to me.
“Whatsa matter, kid?” he said, laying a paw on my shoulder, startling me again. I suppose I should have gotten used to him sneaking up on me, but then again, who could?
I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. “Leave me alone.”
“It’s okay, kid, you can tell me about it. Maybe I can help.”
I looked up at him. Something in his eyes told me he was genuinely concerned about me. I told him what happened.
A trace of anger entered his expression. “Where is he? Point him out to me.”
After a second or two scanning the schoolyard, I pointed at him. “There. By the jungle gym.”
“The one in stripes?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.” He patted my back.
“What’re you gonna do?”
“I’ll make sure he’s sorry.” He disappeared, and that’s all I heard of him for a long time.
A few days later there was a story in the newspaper about one of the local children going missing. I immediately recognized his photo as the kid who had bullied me. He had been gone for 48 hours already.
Several theories ran through my head. The one that seemed the most likely was that Ricky had led him into the woods and left him there. From what I’d seen of him so far, it would have been something he’d do.
…I wish.
I was half right- a day later they found him in the woods. But he was dead. All signs pointed to the cause of death being a lightning strike. There were burns on his skin, and his autopsy showed he had a severe heart attack. The plants surrounding his body were scorched black.
The trouble was, there never was any thunderstorm. In fact, there hadn’t been an inch of rain since that first day.
I felt sick to my stomach listening to my dad read the article. I knew exactly what had happened. I couldn’t think of what to do. What could I do? I couldn’t tell anyone about it. A sort of awful helplessness sunk in next to my disgust.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I saw Ricky again, but I did know that any chance he had of being my friend was gone.
It was about a week afterward when I did see him again. I was digging up weeds with a trowel- it was my chore for that week- when I looked up and saw him staring at me from the other side of the front yard.
“Hey, good work keeping the lawn looking nice.” He gave me the thumbs up.
I smiled weakly.
“I’ve got a present for you.” He held out his hand and a big red bicycle with an oversized bow tied to it appeared next to him.
“I even got you a helmet.” He brought his hands together, and the helmet appeared in them. “Safety first, as they say!”
“…I don’t want it.”
He looked hurt. “W-- why not?”
“You killed him.”
He just stared at me blankly. I don’t think he understood. “But I thought you didn’t like him.”
“Of course I didn’t like him.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
My mouth hung open and I shook my head in disbelief. “You- you can’t just… kill people!”
His attitude changed and he became more serious. “He deserved it. He made you cry.”
“Nobody deserves to be murdered!”
“But-”
“Just leave me alone!”
I turned away from him, and we both stood in silence.
“I only wanted to be your friend,” Ricky finally said. I think he might have been holding back tears. “I tried playing games, I tried giving you nice things. I even got rid of a bully for you. What more can I do?”
I didn’t answer.
“They always run away. Even when I do make a friend, they run away. You’re not going to run away too, are you?”
I still didn’t answer.
“Please, let’s just make up and pretend this never happened.”
I heard footsteps, and I turned around to see him walking toward me.
“Whaddya say? Hug?” He spread his arms towards me.
Suddenly I was scared. My heart pounded. I couldn’t let him get near me.
“Get away from me,” I said, taking a step backward.
He started walking faster, closing in. “Don’t be silly, I just want a hug.”
“G-get away from me!” I yelled, but mid-sentence his huge arms surrounded me, and in a blind panic, I took the trowel in my hand and plunged it into his stomach.
He screamed in pain, and I managed to slip away, the trowel still pointed towards him in case he came for me again. Doubled over, he clutched at the wound, his eyes screwed shut and grimacing. I was shocked and disturbed to see what looked like sawdust pouring out of it, dark and heavy. He growled with each heavy breath.
The flow of sawdust slowed to a trickle, but didn’t seem to stop completely. Likewise his growling slowly lessened. I stood my ground.
Suddenly his eyes opened. Still bent over, his awful gaze was aimed straight at me. His eyes seemed to flash with a fiery rage, tears streaming down his face. His lips curled in a snarl, revealing gleaming white fangs. Above us dark storm clouds formed.
“What the hell, kid??”
I wheeled around and bolted towards the back door.
“YOU CAN’T RUN.” he shouted after me.
The rain began in an instant, coming down hard like a cloudburst, but somehow I knew it was going to last longer than it should. Through all the noise of the rain and thunder, I could make out that strange blooping sound.
He appeared in front of me in a flash of light and grabbed me by the neck, lifting me off the ground until I was at his eye level. I tried to pry off his paws but they were tightening their grip, his claws digging into my skin. I struggled and kicked, but he held me up like I weighed nothing, and I was forced to look into dilated pupils that were burning with hate.
“Why won’t you love me?!” he snarled through his teeth.
I managed to kick him in the stab wound, and he screamed even louder and dropped me to the ground. I scrambled on my hands and knees and reached the back door and slammed it behind me.
My mom was there in the kitchen with a spatula in her hand, staring at me and clearly worried.
“Was that you screaming, sweetie? Are you hurt??”
We suddenly heard the deadbolt on the door locking itself.
I tried to undo it, but it wouldn’t budge. Then I heard the muffled sound of the front door locking.
My mom looked at me with utter confusion, but then Ricky appeared.
She gave a terrified gasp and dropped her spatula. Ricky stood rigidly in the kitchen doorway, his head just reaching the top, fur soaked to the skin and dripping onto the floor. In the increasing darkness as the clouds outside cast shadows through the windows, his eyes faintly glowed white, while his chest heaved and he rumbled in his throat.
“You’re going to play with me,” he breathed.
He stomped towards me, and my mom grabbed a meat tenderizer and aimed for his head. Despite some heavy blows he growled and grabbed her by the collar and flung her against the sink and knocked her unconscious.
I looked helplessly at her as I was pulled by the arm and dragged into the hallway and up the stairs towards my room. I could hear the wind howling outside as he tossed me onto my bed like a discarded jacket.
He slammed the door behind him and towered over me. Lightning flashed and highlighted the scowling lines in his face. I thought for a moment he was going to pounce me and tear me to shreds, but his lips became tightly pressed together even though nothing else changed.
“So a bike’s not good enough,” he wheezed.
With a squeak a teddy bear suddenly appeared in his hands. He threw it at my face.
I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t.
“No?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Of course not.”
This time it was a toy truck. He threw that one at me too, and I instinctively shielded myself with my arm. The hard plastic bruised my wrist.
“How ‘bout that one? No? What about this?”
Then he threw a checkerboard, pieces and all, which scattered all over the bed and floor. Then a toy robot. Then building blocks. A model airplane kit.
He kept this up for a whole minute at least, and had stopped talking. The toys were becoming increasingly harder and heavier, but I was too terrified to move, should he attack me if I tried to escape. He started to cry and growled with every toss, and thunder continued to crack in the sky.
I’m not sure if he noticed, but I could hear my dad’s car pull up into the driveway. My eyes turned towards the window, which he spotted. His eyelids grew wider.
“Let’s play a different game,” he said with feigned enthusiasm.
I felt a glimmer of hope as I heard my dad’s footsteps on the front porch. I could just barely hear his keys jangle. “He won’t get in, I locked the door,” said Ricky, and he forced me off the bed and towards the closet.
He reached in at the shelf above the coat rack, and deep in some corner behind my box of crayons he pulled out a pile of paper, most of them yellow and faded. I could hear my dad struggling with the lock.
“I drew a picture of you,” he said with a fake toothy smile. “I was going to give it to you for your birthday. But it’s never too early, is it? Especially since you’re leaving soon?”
I couldn’t speak.
“This is me and you, Howard,” he said with a quiver, “We’re best friends.”
I looked at the drawing and saw a sloppy scrawl that only vaguely resembled me. It seemed rushed and uncertain, and the drawing of Ricky standing next to me was strangely small. Smaller than I was, in fact.
My dad was pounding on the door, probably thinking it was stuck.
“Every one of these is one of my old friends,” Ricky continued, flipping through them. “But they never loved me. Some of them said they did, but they were lying.”
My dad called out my mom’s name.
Each of the drawings was older and more wrinkled than the last, all of them just as messy. But Ricky seemed to keep getting smaller.
“This is Fergus. He lied to me. But we played some wonderful games. And this is Patricia. She liked hopscotch.”
My heart jumped when I heard my mom’s voice, on the verge of panic.
“Honey? What’s wrong? Why won’t the door open?” my dad answered.
“There’s some kind of… thing in the house! It’s got Howard, and I don’t know where he is!”
Ricky made my dresser move by itself, blocking the door.
“Did you hear that? It sounded like it came from Howard’s room!” my mom cried.
“Call the police! I’m gonna break down the door!”
Ricky clutched the drawings harder as if a surge of emotion went through him, making them crinkle. The wind blew harder and a tree branch outside the window smashed through the glass. I wanted to call out to my parents, but I was afraid Ricky might rip out my throat.
So I stood there petrified, while he flipped through the pages faster and faster.
“And Gene. And Franklin. And Judy. And Billy.”
I heard my dad ramming the door, and my mom calling the police.
Suddenly Ricky stopped at the last page. His hands trembled and all the others were dropped to the floor.
He started laughing, slowly at first, but it rose higher and louder until it was hysterical.
“…This!” he choked, “Th- th- this is--”
His eyes widened as far as they could get.
“This is the first,” he said as if he couldn’t breathe. “This is Ned. He was my best friend of all. And I was his best friend. His only friend. I remember--”
For a moment he couldn’t continue.
“…I remember when we first met. It was Christmas.”
I stared at the drawing with total incomprehension. Ricky was small enough to sit on Ned’s lap. It was different from the other drawings- neat and detailed.
“But he moved away. And left me here.”
With a smash I heard my dad break the door down. Ricky turned toward the sound. He looked panicked, and a second later he teleported again.
I jumped up and tried to move my dresser away from the door, but it was too heavy. I could only budge it an inch at a time.
There were more sounds downstairs. Things falling over and breaking, indistinct yelling and scuffling of feet. I later learned that my dad was fighting with Ricky.
I got my dresser clear of the door, and unlocked it. At the same instant the sounds stopped. All I could hear was the storm. I creeped slowly towards the stairs.
At the bottom of the steps was Ricky. He stared up at me, his breathing ragged. I could only see his silhouette and the gleam of his eyes piercing into me in the darkness.
Another flash of lightning, and I could see his face more clearly. In the few seconds it was visible, I saw a different Ricky. He didn’t look angry. There was an almost crazed desperation in his expression. His hands were partly clenched, turned upwards towards me, trembling. Like he was begging. Pleading. Frightened.
I was still scared out of my wits, but I was confused. I didn’t know what to think.
I stiffened as he made a move for the stairs. For all I knew he might’ve been coming to kill me, even in this state.
Then the sirens began. Ricky turned and froze, listening. Red and blue lights soon shone through the windows. Then he turned back to me.
The lightning again illuminated his face, and I saw him at his lowest. A look of utter, dismal disappointment. By the time the lightning had passed, Ricky was gone.
...
The next day we were in the car, heading out of town. My dad’s arm was broken, so my mom was doing the driving. We had only packed a few of our things, and were en route to the first hotel past the city limits, where my dad was going to call the movers to pick up the rest of our belongings. In the meantime the police were on guard at our house.
As we passed the “You Are Now Leaving Fallbrook” sign, I saw a face peeking over the edge and barely visible fingertips. It was him. My heart jumped for a second, but then I noticed- he wasn’t following us. I wondered why.
His face, disheveled and worn, had tears staining his cheeks. He wasn’t angry- just sad. Almost sorry.
My parents didn’t see him.
For a long time I tried to forget Ricky, but lately I’ve been thinking of him again. There were brief moments before the- well, incident- when I half-considered letting him make friends with me. Back then I couldn’t put my finger on why I did. Maybe he just didn’t know how to make friends? I’d seen that sort of thing on TV. Nowadays I understand.
I wonder if he ever did learn how.

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