Brent Jackson
Josh had lost everything in a single moment. It all fell like a house of cards. If only he had been able to grab a hold of little Zachary before he lost his balance. Unfortunately there was no way to correct the past, and he would always have to deal with the pain of his loss. Zachary was only the beginning, one by one he lost his entire family, and he had no one to blame but himself. He was alone in life and alone in the old house, and he didn’t like being alone. There was an empty sound in the rooms that didn’t quite fit his needs, but that was about to change, as the distant sound of a harmonica began to play. He knew the sound, he knew the song, and he knew who was playing it. The sound grew and echoed through the house, it surrounded him and felt like it was apart of him. Zachary had come home, finally there was family in the house, family that had come home again, family that had returned from the other side.
Brent Jackson: Brent has been writing for over twenty years and has started down the publishing path only recently. He has three more titles to get out, along the same format as "First Room on the Right", mainly targeted for junior high school age and up. He is currently working on a book of short stories for a more mature audience called Psychotic Tendencies were everything is not always as it seams. Brent also is working on a book called The Haunting of Hillside about a school and the children who died there, that remain trapped within its walls.
There were five of them, Josh being the oldest of the three kids. His mom and dad were loving parents who spoiled them whenever they had the money. They weren’t poor, just not wealthy. The littlest was Zachary, a dark headed child who always wore a smile, not to mention about a ton of dirt pounded into his clothes from playing in the back yard. There they had all worn the grass away playing on the tire swing under the giant oak, which stood in the middle of the yard.
Samantha was three years younger than Josh and, though considered pretty by most everyone with her long black hair and dark green eyes, she was his sister and, of course, it was his job to put her down at every opportunity. Sam knew though that Josh did love her because after all, she was his sister. Definitely the brain in the family, she was also the most mature, and though Josh didn’t realize it at the time, a lot tougher than he gave her credit for.
Josh was the oldest, named Joshua after one of his father’s dearest friends whom Josh had never met. It would seem that he had the hardest time in school having to work for every grade he received. It was kind of ironic that Josh would be the only one of them to go off to college and receive his degree. He had always thought Samantha would be the only one capable, and had things gone a little differently, he was sure that they all could have made it, but unfortunately it just wasn’t meant to be.
When Zachary was just seven years old, he accidentally hung himself on one of the rope ladders that they used to get to their club house that was high up in the old oak.
The accident (though he had no idea then) changed all of their lives forever in the most drastic ways. Their parents were sitting in the front room reading while Zachary, Samantha and Josh were out back in the old oak climbing the ladders and playing on the rope swing. Zachary had gotten a little brave and was walking out on a limb about half way up with Josh directly below him. Josh yelled to him that mom and dad would skin him alive if he didn’t stop what he was doing and get down. But being seven he thought he knew what he could handle, and what he couldn’t, unfortunately he didn’t!
The next second Josh saw him losing his balance and falling backwards. From that point on, to the end everything felt like it was in slow motion. Josh screamed Zachary’s name so loud everyone in the neighborhood must have heard it. Zack, while falling back, made the fatal move of trying to turn his body so as to break his fall, but the rope ladder was behind him and couldn’t completely take his weight as he fell on it. After Josh screamed, his legs went into action, but unfortunately his hands didn’t work too well. Zack’s neck hit the rope ladder just as Josh grabbed hold of his ankle, but when the far side of that ladder gave way, it jerked his ankle from Josh’s hands and tightened around little Zachary’s neck. Although he was able to get him off of it immediately afterwards, it was too late. His neck had been broken. Since that day Josh always blamed himself for Zack’s death, and secretly wished he could have joined him as punishment for his mistake.
