Chapter 3: The Boy in the Window

Chapter 3: The Boy in the Window

The Elk Grove Village Historical Society was less a society and more a single, cavernous room attached to the town library. It smelled of acidic paper decay, leather binding, and the kind of profound, undisturbed quiet that only decades of accumulated dust can create. For Elara, who had just spent two hours on a rattling bus fueled by stale coffee and nervous energy, the silence was both a comfort and a weight. It felt like walking into a tomb.

A man sat behind a large oak desk, hunched over a piece of microfilm, the light from the reader illuminating his face in a ghostly green glow. He looked up as she approached, the squeak of her Doc Martens on the linoleum a cannon shot in the stillness. He pushed a pair of glasses up the bridge of his nose, his brown hair a rumpled mess, as if he’d been running his hands through it all morning. He looked to be in his late twenties, with eyes that were sharp and intelligent, but underscored by a deep, perpetual tiredness. He was the very picture of The Hermit from her tarot spread.

“Can I help you?” he asked, his voice a dry rustle, unused to interruption.

“I hope so,” Elara said, her voice steadier than she felt. “My name is Elara Vance. I’m doing some research on a local business that closed down in the late eighties. Storyland Amusement Park.”

The archivist—a small plaque on his desk read Julian Croft, Head Archivist—blinked slowly. He took in her appearance: the black hair, the heavy eyeliner, the silver pentacle that lay against her lace top. A flicker of something—amusement, disdain?—crossed his features before being replaced by a mask of professional courtesy.

“Storyland,” he repeated, the name tasting foreign in his mouth. “Right. That’s a popular one for the ghost hunters and urban explorers. The official records are pretty thin. The park went into bankruptcy in the summer of ‘88. There were zoning disputes with the developer who bought the land. That’s about the extent of the town’s official involvement.”

He delivered the lines with a practiced weariness, clearly having given this speech before. He was the gatekeeper of the town’s neat, tidy history, and he wasn't about to let some goth tourist with a ghost story smudge the pages.

“I’m not a ghost hunter,” Elara said, a little too sharply. “I think there was an incident there. Something that was covered up.”

Julian leaned back in his chair, his expression hardening into pure skepticism. “An incident? Ms. Vance, with all due respect, people have been spinning macabre fantasies about that place for thirty years. It’s local folklore. Bigfoot sightings in the woods behind the old gate, satanic rituals in the funhouse. There’s never been a shred of evidence for any of it.”

“Because no one knew where to look,” Elara countered, her desperation making her bold. The comment on her blog post, the Tower card—they weren't fantasies. “I’m not asking for records on ghosts. I’m asking for news reports. Police blotters. Anything from June or July of 1988.”

He sighed, a long-suffering sound. “Fine. The newspaper archives are all on microfilm. They’re organized by date. Knock yourself out.” He gestured vaguely toward a bank of metal cabinets against the far wall.

It was a dismissal. He was humoring her, expecting her to get lost in the sea of mundane town history and give up. But Elara had a better guide than the Dewey Decimal System.

She walked toward the cabinets, running her fingers along the cold metal drawers. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the sterile scent of the archive and summon the dream. The rust. The rot. The cloying sweetness of death.

Show me.

For a moment, there was nothing but the low hum of the library’s fluorescent lights. Then, faint and tinny, she heard it. It wasn't a sound in the room, but a sound in her head, a phantom echo from her nightmare: the tinkling, off-key melody of the park’s calliope music. It was distorted and slow, like a music box winding down.

The sound seemed to be coming from one end of the room. She followed it, her boots silent now on the worn carpet. She stopped in front of a specific cabinet, the ghostly music loudest here.

“Summer of ‘88,” she murmured, pulling open a drawer labeled June 1 - Aug 31 1988. Inside, dozens of microfilm reels sat in neat little boxes. Her logical mind told her to start with the first box and work her way through chronologically. But her intuition screamed otherwise.

The dream-stench suddenly flooded her senses, so powerful it made her gag. Rotting sugar and damp earth. A child’s terrified shriek, sharp and piercing, echoed in her mind’s ear. She swayed, grabbing the open drawer to steady herself, her knuckles white.

“Are you alright?” Julian’s voice cut through the haze. He had gotten up from his desk and was watching her with a concerned frown.

“I’m fine,” she lied, her heart pounding. Her eyes, however, were locked on a single, unassuming box near the back of the drawer. It was just like the others, but she could feel a cold energy radiating from it, a psychic stain. “That one. I need to see that one.”

Julian raised an eyebrow. “That’s the reel for the last week of July. Are you sure? It’s mostly town council meeting minutes and ads for the county fair.”

“I’m sure,” she said, her voice a raw whisper.

His curiosity finally outweighing his skepticism, Julian took the box from her trembling hand and led her to the reader. He threaded the film with an expert’s touch, the machine whirring to life. Images of old headlines and grainy photographs flickered past on the screen. A bake sale at the Lutheran church. A debate over a new stop sign. A smiling couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

“See?” Julian said, a hint of smugness in his tone. “Nothing but small-town life.”

“Keep going,” Elara urged, her eyes glued to the screen.

He scrolled further. Then he stopped. The headline was small, buried on page seven, tucked between an advertisement for lawnmowers and the weekly fishing report.

STORYLAND PARK ANNOUNCES INDEFINITE CLOSURE FOLLOWING MINOR INCIDENT

“Minor incident,” Julian read aloud, his voice laced with surprise. “The article says the park closed for the season due to ‘unforeseen structural issues’ with several of the main attractions. Cites guest safety. No mention of injuries.” He looked at her, his expression shifting from skepticism to genuine curiosity. “How did you…?”

But Elara wasn’t listening. Her attention was fixed on the accompanying photograph. It was a wide, innocuous shot of the park’s entrance, clearly taken from a distance. It was meant to be a simple stock photo. But someone had missed a detail.

In the upper right corner of the frame, visible through the large, circular window of The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe attraction, was a face.

It was a little boy, no older than seven or eight, his small hands and face pressed tight against the glass. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t waving. His mouth was open in a silent scream, his eyes wide with a primordial terror that had nothing to do with childish fun or haunted house theatrics. It was the look of someone witnessing the end of the world.

“My God,” Julian whispered, leaning closer to the screen. He pointed a trembling finger at the photo. “Look at his eyes.”

Elara could only nod, a cold dread washing over her. She hadn't been chasing a fantasy. She had been chasing him. The boy in the window. A silent witness to the park’s last day, his terror trapped in yellowed newsprint for thirty years, waiting for someone to finally see him.