Sandbox
This untold story goes back fifty-six years to 1968 when I was just eight years old. The year now is 2024 and I am sixty-four years old. My name is Betsey Lancaster and unfortunately, I have been recently diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s; all the more reason for me to document this tale on my laptop before I lose access to my long-term memory. I’ve never told anybody about what happened all those years ago, not even my husband of thirty-seven years. This is very difficult for me to recall the events that would eventually haunt me the rest of my life. So it started back when my father built me a large sandbox to play in behind our garage on our property in Stillwater, Oklahoma. At eight years of age, I swear the square wood framed sandbox appeared to be the size of a large shed but in actuality it was about ten foot by ten foot. I remember watching my father building the frame and not telling me what it was. I would hand him the hammer and hand him nails one at a time from the nail pouch that was strapped around my waist. I was always Daddy’s little helper. I remember I kept guessing what it was but he wouldn’t tell me. I thought it was a frame for our vegetable garden at the time. At the four corners of the square frame he attached triangle shaped seats. Finally, when my father returned with a truck load of play sand I realized it was my very first sandbox! The sand was clean and fine. I can recall picking up my first handful of the soft sand and letting it sift through my fingers. After the sandbox was filled with sand, I ran over to grab my two best friends on Huckleberry Lane; Billy and Joey. Billy lived two houses down to our left. Joey lived five houses down on the opposite end of our street. They were both my age and in the same grade. During that summer of 1968 we played in that sandbox almost every day. Soon the sandbox was populated with digging and sifting tools along with sand pails and plastic shovels. The boys brought their Tonka trucks, Hot Wheels cars and small plastic green Army action figures along with tanks and artillery guns. I added plastic cowboy and Indian figures which I would use in battle as the three of us played war from our corner seats of the sandbox. We’d build up sand berms and station our Army soldiers, cowboys and Indians behind them. Small rocks would serve as rockets as we would throw them at the approaching enemy. Then it happened. It was a hot summer day in July. Joey, Billy and I met at the sandbox after lunch as we did almost every day that summer. I was sitting on my corner seat and the boys were sitting Indian-style in the sand playing with their Tonka trucks. I can remember that Joey was wearing his new red sneakers that his mother had told him to take them off before entering the sandbox. Clearly, he did not listen. We saw a subtle swirling motion in the sand, right dead center of the sandbox. We all stopped playing and looked at the bizarre motion, almost like a small sinkhole was forming. Then suddenly, a small hand emerged from the sand with granules of sand cascading down off its fingers. The hand was the size of a child’s hand protruding up maybe three inches past the wrist. The hand slowly spun around like a periscope on a submarine as if searching its new environment on the surface. Collectively, the three of us screamed and jumped out of the sandbox. No words were spoken. The hand was scaly dry with skin that seemed ancient featuring matte purple and gray resembling bruising. The small child-like fingernails were long and pointed, dark and dirty. The hand briefly felt around within its reach. Finding nothing, the hand slipped back down to its subterranean home. We stood there silently. As if reacting to a starter’s pistol, we instantly ran in different directions to our homes. Predictably, our parents did not believe our story. Joey’s mom was more focused on why his brand-new red sneakers were so dirty and Billy’s dad scolded him for reading too many monsters magazines. My father calmly walked out to the sandbox with me to show me it was either my imagination or a story that I made up with my friends. We stood outside the sandbox for ten minutes to prove to me that there was no hand rising out of the sand. I bet it must’ve been mid-August when we decided it was safe to step inside the sandbox. Prior to that we spent considerable time standing outside the sandbox waiting for the hand to reappear; it did not. Joey, “The Rebel” was first to set foot in the sand, still wearing his red sneakers, clearly ignoring his mother’s rule. I remember he walked around the sandbox, bravely kicking up the sand trying to conjure up the “Sand Hand Monster”. After those antics, we all deemed it a safe place to play. It might have been two weeks later when we saw the sand swirling in the middle of the sandbox. This time, each of us, moved to our corner seats to watch what emerged. The same dry and calloused child’s hand popped up. It remained still above the surface only slightly moving its dirt-caked fingers as if testing the air. We sat and remained silent. Somehow, we knew, if we ran home to tell our parents, the hand would disappear. Joey, the thrill-seeker, picked up a small rock and threw it near the hand. The hand must’ve picked up on the faint vibrations of the stone hitting the sand and immediately went for it. The hand picked up the stone and disappeared below with it. We waited perhaps ten minutes, this time with our butts sideways on the sandbox seat as we had swiveled so our feet were on the outside of the sandbox. The hand returned with something in its closed grip. I thought that maybe it was returning the stone that Joey threw. The closed fist opened up and dropped a shiny, polished black stone. The hand slipped back down. We waited another five minutes then Joey, (who else right?) unlaced and removed his sneakers and lightly tip-toed to the center of the sandbox in his socks to retrieve the gem. I can recall he immediately said it felt warm. He passed it around and it did, indeed, radiate heat. Joey eventually kept the gem in his bedroom. This stone/gem exchange continued for the next few weeks as we started another school year in September of 1968. We would throw or leave different stones, wood pieces or branches from shrubs, in return we would get back polished gems, ragged stones, and even porous coral-like rocks. As I look back now, that hand reminded me of a small version of “Thing” from the series The Addams Family. Then one day, Billy threw a dog’s rubber play ball at the hand in the sand. It bounced and rolled near the hand coming to a complete stop. Again, the hand reacted to the light vibration in the sand and found the ball. It grabbed it, squeezed it which resulted in squeaky sounds from the dog toy. We all laughed at this spectacle. With rubber ball in hand, our Sand Hand “friend” submerged back into its underground home. School started up again in early September so our sandbox play was hindered by school hours and a big uptick in assigned homework now that we were in the 3rd grade. We would still gather in the sandbox after dinner and on the weekends. We never told our parents about our new friend; it was our secret. We didn’t even tell our classmates at school. One Saturday morning we met at the sandbox. This time, ever curious Joey, brought with him an old clothes line rope that might’ve spanned eighty feet. When we stepped into the sandbox we intentionally dug and made noises to attract the hand to the surface. Once the hand appeared, Joey slung one end of the rope toward the middle of the sandbox where it grazed the gray fingers of the hand. The hand grabbed the rope, rolled it between its fingers and thumb feeling its texture then grasped the rope in its fist and lowered itself below as Joey hung onto the other end of the clothes line rope. Slowly, methodically the rope paid out its length. Billy and I sat and watched in utter captivation. As the rope came to its end, Joey grabbed it tight and wrapped it around his closed fist and then braced his feet. The rope leading to the sand abruptly grew taught. I remember Joey was fighting the pull and asking us to help. Billy and I remained frozen on our bench seats. Then the rope ripped out of Joey’s clinched hand leaving horrible rope burns. We looked at each other in shock and without saying a word; we collectively knew to never do that again. I believe it was late September when we started “feeding” our handy friend. It started with vegetables, then candy then eventually leftover meat from our dinners which we would secretly hide in our pockets at the dinner table while our parents weren’t looking. We would toss the food, which of course would get sandy, and the small hand eagerly would grab the food item, squeeze it and feel its texture then disappear with it. We actually joked one day that the hand would take a piece of meat, descend with it then reappear with a “thumbs-up” sign. We laughed so hard at that. It just seemed so harmless at the time. Then probably a week later we were shocked to see a second hand rise up out of the sand alongside the small hand that had become our friend. This new hand was ghostly gray pale, aged with cuts, scrapes and blisters and displayed freakishly large knuckles. Its long bony fingers stretched high above the sand. We assumed this new hand was a “parent” to the smaller hand. After getting over our initial creepy shock, we continued our play with exchanging balls, toys and food. The larger hand brought up larger stones for its gift to us. The gifts turned grisly as it brought up from its depths, bones; animal bones. With the season turning into a chilling October, we slowed down on our sandbox playtime which meant no more exchanging “gifts”. This also meant no more table scraps to feed the Sand Hands. Then one day in mid-October, our family cat, Corky, disappeared. He was an outdoor cat that came home just after dinner time every night after a day’s worth of hunting and exploring its surrounding kingdom. On the second day of Corky not returning, my father walked behind our garage, where our property ended and a deep forest began. He spent hours looking and calling out for Corky. Days went by and my mother said that maybe Corky got lost in the woods. She reminded me that he was twelve years old and it might have been his time. I was deeply saddened and can remember petitioning for a new kitten. Weeks later, I soon forgot all about a new kitten after a mysterious tragedy befell our neighborhood. Then, probably a week or so later, I was playing hopscotch on the driveway pavement in our backyard with other friends. I saw our neighbor, Miss Blankenburg, an elderly woman forever wearing her “housecoat”, in her backyard calling out for her cat. She was calling its name, I think it was Molly. She was also making that usual mouth/tongue clicking sound that most cats seem to response to. She walked to the fence and asked us if we have seen her cat. None of us did. Again, at the time, it meant nothing to me; just another runaway cat. This is where my story spirals into unspeakable horrifying detail. One day in late October, just days before Halloween a warm front rolled through Oklahoma. The weather was sunny and fair with temperatures in the 70’s. After school, Joey and Billy came over to ask my mother if I could come out to play. But I was home with a cold that day and did not go to school. I fought hard with my mother, telling her I felt better but she did not relent; she told the boys no and ordered me back to bed. About two or three hours later, it was now dark outside, my parents received phone calls from both Joey’s and Billy’s parents; their sons have not come home. Thirty minutes later I saw flashing lights roll by my bedroom window. I saw one cop car pull into Billy’s driveway two houses away and I saw a second cop car heading toward Joey’s house down the end of my street. I can remember my parents bringing me down to the kitchen to talk to a police officer. Joey and Billy were missing. Then over the next few weeks our street was filled with police cars and news crews. There were search party teams being assembled on my street to search specified quadrants of the woods behind our garage. Missing person flyers were handed out and posted throughout Stillwater. I can recall seeing a stack of papers sitting face down on our kitchen table. I turned them over to see that my best friends were pictured on them with a physical description of each. That’s when reality hit me. I remember running upstairs to my bedroom and laying on my bed crying. Kitchen conversations that I overheard from the top of the stairs were that the boys may have gotten lost in the woods or possibly an abduction. At eight years old, I was confused as to what that meant. Weeks went by as the police and volunteers scoured the woods behind our house without finding one clue as to their disappearance. Upon winter’s arrival, the authorities called off the searches. Joey and Billy simply vanished. I still couldn’t make the connection between the cats and my friends disappearing and the sandbox. Two empty desks in my third-grade class served as a daily reminder that my best friends were really gone. Spring of 1969 came fast to Stillwater. Early April showers gave way to pleasant temps in the 70’s. My father, who had covered the sandbox with plywood for the winter, removed the seasonal covering in hopes that I might want to invite new friends to come over and play. I finally found the courage to walk out to the sandbox, not so much to play but to maybe think of Joey and Billy one last time in memoriam. I approached the sandbox and saw one of Joey’s red sneakers lying in the sand in the middle of the sandbox. Dried maroon blood was drizzled across the white laces. That sneaker was not there when my dad removed the cover and it certainly was not there when investigators searched our property for evidence. It was placed there for me to see. I stood there in a near-catatonic state, ready to run and tell my dad that the Sand People grabbed the boys. As I was about to turn, a large, pale gangly hand surfaced and wrapped its boney fingers around the sneaker and slowly pulled it under for me to see. That was the last time I looked at that sandbox. My father eventually covered it up permanently with plywood. ~ The nightmares started soon thereafter and have plagued me even now on occasion as a grown adult. Now, my dream always starts in my current home with me walking from my bed to the kitchen. There is sand scattered all over the floor; it sticks to my feet. I continue walking into our living room and I see plastic shovels, pails and a few Tonka trucks. One Tonka dump truck has a load of mysterious stones and gems in its bucket. A red sneaker dangled from a hook at the top of a crane on another Tonka truck. As the dream continued, I would find myself outside in the backyard of my childhood house on Huckleberry Lane. I continue walking toward the back of the garage where the sandbox sat. It is dusk. I step into the sandbox with my bare feet and see a swirling motion in the middle of the sandbox. I get down on my hands and knees and crawl toward it. Suddenly, a skeletal hand with shreds of gray decayed flesh hanging off it, grabs my arm and starts pulling me down. I resist, I scream, I cry out for my father but nobody hears me as I get pulled down into the sink hole. My throat and mouth get clogged with dry, gritty sand while my nostrils get plugged up. I begin to suffocate. I then fall into a dark subterranean cavern where I see the chewed and decayed bodies of Joey and Billy. But they’re not dead. They are sitting upright playing with their Tonka trucks in blood-soaked sand. They look up at me with hollowed out eye sockets and smile. Garbled, raspy voices come out of their toothless mouths saying in unison, “Hello Betsey, wanna play?”. I then bolt upright in bed, gasping for a breath that I feel I haven’t had in over two minutes. My husband wakes up and comforts me. He’s well aware of these night terrors and thinks it’s just haunting memories of the disappearances of my childhood friends; Joey and Billy. He knows nothing of the sandbox. ~ Shortly after my recent diagnosis, I took the two-hour drive to Stillwater, back to my neighborhood, my street, my house. It was mid-morning as I pulled into the driveway and noticed there did not appear to be anybody home. My childhood house looked different with a new deck built off the back and a different exterior color. I looked up at my second story bedroom window and thought of the terrors and secrets I kept within those walls for so many years. I pulled up to the two car detached garage and parked my car. My heart was racing, I felt nauseous, and my throat went dry. I walked around the garage toward the back. One of the previous owners had removed the sandbox and paved over the area for extra parking space. I walked over the pavement to where I remembered the sandbox was. I stood above it and looked down at the pavement and wondered what’s really down there. Below the pavement, the sand, the dirt was perhaps another world. I stood there and thought of what really happened to Joey and Billy. I wondered what if I didn’t have a cold on that fateful day. Tears filled my eyes blurring my vision. I then thought of other sandboxes that children play in and wondered how many other missing children are out there. Credit: G. H. Appleby Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.