It’s never easy to start a new life, but I was looking forward to it. I regret it now. I should’ve stayed in New York. I wish I could go back in time and change everything. But it’s not possible.

So, we wanted to move far away from home with my wife. I found a very cheap house near a town called Harwich. I’d never heard of it before, and it was too cheap to be true, but it looked lovely in the pictures, and later I even visited it in person, and it seemed fine.

It was near the edge of a forest, there were no houses nearby, only the woods. Seemed like a great place, and we were delighted with it. We decided to move there.

As I was driving there when we finally decided to move, we were almost there, when my wife noticed a strange road sign on the side of the road.

“Warning: You may see waving children nearby. Please wave back,” she read it to me. “What the fuck?”

“Eh, probably just a prank,” I responded. A prank… I was so stupid.

“Waving children,” she wondered. “Nobody lives nearby, why would…”

“I don’t know, it’s probably nothing.”

The next two days went by quickly, we settled in, decorated the house, placed the furniture, etc. On Wednesday, we drove to Harwich to buy groceries and a few other things for the house. When we were driving back home, it was already dark.

Only the car’s headlights illuminated the road and the nearby trees. Then we saw it. On the side of the road, near the roads, we saw two children. A blonde little girl, and a black-haired boy. They were waving like crazy. And they were smiling. But it wasn’t a sweet smile, it was terrifying. It was so wide, it looked… unnatural.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said, unconsciously slowing the car to get a better look.

“Yeah, uhm- let’s just wave back,” my wife suggested.

And so we waved. I was barely pressing the throttle, so we moved really slowly. As we got closer, we noticed a few things. They were in old, worn-out clothes. It looked like they were from the 19th century.

“They have no eyes,” my wife noticed. “Honey, I’m scared.”

She wasn’t exactly right. The children had black eyes. Like, totally black, even though our headlights shined at them directly. She wasn’t the only one to freak out. I stopped waving and pressed the throttle to the floor, leaving them behind. We sat in the car silently until we arrived home.

“I still can’t comprehend what we saw,” my wife said as we were packing the groceries into the house. “Did it really happen? Or were we just hallucinating?”

“It was 100% real, I’m afraid,” I shook my head. “I think we should just stay home this late at night. Next time we’ll come back home earlier, and then maybe we won’t see them. Okay?”

“Okay.”

From that day, we always came back home before dark, and we were lucky to avoid those kids, but we still stared at that strange road sign every time we passed it. WARNING, with capitalized letters. You may see waving children nearby. The absurdity of this sentence has already freaked me out. But the next sentence was even more terrifying. Please wave back! Why? What happens if I don’t?

A few weeks later, we stayed too much in Harwich. We met the Warren family, they were really kind and invited us for dinner. Jeremy Warren wanted to have a beer with me, but I had to drive home, so I refused his offer.

It was 11 PM when we were on the road home. We both felt uncomfortable in the car. We knew we’d made a mistake. We knew we would see the waving children on the side of the road. I was driving as fast as I could, pressing the throttle pedal with all my power. We saw the sign. WARNING: You may see waving children nearby. Please wave back!

And about 50 meters later, we saw them. They were even more, my wife counted seven kids. I haven’t even looked at them. We didn’t wave. Oh, for fuck’s sake, we didn’t wave. I wasn’t that concerned about it then. I regret it now.

We arrived home, rushed into the house, and just stood in the kitchen like some idiots.

“It was a bad idea to move here,” my wife said.

“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I knew it was too cheap. I should’ve known.”

“No, it’s not your fault. The place is great, Harwich is great. The only problem is, you know, those creepy children.”

“I don’t think it’s safe to stay there. We should move somewhere else.”

“We can’t afford to move again.”

“Maybe we can find some apartment in Harwich. Something cheap, but not as cheap as this.”

“I don’t know. It’s not like they’re dangerous. They’re just kids, after all,” she said. She walked to the window and froze. She went pale. “Ho- honey, they’re here.”

I rushed to the window. She was right. In front of our house, oh my god, it hurts to relive this memory. Dozens of children were in our courtyard. All in the same, old clothes, with their black eyes and wide smile. They were waving. They were fucking waving.

“Let’s just… go to bed,” I said, trying to remain calm, which I wasn’t.

“Are you crazy!?”

No, I’m calm, I said to myself.

“I know it’s strange, but they’re just… waving,” I took a deep breath. “They’ll be gone by tomorrow morning. Don’t worry.”

She agreed. I knew she was tired too. We moved away from the window and went to sleep.

“Promise me nothing bad will happen,” she told me.

“I promise. Tomorrow I’ll contact the police and tell them about this. You know officer Gregor, right? The cop we met yesterday. Or maybe we’ll ask the Warrens. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. And I love you.”

I fell asleep quickly, which was strange. I thought it would be a sleepless night because of those creepy kids around the house. We didn’t wave back, this was my last thought as I fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning. Sun was already shining, I had a surprisingly good sleep. I looked to my right, and my wife wasn’t there. I thought maybe she was in the kitchen, making breakfast. Then I looked to the corner of the room.

On an old wooden chair was her dead body. She had her eyes cut out, there were deep cuts all over her body, and somebody, oh, for fuck’s sake, somebody had cut a wide smile on her face. And the worst part, she was waving. Her hands were tied to some steel rod that moved her hand. She was waving. She was waving.

I screamed and ran out of the room. I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. I hoped I was crazy and all of it was just a hallucination. I hoped it was just a bad nightmare because of what had happened the previous night. I wanted to wake up.

“I WANT TO WAKE UP,” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I didn’t wake up. It wasn’t a nightmare. It was reality. It all happened because we didn’t wave back. No, it all happened because I wanted the cheapest home I could find. I looked out the window. The children were still there, waving. At least a hundred of them. So I waved back. I waved back. I waved back.