Our neighborhood was relatively new, and most of the houses were still empty. The housing development, Lone Wood, had only just started cutting into the dense forest that surrounded it and all the empty houses gave it a very eerie, albeit boring, feel.

Lucky for me, there were a few other kids who lived in Lone Wood and one of them happened to be my age. Jamie and I were both 12 and really that was all we needed to have in common.

We had a lot of fun that summer. Being a city kid, I was eager to explore all the bike trails local kids had made out in the woods. The city of Middlesbrough was a very old town which was incorporated sometime in the early 1800s. The town had tons of history, but nothing really to do. One particularly boring Sunday, Jamie and I even went to the town’s museum.

It was pretty boring, as expected, until we heard some kid ask an employee about the “lost town”. The employee replied that that was just a legend, but that was enough to pique my curiosity.

I quizzed Jamie about it but he didn’t seem to know much either. It was a full five weeks into the summer before I finally got my questions answered.

Jamie and I were building a bike ramp over a narrow stream late one afternoon when we saw a group of five teenagers boisterously heading out into the woods. They were carrying flashlights and beer, several of them trying to scare the girls of the group into turning back.

“I wonder where they’re going.” I mused as I glanced over at Jamie. He stood up and wiped his brow.

“I know where they’re going.”

“Where?” I stood up and dusted the dirt off my shorts. The novelty of living in a small town had weeks ago given way to boredom and I jumped on anything that sounded remotely interesting.

“They’re looking for the Lost Town.” He sighed regretfully.

“Okay, seriously, what is that? I knew you know more than you let on. I need to know Jamie, I need to know!” I shook his shoulders in mock hysteria and he stumbled for balance.

“ Alright! I’ll tell you, geez, Katie!” Jamie picked up his bike and started walking down the bike path. I grabbed mine and followed him.

“The Lost Town is just a dumb legend. The stories say that Middlesbrough had a sister city nearby, somewhere out in these woods. Then one day, like a century and a half ago, the whole town just disappeared. The people left or died, nobody knows, nobody even remembers the name of the town. It’s like a right of passage or something for kids to go looking for it.”

"Jamie we should-“

“No!” He stopped and turned to look at me. “Some kid went looking for it in the 70s and never came back. They found his body like ten years later in the middle of nowhere. He got lost out there. It’s easy to do, everything looks the same.”

“He was a total idiot! Probably on drugs, it was 70s. We are a totally different generation - we have satnav!“

“Satnav?” He looked at me curiously. Jamie had lived in this town his whole life and sometimes I forgot how sheltered he was.

“Satellite Navigation? My dad has a GPS that he totally wouldn’t notice missing for a day. Come on Jamie, it’d be so much fun!”

“I’d better get back.” Jamie looked at his watch and then mounted his bike. “My dad is taking me to a movie tonight.”

We rode in an uncomfortable silence until an idea struck me as we rolled over the abandoned train tracks. They were old and almost buried by plant growth.

“Hey… I know you don’t want to talk about it, but has anyone ever found anything?

“No. Well, my friend’s older brother said he found some human bones out there once, but nobody believed him.”

“Oh. And where do people look?”

“Well, almost everybody goes to the lake.” He pointed to the left of us, where we’d seen the teenagers heading earlier. “It’s pretty deep back there but they figure that if there was another town, they would have lived by the lake, so…that’s where they go.”

“Well, you know what I would do? I would follow the train tracks. I mean, they look pretty old. And I don’t know why they would lay them going back into those woods unless there was something back there, so that’s where I’d go.”

Jamie considered this and then nodded. “Yeah, I guess I could buy that. No one follows the tracks that way, though. That’s where that kid that disappeared went.”

I wasn’t swayed.

I didn’t bring up the Lost Town again until two weeks later. It was the weekend before we were moving home and my parents had a barbeque for the employees of dad’s new store and some of our neighbors. Jamie and I hung out inside the house and played my N64 while we flirted pretty outrageously. There had been an unspoken sort of mutual attraction throughout the summer that no one had had the guts to act on. Since I was moving home in five days, there really was nothing left to lose.

Although his intentions were probably pure and genuine, I am embarrassed to say that mine were not. I thought that if I could make him want to impress me, he would agree to go looking for the Lost Town. The legend had thoroughly consumed me. I had been to the local library every morning for the past week looking for more information on the town and had found nothing. But legends don’t just come from nowhere! I was sure of it.

I knew if we didn’t leave by 2pm we wouldn’t have enough daylight to carry out my plan. I already had a backpack packed with water, a flashlight, a camera and a can of red spray-paint. I figured if we left the tracks we would need a way to find our way back to them. I thought I was so clever.

Nothing in that backpack made a damn bit of difference in the end. I was a fool.

I set my controller down and turned to look at Jamie.

“So…do you want to go out to the woods one last time?” I raised my eyebrow at him and smiled.

“Yeah!” He said excitedly and he jumped up off the couch. Then, embarrassed, he cast his eyes down at the floor. “Yeah, you know..if you want to, that’s cool.”

“Cool, let’s go!” I grabbed his hand and ran out the front door, grabbing my strategically placed backpack on the way. Jamie didn’t even notice it; he was walking faster than I was.

When we had gotten a decent way into the trees, Jamie turned around and looked briefly at my face before casting his eyes to the ground. He rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’ve actually, like, wanted to kiss you all summer.”

I was stunned to silence, absolutely dumbfounded that Jamie had found the guts to say anything like this. I knew I needed to fill the awkward silence left in it’s wake, so I did the only thing I could think of - I leaned in and kissed him.

It was the awkward first kiss of two twelve year olds, but it made me feel warm and sent a flight of butterflies swirling into my stomach. So I actually really did like Jamie. How about that?

I let him go and his face was the same shade of red that I imagined mine was. He quickly changed the subject to how long he’d wanted to ask me out but that he didn’t think I liked him back. We walked for awhile carrying on this conversation, him oblivious to his surroundings, me subtly leading the way.

It took him stumbling over the tracks to break off his monologue and finally notice the backpack. He looked at me like I’d punched him in the face.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Jamie, I know but look, this is the last time I’m going to see you in a really long time and I want to remember today! We will only be out for two hours max; we’ll be back before they even realize we’re gone!” Jamie stared at the tracks for a minute and seemed to be considering it all. I held my breath until he finally let out a deep sigh.

“Okay.”

“Oh my God, Jamie, I-” He held up his finger, cutting me off.

“But we follow the tracks the entire time and we turn around after an hour.”

“Okay!” I was so excited that I hugged him. It would be the first and last time I ever did.

As we walked, we talked about all sorts of mundane things, stopping only to make sure we were still on the tracks. It felt like we had only been walking for 45 minutes but when Jamie checked his watch, it had been 3 hours.

“That’s weird….it hasn’t been 3 hours. It says its 5 o’clock.” He trailed off.

“I swear, we left just after 2. It’s can’t be 5, dude, your watch is busted.” I gave him a playful shove.

Jamie raised his eyebrow at me and smiled. “Even so, we should probably turn around. “

He wasn’t wrong, the sun was setting. The shadows were long and looking around, I wondered if it really was 5 o’clock.

But I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. As we had been walking, I’d noticed something taking shape off of our right; a large mass, maybe a quarter mile away. It was denser than the area around it and seemed to have clean, manmade lines.

“Jamie, look.”

He turned. “Yeah, I was hoping you hadn’t noticed it. It’s a long way off though; we would never find the tracks again.”

“Yes, we would, check it out!” I triumphantly pulled the spray paint out of my backpack. “It’s for the trees.”

He took the can and shook it, then made an experimental ‘x’ on a nearby tree.

“Ok, but I get to do the spraying.” I didn’t argue.

The closer we got to the mass, the more it took shape. First we could tell it was a building. Then we could tell it was church. By the time we got the front door, we were looking at a very old and dilapidated chapel. Remembering my camera, I took a picture of the wooden plaque over the door; whatever had been written on it had long ago worn away. We walked around the church in awe. The building was small, maybe 500 square feet. The windows were, surprisingly, all in tact but were so caked with dirt and grime that we couldn’t see anything inside.

“How do we get in?” I asked quietly.

“I don’t know, but we’re going to figure it out! Wait until my brother hears about this. I mean, holy shit. Look at this place!” His excitement was contagious.

The front door had a pull handle but try as we might, we couldn’t seem to open the door.

“Do you think it’s locked?” I asked as I watched Jamie struggle with it.

"Yeah, maybe. I mean it must be. There was a door around back, though.”

The door at the back was a lot more sympathetic and let us in with relative ease. We were standing in a small room with an old wooden desk attached to a wall. There was a small fire place and old portraits hung up around the tiny office. The people in the pictures were all standing in front of the same maroon background and were looking down at us disapprovingly. Books were scattered everywhere, most in a language I had never seen before. The floor was covered in dirt and a pair of old shoes were laying haphazardly in one corner.

“Whoa,” I said in awe.

“Yeah, whoa.” I looked over at Jamie who had a huge smile on his face. He was holding up a cross and a piece of paper.

“What is it?” I walked over to see.

“”It’s a list of names. There’s like 60 people on this list. Maybe a town census?”

“Let me see.” I pulled my flashlight out of my backpack and shined it on the parchment.

“Deepwood. Do you think that’s the name of the town? All these names are crossed out. All except this one.” I pointed to a name at the very bottom.

“Maybe it was the plague.”

“You think it’s a list of the dead?”

Jamie shrugged. “Makes as much sense as anything else.”

I walked over to the desk and leaned against it. “Why do you think they left? I mean, look, there’s a jacket or something on that chair, and shoes over there. The town pastor or whatever, he just took off and left everything like this?”

“Or died, “said Jamie as he folded the paper and put in into the back pack.

“Yeah, died… Either way it must have been creepy as hell to be alone in here.” I stared at one of portraits for several long seconds; the young woman painted there seemed to be staring down at me with a very accusatory look. It made me incredibly uncomfortable.

I was so absorbed in the paintings that I didn’t notice the slow creaking from overhead until the ceiling cracked loudly as it started to cave in. I screamed and covered my head, but the next thing I knew, I was lying on my back over the threshold of a door, Jamie on top of me protecting his head.

“Ah, thanks,” I mumbled as I gently pushed Jamie off of me.

“Don’t mention it.” Jamie climbed to his feet and brushed himself off. I glanced behind him at the office, which was now filled floor to ceiling with decaying debris.

“Jamie, that was our way out.”

“That’s ok. We can unlock the front door now that we’re inside. Or break one of the windows.”

If the back office was unsettlingly, the chapel was downright disturbing.

Even though the grimy windows allowed very little sunlight in, I could make out eight rows of pews lining a narrow aisle and a tall podium at the front of the chapel.

Jamie and I stumbled around the small nave breaking windows on either side with pieces of wood we had found. The sun was still setting and I wondered how much of a difference the muted light would make. When I broke the last window on my side I turned back around to survey the chapel, disappointed that the lighting wasn’t much better. The room itself seemed to repel light.

The wooden pews were completely rotted. In fact, the wood we had used to break the windows of the church were leg stands from the front row. The narrow aisle in between the rows of pews was littered with leaves and rotting wood. But that was nothing, nothing compared to what sat upon the alter.

It wasn’t a podium, as I had thought earlier. It was a statue of the crucifixion – but unlike any I had ever seen before. The paint had been worn away on every part of the statue – except the blood of the crucifixion wounds, which stood bright and realistic, and seemed to be oozing before our very eyes. The only other surface left untouched by the decay of time was the face of Jesus. The details of his face were still so incredibly minute and perfect, and he had the same accusing eyes as the portraits in the pastor’s office. He seemed to be staring directly at me and I could tell Jamie felt the same, though he was across the room from me.

The statue’s stare awarded me with an edge of panic, and I suddenly realized that we needed to leave. We weren’t wanted here. I had the sudden feeling that we were trespassing on some sort of hallowed ground. We had found the church, we had documents proving we had been here – and now it was time to go.

I turned to Jamie to tell him so and could immediately tell that he did not share my feelings. He had been born and bred on these legends and nothing was going to tear him away from our discovery. I watched him walk over to grab the camera out of my bag. He took pictures of everything he deemed interesting, including the crucifixion statue, much to my unease.

I gave him several minutes before I said something.

“Jamie, I think we need to leave.” I said in a low voice.

Jamie stopped and looked up, seeming to remember I was there.

“Are you kidding? This is what you came for! We have to bring home evidence, of all of it.”

“It’s going to be dark in half an hour. It’s already hard to see in here…”

“Duh, that’s why I’m using a flash. Hey, can you get a picture of me next to this creepy Jesus thing?”

“Um…I guess,” I mumbled as I took the camera from him. I didn’t even want to look at it, much less photograph it, but if it would help me get him out of here I was going to stomach it.

Jamie wrapped his arm around it just as I snapped the picture. “Don’t touch it! Oh crap, why did you touch it? There’s something off about that thing, Jamie. Can we fricking go now?!”

“Yeah, fine.” Jamie walked over and picked up the backpack as I headed toward the front door.

I noticed there was no lock on it. I pushed against the door as hard as I could - it didn’t budge. My heart sank; there wasn’t even a handle or a knob. It was just a solid piece of wood with strange markings on it. Symbols I had never seen before.

“Jamie, the door is stuck,” I said as I turned around to see him testing a piece of the floor with his foot.

“What are you doing?” I asked, hearing the edge of panic in my voice. He was still at the front of the chapel, a foot from the Jesus statue hopping back and forth from one part of the floor to another. The statue’s eyes seemed to be only on him now.

“There’s something under here. See?” I heard the floorboard creak under his left foot as he put weight on it.

“Jamie, don’t.”

“No, its like, under the dirt right here, the floor is hallow,” he kneeled down and starting digging through the thin layer of dirt, “it’s like a trapdoor or something!”

And it was indeed a trap door. By the time I had walked the length of the pews, Jamie already had the edges dug halfway out.

“Let’s just leave it and your brother and his friends can come back and see what it is, please, Jamie, I want to go.” There was something wrong with this place. Terribly wrong. And the thought of spending one more minute here had me on the precipice of an anxiety attack, something I hadn’t experienced in over a year.

I sat down against the front pew and put my head down. I heard a roaring in my ears and my breathing grew labored. I had to leave here, even without Jamie. I rocked back and forth for a few minutes as I tried to calm myself down. I would climb out a window and run – in any direction, it didn’t matter.

“There’s something here, under the church.” Jamie’s voice sounded a million miles away.

By the time I pulled myself together enough to lift my head, Jamie was knelt next to me stroking my hair.

“I didn’t know you were claustrophobic.” At least, that’s what I think Jamie said. I better remember the horror I felt as I stared at the hole in the floor. Jamie had opened the trap door.

“Two minutes,” Jamie said as he stood up. “We go down, we take a couple pictures of whatever’s down there and we come right back up and leave. Just two minutes, Katie, that’s all I’m asking.”

I wanted to say no. I intended to. But I felt myself slowly nodding as Jamie pulled me to my feet. To this day I don’t understand why I agreed. But I suppose that it’s better that what happened down there didn’t happen to Jamie alone.

“We’re going to come back with the story of a lifetime! What if there is gold down there? Or like valuable paintings or gold or something? We would be rich! So rich that your family could stay here. You could buy the house you’re living in and come to school with me in September.”

I managed a small smile. Of all the things someone could think to buy with wealth, Jamie’s first thought was to keep me here with him. And he was right, there could be anything down there and almost all old stuff was valuable. I took a deep breath.

“Okay, 2 minutes,” I agreed.

As we leaned over the trapdoor and peered down, the first thing we noticed was an intense heat emanating upwards from the hole. The second was the strangely out of place spiral staircase leading into the depths below.

Jamie rolled the flashlight over to me with his foot and I picked it up as he pulled his lighter out of his pocket.

“Ladies first,” he smirked at me.

I stared at him slack jawed.

“No way. You found this door, YOU go first. Between the black staircase and the heat, I feel like we’re descending directly into hell. I am not going first.” I crossed my arms and glared at him to reinforce my point.

Jamie simply shrugged and stepped onto the staircase.

I took several deep breaths as I watched his head disappear into the darkness below. I almost didn’t follow him. I was still deciding when he yelled at me to shine the flashlight down the stairs so he could see.

I started down the stairs after him. They went down much farther than I thought, and it became warmer and warmer the further down we went.

When we finally reached the bottom, I was holding back what threatened to be a massive anxiety attack. We were farther beneath the church than I thought we’d be and it was hot, muggy and difficult to breathe.

Hoping to get this over with as fast as possible, I swung the flashlight around the chamber hoping to reveal its hidden treasure. What I saw there, I can never describe, though I have tried many times.

The room was entirely empty, save two things. One was a desk in the corner, much like the one in pastor’s office. The second was another statue.

This one was roughly twelve feet tall, and remains to this day the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. To put it mildly, it was some sort of demon. It towered over us and as such I could only see the bottom of its jaw from where I was. It was looking directly ahead of it, at the staircase we had just descended. Its tail was long and swept around the entire room. There wasn’t a lot of room to move. It had claws, like any modern depiction of a demon and as I moved around the chamber to view its profile, I noticed it had horns as well.

Neither Jamie nor I spoke as we shuffled around room, our backs to the wall as far away from the demon as physically possible. I stepped carefully over the tail as I made my way to its back and came around to the other side of the statue.

I couldn’t take my eyes from it, I couldn’t trust it. If the statue upstairs seemed to bleed, what could this one do? As I eyed the talons on the gigantic stone feet, Jamie broke the silence.

“Can you even believe this shit?” His voice was coming from the other side of the room. I searched the darkness for the weak glow of his lighter and was relieved to see it moving towards me. I turned my flashlight upward to shine it on the side of the demon’s head. The horns had to be at least a foot tall. As I brought it down to see where Jamie was, I hit my arm on something hard.

“Ow, my head!” Jamie squeaked as my flashlight fell to the ground and rolled under the desk.

“Goddammit, Jamie,” I whispered in a panic. I dropped to my knees and felt around under the desk.

“It’s not my fault you cracked me on the head.”

I stood back up with the flashlight to see Jamie trying to relight his lighter – but it wasn’t that stopped me dead.

I will forever be frozen in that moment. I don’t know why I couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream, couldn’t move. All I could feel was my own intern decent into madness.

As I had moved the beam of light up to Jamie’s face I had seen another face right next to his – the demon’s. The statue was bent down and turned to the side; its head mere inches from Jamie’s. And it was staring at me. I can not describe its face, and I am not sure my mind will ever let me remember it in detail.

It shook me to my core in a literal sense. My body was having a dark, violent, visceral reaction to this impossibility. Jamie finally noticed the flashlight shaking in my hand and turned to see what I was looking at.

It wasn’t until he started screaming that I was shaken from my paralysis – I dropped the flashlight, Jamie dropped everything else, and we ran.

We took the stairs 2 and 3 at a time, Jamie pushing me up ahead of him. Halfway up I slipped and we both went tumbling down halfway to the bottom. In that horrible moment we heard the grinding of stone against stone and we knew the statue was moving. Jamie screamed but I was mute, too horrified to make a sound. We got up and kept climbing, never taking our eyes off the small light above us; our only salvation now.

We were almost to the top when we first heard it on the stairs. It was so large and heavy that the entire staircase shook with the impact. Terrified that the stairs would come crashing down and we would be left alone with it below, we jumped the last 3 steps and

Jamie pushed me up out of the trapdoor. He climbed out after me and tried to slam the trapdoor shut but it was unmoving.

We could hear a deafening thunder on the staircase as the demon slowly climbed the steps. I helped Jamie try to push the trapdoor closed and for the first time noticed the symbols on the bottom of the wood – the same as those on the front door.

Before I could begin to comprehend this, I noticed the statue first penetrate the shaft of light on the staircase below. It was coming. Jamie saw it too and pulled me to a standing position while pointing at the front door.

We both ran at it as hard as we could – but when we hit it, it didn’t budge. We tried again, but it was unsympathetic to our crisis.

“Katie, the windows!” We ran to the closest one and tried to climb up the wall to get out, but the windows were too high.

The thunder from below was getting louder, closer. It was more than half way up the stairs…

We tried to climb on the rotting pews to reach the windows but they crumbled under our weight.

“I’ll push you out, give me your foot!” Jamie yelled over the sound bellowing from below.

I shook my head. I wanted to, God, I wanted to. But I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t leave Jamie to face that thing alone. We both looked over at the door again. Our only chance was to keep trying to break it down. We stumbled back into the aisle and ran at the front door with everything we had. I thought I felt it move. We backed up even further and ran at it again. This time the impact knocked me backwards into the aisle and Jamie barely stayed on his feet. He looked at me in horror and I turned around the see stone horns rising up from the darkness of the trapdoor, 3 feet from where I sat.

We were going to die here. I stood up, refusing to turn around again. I knew that the next step it took would bring its head into the room, and the thought of seeing it’s face again had me running at the door with every last bit of strength I had. Jamie reached it at the same time and I felt it give way as we crashed through the threshold and landed outside the church.

Jamie had picked me up off the ground before I could think to move and we were running toward the train tracks at an Olympic sprint. We could still hear the thundering on the stairs, no matter how far we got from the church. Every step echoed through the woods like a gunshot – until they stopped. It was in the church.

I had no idea if we had run in the right direction or if we would be forever lost in those woods. It was now dark outside and the temperature was dropping fast. I was beginning to panic that we would never find the train tracks when I noticed Jamie wasn’t next to me anymore. I turned around in a panic to find him sprawled on the ground a few yards behind me- he had tripped over one of the rails. He was up and running down the tracks before I could even ask if he was okay. We ran until we couldn’t anymore.

Our running eventually slowed to a jog and the jog to a walk. We hadn’t spoken – neither of us had any idea what to say – and it wasn’t until we had both gotten our breath back that one of us finally broke the silence.

“How long have we been on the tracks?” Jamie’s voice had an edge of barely suppressed fear. I looked at his wrist, and noticed his watch was missing.

“It didn’t take us this long to get, to get…to find that place. Or did it? Do you think maybe we went the wrong way?” Jamie asked hesitantly.

I couldn’t afford to think like that. If we had somehow gotten turned around and ran the wrong way down the train tracks, than we were deeper into the woods than ever.

“No. We went the right way,” I said to convince myself.

“That thing,” Jamie started, “I thought it was a statue. But maybe it was some crazy undiscovered giant reptile that was, like, hibernating and we woke it up.”

So we were going to delude ourselves into thinking that there was a scientific explanation for this. I understood why but I just couldn’t accept it.

“Yeah,” I said slowly, “did you, um, did you see the weird writing on the front door? It was on the trapdoor, too. Do you think it was keeping it down there? Because, Jamie, all those doors are open now.”

“Well, if it’s an animal, words mean nothing to it, anyway.”

“Yeah, if…” I trailed off hoping he would challenge my implication. He didn’t.

I could tell this was something Jamie’s mind wouldn’t accept. But he hadn’t seen its face, not like I had. It was no animal. It was made of stone. It was something sinister and anciently evil and it had seen me, had seen right down into my soul. It was aware of me and I was aware of it. And now, it was free. Whatever had been keeping it beneath the church has been awkwardly destroyed by Jamie and me. That thing was free to walk the woods and go God knows where.

We walked in silence for another half hour until Jamie suddenly stopped short and started yelling.

“Here! We’re here!” He booked it down the tracks toward a swarm of flashlights and I followed close behind him. As soon as Jamie reached his parents he collapsed, while I ran into my mother’s arms and cried like a child. I couldn't hold it together any longer.

The police report says we were found at 4am – by our sense of time about 3 hours after the sun had set. We had spent less than an hour in the chapel and yet we seemed to have lost 10 hours there. We never told anyone where we had actually been, or that we had found the lost city of Deepwood. We simply said we went for a walk to the lake and got lost in the woods.

My family left Middlesbrough the following Monday – two days ahead of schedule. My father had another store to open and there was really no reason to wait. Jamie didn’t come to say goodbye to me and after we left Middlesbrough I never saw him again. I kept a copy of the police report to remember him.

Over the following year, Middlesbrough slowly disappeared. At first, I could just feel the memory fading unnaturally from my mind. My parents couldn’t remember that we had ever been there, which scared me more than anything else. I taped the police report to the ceiling over my bed so that Jamie would be the first and last thing I thought about everyday.

Next, the Middlesbrough city website disappeared as did that of the local paper and the town’s two public schools.

The store my dad helped open in 2002 also disappeared from the company’s website. After that I could never find any mention of Middlesbrough anywhere online ever again.

Over the years, I searched public records for Jamie’s full name and found nothing. I hired someone to illegally search private records and he came up empty too. In the end, the only proof that Jamie ever existed at all was the police report with his name on it.

And then nothing was left. One day the paper I had had taped to my ceiling for so many years was blank. I remember what it was and what it looked like before, but now it’s just an old weathered piece of blank paper.

All that remains of Middlesbrough and the people who lived there are my memories. And this is why I am writing this story down and uploading it to the internet. Once it’s on the internet, it can never die, right? Or perhaps one day it will just disappear and you won’t remember ever seeing it and I won’t remember ever writing it.

And I can only hope that this ended with Middlesbrough. If it has moved on to other towns, who would know? Who would even remember?

Suddenly, she felt a buzzing in her pocket. She cussed quietly and pulled out the cell phone. Her resolve dropped even further.

CALLER I.D:

MOM

Okay, Jane. No more than two minutes. Stay quiet. Go.

She flipped open the phone. “Hi, mom,” she said quietly, making her voice groggy.

Her mother’s tense voice came through the phone, static marring her words. “Hi, sweetie. I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”

“No, no, that’s okay—” Jane paused, closing her eyes for a moment and swallowing. “Is…is everything okay?”

“I’m fine. I…I just couldn’t sleep. You know.” Her mother managed a short, pathetic laugh before her voice cracked and a sob broke through the phone. “Jane, I—”

Oh, no. Not now. “Mom, it’s okay, shh, shh—”

She drew a breath shakily. “I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep anymore. I miss him. He’s everywhere. I—”

“Mom—”

“The doctor, he gave me sleeping pills, but—”

“I’m here, mom, everything is okay.” She struggled to keep her voice steady and quiet. She fell back from her crouched position, face twisting. She covered her mouth with her hand and tears blurred her vision. 1, 2, 3, 4…she closed her eyes and counted, just as her grief counselor had told her to do. 5, 6, 7, 8…

“Now I made you sad, too,” her mother whimpered.

9. 10. She opened her eyes, tears messing her makeup and mucus dribbling down her chin, and for a split second she saw him in the bed. The little boy’s hair turned brown and his face became the full, childish face she used to know so well. And then it was gone. She blinked away tears and saw the tow-headed child that she was supposed to be protecting.

Jane took a deep breath. “Mom. I need to go. I need sleep. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“I’m sorry, Jane.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, Mom.”

“I love you.” Her mother paused. “He’s watching down on you from heaven, you know.”

She kept her painful gaze on the boy. “Bye, mom.”

She pocketed the phone, wiping off her face. Black smeared her pale hand. Maybe she looked a little crazier now that she wasn’t pretending anymore. As time passed and her grief didn’t leave, she was beginning to believe in insanity.

She couldn’t escape her brother’s face in that boy’s. There he was, waking up before Christmas, or running outside, or playing with their old dog, or screaming that high child’s scream as he was stabbed to death. She crouched up, hand coming up on the closet door. Maybe she should leave. Go back to her friend’s house. She wasn’t ready, clearly. She couldn’t do this. She didn’t—

A white face suddenly appeared in the window. She gasped and jerked back, the inhuman white eyes and bloody grin falling upon the sleeping boy. Her mind split. This was the last person that he saw. This was his last sight. Those eyes. That grin.

Jane managed to stagger back into a crouched possession and ready the knife at her side, wiping her face for the last time. Fear became rage as the window lock began to turn.

One day, he asked for $300 of UKASH vouchers, and I made the mistake of raising the question: what for?

“Have you ever heard of the shadow web?” I remember him asking me casually as he counted $300 from a wad of twenty-dollar bills. I hadn’t, so I shook my head. Then he looked through his wallet and withdrew a little slip, one about the size of a credit card. “If you want to find out,” he whispered. He leaned towards me and slid the piece of paper into my chest pocket. I gave him his vouchers, he left, and I never saw him again.

Not long after, I left the job to return to school. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I came across the old, yellowy uniform with the piece of paper still in the front pocket. When I opened it up and read its content, I immediately recalled my encounter with the creepy customer.

The piece of paper had instructions on how to get to the “gateway” of the shadow web. There were a lot of steps, some more sophisticated than others. Unfortunately, I was both tech-savvy and curious enough to follow them.

The first thing you’ll want to know about this “shadow web” is that you do not want to go there. I’ve seen plenty of fucked up things on the web, but nothing comes remotely close to the things I saw on the SW. Thinking back, I should have noped the fuck out the instant I saw the front page. I don’t know why I hadn’t. Maybe something is wrong with me.

When I got to the “gateway page”, which resembles one of those welcome pages that pops up when you use the free Wi-fi at the airport or at the mall, the first thing I noticed was the word “Corpsefucking”. It was underneath a search field among thirty or so other words which I assumed were the most commonly looked-up things on the SW, things like skinning and mutilation. That should have been my cue to X out.

There were a lot of other things, too, other than sexual content and graphic gore footage. Things like instructions on how to make DIY roadside bombs. Things like a craigslist for cannibals and people who wanted to be eaten by cannibals. Things like a marketplace to buy and sell stolen identities, either individually or in bulk.

I spent almost an hour reading up on leaked war documents and diplomatic cables on a site called avenge.shweb. The website looked very retro, if you know what I mean. The layout had frames and each frame had its own scroll bar. When I found myself clicking on links without thinking twice, I realized I had become comfortable on the shadow web.

Don’t ask me how I came across this next website. Curiosity got the better part of me, and I clicked on things I shouldn’t have. I’ll spare you the actual name of site because I know some of you will make the same mistake that I did thinking it can’t be that bad. It can.

When I got there, I noticed the UKASH logo at the bottom of the page, indicating that paid services were available. It was in fact a live webcam show, but you only paid if you wanted to be the director. Viewing was free. Beneath the live feed of a webcam was the log-in page to a chat room. It prompted me for a screen name when I clicked on the join button, so I entered asdfasdfg like I always do when commenting on pornhub or xvideos.

As soon as I got pass the log-in, a torrent of messages flooded the screen. Most of the messages were in English, a few were in Japanese, and I think some were Arabic or Farsi. The number of participants in the chat room fluctuated between 150-200 people, but that’s only the number of people who bothered entering the chat. I suspect many more were watching anonymously. The majority of legible messages were “STARTTTTT” or “GOGOGO” or something to that effect.

After about a minute, a man with his face hidden behind a hockey mask appeared on the feed. I remember him having dark brown skin and being really skinny. Like, starving Ethiopian skinny. Shortly after that, everyone was set on mute—everyone except for one user by the name of italiangoat who I figured was the “director” of this show.

That’s when the screaming began.

She was blindfolded and tied to a wooden chair with her hands behind her back. A bigger, darker man dragged her by the hair until she sat dead center on my screen. I watched her try to struggle free from the ropes, but she was so tightly fastened that you could see the bruising. God knows how long she had been tied up like that.

Finally, the bigger man took the blindfold off, and she stopped screaming. When she looked into the camera, she seemed to realize what was about to happen. She started crying and begging the two men in what I think was Arabic. Then a message popped up on the chat.

Italiangoat: lay her sideways on the floor

The director issued his first command. The skinny man saw the message and relayed it to the bigger man in their own language.

Italiangoat: kick her in the stomach.

The skinny man continued with his translations.

Italiangoat: kick her in the face.

The screaming got louder and louder. What the fuck was I watching? That was it for me. I reached for my cell phone, ready to dial 911.

Italiangoat: stomp on her tits.

Italiangoat: tell your friend to kick harder, I paid good money for this.

I was in so much shock at this point that I couldn’t take my eyes off of the screen. The kicking went on for another ten, twenty, thirty seconds. It seemed as if it went on forever.

Italiangoat: now slit her throat.

When I read that last message, the churning feeling in my guts intensified. No, no, no, no, I kept thinking, somebody stop this. I tried to type into the chat, but the input field was greyed-out. The woman cried even louder when she heard the man relay the last request.

Italiangoat: wait, no, not yet.

The skinny man held one hand up to signal his partner to halt.

My breathing returned to normal for a second, thinking the woman was spared. At least for the time being. Then the director continued:

Italiangoat: take out her eyes first

The skinny man stared directly into the webcam. I couldn’t see the entirety of his face, just his eyes and the small patch of skin around each one. In his eyes I searched desperately for the slightest hint of hesitation. Please, put a stop to this, I prayed, but I kept the mouse cursor hovered above the Close button in case they did not.

And then, the skinny man began typing, and a second screen name popped up on the log:

Admin: another $500

My mind froze when I saw the number. $500. This woman was being tortured and possibly killed for a meagre sum of $500. I was making as much every other week at the gas station, and I was barely making minimum wage. If I could offer $1000 to stop this, I would. I would empty out my savings account if it meant saving her life. I would, I swear on my life. I’d pay anything to stop this madness.

Italiangoat: OK.

I quickly shut off the screen before I could see any more. I wish my common sense could have kicked in earlier. I ran out to the yard where I regurgitated about two meals’ worth of vomit. It had been a long time since I’ve felt this sick from watching something. When I was in junior high some friends showed me a clip from Rotten.com. It was the one where a man had his skull sliced in half by the rotor blades of a helicopter he was in the midst of repairing. And then, over the years, I’ve seen many more videos like that one—enough that I don’t get the urge to puke in my mouth anymore. But let me tell you this: seeing a live footage of a real person being tortured is stomach-turning on a whole different level.

When I was done spitting out the last bits of bile in my mouth, I heard screaming coming from my room. It was then I realized that in my haste to turn the monitor off, I had forgotten to turn the speakers off as well.

Her screams got worse and worse, until finally I was able to reach behind the desk and disconnect the speakers from the computer. The silence that followed was unbearable. It was as if by my own hands I had silenced her, killed her.

I felt remorse such as I have never felt before. I killed her, I thought to myself again and again. I KILLED her. The feeling was unreal.

I had to find out if she was alive. As I reached over to turn the screen back on, a voice inside my head begged me to stop. I do not want to see what I’m about to see.

But before I could stop myself, my hand had already acted. The image on the screen was an image I will never, ever forget.

The severed head of the woman sat there straight across from me, both eyes missing from their respective sockets. That face… that warped, misshapen face have haunted me ever since. Even now as I write this, I can feel her hollow eyes glaring at me from behind. I sleep with all the lights on, the TV on, but nothing helps.

Right before I shut down the browser and reconfigured the network settings to access the good ol’ regular internet, I remember seeing one last line on the chat line. It read:

Admin: Thank you for watching. The next show will be in 1 hour.

Since my mom got a new job, she started making new friends. It is common in our country that friends come to each other’s houses for a cup of coffee, cake, gossip and whatnot. Few weeks into her new job, my mom made friends with this woman, Rose. She would come maybe twice a week and they’d sit around the coffee table on our balcony and just talk. One day, when I was 17, I was at the balcony with them. I’m not sure why I was there, but knowing me, I probably ran out of hours on the internet (back in a day we bought internet monthly per hour in my country) and was bored as fuck. So we’re sitting there, they’re gossiping about who knows what, and mom gets up to go get some cake she baked recently. I remained sitting at the table with Rose and that’s when my life changed forever. Rose was a good looking woman. She was about 5’6”, skinny, long black hair, pearly white teeth. Attractive woman overall. Not ashamed to say that few times at night, I’d masturbate thinking about her. So anyways, I am sitting there with her, and she turns to me. She has this creepy grin on her face; bright red lipstick with bright white teeth underneath is just making it look more scary. Her head is moving slowly, almost as if she became a puppet. She says something in the lowest tone possible, certainly not loud enough for me to understand. “Excuse me?” I say, still not being scared, just a bit weirded out.

“You ready to go now?” She said this in a voice of a child, I kid you not. Like maybe an 8 year old girl.

Grin is still there. She mustered those words through her teeth, never opening the jaw.

“What?” I ask, starting to get scared.

“You ready?” The same thing again. Only this time, she pulls out an orange out of her purse. That’s it, she just took the orange out, and held it there. Didn’t offer it, didn’t eat it herself, just held the fucking thing.

At that point, I was getting scared as fuck. Thankfully, my mom came with the cake. Rose, almost as if someone pushed a button on a remote control, switched back to her normal self, putting an orange back into her purse without my mom noticing. I left the balcony creeped out, but I was 17 so I brushed it off quickly.

That night, I had trouble sleeping. My room is on the first floor and my window is at a maybe 5’ height, so I kept looking at it praying not to see some scary monster. I would turn in my bed constantly and look at the window maybe every 5 minutes. It was getting late and I started to doze off, but decided to look into the window one last time. And there she fucking was. Standing in the fucking window. Rose. Just standing, looking directly at me (moonlight was bright enough for me to see), with the same grin on her face. Lipstick was red as ever, and teeth were whither than ever. I was paralyzed in fear. I often imagined what I’d do in situations like these, and I always had an escape plan for any hypothetical I threw at myself. But now, when this friend of my mother’s was staring at me through my window at 4am, just smiling, I was motionless. My mouth got dry, I got goosebumps (have them now as I type this), and I swear it became freezing in my room, probably just the way body reacts to shock. I finally gathered the courage to get up. I started walking towards the door. Hear head was turning with me. Slowly. With the grin still there. Again, it was as she was a puppet. I wanted to scream for my parents, but knowing how tense they are, I decided not to cause panic just yet. There had to be some rational explanation, right? For fuck knows what reason, I decided to walk to the window and ask her what the fuck her problem was. I made two slow steps towards it and froze. I froze because she moved. You know what her movement was? Taking the orange out of her purse. Does anyone know what the record time is for having goosebumps? Because they sure as shit aren’t going away. Anyways, after being terrified for a minute, I decide to go on. I am a big guy and figured I’d be able to fight her off if push comes to shove. My windows pull up in order to open. I pull it open maybe some 10 inches and stop. She’s not moving, just holding the fucking orange and looking at me with the scariest grin you’ll ever see. I stand there. She stands there. Then, she starts bending. But every move she makes is so slow, so mechanical. She’s bending so she can reach the open part of the window. I’m horrified. She pushes her head through it (just enough space for her head to go through).

“You go with me now?” As she’s saying that, in her 8 year old voice, her hand is making its way through the crack, holding an orange. What do I to? What you’d do. Fucking run. I run out of my room, screaming for my dad. My dad is a light sleeper and jumps out of his bed, screams back at me asking what the hell is going on. All I can muster to say is “Rose…window.” While dad is putting his pants on, I run back to my room, wanting Rose to be there so he can see that I am not crazy. You know how in horror movies the person you saw is gone by the time witnesses come? Yea well similar thing happened, except I caught Rose leaving. There is a house some 100 yards away from mine, and it had one of those motion activated lights (lots of crime back home). I saw the light turn on, and a glimpse of Rose disappearing behind that house. By the time dad ran into my room, she was gone. After much talking, he decided that it was just a nightmare and told me to call him only if someone physically comes into my room. “You and your fucking imagination” he said walking away. Needless to say, I got exactly zero hours of sleep that night.

Nothing happened in the next few months. Rose would still come to visit my mom, but I’d make sure I wasn’t there. Fuck that. As in every teenager’s life, so many things were happening around me and I forgot about the Rose incident. Then one day, I was spending my afternoon browsing internet (years before Reddit unfortunately). I got pretty hungry so as any spoiled child, I yelled from my room to see if my mom would come. She didn’t. Oh well tough luck, I have to go to the kitchen and make myself a sandwich. Kitchen in our house is connected to our living room, but you can’t see the living room until you’re at least in the middle of the kitchen. So I open the kitchen and walk in. I freeze. There it is, right there on the kitchen table. An orange. Immediate thought of that creepy night. Rose is here. I am still in my spot. Few seconds later, I realize how stupid I am for relating a common piece of fruit to a crazy window stalker. So I walk towards the table, wanting to put the orange back in the fruit cabinet. I grab the thing and hear voice behind me: “You will have to come with me soon, you know.” Child’s voice. It’s Rose. I produce some kind of noise resembling scared pig about to get slaughtered. Lightning fast, I turn around and there she is, standing in the middle of the living room. Just standing there, same grin on her face, same lipstick on her lips, teeth white as ever. Only she started tilting her head to the left a bit, in slow motion. I remember it as if it happened yesterday: her long black hair falling down her shoulders, white summer dress, bright red shoes to match her lipstick. I forgot to mention that she was very pale. Even in the summer, she seemed to not be friends with sun. This added to creepiness. There’s this woman who already scared the shit out of me once, standing alone in the middle of my living room, pale as a ghost, bright red lipstick and shoes, tilting her head to the side, speaking in child’s voice. And then, and fucking then, she takes an orange out of her purse. Takes it out slowly, and looks at me, as if she wants me to have it. Just as my self-defense mode is about to take over and I either run away or tackle the crazy bitch, my mom walks in. I know it didn’t happen, but it seemed like my mom brought light into the room. I released a breath of relief. Rose, of course, went back to her “normal” self. They were about to go for a walk and my mom was getting ready in her room while she was pulling her grudge shit on me.

Since my parents wouldn’t believe anything I was saying about her, I wasn’t sure what to do. Only thing I could do at that age is nothing, I suppose. But I swore I’d punch that woman should she ever come close to me again.

A year passed without any incidents and I was getting ready to go to the United States to study in college. Since I was going to play basketball there, I had to prepare for it. I spent summer away from home, working out in a training camp in a town about 40 miles from my city. Last night of the camp, last incident happened. My roommate had left the camp the day before and I had the room to myself. I was very excited about going to America in few days and had trouble sleeping. My room had a beautiful balcony (I was on the third floor of a hotel). Since it was warm, I decided to sit in the chair on the balcony for a while. I walked out, sat down, and immediately regretted it.

“It is really time to come now.”

I nearly shit myself. I mean, it’s been a while since I last heard that voice, but something like that stays with you forever. I turned my head to the right, and Rose was standing on the fence of a balcony of the room next to mine. Mind you, not standing on the balcony, or sitting at a table, but standing on the fence. How she was balancing I don’t know. Balcony was at least 50 feet from the ground. And she was holding the orange. Fucking orange. Only this time, orange seemed to have been a bit rotten, not nearly as bright as the first three times. I was scared that she would attempt to jump over to my balcony, as there was only few feet distance between them. I was also scared she’d die in attempt to do so and I’d be blamed somehow. I had no idea what the fuck was going on.

“It really is time, you know.” She said in that child like voice, never opening her jaw, her teeth forever clenched together, and lipstick the color of fresh blood. She seemed even paler this time, and her head was tilted to the left even more. She wore red shoes.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” I screamed in desperation, angry that this woman is causing me so much distress, but also hoping that someone would hear me and come witness this crazy bitch’s harassment.

“I only want you to go where you belong.” She said that, and again, never opened her teeth. She only sprang her hand more towards me, almost offering me that semi rotten orange.

“Fuck you, you crazy bitch.” I opened the door of my room, and as I was walking in, I heard: “You will come.”

I slammed the door, deciding this woman was schizophrenic. I would’ve probably flipped out more, but I was leaving the continent in few days, at which point I was safe. Wrong.

I know I have a wall of fucking text but this is the shortest version of these creepy events. I came to the US, and have been here for 6 years now. I forgot about incidents and went on with my life. Only time I ever thought about Rose was when talking to my mom who said that since I left, her friendship with the crazy bitch fell apart. I was glad. Last 6 years were the best of my life. I got bachelor’s and master’s degrees, I got a wonderful girlfriend, you know, life’s good, man. But then. But fucking then. I am a big technology geek, and I love Apple (don’t shoot me down for this please). So, it was Last Friday, September 21st, release of iPhone 5. I am in front of the store with about 50 other people. I am maybe 15th in line. It’s raining. It’s cold. I’ve been there for about 4 hours now. Doors finally open. We start moving in slowly. I look across the street and instantly stop. People run into my back, I can hear complaining. But it’s all bouncing off of me. Across the street, I see a woman in a white dress, head tilted, holding something orange-ish. Grin on her face. Lipstick so bright red, I can see it from across the street. I can’t move. Someone from far in the back pushes, causing me to fall. While I gather myself, I see the woman disappearing behind the corner. I remain sitting on the ground. It was Rose. It was her, I swear. I sit there for few minutes, get myself together, and walk in the store. No phones left. I decide to walk across the street. And there it was. At the place where she was standing now only sits a mushed, terribly rotten orange. That’s it. Just a rotten orange. I started crying. All memories came back. I thought that my whole life would constitute of being stalked by some maniac. And how did she find me anyways? I spent next few hours in a nearby coffee shop, drinking tea and reasoning how this could be logically possible. I kept no secret from my friends and family about my whereabouts. Did she stalk my facebook? My friends? Did she travel here to harm me? What the fuck is her deal? Answering no questions I asked myself, I went home, deciding to keep it all to myself. My girlfriend noticed something was wrong with me for the next few days, but didn’t push it. I figured it was all a fluke, my mind playing tricks because I was up all night before that morning. Plus, it was raining. How could I see that well? And that orange, well that was just a coincidence. I convinced myself that I was just making it all up.

So today, a letter came. I get a lot of mail, so it’s not that out of the ordinary. But there was this letter, no return address. I opened it and was immediately shocked. I was holding a polaroid picture. In it, there was me, standing in line in front of the store last Friday. Only the picture was taken by a person behind me. It was taken at the moment I was looking across the street. I can tell because I could see horror on my face. On the back of the photo, there were few words written with a black pen:

“you come with me, NOW.”

I dropped the picture and started crying like a baby. Like really crying my ass off. My girlfriend found me in our room, curled up on bed, crying. She was terrified that maybe someone close to us has died, as she’s never seen me cry before. I had to tell her. I started telling her the story, leaving most details out, so I can get to the point quicker. As I was talking, she was getting more and more pale. She never said a word. I finished my story and she was pale as ghost, not moving. Then she asked. She asked a fucking question that honestly caused me to almost faint. She said: “This woman, did she happen, to, um, hold an orange?” I froze, she started crying like I’ve never seen her cry before.

We had a long talk that night, and her story would require another wall of text. Honestly, I am fucking tired from typing this much and am pretty sure nobody will be willing to read this much. I am also lost. Terrified. Confused. But if someone does read this, I’ll write the rest. I’ll write in hope that someone can offer a solution, and an answer maybe. Currently, we are both scared as fuck, not knowing what to do next. Police is an option, but what do we tell them? I don’t know man, I am fucking scared for my and her well being. I am fucking crying right now. Help me.

Update: Well guys, shit. Don't know what to tell you. It happened again today. Except I didn't see her. Let me give you a quick rundown of events:

9:00 am - I go to the local police station with my gf. We tell them all we know and show polaroid. Although quite friendly, they say they really can't do much other than maybe file a restraining order against the person who probably (their words) isn't even in the country. They think I mistook her for someone else and polaroid, well they said it was probably a prank. They did take the photo and open a file about it, just in case it escalates. It did.

1:00 pm - We arrived in town where I saw her. Went to the location, there was nothing there. Don't know what the hell I expected anyways. We stayed there for a while.

6:30 pm - Arriving home. Front door of the house is open, but this is not uncommon as we live with 5 other roommates. We go upstairs to our room. Our room is open. That is unheard of as we always make sure we lock it. And our landlord is the only other person who has the key. I yell asking if someone is there, no response. Also, no roommates in the house it seems. We walk in. We freeze. Our room is decently small, constitutes of two queen size beds put together and a little dresser and that's about it. So what did we see? Pillows are all on our dresser. Towels on the bed.Our sheet is taken off the bed and put on the floor. It is spread. In the center of it is an orange cut in two halves with a little peel next to it. My laptop is facing the door and is playing the same song on repeat. My laptop was turned off before I left and was also password protected. Song is my favorite from childhood, "Africa" by Toto. My desktop background was changed to one picture from my childhood that I didn't even have in the computer.

7:00 pm - We call the police, they arrive 15 minutes later. I take about 5 pics of the mess just before they come. They say they'll start an investigation, but claim it's still not "serious enough" for fingerprints and stuff.

8:30 pm - They leave and tell us to call should anything happen. Also advise to stay with friends if possible.

We spent next few hours just talking, man. Trying to figure it out. We're exhausted both mentally and physically. I am going to skype with my mom tomorrow and see if she knows anything. I will type up my gf's story tonight, but may post it in the morning if I don't finish it all in time. I will include photos I took, I promise you that much.

Holy fuck, this shit is happening to me.

Edit 2: So guys... Really happy with all the help and advice I got here. Thank you once again. I will say few things: I don't believe in vampires, spirits, etc. and am still standing firm that this situation relates to no such thing. I have no explanation yet, however. My girlfriend is still asleep. I am glad that at least she can rest. I sure as hell can't. It will most likely be a sleepless night of contemplating what to do. I am thinking about going back to the place where I saw her and investigate. Probably won't do anything for me, but that's all I got right now.

As far as evidence to support the story goes, I will try and upload a picture of a polaroid tomorrow or the day after. I realize how unbelievable this story sounds, and quite frankly, if I read it here, I wouldn't believe it without evidence. So hang in there, I will deliver. I will probably post her side of the story sometimes tomorrow, and will include the pic if I get to it.

I will now try and answer some of your questions individually. Thanks once again, I am at loss for words at what's happening to me/us.

Edit 3: So, I got about 3 hours of sleep total. I also read through all the comments and am truly grateful for your guys' help and interest. My plan is as follows:

I know few local cops and will be making a visit to the local police station with my gf the polaroid, hoping someone will believe me. Nothing to lose. At least this way, if it comes to physical altercation with Rose, I've told cops about her beforehand.

I will go back to the place I last saw her. Not sure what this will do, but I have a feeling there is something to it.

During the trip back to the city, I will talk to my gf about all that happened to her, and transcribe it into a story for you guys, because quite frankly, you're about the only open minded source of help I got. From what she's telling me so far, her story is equally fucked up. We're puzzled.

If you guys think that'll help, I will write the story of my baptism soon as well.

For the second part, please click [1] HERE

Up until this point we had never really been more than 30 ft into the woods, only to get a frisbee or football that flew past us. But we were daredevils, trouble makers, etc, so we weren't scared. We set foot into the forest around noon. There was no set path, so we had some trouble getting through the brush and the briar patches that seemed to cover every square inch of the woods. How anyone felt like dealing with this enough to go far into the woods to find a lake was beyond me. But we pushed on. Occasionally we would come upon an old rotten tree and shove it over while yelling "TIMBERRR." Something about the thud was so satisfying.

It had been what seemed like an eternity of walking and to no prevail, we found no lake. The sun was setting, we were getting a bit frustrated and disappointed, and we were about to turn around. Something told us to continue for just a little further. Another ten minutes or so passed and we came upon a steep hill. Honestly it was almost a wall. We hiked up this for about 50 ft. Once at the top we glanced over the edge. It was no lake, but a rather large mansion, or cabin. It looked like a mixture of both. This seemed a little odd. Why would someone live way out in the middle of this forest? I mean there was a driveway, but virtually no roads to get to the house. There were no cars and it looked relatively deserted, so we decided to go in for a closer look.

After pretty much rolling down the steep hill, we carefully walked to the house. We looked at each other confused. I immediately got paranoid and felt like someone was watching us. Quietly, I made a gesture with my head saying something like "let's get the hell out of here." But he was being stubborn, he actually wanted to peek inside and see if we could get in. As we moved from window to window looking in and trying to open them, I occasionally peeked over my shoulder to see if anyone was there. I was being crazy, this place was most definitely abandoned. No one would be out here. Finally after circling the house checking the windows, the front, and the back door which were all locked, we happened upon one of those basement windows that are at the base of the house. Sure enough it was open. I kind of laughed to myself. This seemed all too far-fetched. Like I had seen this before, say in a movie. A quick survey by poking my head in. No one in there, seemed safe, so we slipped in.

It was a cold, desolate basement. Absolutely empty inside. We slowly made our way up the stairs to the main floor. The basement led directly into the kitchen, which is where strange things began. There was a pot boiling on the stove and a table full of food. Immediately we thought "oh shit, there actually is someone here. we need to get out of here." But it was quiet. You would think, despite it being a big two-story house, that could at least hear people walking around or making some sort of noise. So maybe they ran out really quick to get something. We continued throughout the house. Again, as we looked through the house we were put off by the fact that all the rooms were completely empty.

Going up the stairs was a little risky. The first step creaked incredibly loud, and if someone was home they definitely heard it. We quickly retreated into the living room behind a wall and waited. About five minutes went by and we heard no one come to check out the noise. So, we moved up the stairs. It was just one long hallway with four doors on either side. As we inched our way down the hallway, slowly looking in the rooms, we once again discovered nothing in the rooms. This was until we got to the last room.

Inside was a normal looking bedroom. I say normal in the sense that it had a bed, a closet, a dresser etc. But the items were not normal. Everything looked to be like it was from the 60s. Very vintage clothes, drapes, and bed comforters. On the dresser were some envelopes. They were checks and bills dated between 1969 and 1972. This was the weirdest thing I had ever experienced. Who lived here and what was all this random stuff for? Right when I showed my friend, we heard the rumble of a car engine. Outside the window we saw this beat up Oldsmobile pulling into the driveway. Panic rushed through our veins. I put the envelopes down and we sprinted down the stairs only to see the creepiest vision ever. Through the front door window we saw five individuals in black cloaks. What the hell were these people doing?! Needless to say we did not stay to find out. I pushed my friend out of the basement window, he pulled me up, and we ran over the hill never looking back.

When we got back to the edge of the woods we were so dumbstruck. Never before in either of our lives had we experienced something of that nature. At that point it was dark out and I just wanted to go home, go to bed, and forget that. I was frightened and seriously freaked out. But curiosity got the best of me.

The next day, I gave my friend a call and asked if he wanted to go back to the house and explore some more. He of course declined. But my fear was replaced with wonder and I wanted to see what that place was all about.

Around 5pm I set out into the woods, this time carrying a flash light and a baseball bat. I felt protection would be necessary, because who knows who these people were. I would say it took me an hour and a half to get back to the house since I knew where it was this time, instead of aimlessly wondering through the woods. Now it's about 6:30, the sun is setting and almost all the way down. I scoped out the house from the hill. No cars and it looked empty so I made my way down.

Again, the basement window was the only thing open. As I slid into the basement, I switched on my flash light. There was no food on the table this time, but that was not what I was looking for. I cautiously made my way up to the bedroom with the retro style belongings. All the other rooms I passed were still empty and I finally reached the bedroom. Glancing around, everything looked the same. Except for the dresser. All the envelopes were gone and there was just a single piece of paper. I wonder what this was. Walking slowly over to it, I got the most unsettling feeling. Everything got really quiet and still. Shaking it off, I walked over to the paper and shined my flashlight on it.

Written in big letters "YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE COME HERE." I felt every single hair on my body stand up. Then I looked up into the dresser mirror. Behind me I could see two cloaked figures in the doorway. My stomach dropped to the floor. It seemed like I stared at them for thirty seconds and then they rushed at me! I guess it was adrenaline and instinct, but I bashed the window in with my bat and jumped out. Luckily the second floor was not too high. I looked back up at the window and the two cloaked figures were reaching at me. With every ounce of strength I could muster, I ran. I ran nonstop until I got home. At the time, I was so flustered I did not think to tell my parents or anyone. I crawled in my bed and tried to sleep. Finally, after about two hours I passed out.

For a week, I thought about that house. But I never went back because I was way too scared to go back since they might be waiting for me with traps or who knows what.

Then I finally got the courage one day and I decided to go really early in the morning. Nothing scary ever happens during the daytime right? Once again, I took my baseball bat. As I was making my way through the woods, I kept contemplating on turning around, but I moved forward. Returning to the hill almost seemed illogical. Making my way up the hill, I heard noises coming from the other side. I reached the top and looked over. There were three cop cars surrounding the house. I saw the policemen approaching the house. This gave me some relief. Since I figured the cops would be able to handle this with their guns and all, I slunk down the hill and returned home. I was sure I would hear about this on the news.

The next day, I was looking through the newspaper. And without fail, there was an article about it. But it was not what I was expecting...

"Three Police Officers and Patrol Cars Missing"

He was always there for me. One time, I was around the same age (its hard to remember exactly when things happened when you are that young), we went to a funeral for a family member or close friend. I didn’t really understand what was going on, as I was just a small child. My mom was weeping while looking up to the front, and my dad stood next to me, holding my hand, looking really stern. I asked him what was going on and he looked down at me and smiled. “Don’t worry about it lamb chop.” And he squeezed my hand and directed his attention back to the front. This memory sticks out in my mind because he was always there to protect me, even if it was from things I couldn’t understand.

He worked a lot, and I mean a lot. I only really saw him at night. Every morning I would wake up and hope he was still home and I would ask mom, “Where is daddy?”

“Your father left.” She would reply, she had sadness in her tone. She obviously was upset over the fact that he worked so much that he couldn’t even be around for breakfast. It really wasn’t that sad to me because my dad was the best dad anyone could have. I feel like it was almost every night after he had come home from work I was scared of ghosts, and he would come in and say, “Don’t worry lamb chop, I’ll stay here all night and make sure no ghosts get you.” I told him that he was like a super hero, but he said, “I may be a hero, but only at night time. During the day you need to be strong and be your own hero lamb chop. Your mother and myself can’t always be there for you, but that’s ok because you are my son. You CAN be a hero too.” I didn’t really know what he was talking about but I was glad he was there. I was never afraid when he was in my room. He would sit all night in a chair by my bed. Sometimes I would look at him and he would be staring out my window into the beautiful night sky, winking back at him through the window.

I hated the fact that he worked so much. That year I was really excited for father son day at school. Everyone’s dad’s would come in and tell the class about their jobs. Little did they know this was actually some sort of demented game for children, to compare dads and figure out whose is better. “My dad could beat up your dad!” one would say, “Oh yeah, well my dad makes more money than your dad and could hire a wrestler to beat up yours!”

I felt so left out. I would rather be the kid with the dad that could be beaten up by all the others instead of what I was. “The kid with no dad.” Why didn’t he show up, he knew how important it was to me. I told him that I was being picked on, and how all the kids would say, “Where’s your dad? You don’t have one!!!” and they would point and laugh. He felt bad and told me he was sorry but he couldn’t get away from work. My anger vanished when I saw the look on his face. He truly was sorry. He was my dad; the best dad in the world and suddenly showing him off didn’t mean so much.

The ridiculing, however, just got worse. One kid was poking me and said, “my mom says you don’t have a dad.”

“I do have a dad!” I yelled as I punched the kid in the nose. I was sent to the office for this, of course. It didn’t matter, that kid deserved it. Why would he even say something like that? I told the principal what happened and she looked confused. She told me I should talk to my mom about what happened, and I did.

When I got home I explained the whole day to her. I was confused. I told her, “I don’t know why they are saying these things to me. Daddy told me I should always stand up for myself. I punched him because he said bad things about daddy.” My mom put her hand over her mouth and her eyes turned to glass. “What do you mean daddy told you?” I was confused. “Daddy tells me.”

“Baby, daddy has left us. I don’t know how to tell you, but your daddy passed away. That’s why he didn’t go to your show and tell, that’s why he’s never home.” She began to cry. She had been trying to protect me from the pain of losing my father. I didn’t understand though because I saw him every night. “Mommy, that’s not true, dad is here every night. He protects me from ghosts and sits up with me all night.” She was crying and looked confused. I don’t know if she thought I was crazy or thought I was lying, but whatever it was that I said, greatly upset her.

My mom eventually found her composure and straightened up. She told me that I had to grow up and be a big boy. She said that daddy was gone and was never coming back. I was so confused, so I decided to ask my dad about it that night. “Daddy, are you dead?”

“Why do you ask that lamb chop?” he asked with a quizzical expression. “Well.” I replied, “Kids at school say I don’t have a dad, and mommy said you passed away.”

“Son, I am your father and nothing will change that. You mean everything to me and I wouldn’t let something as simple as being alive change that. Do you understand?” I didn’t understand, but I told him I did anyways. “Your mommy can’t see me, but you can lamb chop. Tell your mommy I love her and I’m watching over her.” He kissed me on the forehead and said goodnight.

As I grew older and older my father faded and faded until I never saw him again. I haven’t seen him in years in fact. I wondered if I was crazy and it was just my mind trying to cope with not having a father figure around until I was mature enough to accept the fact that he was gone. I miss him so much and not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. My wife and I have a boy now. He is 5 years old in a few days. He is the most important thing in my life right now. My wife and I treasure every moment with him. I want to always be there for my son and give him the father figure I thought I had, but only for real. I have breakfast with him every morning, and I can’t wait to go to his show and tell.

One morning my son came up to me and said, “Daddy, why don’t we ever let grandpa have breakfast with us?”

“Grandpa lives far away (thinking of my wife’s father) he can’t come to breakfast.” My son replied, “No, your daddy! Grandpa! He’s so funny,” he giggled gently, “he calls me lamb chop junior!” I couldn’t believe my ears and my eyes filled with water. “What did you just say?”

“Grandpa calls me lamb chop junior! He said that he’s sad that you don’t see him anymore, but he watches over you every night. He said he would watch over me too. He said he will be my hero, but only at nighttime.”

Digging through my library of memories named after my grandma, I stumbled upon this room that was locked. Sorry, my descriptions sometimes get out of hand. Let me try to explain. I visualize my mind. I see it as a warehouse. There are thousands of boxes in it. They are all labeled, with markings ranging from “basketball memories” to “all my fights”. When I want to remember something, I just take a casual stroll through the warehouse of my memories and choose the item I want. Then, there are offices. All the significant people in my life have an office. My mom, my dad, my bro, my grandma, my girl. Each office is unlocked and holds all the memories of that person. I visit these quite often.

Only this this time during my visit, I stumbled upon something different. There was this office. What was the problem with it, you say? Well, there were two problems: I never saw it before, and…it was locked. I banged and banged on the door, but I couldn’t get through it.

I started thinking. There is this memory that obviously exists in my brain, but something is stopping me from remembering. Why was that? Was my mind protecting me from something? I decided to give it a rest for a while. I’ll find out eventually. And I did.

I like to chill on Sundays. I spent most of my day browsing Reddit, watching reruns of The Office, you know, your regular relaxing day. When I got up to get some wine, I felt unsettling shivers run through my body. And just like that, the door of mysterious, sealed office propped open. It was a memory of a day I spent with my grandma when I was six.

My grandma used to take me for walks before I started school. My parents worked a lot, my brother had practices and such, and so I was basically “stuck” with her. She’d come get me around 9am, and we’d stroll through the city for hours. I’d be asking all these questions that every curious kid asks; in retrospect, my grandma was a really patient woman. A good woman. A brave woman. This day was no different. It was probably a work day because my parents were gone. Doesn’t really matter. She got me dressed in my blue overalls and some sneakers and we were off to conquer the world. I was excited. Walking out of our building, we ran into our neighbor, as we did every time we’d start our walk.

“Good morning Mrs. Harrison!” I’d always yell energetically. She’d always say how polite and nice I am, and my grandma would proudly tap the top of my head. Only this time, she didn’t answer.

“Good morning!” I yelled louder, wondering if she didn’t hear me. No answer. I looked up to my grandma and saw a mix of surprise, annoyance, and perhaps a hint of worry on her face.

“Let’s go baby, we have a long route planned today.” She grabbed my hand and we were off. Being a six year old, I brushed rudeness of Mrs. Harrison's right off. “I am walking with my grandma, so fuck you” kinda attitude.

I believe I had ADD as a kid, may still possibly have it, who knows. For those who don’t know, ADD is Attention Deficit Disorder, a “condition” that makes it hard for people to focus. I don’t know if I had typical ADD, but I was all over the place. I wouldn’t pay attention to anything as a child. Every time my grandma and I would go for a walk, I’d get fixated with one thing only to drop it for something else, butterfly or some shit like that. All in all, I was unaware of my surroundings.

Only this time, I noticed something was off about the day. Getting out to walk on the main street in our town at 9 am meant facing tremendous amount of cars and people. Every few minutes, we’d run into people we knew, which was the main reason our walks would take so long. This morning, however I noticed something different about the city: it was unusually quiet. Cars were still passing, but nobody was honking, which was inevitable on that street. All I could hear is engine noise. That wasn’t the strangest part, however. People. People were…different. Everyone was moving, how do I put it, slowly. Not slow-motion slowly, but really slow. And nobody was talking. You couldn’t hear a single voice. This was pre-cellphone era (only 80s kids will…shoot me now) but people still interacted with each other and walking on that street usually felt like being in the flea market. Not a single sound.

“Grandma… You see this?” I asked still holding her hand.

“I see it…” She picked up her pace. It was hard to follow her with my little feet.

We ran into my mom’s work colleague. “Hey Mr. Capell, how’s it going?” I yelled, excited to finally see someone familiar.

He stopped. He stopped and looked at me, straight in the eyes. Without saying anything, he started bending to get on my eye level. He had a hat on, the kind that gangsters wore in Godfather movies. He finally got down to my level. His eyes widened in the strangest way. Like his eyeballs wanted to escape. He took his hat off and tilted his head just a little, as if he were studying me. He leaned towards my ear, and whispered in a such a tone that I barely heard what he said.

“Boo.” That’s all he said. Boo. As he said it, my grandma squeezed my hand so hard, I thought she’d break it. She started walking really, really fast. I was running just to keep up.

“What is going on, bako?” (baka is nickname for a grandma back home)

“Nothing baby, don’t worry, you’re safe.” She was visibly upset, scared even. I didn’t like it.

We walked really fast. Atmosphere on the street hasn’t changed. People were still walking at the slowest of paces, and cars were as silent as they get. I thought I noticed something strange inside each of the cars, but I brushed it all off once my grandma and I made it to the park. Our park.

Man, I used to love that park. It was small, but still all I could ask for. It was of circular shape, and you could easily see your surrounding in every direction. It seemed that things went back to normal. I could hear honking again, and I could’ve sworn I heard some people yelling on the street. Ah, the good ol’ normality.

I played for about an hour. None of my friends were at the park, which was strange, but I didn’t need them to have fun. I would notice my grandma constantly looking around, but I was more concerned with having a blast. As I was a brilliant kid, I decided to climb a wall I was told (many times) not to climb. Of course, I slipped and fell, scarring my knee. I saw blood, which was enough to send me into a cry mode. I ran to my grandma, begging for instant remedy that her kiss to the booboo would provide. Only my grandma was silent.

“Bako? Bako!” I yelled, more angry than hurt. “Look!”

“Hold…hold on baby.” She was pale, the palest I’ve ever seen her. She grabbed my hand and I swear she was holding so tight she bruised it.

“You’re hurting me bako!” I begged. She didn’t react, she was just looking around. I decided to look around as well, as I wanted to see what could possibly be more important than my bleeding knee. Then I saw it. The scene I saw is really hard to describe, but let me try.

First of all, park we were in was completely empty. When we got there, there were about 10 kids with their guardians, now it was just us. Then I saw the rest. The whole world around us, well…stopped. Cars weren’t moving, all the engine/honking noise was gone. Worst than that, people weren’t moving. I could see probably 25-35 people around the park, just standing, as if they stopped mid-step. Silence was the worst, though.

“Bako…what is happening?” I said, not yet scared, as I was sure there was a legitimate explanation for this.

She kneeled so she could talk to me face to face.

“Listen, baby, listen. We will have to run home, ok?” As she said that, I started shaking in fear. I still had no idea what was going on, but seeing my grandma so scared made me equally, if not more, terrified.

“But bako, why?” My eyes started tearing up.

“Milos” she said (when someone in the family would call me by name, I knew shit got serious) “we will have to run home, and that’s that.”

I wanted to fight. I wanted to cry. But then, I looked around again. I honestly nearly shit myself. All those 25-35 people that were frozen mid-step? They were now facing us.

As I said, park was circular and small, so we could see everything around us. There was a sidewalk around park, and on it were these people. They still weren’t moving, but they changed position to facing us. I noticed that all of them were men.

“What are they doing?” I asked grabbing her hand.

“Nothing baby, don’t worry about the…” She stopped mid sentence. I looked up and saw utter horror on her face. I looked in the direction she was looking and saw nothing. The only thing that was there were these people, watching us. Then I saw it too. There was one person moving. I couldn’t make if the person was a man or a woman. “It” was dressed all in black. It was moving between all these frozen people. It was my turn to squeeze my grandma’s hand.

She bent down again. She grabbed my head, and with the most serious tone you’ll ever hear from your grandma, she said:

“Nothing will happen to you, I promise. But you will have to stay strong. And, listen to me, you will have to stay silent. Can you do that for me?”

I have only seen my grandma this serious when I got really sick when I was four.

“Yes bako.” I said, crying.

“No, you don’t understand. I need you to promise me that you will not say a single word. Not even a sound. Can you do that?” She wouldn’t let go of my head.

“I promise.” She saw I was serious, so she stood back up.

I noticed that not much had changed around us. Everyone was still…frozen. I couldn’t locate the moving figure, though.

“Bako, where is that man?” I asked, wiping tears from my face with my left hand.

“Remember what I told you? Now is the time to be quiet baby.”

I looked to our left and saw a man standing on the edge of the park, right between two motionless people, who were facing us. He was somewhat tall, taller than the individuals around him. He wore black pants with black shoes, and a black turtleneck, all covers by a long, black coat. He had one of those godfather hats on. Now that I think about it, all the people had those hats on.

"The main man" was about 100 yards away. Then he stepped forward, into our park. Two things happened simultaneously: My grandma said “Shhhh”, and all those frozen people started laughing. I am not sure what made me more scared: the fact that the man was coming for us, or that those people who were still motionless were laughing as if they just heard the joke of a lifetime. I knew one thing, though. I wasn’t saying shit.

Man progressed quickly towards us. He looked like he was almost tiptoeing; yet he was moving fast. He finally came in front of two of us. We were still holding hands.

“Ah, so this is him.” He told my grandma with the biggest smile. He was really close to her face. She didn’t reply. She just squeezed my hand stronger. Then, he looked at me.

He walked in front of me, bent down and came to my eye-level.

“You’re a big boy, aren’t ya?” He said, moving the hair from my brow. I wasn’t answering.

“Oh, I see your grandma thought you well.” He said looking up at her, almost angry. She didn’t even look down at us, she just kept looking straight ahead, holding my hand.

“Are you scared, Milos?” He asked, looking back at me. A tear came down my cheek.

“Aw, looks like he is scared.” He looked back at my grandma, then back at me, and then he grabbed my shoulders.

“I asked if you were scared, MILOS?” He yelled my name. He started shaking me really hard. I was gonna yell “STOP” but my grandma pulled my arm a little bit, almost as if she felt I was about to break. I collected myself. Silence back at you, asshole.

“Fine.” He said. “Fine.” He stood up, walked in front of my grandma, and looked at her straight in the eyes again.

“You’re breaking the promise, woman.” She didn’t move.

He looked back at me, and in the quietest whisper said: “Boo.”

That’s when I saw all the motion. All those frozen people started making their way towards us. All the cars started moving. My grandma pulled me to her, then picked me up and started running. I have no idea where she gathered the strength to do such thing. She was going really fast, though. I had my head on her shoulder so I could see what was happening behind us. Those people were gathered around that man and he was saying something to them. Then, they looked our way, and started walking after us. My grandma was getting away, though.

We were close to our house when she ran into a car on the street. She got hurt so she put me down. I was right next to driver’s window, which was down. Driver was motionless, and I could see huge smile on his face. Then he snapped out of his “frozenness” and looked at me, just saying:

“Boo.”

At that moment, my grandma picked me up, and ran the rest of the way home. When we got home, she sat me at the kitchen table and gave me a whole lecture on how nobody should ever know about this. I promised I’d stay silent, for the second time that day. I asked who those people were and all I got was something along the lines of:

“When I was really young, I made a mistake. But you shouldn’t pay for it.”

Perhaps there was a reason for that door to stay locked.

As I started pushing forward, my cell rang. My mom. It's 3:00am...something's wrong. I picked up, and all I heard was "your aunt…" I couldn't really understand her, so I decided to sacrifice my spot in this line of madness and move to a quieter location so I can talk to my mother. Family is more important than a good deal. The call was concerning my aunt. She had a heart attack and unfortunately passed away few hours ago. My mom is a bit of an emotional freak so she felt necessary to call me immediately, although I wasn't particularly close to this person. I finished the conversation and decided to head into the store and see if there was anything left after shopping vultures ran through it. The line was completely gone, everyone was inside.

I walked in.

Any special event you go to, you expect a lot of noise, especially if the event is a huge sale. I expected people pushing each other, yelling, even fighting, all so they could get their deals. This store was dead silent. Every customer was standing in front of an item, just looking at them, not moving, talking, or anything. All the employees were standing behind the counters, not moving or talking either. It was strange. I stood there for a minute, wondering if this was some kind of a candid camera prank, but eventually I said to myself "oh well" and proceeded to look for a lap top. Still, not a single sound.

I found the one I wanted, and at a really, really good price at that. I turned around to call for help, but then I saw. I saw everyone in exactly the same position as they were when I walked in. Nobody moved in the last 15 minutes, not even an inch. Nobody said a word.

"Excuse me!" I yelled, deciding to fuck this game of silence "Excuse me, I need some help here!"

Everyone in the store turned towards me. Nobody made a move, just turned their eyes at me. Holy shit.

"Yes, how may I help you?"

I jumped, startled, because voice came from behind my back. It was one of the Best Buy employees. She was about 5'5", decently attractive, with noticeably blue eyes that gave away a hint of sadness.

"Ehm...yes, I'd like to buy this one please."

"Sure." She said, and walked to the back. Even at this point, not a single person other than the blue eyed girl moved. She brought the box back. We did the whole checkout thing, and she picked up a foot long receipt (American business) from the register. She took a pen and started explaining all the charges on the receipt. I wasn't too excited about that, so I paid no attention. I just wanted to get the hell out of the graveyard store I was in. As I was walking out, I bumped into a store manager standing by the door. I apologized but he didn't react at all.

I took my stuff and fast paced out of the place. I got into my car, started it, mumbled something along the lines of "that was weird" and drove away. My car was low on gas so I decided to stop at the gas station. As I was pumping fuel into my car, I noticed the receipt sticking out of my jacket pocket. For some reason, I decided to look at it.

Hewlett-Packard notebook….. $499.99

Warranty/Maintenance……… .$199.99

Sales Tax……..6%...................$42

Sounds like a got a good deal. Then I saw what she underlined with her pen when she was explaining charges. H,e,l,P,M,e.

Well...fuck.

Night was strange as it is, but this just made it….scarier. What was going on there? Did the girl really need help? Was she in danger? From who? Or were they just fucking with me? I wanted to peace out, but curiosity got the best of me and I decided to go back.

I parked my car. There was no line. As I was approaching the store, I could hear it. Noise. Normality. I walked in, and there it was, your regular store with great sales going on. Noise, yelling, arguing, the whole nine yards.

I thought that maybe my experience was just some sort of a prank some TV station pulled on me. As I was walking out, the blue eyed girl walked by me and said "have a good day sir, and thank you for shopping with us." I stopped, turned around, looked at her, and said: "Is everything ok?" For the briefest of moments, she had a strange stare in her eyes. Then it disappeared, and she replied with generic "Everything is great sir, have a good night!" and walked away.

I got home and decided that the whole experience wasn't worth thinking about. It was either a prank or I was going crazy, but either way, I needed some sleep. I went to bed, and woke up quite late that day. I decided to go to a restaurant with my brother. We went to a local steakhouse. We sat down, got our drinks, all the good stuff. Something seemed off, though. These people around me looked...familiar. They looked...these were the people from the store. All of them. I see it now. Lady in a red coat. Old, overweight man. Tall black guy. All of them were here.

I felt like I was going to get sick, so I ran to the bathroom. I started splashing cold water on my face, when someone walked in and started washing their hands next to me. It was the store manager.

I was shocked, scared, motionless, speechless, you name it. But mostly, I was afraid for my life.

"Look man, look… I don’t know anything."

He didn't react.

"I didn't see anything, I won't tell anyone, I promise."

He kept looking at me. He finished washing his hands, he pulled some paper towel, dried them off, and walked out.

When I got back to the table, I couldn't recognize anybody else in the restaurant. All the people from the store were gone.

I am afraid now, though, because I did break my promise… I told you guys.