Almost 10 years ago, my wife and I decided to go on a little
hiking trip in southern Massachusetts, specifically the
Miles Standish State Forest. We checked out a few options for
cabin rentals and found one within our budget, then booked
it for a weekend. It was a beautiful little place,
not far from a heart-shaped pond, with ready access to all
the different hiking trails dotted around the park.
Our first day was wonderful. We had a picnic over near
College Pond, followed by a basic campfire style dinner back
at our cabin. The daytime was beautiful, but
the night time was intimidating to say the least.
There were plenty of little campgrounds and cabins all over
the forest, so it wasn't like we were in a particularly secluded
place. But night time in the city is
very different from night time in the woods, especially if you
grew up and spent most of your life in the former.
There's something very eerie about it, so much so that both
my wife and I commented on it independently of one another.
We weren't scared at all, we felt very safe out there, so the
feeling was something of a novelty I guess, and not
something that robbed us of any sleep.
The second day was similar to the first.
We did some hiking, had another al fresco lunch, and then
returned to the cabin in time for dinner.
But instead of eating at the cabin, we went over to Meebo,
just South of Plymouth, for a fancy 3 course dinner and a
bottle of wine. We discussed taking a taxi to
and from the Meebo complex, but I decided that I wanted to be
fresh for the next morning. So I drove and my wife drank the
wine, which went down a little too well.
By the time we got back to the cabin, she was so wasted that
she dozed off the moment her head hit the pillow.
I didn't begrudge her the chance to tie one on like that.
I thought it was funny, but it turned out to be very fortunate
that only one of us drank that night, and I'll tell you why.
After my wife passed out and was snoring, very loudly I might
add, I brushed my teeth, took a shower, and then climbed into
bed. It was just before midnight at
that time, and I set an alarm for 7:00 AM.
God knows how long later, I woke up to what I assumed was my
phone vibrating on the rustic wooden bedside table next to my
head. I reached up to grab it, only to
realize that it wasn't my phone making the noise, it was
something else entirely. Something was softly scratching
the wood at the other side of the cabin wall, almost right
next to where I'd been laying my head.
Now, while this was very creepy for a second or two, I'm a
rational enough person to realize that a sound like that
is most probably some kind of animal.
And having done my research, I knew all we had to worry about
were snakes and possibly foxes or coyotes.
There tend not to be any bears or mountain lions in this area
of Massachusetts, or rather, the chances of encountering the
former at least are extremely remote.
It was the reason we chose the state forest in the 1st place,
knowing it was one of the safer options for hiking.
So like I said, hearing the sound was startling, but not
scary. At first I tried to go back to
sleep, hoping that whatever was making that scratching sound
would just get bored and go away.
I know a lot of animals scratch their claws or teeth against
wood as a way of filing them down or sharpening them, so I
thought that it was maybe something small and non
threatening doing exactly that. But then the scratching started
to move and it sounded like it was coming from another section
of wall much higher up than before.
I say much higher up, it was only maybe a foot or two higher,
but in my head whatever was making the sound went from say
squirrel sized to fox sized. Again.
This was fairly alarming and I picked my head up off the pillow
again while I wondered if I should do anything.
In the end I climbed out of bed, went over to where I could hear
the scratching, and then banged on the wall a few times to try
and scare it off. And sure enough that seemed to
do the trick and the sound of my fist against the wall didn't
wake up my wife. So I climbed back into bed
without saying a word. I swear I was right on the verge
of drifting back off when the scratching sound started up
again. I realized that if I wanted to
get anything resembling a good night's sleep, I'd have to head
outside with my flashlight and really scare this thing off.
So I climbed out of bed, put on some clothes, and then headed
out into the dark with my light. I could hear whatever it was
still scratching against the wood, but I wasn't in the least
bit scared as I figured it would just run away the first moment
it saw the beam of my flashlight or heard my feet.
It did exactly that, and I heard it running off into the darkness
just before I turned the corner. But in place of the familiar 4
legged cadence of a fox or a coyote, I heard the very
distinct sound of something running with two feet, not four.
It wasn't an animal, it was a person and right hand of God.
That realization made for the creepiest moment of my entire
life. That whole time I thought
everything was just fine, but there had been some freaking
creep scratching something into the wood that whole time, and
I'd actually tried to go back to sleep.
I darted back into the cabin, grabbed the biggest, heaviest
thing I could find this skillet, and then ran back outside.
I wanted to shout something brave and hardcore, but the
God's honest truth is I was scared out of my mind.
I could barely even keep a straight thought in my head, let
alone figure out anything intimidating to yell.
So I just ran around, spinning around like a top, shining the
flashlight in every little shadow to make sure no one was
about to creep up on me. Once I was pretty certain that
the coast was actually clear, I ran back into the cabin, locked
the front door, and then woke up my wife.
She was still half drunk, but sobered up pretty quickly when I
told her to keep her cell phone handy just in case I needed her
to call 911. I still don't know if it was
just a dumb prank, something kids vandalizing the cabins or
deliberately trying to scare us or something.
It all depended on what they've been scratching into the wall,
that much was clear. But I was in no mood to just
wander back out into the dark to go check right away.
We just stayed put for a few minutes, my hand tied around the
skillet's handle, and listened out for any voices, footsteps,
or scratching. After a few minutes of silence,
I finally crept out into the dark for two reasons.
Number one, to make sure that we were truly alone again, and #2
to check out what the hell this creep had been doing to the
cabins outside wall. I was scared, but I was also
ready to cave in the skull of any foolish person enough to
rush me. Thankfully I didn't have to
defend myself like that, but there was nothing reassuring
about what I found scratched into the cabin.
When I first saw it, it looked like either A0 or the letter O
underneath a roughly scratched letter U or V.
The result was that it almost looked like someone had tried to
write VO, but vertically instead of horizontally.
No words immediately came to mind.
I mean, if it was AK and then an I, then maybe they were trying
to write the word kill, in which case we should be concerned.
But VOI had no idea what that might mean.
Convinced it was nothing more than kids being stupid little
vandals, I told my wife that it was safe outside and she could
come take a look at what the kids had been scratching.
She seemed relieved to know that it was nothing too sinister, and
that we'd most probably remain undisturbed for the remainder of
our stay. In fact, all we occupied our
thought with for a minute or two was wondering if the owners
would help themselves to our security deposit if they
discovered the damage. After my wife had gotten some
clothes on, we both headed outside to check the damage.
I shined my flashlight at it, showing her the weird V&O
shapes, and watched a very visible look of fright come over
her face. I asked her what she thought it
was and she asked how I couldn't see it.
To me it was just weird shapes or letters, and to her it was
quite literally the devil. I'll be honest, I didn't really
see it at first and I thought it was just her nerves talking, but
her fright proved infectious and when she decided that she didn't
want to stay another night at the cabin, I was in no position
to make her stay. I remember her saying this has
red flags all over it. We'd be morons not to leave now.
And honestly, she was right. It didn't really matter who it
was or why they've been scratching something into the
wall of our cabin. Our car was out front and they
could quite literally see the cabin was occupied.
And who the hell goes snooping around the woods in the middle
of the night like that anyway? No one with any good in mind,
that's for sure. We packed our stuff, threw it
all into our car, and then left as soon as we could.
First my wife called the cops to report what had happened, and
then she left a message with the owner of the cabin explaining
the situation. They were kind enough to refund
our final night stay and returned our security deposit in
full, thus ruling out our bizarre conspiracy theory that
the owners were trying to claim our security deposit.
We still have no idea who or what was really going on that
night, and honestly, I'm open to the suggestion that we just
overreacted to some dumb prank or something.
But having said that, I have no regrets about cutting our little
vacation short because my wife is right.
We've seen enough horror movies to know that you don't stick
around once things get weird. In the world of my family, the
air was thick with stories of ghosts and spirits woven into
the fabric of everyday life, like the smoke from my
grandmother's kitchen. Superstitions weren't just old
wives tales, They were lessons, cautions passed down like
heirlooms. I never bought into it, not like
the rest of them. Maybe it was the science major
in me, or perhaps the stubborn streak I'd inherited from a
father who'd never met a problem he couldn't fix with a little
elbow grease and a lot of denial.
Our new apartment was a far cry from the sprawling, chaotic home
where I grew up. That house was always filled
with cousins and echoes of my grandmother's voice telling
stories of the province she'd left behind.
Now it was just the five of us in a cramped 2 bedroom space in
what you could call my father's childhood stomping grounds.
Not exactly the big city, but not the countryside either.
Somewhere in between. With enough reminders of both to
keep my parents feeling like they hadn't strayed too far from
their roots. My dad had managed to secure
this place through a connection, a childhood friend turned
landlord. It wasn't much to look at, the
kind of place where you could touch both walls if you spread
your arms out in the kitchen, but it was ours, and with it
came a sense of starting fresh. Even if we were surrounded by
the familiar, we'd all agreed that a smaller place would be
less lonely without the constant buzz of extended family.
There was a comfort in the closeness, the overlap of lives
and conversations that made even this tiny apartment feel full.
But as everyone settled into new routines, I found myself
struggling to find my own space, both physically and mentally.
Tonight my family was out, likely reminiscing about old
times, leaving me alone with my thesis.
It was a beast of a paper, sprawling and stubborn, much
like the family discussions that could start over dinner and
stretch late into the night. I was examining the ecological
impacts of agricultural practices, a topic as dense and
complex as my grandmother's superstitions but grounded in
data, not spirits. As I sat at our makeshift dining
table that also served as my desk, I couldn't shake the
feeling of the apartment being too quiet.
Outside, the neighborhood lived and breathed with the distant
sound of traffic and the occasional shout from a
neighbor. Yet inside, it felt like I was
cut off from the world, surrounded by walls that were
too thin to hold out the chill of the evening.
I glanced at the clock. It was getting late.
The screen glare from my laptop was starting to strain my eyes,
but the thought of taking a break felt like surrender.
I could hear my dad's voice in my head, telling me to push
through, that the work was worth the effort.
It was that voice that had gotten him through decades of
hard jobs and long nights. It was supposed to get me
through college. Then there was a knock at the
door. Simple, straightforward, but
something in the rhythm of it made me pause, fingers hovering
over the keyboard. It was probably just a neighbor
or a delivery, I reasoned, even as a thread of unease wove its
way through my thoughts. Our new apartment didn't get
many visitors, and those who did come usually called first.
Hesitantly, I pushed back from the table and approached the
door, the floor cold under my feet.
The peephole offered a narrow view of the dimly lit hallway,
empty, yet the sense of something waiting on the other
side was palpable. Who's there?
I called, not expecting an answer.
Silence greeted me, heavy and expectant.
I waited, heart pounding, for something to break the stillness
again. The evening had already draped
its dark velvet over the city by the time my family headed out,
leaving me encased in the quiet of our apartment.
I was alone, a state I was unaccustomed to in the usually
bustling, cramped space. The solitude felt thick, almost
suffocating, but I welcomed it as necessary for the deep dive
into my thesis revisions. The silence of the apartment
seemed to amplify every click of my keyboard as I tackled the
feedback from my thesis advisor, a litany of critiques that
required my undivided attention. I'd always been good under
pressure, thrived under it, really, much like the Hardy
native grasses I was writing about, which flourished in
adverse conditions. Yet tonight, my focus was
repeatedly drawn away by the unfamiliar stillness of the
apartment. Two hours into my work, my
concentration shattered completely when a knock sounded
at the door. A simple question followed, soft
yet clear in the comforting tones of my native language.
Puede PO BA Kong pumasok, May I come inside?
I froze, the cursor blinking on the screen as if in warning.
No one ever stopped by unannounced.
Not here, in the heart of my father's old neighborhood, where
even the familiar faces from his past respected the boundaries of
privacy. Compelled by a mix of curiosity
and rising alarm, I wheeled my chair over to the surveillance
monitor we'd installed at the landlord's request.
The screen showed the locked gate, still firmly chained, no
figure standing at the threshold where I had heard the voice.
Hello, PO puede PO BA Kong Puma sock.
The voice came again, polite, almost pleading now.
My skin prickled with a chill that had nothing to do with the
night air seeping in through the thin walls.
Old superstitions flickered through my mind like the shadows
dancing across the living room walls from the street lights
outside. My grandmother's tales.
Warnings, really, about spirits that masqueraded as the lost or
needy, seeking permission to enter, to cross thresholds
uninvited. Always knock, she'd said.
And announce yourself, Taupo. I am human.
Yet here was this voice, devoid of that crucial declaration, its
owner invisible to the electronic eye that should have
seen everything. My heart thudded painfully
against my ribs as I backed away from the monitor, my eyes
darting to the door where the knocks grew louder, more
insistent. Something primal within me
recoiled, instincts honed not by superstition but by the
evolutionary drive to survive. The knocking grew into a
crescendo of urgency, no longer a request, but a demand.
Puede PO BA akong pumasok. I swallowed hard, my mouth dry.
The apartment felt smaller, the walls closing in as if to shield
me from whatever lay beyond that door.
I edged towards the window, peering out into the night,
searching for any sign of movement, any hint of the person
who belonged to that voice. But the street was empty, bathed
in the orange glow of the street lights, devoid of life.
My thoughts raced, logical explanations battling the
ingrained fears of my childhood. It's just a prank, I told
myself. A neighborhood kid messing with
the newcomer. But the fear, irrational and
deep seated, held me rooted to the spot.
I didn't respond. I couldn't.
Instead, I retreated to the relative safety of the sofa, my
gaze fixed on the door, listening as the knocks slowly
faded, leaving only the pounding of my own heart in my ears.
The silence that followed was as terrifying as the knocking had
been. The banging intensified, each
thud against the door reverberating like a drum beat
of impending doom in the otherwise silent apartment.
My breath hitched in my throat as I crouched behind the couch,
the familiar fabric of the sofa rough against my palms, offering
a meager sense of security against the relentless assault
on the door. As the pounding grew louder, my
thoughts scrambled, frantic, disjointed.
My father's words about safety, always spoken with a stern,
protective edge, clashed with the ghostly warnings my
grandmother whispered in my memories.
In those stories, the spirits never just went away.
They lingered, waiting for a slip, a sign of weakness.
And here I was, showing plenty. Puede PO BA akong pumasok.
The voice escalated, no longer polite, now tinged with an
impatience that sent a chill down my spine.
It was a demand, an ultimatum, given with the expectation of
being obeyed. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing
myself to vanish into the shadows of the room as if by
merely wishing I could erase my presence from this entity's
perception. But the darkness offered no
refuge. The sounds grew only more
desperate, more enraged. A brief silence fell, so sudden,
so absolute, that it buzzed in my ears.
The hope that it had given up flickered within me, but it was
quickly extinguished by a new noise, a subtle, sinister
tapping. Not at the door this time, but
chillingly close at the window behind the curtain where I had
stood moments ago. Tap, tap, tap.
The soft sound mocked the terror that had driven me from the
door, a psychological torture in its understatement.
I curled tighter behind the couch, my eyes wide open now,
staring at the fluttering curtain as if it were a flag
signaling my demise. Why had I not listened?
My grandmother's stories had taught us that some boundaries
were not meant to be crossed, that some doors should never be
opened. Yet here I was, having left the
front door unlocked, an invitation I hadn't meant to
extend. I shuddered, realizing my
mistake, the oversight that might cost me more than I could
comprehend. The tapping continued a steady
rhythm like a heartbeat. Sinking with my own accelerating
pulse. Then, as abruptly as it had
escalated, the tapping stopped. The silence returned,
oppressive, heavy with the weight of unspoken threats.
I didn't move, didn't dare to breathe as minutes, or was it
hours, ticked by, each second stretching into an eternity of
fear. The front door rattled suddenly,
a loud bang that might have been the wind or something far worse,
but it wasn't until I heard my parents, voices strained with
concern and confusion, that I allowed myself to believe it
might be over. They found me there, a huddled
mass of nerves behind the couch, unable to explain the terror
that had seized me. The relief on their faces when
they saw me alive was mingled with fear.
Fear of the unknown, fear of what they couldn't understand.
We never spoke in detail about that night.
The apartment felt different afterward, smaller, more
confining, as if it remembered the siege.
I couldn't shake the feeling that something had been there,
and the knowledge that I had inadvertently invited it in
haunted me. Sleep became elusive, chased
away by the slightest noise, by the memory of that tapping.
And despite the locks we changed and the thresholds we secured, I
knew some doors once opened, could never truly be closed
again. Rachel Parker, a plumber, was
born on March 22nd, 1819 in Crawford County, Illinois.
She was the second cousin of Cynthia Ann Parker and joined
the rest of the Parker clan in their migration S to Texas
before being captured in a raid that forever changed her family.
She was described as a red haired beauty of rare courage
and intelligence and later married a man named Luther M
Plummer who somehow survived the raid that saw his wife taken
into captivity. In the chaotic aftermath of the
attack on Fort Parker, 17 year old Rachel was seized by mounted
warriors who also abducted her young son.
She was no doubt violated during that night's camp, but later
wrote that she never wished to revisit the subject in any of
her literature. To narrate their barbarous
treatment would only add to my present distress, she wrote, for
it is with feelings of the deepest mortification that I
think of it, much less speak or write of it.
The only other occasion on which she spoke of her violation was
to criticize those who claimed that a good woman died before
being soiled in such a way. Rachel said that anyone who said
that had clearly not been forced to run naked, tied by a rope to
a horse for a day or two in the sun.
Given that she had more advanced education than her younger
cousins, Rachel was able to write a detailed account of her
time in captivity, which serves as a valuable insight into the
culture and creed of the Comanche people.
Yet it also serves as a detailed account of their abject and
unfeeling cruelty, especially when it came to things that
might hinder their survival. During her captivity, Rachel
gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
For the first six weeks, the Comanche allowed Rachel to nurse
her newborn son, but then one day a group of warriors
surrounded her and stole her child from her arms.
One of the warriors threw the baby to the ground and beat it
until it stopped moving. The warriors then gestured for
Rachel to bury her now deceased child and then walked away.
Believing her son was dead, Rachel began scraping a shallow
trench in the dry earth beneath her, but as she did so she
noticed her little boy was still breathing.
She attempted to nurse him back to health, but when the warriors
heard the baby's cries and saw that Rachel had disobeyed them,
they chose to make an example of her.
Rachel's infant child was tied to a horse via a long rope and
then dragged through a cactus patch until it's tiny body had
been quite literally torn to shreds.
Rachel was then taken hundreds of miles north to the furthest
reaches of the Comanche homeland, where she saw a vast
wide open spaces so desolate and barren that they were almost
madding to behold. But after reaching the southern
reaches of what is now southern Colorado, the land became lush
and abundant with life. The war band that she was a
prisoner of took her along to a giant Comanche summit, one which
included their close allies. She wrote that she had never
seen so many people in one place before, nor imagined that there
would be so many Indians scattered across the Great
Plains. She was treated poorly at the
gathering and was often jeered at by young Comanche boys.
She also spotted many other Anglo and Hispanic American
captives among the war bands and such a large gathering provided
a clear opportunity to show them off.
Having picked up some of the Comanche language, Rachel was
able to eavesdrop on certain conversations and was amazed to
hear that their war chiefs intended to conquer the entirety
of Central America. Rachel's maltreatment at the
hands of her captives seem to have peaked around the time of
the Great Comanche Summit. She was guarded by the female
members of the tribe, and as you can imagine, they came up with
particularly cruel and degrading methods of humiliation.
They routinely beat and tormented her, and by the time
they departed from the summit, Rachel was bruised, battered and
itching for retribution. One day, during a period of
particularly intense abuse, Rachel snapped and launched
herself at the younger of her two slave masters.
The attack was half revenge, half attempting to take her own
life. But instead of killing her, the
warriors seemed impressed with Rachel's display of defiance.
At any second she expected a spear in the back, she wrote,
but instead the warrior seemed amused and gathered to watch us
fight. At one point Rachel managed to
gain the upper hand and proceeded to beat the young
Comanche woman until the blood ran from her mouth and nose.
Her older slave master soon intervened and attempted to set
Rachel alight by pushing her into an open fire.
She too was beaten half to death by the furious young captive who
bested both her mistresses in brutal fashion, yet refrained
from delivering fatal blows. When the violence was over,
Rachel and her Comanche owners were taken before a tribunal of
elders. Rachel thoroughly expected to be
executed for her insolence, but instead all the elders asked was
that she repair the damage she had inflicted on her owner's
teepee. Confused but continuously
defiant, Rachel said that she would only repair the damage if
her owners helped her and the elders agreed.
She later claimed that one of the elder told her you began
with her and you had a right to kill her, but your noble spirit
prevented you. Indians do not have pity on a
fallen enemy, but we show mercy to our family.
By brutally attacking the two young women assigned to guard
her, Rachel had not, in fact, angered the Comanche.
She had earned their respect and from then on their treatment of
her dramatically improved. Just over a year after she was
captured, on June 19th, 1837, the Comanche war band Rachel
traveled with was approached by a group of Mexican merchants
known as Comancheros. These roving traders knew the
Great Plains better than any Anglo American and were one of
the few groups to ever gain a free pass through the land they
called Commancheria. The traders approached the war
band and the Comanches sent out a small welcome party to begin
negotiations. Rachel watched the exchange,
wondering what goods or services might be traded.
Little did she know she was who the Comancheros were looking
for. Rachel's father, who had
survived the massacre at Fort Parker, had enlisted the help of
the Comancheros in tracking down his daughter.
And finally, they had found her. That morning.
Rachel did not know if she would live to see another sunrise.
A few hours later, she was free. 17 days later, Rachel and the
Comancheros arrived back in Santa Fe, NM.
She was gone to the point of near starvation, covered with
scars and sore, and her fiery red hair had turned to silvery
Gray. But she was alive.
Sadly, Rachel Parker Plummer passed away just over a year
later in Houston, TX on March 19th, 1839.
She was just 20 years old. Her death certificate stated
that complications after childbirth were to blame for her
demise, but her husband insisted it was the trauma of Comanche
captivity which slowly ate away at her.
In reality, the already weakened Rachel had been suffering
awfully during the unseasonable cold weather, and this was most
likely what finished her off. But the fact remains, a once
vibrant, outgoing young woman had been completely broken by
her time in captivity. And although she'd seen and done
more in her brief time on earth than most folks do in a
lifetime, there's no doubt that she deserved so much more.
We have an old legend in our family.
I don't know how true it is, but I guess that's why they call it
a legend. It's been passed down from
generation to generation. I know that much because my
great aunt remembered my great grandpa telling the story too.
So I don't think it's something my grandpa just pulled out of
thin air after a night of gin and Clint Eastwood movies.
The story goes that some distance back we had a Native
American ancestor who was part of the Tonkawa tribe.
They're located around Texas, Oklahoma, and maybe New Mexico
too. When my forefather was just a
child, something terrible happened that caused him to
leave his home and move up to Chicago.
There he met a distant foremother and the rest is
literally history. But the thing that caused him to
up and move is one of the most awful things I've ever heard.
Just a little back story, the Tonkawa were a tribe mostly
friendly with the United States and all its westward settlers.
The other more dominant tribes in the area, the Comanche and
the Apache, used to bully the hell out of the Tonkawa whenever
they got the chance. So they turned to the US Army
for protection and occasionally help them track down Comanche as
a kind of screw you to their old enemies.
Then some other guys who like to hunt Comanche were called Scalp
Hunters. These were mercenaries who would
go and kill a bunch of Comanches and then bring back their scalps
to big towns to swap them for cash.
These guys would sometimes seek out Tonkawa camps as places to
rest and trade. Unlike some other more famous
tribes, the Tonkawa were generally pretty stoked to see
foreigners on the horizon, even if they did look like they were
armed for bear. So one day, a whole load of
these hairy, stinky looking dudes show up at our forefathers
camp and start making themselves a little too comfortable.
They're eating the Tonkawa food, helping themselves to tobacco,
and it's not long before they've overstayed their welcome.
Eventually, one of the warriors approaches them and tells them
to leave. The scalp hunters just opened up
on them before anyone had a chance to defend themselves.
Everything becomes chaos, and our forefather runs for his
life, hiding out on the Prairie for a while until things blow
over. Sometimes he could actually hear
the scalp hunter searching for him, but he stayed hidden until
it was safe to come out. Hours later, our forefather
trekked back to his village under the cover of darkness.
It was easy to find. He could see it burning in the
distance. He rushed over to search for any
survivors, but what he saw was a vision of hell itself.
Among the burning teepees lay the bodies of almost everyone
he'd ever known, butchered in ways that gave him nightmares
for the rest of his life. He never spoke about it in
detail, but I can imagine the kinds of things he saw.
The story goes that these particular scalp hunters were
running a murderous kind of scam.
They were being paid for Comanche scalps, but no one
could tell the difference between a Comanche scalp and
that of any other Indian. No white man could tell the
difference between an Indian scalp and a Mexican, for that
matter. So these guys were just on a
murderous rampage all over the Borderlands, killing whenever
and whoever they pleased. Our ancestor had his entire life
burned in a few hours, leaving him with nothing and no one.
The story goes that he walked all the way to El Paso and
almost died on the journey. He was so dehydrated and hungry
that at one point he saw a Buffalo keel over in the
distance. He then rushed over, tore the
animal's stomach open with his teeth, and started eating the
half digested mush in the Buffalo stomach.
I honestly think I'd rather die than do something like that, but
I guess I've never been that hungry or thirsty before.
He made it to El Paso. Survived and worked there until
he had enough money to move north.
And move he did. It seems crazy that he managed
to pull something like that off some orphaned Indian kid all on
his own like that in a place where they weren't very popular.
It makes sense that he moved N as soon as he could.
I'm not one of those people who flaunts my native heritage when
it's so distant and obscure to me, but I'm very proud of my
forefather, especially if he managed to pull off such an
incredible feat of survival. Maybe I got a little of that in
me too. Well, here's hoping, anyway.
One of my earliest memories is being in the playground at a new
school, trying to make friends. This was in year three,
elementary school age for the Americans Reading, and I came
across a group of lads playing football.
I asked one of them if I could join in and he told me, yeah,
but only if you just passed. To me it seemed like a fair
deal, so I accepted. The next day I asked the same
lad if I could sit with him at lunchtime and he said yeah, but
only if I can have your pudding lofty or fair that time, but I
agreed nevertheless. We then ate lunch in near
silence. I didn't touch my pudding,
assuming this lad was going to take it when he was good and
ready. But when he'd finished his
pudding I offered him mine and he suddenly had a change of
heart. He shook his head, pushed the
little bowl back in my direction, and we've been
friends ever since. Walker, as I came to call him on
account of it being his second name, was my best made all
throughout primary school, and we ended up in the same
secondary school too. I had my first pint with him,
our first girlfriends were best friends, and he was part of
almost every significant event in my teenage years in some form
or another. We were finally separated by
going to different universities, but we kept in touch and he
ended up moving back here for work once he'd graduated.
He was there for me through all my break UPS, he helped me move
into my first real flat and I was the best man at his wedding.
The list goes on and on. I was there for all the ups and
downs of him and Kathy, buying a house, having a baby, all that
other grown up stuff. And I was the first person
Walker called about the accident.
So it was early April when he rang me up at about 2:00 in the
morning. I knew something was going on
because of how late the call came, but I never could have
guessed how terrible the news was.
Kathy had been walking their daughter back from play group
when two joyriders plowed into them at a zebra crossing and
their little girl was pronounced dead at the scene.
Kathy passed away in a hospital bed fighting for her life just a
few hours later. Walker's whole world had been
snatched away from him by two monsters in a BMW and he was
every bit as devastated as you can imagine.
He was signed off sick from work, prescribed
antidepressants, and then went to live with his parents because
he just couldn't look after himself.
We all pitched in looking after him, making sure that he stayed
away from the drink and all that, but that was just about
all we could do. Losing your wife and kid like
that, just totally out of the blue.
A person's got to get through that on their own, you know?
And for ages, Walker just seemed paralyzed.
And honestly, I couldn't blame him.
But then one day I got a very surprising text from him that
just said, are you up for some rambling?
Just to explain, rambling was what we called the hiking and
camping trips that we used to go on when we were younger.
I think we always fancied ourselves as soldiers, but since
we'd never be able to pass the piss test wink wink, we settled
for these epic rambles across the countryside, sometimes for a
week at a time. We'd camp out in different
locations every night and then return home unshowered and
stinking of campfire smoke, in between getting very unsober and
telling ghost stories around the fire at night.
It was bloody good fun. We managed about five or six big
and small trips before jobs and girlfriends started eating up
all our time. But as much as I looked forward
to the day that we got to go again, I thought it might have
been a bit too soon. After talking it over, we
settled on the second week of April, almost one year after the
accident. I tried telling myself the
timing of it was nothing but a coincidence, but at the same
time I completely understood if he wanted to get away from it
all for a few days. Especially around the one year
anniversary, there was always something quite soothing about
our rambles. If you're running out of food
and water while exposed to the elements, there's no time to
worry about problems you've got back in the real world.
I didn't know how far that would extend into devastating grief,
but in the short term, it definitely seemed to work.
With him having something to focus his mind on, Walker seemed
much more chipper. He was ordering camping gear
online, testing it out in his mom's back garden.
And with all the planning that we had to do, he was much
chattier, too. It was just like the old times
in many ways, but with one distinct difference.
Aside from the obvious stuff, Walker had suggested a place for
us to visit. Anyone reading this might be
like, yeah, So what? But he never made any of the
decisions when it came to any of our rambling trips.
After I took the lead in planning the first couple and
they all went as planned, he decided to leave that side of
things to me so he could focus on gear and getting us there.
So when he told me he wanted to visit the Scottish Highlands and
in particular a place called Lanur, it made for a refreshing
change. If I'm being honest, we'd never
been to the Highlands before so I was very keen to go as it was,
but Walker's zigzagging route included a lot of freshwater
lakes, some hill walking and a big dirty fry up at the end of
it, which to me sounded absolutely banging.
The longest we'd ever been rambling for was a week, and
since we were only just starting back up again, it didn't really
surprise me when he said that he only wanted to go for two days.
I was just made-up that he seemed to be getting back to
himself again, but if I had known what he really had
planned, I don't think I'd have ever gone with him.
Everything seemed fine on the drive up to Loch Lomond.
In fact, it was just like old times.
We took turns driving, putting on old playlists and generally
reveling in a bit of nostalgia to kill time on the drive.
Parking was easy and cheap, and then add some unexpectedly good
weather for April into the mix and you had a great start to a
properly epic hike. Considering it was his first
time, Walker had done a standout job of planning our route.
And it took us over some incredible looking country.
We must have hiked around for five or six miles, up and down a
gently sloping hill and then along a narrow river until we
came to a small lock. The way down was very steep and
the river dropped off into a waterfall which fed into the
larger lake. It made for some banging scenery
and I knew immediately that it was going to be our first
camping spot. I'd have padded Walker on the
back if I didn't think it had sent him toppling down the
slope. We found a nice flat grassy spot
about 50 meters away from the water's edge and then set up our
little A-frame shelters facing one another.
Once we were set up, we brewed up some tea on our hexamine
burners and then set about gathering up firewood for the
night. We were quiet while we worked,
and I put this down to us both concentrating on the job of
finding decent kindling, but afterward, Walker didn't seem to
perk up again. I realized about halfway into
cooking my dinner that he wasn't going to join me, but he said
that he wasn't feeling hungry and would eat later on when the
feeling came to him. But later came and went, and he
still didn't seem to have anything to eat.
We stayed up quite late too, and all we did was sit by the fire
swapping stories, but I didn't see so much as a morsel pass his
lips. When I turned into bed, Walker
said that he'd only be staying up a little while longer to
watch the stars. That didn't raise any alarm
bells, but what did was when I woke up about six or seven hours
later and found him still sitting by the fire.
I'm not talking about sitting by the fire, making a brew with bed
head, having obviously gotten at least a few hours Kip.
I'm talking about the same position, tense, seemingly
undisturbed, like he hadn't moved a muscle for hours on end.
The first words out of my mouth when I scooched out of my
shelter were Did you not get any sleep?
He didn't need to answer me. The big black bags under his
eyes said everything and it was around then that I started to
realize that agreeing to the camping trip might not have been
a good idea. I asked him if he was OK and
actually laughed a little when he told me.
A bit tired, I responded by asking him if he was really OK,
before telling him that there was no shame in tapping out and
going home if he really didn't feel up to it.
In any other circumstances, if someone had given me some
cryptic answer, like I just had a lot on my mind, I'd have told
them to bugger off and talk plain English.
But in Walker's case, I knew what he was talking about.
Or rather, I assumed I knew. His response shut me up for a
minute, and when I finally thought of something else to
say, I offered him some coffee to help perk him up a bit.
He turned the offer down, saying his stomach was feeling a bit
rough and would stick to water for the time being.
I left him to chill by the fire while I went to gather some more
firewood, and while I was gone, I did some thinking.
He turned down coffee, He turned down dinner the night before,
and I didn't see any empty packaging or used mess tins when
I woke up. This meant that Walker had
either cleaned and stowed away all of his cooking gear and
utensils, immaculately at that, or he hadn't eaten a single
freaking thing in more than 24 hours.
I stopped collecting firewood the second it occurred to me,
and while I didn't go dropping what I'd already collected, I
immediately walked back to camp. In the nicest way possible,
without trying to sound like his mom or anything like that, I
told him he needed to eat if he was going to have the strength
to hike it anywhere else. I felt for him, I really did,
but he had to look after himself, because being out in
the Highlands miles from a road was not the time to start
intermittent fasting. I kept on rabbiting for a bit,
generally just pleading with him to talk to me.
Then, in frustration, I walked over to his rucksack, opened it
up, and started rummaging around for his food supply.
I rummaged and rummaged and rummaged some more before I
realized that Walker hadn't brought any food.
It wasn't just some oopsie Daisy, either.
He'd done it deliberately. But why?
The obvious thing that came to mind, and what just about scared
the life out of me to think about, was the idea that he'd
driven us out there so he could take his own life.
To my infinite relief, he denied that was the case.
But when he got all cryptic again, I told him that he could
tell me what was going on or I was leaving.
It was a total bluff, but it worked.
And that's when he told me, or partially told me what he had
planned. There was no hike, no tour
around the locks for a few days before a big dirty fry up in
Lochner. He and I use his words, needed
to do something for Kathy and the baby, and that's something
involved not eating and not sleeping.
He was OK to drink water, but only when he was really dying of
thirst and when he'd refrained from eating and sleeping for
three days. He was going to go into the
waterfall. Remember the waterfall I
mentioned, the one that we had to view from our campsite?
Well, Walker said that there was a shallow alcove in the rock
behind it. It was nothing big, just enough
room for a single person to sit without getting too wet.
And when I asked him how he knew, he told me that he'd
verified during the night. Everything was exactly how he
said it would be. And when I asked what it was,
Walker said that he was too tired to explain.
The only reason he partially explained what he was doing was
that he needed me there, and he believed that if he didn't tell
me that, I might have actually left.
He knew what it looked like, a guy starving himself because
he's tired of living or something, but he assured me
that it wasn't like that. He needed me there to help him
get back to the car when he was done, because chances were he'd
be too weak to do it on his own. I remember sitting there by the
fire for a minute or two, stunned into silence, just
trying to wrap my head about what Walker was telling me.
When I finally got my thoughts together, I asked him why he
needed to sit in that little alcove after three days of no
food or sleep. I'd help him, all right?
I just needed to know why. Again, he just said something
along the lines of it's for Kathy and the baby, and if I'm
honest, that was as good an explanation as I needed.
I had next to no idea what he was trying to do, but I knew
that it would be hard and probably dangerous too.
But what else can you do when a friend asks you to do something
like that, telling you that they can't trust anyone else to do
it? There was no dragging him out of
there. Leaving him was just out of the
question. And as much as it seemed like
the best option, calling the emergency services felt like
betrayal. Imagine someone putting all that
trust into you and you just turn around and have them locked up.
I know that that's the emotional and not rational response, but
in the moment it just didn't feel right.
There seemed like no other option but to do as he asked and
make sure that whatever he was going to put himself through, he
made it out the other side OK. As it turned out, the first day
of his fast was actually the day before we drove up, the second
being the hike out to the waterfall.
Walker did seem a bit tired out on the hike, but I just put that
down to age and a bad night's sleep or something.
So that second day we were in the Highlands that was going to
be the 3rd and final day of no eating or sleeping, meaning his
whole plan was going to be over and done by the early hours of
the morning. It sounded like good news when I
heard it, but it was still proper worrying to see him in
such a rough state. It was a lack of sleep that
really wore him down. You could watch his brain just
frazzling from being awake for so long with sod all to fuel it.
And when he went to the toilet, his pee looked brown.
Not that unhealthy looking dark yellow that you see after a
summer's night in a beer garden. It was this sickly brown, like
old whiskey or something. I know it might seem a bit odd,
fixating on his pee like that, but stuff like that, it's quite
shocking when you've never seen it before.
It wasn't just his body either, it was his mind.
He started saying things twice, stumbling over words and then
skipping back to an early part of a conversation, like he just
lost his train of thought and 10 or 20 minutes hadn't gone by.
And by the time the sun started to go down, I was ready for it
to be over. But we had quite a way to go
before that. I didn't get a wink of sleep
that night either. I wasn't entirely convinced that
Walker wasn't going to try and hurt himself in some way, I just
had to trust that he wouldn't. I quizzed him more and more as
the night went on, but he became less and less in the mood for
chat. However, he did tell me that he
had been thinking about that night for months and had gone
over it in his head so many times that it bored him to think
about, let alone talk about. He told me he understood how
annoying that must be, but he would tell me all about it when
it was over. But until then, I had to wait.
When the time finally came, I walked him over to the waterfall
and he began to take off his clothes.
I suppose that was always a given.
He didn't want to get his only jacket and pair of boots soaking
wet in the process, but it was still bloody freezing out and he
was shaking like a dog as he passed me that last of his
clothes. Over the sound of the waterfall,
I heard him tell me that if he called out or wasn't back out
within an hour, I was to go in and pull him out.
He would be naked and soaking wet in the freezing Scottish
night and he would be in danger of getting hypothermia if he
stayed exposed for too long. And that only added to all the
anxiety as he thanked me one last time, turned and
disappeared into the water. Exactly 27 minutes had gone by
when I first thought that I heard something over the sound
of the waterfall. I remember straining my ears,
thinking that they might have been playing tricks on me.
But then I heard it again. It was barely audible over the
sound of the waterfall, but it sounded an awful lot like a
person. And then suddenly there was
Walker. He was as white as a sheet,
skinny as a rake and shivering violently.
Then there were the noises that he was making, and my God they
were inhuman. Not quite weeping, not quite
screaming, all blunted by three days of no food or sleep.
As soon as he reached the banks of the stream he just collapsed
and I threw his jacket around him.
He couldn't speak, he could barely move, and I did
everything I could to drag him back to the fire and plonk him
down next to it so he could properly warm up.
I asked him if he could eat and he nodded very weakly, so I
threw a few cereal bars and a bottle of water in front of him.
I had to actually feed him and bring the bottle to his lips to
get him to eat properly. Walker ate slowly with silent
tears rolling down his cheeks, and I'd be a liar if I said that
I didn't shed a few too. Once he had gotten a bit of food
and water in him, Walker asked me to help him into his tent so
he could finally sleep. I made sure that he was dry,
helped him into a few under layers, and then eased him into
a sleeping bag. I think he was asleep before I
had even finished tucking him in, and I wanted nothing more
than to climb into my own sleeping bag for some well
deserved rest. But when it came to it, I
couldn't bring myself to do it. I was trapped between being too
tired to stay awake and too scared to fall asleep.
But then the harder I tried to fight it, the easier it came.
I don't know exactly what time it was at that point, but I
remember there being a little creeping blue in the distant
horizon. I closed my eyes for a second
and then the next thing I knew it was full daylight.
My eyes burned and I felt sick from how exhausted I was, but
when I saw that Walker was still there, asleep and breathing, I
knew everything was going to be fine.
I tried to catch a few more hours, but an overactive brain
fueled by a disco nap made that a no go.
I wanted to wake him up, make him eat a little bit more and
get some coffee down him, but it was for selfish reasons.
What I really wanted to know was what had happened in the
waterfall, what he'd put himself through hell for.
But God knows he needed the rest, and there would be plenty
of time for questions on the way back.
I suppose this piece is long enough as it stands, so I'll try
to summarize that conversation as best I can.
After getting Walker back into Loch Lomond safely, we had a
little bit more food. Bought Walker one of those big
bottles of Lucca's aid so he could carry on replenishing on
the drive, and then started on our journey back home.
He didn't tell me much about what he'd done or why he'd done
it. He said that he was still taking
it all in himself. But the long and short of it was
this. He read something online about
that waterfall, something about how old monks used to go there
to have religious experiences. The story went that if you
concentrated on praying for someone hard enough, someone who
had already passed on, you could either hear them, see them, talk
to them, or something to that effect.
The only rule was that you had to sit there for three days with
nothing but the water in front of you to drink.
Obviously, Walker had tried to streamline the process for
safety and convenience, thinking that as long as he drank a
little of the water, he could do all the fasting and staying
awake, away from the waterfall itself.
He'd been quite worried that it had ruined the process and
therefore ruined the desired effect.
But it didn't. According to Walker, the process
had worked exactly as intended. I feel like I have to explain at
this point. I'm not a religious person and I
don't believe in ghosts, spirits, or any of that oogly
boogly nonsense. I think Walker pushed himself to
his physical and psychological limits and induced a kind of
visual or auditory hallucination, and I think deep
down he knows that too. The thing is, he doesn't care,
and I don't really blame him either.
And as much as I'm not going to pretend to know how it worked, I
understand why he wanted to do it, to have that opportunity to
see or talk to a missed relative.
Even if it isn't real, I admit to seeing the appeal.
Whatever happened, Walker started doing much better after
the trip. Everyone put it down to finally
getting back to the great outdoors and reliving a bit of
his youth. We never told anyone what had
actually happened. Walker didn't swear me to
secrecy or anything like that, but he didn't have to, because
whatever happened in that little alcove behind the waterfall,
that's between him and his dearly departed.
As the last rays of sunlight vanish behind the rugged peaks
of Mount Kosciusko, the Australian Alpine region
transformed before my eyes. What was once a breathtaking
panorama of lush greens and earthy Browns now turned into a
shadowy expanse, enveloped in the creeping chill of nightfall.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles whitening.
Beside me, Kate fiddled with the radio, seemingly oblivious to
the eerie transformation of the landscape outside.
Isn't this place just beautiful, even at dusk?
She remarked, her voice filled with genuine awe.
I forced a smile, my eyes scanning the darkness that
stretched beyond the narrow beam of our headlights.
Beautiful, yes, but fraught with a silent, unsettling atmosphere
that clung to the back of my neck like a cold hand.
We should have driven through earlier.
I muttered, my voice barely a whisper.
I had heard stories about the Australian Alps, tales that
locals whispered, warning against, lingering in these
parts after dark. Of course, I had dismissed them
as nothing more than legends. Until now.
The road wound tightly between towering trees, their branches
clawing at the fading light. As the darkness deepened, I
flipped on the high beams, the road ahead becoming starkly
visible in the harsh light. An uncomfortable silence fell
between us, broken only by the soft hum of the car's engine and
the occasional crackle of the radio trying to catch a signal.
To break the mounting tension, Kate connected her phone to the
car's speakers and tapped play on a Spotify playlist filled
with 90s classics. The familiar strains of a
Radiohead song filled the car, and for a moment the normalcy of
it all calmed my nerves. We sang along, our voices loud
and slightly off key, laughing at our attempts to hit the high
notes. Just as I started to relax, a
scream sliced through the night, cutting the music off mid verse.
It was sharp, desperate and unmistakably human.
My heart stopped. Kate turned down the music, her
eyes wide with shock. Did you hear that?
She whispered. I nodded, my stomach nodding
with fear. We listened, holding our
breaths, and there it was again, a long, agonizing wail that
echoed through the trees. We have to see if someone needs
help. Kate said decisively, reaching
for the door handle before I could argue.
Reluctantly, I killed the engine and grabbed the flashlight from
the glove compartment. The air was cold and still as we
stepped out, the silence oppressive, weighing heavily
against my chest. The cries continued, distant yet
distinct, pulling us forward. With each step into the forest,
the underbrush grew denser, the trees taller, and the path less
discernible. My flashlight beam danced over
the ground, casting long, sinister shadows that twisted
and turned with our movements. Kate marched ahead, determined,
her own light bobbing ahead of me.
Hello, where are you? She called into the darkness.
There was a pause, then another scream, closer this time,
infused with pain and fear. My instincts screamed at me to
turn back, to flee the unknown dangers hidden by the night.
But I couldn't leave, not when someone might be out there, hurt
and alone. We pushed deeper into the woods,
the darkness swallowing us whole.
Every sound seemed amplified in the silence, every snapped twig
a gunshot. In the quiet, my heart pounded
in my ears, a relentless drum urging me to flee.
But beside me, Kate's resolve was unshakable, her step steady
and sure. It was then, in the suffocating
blackness of the Australian Alps, that I began to understand
the true meaning of fear. The darkness seemed to close in
around us, pressing against my chest with an almost physical
weight. Each step forward seemed to lead
us deeper into a realm where the night ruled without mercy.
Kate's flashlights sliced through the blackness ahead, her
determined strides never wavering despite the chilling
cries that continued to echo around us.
Come on, we're close now. Kate called back to me, her
voice tinged with urgency. I hurried after her, my own fear
gnawing at me relentlessly. The deeper we ventured, the
colder the air became, filling with a faint, musty odor that
made me want to gag. It was the smell of decay, of
things long dead and forgotten. Suddenly, the source of the
screams became visible, a figure on the ground, shrouded in
darkness. My pulse quickened as we
approached, the beam of my flashlight trembling in my hand.
Hello, can you hear us? Kate's voice broke the haunting
silence, her light focusing on the figure that now seemed so
terrifyingly still as we drew closer.
A gut wrenching realization stopped me dead in my tracks.
The figure on the ground wasn't human.
It was something else, something grotesque that my brain
struggled to comprehend. Its skin was pale, almost
translucent, stretched taut over sharp, angular bones.
It turned slowly to face us, its eyes glowing faintly in the dim
light. A scream of pure terror was
ripped from my throat as the creature unfurled itself, rising
to an unnatural height. Its mouth opened in a silent
snarl, revealing rows of jagged, stained teeth.
Kate stumbled backwards, her face pale with shock.
But before she could turn to run, the creature lunged.
Everything happened in a blur. I heard Kate scream, shrill and
cut horrifyingly short. I saw the flash of movement as
the creature pounced, its form a blur of limbs and twisted
features. Panic seized me, primal and
overpowering. I turned and ran blindly back
toward the path, branches whipping against my face as I
broke through the underbrush. I didn't stop, not even to look
back, my breaths coming in ragged gasps as fear propelled
me forward. Somewhere behind me, the sounds
of a struggle continued, snarls and screams that seemed to chase
me through the trees. My mind reeled, unable to accept
what my eyes had witnessed. After what seemed like an
eternity, I reached the car, fumbling with the keys, my hands
shaking uncontrollably. I managed to unlock it and throw
myself inside. I started the engine on the
first try, a small mercy in the night of terror and speed away
from the nightmare behind me. I didn't stop driving until the
lights of a small motel appeared, a beacon of safety in
the darkness. I checked in with a fake name,
too scared to even consider the possibility of being found.
My room was a small, musty space, but it was secure.
I locked the door, closed the curtains and collapsed onto the
bed, my body still shaking. Lying there in the flickering
light of a single bedside lamp, I tried to make sense of the
horror I had witnessed. Was it a skinwalker, a bunyip,
or some other Cryptid? The questions swirled in my
mind, but no answers came. Only one thing was certain.
I would never forget Kate's screams, and I would never
forgive myself for leaving her behind in that dark, cursed
forest.