Bizarre Bedtime Stories: The Things That Hide In The National Parks Ep.4

WEBVTT
1
00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:28.300
Welcome to Bizarre Bedtime Stories. Tonight We are heading into
2
00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:32.289
the national parks where miles of untouched wilderness stretch into darkness,
3
00:00:32.770 --> 00:00:35.969
the trees swallow the light, and the silence can be
4
00:00:36.030 --> 00:00:40.710
more terrifying than the sounds that break it. Deep in
5
00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:44.929
these woods, people have reported encounters they can't explain, heard
6
00:00:44.990 --> 00:00:48.820
things they can't identify, and experienced moments that have left
7
00:00:48.859 --> 00:00:54.560
them questioning, what exactly is hiding out there? From eerie
8
00:00:54.600 --> 00:00:57.740
encounters and things lurking just beyond the tree line to
9
00:00:57.780 --> 00:01:02.659
disturbing experiences and places where cell service disappears and help
10
00:01:02.740 --> 00:01:06.370
is miles away, these stories will make you think twice
11
00:01:06.469 --> 00:01:12.269
about venturing into the wilderness alone. So settle in, get comfortable,
12
00:01:12.370 --> 00:01:16.530
and imagine yourself sitting beside a dying campfire surrounded by
13
00:01:16.650 --> 00:01:21.689
nothing but towering trees and endless darkness. Because when you're
14
00:01:21.709 --> 00:01:25.650
miles from civilization, there's no one around to hear you scream.
15
00:01:26.269 --> 00:01:29.269
And if something is watching you from the shadows, you
16
00:01:29.310 --> 00:01:33.260
might never know how close it really is. Our first
17
00:01:33.299 --> 00:01:36.400
story of the night is called, I Found a Strange
18
00:01:36.500 --> 00:01:42.319
Journal in the Restricted Area of a National Park. I
19
00:01:42.359 --> 00:01:44.540
am an avid hiker and happen to live near a
20
00:01:44.579 --> 00:01:47.810
national park that I think it's best not to name.
21
00:01:48.450 --> 00:01:51.480
Me and my friends go hiking there often. or I
22
00:01:51.519 --> 00:01:56.769
guess did. If you have ever been to a national park,
23
00:01:56.859 --> 00:01:59.670
you might have noticed certain areas were restricted for one
24
00:01:59.709 --> 00:02:03.370
reason or another. This one was no different, and the
25
00:02:03.430 --> 00:02:06.569
reason we were given was that the terrain was too dangerous.
26
00:02:07.510 --> 00:02:10.069
To me and my friends, this only made it sound
27
00:02:10.289 --> 00:02:14.509
more fun. When you spend as much time in a
28
00:02:14.550 --> 00:02:17.280
park as I, You begin to catch on to the
29
00:02:17.340 --> 00:02:20.719
ranger's routines. Soon you're able to avoid them with ease.
30
00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:24.740
And so we made our way into the restricted area.
31
00:02:26.030 --> 00:02:29.189
We were soon met with disappointment as the terrain was
32
00:02:29.270 --> 00:02:32.949
quite flat and boring. It may have been safer there
33
00:02:32.969 --> 00:02:35.509
than the other parts of the park. My friends and
34
00:02:35.650 --> 00:02:38.250
I started speculating why they might want to keep people
35
00:02:38.330 --> 00:02:41.150
out of here. And then we started getting shot at.
36
00:02:41.949 --> 00:02:45.020
We started running. I made the mistake of looking back.
37
00:02:45.620 --> 00:02:47.740
I didn't see the shooter and I didn't see the
38
00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:50.919
hole in front of me either. About falling a good
39
00:02:50.919 --> 00:02:54.099
10 feet, I began examining my legs to see if
40
00:02:54.159 --> 00:02:58.159
I had broken them. My eye caught something. Behind some
41
00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:02.210
rocks was an old and deteriorating satchel. Contained within it
42
00:03:02.409 --> 00:03:05.430
was some shotgun shells and what appeared to be a journal.
43
00:03:07.810 --> 00:03:09.810
Soon my friends came back and helped me out of
44
00:03:09.849 --> 00:03:13.990
the hole. We all escaped without taking any bullets. One
45
00:03:14.009 --> 00:03:17.389
of my friends proposed the idea that they were simply
46
00:03:17.449 --> 00:03:20.069
trying to scare us away and may have only been
47
00:03:20.150 --> 00:03:24.469
using blanks. But that didn't make any sense. What could
48
00:03:24.490 --> 00:03:26.889
they be trying to hide, and why would they keep
49
00:03:26.930 --> 00:03:31.590
it in such a public area? Now, I think I
50
00:03:31.629 --> 00:03:36.379
know the answer. Once home, I began looking through the
51
00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:39.439
journal and found that many of the pages, although frail,
52
00:03:39.759 --> 00:03:43.490
were still intact. The name Ellie Johnson is written on
53
00:03:43.509 --> 00:03:50.319
the front. The remaining pages read as follows. 10-6, 1915
54
00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:52.780
The trees are all beautiful this time of year. It's
55
00:03:52.819 --> 00:03:56.479
a shame the leaves don't last long. I'd rather they
56
00:03:56.500 --> 00:03:59.110
look this way all year. I used some of the
57
00:03:59.169 --> 00:04:01.449
leaves to make beds for the sheep. I thought they
58
00:04:01.490 --> 00:04:04.590
could use them as it's getting colder. Dad says it
59
00:04:04.629 --> 00:04:07.409
will be even colder this year because our new land
60
00:04:07.509 --> 00:04:10.530
is up higher than the old. At first, that didn't
61
00:04:10.569 --> 00:04:13.500
make much sense to me, but now I can feel
62
00:04:13.659 --> 00:04:21.180
he's right. I've noticed my chores get done a fair
63
00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:23.980
bit faster now that there ain't much more than a
64
00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:27.060
cow and some sheep to feed. But this has left
65
00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:29.920
me with nothing much to do. My friends are all
66
00:04:29.980 --> 00:04:33.180
miles away now, and there ain't nobody out here but us.
67
00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:37.220
I try to help Mom when I can, especially since
68
00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:40.300
she's carrying my little sister, our brother, but most of
69
00:04:40.329 --> 00:04:44.120
the time she insists on doing things herself. I never
70
00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:52.360
thought I'd want more chores. 10-9-1915 Nothing much happened today
71
00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:54.779
other than a sheep escaped for about half a minute
72
00:04:54.819 --> 00:04:57.769
before Dad caught her. Ain't really sure why I opened
73
00:04:57.810 --> 00:05:04.509
this book. 10-12-1915 Dad's bringing a friend of his up
74
00:05:04.529 --> 00:05:08.079
here to go hunting. His name's Stan. Can't say I
75
00:05:08.139 --> 00:05:10.720
know him too well. I only met him once at church.
76
00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:13.680
I asked Dad if I could come with him. He
77
00:05:13.740 --> 00:05:16.540
said someone had to stay back and help Mom. He
78
00:05:16.579 --> 00:05:18.949
was right, I suppose, but that don't make me happy
79
00:05:19.009 --> 00:05:25.389
about it. 10-13, 19-15 I woke up this morning and
80
00:05:25.449 --> 00:05:27.709
found it snowed in the night. It's got to be
81
00:05:27.750 --> 00:05:30.149
at least three inches. I went to see what Dad
82
00:05:30.189 --> 00:05:32.819
might have brought home, but he hasn't gotten back yet.
83
00:05:33.740 --> 00:05:37.600
Mom's real worried, and so am I. Dad's usually only
84
00:05:37.620 --> 00:05:41.029
gone a few hours, never all night. He's never gone
85
00:05:41.089 --> 00:05:44.470
hunting in these woods before neither. I told my mom
86
00:05:44.490 --> 00:05:46.329
I should go out and see if I can find him,
87
00:05:46.949 --> 00:05:49.310
but she didn't much care for that idea at all.
88
00:05:50.029 --> 00:05:53.420
Says I'll get lost too. Says we should just wait.
89
00:05:54.139 --> 00:05:56.339
So I suppose that's what we're gonna do. 10-14-1915 Dad's
90
00:05:58.339 --> 00:06:04.740
still gone. I told mom that someone was going to
91
00:06:04.779 --> 00:06:07.220
have to go looking for them, and since she's pregnant,
92
00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:09.579
it was going to have to be me. She began
93
00:06:09.600 --> 00:06:12.500
to cry, saying she ain't going to lose her entire family.
94
00:06:14.100 --> 00:06:16.600
Then she said if he wasn't back tomorrow, she'd send
95
00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:19.399
me into town to get help. I didn't want her
96
00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:22.240
any more upset than she already was, so I agreed.
97
00:06:23.060 --> 00:06:25.139
But I know he ain't going to come back tomorrow.
98
00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:29.319
And if he's hurt, he's going to need help quick.
99
00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:32.399
So when Mom went to bed, I grabbed the shotgun
100
00:06:32.420 --> 00:06:35.290
by the door and some shells. I took a lantern, too.
101
00:06:36.329 --> 00:06:38.709
If I find Dad and Stan, I'll help them back
102
00:06:38.769 --> 00:06:40.810
home and Mom will be happy. And if I don't,
103
00:06:41.129 --> 00:06:50.250
I'll come home and she'll never know. 10-16-19-15 I think
104
00:06:50.329 --> 00:06:54.420
I'm lost. I follow the footprints leading to the forest
105
00:06:54.439 --> 00:06:57.250
thinking I'll find them in no time. but that damn
106
00:06:57.310 --> 00:06:59.949
snow kept falling and the footprints began to fade till
107
00:06:59.990 --> 00:07:02.930
I couldn't see them anymore. At least not with my
108
00:07:02.970 --> 00:07:06.050
little lantern. But I wasn't going to let that stop me.
109
00:07:07.149 --> 00:07:10.029
I kept walking, where I figured they must have been going.
110
00:07:10.490 --> 00:07:13.629
The foolish idea went as well as one might suspect.
111
00:07:14.509 --> 00:07:17.230
The lantern ain't worth dirt. I didn't know I was
112
00:07:17.290 --> 00:07:19.790
on a hill till I was rolling down it. I
113
00:07:19.810 --> 00:07:21.709
hit my head against a rock on the way down.
114
00:07:21.970 --> 00:07:25.990
Everything went black. I woke the next morning half buried
115
00:07:26.050 --> 00:07:29.029
in snow, but by the good grace of the Lord,
116
00:07:29.170 --> 00:07:32.209
I didn't break any bones. I climbed back up the
117
00:07:32.250 --> 00:07:34.949
hill to find that the snow had erased my tracks,
118
00:07:35.470 --> 00:07:39.939
just the same as the others. I thought if I
119
00:07:39.980 --> 00:07:42.680
just kept walking straight, I'll end up back home, but
120
00:07:42.759 --> 00:07:45.300
after half an hour, I was still in the woods.
121
00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:50.560
I kept on wandering in every direction without finding nothing
122
00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:53.170
but more trees and snow, like the damn thing goes
123
00:07:53.250 --> 00:08:00.000
on forever. Didn't see a single animal either. Not one squirrel,
124
00:08:00.439 --> 00:08:04.019
nor bird, like these woods, are dead. I did find
125
00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:06.639
a small cave. I reckon it'd be better than sleeping
126
00:08:06.670 --> 00:08:10.410
under a tree, but I didn't get any sleep. Something
127
00:08:10.529 --> 00:08:13.870
strange started howling soon as I closed my eyes. It
128
00:08:13.910 --> 00:08:16.449
didn't sound like any wolf I know of, ain't really
129
00:08:16.490 --> 00:08:19.230
sure how to describe it, but it was close by,
130
00:08:19.829 --> 00:08:22.569
much closer than I would have liked. I thought I
131
00:08:22.610 --> 00:08:24.839
might have been trying to sleep in its homes, So
132
00:08:24.899 --> 00:08:28.139
I kept the gun ready. It didn't stop until the
133
00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:30.779
sun began to peek through the trees. Only then could
134
00:08:30.819 --> 00:08:34.679
I rest. I woke about midday. I wonder if mom
135
00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:37.340
is all right. Probably not too happy. I hope she
136
00:08:37.379 --> 00:08:39.600
don't come looking for me like a fool like me.
137
00:08:39.620 --> 00:08:44.470
I hope she goes and gets help. 10-17, 19-15. I
138
00:08:44.519 --> 00:08:46.970
think it's the next day, but I ain't sure of anything.
139
00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:55.299
I begin another day of hopelessly trying to escape the woods.
140
00:08:55.559 --> 00:08:57.850
I don't think they ever end. I think home may
141
00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:03.610
be a thousand miles away, if even that close. I
142
00:09:03.649 --> 00:09:07.250
came across some footprints. They were bigger than a bear
143
00:09:07.309 --> 00:09:10.570
and had inch-long claws. Next to them seemed to be
144
00:09:10.610 --> 00:09:14.490
the marks from something being dragged along. I followed them.
145
00:09:15.210 --> 00:09:18.450
I know it wasn't smart, but it was something. Something
146
00:09:18.490 --> 00:09:23.009
in a forest of nothing. As I followed, I'd find
147
00:09:23.049 --> 00:09:26.129
blood around the tracks every now and again. I kept
148
00:09:26.210 --> 00:09:30.919
walking until I came across a cave. This one was
149
00:09:31.059 --> 00:09:33.940
much larger than the one I used for a shelter.
150
00:09:34.639 --> 00:09:38.840
There was something inside. It was a giant beast hunched over,
151
00:09:39.080 --> 00:09:42.330
eating something. There was blood all around the mouth of
152
00:09:42.370 --> 00:09:46.029
the cave. I saw the bones of the creature's back
153
00:09:46.149 --> 00:09:50.470
poking through its gray skin. I stood frozen and started
154
00:09:50.509 --> 00:09:56.100
to cry. I wasn't sure why at the time, but
155
00:09:56.179 --> 00:10:00.320
now I believe it was because I knew who it was. eating.
156
00:10:01.039 --> 00:10:03.379
Before I could make too much noise, a hand went
157
00:10:03.419 --> 00:10:06.740
over my mouth and I was dragged behind a nearby rock.
158
00:10:07.559 --> 00:10:10.840
It was Stan. He gestured for me to be quiet
159
00:10:10.860 --> 00:10:13.159
and asked for the shotgun. I gave it to him.
160
00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:16.340
I asked him what happened to his gun. He told
161
00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:18.500
me he dropped it while running away from the beast.
162
00:10:19.720 --> 00:10:24.350
Then I asked where Dad was. He didn't answer. I
163
00:10:24.409 --> 00:10:29.070
tried keeping my tears quiet, but I failed. In the
164
00:10:29.110 --> 00:10:31.889
blink of an eye, that antlered monster had its jaws
165
00:10:31.950 --> 00:10:35.210
in my leg. I screamed in pain before Stan shot
166
00:10:35.230 --> 00:10:38.399
it in the face. It released me and turned toward him.
167
00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:43.100
He then shot it in the chest. This didn't seem
168
00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:46.500
to do much good, other than making it mad. The
169
00:10:46.539 --> 00:10:49.909
gun was now empty, but the monster was enraged. Stan
170
00:10:49.929 --> 00:10:53.250
ran off into the never-ending forest with the abomination gaining
171
00:10:53.289 --> 00:10:57.889
behind him, leaving me alone. It was going to catch
172
00:10:57.950 --> 00:11:00.570
him and kill him and drag him back here, and
173
00:11:00.629 --> 00:11:02.570
then it was going to do the same to me.
174
00:11:03.110 --> 00:11:05.750
I got up and began limping away. I kept my
175
00:11:05.850 --> 00:11:08.889
eyes closed until I was past the cave. I didn't
176
00:11:08.909 --> 00:11:12.399
want to see what was inside. I didn't get far
177
00:11:12.460 --> 00:11:17.250
before falling through the earth. Now I'm stuck in a hole. Okay,
178
00:11:17.269 --> 00:11:49.220
our next story is PSA, don't take a raw from
179
00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:56.639
Gettysburg National Park. Three days? I'll never forget. Disclaimer, I
180
00:11:56.700 --> 00:11:59.519
am not a writer, nor really care to be. My
181
00:11:59.610 --> 00:12:02.909
friend is an avid no-sleep reader, and as such, recommended
182
00:12:02.990 --> 00:12:06.190
I tell my tale here. I hope you enjoy. This
183
00:12:06.250 --> 00:12:09.470
is 100% true, as much as I can remember anyway.
184
00:12:09.889 --> 00:12:12.759
This story is now over 10 years old. It's not
185
00:12:12.820 --> 00:12:16.409
horrifyingly creepy to the outsider. but put yourself in a
186
00:12:16.429 --> 00:12:19.649
17-year-old's shoes and it becomes a little more discerning. A
187
00:12:21.789 --> 00:12:25.440
little more disconcerting. I am open to answering any questions
188
00:12:25.500 --> 00:12:27.600
about what happened and would love to hear the other
189
00:12:27.639 --> 00:12:33.320
stories if you've done or experienced something similar. As a kid,
190
00:12:33.340 --> 00:12:36.610
I was interested in the occult. I was fascinated by
191
00:12:36.690 --> 00:12:40.169
ghosts and all other matters of the supernatural and often
192
00:12:40.210 --> 00:12:43.750
found myself wishing that something eerie and unexplainable would happen
193
00:12:43.769 --> 00:12:51.090
to me. Ghost? Bigfoot? A UFO? Something? Anything? My friends
194
00:12:51.309 --> 00:12:55.850
shared in my interest as well. We would sit in
195
00:12:55.889 --> 00:12:58.230
my basement on the internet for hours at a time
196
00:12:58.309 --> 00:13:01.929
looking at pictures of ghosts and reading scary stories. During
197
00:13:01.990 --> 00:13:04.789
one of these sessions, my mother interrupted with some snacks
198
00:13:04.809 --> 00:13:08.879
from my friends and I and took a particular interest
199
00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:12.929
in what we were looking at. After explaining to her
200
00:13:12.990 --> 00:13:17.029
about orbs and why Polaroid cameras are advantageous for documenting spirits,
201
00:13:17.169 --> 00:13:19.909
my mom pulled me aside and we had a short
202
00:13:19.950 --> 00:13:23.269
conversation about looking at the type of subject matter. The
203
00:13:23.289 --> 00:13:26.860
typical parent stuff, most of it registering as blah, blah, blah.
204
00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:30.700
But something she said has stuck with me all the
205
00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:33.799
way to the present. She said, quote, I've always thought
206
00:13:33.820 --> 00:13:36.360
that if you go actively looking for these things, whether
207
00:13:36.379 --> 00:13:39.460
it be ghosts, ghouls, or monsters, these things will end
208
00:13:39.539 --> 00:13:44.389
up finding you, end quote. I wish they would, I replied.
209
00:13:45.649 --> 00:13:48.090
Be careful what you wish for, honey. And with all that?
210
00:13:49.309 --> 00:13:52.090
And with that, she left us to our supernatural adventures.
211
00:13:52.649 --> 00:13:55.529
It wasn't until a year later I realized how important
212
00:13:55.570 --> 00:14:01.629
that piece of advice really was. A lot of stuff
213
00:14:01.649 --> 00:14:04.480
happened in the next year. My parents got divorced, and
214
00:14:04.500 --> 00:14:06.980
my mother, sister, and I moved across town into a
215
00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:11.279
neighborhood called the Cloverleaf Neighborhood. This was your typical suburban
216
00:14:11.320 --> 00:14:16.850
dwelling with many Abel streets, Washington streets, and cul-de-sacs. We
217
00:14:16.889 --> 00:14:19.169
moved into a nice house. It was close to my
218
00:14:19.210 --> 00:14:23.669
high school and even closer to the majority of my friends. Now,
219
00:14:24.169 --> 00:14:27.409
like any other typical haunted house story, our moving in
220
00:14:27.529 --> 00:14:32.190
wasn't without issue. We had many electrical problems that seemingly
221
00:14:32.379 --> 00:14:36.200
every electrician in town had no answer for. Our toilets
222
00:14:36.259 --> 00:14:39.269
would spontaneously flush at all hours of the night. and
223
00:14:39.330 --> 00:14:43.309
our cats want to enter the room adjacent to my bedroom. Now,
224
00:14:43.389 --> 00:14:45.669
had I noticed this stuff at the time, given my
225
00:14:45.730 --> 00:14:49.710
interest in the supernatural, it probably would have raised my hackles,
226
00:14:49.830 --> 00:14:53.389
but I was 17 and distracted by other things. It
227
00:14:53.429 --> 00:14:57.529
wasn't until much later that I realized what was possibly happening.
228
00:14:59.850 --> 00:15:03.090
Months go by, the toilet started functioning normally, the lights
229
00:15:03.149 --> 00:15:07.820
fixed themselves, and the cats resumed regularly scheduled activities. The
230
00:15:07.860 --> 00:15:10.679
school years go by, I graduate, and the summer of
231
00:15:10.679 --> 00:15:17.259
2001 begins. My friends and I, realizing that soon we
232
00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:21.759
would all scatter to start our post-high school lives, wanted
233
00:15:21.779 --> 00:15:24.710
to plan a big road trip as a memorable send-off.
234
00:15:25.370 --> 00:15:28.710
We borrowed our friend's father's Suburban, piled in, and drove
235
00:15:28.750 --> 00:15:31.529
to the East Coast to visit some Civil War battlefields
236
00:15:32.470 --> 00:15:35.509
and hit up a couple concerts, Rolling Rock Town Fair
237
00:15:35.529 --> 00:15:39.990
and the Dave Matthews Band. The pinnacle of the trip
238
00:15:40.029 --> 00:15:43.090
was an all-day visit to Gettysburg. We spent the majority
239
00:15:43.129 --> 00:15:45.850
of the day bumming around the park, hopping in and
240
00:15:45.909 --> 00:15:48.950
out of tour groups and laying in the sun. The
241
00:15:48.990 --> 00:15:52.350
highlight of Gettysburg National Park is the battlefield where Pickett's
242
00:15:52.389 --> 00:15:57.350
Charge took place. A little background. Pickett's Charge was a
243
00:15:57.389 --> 00:16:03.120
charge led by General Pickett, naturally. It consisted of over 12,000
244
00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:06.840
Confederate soldiers charging over one mile of open ground while
245
00:16:06.860 --> 00:16:12.559
being decimated by artillery fire the entire way. It consisted
246
00:16:12.720 --> 00:16:17.620
over 12,000 Confederate soldiers charging over one mile of open ground.
247
00:16:18.419 --> 00:16:22.090
Since Confederate General Robert E. Lee never published any memoirs,
248
00:16:22.570 --> 00:16:25.210
it is unclear as to why they did this, as
249
00:16:25.289 --> 00:16:29.169
it was certain death. Some claim it was desperation. Others
250
00:16:29.210 --> 00:16:31.450
will say he thought for certain the Yankees would break
251
00:16:31.549 --> 00:16:34.950
under a full-face charge. The former may have been true,
252
00:16:35.129 --> 00:16:38.379
but the latter was not. the Confederate Army suffered a
253
00:16:38.419 --> 00:16:41.779
decisive defeat and was never the same from that point on.
254
00:16:42.620 --> 00:16:44.899
This was essentially the beginning of the end for the
255
00:16:44.919 --> 00:16:48.509
Confederate cause. There is a large stone wall that extends
256
00:16:48.610 --> 00:16:52.350
the width of the battlefield and juts north at 90 degrees,
257
00:16:53.149 --> 00:16:55.470
which happened to be the main source of cover for
258
00:16:55.490 --> 00:16:59.889
the Union artillery. This section of wall is known as
259
00:16:59.929 --> 00:17:04.940
the Bloody Angle. This was the furthest north any Confederate
260
00:17:04.980 --> 00:17:09.579
soldier got throughout the entire campaign. At one point, Union
261
00:17:09.740 --> 00:17:15.000
artillery was loaded with double canister shot. Imagine bugshot being
262
00:17:15.059 --> 00:17:17.960
shot out of a cannon and being discharged only a
263
00:17:18.119 --> 00:17:23.269
few feet away from Confederate lines. Both armies had run
264
00:17:23.369 --> 00:17:27.049
out of ammunition and engaged in hand-to-hand combat over this wall.
265
00:17:27.650 --> 00:17:30.509
It is really quite surreal when you are there imagining
266
00:17:30.569 --> 00:17:33.869
all of this. Needless to say, thousands of people were
267
00:17:33.930 --> 00:17:39.009
killed on this small rock wall. The wall has never
268
00:17:39.049 --> 00:17:41.670
been altered in any way, so the same rocks that
269
00:17:41.690 --> 00:17:44.869
were there over 150 years ago are the same rocks
270
00:17:44.950 --> 00:17:48.799
there today. I thought it would be a good idea
271
00:17:48.859 --> 00:17:51.359
to pluck a small stone off the wall and take
272
00:17:51.400 --> 00:17:55.700
it home as a souvenir. It never occurred to me
273
00:17:55.799 --> 00:17:58.759
that taking this small rock from what is essentially a
274
00:17:58.819 --> 00:18:03.339
gigantic graveyard was bad cosmic karma. The thought never crossed
275
00:18:03.380 --> 00:18:07.809
my mind. The trip concludes and a few long days later,
276
00:18:08.230 --> 00:18:11.329
we arrive back at my house at approximately 3 a.m.
277
00:18:12.069 --> 00:18:14.289
I woke my mom up, talked about the trip, and
278
00:18:14.329 --> 00:18:17.049
went downstairs to try and get some sleep. I set
279
00:18:17.089 --> 00:18:19.640
the Gettysburg Rock on my nightstand and stared at the
280
00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:22.799
ceiling all night. I couldn't sleep. I just brushed it
281
00:18:22.900 --> 00:18:30.049
off as a post-trip excitement. Night 1 The next evening,
282
00:18:30.170 --> 00:18:33.529
I fell asleep without issue, but awoke suddenly. My sheets
283
00:18:33.589 --> 00:18:35.990
and clothes were soaked in sweat, and I felt panicked.
284
00:18:36.650 --> 00:18:38.730
I looked at my clock radio just in time to
285
00:18:38.789 --> 00:18:42.670
see 2.59 a.m. switch to 3 a.m. I heard a
286
00:18:42.710 --> 00:18:45.160
large crash in the living area just down the hall.
287
00:18:45.819 --> 00:18:50.960
I froze and strained to hear. Everything was quiet. I
288
00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:54.259
gritted my teeth and hoped that a burglar wasn't making
289
00:18:54.339 --> 00:18:56.920
off with everything in the house, but as the minutes
290
00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:01.079
ticked away, the silence ensued. I convinced myself that the
291
00:19:01.099 --> 00:19:03.920
sudden noise was a byproduct of our cats knocking down
292
00:19:03.980 --> 00:19:07.700
a vase and breaking it. Not entirely uncommon as we
293
00:19:07.740 --> 00:19:11.579
had two curious cats. I slowly drifted back to sleep.
294
00:19:13.890 --> 00:19:15.970
I woke up fairly early the next morning and I
295
00:19:16.009 --> 00:19:19.269
saw my mother staring down at the fireplace. I said
296
00:19:19.309 --> 00:19:23.170
good morning and she jumped, visibly startled. As she turned
297
00:19:23.190 --> 00:19:25.140
to look at me, I saw what she was looking at.
298
00:19:25.730 --> 00:19:29.109
Our large glass grandfather clock was lying in our fireplace
299
00:19:29.170 --> 00:19:31.279
on the other side of the room shattered in a
300
00:19:31.339 --> 00:19:35.059
thousand pieces. I asked her what happened and she stammered
301
00:19:35.099 --> 00:19:38.640
through a clumsy explanation about how the clock fell after
302
00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:41.339
she slammed the door to the laundry room. She said
303
00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:43.990
she swept up the glass and dumped it into the fireplace.
304
00:19:44.930 --> 00:19:49.089
This obviously made little sense. I told her that I
305
00:19:49.150 --> 00:19:51.880
woke up early the that morning and heard a shatter
306
00:19:52.380 --> 00:19:55.099
and it was probably the clock but I didn't get
307
00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.950
up to check. I asked her why she was doing
308
00:19:58.990 --> 00:20:01.809
laundry at 3 a.m. She told me to drop it
309
00:20:02.490 --> 00:20:08.049
so I did. Night two. My mom and sister then
310
00:20:08.089 --> 00:20:10.670
went to Silver Bay for a wedding. and planned on
311
00:20:10.750 --> 00:20:13.509
staying the rest of the weekend, leaving me home by myself.
312
00:20:14.210 --> 00:20:17.220
I went about my day like any other normal summer weekend,
313
00:20:17.779 --> 00:20:21.240
but something was bothering me. I couldn't shake the feeling
314
00:20:21.299 --> 00:20:25.259
that something wasn't right. Specifically, I kept thinking about that
315
00:20:25.299 --> 00:20:29.420
broken clock. There was no way a clock that size,
316
00:20:30.009 --> 00:20:33.450
firmly lodged on the wall, would fall from a door shutting,
317
00:20:33.990 --> 00:20:36.609
nor would it shatter like it did on the carpet,
318
00:20:37.089 --> 00:20:40.079
and why would she sweep the pieces only to dump
319
00:20:40.140 --> 00:20:43.940
them into the fireplace. Did she throw the clock in
320
00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:49.140
the fireplace for some reason? Then there was the 3 a.m. thing.
321
00:20:49.339 --> 00:20:54.029
I heard it shatter. Something, someone, made it detach from
322
00:20:54.069 --> 00:20:57.490
the wall and travel 15 plus feet into the fireplace.
323
00:20:57.990 --> 00:21:00.910
The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became.
324
00:21:02.329 --> 00:21:04.670
I called over a group of friends to keep me company,
325
00:21:05.250 --> 00:21:08.069
one of whom is currently the keyboardist for a fairly
326
00:21:08.109 --> 00:21:13.190
famous indie band. We were all sitting in my basement
327
00:21:13.250 --> 00:21:16.430
watching the movie, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. A
328
00:21:16.450 --> 00:21:19.470
pair of friends had fallen asleep on the floor, and
329
00:21:19.509 --> 00:21:23.220
the keyboardist and I were sitting on the couch together. Bam!
330
00:21:24.259 --> 00:21:27.539
I heard her front door slam, hard, hard enough to
331
00:21:27.619 --> 00:21:30.559
shake the windows behind me, and my friend jumped. She
332
00:21:30.579 --> 00:21:34.990
looked at me and said, Someone's home. I told her
333
00:21:35.029 --> 00:21:37.849
I wasn't expecting my family to return for another day.
334
00:21:38.390 --> 00:21:41.420
I looked at the clock, 3 a.m. My head starts
335
00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:43.880
to pound from adrenaline and I get a sticky feeling
336
00:21:43.960 --> 00:21:46.609
in my gut. I stand and move towards the foyer
337
00:21:46.660 --> 00:21:51.630
to investigate. I crept toward the wall that partitions the
338
00:21:51.670 --> 00:21:55.150
stairs and the entryway, and as I approach, I heard
339
00:21:55.190 --> 00:21:58.269
a thumping. One of my shoes started to tumble down
340
00:21:58.309 --> 00:22:03.460
the steps, followed by another, then another, then another, all
341
00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:06.759
accumulating in a nice little pile at my feet. All
342
00:22:06.799 --> 00:22:10.569
my shoes, nobody else's. I peered around the corner to
343
00:22:10.609 --> 00:22:16.269
her entryway. Door shut. Closet door shut. I ran upstairs. Nothing.
344
00:22:16.829 --> 00:22:20.029
Front door locked. I gather up all my shoes, throw
345
00:22:20.069 --> 00:22:23.180
them in the closet, and go downstairs. Continue to watch
346
00:22:23.220 --> 00:22:25.660
the movie and count down the minutes until the sun
347
00:22:25.700 --> 00:22:30.000
came up. It's worth noting that I didn't say anything
348
00:22:30.059 --> 00:22:32.259
to my friend as I was hoping she would become
349
00:22:32.279 --> 00:22:36.579
a little more than that. and realizing that if I
350
00:22:36.619 --> 00:22:39.160
break down in tears and start crying about ghosts in
351
00:22:39.200 --> 00:22:41.900
my house, and surely that would be my death for
352
00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:49.309
any romantic activity that night. Night 3 The next night
353
00:22:49.369 --> 00:22:52.329
rolls around, and I was in a bad way. I
354
00:22:52.369 --> 00:22:55.730
knew something was going on. A part of me was terrified,
355
00:22:56.029 --> 00:23:00.650
but another part of me was insatiably curious. However, the
356
00:23:00.670 --> 00:23:02.779
last thing I wanted to do was stay alone in
357
00:23:02.799 --> 00:23:06.319
the house. I invited my good friends, Tony and TJ,
358
00:23:06.420 --> 00:23:10.039
to come over. I told them everything. We sat around
359
00:23:10.079 --> 00:23:12.599
the basement for the majority of the night, with all
360
00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:16.349
the lights on, waiting for something to happen. We eventually
361
00:23:16.380 --> 00:23:19.190
worked ourselves up into such a tizzy, we didn't want
362
00:23:19.230 --> 00:23:23.230
to spend another minute inside. So we went out and
363
00:23:23.289 --> 00:23:26.250
sat in my car instead. I told them that everything
364
00:23:26.289 --> 00:23:29.259
was happening at 3 a.m., so we just sat there
365
00:23:29.410 --> 00:23:33.589
and waited. 3 a.m. rolls by. All's quiet. We'd sit
366
00:23:33.630 --> 00:23:38.869
for a few minutes longer. Nothing. I swear this stuff happened.
367
00:23:39.509 --> 00:23:42.019
My face is red with embarrassment, and I pleaded with
368
00:23:42.059 --> 00:23:44.319
my friends to believe me and just stay with me
369
00:23:44.339 --> 00:23:48.859
a little longer. Neither of them believed a word of it,
370
00:23:49.079 --> 00:23:52.029
proclaiming that I'd made this entire thing up, and Tony
371
00:23:52.049 --> 00:23:55.130
started trying to egg on whatever spirit may or may
372
00:23:55.190 --> 00:24:00.289
not have been in the house. Come on, ghosty. Here, ghosty, ghosty, ghosty.
373
00:24:02.190 --> 00:24:05.210
All right, guys, I'm taking you home, I said. Well,
374
00:24:05.230 --> 00:24:07.710
hopefully the ghost comes out when we leave, Tony says
375
00:24:07.750 --> 00:24:11.890
with a devious grin on his face. Please don't, don't
376
00:24:12.150 --> 00:24:14.559
tempt it. What if it blows up my car or something?
377
00:24:15.180 --> 00:24:19.200
I put my key in the ignition and turn it. Nothing.
378
00:24:19.640 --> 00:24:29.309
Tony's face turned stone cold. I turn the key again. Nothing. Again. Rev, rev, rev. Boom.
379
00:24:30.390 --> 00:24:33.130
The hood of my car. moves as if something blew
380
00:24:33.269 --> 00:24:37.230
up underneath. We instantly scream like little girls and jump
381
00:24:37.319 --> 00:24:42.880
out of the car. After a few moments of observation
382
00:24:42.940 --> 00:24:46.160
and an awful lot of cuss words, I popped the
383
00:24:46.200 --> 00:24:49.859
hood and noticed that the sound came from my vacuum
384
00:24:49.880 --> 00:24:53.960
hose popping off the engine. This had never happened before,
385
00:24:53.980 --> 00:24:57.500
but lucky for me, I had taken an auto repair
386
00:24:57.539 --> 00:25:00.119
class the previous semester and knew how to fix it.
387
00:25:00.940 --> 00:25:03.720
I went in the garage, grabbed a needle nose, and
388
00:25:03.740 --> 00:25:06.660
put the hose back where it belonged. I also grabbed
389
00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:08.720
a couple cans of pop and gave them to both
390
00:25:08.779 --> 00:25:12.579
Tony and TJ, and we discussed what had just happened.
391
00:25:13.660 --> 00:25:15.880
I was debating spending the night at one of their
392
00:25:15.900 --> 00:25:19.220
houses when TJ's eyes got really wide and he turned
393
00:25:19.279 --> 00:25:23.519
around and started running. He ran over a mile all
394
00:25:23.539 --> 00:25:27.299
the way home. Tony dropped his can of Sprite, spilling
395
00:25:27.420 --> 00:25:30.119
all over his shoes, and he started backing away from
396
00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:34.019
me I turned around to the direction I thought they
397
00:25:34.059 --> 00:25:39.710
were looking in and didn't see anything. Tony had now
398
00:25:39.829 --> 00:25:42.490
backed up all the way across the street and was
399
00:25:42.569 --> 00:25:46.829
now visibly shaking. Thinking this was now a joke but
400
00:25:46.869 --> 00:25:49.210
not amused, I chased him down in an attempt to
401
00:25:49.250 --> 00:25:51.930
tackle him, fully intending to sit on him until he
402
00:25:51.950 --> 00:25:55.019
gives up, thus punishing him for screwing with me in
403
00:25:55.140 --> 00:25:58.500
such a vulnerable state. He punched me in the mouth
404
00:25:58.559 --> 00:26:02.480
as I approached. What the fuck, I scream out. Dude,
405
00:26:02.619 --> 00:26:06.200
don't step any closer to me, please, he yells. He's crying.
406
00:26:06.220 --> 00:26:11.769
I demand he explain what is going on, and he
407
00:26:11.849 --> 00:26:14.650
claimed that while we were talking in the driveway, my
408
00:26:14.890 --> 00:26:20.539
eyes went completely red. Iris, pupil, whites, everything. TJ confirmed
409
00:26:20.559 --> 00:26:22.400
this the next morning when I spoke with him on
410
00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:26.450
the phone. Fuck this, I said. Tony elected to walk
411
00:26:26.509 --> 00:26:28.369
home and I got in my car, drove to my
412
00:26:28.410 --> 00:26:34.250
dad's house, and spent the night there. Following day, my
413
00:26:34.309 --> 00:26:36.609
mom came home the next night to an open garage
414
00:26:36.650 --> 00:26:40.269
door and an empty, unlocked house. She called my dad
415
00:26:40.309 --> 00:26:43.470
looking for me and I came home. I told her everything.
416
00:26:43.930 --> 00:26:45.930
She then told me that she lied about the clock.
417
00:26:46.130 --> 00:26:48.690
She woke up only shortly before I did and saw
418
00:26:48.730 --> 00:26:52.170
the clock in pieces in the fireplace and then told
419
00:26:52.210 --> 00:26:54.559
me about all the stuff that happened when we moved in.
420
00:26:55.390 --> 00:26:59.559
I started to remember the lights, toilets, cats. She also
421
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:02.759
told me a few new things she kept secret, perhaps
422
00:27:02.819 --> 00:27:06.160
stories for another day, stories involving her friends as well
423
00:27:06.220 --> 00:27:12.039
as my sister. Before the Cloverleaf neighborhood was a neighborhood,
424
00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:15.480
it was a farm. It was foreclosed on during the
425
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:18.960
Depression and the farmer hung himself. Her theory was that
426
00:27:19.009 --> 00:27:22.809
he checks out all the new tenants and homeowners, which
427
00:27:22.869 --> 00:27:26.319
was why everything stopped after a few months. She couldn't
428
00:27:26.380 --> 00:27:29.640
explain why these current, more invasive things were happening. I
429
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:33.180
then thought of the rock, Gettysburg, 3 a.m. I got
430
00:27:33.240 --> 00:27:36.039
home the first night at 3 a.m. Everything was happening
431
00:27:36.099 --> 00:27:40.069
around 3 a.m. There were three days of hauntings. Battle
432
00:27:40.109 --> 00:27:42.650
of Gettysburg was three days long, and Pickett's Charge was
433
00:27:42.730 --> 00:27:45.950
on July 3rd. Holy shit, it had to be the rock.
434
00:27:47.549 --> 00:27:50.009
I took this rock from a nasty place and brought
435
00:27:50.069 --> 00:27:53.569
something back that was not pleased. My mom suggested that
436
00:27:53.609 --> 00:27:56.849
I send the rock back to Gettysburg, and I wholeheartedly agreed.
437
00:27:58.670 --> 00:28:00.990
I wrote a nice letter addressed to the Gettysburg National
438
00:28:01.029 --> 00:28:04.329
Park and didn't mention anything about ghosts or hauntings. I
439
00:28:04.390 --> 00:28:06.349
said that I had felt bad about taking a piece
440
00:28:06.390 --> 00:28:08.630
of history and that if every tourist took a rock
441
00:28:08.650 --> 00:28:11.609
from the wall, there would be no wall left. I
442
00:28:11.670 --> 00:28:14.049
dropped the rock into an envelope and sent it on
443
00:28:14.089 --> 00:28:19.490
its way. Predictably, everything stopped. This is my favorite part, though.
444
00:28:20.230 --> 00:28:22.230
About a week later, I came home to eat lunch
445
00:28:22.349 --> 00:28:25.150
and the light was flashing on our answering machine. The
446
00:28:25.170 --> 00:28:30.619
message was as follows, paraphrasing. Hello, this is such and
447
00:28:30.660 --> 00:28:33.759
such from Gettysburg National Park and I am a park ranger.
448
00:28:34.299 --> 00:28:36.140
I just wanted to call and thank you for sending
449
00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:39.519
that nice letter along with the rock from the angle. Pause.
450
00:28:39.940 --> 00:28:41.539
I also want to say that I think I know
451
00:28:41.619 --> 00:28:44.009
the real reason why you sent the rock back. You
452
00:28:44.089 --> 00:28:46.630
aren't alone. I have to come to the park early
453
00:28:46.769 --> 00:28:49.470
every Friday to put handfuls of rocks back on the wall.
454
00:28:49.930 --> 00:28:55.609
You did the right thing. Trust me. Click. The aftermath.
455
00:28:56.250 --> 00:28:58.309
I continue to stand by this story no matter how
456
00:28:58.369 --> 00:29:01.180
much ridicule I endure. Some of my friends to this
457
00:29:01.240 --> 00:29:03.140
day think it's all made up. I've been known to
458
00:29:03.180 --> 00:29:05.680
pull some crazy schemes back in my day, but I
459
00:29:05.720 --> 00:29:10.450
can say that these things are indeed true. My friends
460
00:29:10.509 --> 00:29:13.990
that were with me for the car incident corroborate the story.
461
00:29:14.069 --> 00:29:17.119
My mother as well. Like I said above, I was
462
00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:19.819
interested in the occult and often thought how cool would
463
00:29:19.900 --> 00:29:23.089
it be to experience a haunting. I can 100% say
464
00:29:23.160 --> 00:29:27.190
that I never ever want to experience that again. The
465
00:29:27.250 --> 00:29:30.210
feeling of helplessness that came along with it was horrible.
466
00:29:30.789 --> 00:29:33.269
Knowing that some sort of energy was doing these things
467
00:29:33.329 --> 00:29:39.029
to me for a specific reason was undeniably terrifying. Sometimes
468
00:29:39.089 --> 00:29:41.299
I wonder what would have happened had I not sent
469
00:29:41.339 --> 00:29:43.539
the rock back and what would happen if I ever
470
00:29:43.579 --> 00:29:47.140
went to Gettysburg and grabbed one again the scientific side
471
00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:48.619
of me would love to do it but as soon
472
00:29:48.660 --> 00:29:52.279
as the thought materializes a chilly feeling washes over me
473
00:29:52.299 --> 00:29:56.980
and the thought vanishes as quickly as it came I
474
00:29:57.009 --> 00:30:00.329
work in medicine and consider myself a fairly logic-based person.
475
00:30:00.349 --> 00:30:02.990
I don't really believe in religion and, while open to
476
00:30:03.029 --> 00:30:06.190
the idea of there being a higher power, don't really
477
00:30:06.230 --> 00:30:09.470
believe that either. However, I cannot explain what happened to me.
478
00:30:09.549 --> 00:30:11.910
Those three days have never changed how I view the world.
479
00:30:12.670 --> 00:30:15.160
There are things out there that we have yet to explain.
480
00:30:16.819 --> 00:30:19.539
Years later, I attended a screening of The Exorcism of
481
00:30:19.619 --> 00:30:22.440
Emily Rose and this movie The Possessed Child kept waking
482
00:30:22.539 --> 00:30:25.619
up at 3 a.m. The priest explains this in the
483
00:30:25.660 --> 00:30:29.140
movie as the witching hour. If you believe the Bible,
484
00:30:29.220 --> 00:30:34.630
Christ was apparently crucified at 3pm. The antithesis of this,
485
00:30:34.750 --> 00:30:38.309
obviously 3am, the time in which demons are supposedly most active,
486
00:30:38.710 --> 00:30:40.589
it is said that if you're waking up at 3am
487
00:30:40.630 --> 00:30:43.150
a lot, you are under attack by demons or some
488
00:30:43.190 --> 00:30:47.410
dark force. Needless to say, when this was disclosed during
489
00:30:47.430 --> 00:30:53.740
the movie, I shrank to my seat. Our next story is,
490
00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:57.420
I'm a park ranger at Mount Rainier. People keep going missing,
491
00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:03.440
and I think I found out why. 25. That is
492
00:31:04.160 --> 00:31:06.380
the number of people who have gone missing at the
493
00:31:06.440 --> 00:31:09.140
park since the beginning of the year, with nothing being
494
00:31:09.180 --> 00:31:12.869
done or said about it. In fact, I'm pretty sure
495
00:31:12.900 --> 00:31:15.309
I'll lose my job when they find this posting, but
496
00:31:15.349 --> 00:31:17.450
I have other things to be scared of at this point,
497
00:31:17.630 --> 00:31:21.759
and this needs to get out. I'm a wilderness ranger
498
00:31:21.799 --> 00:31:24.160
at Mount Rainier. My job is to walk the hundreds
499
00:31:24.200 --> 00:31:26.859
of miles of trail and wilderness in the park looking
500
00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:30.740
for problems and helping lost and injured hikers. In the
501
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:33.140
old days, any lost hiker would mean all of us
502
00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:36.809
going out together, putting together a search plan and doing
503
00:31:36.849 --> 00:31:40.029
our best to get them home safely. Things are different today,
504
00:31:40.609 --> 00:31:46.690
ever since the start of 2022. Whenever a person gets
505
00:31:46.750 --> 00:31:50.009
reported as missing, the family is assured we are on
506
00:31:50.069 --> 00:31:52.700
it And we will do our best to find them
507
00:31:53.180 --> 00:31:56.450
and promise that they will dispatch us to look. As
508
00:31:56.490 --> 00:31:58.769
soon as the family is gone, our bosses tell us
509
00:31:58.809 --> 00:32:01.369
they'll have a search and rescue company take over. And
510
00:32:01.410 --> 00:32:03.450
if we know what's best for our jobs, we should
511
00:32:03.490 --> 00:32:06.859
just focus on checking trail conditions and doing the rest
512
00:32:06.920 --> 00:32:13.200
of our jobs. And so it's gone on since 2022.
513
00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:15.400
At first, there were just a few people missing here
514
00:32:15.569 --> 00:32:18.150
and there all over the park. It didn't seem that
515
00:32:18.230 --> 00:32:21.410
unnatural other than our rangers not being involved in the search,
516
00:32:21.750 --> 00:32:24.170
but we figured it was some new policy and shrugged
517
00:32:24.210 --> 00:32:27.710
it off. More people started disappearing as the year went on,
518
00:32:28.099 --> 00:32:30.980
making all of us wonder what was going on and
519
00:32:31.099 --> 00:32:33.420
why it had been made clear to us we should
520
00:32:33.480 --> 00:32:38.480
keep our mouth shut. Personally, I figured it was just
521
00:32:38.539 --> 00:32:41.420
a combination of bad trail conditions from a rough winter
522
00:32:41.440 --> 00:32:45.150
or An influx of inexperienced hikers and the park service
523
00:32:45.230 --> 00:32:48.039
trying to avoid looking bad when we needed more funding.
524
00:32:49.279 --> 00:32:53.920
Until last Thursday. It was an overcast day and I
525
00:32:53.960 --> 00:32:56.559
was walking along the trail up to Ipset Pass in
526
00:32:56.599 --> 00:33:01.509
the Carbon River area. Humming quietly to myself to pass
527
00:33:01.549 --> 00:33:04.109
the time and wondering how far up I would go
528
00:33:04.210 --> 00:33:06.609
before I had to put on my crampons when I
529
00:33:06.670 --> 00:33:09.309
saw it. Off to the side of the trail, maybe
530
00:33:09.309 --> 00:33:12.190
50 feet into the forest, there was an odd light
531
00:33:12.329 --> 00:33:15.450
on the forest floor. At first, I thought the light
532
00:33:15.490 --> 00:33:18.930
was just a reflection off the water or some trash
533
00:33:19.210 --> 00:33:22.390
someone had left. But as I moved closer, the light
534
00:33:22.430 --> 00:33:26.250
didn't fade or change. It just stayed steady. Maybe it
535
00:33:26.289 --> 00:33:29.630
was a lost flashlight? I had walked this trail dozens
536
00:33:29.670 --> 00:33:33.809
of times and never noticed it before. I knelt down,
537
00:33:34.269 --> 00:33:37.009
taking my pack off. and saw that the light seemed
538
00:33:37.029 --> 00:33:39.990
to be coming from just under the dirt. I looked
539
00:33:40.029 --> 00:33:42.529
around to see if anyone else was nearby on the
540
00:33:42.569 --> 00:33:46.369
trail and saw no one. Shrugging, I reached into the
541
00:33:46.430 --> 00:33:48.930
dirt to poke at the light to see what it was.
542
00:33:51.210 --> 00:33:54.039
Poking around, I found the corner of a slightly open
543
00:33:54.099 --> 00:33:57.880
trapdoor that was at most only a foot wide on
544
00:33:57.940 --> 00:34:02.509
each side. It was camouflaged nearly perfectly. If it had
545
00:34:02.589 --> 00:34:05.569
not been left just barely ajar with the light exposed,
546
00:34:05.690 --> 00:34:07.809
there is no way anyone would have seen it from
547
00:34:07.849 --> 00:34:13.070
the trail. I kept opening it, feeling uneasy, but hoping
548
00:34:13.389 --> 00:34:16.269
maybe it was some hiker's idea of a good place
549
00:34:16.949 --> 00:34:20.070
to cache food and water for a long trek. Instead,
550
00:34:20.269 --> 00:34:22.349
I found the opening to what appeared to be a
551
00:34:22.429 --> 00:34:26.460
small burrow of sorts with an electric camping torch at
552
00:34:26.500 --> 00:34:29.260
the corner. I shoved my head down to look inside.
553
00:34:32.050 --> 00:34:35.230
The space was small, with enough room for one person
554
00:34:35.269 --> 00:34:38.769
if they didn't mind contorting themselves. On the walls of
555
00:34:38.809 --> 00:34:42.489
the burrow were dozens of Polaroid photos of people hiking.
556
00:34:43.750 --> 00:34:46.329
All the photos seemed to have been taken very low
557
00:34:46.389 --> 00:34:49.570
to the ground. The photos were from all over the park,
558
00:34:51.389 --> 00:34:54.889
many dozens or more miles apart. Most of the photos
559
00:34:54.989 --> 00:34:57.639
I didn't recognize, but among them I saw a few
560
00:34:57.699 --> 00:34:59.699
that I knew for a fact were hikers that had
561
00:34:59.739 --> 00:35:03.619
gone missing over the last year. Then my heart stopped.
562
00:35:04.099 --> 00:35:06.869
I saw a photo of me hiking along the Ipsit
563
00:35:06.909 --> 00:35:13.070
Pass Trail around half an hour ago. Crack. I heard
564
00:35:13.110 --> 00:35:15.829
a twig snap somewhere around me. I took my head
565
00:35:15.969 --> 00:35:18.179
out of the burrow and started running down the trail,
566
00:35:18.550 --> 00:35:21.119
the way I came. I did not look back or
567
00:35:21.219 --> 00:35:24.260
stop until I got to the wilderness cabin near the
568
00:35:24.340 --> 00:35:27.900
Ipsit campground. I locked and barricaded the door and waited
569
00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:31.070
until another ranger showed up the next morning, not sleeping
570
00:35:31.130 --> 00:35:33.590
a wink. I asked him to walk back along the
571
00:35:33.650 --> 00:35:36.130
Ipsap Pass trail with me. He was annoyed that I
572
00:35:36.170 --> 00:35:39.769
wouldn't say why, but he agreed. We spent an hour looking,
573
00:35:39.849 --> 00:35:42.880
but couldn't find any sign of the burrow. I asked
574
00:35:42.900 --> 00:35:45.480
for a time off right afterwards, and my manager seemed
575
00:35:45.519 --> 00:35:48.940
very suspicious and demanded to know why. I made up
576
00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:51.440
some excuse about my family and didn't tell him or
577
00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:56.510
anyone else what I solved. For some reason, I knew
578
00:35:56.550 --> 00:35:59.070
that telling them would at best end with me losing
579
00:35:59.110 --> 00:36:02.599
my job. I don't know who, or what made that burrow,
580
00:36:02.920 --> 00:36:05.260
but I think it's taking people at Rainier and for
581
00:36:05.320 --> 00:36:08.769
some reason the government is covering it up. I wish
582
00:36:09.110 --> 00:36:11.090
that was the end of the story, but it's not.
583
00:36:13.349 --> 00:36:16.650
This afternoon, I saw something glinting from within the air
584
00:36:16.730 --> 00:36:20.010
vent on the floor of my kitchen. I thought maybe
585
00:36:20.050 --> 00:36:22.659
my cat had stuck another toy in it. I took
586
00:36:22.699 --> 00:36:24.800
the grating off the vent to take the toy out.
587
00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:28.079
Instead of a cat toy, I found a Polaroid photo
588
00:36:28.559 --> 00:36:35.099
taken low to the ground. of me making breakfast this morning. Well,
589
00:36:35.119 --> 00:36:37.679
that's a shame that this is the only story to
590
00:36:37.719 --> 00:36:43.389
this one. Okay, our next story is called Another Park
591
00:36:43.449 --> 00:36:48.670
Ranger Just Told Me His Scariest Story. It was one
592
00:36:48.690 --> 00:36:50.989
of those late nights on the job, but that didn't
593
00:36:51.030 --> 00:36:53.150
bother me at all. In fact, it was one of
594
00:36:53.190 --> 00:36:56.150
my favorite parts of being a park ranger, hanging around
595
00:36:56.210 --> 00:36:58.050
late at night with just a few of my fellow
596
00:36:58.090 --> 00:37:00.630
rangers in the middle of the woods It was just
597
00:37:00.670 --> 00:37:04.590
like huddling around a campfire while you told stories, except
598
00:37:04.650 --> 00:37:07.550
we were indoors around a fireplace. It was the middle
599
00:37:07.570 --> 00:37:10.070
of spring, but it had been cold lately, so while
600
00:37:10.090 --> 00:37:13.829
the afternoons were pleasant, the nights had been chilly. Which
601
00:37:13.889 --> 00:37:16.829
was why we were all inside, gathered around a fire,
602
00:37:17.349 --> 00:37:20.469
while on the clock. The ranger station was beyond comfortable
603
00:37:20.510 --> 00:37:23.469
with the fire, so I was contently sitting in one
604
00:37:23.489 --> 00:37:28.340
of my mini leather couches, facing it. We were all
605
00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:30.840
midway through a shift and like many nights on the job,
606
00:37:30.989 --> 00:37:33.650
it was quiet so we got to talking about nothing
607
00:37:33.690 --> 00:37:36.929
in particular. There's nothing like the natural flow of an
608
00:37:37.030 --> 00:37:41.769
unplanned conversation. Outside, the evening had slowly given way to
609
00:37:41.809 --> 00:37:44.489
night and the darkness had settled upon the woods with
610
00:37:44.550 --> 00:37:48.179
its usual silent thoroughness. The area may be a park
611
00:37:48.199 --> 00:37:51.219
during the day, but at night, it was the woods.
612
00:37:51.659 --> 00:37:55.079
Parks inherently sound fun and brings to mind cookouts, whereas
613
00:37:55.139 --> 00:38:00.219
the woods has an inherently spooky vibe. There were four
614
00:38:00.260 --> 00:38:02.400
of us sitting by the fire in the ranger station
615
00:38:02.440 --> 00:38:06.539
on that chilly night, me, Harland, Anthony, and Craig. Craig
616
00:38:06.559 --> 00:38:09.320
had just finished talking about his cousin's wedding when Anthony
617
00:38:09.420 --> 00:38:12.190
asked Harland what his scariest story was from working here
618
00:38:12.230 --> 00:38:17.510
all these years. Usually Harland just chuckled and said he'd
619
00:38:17.550 --> 00:38:20.349
heard some crazy things over the years, but not this time.
620
00:38:21.090 --> 00:38:24.139
This time, he sat there quietly for a moment before
621
00:38:24.179 --> 00:38:29.150
he said, The Witch of the Blackthorn Creek. That was
622
00:38:29.329 --> 00:38:33.199
all when we went completely still. If we were just
623
00:38:33.260 --> 00:38:36.519
like people huddled around a campfire, Harland was the one
624
00:38:36.559 --> 00:38:39.179
in charge of building the fire. He was the ranger
625
00:38:39.219 --> 00:38:41.860
we always deferred to. He'd been on the job long
626
00:38:41.920 --> 00:38:44.940
enough to have earned that right. Harland's family had also
627
00:38:44.980 --> 00:38:47.469
been in the area for generations, so if anyone had
628
00:38:47.510 --> 00:38:50.050
any stories to tell about what may have happened here,
629
00:38:50.550 --> 00:38:54.230
it was him. Plus, he was a terrific guy, hardworking
630
00:38:54.309 --> 00:38:57.190
and beyond helpful when you needed something. So when someone
631
00:38:57.230 --> 00:39:00.320
like Harland tells you, He's heard of a story like that.
632
00:39:00.739 --> 00:39:04.239
You listen intently, especially with the tone of his voice
633
00:39:04.280 --> 00:39:08.440
he used, serious and no nonsense without a trace of amusement.
634
00:39:10.420 --> 00:39:13.650
The Witch of Blackthorn Creek, Heartland began in a clear
635
00:39:13.710 --> 00:39:17.050
voice as we all gave him our full attention. The
636
00:39:17.110 --> 00:39:19.349
story was first told to me by my Uncle George.
637
00:39:20.949 --> 00:39:23.570
He had been a lumberjack for years. According to him,
638
00:39:23.690 --> 00:39:25.789
people said there was a curse on the land which
639
00:39:25.809 --> 00:39:28.559
was placed there by a witch. It all started one
640
00:39:28.599 --> 00:39:31.269
year when the harvest went bad. Since there had been
641
00:39:31.329 --> 00:39:34.210
nothing but plentiful harvest every year, it had made people
642
00:39:34.250 --> 00:39:37.829
beyond suspicious. There was barely enough grain and stuff to
643
00:39:37.849 --> 00:39:42.050
get through winter. It didn't help matters that the town
644
00:39:42.110 --> 00:39:46.099
had generally been prosperous, but had recently started to go
645
00:39:46.139 --> 00:39:51.280
through some financial difficulties. Then, numerous bits of misfortune happened
646
00:39:51.340 --> 00:39:55.750
within the community over the years. Houses burning down, people
647
00:39:55.789 --> 00:39:59.309
gone missing and never being found again. Periodically, there would
648
00:39:59.329 --> 00:40:02.469
be something odd left lying around near where someone had vanished.
649
00:40:03.070 --> 00:40:06.219
Creepy things like weird-looking dolls made from wood that never
650
00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:11.280
fail to rattle people. There wasn't anyone around that people
651
00:40:11.340 --> 00:40:14.079
thought were capable of anything like this, and since one
652
00:40:14.099 --> 00:40:17.469
of the families in town had experienced something like this before,
653
00:40:18.159 --> 00:40:21.510
In a different town many years ago, they suspected there
654
00:40:21.550 --> 00:40:25.670
was some kind of curse put on them. Especially after
655
00:40:25.710 --> 00:40:27.550
a few people who kept a track of all the
656
00:40:27.590 --> 00:40:30.489
strange events realized all of them took place on a
657
00:40:30.530 --> 00:40:34.619
full moon. Harlan took a sip of his coffee before
658
00:40:34.659 --> 00:40:37.159
he continued. It all came to a head when there
659
00:40:37.179 --> 00:40:40.139
was a terrible accident at the town lumber mill, a
660
00:40:40.219 --> 00:40:42.900
fire that no one could figure out how it started.
661
00:40:43.599 --> 00:40:47.369
Several employees died and many others were badly injured. and
662
00:40:47.409 --> 00:40:51.610
the lumber mill, which was one of the biggest employers around, closed.
663
00:40:52.449 --> 00:40:55.440
That was when the paranoia that had been lingering under
664
00:40:55.460 --> 00:40:59.139
the surface boiled over. So when some people from town
665
00:40:59.639 --> 00:41:02.820
found an abandoned cottage in the woods near Blackthorn Creek
666
00:41:02.900 --> 00:41:06.000
with weird symbols written on the walls and the floor,
667
00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:09.579
they grabbed their torches, set the place on fire, and
668
00:41:09.639 --> 00:41:14.110
watched it burn. According to the crowd, the cabin took
669
00:41:14.170 --> 00:41:18.070
forever to burn. much longer than the people thought possible.
670
00:41:18.750 --> 00:41:21.610
But once it did finally burn down, they took the
671
00:41:21.750 --> 00:41:24.489
ashes and buried them deep in the woods and didn't
672
00:41:24.550 --> 00:41:27.690
mark the location, hoping that would be the end of it.
673
00:41:28.210 --> 00:41:30.530
And for a while, that seemed to be the case.
674
00:41:31.050 --> 00:41:33.389
But every once in a while, something would happen that
675
00:41:33.429 --> 00:41:37.239
would make people in town look over their shoulders. Nothing major,
676
00:41:37.739 --> 00:41:39.619
a bit of bad luck in the form of an injury.
677
00:41:40.179 --> 00:41:43.389
or some suspicious noises outside the house after dark, and
678
00:41:43.429 --> 00:41:46.090
perhaps some scratch marks on the door or the wall.
679
00:41:46.650 --> 00:41:49.449
But ever since then, people would be very careful what
680
00:41:49.489 --> 00:41:53.750
they did, especially if there was a full man. Then
681
00:41:53.789 --> 00:41:55.909
he paused for a moment to look at the fire,
682
00:41:56.320 --> 00:42:00.179
which was crackling pleasantly in the fireplace. I couldn't tell
683
00:42:00.219 --> 00:42:02.460
you how old I was when I first heard this story,
684
00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:07.619
but I remember exactly how I felt. Confused. Because the story,
685
00:42:07.679 --> 00:42:11.010
although creepy and entertaining, Didn't quite make sense to me,
686
00:42:11.489 --> 00:42:14.130
and I said something to Uncle George about that, and
687
00:42:14.170 --> 00:42:18.750
he laughed. Then he said he agreed that the story
688
00:42:18.769 --> 00:42:22.489
was long on atmosphere and short on believability. That's when
689
00:42:22.530 --> 00:42:25.869
he got serious. Told me that although the story was
690
00:42:25.909 --> 00:42:28.219
a bit of fiction, he never doubted that it came
691
00:42:28.260 --> 00:42:31.719
from somewhere, and there was indeed something going on out
692
00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:35.579
in the woods. Then he added that it didn't matter
693
00:42:35.619 --> 00:42:37.900
how old I was, where I was, who I was with,
694
00:42:38.809 --> 00:42:41.730
or what was going on, if I got a terrible feeling,
695
00:42:42.010 --> 00:42:44.489
I should listen to it. And I've listened to every
696
00:42:44.550 --> 00:42:47.469
feeling I've gotten since then. It never served me wrong.
697
00:42:48.449 --> 00:42:50.960
He looked around at us, slowly taking us all in.
698
00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:55.800
I've never quite believed that story, but I will be
699
00:42:55.820 --> 00:42:58.179
the last person to deny that in all the years
700
00:42:58.239 --> 00:43:01.099
I've been out here, I've felt a few things on occasion,
701
00:43:01.570 --> 00:43:03.449
things that made the hair stand up on the back
702
00:43:03.489 --> 00:43:07.409
of my neck, and on even fewer occasions I've seen things.
703
00:43:08.219 --> 00:43:10.820
fleeting glances at things that I wasn't sure I saw,
704
00:43:11.159 --> 00:43:13.800
but there was one time when I not only felt something,
705
00:43:13.820 --> 00:43:19.199
I heard something. The air in the ranger station was
706
00:43:19.239 --> 00:43:23.519
completely still. I briefly glanced at my colleagues as Harland
707
00:43:23.559 --> 00:43:26.579
said this, and they met my glance, and I could
708
00:43:26.639 --> 00:43:28.960
see they were just as gripped by the story as
709
00:43:29.079 --> 00:43:34.309
I was. It was about 30 years ago, Harland explained.
710
00:43:34.769 --> 00:43:37.300
I was just starting out as a park ranger. This
711
00:43:37.360 --> 00:43:40.219
was back in the early 90s when technology and life
712
00:43:40.300 --> 00:43:43.340
in general was very different from today. I had grown
713
00:43:43.400 --> 00:43:45.820
up out in nature and I'd seen plenty of scary movies.
714
00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:49.159
And more importantly, I've grown up hearing countless spooky stories
715
00:43:49.239 --> 00:43:52.059
about what may or may not have been lurking outside.
716
00:43:52.719 --> 00:43:55.179
So I wasn't exactly sheltered, but there are some things
717
00:43:55.219 --> 00:43:58.860
you're never truly prepared to experience. The fire in the
718
00:43:58.880 --> 00:44:01.860
fireplace popped in the grate, but we were so absorbed
719
00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:04.480
in Harlan's story we barely noticed. There was plenty of
720
00:44:04.500 --> 00:44:06.360
wood in the fire, so we didn't have to worry
721
00:44:06.400 --> 00:44:10.420
about that for a while. It was early November. Halloween
722
00:44:10.460 --> 00:44:14.659
had just ended, which made everyone sad because I remember
723
00:44:14.719 --> 00:44:17.639
that year was a fun one. Darkness seemed to be
724
00:44:17.679 --> 00:44:21.000
arriving earlier and earlier, so I was barely halfway through
725
00:44:21.019 --> 00:44:24.039
my shift when the sun was going down. I remember
726
00:44:24.059 --> 00:44:26.829
it had been raining almost every day. so the days
727
00:44:26.869 --> 00:44:29.570
were all gray and cloudy and the nights were damp
728
00:44:29.610 --> 00:44:33.429
with plenty of fog. But that particular morning was dry.
729
00:44:35.800 --> 00:44:37.900
All the leaves that had clung to the trees had
730
00:44:37.940 --> 00:44:40.739
been scattered by the winds and rain, so they lay
731
00:44:40.780 --> 00:44:44.619
there on the grass, all damp and torn. My job
732
00:44:44.719 --> 00:44:47.079
on that particular day was to go around raking them
733
00:44:47.260 --> 00:44:49.849
up so they didn't completely cover the trails and paths
734
00:44:49.909 --> 00:44:53.550
that people walked on. The chill in the air was
735
00:44:53.610 --> 00:44:56.630
that chill only late fall can bring. the dampness that
736
00:44:56.650 --> 00:44:58.869
seems to soak into your skin and never let go.
737
00:44:58.889 --> 00:45:01.570
I had just finished one section of the park and
738
00:45:01.610 --> 00:45:03.750
was walking back to my truck when the rain started
739
00:45:03.809 --> 00:45:07.170
up again, and it did so with a fury. So
740
00:45:07.210 --> 00:45:09.719
I hustled it to the truck, got inside, and headed
741
00:45:09.780 --> 00:45:11.800
back to the ranger station where I planned to spend
742
00:45:11.820 --> 00:45:14.119
the rest of the evening. And since it was a
743
00:45:14.179 --> 00:45:16.699
quiet night at the ranger station, it looked like I
744
00:45:16.739 --> 00:45:19.280
would get what I wanted. I was used to working
745
00:45:19.300 --> 00:45:21.980
the late shift by myself as the night supervisor, so
746
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:24.679
being alone didn't bother me. I've always been a quiet
747
00:45:24.719 --> 00:45:26.530
type who liked to read a book, so it was
748
00:45:26.570 --> 00:45:30.909
an ideal situation for me, except for that night. Harlan
749
00:45:30.949 --> 00:45:34.969
took a deep breath before he continued. Because Halloween was
750
00:45:35.110 --> 00:45:37.750
over and the rain had been steady, the park hadn't
751
00:45:37.789 --> 00:45:41.289
received as many visitors as it usually had. But I
752
00:45:41.329 --> 00:45:45.050
was inside the ranger station. This ranger station, in fact,
753
00:45:45.130 --> 00:45:47.269
which was just as cozy and warm as you see
754
00:45:47.289 --> 00:45:50.300
it now, Plus, now that I was done with my task,
755
00:45:50.460 --> 00:45:52.239
I was free to read a book, so I wasted
756
00:45:52.280 --> 00:45:54.929
no time in curling up by the fire with a paperback.
757
00:45:55.730 --> 00:45:58.530
I'd spent many a shift this way, and it was
758
00:45:58.590 --> 00:46:00.969
fine by me. I'd happily read a book on a
759
00:46:01.010 --> 00:46:04.610
nice day, but on a rainy day, nothing better. Eventually,
760
00:46:04.650 --> 00:46:07.210
I started to get hungry. Since I'd just brought a
761
00:46:07.230 --> 00:46:09.690
light snack but turned out to be craving something bigger,
762
00:46:09.989 --> 00:46:12.780
I decided to order a pizza. There was a local
763
00:46:12.840 --> 00:46:15.119
joint that was only a few minutes away that often
764
00:46:15.159 --> 00:46:17.820
delivered out here back then, so I didn't hesitate to
765
00:46:17.860 --> 00:46:22.389
give them a call. I ordered a medium pizza with
766
00:46:22.409 --> 00:46:24.550
pepperoni and as I hung up, the rain started to
767
00:46:24.650 --> 00:46:28.170
really pound heavily on the station roof. I knew from
768
00:46:28.230 --> 00:46:31.150
experience that the rain pounding on the station roof could
769
00:46:31.210 --> 00:46:34.070
truly be loud. It seemed to surround you from all sides.
770
00:46:35.320 --> 00:46:37.639
But by the time the headlights pulled into the driveway,
771
00:46:37.739 --> 00:46:40.159
the rain had faded to a slight drizzle. but I
772
00:46:40.199 --> 00:46:42.639
could see the grass leading up here was pretty well
773
00:46:42.699 --> 00:46:45.199
soaked and there were numerous small puddles on both the
774
00:46:45.239 --> 00:46:48.239
grass and the road. The trees were swaying along with
775
00:46:48.280 --> 00:46:50.380
the winds and the sky was getting darker by the
776
00:46:50.440 --> 00:46:54.219
minute as night was settling in. By now, the outdoor
777
00:46:54.260 --> 00:46:56.789
lights had started to switch on as the car from
778
00:46:56.809 --> 00:46:59.010
the pizza place pulled up in front of the station,
779
00:46:59.750 --> 00:47:02.690
its windshield wipers going back and forth as it stopped
780
00:47:02.750 --> 00:47:05.519
in front of the entrance. I stood in front of it,
781
00:47:05.710 --> 00:47:07.309
under the part of the roof that kept me out
782
00:47:07.349 --> 00:47:10.940
of the rain. The driver, a young guy named Derek
783
00:47:10.980 --> 00:47:13.139
in his early 20s, got out of the driver's seat
784
00:47:13.199 --> 00:47:16.480
and grabbed the pizza from the passenger side. Derek had
785
00:47:16.519 --> 00:47:19.260
delivered here before, and he'd always done a great job.
786
00:47:19.659 --> 00:47:21.829
We chit-chatted as I handed him the cash with a
787
00:47:21.849 --> 00:47:24.769
generous tip. Then Derek handed me the pizza and was
788
00:47:24.809 --> 00:47:26.690
just about to go back to the car before he
789
00:47:26.730 --> 00:47:30.449
stopped and stared at something behind him. He paused and
790
00:47:30.489 --> 00:47:33.179
said that it would probably sound crazy, but it looked
791
00:47:33.199 --> 00:47:35.360
like there was a woman lurking in the woods near
792
00:47:35.400 --> 00:47:39.840
the ranger station. We all sat there silently for a
793
00:47:39.889 --> 00:47:43.610
moment before Harlan continued. I remember just standing there when
794
00:47:43.630 --> 00:47:46.630
he told me. The words sounded almost foreign as Derek
795
00:47:46.650 --> 00:47:49.690
said them out loud. My first reaction was that it
796
00:47:49.730 --> 00:47:53.030
was impossible, but there was only one way to find out.
797
00:47:55.349 --> 00:47:57.309
So I turned behind me to look at where he
798
00:47:57.349 --> 00:48:01.730
was pointing. He took another sip of coffee. The cluster
799
00:48:01.750 --> 00:48:04.389
of trees he was pointing at was a dense area
800
00:48:04.429 --> 00:48:07.389
of tall pine trees. They'd been long gone by now.
801
00:48:08.150 --> 00:48:10.510
but back then, there wasn't much in the way of
802
00:48:10.570 --> 00:48:13.630
illumination out there, but I could see there was nothing there.
803
00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:19.079
The pizza still clutched my hand as I waited for
804
00:48:19.119 --> 00:48:22.800
anything to happen, but nothing emerged from the woods. I
805
00:48:22.840 --> 00:48:25.159
was just about to turn back to Derek when I heard,
806
00:48:25.619 --> 00:48:28.480
get out, from beside me in a hushed voice, clear
807
00:48:28.539 --> 00:48:32.280
as could be. I turned around immediately to look at Derek,
808
00:48:32.300 --> 00:48:35.010
and without saying a word, I knew he heard it too.
809
00:48:35.679 --> 00:48:38.239
But while it was creepy as could be, I didn't
810
00:48:38.300 --> 00:48:42.539
know for sure what it meant. It didn't come out
811
00:48:42.619 --> 00:48:45.980
as an ominous command, more like a warning. But I
812
00:48:46.019 --> 00:48:49.320
won't lie, standing there outside, I've never felt like that before.
813
00:48:50.139 --> 00:48:54.210
I've never felt fear like that before. I've been afraid before,
814
00:48:54.650 --> 00:48:57.630
and I've been afraid after, but not like that. The
815
00:48:57.730 --> 00:48:59.809
fear was less like a feeling and more like a
816
00:48:59.869 --> 00:49:02.630
part of your body, like it's always there and only
817
00:49:02.730 --> 00:49:07.619
rarely are you truly aware of it. Sitting there watching Harland,
818
00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:09.679
it was clear that although we were sitting there in
819
00:49:09.699 --> 00:49:12.619
the present, he had been immediately transported back to that
820
00:49:12.699 --> 00:49:16.329
cool November night. I couldn't have told you how much
821
00:49:16.389 --> 00:49:19.079
time passed. May have only been a minute or two,
822
00:49:19.300 --> 00:49:22.119
but despite the dwindling light, I thought I could see
823
00:49:22.219 --> 00:49:25.079
shapes moving far out in the woods, very far out.
824
00:49:25.599 --> 00:49:28.889
After a moment, you couldn't see anything at all. Then
825
00:49:28.949 --> 00:49:34.369
Harlan's voice became quieter. To this day, I have no
826
00:49:34.449 --> 00:49:37.389
idea why that sight filled me with so much fear.
827
00:49:38.659 --> 00:49:40.940
just like I also have no idea how I knew
828
00:49:40.980 --> 00:49:43.880
it was people, but I did. And I knew it
829
00:49:43.960 --> 00:49:47.599
was people as in more than one, much more than one,
830
00:49:48.059 --> 00:49:51.280
but I had no idea exactly how many. And it
831
00:49:51.320 --> 00:49:54.260
was all the motivation I needed to tell Derek we
832
00:49:54.300 --> 00:49:57.239
had to go. He didn't need to be told twice
833
00:49:57.320 --> 00:49:59.300
because we hopped in his car and got out of
834
00:49:59.340 --> 00:50:02.019
there as fast as we could, didn't stop for about
835
00:50:02.019 --> 00:50:05.039
20 miles, and we were far away from the ranger station.
836
00:50:05.440 --> 00:50:08.510
By that point, the fear had slowly faded, and I
837
00:50:08.570 --> 00:50:12.610
was starving. So we split the pizza while debating what
838
00:50:12.630 --> 00:50:15.909
to tell my supervisors. I eventually decided to say that
839
00:50:15.989 --> 00:50:18.000
I was feeling really sick and went to see a
840
00:50:18.039 --> 00:50:22.199
doctor right now. Harlan chuckled, but it didn't take long
841
00:50:22.219 --> 00:50:24.840
for me to realize my excuse for leaving would be
842
00:50:24.900 --> 00:50:28.610
completely forgotten, because after I left, the ranger station had
843
00:50:28.639 --> 00:50:31.710
been broken into by a group of people. The security
844
00:50:31.769 --> 00:50:34.210
camera we had at the time saw all six of them,
845
00:50:34.670 --> 00:50:38.130
dressed from head to toe in black, break right through
846
00:50:38.170 --> 00:50:43.630
the front door, just crashed right through it. Then, minutes later,
847
00:50:43.730 --> 00:50:46.889
they came back out without taking anything and vanished into
848
00:50:46.929 --> 00:50:50.840
the trees. The cops thoroughly searched the area but found nothing.
849
00:50:51.800 --> 00:50:54.199
I found out when I called my supervisors to tell
850
00:50:54.239 --> 00:50:56.559
them I had to leave because I was feeling horrible.
851
00:50:56.980 --> 00:51:00.070
From the time on the camera, they appeared to arrive
852
00:51:00.150 --> 00:51:04.039
within minutes after I left with Derek. We all exchanged
853
00:51:04.099 --> 00:51:06.260
a look as the fact that he really was talking
854
00:51:06.300 --> 00:51:10.880
about the ranger station dawned on us. Sitting across from us,
855
00:51:11.039 --> 00:51:13.360
Harland didn't say anything, but I knew he could tell
856
00:51:13.420 --> 00:51:16.260
the three of us were seeing the ranger station like
857
00:51:16.300 --> 00:51:22.050
never before. The conclusion the cops reached, Harland eventually said,
858
00:51:23.280 --> 00:51:25.710
is that it was a gang of professional criminals who
859
00:51:25.750 --> 00:51:28.150
saw the ranger station and decided to see what they
860
00:51:28.190 --> 00:51:31.510
could find. Since there was apparently nothing they could make
861
00:51:31.710 --> 00:51:34.679
use of, they split. And every year on that day
862
00:51:34.739 --> 00:51:37.679
since that happened, I've taken a single flower and left
863
00:51:37.739 --> 00:51:40.019
it by where Derek says he saw someone that night.
864
00:51:40.519 --> 00:51:42.940
I've never seen or heard that voice since that night.
865
00:51:43.039 --> 00:51:46.400
But on occasion, I felt the presence of something or
866
00:51:46.519 --> 00:51:51.019
someone watching me and not in an unpleasant way. But
867
00:51:51.059 --> 00:51:53.719
that's the thing about the woods. There's no telling what
868
00:51:53.739 --> 00:51:56.719
you may find in them. And if you're really paying attention,
869
00:51:56.860 --> 00:51:59.860
it's amazing what you can learn. Like I learned that
870
00:51:59.920 --> 00:52:02.719
November night all those years ago was a full moon.
871
00:52:03.320 --> 00:52:08.340
The clouds just happened to obscure it out here. Our
872
00:52:08.389 --> 00:52:12.670
last story for the night is... My best friend vanished
873
00:52:12.710 --> 00:52:15.849
in a national forest. I found what was left of him.
874
00:52:19.050 --> 00:52:21.690
I wasn't delusional enough to think that I could compete
875
00:52:21.730 --> 00:52:24.909
with trained search and rescue officers. That there was something
876
00:52:24.969 --> 00:52:28.829
left of Thomas that the dogs couldn't sniff out. Some
877
00:52:28.889 --> 00:52:32.599
sign that the infrared helicopters couldn't spot. That dozens and
878
00:52:32.639 --> 00:52:37.099
dozens of park rangers and military volunteers somehow failed to see,
879
00:52:37.119 --> 00:52:39.889
I don't think I had any chance of finding it.
880
00:52:40.599 --> 00:52:43.400
But what I did believe was that they conducted their
881
00:52:43.480 --> 00:52:48.380
search logically and that perhaps Thomas hadn't behaved logically when
882
00:52:48.420 --> 00:52:52.059
he was lost. If he even got lost at all.
883
00:52:53.159 --> 00:52:55.099
And no one else was going to go into the
884
00:52:55.139 --> 00:52:58.739
woods and try to find him based on something completely illogical.
885
00:52:59.340 --> 00:53:02.389
No one else but me. because he was my best
886
00:53:02.449 --> 00:53:04.989
friend and even though the searchers were packing it in,
887
00:53:05.530 --> 00:53:09.079
I wasn't ready to give up on him. With each
888
00:53:09.179 --> 00:53:11.619
hour that passed on my journey into the middle of
889
00:53:11.699 --> 00:53:14.519
nowhere with every mile I covered and I felt more
890
00:53:14.539 --> 00:53:17.000
and more certain that Thomas had not gotten lost in
891
00:53:17.039 --> 00:53:19.960
the woods, I believed that something had lured him away.
892
00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:23.639
Searchers had only had a few hours between when I
893
00:53:23.699 --> 00:53:26.469
sounded the alarm and when a store came through the area,
894
00:53:26.909 --> 00:53:30.110
but it was enough time to garner something very peculiar.
895
00:53:30.760 --> 00:53:35.179
Thomas had been heading exactly in a straight line. Thomas
896
00:53:35.219 --> 00:53:37.659
had told me that he was hiking a short backpacking
897
00:53:37.699 --> 00:53:40.579
loop over the weekend, but the dogs that the rangers
898
00:53:40.619 --> 00:53:43.610
could scrounge up on short notice were certain that he
899
00:53:43.659 --> 00:53:48.050
left the trail the second it swung south. He kept
900
00:53:48.090 --> 00:53:51.670
going straight, straight northwest, and just before the rain began,
901
00:53:51.889 --> 00:53:54.909
the dogs tracked him going into a small lake. We
902
00:53:54.949 --> 00:53:57.530
might have worried that the answers were in there, but
903
00:53:57.570 --> 00:54:01.190
just before the rain washed everything out, the dogs circled
904
00:54:01.329 --> 00:54:03.719
to the other side, and they picked up his scent,
905
00:54:04.219 --> 00:54:09.159
exactly northwest, as if he'd swam through the lake in
906
00:54:09.199 --> 00:54:13.139
a perfectly straight line so as not to lose his heading.
907
00:54:13.159 --> 00:54:16.440
And it was this heading that I was not following.
908
00:54:16.840 --> 00:54:19.500
The rangers had searched in a circle about ten miles
909
00:54:19.579 --> 00:54:22.869
in every direction from where he vanished, because they assumed
910
00:54:23.070 --> 00:54:26.730
he was lost. I was assuming he wasn't. I was
911
00:54:26.809 --> 00:54:30.579
assuming he had gone somewhere, and wherever it was, I
912
00:54:30.599 --> 00:54:34.730
was going to go there too. When I reached the lake,
913
00:54:34.869 --> 00:54:38.070
I didn't swim through it. Markers left by searchers ensured
914
00:54:38.230 --> 00:54:40.489
I wouldn't lose my path, but past that, it was
915
00:54:40.570 --> 00:54:44.150
up to me to keep perfectly northwest. In ever boulders,
916
00:54:44.269 --> 00:54:47.329
down steep hills, and through creeks and shallow branching rivers,
917
00:54:47.650 --> 00:54:50.619
I kept in my path. And as I saw broken sticks,
918
00:54:50.739 --> 00:54:54.059
freshly tuned leaves, and even the occasional footprint, I felt
919
00:54:54.099 --> 00:54:57.679
increasingly hopeful that Thomas was still alive. I was certain
920
00:54:57.719 --> 00:55:01.340
I could find him, wherever he'd gone. As I got
921
00:55:01.389 --> 00:55:03.639
deeper into the woods, the hills grew taller and the
922
00:55:03.679 --> 00:55:06.760
land felt older. There was correlation throughout all of the
923
00:55:06.800 --> 00:55:10.099
wild places in our state. There was enough flat land
924
00:55:10.119 --> 00:55:12.699
that the spots with hills, caves, and ravines were left
925
00:55:12.780 --> 00:55:16.500
alone simply because they were more difficult to civilize. So
926
00:55:16.559 --> 00:55:18.880
as the hills grew taller, so did the trees, and
927
00:55:18.900 --> 00:55:23.260
the flora and fauna grew older. Plants that had been
928
00:55:23.300 --> 00:55:26.340
spared the glaciers thousands of years ago were also spared
929
00:55:26.360 --> 00:55:29.449
the axe when humans came through. Ferns and moss took
930
00:55:29.469 --> 00:55:31.989
the place of the lowland grasses, and the shaded stream
931
00:55:32.010 --> 00:55:35.949
were all lined with bamboo. Down here, there were rattlesnakes
932
00:55:36.289 --> 00:55:39.610
and bears, beasts long ago driven out of the farmland
933
00:55:39.650 --> 00:55:43.030
just hours north, and even older reminders of the past
934
00:55:43.110 --> 00:55:47.849
stuck around. The honey locust trees with their giant thorns
935
00:55:47.909 --> 00:55:50.469
stood at the ready to protect them from mammoths and
936
00:55:50.510 --> 00:55:54.389
ground sloths that hadn't troubled them for millennia. But the
937
00:55:54.449 --> 00:55:57.230
thorns did a great job of protecting those trees from me,
938
00:55:57.789 --> 00:56:00.030
and slowing my pace when I had to bushwhack into
939
00:56:00.070 --> 00:56:03.329
their presence. The threat of rattlers and cottonmouths kept me
940
00:56:03.389 --> 00:56:07.969
going even slower still. I loved the woods dearly enough
941
00:56:08.010 --> 00:56:10.070
to know that it was not a safe place, that
942
00:56:10.130 --> 00:56:13.170
danger could be lurking under every rock around every bend
943
00:56:13.329 --> 00:56:16.530
that was part of what made it so special. As
944
00:56:16.590 --> 00:56:19.010
I sweated and slogged through the brush, I found myself
945
00:56:19.090 --> 00:56:21.809
enjoying parts of the hike. It had been so long
946
00:56:21.889 --> 00:56:24.219
since I'd been able to communicate with the woods, and
947
00:56:24.260 --> 00:56:27.239
I missed it. enough to find myself forgetting for brief
948
00:56:27.320 --> 00:56:29.840
moments why I was out there in the first place.
949
00:56:30.820 --> 00:56:33.469
The sun dappled leaves, the birds that were so much
950
00:56:33.530 --> 00:56:37.190
more plentiful than in the young woods back home, would
951
00:56:37.230 --> 00:56:40.130
lull me into almost a trance. Then I snap out
952
00:56:40.190 --> 00:56:43.110
of it and I remember Thomas's life was at stake.
953
00:56:43.659 --> 00:56:45.699
I turned my eyes to the ground and my eyes
954
00:56:45.780 --> 00:56:49.199
watching for snakes and thorns, poison ivy, and above all,
955
00:56:49.739 --> 00:56:54.170
watching for tracks. But the further into the woods I went,
956
00:56:54.250 --> 00:56:58.159
the more the almost perceptible boot prints vanished. And the
957
00:56:58.179 --> 00:57:01.000
more I found myself trying to divine meaning from dents
958
00:57:01.079 --> 00:57:02.960
and slips in the mud that could have been nothing
959
00:57:03.039 --> 00:57:06.340
more than the natural imperfections of the ground, but I
960
00:57:06.500 --> 00:57:10.329
so desperately wanted them to be signs. As the sun
961
00:57:10.349 --> 00:57:12.690
started to grow low, I kept watching for clearings and
962
00:57:12.730 --> 00:57:15.469
flat spots, but the woods were thick and unforgiving, and
963
00:57:15.510 --> 00:57:19.389
eventually I settled for an old tree well. I left
964
00:57:19.429 --> 00:57:22.510
my tent packed and just set up my tarp. tying
965
00:57:22.690 --> 00:57:25.289
one end to the ripped-up tree roots and staking the
966
00:57:25.349 --> 00:57:28.590
other end in the dirt. Normally, I slept like a
967
00:57:28.710 --> 00:57:31.630
baby in the wilderness, but that night, jammed into the
968
00:57:31.670 --> 00:57:34.650
shallow tree well with the roots and rocks digging into
969
00:57:34.690 --> 00:57:38.130
my back and dark thoughts digging into my mind, I
970
00:57:38.170 --> 00:57:42.110
hardly slept at all. As I mentally tossed and turned
971
00:57:42.170 --> 00:57:45.150
because physical tossing and turning was impossible in the hole
972
00:57:45.230 --> 00:57:48.429
I slept in, I pondered what exactly it would mean
973
00:57:48.489 --> 00:57:51.110
if I found Thomas. I wondered what state I would
974
00:57:51.170 --> 00:57:54.510
find him. if I did find him, of course. I
975
00:57:54.590 --> 00:57:57.389
wondered what exactly he might be looking for out here.
976
00:57:58.050 --> 00:58:01.059
I wondered if it might be something he'd been searching
977
00:58:01.119 --> 00:58:03.519
for a long time, because this was not the first
978
00:58:03.599 --> 00:58:07.119
time Thomas had gotten lost in the forest. In the forest,
979
00:58:07.539 --> 00:58:12.320
no less. I'd heard this story dozens of times. It
980
00:58:12.360 --> 00:58:14.530
had been the middle of summer a decade ago, half
981
00:58:14.590 --> 00:58:17.889
our lifetime ago. Thomas and his family were camping at
982
00:58:17.929 --> 00:58:20.610
a park much further north, different Parkshire, but it was
983
00:58:20.630 --> 00:58:23.510
the same forest. And just as they were gearing up
984
00:58:23.530 --> 00:58:26.400
for the night of s'mores and scary tales around the fire,
985
00:58:26.519 --> 00:58:31.159
Thomas took off. His parents watched him wander slowly but
986
00:58:31.219 --> 00:58:33.900
purposefully into the trees, and they figured he didn't want
987
00:58:33.920 --> 00:58:36.610
to make the trek to the camp bathroom. But as
988
00:58:36.659 --> 00:58:38.809
the minutes took by and he didn't emerge from the
989
00:58:38.829 --> 00:58:41.769
dark woods, they knew something was wrong. When they called
990
00:58:41.809 --> 00:58:44.070
in the rangers, they could only do so much in
991
00:58:44.090 --> 00:58:47.989
the dark. They found Thomas by chance the next day.
992
00:58:48.409 --> 00:58:51.389
He'd been spotted walking through a farm six miles away,
993
00:58:51.730 --> 00:58:53.530
and the man who spotted him had to yell his
994
00:58:53.590 --> 00:58:56.800
name over and over again to get his attention. He
995
00:58:56.840 --> 00:59:00.659
said Thomas was so tired, so dehydrated, he was almost
996
00:59:00.739 --> 00:59:06.449
in a trance. Once he recovered, his parents started quizzing
997
00:59:06.469 --> 00:59:09.530
him on why he'd left, and he said he spotted
998
00:59:09.590 --> 00:59:12.300
a dog and he was worried it was lost but
999
00:59:12.340 --> 00:59:14.719
it kept running away from him just out of reach
1000
00:59:14.820 --> 00:59:17.429
and by the time he gave up he was completely lost.
1001
00:59:18.989 --> 00:59:21.829
But Thomas was hard-headed enough back then that he was
1002
00:59:21.909 --> 00:59:24.510
sure if he kept walking he could find his way home.
1003
00:59:26.309 --> 00:59:28.769
In preparation for this journey, I dug up the old
1004
00:59:28.809 --> 00:59:31.489
news story where they'd interviewed the farmer who found Thomas,
1005
00:59:32.289 --> 00:59:34.590
and I traced a line from his farm back to
1006
00:59:34.639 --> 00:59:38.039
the campground Thomas' family had been staying in. If he'd
1007
00:59:38.079 --> 00:59:40.300
gone in a straight line, he could have been headed
1008
00:59:40.380 --> 00:59:43.420
south and a bit to the west, towards the center
1009
00:59:43.460 --> 00:59:48.000
of the National Forest, woods that had been spared any
1010
00:59:48.059 --> 00:59:52.880
logging even hundreds of years ago, true old-growth forests. His heading,
1011
00:59:52.920 --> 00:59:55.780
when he'd vanished this time, straight northwest, left from a
1012
00:59:55.820 --> 00:59:58.869
very different vantage point, but it also pointed towards those
1013
00:59:59.010 --> 01:00:04.130
ancient woods. I've always believed in supernatural things, even if
1014
01:00:04.190 --> 01:00:06.949
I've never been lucky enough to witness them, and that
1015
01:00:06.989 --> 01:00:11.280
was a coincidence I simply couldn't ignore. I'd become convinced
1016
01:00:11.320 --> 01:00:14.159
that something had tried to call Thomas away all those
1017
01:00:14.199 --> 01:00:18.420
years ago, and it had failed. But this time, it
1018
01:00:18.460 --> 01:00:21.880
had called him away again, and this time, perhaps... It
1019
01:00:21.920 --> 01:00:25.539
had succeeded. After my night in the tree well, I
1020
01:00:25.579 --> 01:00:28.300
was sluggish. I felt both the lack of sleep and
1021
01:00:28.360 --> 01:00:31.239
my lack of recent exercise. I was no stranger to
1022
01:00:31.280 --> 01:00:34.079
the woods, but it had been a long time since
1023
01:00:34.119 --> 01:00:37.420
I'd hiked like this. I had a satellite phone and
1024
01:00:37.480 --> 01:00:40.639
portable GPS with me, and Thomas was supposed to have
1025
01:00:40.760 --> 01:00:42.519
one or both of those things with him as well,
1026
01:00:42.960 --> 01:00:47.840
but if he did, he wasn't using them. I checked
1027
01:00:47.900 --> 01:00:50.900
my progress on the GPS and saw I covered serious
1028
01:00:50.940 --> 01:00:55.949
ground yesterday. Enough to move slowly today and still reach
1029
01:00:55.989 --> 01:00:59.989
the center of the forest well before nightfall. By mid-morning,
1030
01:01:00.010 --> 01:01:03.289
I was already noticing a change in the trees. They
1031
01:01:03.329 --> 01:01:07.070
reached up higher and the trunks grew wider, and the
1032
01:01:07.190 --> 01:01:10.599
extra sun between them made the undergrowth denser, snagging at
1033
01:01:10.639 --> 01:01:15.820
my shoes and my pack, slowing my progress. Though my
1034
01:01:15.920 --> 01:01:18.480
arms were sluggish and my eyes heavy, I kept careful
1035
01:01:18.539 --> 01:01:21.630
watch of everything that might signal I'd reached my destination.
1036
01:01:22.230 --> 01:01:25.329
I was certain whatever had called Thomas out here, well,
1037
01:01:25.789 --> 01:01:30.210
it would be noticeable in some way. Wouldn't it? I
1038
01:01:30.269 --> 01:01:33.739
kept watch for some grand waterfall or a massive cave.
1039
01:01:35.940 --> 01:01:40.079
Anything at all to signal that there was something otherworldly here.
1040
01:01:40.099 --> 01:01:43.599
Here that had just finished business with my best friend.
1041
01:01:44.179 --> 01:01:46.780
And as I failed to see any sign of something wondrous,
1042
01:01:46.960 --> 01:01:49.840
I started to grow jealous that I myself couldn't sense
1043
01:01:49.880 --> 01:01:52.929
whatever it was out here that called people away. I
1044
01:01:52.989 --> 01:01:57.050
was jealous that Thomas had some mysterious cosmic connection that
1045
01:01:57.130 --> 01:02:00.710
I was lacking. It was an irrational feeling, of course,
1046
01:02:01.190 --> 01:02:03.650
because for all I knew, something terrible had happened to
1047
01:02:03.710 --> 01:02:07.730
him in these woods. But still, he was deemed worthy
1048
01:02:07.789 --> 01:02:10.840
enough to meet a mysterious fate that I'd been spurned
1049
01:02:11.260 --> 01:02:14.829
and that hurt. I'd grown up camping and hiking in
1050
01:02:14.889 --> 01:02:17.239
these woods just as he had, and they've never called
1051
01:02:17.300 --> 01:02:21.079
me away in the dark. After hours of hiking through
1052
01:02:21.099 --> 01:02:24.179
the ancient woods, I checked my GPS again. I was
1053
01:02:24.280 --> 01:02:27.010
right in what should be the center of the forest.
1054
01:02:27.309 --> 01:02:30.349
If anything, I was a little past it. I started
1055
01:02:30.409 --> 01:02:35.070
to wonder if maybe I was being delusional. I peered
1056
01:02:35.110 --> 01:02:39.639
into the forest desperately for some mysterious clearing, some elusive animal.
1057
01:02:40.190 --> 01:02:43.349
any kind of sign that there was something fantastical here,
1058
01:02:43.750 --> 01:02:46.409
that Thomas had not simply gotten himself lost in the
1059
01:02:46.449 --> 01:02:51.610
woods and was either starving or already dead. My tired
1060
01:02:51.809 --> 01:02:54.969
eyes grew even heavier in the afternoon sun. Just as
1061
01:02:55.050 --> 01:02:57.619
I was contemplating lying down and taking a nap, I
1062
01:02:57.699 --> 01:03:01.380
spotted something ahead of me in the brush. I saw
1063
01:03:01.440 --> 01:03:04.679
a hand first, skeletal, filthy, and clawed around a tree,
1064
01:03:05.219 --> 01:03:08.179
and after I flinched, after I recognized for what it
1065
01:03:08.239 --> 01:03:11.679
was something human, I forced my eyes to look further
1066
01:03:11.719 --> 01:03:14.780
up the trunk, and there, I took in his features
1067
01:03:14.960 --> 01:03:18.630
all at once. Dark hair, eyes that looked just as
1068
01:03:18.690 --> 01:03:22.110
tired as mine, and a face that looked almost familiar,
1069
01:03:22.510 --> 01:03:25.010
but not so much that I recognized him right away.
1070
01:03:25.750 --> 01:03:31.030
And that scared me. It was Thomas, but as his
1071
01:03:31.090 --> 01:03:33.650
time lost in the woods had made his cheeks sunken
1072
01:03:34.070 --> 01:03:41.579
with his flesh leathery, he was borderline unrecognizable. Thomas? I
1073
01:03:41.659 --> 01:03:43.760
meant it as a greeting, but it came out as
1074
01:03:43.820 --> 01:03:46.989
a question. He didn't say my name back, and the
1075
01:03:47.030 --> 01:03:49.530
way he looked at me, peering from behind the tree,
1076
01:03:50.030 --> 01:03:52.989
unsettled me, like he was watching me with eyes that
1077
01:03:53.030 --> 01:03:56.679
didn't recognize me at all, eyes that had somehow forgotten
1078
01:03:56.699 --> 01:04:01.099
we'd been best friends since middle school. Thomas, it's me,
1079
01:04:01.119 --> 01:04:03.960
I said. I came to find you, to bring you back.
1080
01:04:06.079 --> 01:04:08.000
He studied me a second longer and I fought the
1081
01:04:08.059 --> 01:04:11.840
urge to back away. I fought the urge to run. Finally,
1082
01:04:11.900 --> 01:04:13.699
he came out from behind the tree and I was
1083
01:04:13.780 --> 01:04:16.889
shocked at how thin he looked. Even under the ratty
1084
01:04:16.949 --> 01:04:19.469
flannels and jeans, I could tell he was all joints
1085
01:04:19.530 --> 01:04:22.449
and sharp angles poking out beneath the thin layers of
1086
01:04:22.510 --> 01:04:27.039
fabric and skin. And despite the alarm bells going off,
1087
01:04:27.079 --> 01:04:30.380
despite the escalating instinct to run away, I walked up
1088
01:04:30.420 --> 01:04:32.929
to Thomas and I hugged him. He was all tendon
1089
01:04:32.989 --> 01:04:36.119
and bone, and strangely, he seemed a little taller than
1090
01:04:36.159 --> 01:04:39.340
I'd remembered. He took a second, but eventually he reached
1091
01:04:39.400 --> 01:04:44.460
his skeletal arms around me. I broke out of the hug. Sorry,
1092
01:04:44.500 --> 01:04:47.480
what am I doing? Here, let's get you some water
1093
01:04:47.519 --> 01:04:51.829
and food. And here I can call the rangers. I
1094
01:04:51.889 --> 01:04:54.409
handed him my water bottle and pulled my pack off
1095
01:04:54.429 --> 01:04:57.010
to unzip the pocket I kept my satellite phone in.
1096
01:04:57.769 --> 01:05:01.409
But the pocket was already unzipped, and the phone was gone.
1097
01:05:04.030 --> 01:05:06.070
I had my camping knife in the pocket as well,
1098
01:05:06.170 --> 01:05:09.289
and it too had vanished. What? I said. Then I
1099
01:05:09.349 --> 01:05:12.369
thought of Thomas' bony arm reaching around me around my backpack,
1100
01:05:12.489 --> 01:05:16.030
but I pushed the thought away. It was nonsensical. And
1101
01:05:16.090 --> 01:05:20.090
I realized I hadn't yet heard him speak. My satellite
1102
01:05:20.130 --> 01:05:22.590
phone was right here, right in this pocket. Will you
1103
01:05:22.630 --> 01:05:25.199
help me look for it? And he didn't answer, but
1104
01:05:25.219 --> 01:05:27.989
he nodded, and together we searched through the brush on
1105
01:05:28.050 --> 01:05:30.070
hands and knees, and I waited for him to break
1106
01:05:30.139 --> 01:05:34.750
the silence, but he didn't. Thomas! Buddy, how are you doing?
1107
01:05:35.269 --> 01:05:37.869
Did you drink any water? I saw the bottle sitting
1108
01:05:37.929 --> 01:05:40.179
untouched on a small boulder, and I just wanted him
1109
01:05:40.199 --> 01:05:44.659
to answer me. And as he studied me with feral eyes,
1110
01:05:45.280 --> 01:05:47.380
eyes that seemed to be assessing me, I thought of
1111
01:05:47.460 --> 01:05:49.380
all the stories you hear of the things that look
1112
01:05:49.400 --> 01:05:51.960
like people but aren't, and I tried to brush that
1113
01:05:52.000 --> 01:05:56.940
thought away too, but it would not leave. Then finally, mercifully,
1114
01:05:57.280 --> 01:06:00.610
he broke the silence. I'm not supposed to drink the water.
1115
01:06:03.099 --> 01:06:06.760
And with those words, and what was unmistakably his voice,
1116
01:06:06.920 --> 01:06:09.079
I calmed down just a little bit and I figured
1117
01:06:09.159 --> 01:06:13.219
he was probably delirious. It's okay to drink the water,
1118
01:06:13.280 --> 01:06:15.860
it's been filtered. I stood up in my hopes of
1119
01:06:15.920 --> 01:06:19.239
finding the satellite phone and the knife slowly fading. I
1120
01:06:19.340 --> 01:06:21.670
opened the water bottle and held it up to his face.
1121
01:06:22.429 --> 01:06:25.969
Where am I? He asked me. You got lost for
1122
01:06:26.010 --> 01:06:28.449
a while, but I'm going to bring you home. But first,
1123
01:06:28.610 --> 01:06:31.110
I'm going to need you to get hydrated a little bit.
1124
01:06:32.409 --> 01:06:35.170
He narrowed his eyes as if I was trying to
1125
01:06:35.230 --> 01:06:37.230
trick him, but he grabbed the water bottle and he
1126
01:06:37.269 --> 01:06:39.949
took a few swigs. And even though it was cloudy
1127
01:06:39.969 --> 01:06:44.219
with iodine and dirt, he said, that's amazing. We sat
1128
01:06:44.260 --> 01:06:46.880
down and I explained to him we have to hike
1129
01:06:47.059 --> 01:06:49.539
out because my satellite phone was gone and my normal
1130
01:06:49.639 --> 01:06:51.960
one wouldn't get reception even if we were all the
1131
01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:54.489
way back in the trail parking lot. But I brought
1132
01:06:54.570 --> 01:06:57.170
extra food and we could filter all the water we needed.
1133
01:06:57.969 --> 01:07:00.210
I tried to coax him into eating a protein bar
1134
01:07:00.590 --> 01:07:03.030
and he said, I'm not supposed to eat the food.
1135
01:07:04.969 --> 01:07:07.889
After lots of assurances and after taking a bite myself
1136
01:07:07.949 --> 01:07:10.920
to demonstrate it was safe, he finally wolfed it down.
1137
01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:14.739
I remember learning in school about people who were rescued
1138
01:07:14.760 --> 01:07:19.239
from starvation situations, prison camps, and the like, who died
1139
01:07:19.280 --> 01:07:22.110
from eating too much too quickly, so I told him
1140
01:07:22.139 --> 01:07:25.329
that was probably enough for now. We checked one more
1141
01:07:25.369 --> 01:07:28.170
time for any sign of the satellite phone, the camping knife,
1142
01:07:28.210 --> 01:07:31.489
but they were gone. And with that, We were off.
1143
01:07:33.769 --> 01:07:36.610
Thomas kept pace with me surprisingly well, and I gave
1144
01:07:36.670 --> 01:07:39.789
up on conversation quickly. I just needed to get him
1145
01:07:39.849 --> 01:07:43.349
home where people more qualified than me would figure out
1146
01:07:43.409 --> 01:07:46.800
how to help him. We made it over halfway back
1147
01:07:46.860 --> 01:07:49.889
before the sun began to grow low. I started looking
1148
01:07:49.929 --> 01:07:52.559
for a spot to camp, and this time I found
1149
01:07:52.659 --> 01:07:56.039
one almost right away. It was a small clearing, one
1150
01:07:56.079 --> 01:07:59.849
I hadn't remembered passing on the way in. When it
1151
01:07:59.909 --> 01:08:02.949
came time to build the fire, Thomas took over instinctively
1152
01:08:02.989 --> 01:08:05.690
and I let him. And once it was going, he said,
1153
01:08:06.289 --> 01:08:09.989
That will keep the monsters away, right? And I told
1154
01:08:10.030 --> 01:08:14.139
him it would. We split a dehydrated meal. I would
1155
01:08:14.159 --> 01:08:16.600
have felt bad eating too much when he couldn't. I
1156
01:08:16.640 --> 01:08:18.920
talked to him about how much everyone was missing him,
1157
01:08:19.279 --> 01:08:21.739
how hard they'd been trying to find him. He only
1158
01:08:21.760 --> 01:08:24.979
gave small nods or vague sounds. It was like talking
1159
01:08:25.039 --> 01:08:28.329
to a brick wall. I caught him up on other
1160
01:08:28.369 --> 01:08:30.529
things too because it had been a few weeks since
1161
01:08:30.569 --> 01:08:33.250
we'd last seen each other, even before he vanished and
1162
01:08:33.270 --> 01:08:36.739
I couldn't stand the thought of sitting in silence. He
1163
01:08:36.819 --> 01:08:40.699
absorbed it all, listening closely and watching me strangely. It
1164
01:08:41.680 --> 01:08:44.359
reminded me of when we were young and both outcasts.
1165
01:08:45.180 --> 01:08:47.500
In middle school, he lagged further behind me and I'd
1166
01:08:47.539 --> 01:08:50.260
catch him watching me, studying me as I started figuring
1167
01:08:50.300 --> 01:08:52.930
things out. As we went to high school, he jumped
1168
01:08:52.970 --> 01:08:56.279
ahead of me, sociably was not static and he kept
1169
01:08:56.399 --> 01:08:59.250
up with changes better than I. As we learned to
1170
01:08:59.289 --> 01:09:02.220
drive as we prepared for college, I found myself studying
1171
01:09:02.260 --> 01:09:04.880
him the way he studied me only a few short
1172
01:09:04.920 --> 01:09:08.470
years prior. And by that time we graduated, we mostly
1173
01:09:08.510 --> 01:09:11.229
figured things out together. We mostly figured out how to
1174
01:09:11.270 --> 01:09:14.850
behave around other people, banishing the strange otherness that had
1175
01:09:14.890 --> 01:09:19.399
made both of us pariahs when we were young. But
1176
01:09:19.449 --> 01:09:21.939
sometimes when it was just me, we'd drop the pretense
1177
01:09:22.060 --> 01:09:24.159
and we would just be quiet and strange together. In
1178
01:09:24.579 --> 01:09:28.289
a comfortable way, though. And this strangeness was anything but.
1179
01:09:29.270 --> 01:09:31.250
The way he was watching me now, it was like
1180
01:09:31.289 --> 01:09:35.069
he reverted back to being the middle school outcast. Back
1181
01:09:35.109 --> 01:09:37.239
to being the only person who seemed to be worse
1182
01:09:37.319 --> 01:09:40.109
at speaking to others than I was. and it tugged
1183
01:09:40.149 --> 01:09:42.750
at my heart and made me feel immensely guilty for
1184
01:09:42.770 --> 01:09:45.510
the thoughts I'd been having about him creeping me out,
1185
01:09:45.829 --> 01:09:47.609
as well as the thoughts I'd had earlier in the
1186
01:09:47.649 --> 01:09:50.170
day about being jealous that he'd been summoned out here
1187
01:09:50.229 --> 01:09:54.489
for some grand, unknowable purpose. Looking at his skeletal frame,
1188
01:09:54.569 --> 01:09:56.520
I feel silly for the idea that had brought me
1189
01:09:56.609 --> 01:09:58.729
out here, the idea that this was all part of
1190
01:09:58.770 --> 01:10:02.340
some cosmic plan, one I'd been furious I'd been left
1191
01:10:02.439 --> 01:10:05.819
out of. When it was time for bed, it was
1192
01:10:05.859 --> 01:10:08.649
a close fit. I only had one person's tent, and
1193
01:10:08.689 --> 01:10:11.649
a backpacking one at that, we unzipped the sleeping bag
1194
01:10:11.710 --> 01:10:13.810
and laid down to keep out the nighttime cold of
1195
01:10:13.850 --> 01:10:16.550
the earth, and we wrapped a thermal foil blanket over
1196
01:10:16.609 --> 01:10:20.430
top of us. And though I'd hardly slept the day before, though,
1197
01:10:20.449 --> 01:10:23.210
I was exhausted. I felt my thoughts creeping back into
1198
01:10:23.250 --> 01:10:25.930
my paranoia as the night grew late. I watched the
1199
01:10:25.970 --> 01:10:28.810
stars overhead start to move, and I pondered how exactly
1200
01:10:28.890 --> 01:10:32.449
my backpack pocket had come open, the one that held
1201
01:10:32.470 --> 01:10:34.970
the precious satellite phone and a knife that was now
1202
01:10:35.090 --> 01:10:41.050
unaccounted for. We'd slept in close quarters before, at sleepovers,
1203
01:10:41.369 --> 01:10:44.569
but never like this. Thomas's bony arm was jabbing into
1204
01:10:44.609 --> 01:10:47.159
my side, and I felt like I could scarcely breathe
1205
01:10:47.180 --> 01:10:50.680
without disturbing him. And I couldn't shake the strange thought
1206
01:10:51.100 --> 01:10:53.960
that this was not the Thomas I knew, because when
1207
01:10:54.000 --> 01:10:57.420
you know someone so well, when you're best friends, you're
1208
01:10:57.479 --> 01:11:00.329
aware of the way they carry themselves, the way they talk,
1209
01:11:00.670 --> 01:11:05.270
the way they walk, the way they breathe. And as
1210
01:11:05.329 --> 01:11:07.810
Thomas sat breathing next to me, I became aware of
1211
01:11:07.850 --> 01:11:10.590
the fact his breathing did not sound familiar to me
1212
01:11:10.630 --> 01:11:14.130
at all. With my thoughts drifting to the uncanny valley
1213
01:11:14.170 --> 01:11:16.899
to mimics and skinwalkers and all those horrible things you
1214
01:11:16.939 --> 01:11:20.260
hear about that you hope are just urban legends, I
1215
01:11:20.300 --> 01:11:23.680
decided I wouldn't sleep at all. I decided to stay awake,
1216
01:11:24.199 --> 01:11:29.340
just in case. I watched the stars drift and I
1217
01:11:29.380 --> 01:11:33.279
watched the clouds come out and cover them completely. Hours
1218
01:11:33.359 --> 01:11:36.699
into my restless slumber, I heard Thomas' breathing shift. It
1219
01:11:36.720 --> 01:11:40.399
became slower, quieter. I kept my head straight and I
1220
01:11:40.420 --> 01:11:43.039
looked into the corner of my vision, peering over at him,
1221
01:11:43.159 --> 01:11:45.819
and there I met his eyes staring straight back at me.
1222
01:11:46.640 --> 01:11:48.960
Neither of us blinked for what felt like an eternity,
1223
01:11:49.180 --> 01:11:51.560
and eventually I looked back up at the stars, but
1224
01:11:51.600 --> 01:11:54.180
I never felt his gaze leave me. I felt his
1225
01:11:54.479 --> 01:11:56.939
eyes on me all night, the eyes that studied me
1226
01:11:57.020 --> 01:12:00.260
so closely, yet seemed to have no idea who I was.
1227
01:12:02.359 --> 01:12:05.100
I spent the night suffocating, breathing as quietly as I
1228
01:12:05.159 --> 01:12:07.619
could so I'd hear the slightest movement, and next to me,
1229
01:12:08.060 --> 01:12:11.010
I heard him doing the same. When the sky began
1230
01:12:11.050 --> 01:12:13.170
to gray and the birds started to sing, we both
1231
01:12:13.210 --> 01:12:16.760
got up, neither giving any pretense that we'd just woken up.
1232
01:12:17.750 --> 01:12:22.350
The daylight banished my fear with amazing quickness, though. I
1233
01:12:22.409 --> 01:12:25.090
had Thomas drink more water, eat just a little, and
1234
01:12:25.130 --> 01:12:27.270
I did the same. The only thing I didn't feel
1235
01:12:27.329 --> 01:12:30.100
bad about doing that he couldn't, though, was drink a
1236
01:12:30.140 --> 01:12:33.060
cup of coffee. I needed to get me through the day.
1237
01:12:33.239 --> 01:12:35.500
I offered him a sip and said he probably shouldn't
1238
01:12:35.539 --> 01:12:38.149
have more than that. He accepted and spat it back
1239
01:12:38.250 --> 01:12:43.470
out instantly. What is that? He asked me, genuinely bewildered
1240
01:12:43.569 --> 01:12:47.029
at the taste. And with that, I felt my heart sink.
1241
01:12:47.449 --> 01:12:50.609
Just how much of the starvation damage would be permanent?
1242
01:12:51.649 --> 01:12:54.569
We walked silently again and he kept pace. When I
1243
01:12:54.609 --> 01:12:58.600
started to lag, he forged ahead, his wiry frame holding
1244
01:12:58.659 --> 01:13:02.090
a boundless energy. and I stopped thinking these horrible thoughts
1245
01:13:02.149 --> 01:13:05.109
about him being some kind of creature, about him plotting
1246
01:13:05.149 --> 01:13:07.569
to hurt me, and I started wondering what kind of
1247
01:13:07.630 --> 01:13:12.609
future he might have when we got back. Thomas was
1248
01:13:12.689 --> 01:13:15.560
always the smart one, the one with ambition. He was
1249
01:13:15.600 --> 01:13:18.300
always making these grand plans about what he was going
1250
01:13:18.350 --> 01:13:20.619
to do when he grew up, and he never stopped
1251
01:13:20.640 --> 01:13:23.560
making them because we didn't really feel like we were
1252
01:13:23.579 --> 01:13:28.380
grown-ups yet, not until we graduated from college. Real adulthood
1253
01:13:28.500 --> 01:13:32.039
hadn't even started, and already his future might be gone.
1254
01:13:33.350 --> 01:13:36.069
But sometimes, if I was being honest, I found myself
1255
01:13:36.130 --> 01:13:40.289
worried about what Thomas might do with his future. Thomas
1256
01:13:40.329 --> 01:13:42.970
was the kind of person who was always holding something back,
1257
01:13:43.130 --> 01:13:46.229
the kind of friend who'd fray over sharing, but really,
1258
01:13:46.289 --> 01:13:49.420
you could tell they were things they kept locked up,
1259
01:13:50.020 --> 01:13:53.279
secrets that had never seen the light of day, and sometimes,
1260
01:13:53.579 --> 01:13:56.420
at night, Out at bars or sitting by the fire,
1261
01:13:56.439 --> 01:13:59.220
that side of him scared me just a little. And
1262
01:13:59.260 --> 01:14:04.100
then in the daylight, those feelings would evaporate. Daylight brought
1263
01:14:04.140 --> 01:14:07.020
me back to the present. It prompted Thomas to finally
1264
01:14:07.060 --> 01:14:10.380
break the silence. It's so bright here, he said, his
1265
01:14:10.420 --> 01:14:14.699
voice startling me, and it's so quiet. He stopped walking.
1266
01:14:15.279 --> 01:14:18.750
Is it like this all of the time? Thomas, what
1267
01:14:18.789 --> 01:14:21.789
are you talking about? He pointed up at the sky.
1268
01:14:21.970 --> 01:14:25.149
Is the sun always out like this? And the way
1269
01:14:25.189 --> 01:14:27.590
he looked at me with genuine wonder as if a
1270
01:14:27.670 --> 01:14:32.739
sunny day was something completely new, it scared me. Thomas,
1271
01:14:33.079 --> 01:14:37.520
what's my name? His budding smile vanished. I don't know.
1272
01:14:38.140 --> 01:14:40.359
You don't remember me at all? I asked him. We're
1273
01:14:40.380 --> 01:14:44.390
best friends. He didn't answer that. He just forged his head,
1274
01:14:44.489 --> 01:14:47.090
striding through the undergrowth as if the branches and the
1275
01:14:47.149 --> 01:14:50.310
thorns didn't bother him in the slightest, as if walking
1276
01:14:50.350 --> 01:14:54.699
through the brush was second nature. As we got closer
1277
01:14:54.739 --> 01:14:57.000
to the trail, I started to recognize more and more
1278
01:14:57.060 --> 01:15:00.119
spots from helping the searchers, and I worried that once
1279
01:15:00.159 --> 01:15:02.520
we got out of here, I would never get any
1280
01:15:02.659 --> 01:15:05.439
answers from Thomas about what had happened to him out here.
1281
01:15:06.600 --> 01:15:08.680
I told him to stop, and we sat around some
1282
01:15:08.720 --> 01:15:12.600
logs around the ashes of another camper's fire, perhaps even
1283
01:15:12.779 --> 01:15:15.729
one he'd set up on his way to wherever he'd gone.
1284
01:15:16.890 --> 01:15:19.890
And around the ashes, I said, Tell me, what do
1285
01:15:19.949 --> 01:15:24.199
you remember? He responded almost childlike. I don't want to
1286
01:15:24.260 --> 01:15:26.579
talk about where I'm from. I like it here so
1287
01:15:26.619 --> 01:15:29.720
much better. Tell me about the last time you were
1288
01:15:29.779 --> 01:15:32.829
here then, Thomas. What do you remember before you got lost?
1289
01:15:34.449 --> 01:15:37.569
My hands look so different in the light. I didn't
1290
01:15:37.609 --> 01:15:39.609
know what to say to that, so I just nodded
1291
01:15:39.689 --> 01:15:43.310
at him to continue. I don't remember much, she said quietly.
1292
01:15:43.340 --> 01:15:47.500
I wish I remembered you. I think you're nice. That's okay,
1293
01:15:47.539 --> 01:15:49.659
I told him. Just tell me what do you remember?
1294
01:15:50.500 --> 01:15:53.060
I remember camping, my mom and dad were with me,
1295
01:15:53.159 --> 01:15:56.180
and we were going to make marshmallows and tell scary stories.
1296
01:15:57.960 --> 01:16:00.850
And as he talked, I studied him. The way he
1297
01:16:00.909 --> 01:16:03.550
curved his mouth when he talked, the way he brushed
1298
01:16:03.590 --> 01:16:05.989
his hair out of his face, it was all different.
1299
01:16:06.510 --> 01:16:09.550
None of it matched the way he'd talked before. All
1300
01:16:09.569 --> 01:16:14.100
of his mannerisms had shifted entirely. And I had to pee,
1301
01:16:14.420 --> 01:16:16.680
so I went into the woods real quick, but someone
1302
01:16:16.720 --> 01:16:19.470
had lost their dog. and I couldn't leave him all
1303
01:16:19.529 --> 01:16:21.789
scared and alone in the woods out here, so I
1304
01:16:21.869 --> 01:16:25.189
followed him. I watched the way he reached his hand
1305
01:16:25.270 --> 01:16:27.529
up to his mouth to start chewing on his fingernails,
1306
01:16:28.090 --> 01:16:31.010
a nervous habit he'd never had before, at least not
1307
01:16:31.050 --> 01:16:34.630
the Thomas I'd known. But the dog wasn't a real dog,
1308
01:16:34.850 --> 01:16:36.979
and he wasn't lost, and he took me to a
1309
01:16:37.029 --> 01:16:41.560
bad place. Thomas, this Thomas, looked around, gazing up at
1310
01:16:41.600 --> 01:16:44.329
the sun, and he smiled. I never thought I'd get
1311
01:16:44.390 --> 01:16:46.569
back here. I thought I was going to get old
1312
01:16:46.649 --> 01:16:49.100
and get slow and the monsters would get me and
1313
01:16:49.140 --> 01:16:52.539
that would be it. He looked back down at me.
1314
01:16:53.020 --> 01:16:55.800
Thank you for finding me. All I could do was
1315
01:16:55.880 --> 01:16:58.800
nod and stand up. We booked it to the trail
1316
01:16:58.899 --> 01:17:01.159
back to the entrance. I was so desperate to get
1317
01:17:01.199 --> 01:17:04.569
this man home. He'd been away for so long. Only
1318
01:17:04.630 --> 01:17:06.489
only get back to my car and close the door
1319
01:17:06.590 --> 01:17:09.449
did I let myself relax and I put my hand
1320
01:17:09.529 --> 01:17:12.010
on the bony arm of the stranger beside me. and
1321
01:17:12.050 --> 01:17:15.560
gave it a reassuring squeeze. He wasn't who I was
1322
01:17:15.600 --> 01:17:18.079
looking for, but that was okay, because he was who
1323
01:17:18.100 --> 01:17:20.520
Thomas had wanted me to find so I'd take care
1324
01:17:20.560 --> 01:17:23.739
of him. The Thomas I'd grown up with wasn't coming back.
1325
01:17:25.199 --> 01:17:28.510
My best friend, whatever he was, had decided that he
1326
01:17:28.569 --> 01:17:31.170
couldn't stay here if it meant leaving the child to
1327
01:17:31.229 --> 01:17:34.569
suffer in his place. My Thomas had gone back home,
1328
01:17:35.010 --> 01:17:37.279
back to a place where the sun never rose and
1329
01:17:37.359 --> 01:17:43.560
monsters prowled in the dark. And this concludes National Park
1330
01:17:43.960 --> 01:17:49.239
Bizarre Bedtime Stories. Thanks for joining me, and if you
1331
01:17:49.310 --> 01:17:55.329
want ad-free, you can find that over on patreon.com slash weeklybizarre.
1332
01:17:55.770 --> 01:17:58.590
And until the next episode, happy nightmares!