Everybody has that story to tell. The memory hangs out in the back seat
of your mind, waiting for the right moment to chip in the group and
share your childhood fear, the first time you were scared, the first time
you felt real fear. By the time you tell a story, you almost
forgotten it had ever happened. Maybe it was just a fever dream you had
as a child, Maybe the circumstances were fabricated by your adolescent imagination. Even
though you doubt it ever happened, the memory still lingers, held dearer than
what should have been your cherished moments when you were younger. When you think
back, you don't remember the first time you tied your shoes or the first
basketball hoop you made. You think of that story. It's there, waiting,
almost as if it has unfinished business with you, like you're not allowed
to move on from it yet. And you tell the story with a big
smile on your face, the ones around you laughing so hard, they ugly
cried because your experience was so real and relatable. It could have happened to
them just as easily as it happened to you. Once you shared it,
you feel better, and the memory retreats back to its den, hibernating until
the stars align and it can torment you once more. I was at work
when the opportunity presented itself. The night shift was over and we were all
in the locker room, exchanging thick uniforms and heavy boots for crocs and basketball
shorts. Terry was telling a story about his fear of rats, his face
a half grin as he struggled to get through it without laughing. I was
on the bench unlacing my boots. Dude, I've been looking for this fucking
rat for a week. I would always see it out of the corner of
my eye, a little bastard scurrying around while I was trying to sleep.
Turns out it had made a nest in the box spring. I've been sleeping
on it, dude, Terry says, shivering as he thought back. The
other guys laughed, a cackling chorus of grown men amused by someone else's demise.
I laughed as well. Terry was well known for his fear of rodents
and was heckled about it constantly. They went back and forth over the details
as I kicked off my boots. How do they deal with it. Did
they burn the mattress? Did he let it sleep there forever? As laughter
dies down, I think of my story and wonder if I should tell it.
At first, I shiver at the thought, but before I know it,
I'm grinning myself and dying to let it out. The old memory resurfaces
like a shark from the deep. A story that happened twenty three years ago,
A story about a beaver. All right, I got one, Terry,
you'll especially like this, I say, standing up. The guys listen,
still wiping the tears from the rat and Terry's mattress. It's been so
long since I've thought of the beaver, and the details fled in as I
picture it in my head. All right, So this was a really long
time ago, when I was a kid. I think I was five or
six. Anyway, I used to live in this trailer park over on Rainbow
Road, that one over there by the highway. I vaguely point north as
I close my locker. There's a few interjections before the story continues. Wait,
Rainbow Road, Yeah, I know that place. My aunt used to
live there, used to live in the cans Day over by ninety four.
Yeah, A long time ago, ben ages, I say, and resume
the story. Anyway, it was in the summer back in the nineties,
and we were all playing outside, not shit to do. There was nothing
but trailers in a long line of mailboxes who were all poor, and there
was no playground to play at, so most of the time all the kids
would just group up and we would walk around and play with rocks and shit.
We'd walk around all day, and our parents didn't care as long as
we didn't go by the highway. They were always worried about a car hitting
us. I say, and in my mind I can hear the sounds of
cars passing by. So there's like five of us playing by this trailer that
didn't have anyone living in it, and all of a sudden, one of
the kids just freezes and says, uh, what's that? So we all
look and sitting on the porch of the trailer, is this big fucking beaver
just staring at us? I say, the beaver's black eyes and teeth clear
In my mind, I shudder at the thought of it. The guys laugh
and Tarry visibly cringes. So we're all frozen there, all of us,
too scared to move we'd never seen one before. We're all terrified at this
beaver and it's just staring us down. We're just waiting for it to rush
us, like it was gonna eat our bones or something. Really scary shit.
Anyway, So there's this girl standing next to me. I think her
name was Kirsten. She whispers to me and says, go get your mom,
we'll stay here. My house was the closest, only two trailers away.
So I run home, thinking this beaver is gonna chase me, like
it's some kind of horror movie or something, and I run. I tell
my mom and she starts yelling about us playing by the highway, and the
whole time, I'm just scared shitless this beaver. It's gonna eat my friends.
By the time we go back, No shit, what happened? Did
it attack you guys? What the guy says? And I laugh. No,
my mom grabbed the broom. We went back, and she pretty much
just shoot it off. But I still can't shake the look that beer gave
us. We really thought it was gonna eat us, Like fucking hate beavers,
dude. I finished the story and they all laughed, all except Harry,
who looks like he found something new to add to his list of rodent
fears. I chuckled to myself at the thought of the memory, feeling a
bit of the weight lifted from my mind, like a shred of the traumas
healed. After some brief shit talking, we all punch out and leave the
building, everyone walking to their cars with their heads held high. Now that
the day's work is done, I wave goodbye and get in my car.
As I watch the other guys pull away and drive off, I find myself
sitting there in silence, pondering the story I told. I think of the
beaver story with its nasty buck teeth and black eyes. I think of how
funny it is looking back, and I hear the laughter of the guys in
my head. The longer I think about it, the more the laughter fades
away, and the more I hear screams instead. I think of the story,
suddenly feeling guilty, wondering why I said it in the first place.
Maybe, after all this time, I'm just trying to make myself feel better.
In my head, the memory unravels. I think of the story and
how it's a lie. There's no beaver there never was. I leaned my
head on the steering wheel. I hadn't thought of it in so long.
I was sure that I could leave it in the past. I hear the
screams, my own screams and those of the other children. I think of
the unexplainable memory pushed so far back in my mind. Kirsten was my first
crush. I remember her freckled face and short hair, and a little red
ball cap she would always wear. Everyone thought she looked like a boy,
but I thought she was pretty, even though I really didn't know the meaning
of the word. She lived across the park in a yellow trailer and would
always come over to play when all the kids got together. There were five
of us and only a few of us had bikes, so if we all
wanted to play together, we would usually walk around play with sticks and stuff
like that. Sometimes we'd play tag or red Rover, but that day we
found ourselves just walking around board. The trailer park was an oval formation,
the mobile homes placed in a loop with a circular road in the middle.
It was surrounded by trees except for the side I lived on that was tucked
into a hill that the highway was built on. It was nice outside that
day, and our parents booted all of us out of the house so we
would enjoy the nice weather and so they could have some peace and quiet.
They only had two rules, don't talk to strangers and don't go near the
highway. The park wasn't fenced off for anything, and you could hear cars
and trucks flying past all day long. We were walking the road and little
group and doing lamps without any real plan. We continued like this for a
while, every time passing each other's houses and telling jokes, sometimes nagging our
parents if we could come in. Yet, two trailers down from mine was
the only vacant lot in the park. Nobody lived there as far as we
knew. The driveway was always empty, with a concrete slab in place of
a trailer. The backyard consisted of an uphill climb through the trees that led
straight to the highway. It was silly, but between the emptiness of the
vacant trailer and the sounds of the highway, it felt like that specific lot
was separate from the rest of the park. I don't know if it was
the shade from the overgrown trees, the layer of old pine needles on the
ground, or the dead sticks scattered about the unkempt yard. There was always
something about it. Nike was in its own little bubble, and that was
when the dares started. On that particular boring day, one of the kids
had the idea that for every lap we took around the park, one of
us would have to step foot on the lot. The mini barren zone always
gave us the willies, and the thought of pushing the boundaries of the scary
property gave us all a shot of rebellious adrenaline. At first, I thought
it was scary and I was worried about getting in trouble. But when I
saw Kirsten perk up giddaly, I decided to play along so I could impress
her whatever I could do to seem cool and make her smile. It felt
like we were doing something bad, and the excitement of who would go the
furthest would hurry us along. As we walked each lap around the park,
we would take turns. Each lap, one of us would walk into the
driveway, the next would go up and touch one of the sticks, et
cetera, et cetera. I remember on one of my turns, I crept
into the yard behind the little driveway and sprinted back, comically, yelling like
something was chasing me all the way back to the road. Looking back,
it was immature, but it felt like the unexplainable gloom was always trying to
nip at your heels. Hours passed as we repeated the cycle, a lap
around the park, then one of us running in there. Towards the end,
we were jogging around the park, all of us excited to take our
next turn, and as time went on, kids would get called to come
back home and the group began to dwindle. We started to push faster,
each of us paranoid to be the next kid to be walking away from the
fun with our head hung low as the others laughed. Before we knew it,
almost everyone had gone home, everyone except Kirsten and I. I remember
it being my turn next and the both of us running back to do one
more stunt. The sun was starting to set and we knew any minute our
parents would call us. I remember running alongside her, sweating and gasping for
breath as the laps tired our legs. Kirsten huffed and laughed as she ran,
holding the bill of her ball caps. What wouldn't fly off? This
one would be the craziest. I thought it was my chance to really impress
her. I'd go into the woods this time, maybe even close to the
highway. When we came to the driveway, however, we both stopped.
Our smiles faded, and the sun seemed to fizzle away an instant. There
was an old rundown trailer on the vacant lot, like it had appeared out
of thin air. The dingy green paint was peeling, and the porch looked
like he was about to collapse. The drapes in the windows were nicotine stained
and ratty, barely concealing the complete darkness within. As I watched, the
front door creaked open slightly from the darkness within. A groaning whisper escaped.
No lights on inside, no car in the driveway. What the I looked
at Kirsten for validation, but she wasn't even looking at the trailer. She
was looking at a woman in the yard. It was then I noticed her
off towards the trees. She was standing with her back turned, and even
though we couldn't see her face, we knew something was horribly wrong. Once
white clothes were heavily stained and ripped up, fitting awkward on her frame.
One of her legs was bent backwards and one of her arms was missing,
a heavy drizzle of blood oozing from the stump. Despite how mangled she was,
she stood perfectly still. We just stood there for a time, both
of us silently gawking at her. The air was chilly, like a temperature
drop before a bad storm. Kirsten looked at me, the collar drained from
her face Without a word, Both of us looked in the direction of our
homes to see which one was closest to run to. When we looked back
in the direction of the woman, we noticed she had silently moved closer.
Her back was still turned, but we could see the damage clearer, horribly
road rashed muscle, black streaks on her clothing from the combination of tires and
asphalt. What do we do, Kirsten whispered, her voice a whimper.
I I don't know. I managed my bladder suddenly feeling like he was going
to burst. I remember my legs shaking. Maybe we could ahead of us.
The woman turned, not in a normal sense, but like she blinked
to facing a different direction, like someone had flipped the paper over while our
eyes were closed. The side of her face provoked a gasp from both of
us. I was crying, now, filled with a confused fear you have
when you wake up from a terrible nightmare. The woman was missing her bottom
jaw and with it, half of her upper face. The only identifiable thing
left of her top jaw was a hanging, bloody tongue and her two front
teeth. A single eye looked at me angrily, the pupil surrounded by the
black splotching of burst blood vessels. No sound emitted from the woman, but
seeing the way she stood there, frozen in place, I couldn't explain it.
Something was just wrong, horribly wrong. Your house is closer, Ron,
get you UK, your mom, Kirsten whispered, her voice trembling.
Her breath came out as fog. The mangled woman remained in place, but
her single eye was locked on Kirsten. Now before our eyes, she blinked
forward, three feet closer in Kirsten's direction. I wanted to reach for her
hand, but it seemed so far away. I looked at her freckled face,
tears streaming down them as she stood as still as possible. But I
whimpered, and the mangled woman blinked again. A few more feet, facing
my direction, without a single sound, The eye glared angrily at me.
I sobbed as she grew closer. Once more, her eye dilated in response
to my noise, and at her side, her only remaining hand twitched.
Just go, kirsten shout echoed across the park, rustling birds from the trees.
I turned and ran, my shoes, skipping down the sidewalk. I
couldn't breathe. I looked over my shoulder, the terrif. I looked on
Kirsten's face and the woman shifting closer, burning itself into my memory. Even
as she drew closer to her, Kirston kept her eyes on me, weeping
silently as she watched me go. As she made sure I could get away.
My house was only a few trailers away, but I felt like I
was running across town. My legs were weak, my thoughts raced. The
further I got from the yard, the warmer it seemed to get. The
sun began to feel hot, but my blood was still cold. I tried
to focus on the patio door to my home, or my mom would be
inside where I could get her to save us. The adrenaline crawled across me
like ice, and I thought, just for a moment, that everything was
going to be okay. It was all just a nightmare. My mom would
show up and fix things, just like she did all the other times I
had a problem. By the time I made it to my yard, Kirsten
screamed. The shrill cry of terror and pain made me stumble and I fell
to the ground. I looked behind me frantically, but Kirsten and the woman
were gone. All I could see was an empty yard, and I started
shaking. I looked to my front door, then back to where I left
Kirsten. I didn't know what to do. I thought it would take too
much time to get my mom. I shook and sobbed on the ground as
my adolescent brain tried to compute the right thing to do. I just wanted
to help. I wanted her to be okay, and my fear I wet
myself. Behind me, Kirsten screamed again. She was getting further away.
I got back on my feet and I ran back to the phantom trailer,
cursing myself for leaving her alone. We should have just ran together. Why
didn't we just run together? No, no, no, no, I
sobbed my stomach desperately wanting to purge its contents. My legs begged me to
stop, and I pushed them forward. My sneakers scuffed the sidewalk as the
hot trail of urine ran down my leg I ran past the neighbor's lot and
round the corner of the trailer shouldn't exist. When I got to the yard,
I couldn't see either of them. The same awful chill returned, and
a mist was working its way across the yard. My eyes followed the source,
a ghostly fog that was cascading down the porch steps. It was spilling
from the trailer. The tiny crack of the door and the darkness inside the
doorway groaned as the fog billowed out, widening slightly with a creek. The
window started to bleed and the shutters shriveled like burning plastic. The worst thing
of all was what I saw in the trees. The woman was dragging Kirsten
by her arm, painfully whipping her around each time she blinked up the tree,
dragging her towards the highway. I screamed for her to stop. The
mangled woman paused only for a moment. Her destroyed mouth reverberating with what I
could only describe as a snarl. Kirsten howled in pain as she the woman,
the bruising grip worsening as her helpless hands passed through a seemingly ethereal body.
Unnatural and horrible. The mangled woman ascended the hill, each freeze frame
blink bringing them closer to the roaring traffic. I ran after them. I
made it halfway across the yard before my foot caught something, setting a face
first into the foggy ground. My palm slapped the ground, softening the fall
on something rough and sharp. I tried to get up, but something grabbed
my ankle, winding tight like rope. As I tried to shake it free.
Kirsten's screens got weaker the further she got from me. The fog dispersed
as I thrashed to be free, and though I saw no grass at all,
the canvas of pine needles and leaves was replaced by hundreds thousands of dead
birds. I looked behind me and shouted for help, hoping to see my
mom or one of the neighbors rushing to help. I saw nothing but an
empty street, twisting vines wrapping around my ankles. When I turned back to
the hill, Kirsten was holding onto a tree, trying to resist the mangled
woman's grip. Her fingers clung to the bark, and her sneakers formed jagged
ruts in the earth. This slowed the woman for a moment, but she
retaliated by breaking Kirsten's wrist. The wet snap followed by the worst sound I'd
ever heard. I wanted to say, I broke free. Sometimes when I
dream, I break free from the vines and I make it through the fog.
Other times, grown ups show up and everything's okay. Sometimes Kusten has
a strength to free herself, we get away together. And sometimes there's no
mangled woman at all. It's only a beaver. In reality, the true
ending can never be denied. The version where my scream only joins hers scream.
As I reach helplessly and the mangled woman makes it to the road,
I watch as the truck takes them, an impact so forceful and sudden they
simply blink away, leaving nothing but streaks on the highway and a hat in
the wind that matched the color. The fog recedes into the trailer like a
movie being rewound. The blood seeps back into the glass, and the curtains
unshrivel. The warmth returns, and the parents flock outside, mortified and speechless
as they press me for answers. In time, my screaming fades, replaced
by the howling of sirens in the distance. I look up from the steering
wheel and dry my tear. The parking lot is empty, and everyone else
has left for work except me. I think of the images in my head,
the weeping eyes I can't unsee, cries I can't seem to forget.
When I start my car and shift out of park, I think about the
years that have passed by. I think of how I never really spoke to
my friends again after that day, and how everyone seemed to chalk it up
to two kids who were never supposed to play by the highway. The park
seemed to fall apart after that, Kirsten's parents moving first, with my family
to follow. I heard some sort of mass exodus followed, a tiny,
little poor park reduced to nothing but a memory to the nearby bars of traveling
truckers. Another traffic accident, another poor child lost. Tonight, instead of
taking my usual route, I took a de tour. I take the expressway
until I see a road, one so ignored and unkempty wouldn't know it was
there if it wasn't for the reflecting green sign, a sign faded and almost
illegible with age, a sign that reads Rainbow Road. I turn onto the
winding path, one that feels more like the entrance to a cemetery than a
back road. My car rolls over broken pavement and traverses potholes until I see
something in the distance, the only landmark in the otherwise empty place that's been
consumed by weeds and hoover growth. As I approach the line of old,
rusted mailboxes, I slow down. Ahead is the concrete circle. But there's
no homes, only a loop that's been slowly swallowed by the forests surrounding it.
My headlights cut through the unnatural dark, the special kind that engulfs in
the middle of nowhere. I think a hot summer's day and a bunch of
bored kids with nothing to do. Letting my car idly crawl, I pull
into the loop and survey my surroundings. On Rainbow Road. There are no
mobile units to be seen. Each passing slab of the empty lot looks like
a gravestone, a gritty reminder of young, little lives that will be forever
changed. I passed by Kirsten's old lot, think of her freckled face,
the way she laughed, and the way she would roll her eyes when I
made stupid jokes. I passed by the old lots of my friends' houses and
wondered where they're at in the world. I passed by the lot where my
home used to be, and I think of my mother a time before the
therapy. I went through the time before she started talking less and less.
Driving past the old vacant lot, I see no mangled woman and no green
trailer, only the light of cars flying by the highway on the hill beyond.
I look at this one longer, expecting to see something more, something
of meaning. I look over the weathered surface of its foundation, years of
rain slowly chipping away at the concrete, the grass that's overtaken the driveway,
the thin layer of gravel reclaimed by earth. I stare into the trees.
I look at every wicked branch in the night. I search for those twisted
limbs and malformed face, and wonder if it's hiding somewhere in there. I
listen for the screams and find cicadas instead, nothing but empty lots of overgrown
grass and fleeting rodents. When I reach the end of the circle, I
see the exit and stop. I see the winding road, and how it's
been so long since I've been here, how I'll have no reason to come
back. I let off the break and I keep turning left, going over
the same vacant spaces again. But this time I think of the good times.
I think of every dare that didn't end in tragedy. I think of
every boring summer day where we climbed trees or played tag. I think of
every smile Kirsten made, and how that would give me butterflies in my stomach.
When I reached the end of the circle, I decided to go again,
my head filled with laughter and smiles, the kind no longer thought by
a late twenties man, and that one's through leads to another and another,
each passing tree in a remembered backyard, spawning memories long buried under the surface
and lost, long gone memories deserving remembrance. I kept on the loop for
a while, holding the same angle on the wheel as I drove in a
circle into the late hours of the night. I thought of many memories,
reliving them like they were yesterday, until something changed. A flashing strobe was
blinding, unexpected, and part of me wondered how I didn't even see it
coming in the first place. The squad car may have followed me with his
lights off for a while, and I was none the wiser. I pulled
my car over right in front of where my old house used to be,
putting in a park, I sighed as he ran my plates. The cop
took their time, both of our engines running idly in the middle of nowhere.
When they finally emerged from their car, I had my license and registration
ready. I rolled down the window in time to see an old officer,
headlights illuminating a mustached face, white with age. When I offered my paperwork,
he waved it off with a question. What are you doing out here
this time of night? Kid? Getting high? Getting drunk? He asked
impatiently as he looked inside my car. No, just visiting an old friend,
I guess, I said, and he blinked at me. Very funny.
And how many times they get called out here? Look, you kids
come out here screwing around shooting up causing trouble. There's no reason for it.
Maybe after they set fire the last trailer out of here, we leveled
it with the bulldozer and that'd be the end of it. Now you're here
driving circles until dispatch picks it up. There ain't nothing out here, kid
either. You're lying and you got the wrong address, he said sternly,
his frown curving his mustache. She passed away a long time ago, she
was. She was hit by a truck on the highway, I said,
and there was an immediate sadness in his eyes. Sorry to hear that,
he said, and collected himself. I was a long time ago, but
I remember it clearly. I was first on the scene. Terrible, terrible
thing. My family bought flowers out of here for years after everyone moved away.
They were the last people who came by that weren't trying to cause trouble.
After a while, they stopped coming. Now this place is just an
overgrown hole. I thought of the family visiting each year. I thought of
long wilted flowers, deeply saddening me. I looked around the park as the
officer collected himself, looking over empty lots until my eyes rested on that particular
one two doors down from mine. I felt the icy chill crawl over me
again, but the officer's voice pulled me away. You you're that boy,
but thought i'd see you again, let alone recognize you. Yeah, I
haven't been here since it happened. I felt like i'd stopped by, I
said, peering through the light at him. I'm sorry I gave you such
a rough time. I'm sorry about your friend. People like to come out
here and cause trouble. Park's never the same after that, and once everyone
moved out, it's been a hot spot for squatters, and I liked for
a while. It's private property. The owner calls and raises hell every time
he sees people out of here. I understand your paying respects. I don't
have to ask you to leave. I'll follow you out. Starting to leave.
Without much to say, I just nodded and rolled up my window.
The officer started walking away, and I watched his silhouette shrink in the side
mirror as he made his way to his car. When he reached the door,
he stopped his hand, pausing as he reached for the handle. After
a moment, he turned around and he started walking back. I waited for
the mustache face to come into view and rolled the window down again. Hey
kid, he asked, his brow flurring A little, yeah, I said,
the air feeling chillier, A light fog rolling over the road. The
sight of it made me sick to my stomach. Back then, when the
accident happened and I arrived on the scene, he kept saying the same things
over and over. Green trailer, lady in the woods, he said,
leaning on the door, I remember, I said, But I'm not looking
at him any more. My eyes are held ahead. Are you sure that's
what you saw? Are you sure that's what happened, he asked. I
could feel him steady in my face. I'm positive, no doubt in my
mind. Why, I asked, looking to the side of the road,
to the darkness beyond the headlights. Oh. When we arrived, there was
no trailer, no woman in the woods either, As every resident in the
park, nobody saw anything. We searched for miles, thinking maybe you're right.
Someone who had fled the scene even got a helicopter. Did you find
anyone, I said, gripping the steering wheel. Nobody ah. In the
dark, I traced the faint outline of something ahead, rectangular in shape.
Yeah, but here's the thing. After talking to all the neighbors, we
spoke to the landlord. When we mentioned what you said you saw, you
turned white, almost fainted that it was in pots possible. Said he'd been
running the park for over twenty years, and all that time there only been
one green trailer. In the eighties, he said, and paused to chew
his lip, young couple used to live there, pretty young woman, drunk
for a husband. Whenever he wasn't sunk in a bottle, he was getting
the drugs anyway, Always late with rent, always yelling and screaming at each
other, he said. Sometimes when they fought, he'd beat her up pretty
bad. She'd walk around the loop waiting for her husband to calm down or
fall asleep. Said she'd ask for help from the neighbors, knocking on doors
as she went. They helped at first, but it happened a lot,
he said. She would always go back home, they'd make up things,
be quiet for a while. They would always get bad again. You know,
back then it was a different time. The police didn't do much to
help her. I'm afraid after a while they stopped taking her calls. Not
long after that, the neighbors stopped helping them all together. Just a thing
that happened. The fog started to get thicker, but the officer didn't seem
to notice. One night, and after an especially bad fight, he beat
her up real bad and he left took the car, left her there,
landlord said. She came out, eventually limping, her face all swollen,
mumbling his name as she walked the loop in the middle of the night,
waiting for him to come back. I guess, but never did. She
kept walking even after everyone put their lights out for the night. When morning
came, she was gone. Through the fog. I could see the outline
of windows in the rectangular shape and the dark structure of a porch. The
police found her on the highway hitting run. I mean knows if it was
grief taking hold or she was just trying to catch a ride in town.
Anyway, pulled the trailer from the lot and never put another one on it,
never allowed another green one either. Thought a Kirsten scream the floating baseball
cap. I'll look, kid, I don't know what you saw that day,
but I'm sorry, bab the whole thing. I'm sorry you lost your
friend, the officer said, patted his hand on the hood awkwardly. Do
you see it now, I asked, pointing forward. The officer raised his
eyebrows and looked into the distance. I watched as his face softened with worry
and his eyes narrowed on what lay ahead. Without a word, he grabbed
his flashlight and aimed it in the yard. With a faint click, the
beam cut through the dark, and he panned it slowly round the property.
I watched it shine over the fog, and watched it shine on a familiar
dingy green paint, ratty stained drapes, and a mangled figure at the end
of the yard. I don't see anything, kid, he said, and
shut off his flashlight. I looked into the darkness, transfixed on what I
knew was still standing there. Me neither, sorry for causing trouble. You
have a good night, officer, I said. I started rolling up my
window. He looked like you wanted to stop me, but in the end
he stood there and let me go. I drove past the empty lot and
rusting mailboxes, keeping my eyes forward until I was through the winding road that
led out the park. I didn't realize I was holding my breath until I
was turning back onto the main road. Once I was out, the icy
feeling withered away, and I was welcomed back by the comfort of green traffic
lights. As I left the park behind me, I released my grip on
the wheel and I felt the tension of my shoulders melt away. I sighed
exa ucidly, keeping my foot on the gas until I made it to the
clover leaf. It led me here. I took the ramp quickly, knowing
the highway would overlook the park and ultimately take me home. I didn't know
why I took that way, where there was just me being defiant, or
maybe I just felt like I had to, or maybe inside the safety of
my car, I thought I'd be all right. Merging onto the highway,
I sped onto the overlook and could see the empty park in its wooded sanctuary
below. I could see the slow moving headlights of the officer leaving. The
fog and the trailer were gone, and with it the mangled woman. I
returned my eyes to the road just in time to see a hitchhiker walking on
the shoulder. They walked slowly, leisurely, kicking rocks as they went.
As I approached, they stopped and looked at me, slowly waving. As
I rapidly approached. It was a little girl with a freckled face and a
red ball cap. When I checked the rearview mirror, she was gone,
Hey, their kids, it's me, mister creepy pasta. And I want
to tell you thank you so much for watching tonight's video if you're watching on
YouTube. Thank you so much for listening to tonight's podcast if you're listening on
Spotify. And thank you guys for doing that thing where you subscribe, where
you hit the bell, where you hit like, or you leave a little
comment at the bottom or wherever you can leave comments at. I don't know.
I don't use Spotify that much. And finally, I want to give
a huge thank you to everybody who supports me on Patreon. This past year
has been rough. I've been gone for quite a while trying to get things
organized for my own life and Patreon subscribers, you guys who subscribe everywhere.
This has kept me afloat in turbulent waters. So I want to give a
very special thank you too. Jordan Humble, Diana Kraus Disciple Strategy Wolf,
Emoji, Sullyman, Brandon Mendoza, Brimstone, Pandemonium, Caltuna, William Wellington,
Scruffy, the Janitor, Breanna Crowe, Leketa Canizalez, Smiley, the
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o' nine, Stricken, Freddykrueger, Hadi's Nephew, Ascid System, Sky Harper,
Niko Kayle, The Ginger, bros Erin Stormcrow, Daniel Polson and Corey
Kensen, I really appreciate your support and I cannot thank you. In novel