Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here, something just because my dog. Something killed your dog.
Speaker 1: My dog. We're flying through the or over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
Speaker 1: the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here? Did you see what it was?
Speaker 2: Or was it was?
Speaker 1: Standing enough. I'm out here looking through the window now
Speaker 1: and I don't see anything. I don't want to go outside.
Speaker 1: Jesus Quice, you better hello, get the Boddy out here
Speaker 1: when I'm out there.
Speaker 2: I thought of a.
Speaker 1: Bench about tex forty nine.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Easy him out there. Yeah, I'm walking right head Uh.
Speaker 4: I've never told anyone this story, not even my wife.
Speaker 4: Some things feel too fragile to share, like they might
Speaker 4: dissolve if exposed to skeptical air. But I keep thinking
Speaker 4: about it, especially when I'm alone in the woods. This
Speaker 4: happened three years ago during hunting season. I had permission
Speaker 4: to hunt on private land about forty miles east of Bellingham,
Speaker 4: old growth forest that backed up against the Cascade foothills.
Speaker 4: The landowner, an elderly man named Frank, had one rule
Speaker 4: stay away from the clearing on the north ridge. He
Speaker 4: said it was unstable ground, dangerous for walking. I figured
Speaker 4: it was just liability concerns. I'd been hunting that property
Speaker 4: for two weeks without seeing much deer sign everywhere, but
Speaker 4: the animals themselves seem to have vanished tracks in the
Speaker 4: mud near water sources, rubs on trees where bucks had
Speaker 4: scraped their antlers, fresh droppings that couldn't have been more
Speaker 4: than a day old, but no deer. It was like
Speaker 4: they'd been spooked by something and moved deeper into the
Speaker 4: forest beyond the areas I was permitted to hunt. The
Speaker 4: first week, I'd stuck to the established trails, following the
Speaker 4: rough map Frank had drawn from me on the back
Speaker 4: of an envelope. The property was larger than I'd expected,
Speaker 4: maybe three hundred acres of mixed terrain, old growth douglas
Speaker 4: fir on the higher elevations, thick stands of alder and
Speaker 4: maple in the creek bottoms, and open meadows where logging
Speaker 4: operations decades ago had left clearings that were slowly growing back.
Speaker 4: I'm not a novice hunter. I've been tracking deer through
Speaker 4: Pacific Northwest forests for twenty five years, since my father
Speaker 4: first took me out when I was twelve. I know
Speaker 4: how to read sign, how to move quietly through underbrush,
Speaker 4: how to position myself downwind and wait with the kind
Speaker 4: of patients that separates successful hunters from weekend warriors who
Speaker 4: make too much noise and go home empty handed. But
Speaker 4: this property felt different from the start. The deer sign
Speaker 4: was there, but it was old, not ancient, but not
Speaker 4: fresh either, like the animals had been using these trails
Speaker 4: and feeding areas regularly until recently, then suddenly stopped. I
Speaker 4: found several spots where groups had bedded down for the night.
Speaker 4: Circular depressions in the grass still visible, the vegetation pressed
Speaker 4: flat in the distinctive patterns deer make when they settle
Speaker 4: in for sleep. But these spots had the feel of abandonment,
Speaker 4: like camp sites that had been vacated in a hurry.
Speaker 4: On what would be my last morning, I decided to
Speaker 4: hike deeper than I'd gone before, following an old logging
Speaker 4: road that petered out into deer trails. The road was
Speaker 4: more of a suggestion now, two parallel ruts barely visible
Speaker 4: under years of fallen leaves and encroaching vegetation. Frank had
Speaker 4: mentioned it during our initial conversation, said it led back
Speaker 4: to an area that had been selectively logged in the
Speaker 4: eighties before he'd bought the property. The timber company had
Speaker 4: taken out the biggest trees, but left the forest largely intact.
Speaker 4: I started hiking before dawn, using my headlamp to navigate
Speaker 4: the first mile of established trail. The October morning was
Speaker 4: crisp but not cold, with a low fog that hung
Speaker 4: in the valleys and turned the forest into something out
Speaker 4: of a fairy tale. My breath came out in small
Speaker 4: puffs that dissipated quickly in the still air. I was
Speaker 4: carrying my thirty hot six, a rifle I'd owned for
Speaker 4: fifteen years and trusted completely. The scope was zeroed perfectly,
Speaker 4: and I had four rounds in the magazine plus one
Speaker 4: in the chamber. The forest felt different that morning. Not quiet,
Speaker 4: that's too simple. It felt arranged, like someone had been
Speaker 4: through ahead of me, adjusting things, Branches that should have
Speaker 4: been hanging down were pulled aside. Fallen logs that blocked
Speaker 4: the trail had been moved, not dragged, but lifted and
Speaker 4: placed with care, the kind of precision that takes time
Speaker 4: and thought. At first, I assumed other hunters had been
Speaker 4: through improving the trail for easier passage, But as I
Speaker 4: walked deeper into the woods, I realized the modifications were
Speaker 4: too subtle, too careful for human work. A branch pulled
Speaker 4: aside and secured with what looked like natural twist in
Speaker 4: the wood. A fallen log rolled precisely far enough to
Speaker 4: clear the path, but not far enough to look obviously moved.
Speaker 4: Small stones placed to create stable footing across a muddy section,
Speaker 4: but arranged so naturally they could have been deposited by erosion.
Speaker 4: I found myself moving without making noise, though I hadn't
Speaker 4: consciously decided to be stealthy. My boots found soft ground
Speaker 4: between the twigs, my jacket didn't catch on branches. It
Speaker 4: was like the path was being prepared for me As
Speaker 4: I walked, each step falling into place with an ease
Speaker 4: that felt almost choreographed. The old logging road curved gradually upward,
Speaker 4: following the contours of a ridge that Frank's hand and
Speaker 4: drawn map showed as the eastern boundary of its property.
Speaker 4: I could see blazes on trees marking the property line,
Speaker 4: old cuts in the bark that had healed over but
Speaker 4: remained visible as raised scars. The road ended abruptly at
Speaker 4: what must have been a loading area, a flat space
Speaker 4: carved out of the hillside where logs would have been
Speaker 4: stacked waiting for transport. From there, a network of deer
Speaker 4: trails led in different directions. I chose the one that
Speaker 4: seemed most heavily used, though even that showed signs of
Speaker 4: recent abandonment. The trail was clear enough, a narrow path
Speaker 4: worn smooth by decades of hoofs, but spiderwebs stretched across
Speaker 4: it at face level and fallen branches hadn't been disturbed
Speaker 4: by passing animals. The deer trail led to a stream
Speaker 4: I wasn't expecting too wide and fast flowing to be
Speaker 4: on any of the maps I'd studied. The water was
Speaker 4: clear enough to see smooth stones on the bottom arranged
Speaker 4: in patterns that looked intentional spirals, mostly concentric circles. Some
Speaker 4: of the arrangements were clearly natural, the result of current
Speaker 4: and gravity working on rocks over time, but others seemed
Speaker 4: too precise, too geometric, to be accidental. I stood at
Speaker 4: the edge of the stream for several minutes, trying to
Speaker 4: decide if I was seeing things. The patterns could have
Speaker 4: been coincidence, the way the human brain imposes order on
Speaker 4: random arrangements. But the more I looked, the more convinced
Speaker 4: I became that someone had been here, someone with time
Speaker 4: and patience and a particular esthetic sense. That's when I
Speaker 4: noticed the smell, not the usual forest smells of rot
Speaker 4: and moss and damp earth. This was something else, clean
Speaker 4: but wrong, like wet concrete, like the inside of a
Speaker 4: cave that's never seen sunlight. It wasn't overpowering, just present
Speaker 4: enough to register as out of place. I've spent enough
Speaker 4: time in the woods to know the normal range of odors,
Speaker 4: decomposing leaves, animal scat, the green smell of growing things,
Speaker 4: the mineral scent of water over rocks. This was none
Speaker 4: of those. Across the stream, maybe sixty yards away, something
Speaker 4: moved between the trees, not walking exactly, more like flowing
Speaker 4: from one spot to another, the way shadows move when
Speaker 4: clouds pass overhead. I raised my rifle instinctively, then felt foolish.
Speaker 4: There was nothing to aim at, just the suggestion of
Speaker 4: movement in my peripheral vision. The movement stopped, and I
Speaker 4: realized I was being watched, not the way deer watch you,
Speaker 4: alert and ready to bolt. This felt patient, analytical, like
Speaker 4: being studied by someone who had all the time in
Speaker 4: the world to reach conclusions. The sensation was so strong
Speaker 4: it was almost physical, like pressure against my skin. I've
Speaker 4: been watched by bears before, and by mountain lions I
Speaker 4: never saw, but knew we're there. This was different, more focused,
Speaker 4: more intelligent. I sat down on a fallen log and waited.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure why, maybe because standing felt like I
Speaker 4: was trying too hard, like I was performing being human.
Speaker 4: The watching sensation didn't fade, but it changed quality, less clinical,
Speaker 4: more curious, like the initial assessment had been completed and
Speaker 4: now came the longer study. The stream gurgled softly over
Speaker 4: the arranged stones. Somewhere upstream, a raven called once and
Speaker 4: fell silent. The fog was beginning to lift, filtered sunlight,
Speaker 4: creating columns of light between the trees. It was beautiful
Speaker 4: in the way that only deep forests can be. But
Speaker 4: there was an edge to it, a sense of being
Speaker 4: in a place where normal rules might not apply. I
Speaker 4: stayed there for maybe twenty minutes, listening to the water
Speaker 4: and feeling the weight of observation. Eventually I heard branches
Speaker 4: moving on the far side of the stream, deliberate movement,
Speaker 4: heavy but careful. Something large was walking parallel to the water,
Speaker 4: pacing back and forth like it was thinking. The sounds
Speaker 4: were regular, methodical step pawse step step, pause, like someone
Speaker 4: measuring distance or working through a problem. Then the pacing stopped.
Speaker 4: I looked across the stream and saw it standing there,
Speaker 4: maybe forty feet away, not hiding behind trees, but not
Speaker 4: trying to be seen either, just standing in a small
Speaker 4: gap between two large Douglas furs, perfectly still. It looked
Speaker 4: like a person wearing a heavy coat, but the proportions
Speaker 4: were wrong, the shoulders too broad, the arms too long.
Speaker 4: The head sat differently on the neck, tilted forward in
Speaker 4: a way that seemed uncomfortable for a human. It was
Speaker 4: covered in dark hair or fur, but not uniformly, lighter
Speaker 4: patches on what might have been the chest and face,
Speaker 4: darker along the arms and shoulders. The face was in shadow,
Speaker 4: but I could see eyes reflecting the filtered sunlight, like
Speaker 4: an animal's eyes, but larger and set closer together than
Speaker 4: seemed right. It was watching me with the same patience
Speaker 4: i'd felt earlier, like we were both part of some
Speaker 4: agreement I didn't remember making. There was no aggression in
Speaker 4: its posture, no sense of threat. If anything, it seemed curious,
Speaker 4: tilting its head slightly as it studied me. We looked
Speaker 4: at each other for what felt like a long time.
Speaker 4: I wasn't afraid, which should have been strange, but somehow wasn't.
Speaker 4: Fear would have been the normal response any hunter encountering
Speaker 4: something this far outside the normal range of forest animals
Speaker 4: should feel at least some anxiety. But sitting there by
Speaker 4: the stream, watching this thing watch me felt completely natural,
Speaker 4: like this was how things were supposed to happen, Like
Speaker 4: I'd been walking toward this moment my entire life without
Speaker 4: knowing it. I found myself thinking about the arranged stones
Speaker 4: in the stream, the modified trail, the careful way the
Speaker 4: path had been prepared. This wasn't a chance encounter. Something
Speaker 4: had been guiding me here, creating the conditions for this meeting,
Speaker 4: with the same patience it was now showing and studying me.
Speaker 4: The creature took a step to its left, never breaking
Speaker 4: eye contact, and I saw how it moved, not like
Speaker 4: a human in a bulky coat, but with a fluidity
Speaker 4: that suggested the bulk was natural, not artificial. The step
Speaker 4: was careful but confident, like someone who knew exactly where
Speaker 4: to place their feet without looking down. It took another
Speaker 4: step parallel to the stream bank, and I realized it
Speaker 4: was circling, not stalking. There was nothing predatory about the movement,
Speaker 4: more like someone walking around a sculpture in a museum,
Speaker 4: viewing it from different angles to get a complete understanding,
Speaker 4: I stayed sitting on the fallen log, letting it circle.
Speaker 4: The smart thing would have been to leave, to back
Speaker 4: away slowly and hike out to my truck, but the
Speaker 4: encounter felt too important to abandon, too much like a
Speaker 4: test I hadn't known I was taking. The creature completed
Speaker 4: about a quarter circle before stopping again. From this new angle,
Speaker 4: I could see more of its profile. The head was
Speaker 4: definitely wrong for a human, too large to forward thrust.
Speaker 4: The arms were proportionally longer than they should be, hanging
Speaker 4: down past where the hips would be, but the overall
Speaker 4: impression was still man like, bipedal, intelligent. It raised one arm,
Speaker 4: the movement slow and deliberate, and placed its hand against
Speaker 4: the trunk of a tree. The hand was huge, dark
Speaker 4: furred on the back, with fingers that looked strong enough
Speaker 4: to tear bark. But it touched the tree gently, almost caressingly.
Speaker 4: Then it began to move again, continuing its circle. I
Speaker 4: watched it move around me for what must have been
Speaker 4: ten minutes. Sometimes it was clearly visible between the trees,
Speaker 4: sometimes just a shadow moving behind underbrush, but I never
Speaker 4: lost the sense of being observed, of being the center
Speaker 4: of its attention. It was learning me, I realized, taking
Speaker 4: my measure in some way I didn't understand. Only it
Speaker 4: completed the circle and returned to its original position across
Speaker 4: the stream. We looked at each other again, and I
Speaker 4: had the strangest sense of communication, not words, not even
Speaker 4: thoughts exactly, but some kind of understanding passing between us, recognition,
Speaker 4: maybe acknowledgment that we had seen each other and found
Speaker 4: no threat. Then it took a step backward into the trees,
Speaker 4: not fleeing, just retreating with the same deliberate care it
Speaker 4: had shown when circling. I caught glimpses of it moving away,
Speaker 4: a shoulder here, the swing of an arm there, until
Speaker 4: it was gone, But the watching feeling continued for several
Speaker 4: more minutes, fainter but still present, like it had withdrawn,
Speaker 4: but was still keeping an eye on me from a
Speaker 4: greater distance. I sat by the stream for another hour,
Speaker 4: but gradually the feeling of observation faded. Whatever had been
Speaker 4: studying me had reached its conclusions and moved on. The
Speaker 4: forest began to feel normal again, just trees and water
Speaker 4: and and the ordinary sounds of birds and small animals
Speaker 4: going about their lives. And stay tuned for more sasquatch
Speaker 4: ot to see. We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 4: When I finally stood to leave, I noticed something I'd
Speaker 4: missed before. On my side of the stream, maybe twenty
Speaker 4: feet upstream from where I'd been sitting, someone had built
Speaker 4: a small cairn, five smooth stones stacked in a precise pyramid,
Speaker 4: the kind of marker hikers sometimes leave to mark trails
Speaker 4: or indicate water sources. But this one wasn't marking anything obvious.
Speaker 4: It sat by itself in a small clearing, clearly visible
Speaker 4: from where I'd been sitting, but not from the deer
Speaker 4: trail that had brought me here. I walked over to
Speaker 4: examine it more closely. The stones were perfectly balanced, each
Speaker 4: one chosen for its size and shape to create a
Speaker 4: stable structure. The bottom stone was flat and broad, the
Speaker 4: others progressively smaller toward the top. It would have taken
Speaker 4: time and care to build, and considerable thought about balance
Speaker 4: and proportion. But what struck me most was its position.
Speaker 4: The cairn sat exactly where someone would place it to
Speaker 4: be visible from the fallen log where I'd been sitting,
Speaker 4: like a calling card, like someone saying they had been here,
Speaker 4: had anticipated this moment, had prepared for it. I didn't
Speaker 4: disturb the cairn, but I studied it carefully. The stones
Speaker 4: were all local granite and sandstone from the stream bed,
Speaker 4: smooth and water worn. The construction was recent enough that
Speaker 4: no moss had grown on the joints, but not so
Speaker 4: recent that it could have been built while I was
Speaker 4: sitting twenty feet away. Someone had prepared this beforehand, knowing
Speaker 4: or hoping that I would be here to see it.
Speaker 4: The hike back to my truck took twice as long
Speaker 4: as the hike, in partly because I was moving more carefully,
Speaker 4: paying attention to details I'd missed in the pre dawn darkness.
Speaker 4: The modified trail was even more obvious now that I
Speaker 4: knew what to look for. Dozens of small adjustments each
Speaker 4: it was one, subtle, but collectively creating a path that
Speaker 4: was easier and quieter to follow than it should have been.
Speaker 4: Near the old logging road, I found another cairn. This
Speaker 4: one was older, moss growing in the joints between stones,
Speaker 4: but the construction was identical to the one by the stream,
Speaker 4: same proportions, same careful balance. It sat beside the trail
Speaker 4: in a spot where it would be visible to anyone
Speaker 4: walking back toward the main road, but easy to miss
Speaker 4: if you weren't looking for it. When I finally hiked
Speaker 4: back to my truck, Frank was waiting for me in
Speaker 4: the parking area. He looked concerned, studying my face as
Speaker 4: I approached. He asked if I'd gone up to the
Speaker 4: north ridge. I told him no, which was technically true.
Speaker 4: I'd been east of there, following the stream. He seemed relieved,
Speaker 4: mentioned that the area had unstable ground, dangerous for walking.
Speaker 4: Then he paused, looking at something over my shoulder. Frank
Speaker 4: told me that folks go missing up there, sometimes not often,
Speaker 4: but enough to worry about it. They usually turn up
Speaker 4: a day or two later, confused, don't remember where they've been.
Speaker 4: But they come back different, he said, calmer, like they'd
Speaker 4: figured something out. I asked him if he'd ever seen
Speaker 4: anything unusual on his property. Frank was quiet for a
Speaker 4: long moment, studying my face. He said, I look different, calmer,
Speaker 4: like I'd figured something out too. I didn't know what
Speaker 4: to say to that. He continued, saying that some people
Speaker 4: come back from the woods different than they went in,
Speaker 4: usually for the better in his experience, like they made
Speaker 4: peace with something they didn't know they were fighting. He'd
Speaker 4: owned the property for thirty years, he said, and he'd
Speaker 4: learned to recognize the signs. Then he asked me about
Speaker 4: the cairns. The question caught me off guard. I hadn't
Speaker 4: mentioned finding them, hadn't even been sure what they were called.
Speaker 4: But Frank seemed to know exactly what I'd seen. He
Speaker 4: told me the cairens had been appearing for as long
Speaker 4: as he'd owned the property, always in the same style,
Speaker 4: always carefully constructed, always placed where people would find them
Speaker 4: if they were paying attention. He tried removing them once
Speaker 4: years ago, but they came back not in the same spots,
Speaker 4: but new ones would appear elsewhere on the property. Eventually
Speaker 4: he'd stopped trying to get rid of them. They weren't
Speaker 4: hurting anything, and the people who found them always seemed
Speaker 4: to come back from their hikes more settled, more at peace,
Speaker 4: like they'd had some kind of experience out there that
Speaker 4: was good for them, even if they couldn't explain what
Speaker 4: it was. Frank had his own theory about what was
Speaker 4: happening on his property, but he didn't share it with
Speaker 4: me that day. He just said that some places are special,
Speaker 4: and smart people learned to respect that instead of trying
Speaker 4: to understand it. I've thought about that conversation many times since,
Speaker 4: about the arrangement I seemed to have stumbled into, and
Speaker 4: whether I'm supposed to go back and honor whatever understanding
Speaker 4: was reached that morning. Sometimes I think I will. Other
Speaker 4: times I think the encounter was complete, as it was
Speaker 4: perfect in its brevity. But I keep that section of
Speaker 4: forest in my mind like a bookmark, holding my place
Speaker 4: in a story I'm not sure I understand yet. And
Speaker 4: sometimes when I'm out hunting in other places, I find
Speaker 4: myself looking for cairns, small stacks of stones that might
Speaker 4: mean someone else has been invited into an arrangement they
Speaker 4: didn't know they were seeking. I never did see a
Speaker 4: deer on Frank's property, but I stopped hunting there. Not
Speaker 4: because the hunting was bad, but because it felt wrong
Speaker 4: to carry a rifle into a place where I'd been
Speaker 4: trusted with something much more valuable than any animal I
Speaker 4: might kill. The season ended without me filling my tag,
Speaker 4: but for the first time in twenty five years of hunting,
Speaker 4: I didn't care. The second account I want to share
Speaker 4: comes from a photographer who'd been documenting abandoned places in
Speaker 4: the mountains. Her encounter was different from the hunters, less
Speaker 4: about mutual understanding and more about witnessing something that wasn't
Speaker 4: meant to be seen. I'd been documenting abandoned settlements across
Speaker 4: the Pacific Northwest for three years when I found the
Speaker 4: logging camp. My project focused on places that had been
Speaker 4: swallowed back by wilderness, homesteads, mining towns, forgotten communities that
Speaker 4: existed now only as foundations, and rusted machinery slowly disappearing
Speaker 4: under ferns and moss. The idea had started during my
Speaker 4: first year out of art school, when a friend mentioned
Speaker 4: an old mining town near Mount Baker that had been
Speaker 4: abandoned since the nineteen twenties. I hiked up there with
Speaker 4: my camera, expecting to find a few tumble down buildings,
Speaker 4: maybe some interesting textures for a black and white series. Instead,
Speaker 4: I found something that felt like archaeology, not just old buildings,
Speaker 4: but evidence of lives interrupted, of people who had simply
Speaker 4: walked away from their homes and never returned. There was
Speaker 4: something haunting about these places that went beyond their visual appeal.
Speaker 4: They felt like puzzles with missing pieces, stories that ended
Speaker 4: mid sentence. I became fascinated with the question of what
Speaker 4: causes people to obey and in not just individual buildings,
Speaker 4: but entire communities. Economic collapse was the usual explanation, but
Speaker 4: the more sites I visited, the more I suspected there
Speaker 4: were other factors. Places that felt wrong somehow. Even decades
Speaker 4: after the last residents had left, the logging camp sat
Speaker 4: in a valley forty miles from the nearest road, accessible
Speaker 4: only by a network of old service trails that my
Speaker 4: GPS insisted didn't exist. I'd found references to it in
Speaker 4: historical society records. Pacific rim Logging Operational from nineteen sixty
Speaker 4: two to nineteen sixty seven, abruptly closed due to operational difficulties.
Speaker 4: No details beyond that, just a notation that the site
Speaker 4: had been abandoned, with equipment and structures left in place.
Speaker 4: Getting permission to access the site had taken months of
Speaker 4: research and phone calls. The property had changed hands several
Speaker 4: times since Pacific Rim had abandoned it, and the current
Speaker 4: owners lived in California and seemed only vaguely aware of
Speaker 4: what was on their land. Eventually, their property manager gave
Speaker 4: me permission to hike in and photograph, with the understanding
Speaker 4: that I was doing so at my own risk. The
Speaker 4: hike took most.
Speaker 1: Of a day.
Speaker 4: The service roads were barely passable, more suggestion than reality
Speaker 4: after decades of weather and washouts. I had to park
Speaker 4: my truck eight miles from the site and walk the
Speaker 4: rest of the way, carrying sixty pounds of camera equipment
Speaker 4: in a backpack design for serious wilderness photography. I reached
Speaker 4: the valley on a Tuesday morning in late September, hiking alone,
Speaker 4: as I always did. Solitude was essential for this kind
Speaker 4: of work, not just for practical reasons, but because these
Speaker 4: places seemed to reveal themselves differently when you were alone
Speaker 4: with them. Groups of people changed the energy somehow made
Speaker 4: the sites feel like tourist destinations rather than archaeological mysteries.
Speaker 4: My camera bag held two film bodies loaded with black
Speaker 4: and white stock, the digital camera I used for reference shots,
Speaker 4: and enough batteries and memory cards for three days of shooting.
Speaker 4: I preferred to work slowly, revisiting locations multiple times to
Speaker 4: understand how light moved through them at different hours. The
Speaker 4: best images often came on the second or third day,
Speaker 4: after I'd had time to see pass the obvious compositions
Speaker 4: and find the details that told the real story. The
Speaker 4: camp exceeded my expectations. Fifty five years of growth had
Speaker 4: softened the edges but left the bones intact. Rusted caterpillars
Speaker 4: and log loaders sat exactly where they'd been parked, their
Speaker 4: operator seats now cushioned with moss. The bunk house still
Speaker 4: had windows, though half the glass was gone. Someone had
Speaker 4: left coffee cups on the mess hall tables, and they
Speaker 4: were still there, filled with forty years of decomposed leaves.
Speaker 4: But it was more than just the preservation that struck me.
Speaker 4: It was the completeness of the abandonment. In most sites
Speaker 4: I'd photographed, there were signs that people had returned at
Speaker 4: some point to salvage valuable equipment, to strip anything worth selling,
Speaker 4: to satisfy curiosity about what they'd left behind. Here, everything
Speaker 4: was exactly as it had been when the crews walked away.
Speaker 4: Tools hung on hooks in the maintenance shed, personal belongings
Speaker 4: sat on shelves in the bunk house. Even the camp's
Speaker 4: diesel generator was still there, though it was now more
Speaker 4: rust than metal. What struck me immediately was how quiet.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 4: Not the normal quiet of deep woods, where you could
Speaker 4: still hear birds and wind and the small sounds of
Speaker 4: animals moving through undergrowth. This was different expectant. I spent
Speaker 4: the first day establishing angles, walking the perimeter, understanding the
Speaker 4: relationship between the structures and the trees that were slowly
Speaker 4: reclaiming them. The light was perfect, overcast but bright, eliminating
Speaker 4: harsh shadows while maintaining detail in both the darkest corners
Speaker 4: and the brightest highlights. The camp was larger than I'd
Speaker 4: expected from the historical records. In addition to the main structures,
Speaker 4: bunk house, mess hall, equipment sheds, there were smaller buildings
Speaker 4: scattered throughout the site, a first aid station, a communication
Speaker 4: shack with radio equipment still mounted on the walls, individual
Speaker 4: cabins for supervisors and specialists, even a small building that
Speaker 4: seemed to have served as a library, with books still
Speaker 4: on shelves and a reading chair positioned near a window.
Speaker 4: Each building told part of the story of sudden departure, meals,
Speaker 4: interrupted work left half finished, personal possessions abandoned as if
Speaker 4: their owners had simply vanished mid task. In the mess hall,
Speaker 4: I found a newspaper dated two days before the camp's
Speaker 4: official closure, folded to the sports page, as if someone
Speaker 4: had been reading it over breakfast. In one of the
Speaker 4: supervisor cabins, a chess game sat on a small table,
Speaker 4: pieces positioned mid game, white apparently winning. The photographs I
Speaker 4: made that first day were technically successful, sharp, well composed,
Speaker 4: properly exposed, but they felt like documentation rather than art.
Speaker 4: Pretty pictures of decay, the kind of thing that might
Speaker 4: work in a gallery but wouldn't capture the real mystery
Speaker 4: of the place. That evening, I made camp and a
Speaker 4: clearing about a quarter mile from the logging site. Standard
Speaker 4: protocol for wilderness photography lightweight tent camp stove enough food
Speaker 4: for three days. I'd done this dozens of times in
Speaker 4: equally remote locations, but as darkness fell, I found myself
Speaker 4: checking and rechecking the tent zippers, making sure my headlamp
Speaker 4: was within easy reach. The sound started around midnight. Not
Speaker 4: forest sounds, I knew those well enough to sleep through them.
Speaker 4: These were strange mechanical sounds, the hydraulic whine of heavy equipment.
Speaker 4: I lay in my sleeping bag listening to what sounded
Speaker 4: like metal clanking against metal, muffled voices calling instructions I
Speaker 4: couldn't quite make out. At first, I assumed there was
Speaker 4: another logging operation somewhere nearby, maybe on an adjacent property.
Speaker 4: Sound can travel strange distances in forest valleys, especially at
Speaker 4: night when temperature inversions create acoustic tricks. But as I
Speaker 4: listened more carefully, I realized the sounds were coming from
Speaker 4: the direction of the abandoned camp. I unzipped my tent
Speaker 4: fly and stuck my head out. The night was clear,
Speaker 4: stars visible between the trees, and I could see the
Speaker 4: camp's location as a darker area in the forest below.
Speaker 4: No lights, no sign of actual activity, but the mechanical
Speaker 4: sounds continued for another twenty minutes before gradually fading away.
Speaker 4: By the time I'd pulled on boots and grabbed my camera,
Speaker 4: the sounds had stopped. The silence that followed was even
Speaker 4: more complete than before, not just the absence of machinery,
Speaker 4: but the absence of any sound at all. No insects,
Speaker 4: no night birds, no small animals moving through the underbrush,
Speaker 4: just absolute quiet that felt almost solid, like something pressing
Speaker 4: against my ear drums. I walked to the logging site
Speaker 4: in the gray pre dawn light, expecting to find fresh disturbance,
Speaker 4: tire tracks, equipment moved, some sign that people had been working. Instead,
Speaker 4: everything was exactly as I'd left it the day before,
Speaker 4: the same rust stains, the same moss growing in the
Speaker 4: same patterns on the same surfaces. Even spider webs I'd
Speaker 4: photographed were still intact, undisturbed by any human activity. But
Speaker 4: the silence was different, now heavier, more complete, and there
Speaker 4: was something else, a sense of presence that hadn't been
Speaker 4: there the day before. Not threatening exactly, but watchful, like
Speaker 4: the place was now aware that I was there. I
Speaker 4: spent the second day shooting details the way morning light
Speaker 4: caught cobwebs and broken windows, the patterns that decades of
Speaker 4: rain had carved into metal surfaces, the delicate skeleton of
Speaker 4: a desk chair slowly dissolving under the weight of accumulated seasons.
Speaker 4: The images were some of the best I'd ever made,
Speaker 4: but the work felt like performance, like I was being
Speaker 4: evaluated and stay tuned for more sasquatch ott to see.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: After these messages, everything about the camp seemed designed to
Speaker 4: be photographed. The way rust had spread across metal surfaces
Speaker 4: created perfect textures for black and white film. Broken windows
Speaker 4: framed views of forest that looked like carefully composed landscapes.
Speaker 4: Personal objects had been positioned or had fallen in ways
Speaker 4: that created narrative without being overly obvious about it. But
Speaker 4: it was more than just photogenic decay. There was an
Speaker 4: intentionality to the way things had been left, as if
Speaker 4: the camp's abandonment had been staged for maximum visual impact.
Speaker 4: Tools arranged just so, furniture positioned to catch light and
Speaker 4: interesting ways. Even the way vegetation had grown back seemed
Speaker 4: deliberately esthetic, creating foreground and background elements that any photographer
Speaker 4: would appreciate. Late in the afternoon, while shooting inside the
Speaker 4: mess hall, I noticed impressions in the dust. The building's
Speaker 4: floor was covered with decades of accumulated debris, fallen leaves,
Speaker 4: dirt tracked in by animals, dust from deteriorating ceiling materials.
Speaker 4: But in several places the debris had been disturbed in
Speaker 4: patterns that suggested someone had walked through the room recently,
Speaker 4: not my own footprints. I recognized the tread pattern of
Speaker 4: my hiking boots from earlier photographs. These were different, large,
Speaker 4: indistinct shapes that suggested someone had walked through the room barefoot.
Speaker 4: The marks formed a rough circle around the space, as
Speaker 4: if someone had been walking the perimeter, studying the walls
Speaker 4: and corners. I knelt beside the clearest impression and held
Speaker 4: my hand next to it for scale, even allowing for
Speaker 4: the way accumulated debris might spread and blur the edges.
Speaker 4: Whoever had made these marks had been moving on feet
Speaker 4: considerably larger than mine. The deepest impression showed what looked
Speaker 4: like individual toe marks, as if someone had paused and
Speaker 4: shifted their weight while examining something closely. I photographed the
Speaker 4: impressions methodically, using my macro lens to capture what details
Speaker 4: I could. The debris was too loose and varied to
Speaker 4: hold clear prints, but there were definitely patterns, areas where
Speaker 4: something heavy had compressed the accumulated matter, swirl marks where
Speaker 4: feet had pivoted, even what looked like a handprint on
Speaker 4: a dusty table, larger than a normal human but unmistakably
Speaker 4: hand shaped. When I looked up from my camera, there
Speaker 4: was someone standing in the doorway. The figure was silhouetted
Speaker 4: against the afternoon light, making details impossible to see. Tall,
Speaker 4: broader through the shoulders than seemed normal, but unmistakably watching me.
Speaker 4: I raised my camera instinctively, then stopped. Something about the
Speaker 4: gesture felt wrong, like photographing would break an unspoken rule.
Speaker 4: We looked at each other for what felt like several men. Finally,
Speaker 4: the figure stepped back from the doorway and was gone.
Speaker 4: I remained kneeling beside the dust impression for a long time,
Speaker 4: trying to process what I'd seen. Not the visual details,
Speaker 4: those had been too indistinct to analyze, but the presence itself,
Speaker 4: the weight of being observed by something that understood exactly
Speaker 4: what I was doing here and why. When I finally
Speaker 4: stood and walked to the doorway, there were no new
Speaker 4: marks outside no broken branches or disturbed ground that would
Speaker 4: indicate which direction the figure had gone, just the sense
Speaker 4: that someone had been there and had chosen to leave
Speaker 4: rather than intrude further. I spent the rest of the
Speaker 4: afternoon exploring the camp's outer buildings, but my concentration was shot.
Speaker 4: I kept finding myself looking over my shoulder, not from fear,
Speaker 4: but from a growing awareness that I wasn't alone in
Speaker 4: this place. Someone else was here, someone who moved with
Speaker 4: perfect quiet and seemed to understand the layout of the
Speaker 4: camp better than I did. That night, I lay awake
Speaker 4: listening to sounds that might have been wind in the trees,
Speaker 4: or might have been something large moving carefully through the
Speaker 4: forest around my camp. The mechanical sounds didn't return, but
Speaker 4: there were other noises. Footsteps on fallen leaves too heavy
Speaker 4: and regular to be animals, the creak of metal underweight,
Speaker 4: as if someone was testing the structural integrity of the
Speaker 4: camp's buildings. Around three in the morning, I heard something
Speaker 4: that made me sit up in my sleeping bag. Someone
Speaker 4: was humming, not a tune I recognized, but definitely humming,
Speaker 4: a low, melodic sound that seemed to come from the
Speaker 4: direction of the camp. It lasted for maybe five minutes,
Speaker 4: stopping and starting as if the person was working while
Speaker 4: they hummed, pausing to concentrate on difficult tasks. When morning came,
Speaker 4: I found new arrangements around my camp site, small stacks
Speaker 4: of stones that hadn't been there the night before, branches
Speaker 4: arranged in geometric patterns. Nothing threatening or obviously communicative, but
Speaker 4: clear evidence that someone had visited while I slept. I
Speaker 4: broke camp earlier than planned, but not from fear, from
Speaker 4: a growing sense that I was trespassing on something more
Speaker 4: complex than simple abandonment. The camp wasn't empty. It was
Speaker 4: inhabited by someone who had chosen to remain invisible, and
Speaker 4: MY presence was disrupting routines and relationships I didn't understand.
Speaker 4: The hike out took longer than the hike, in partly
Speaker 4: because I was carrying exposed film I didn't want to damage,
Speaker 4: but mostly because I kept stopping to look back. Not
Speaker 4: from nostalgia, but from the sense that I was being
Speaker 4: watched as I left. Someone was making sure I actually departed,
Speaker 4: following me at a distance to confirm that I was
Speaker 4: really going. The photographs from that trip became the centerpiece
Speaker 4: of my exhibition six months later. Critics praised their haunting
Speaker 4: sense of presence, their suggestion of inhabitation beyond human occupation.
Speaker 4: The gallery statement mentioned the mystery of sudden abandonments, the
Speaker 4: way some places seemed to resist being forgotten. I never
Speaker 4: mentioned the dust impressions or the figure in the doorway,
Speaker 4: but I titled the series current Residents. The title puzzled
Speaker 4: some viewers, who assumed it referred to the animals and
Speaker 4: plants that had moved into the abandoned structures. But I
Speaker 4: knew it meant something else, someone who had never really left,
Speaker 4: someone who was still there, maintaining the camp in their
Speaker 4: own way, for reasons I couldn't guess. I've never returned
Speaker 4: to the logging camp, though I sometimes think about it
Speaker 4: late at night, about someone humming while they worked in
Speaker 4: the darkness, keeping something alive that everyone else had given
Speaker 4: up for dead. Sometimes I wonder if I documented an
Speaker 4: abandoned place at all, or if I was simply allowed
Speaker 4: to photograph someone's temporary absence while they remained hidden, waiting
Speaker 4: for me to leave so they could continue their caretaking
Speaker 4: in private. The exhibition was successful enough to fund my
Speaker 4: next project, but I've never found another site quite like
Speaker 4: the logging camp. Most abandoned places feel genuinely empty, truly forgotten,
Speaker 4: But that camp felt like a pause, not an ending,
Speaker 4: like someone had simply closed the door for a while,
Speaker 4: knowing they'd be back. The photographer's story stayed with me
Speaker 4: for a long time after she told it. There was
Speaker 4: something almost respectful about her encounter, a sense that she'd
Speaker 4: been allowed to witness something extraordinary, then trusted to leave
Speaker 4: without causing harm. But not all these encounters are so measured.
Speaker 4: The third and final account I want to share is
Speaker 4: the darkest of them all. It came from a man
Speaker 4: who'd worked as a caretaker on an isolated property in
Speaker 4: the Cascade Foothills. Unlike the previous stories, his experience shows
Speaker 4: what can happen when these encounters turn threatening, when curiosity
Speaker 4: becomes obsession, an observation becomes stalking. I'd been taking care
Speaker 4: of the Brennan property for twelve years when Missus Brennan died.
Speaker 4: The family asked me to stay on through the estate sale,
Speaker 4: maintaining the grounds and keeping an eye on things while
Speaker 4: lawyers sorted through decades of accumulated possessions. The house sat
Speaker 4: on forty seven acres of mixed forest in the Cascade Foothills,
Speaker 4: isolated enough that I sometimes went weeks without seeing another person.
Speaker 4: The work suited me perfectly. After twenty years in construction,
Speaker 4: dealing with contractors and deadlines and the constant pressure to
Speaker 4: finish jobs faster and cheaper, the solitude of the Brennan
Speaker 4: property felt like luxury. Missus Brennan had been easy to
Speaker 4: work for, with clear expectations and a respect for craftsmanship
Speaker 4: that had become rare in my experience. She paid well
Speaker 4: on time and never second guessed my decisions about what
Speaker 4: needed doing. Most of my work involved basic maintenance, mowing
Speaker 4: the areas around the house that she wanted kept clear,
Speaker 4: repairing storm damage, keeping the driveway passable during winter. The
Speaker 4: property had been in her family since the nineteen forties,
Speaker 4: and Missus Brennan had grown up there before moving to
Speaker 4: Seattle for college and career. She'd returned after her husband died,
Speaker 4: spending her retirement years creating what was probably the most
Speaker 4: spectacular private garden in the region. The greenhouse was her masterpiece.
Speaker 4: She'd built it herself over the course of several years,
Speaker 4: starting with a simple kit structure and gradually expanding it
Speaker 4: until it covered nearly a quarter acre behind the main house.
Speaker 4: It wasn't just a greenhouse. It was a climate controlled
Speaker 4: ecosystem where she grew orchids and exotic ferns, plants that
Speaker 4: required constant attention and precise conditions. I'd helped with the construction,
Speaker 4: mainly the heavy work of pouring concrete pads and installing
Speaker 4: the larger structural elements, but the real work, the design
Speaker 4: of the ventilation systems, the installation of the misting equipment,
Speaker 4: the careful calibration of temperature and humidity controls that had
Speaker 4: been all her She understood plants in a way that
Speaker 4: seemed almost supernatural, able to diagnose problems with a glance
Speaker 4: and devise solutions that worked perfectly. What I didn't know
Speaker 4: until after she died was how terrified she'd become during
Speaker 4: her final months. After the funeral, her niece Rebecca, drove
Speaker 4: up from Portland to begin the process of clearing out
Speaker 4: the house. The family had made it clear they had
Speaker 4: no interest in maintaining the property. Rebecca was a software
Speaker 4: engineer with two young children and no time for rural
Speaker 4: real estate management. The plan was to sell everything as
Speaker 4: quickly as possible and split the proceeds. Rebecca stayed three
Speaker 4: days sorting through rooms that hadn't been touched in years,
Speaker 4: then hired an estate sale company to handle the rest.
Speaker 4: I was to keep an eye on things until the
Speaker 4: property sold, making sure nobody stole anything valuable and preventing vandalism.
Speaker 4: It was temporary work, but it paid well enough to
Speaker 4: cover my expenses while I looked for something permanent. The
Speaker 4: estate sale people came the following week, tagging furniture and
Speaker 4: organizing Missus Brennan's collections. She'd been a careful curator of
Speaker 4: beautiful things, antique furniture, Native American pottery, first edition books,
Speaker 4: botanical illustrations that were probably worth more than most people realized.
Speaker 4: The house was full of items that would bring good
Speaker 4: money from the right buyers. They left the greenhouse alone.
Speaker 4: Too specialized, they said, not worth the effort to catalog.
Speaker 4: The plants had value, but only to serious collectors who
Speaker 4: would know how to care for them. Most of the
Speaker 4: specimens would die if moved to ordinary greenhouse conditions, and
Speaker 4: the equipment was too specific to have much resale value.
Speaker 4: Rebecca gave me the key and told me to use
Speaker 4: my judgment about what to do with the plants. Anything
Speaker 4: I could save would be a bonus, but the family's
Speaker 4: main concern was clearing the property for sale. If the
Speaker 4: plants died, they died, it wasn't worth the expense of
Speaker 4: finding specialized homes for everything. That's how I found myself
Speaker 4: walking into the greenhouse on a Thursday morning in October,
Speaker 4: trying to decide what could be saved and what should
Speaker 4: be left to die. The space was larger than it
Speaker 4: looked from outside, extending back into what had once been
Speaker 4: a carport before Missus Brennan enclosed it and integrated it
Speaker 4: into the main structure. The air was thick and warm,
Speaker 4: heavy with the smell of soil and growing things. Automatic
Speaker 4: misters kept the humidity constant, and grow lights supplemented the
Speaker 4: weak autumn sun filtering through glass panels overhead. I'd been
Speaker 4: in the greenhouse many times over the years, usually to
Speaker 4: help Missus Brennan move heavy pots or repair equipment, but
Speaker 4: I'd never really looked at the plants themselves, never tried
Speaker 4: to understand what she'd created here. Now, walking slowly between
Speaker 4: the benches, I was struck by how alien they seemed.
Speaker 4: This wasn't just a collection of exotic plants. It was
Speaker 4: a complete ecosystem, carefully balanced and maintained. Orchids with petals
Speaker 4: that looked like they were made of leather, their roots
Speaker 4: extending into precisely calibrated growing medium ferns with fronds that
Speaker 4: moved in the still air like they were reaching for
Speaker 4: something specific. Bromeliads that collected water in their centers, creating
Speaker 4: tiny pools where specific insects lived and bred. At the
Speaker 4: far end of the greenhouse, beyond the last row of benches,
Speaker 4: Missus Brennan had created what looked like a living room.
Speaker 4: Two comfortable chairs faced each other across a small table,
Speaker 4: surrounded by her most exotic specimens. Books about botany and
Speaker 4: plant care were stacked on shelves built into the plant benches.
Speaker 4: A thermist sat on the table next to a notebook
Speaker 4: filled with Missus Brennan's careful handwriting. I'd seen this set
Speaker 4: up before, but had always assumed it was just Missus
Speaker 4: Brennan's way of creating a peaceful space where she could
Speaker 4: sit and enjoy her plants. Now, looking more carefully, I
Speaker 4: realized the chairs were positioned defensively. One faced the greenhouse entrance,
Speaker 4: where someone could watch for anything approaching the other faced
Speaker 4: the back wall, which was made mostly of glass, and
Speaker 4: looked out into the forest. I opened the notebook and
Speaker 4: found detailed observations about plant growth, watering schedules, notes about
Speaker 4: which specimens were thriving and which needed different conditions. The
Speaker 4: entries were dated and organized the work of someone who
Speaker 4: approached gardening as a serious science. But mixed in with
Speaker 4: the horticultural data were entries that made my hand shake.
Speaker 4: The first unusual entry was dated about eight months before
Speaker 4: Missus Brennan's death. It came again last night, same as before,
Speaker 4: just standing there at the window watching. I pretended to sleep,
Speaker 4: but I could feel it staring. When I finally looked,
Speaker 4: it was gone. Found the motion sensor light had been
Speaker 4: turned off. I know I left it on. I flipped
Speaker 4: through more pages, finding similar entries scattered among the normal
Speaker 4: gardening notes, references to things moved in the night, garden
Speaker 4: tools found in different locations than where she'd left them,
Speaker 4: the greenhouse door unlocked when she was certain she'd locked it.
Speaker 4: One entry, written about six months before she died, was
Speaker 4: longer and filled with fear. I'm sure now that it's
Speaker 4: been coming inside, and stay tuned for more sasquatch ot
Speaker 4: to see.
Speaker 5: We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: After these messages, the orchid bench was rearranged, not damaged,
Speaker 4: but different, like something large had been examining them. Touching
Speaker 4: them left marks in the soil around the pots, handprints,
Speaker 4: I think, but too big, much, too big. Another entry
Speaker 4: from just three months before her death. I don't sleep anymore.
Speaker 4: It knows I'm watching tonight. It stood right at the
Speaker 4: glass for almost an hour. I could see the outline
Speaker 4: against the outdoor light, tall, much taller than any person
Speaker 4: should be. The way it moved when it finally left wrong,
Speaker 4: all wrong. I've called the sheriff twice, but what can
Speaker 4: I tell them that something visits my greenhouse at night.
Speaker 4: The entries were dated over several months, the most recent
Speaker 4: from just one week before or Missus Brennan's death, Each
Speaker 4: one more frightened than the last. I flipped through pages
Speaker 4: of growing terror, Missus Brennan's careful handwriting becoming more erratic
Speaker 4: as her fear increased. I closed the notebook and looked
Speaker 4: around the greenhouse with new attention. The chairs weren't positioned
Speaker 4: for relaxation. They were positioned for surveillance. The careful arrangements
Speaker 4: missus Brennan had made weren't about plant care. They were
Speaker 4: about creating clear sight lines, eliminating hiding places, making sure
Speaker 4: nothing could approach without being seen. Now I understood why
Speaker 4: the greenhouse felt wrong. It wasn't a sanctuary. It was
Speaker 4: a place where Missus Brennan had spent her final months
Speaker 4: in terror, trying to protect herself from something that visited
Speaker 4: in the darkness. I spent the rest of the morning
Speaker 4: trying to focus on the plants, but I kept thinking
Speaker 4: about those notebook entries. Missus Brennan had been sharp right
Speaker 4: up until the end. Her lawyer had confirmed that when
Speaker 4: discussing her will. These weren't the confused amblings of someone
Speaker 4: losing her mental faculties. These were the careful observations of
Speaker 4: someone documenting a horror she couldn't explain to anyone else.
Speaker 4: As I worked, I gradually became aware that I was
Speaker 4: being watched. Not the comfortable feeling of missus Brennan's presence,
Speaker 4: but something else, something patient and calculating, studying me the
Speaker 4: way a predator studies prey. I was photographing some of
Speaker 4: the more valuable orchids for insurance purposes when I heard
Speaker 4: the sound tap, tap, tap, rhythmic, deliberate knocking on glass,
Speaker 4: but not random. It was testing one panel, then another,
Speaker 4: like something was checking for weaknesses. I looked up from
Speaker 4: my camera, scanning the greenhouse walls. I was alone in
Speaker 4: the space and there was no wind strong enough to
Speaker 4: drive branches against the windows. The tapping came again, three
Speaker 4: measured strikes on the east window, the same window Missus
Speaker 4: Brennan had written about. I walked to the end into
Speaker 4: the greenhouse and peered through the glass. The forest beyond
Speaker 4: looked normal, Douglas firs and madrones, understory thick with salal
Speaker 4: and Oregon grape. Nothing moving except a few birds picking
Speaker 4: through the fallen leaves. But as I watched, I noticed
Speaker 4: something that made me step back from the window. The
Speaker 4: ground between the greenhouse and the trees was covered with
Speaker 4: a pattern of broken branches and disturbed soil. Not random
Speaker 4: forest debris, but deliberate arrangements. I went back to missus
Speaker 4: Brennan's notebook and read through the entries again, paying attention
Speaker 4: to details I'd missed the first time. She documented a
Speaker 4: pattern of escalation. At first, the visitor had stayed at
Speaker 4: the tree line, watching from a distance then it had
Speaker 4: begun approaching the greenhouse, testing the windows and doors. Finally
Speaker 4: it had started coming inside. What terrified me most was
Speaker 4: realizing that Missus Brennan's death had ended the surveillance. Whatever
Speaker 4: had been watching her was now free to explore the
Speaker 4: property without resistance, and I was alone here, just as
Speaker 4: isolated as she had been. I spent the rest of
Speaker 4: the afternoon sorting plants, but my concentration was shot. Every
Speaker 4: sound made me look up, Every shadow that moved made
Speaker 4: my heart race. I kept thinking about Missus Brennan's final entries.
Speaker 4: As I prepared to leave, I made sure to lock
Speaker 4: the greenhouse carefully. Missus Brennan had written about finding it unlocked,
Speaker 4: despite being certain she'd secured it. I wanted to test
Speaker 4: whether that had been failing memory or something else. That evening,
Speaker 4: from my cabin a quarter mile down the hill, I
Speaker 4: could see the greenhouse glowing softly through the trees. Missus
Speaker 4: Brennan had kept the grow lights on timers to maintain
Speaker 4: the proper light cycles for her plants. At nine pm,
Speaker 4: the lights went out automatically, but around midnight I thought
Speaker 4: I saw movement near the building. Not lights exactly, but
Speaker 4: the suggestion of something large moving around the perimeter. The
Speaker 4: movement was deliberate, methodical, like something conducting a thorough inspection.
Speaker 4: I didn't sleep that night. Every sound in the forest
Speaker 4: seemed amplified, potentially threatening. I found myself checking and rechecking
Speaker 4: the locks on my cabin doors, wishing I'd thought to
Speaker 4: bring a weapon from the main house. In the morning,
Speaker 4: I found evidence that my fears had been justified. The
Speaker 4: greenhouse door was standing open, despite the fact that I'd
Speaker 4: locked it carefully the night before. The lock itself wasn't broken,
Speaker 4: it had been turned. Inside the greenhouse, one of the
Speaker 4: chairs had been moved, not drastically, but enough to be noticeable.
Speaker 4: It had been turned to face the door, positioned where
Speaker 4: someone could watch for anyone entering. The notebook was still
Speaker 4: on the table, but it had been moved slightly. I
Speaker 4: stood in the greenhouse for a long time that morning,
Speaker 4: trying to decide what to do. Missus Brennan had lived
Speaker 4: with this terror for months, documenting each escalation, each new
Speaker 4: violation of her sanctuary. Now that she was gone, whatever
Speaker 4: had been stalking her was turning its attention to the
Speaker 4: next human on the property. I called Rebecca and told
Speaker 4: her I'd changed my mind about staying on as caretaker.
Speaker 4: The isolation was getting to me. I said I needed
Speaker 4: to find work closer to town, somewhere with more people around.
Speaker 4: Rebecca was annoyed, but agreed to hire a security service
Speaker 4: to check on the property until it sold. I would
Speaker 4: stay for one more week to transition everything to the
Speaker 4: new arrangement. That night, I packed everything I could carry
Speaker 4: and prepared to leave in the morning. But as I
Speaker 4: was loading my truck, I realized I couldn't abandon missus
Speaker 4: Brennan's notebook. It was the only record of what had
Speaker 4: happened here, the only evidence that her fear had been real.
Speaker 4: I drove back to the greenhouse one last time to
Speaker 4: retrieve it. The building was dark, the automatic lights having
Speaker 4: turned off hours earlier. I used my flashlight to navigate
Speaker 4: between the plant benches to the sitting area where I'd
Speaker 4: left the notebook. It wasn't there. I searched the entire area,
Speaker 4: moving chairs, checking under the table, even looking among the
Speaker 4: plant pots in case it had somehow fallen. The notebook
Speaker 4: was gone. As I prepared to leave empty handed, my
Speaker 4: flashlight beam caught something that made me freeze in the
Speaker 4: soil around one of the larger plant pots. Someone had
Speaker 4: left a clear handprint, much larger than any human hand,
Speaker 4: with fingers that were too long in joints that bent
Speaker 4: in ways that didn't look right. Next to the handprint
Speaker 4: pressed into the soft soil like a signature. Was Missus
Speaker 4: Brennan's notebook open to the final entry, the one about
Speaker 4: something sitting in her chair learning her routines. I left
Speaker 4: the notebook where it was and ran for my truck.
Speaker 4: I never went back to the Brennan property, never collected
Speaker 4: the final week's pay. Rebecca owed me some things aren't
Speaker 4: worth any amount of money. The property sold three months
Speaker 4: later to a developer who planned to clear most of
Speaker 4: the forest for luxury homes. I read about it in
Speaker 4: the local paper, along with a small item mentioning that
Speaker 4: the greenhouse had been destroyed by vandals before the sale
Speaker 4: could close. The police had no suspects and no explanation
Speaker 4: for who might have systematically destroyed every piece of equipment
Speaker 4: and killed every plant inside. But I knew it hadn't
Speaker 4: been vandals. Whatever had stalked Missus Brennan had finally claimed
Speaker 4: her sanctuary, completely, erasing the last traces of human presence.
Speaker 4: From the place it had made its own. I've never
Speaker 4: driven past the old Brennan Place, though I sometimes see
Speaker 4: the luxury homes that were eventually built there, advertised in
Speaker 4: real estate magazines, beautiful properties with spectacular forest views, perfect
Speaker 4: for buyers who want privacy and isolation. I wonder if
Speaker 4: the new owners have noticed anything unusual. Strange sounds in
Speaker 4: the night, the feeling of being watched from the tree line,
Speaker 4: objects moved when no one is around. I wonder if
Speaker 4: they found missus Brennan's notebook, with its careful documentation of
Speaker 4: escalating terror. And I wonder if they're smart enough to
Speaker 4: leave before they become the subject of new entries written
Speaker 4: in soil and shadow by something that has learned patience
Speaker 4: and is always always watching.
Speaker 5: They say, you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay,
Speaker 5: and I don't want.
Speaker 2: To be.
Speaker 5: World up it.
Speaker 3: Try this job, that chart everything, Come ride right.
Speaker 5: Back, Joy for me, Joy staying right.
Speaker 3: Come in right away, stas inside and stays still start
Speaker 3: sat stands still, side still, stay still.
Speaker 2: Still, games and still stays us gas and things in
Speaker 2: fast used to past instance