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Miles To Go

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My name is Andrew Silvea. I am a doctor at St. Peter’s Hospital here in Philadelphia, and I knew Adaius Warner. At this time, I don’t think that’s a good thing, but it’s the truth. He practiced here at the hospital with me for many years. I’d even consider us decently good friends, though I doubt we were more than coworkers in his eyes. He was an incredible psychologist and psychiatrist. That all changed a few weeks ago. He got a new patient, a young woman, and unfortunately, and possibly by his hand, she has passed away. I was the man who called her time of death. But she isn’t my reason for concern.

Before she died, I was given her computer, and was told by her, albeit cryptically, that I needed to get it to Warner. I held it in my office for a while, not sure what to do, as such a request from a patient in that state should be discussed. Then, I overheard some very distressing information by a few of the higher ups. Warner had induced “a confession” from the girl through pharmaceutical means, causing a mental collapse that resulted in her death, and the patient’s mother was enraged. Warner was at risk of losing his job, his license, and could possibly be sent to prison for medical malpractice. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard, and didn’t line up with anything I knew about my friend. A week ago, I gave Warner the laptop, and the story I’d heard. He actually listened to me, and took the warning seriously. I have not seen him since. He has disappeared. His office is just as he left it, as with his house. He vanished, and I worry it’s because of that laptop. He’s gone.

This morning, while checking my email, I was shocked to see one from Warner. It had no subject, no body text, only a link to a document.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t show this to my superiors, something tells me that isn’t going to do anything. I’ve converted it from its original state so others can read it. Maybe there’s someone else who can read this and help me. I don’t know why Warner sent me this. If you know anything about anything in this file, please let me know. Dr. Warner’s life may hang in the balance.

File #59601 - Rose H. Thompson

As called for by my superiors, I am obligated to thoroughly document each of my patients' cases. These logs are used during everything from court cases, transfer of care processes, postmortems, and so on. More often than not, my patients are well to do, and suffer from early onset dementia or, more commonly post traumatic stress disorder, and so these logs do little but warn the future caretakers what they’re getting themselves into. It was with this case that I realized how important the documentation of patient 59601 would be. I present this now as a case file for perhaps a different organization, if there is one that understands the gravity of the scenario. All names (of both people and places) have been altered as much as possible for the privacy of families and individuals.

I have included transcripts of audio recordings and other such documentation pertaining directly to this case.

GENERAL LOG 1 - 10/15/2018

Her size caught my eye first. I remember how small she looked in her hospital gown. Sunken cheeks, grey skin, thin hair, thinner limbs. Yet when I sat across from her, I watched that sallow face light up with a generous smile. She introduced herself and I sat across from her, arranging my things. I had with me a large legal pad, her file, a small recording device, and my laptop. Introducing myself as Dr. Warner, I said all the customary and needed information her patient status warranted her before pushing record.

[AUDIO RECORDING - 10/15/2018]

Dr. Warner - Dr. Warner, MD. Recording taken October 15th, 2018 at St. Peter’s Hospital. Would you mind stating your name?

Rosie - …me? Oh! Rosie. Rose Hope Thompson. (a pause) It’s always funny saying the full name, sounds goofy. Especially when it’s a serious, like, setting.

Dr. Warner - Rose Hope Thompson?

Rosie - Yes.

Dr. Warner - It’s a very pretty name. And you go by Rosie?

Rosie - Yeah, it’s been a borderline nickname for so long, and Rose sounds too official.

Dr. Warner - Understandable. Now… (a shuffling sound is heard) … as you’re probably used to this, I won’t sugarcoat it or add any fat to this meeting. And as this is our first meeting, how about you tell me about- (the sound of typing, a paper flips) well, the accident.

Rosie - Always sounds dark.

Dr. Warner - In what way?

Rosie - Just…”the accident”.

Dr. Warner - Would you refer to it as something else?

Rosie - I just…if anything it’s embarrassing. We don’t really need to.

Dr. Warner - That’s alright. I think it’d be best to start at the beginning.

[TRANSCRIPTION NOTE: Patient becomes extremely serious.]

Rosie - Dr. Warner, I- I need to warn you now. If I tell you this there is a very real chance that it will be the first and last time you hear it, or anyone hears it.

Dr. Warner - You mean, the details of the crash?

Rosie - The crash, certainly. If that gate opens, I fear I’ll die before anyone hears about the first instance. What started it all.

Dr. Warner - I don’t think I understand.

Rosie - That’s what it tells me. You’ve read the reports? Well, god, I’m sure you have. I’ve done my research as well. You’re very successful, you’ve got all these awards and certificates and diplomas up and down the walls. Yeah, they’re tucked into shelves and displayed privately because you can’t seem overly confident, but there they are. And to top it off, you obviously have my file right next to you. What doctor worth their salt wouldn’t identify who exactly they’re talking to? Not you. So I’ll hazard a guess that you know exactly how many doctors I’ve spoken with.

Dr. Warner - (a pause) Eight.

Rosie - Bingo. I don’t want to sound overbearing or rude, but you’re exactly right. And how many of your colleagues have heard my story? Not from the analyses or the police reports, but the way I tell it?

Dr. Warner - Well, since you’re here, I’d assume none.

Rosie - Do you really have to assume?

Dr. Warner - No. (silence) Will it be the same for me?

[TRANSCRIPTION NOTE: An overwhelming tension filled the room. The time between my question and the patient’s answer couldn’t have been longer than a few seconds, but the way she studied my face, staring into my eyes. I could have sworn it was years until she spoke again.]

Rosie - I don’t know yet. But I’m getting tired. I don’t know how much longer I can hold off telling the story before…um. Before I just can’t anymore.

Dr. Warner - We’ll move at the pace you set, Rosie. I will not push you to tell me. I’m not interrogating you, I’m allowing you to come to terms with any traumatic experiences you might have had in the past. It’s my job.

GENERAL LOG 2 - 12/28/2018

Patient 59601 begins to open up, slowly. Over the course of several meetings (see logs 2-8), her borderline cold exterior slips away into something else. She’s a college student, studying English. She says she’s working on a Theatre minor, and if she doesn’t win an Oscar, being an English teacher will suffice. There are other details. Her parents and five other siblings live several hours away. She’s moved all over the US. This is where the first taste of her story comes in.

[AUDIO RECORDING TRIM - PULLED FROM LOG 6 - (10/20/2018)]

Rosie - ~~Helena. Well, not exactly Helena. A house in town for the last five years, and a house 15 minutes out of town for the other five. Unionville Court. That was when we were little.

Dr. Warner - How young?

Rosie - I think we moved there when I was three, and then we moved in town halfway through second grade.

[AUDIO RECORDING TRIM ENDS]

I find Unionville Ct. on Google Maps. It’s a small suburb, if you can call it that. It looks like the road carving up the mountain stopped off to the side, threw down a few duplexes, and then continued on its way. Houses, just in the middle of nowhere.

Weeks went by (see logs 9-28). I was getting crumbs of information, but at the rate we were going, it was doing nothing for the case. Patient 59601’s opening speech rang in my head. Was she ever going to tell me? Was she trying to rule my years of successes as obsolete? I hadn’t slept well in a while. I needed a win.

Sodium thiopental is a drug that is used in some cases to make patients more compliant. If I could get a dose into the patient, not only would she tell me the story, but maybe it would prove to her that there was nothing at risk. If anything, with the acceptance that all she did was wander drunkenly into the woods, perhaps she’d be able to leave the hospital’s care sooner. I brought it up with her nurses, and through some coercion, they complied. The morning the drug was administered, Patient 59601 was immediately brought to my room. She knew something was wrong, and the glare I received as the last of her reservations slipped away was that of a cornered animal, nothing like the girl I had come to know. She sat silently for a moment, before sitting up and looking back at me.

[AUDIO RECORDING - PULLED FROM LOG 29 - (12/28/2018)]

Dr. Warner - Rosie, I want you to tell me about the car accident.

Rosie - No one wants to admit making bad choices in college, its just “living” or “having a good weekend”. Um, anyway… This isn’t going to be shown to my parents, right? (a pause) You’ll hear about it in court.

Dr. Warner - Well, nothing we talk about here will be shared without your explicit permission. The only people privy to this recording or this file are your solicitor, you, and me, obviously.

Rosie - Then I’ll tell you I’d been drinking a little. We all had.

Dr. Warner - The driver’s postmortem confirmed that, so did your physicals.

[TRANSCRIPTION NOTE : As the patient continues to tell the story, her attention shifts from me to the wall behind me. I don’t pressure her to keep eye contact, I let her talk. All my work for the past weeks is finally coming to bear fruit.]

Rosie - I remember the car hitting the guardrail. I had buckled myself in, tried to get Liz to do the same, but she was all over one of the guys. Kaleil? I don’t remember who. The car was moving and my head was kind of swimmy. When we hit the bar, I jerked forward so hard I thought I’d throw up my…lungs or something. My eyes had to have closed before then, because I opened them and my hands were all wet and hot. I didn’t unbuckle, just kind of pulled myself through the loops. The worst parts of crashes that no one tells you about is the radio. It just keeps playing. The pregame music we had in the queue on Liz’s spotify was still blasting. I kicked the door open and rolled out into the leaves. No one else moved. Nobody else was moving.

I needed to get away from the car. I guess I was sobering up pretty quickly. I can’t remember if the hood was on fire. I think in my mind it was. The trees I was looking at with the wreck behind me were flickering, but I don’t know if that was because I had been tipsy or if the car was actually burning.

Dr. Warner - You said your hands were hot?

Rosie - They were sticky and warm. The paramedics wiped them off later, said they didn’t know whos blood it was; mine or the kid in the passenger seat. He’d been, god, he’d been fucking crushed. I never saw pictures of the wreckage, but I remember when I climbed out, that side of the car was dark.

Dr. Warner - From the blood.

Rosie - Not just from that. The corner just felt…dark. Anyway, I got out of the car, had to get away from the dark. I looked at the trees and walked towards them. Like I said.

Dr. Warner - Why do you think you did that? What’s the first thing that comes to mind? You think through your answers too much, there aren’t any wrong answers, I promise.

Rosie - (silence) The car…was safe. Safer than the woods, obviously. But something was there, something was just behind that tree. Now that one. Now that one. Deeper and deeper. So I followed it. It felt natural or…like…needed? I needed to go. So I walked past the trees and over the wettish groundcover. (a pause, then quiet laughter)

[TRANSCRIPTION NOTE - The laughter of Patient 59601 began to change here. Having worked with her for a relatively decent while, I could be completely incorrect in my observation. In a change from her usual laugh, this was breathier, yet far more boisterous, as though she wasn’t concerned with the demeanor she had been painting for herself. Though she wasn’t looking at me, and rarely answering my questions, she sat in the seat with her feet drawn under her, sometimes holding the arms of the seat and bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet every so often.]

Dr. Warner - Rosie?

Rosie - That part of the story is always funny to me. (more laughter) The trees didn’t match.

Dr. Warner - Didn’t…match?

Rosie - My dad went to forestry school. He loves the woods. He taught me everything about trees and like camping and hunting safety. The ground was all pine needles, even though it was a roadside in ToonTown, USA. There should have been dead leaves and wet mossy spots, not cold soil and pine needles. And they were old. Like old old. They kept snapping and shattering under my feet and getting stuck in the eyelets of my shoes. (more laughter)

Further and further. At first I could see, from the car lights or the hood or whatever, but after a while it was all grey. Grey light, like the moon was shining through the trees. It was too cloudy for the moon though, I think it was just my eyes getting used to no light. I couldn’t hear the radio playing as loud anymore, just faint behind me. I was completely alone.

And then it was there. No noise, no warning. I looked up and it was there, looking right at me, just like in Montana. It could see me and I was too close this time. I was too close. I had a chance last time. I didn’t now.

Dr. Warner (overlapping) - Rosie? Rosie. Rose, slow down.

Rosie - Not a chance, not this time. I don’t want to die. What’s it going to do to me? What would be the worst thing it would do? I can’t find the worst one- it’s going to be so bad. I want my mom. Mom? Mom?? MOM!

[AUDIO RECORDING ENDS]

Rose Thompson was administered a sedative as her behavior became uncontrollable. Her heart rate had skyrocketed and her speech was no longer making sense. According to the police report, Thompson had drunkenly stumbled away from a crash site that housed the bodies of Elizabeth Green, Jakob Brune, Adam Kaleil, and Seth Manzar. Thompson was the only survivor, as the rest of the car’s occupants were killed on impact. None of them were wearing seatbelts. Manzar’s torso had been caught between his seat and the dashboard, severing the body at the waist. It is difficult to say how this occurred, as tests in recent years with crash dummies and scene reconstruction cannot identify how the injury was induced.

GENERAL LOG 3 - 01/04/2019

Patient 59601 was housed in intensive care following our final meeting. I visited her only once, I regret to admit, on the third. I wasn’t sure how she’d react to seeing me. I entered the white room and saw her lying on the hospital bed. She was barely breathing, so thin I could see her heart beating from where I stood in the doorway.

I did not record our final meeting. The patient didn’t say anything, and hardly responded to stimuli. When asked to blink for question responses, she affirmed the two choices (once for yes, two for no), but responded to nothing else. I left the room darker than when I had entered, and I could have sworn the other nurses glared as I left. I had failed. Court? What did she mean? The patient’s parents were contacted, and though devastated, I hadn’t been called in to stand trial. She only mentioned it once, but it had stuck with me. Rosie had been so oddly direct about court.

A week later, it happened. Dr. Silvea, the one who had called Patient 59601’s time of death, called me into his office and informed me privately that word had gotten out about the Sodium thiopental dosage. It turned out that Rosie’s mother was less than pleased that I’d used a “truth serum” on her daughter, and the procedure had resulted in her death. A bit of a roundabout way of getting to the conclusion. He told me she’d be arriving by tomorrow to either get the full story or press charges.

Silvea handed me a cardboard box as he said this. Initially assuming he was telling me to clear my desk in a backhanded way, I realized there was something inside. Opening it, I saw a laptop, the cover decorated with stickers. I took it out, opening the screen. Password protected.

“It’s the patient’s. Before she went into cardiac arrest, she had me take this. All she said was “Warner”. For obvious reasons, I’m giving it to you.”

It’s been several hours since then, and I have tried one password. I don’t know how many attempts I’ll have before the computer locks down, possibly erasing information on it I needed to see. I’ve combed through all our conversations, re-read her files until I can quote them. Nothing. No mention of her mother’s maiden name, her elementary school, her first pet’s name. It wouldn’t be her birthday. There’s no shapes, no superheroes she likes enough to make the password. I don’t know how much longer I can continue this.

The fear I felt hearing of Mrs. Thompson’s impending arrival and her expectations pertaining to it was surprising. I can’t explain it, I can’t have that. The outcome of the story being relayed had killed the storyteller. What will happen to me?

Addendum - Unionville. Unionville Court. The password is Unionville. There’s one file. A Word document saved in the middle of the screen. She deleted all other files and shortcuts, I need to open this one.

~

To Dr. Adaius Warner, in the event of the discovery of this device following my death

I know why you had to. Who wouldn’t think I was just being overly afraid of or dramatic over a traumatic event? You were doing your job.

It’s closer now. It used to hide in the dark or stand far away, at the edge of the road across the way from my window. Last night it was behind the nurse. Maybe it’s been getting closer and I just haven't noticed. I’m writing this while I still have time. If I look up, it has every reason to be in the bathroom doorway. So, I’m keeping my head down and working until the story is out and you can find this. I think it will allow me at least that.

From the age of three until almost all the way to eleven, I lived in the Rocky Mountains. As anyone who has lived in a wooded area, from Appalachia to the Tongass to a thicker patch of woods at the edge of a small town, there are unspoken rules. Leave no trace, have the necessary supplies for outings (whether that’s bear spray or dog bags), and things of the like. One of the major ones, and the easiest ones to remember in my case, is to have your whereabouts known. Text a friend, call your brother, “I’m going for a hike on the trail we took last weekend” is brief enough to save your life. Never enter the woods alone, either metaphorically or literally.

From our house, there was a small town down the hill, like I told you. Helena was decent sized, plenty of stores, barbershops, a library, a run down but that was fifteen minutes away, an eternity for a child. The house we lived in was small, but Mom and Dad used to joke that our yard was massive. They meant the woods. We had a really large front yard with an old, yellow and blue plastic swing set with a slide, a carousel horse that would play music when you rode it, and a little plastic house with shuttered windows, a yellow play phone, and a swinging door.

The manufactured aspects of these little sculptures in the yard appeared to clash with the wildness of their surroundings. I never saw it this way, probably because that yard was my childhood. There’s a lot you can learn from the woods. I learned about deer and antler sheds, what not to do when coming across a bobcat, and a rabbit’s predators.

That last one really stuck with me. I remember seeing one running around our yard in tight circles on a cold morning. I thought the little animal was playing, until I saw movement in the bushes. Dad told me later what the name of the animal was, stalking slowly towards the frantic bunny; a lynx. When the lynx was close, about three feet from its target, the rabbit stopped. I watched it lay in the snow, breathing fast. I pulled the shades closed quickly, hoping not to see that ending, but I knew what happened when I went out to play the next morning and saw a rusty spot in the snow. Being younger, I didn’t know about giving up like that, so desperately. The memory stayed with me for a long time.

My sister, my brother, and I were told extensively that we were to stay in the yard. There was lots of grass around the house and things to do inside, Mom would say, but do not go past the gravel driveway and into the woods. We never wanted to, most times the shoots of trees were so thick it was difficult to see past them, and the swings always seemed more alluring than what lay behind them.

Every time mom would send us outside with the familiar call “Stay in the yard!” either David or May would turn to me without fail and ask “Why?” in their little hushed toddler voices.

I was the oldest, and so I knew everything. I’d make up stories about the three of us running from the White Witch, legends about bog monsters hidden behind sheets of rain, and the occasional look to the trees behind them, punctuated with a dramatic gasp to scare them.

I always had too much of an imagination.

And then, one spring, when the days were still short but not nearly as cold, my family got the flu. Dad probably brought it home from work, so we were all bedridden for a week. It was the worst sickness I can remember, stomach cramps and fatigue for days, heavy air in the house from a lack of common movement, all capped off with a final night of shocking cold as the fever broke.

I woke up on my first day without an upset stomach, and went to my mom’s room to ask to go outside. The air in my parent’s room was heavy, like a tomb. I have a vivid memory of the tan curtains not letting any light in, except around the very edges.

“Mom?”

No answer.

“Mom?”

She gave a gasp, shooting up and away from her sheets. My shoulders rose in panic, and I tried to calm her down. “Just me, Mom!”

Then she groaned and sank back onto the mattress.

“What is it, baby?” her voice came pressed from her pillow.

“Can I go outside and play? Please?” She muttered something, the cadence of the sounds leaving her mouth so familiar from the thousands of times I had heard it. I rubbed her shoulder and left the room, making sure to close the door quietly behind me.

Stay in the yard.

I looked for my shoes. Then I looked outside and saw how wet the ground really was, so I dug through the hall closet until I found my yellow raincoat and my frog rain boots. I had gotten them both for my seventh birthday and hadn’t had a chance to wear them out yet. What a great reason to christen them. I pulled open the door and stepped out onto the porch.

The air was clean, and I breathed in big gulps of it, of oxygen that wasn’t recycled through sick lungs. It tasted like wet grass and heavy pine needles.

I jumped off the porch and made quick work of the rocks and railroad ties that functioned as makeshift parking bumpers, flipping them up and catching the massive nightcrawlers in my quick hands. The worms always seemed so much bigger than they were when I think back now, but maybe I was just little.

When I had enough of them, I put the worms in the compost pile, like how my dad showed me. I briskly wiped my hands on my coat and looked around the quiet yard, slightly grainy because of the light rain. There just wasn’t anything to do without my siblings. I tried to make something up, a reason to have to charge into battle, a princess who needed saving, anything, but nothing stuck. Eventually, to blow off energy, I sprinted around the yard in big circles, and flopped into the grass when my breath was gone. The sky was just as grey as before and I found myself missing May and David.

I considered going back inside to read, or maybe fall asleep again. This wasn’t fun anymore.

Then something fell, snapped, to my left. I sat up and looked, just in time to see a white tailed deer rising from the brush in the woods. I quietly pivoted, getting my feet under myself, and I watched as she shook her head free of rain and dew. She was beautiful.

I felt like I was in church, like I had to quietly watch this go on. The doe leaned down and nosed something in the grass where she had just been and an even smaller head popped up from the grass. The little fawn got up on “unsteady legs”. My parents would be impressed with those words, the ones from Beatrix Potter and James Herriot.

I wondered if I had unsteady legs, and I tried to stand up from the strange squatting position I was in, promptly falling on my face.

The white underside of the two animals’ tails whipped up and their heads aimed at me for a moment, the fragile silence so swiftly broken. They looked for only a second and bolted. I wasn’t hurt, and really had no reason to cry, but there I was, feeling foolish as my lip trembled. I had scared the deer, and I was alone again.

Before I could stop myself, I was up, crossing the gravel driveway, and moving the shoots from the trees to the side, natural as anything. The old leaves from last fall still carpeted the ground in a damp way. I pushed branches out of my face, and only when I had walked a good bit from the driveway did I turn around. There was a moment of quiet, and I felt like even if I hollered, the silence would persist. I looked right at that driveway.

And slowly, I turned and went further into the woods.

There was no reason for it. I didn’t need to go, but I went anyway. There was no path, I was making my own. Eventually I found familiar traces of animals. I saw a tree’s trunk entirely shredded, and saw the antlers of the buck who had done it a few feet away. I propped them up under the tree gently. “Maybe the buck will want them back.” I saw tangled squirrel nests perched high in the skeleton fingered trees, and heard little animals rustle away under the leaves.

I must have walked forever. In hindsight, it was only fifteen minutes. The woods were quiet, and I looked up at the cement sky, craning my neck backwards and holding my hands out straight in front to catch myself if I stumbled. I wondered if the tree limbs were cold up there. My boots splashed through low puddles hidden under the leaves.

All at once, the steady push of tree shoots and long branches gave way, and I broke out of the dense trees into a little clearing. It couldn’t have been bigger than my living room and kitchen, but little me thought this wide swatch of free space was glorious after so many close trees. There were large tables of wood hidden in the tall grass, old stumps from a logger’s work long ago. I pulled myself up onto one. Dad and I would count rings on trees when we hiked. Normally I would lose interest after a little while and let him keep counting, his strong hands and tough fingertips tracking sickness, fire, drought, and good summers.

Those stumps in the clearing were huge. I tried to count some of the rings, and when I got up to thirty seven (after messing up four times) I gave up. I didn’t know how old those stumps were, but they were way older than me. Probably older than Mom and Dad too.

Though I couldn’t count the rings, I could still admire the wood. Long fingers of lichen and beds of moss carpeted the whole outside of the stump. The wood was so wet and mottled that it looked grey when I first laid eyes on it. The way the wood bowed in the center of the stump made a perfect circular pool to collect water, and I looked at my face in the dancing reflection.

I don’t know how I didn’t see it immediately, the moment I entered the clearing. Maybe if I had, I would have left sooner, been safer.

I have to consider, though, what could have happened if I had never seen it at all. Would my life have gone on normally? Would I have been safer, had no cloud of panic over me? Gotten to live more? Or would I have ended up in the same predicament I am now, skipping the middleman?

Everything up to that point is so clear in my mind. I can tell you exactly how many stumps were in the clearing (twelve), what bird was calling in a tree above me (my favorite, a western meadowlark), even that my left shoe had a scuff mark up the side from a rock that I had scraped against. It was in the shape of Iceland.

But I couldn’t tell you how I saw it, just that my eyes traveled and locked on it, after I had looked up from the puddle.

The thing, perched a few stumps over, was a little bigger than my head. It was pressed into the wet wood, and was soaked through with rain. I began, without thinking, to walk over to it.

The birds had grown quiet. They hadn’t shut down entirely, but they were muted, muffled. I felt the wet grass leave slim trails of dew on my exposed hands and on the fabric of my jeans. When I made it to the stump, almost directly in the center of the clearing, I stopped in front of it.

The thing was a bear, a stuffed teddy bear. The fur’s original color was completely unrecognizable; it was too wet, so it was very dark. It must have been there for weeks. Some of the stitching on the nose was loose and waving in a slight breeze.

What caught my attention most wasn’t the loose thread. It wasn’t the fur, or the shape, or the murky glass eyes staring off into the woods behind me.

It was the bright yellow ribbon tied in a neat bow around the stuffed animal’s neck. The ribbon was silky, light. And it was clean. Among the mud and water and age of this clearing, the ribbon was bright and clean.

In my juvenile mind, I wasn’t afraid of the presence of the bear. But a feeling came over me in that moment. Never in any scenario since have I ever felt the way I did then, alone, in that clearing, looking at that bear.

And something was telling me to leave. A little voice in my head was screaming at me, telling me if I didn’t get away from the woods, the clearing, the stumps, the bear, all of it, right now, I would die. It was such a powerful feeling, I heard myself confirm it.

“I’m gonna die.”

It was whispered, breathed. I know I didn’t say it loud enough for anyone to hear it. But the second the words left my mouth, I heard something, almost react, in the woods directly in front of me. My knees buckled, and I stared into the trees.

Like an idiot, I looked directly at it.

Too small, too small. The clearing was no longer big enough, and it felt like the trees were closing in.

Running. I was running now, twigs cracking like fireworks under my feet. I could see where light pushed at the edge of the woods, and I raced towards it, praying that when I crashed through the brush, the noise of movement in the old dry leaves would stop as well. The sounds weren’t just coming from me, but God help me if I was foolish enough to look back.

The gravel driveway was sharp as the heels of my hands scraped into it, my feet in the air, the water-filled ditch I had jumped trembling with miniscule, falling grit. I don’t remember when I had started to cry, only that I touched my face and my hand came away wet. I scrambled towards the safe picture of my house and jumped through the door.

The moments of silence as the door slammed shut was punctuated only with Dad’s snort, a snore saved for “almost waking up”, and then the air was quiet again. I took in big gulps of air, the adrenaline wearing off.

I don’t really remember moving to the couch, but I remember leaning over it, not all the way on, not off it either. I could see my breath fogging slightly on the window. I was stood like a little statue, staring at the edge of the trees I had jumped from.

There was something there. Something big. I could only see the idea of it, it was still at least fifteen feet from the driveway, and there were plenty of trees between it and the gravel.

I stood there. I stood and I watched the trees move. Not the brush under the trees, but the trees themselves, tilting from beyond the visible treeline.

An awfully white face came into view from behind the branches. Its eyes were too big for a person, yet its face too human to be an animal’s. It was massive, it had to be, how on earth would the tops of the trees be moving if it wasn’t? I was petrified. And all I could do was stare back into its face.

I couldn’t stop looking at it, it’s shape and size, just as I do now, when I catch it standing at a corner when I drive by. When I wake up at night and look out my dorm room window that faces the baseball diamonds, catching that sickly white moving behind the bleachers. When I take the final bow with my castmates and see it up on the catwalks or crammed almost comically into box five.

I wasn’t thinking this while gazing, horror-struck at it, but having to recall this now, a chill finds me. I was not a good runner, not a tall kid. I find myself now looking at this sin of creation and wondering how I had managed to do it, to escape. I hadn’t. This thing had followed me home, had ambled behind me, only moving at speed enough to keep me in sight. And now it knew where I was, it was looking directly at our front door, swaying softly with the movement of the branches around it.

I was behind a wall, behind a locked door, safe from its sight. But in my state, I had a realization that this was how the rabbit must’ve felt. I had run and run, I still felt it in my throat. And yet the animal hadn’t rushed, didn’t need to. It moved how it wanted to, and it could have got to me easily all the way back in the clearing if it so desired. If that had been the case, what would I have done? Would I have laid down like that little animal I had seen that winter, curled up against a dilapidated memory of a teddy bear?

I had been peering through the window at this thing, thinking it had lost me, but it finally turned its head, slowly, slowly, and had begun to look back. I tried to tear my eyes away, but the sight of whatever had been hunting me kept me facing it. Tears streamed down my face and I wanted to scream, hide in my parents room, like I would run from a nightmare.

But this was no nightmare. I had blood on my face from whipping branches and cuts on my legs from thistles. This was real. I was in my house, looking into the dead, wide eyes of something I couldn’t and still struggle to comprehend. In any case, in any sense of the situation, I was facing it alone.

I’ve never seen eyes as horrifying as the ones I saw that day. There were moments where they seemed to be all white, with a single pinprick of a pupil, and then the wind would blow, moving the trees and the clouds, changing the view, and they’d be an endless, empty black. One thing stayed consistent, however. The mouth of this thing was pulled tight at the corners, the pale skin stretching sickly over razor-like teeth, broken and stained; a sick caricature of a smile.

Through these realizations, no noises were apparent to me. The room was drained of sound, and the raindrops on the window made no noise. I couldn’t even hear myself breathing, and yet I could hear it breathing out there. Long, relaxed, passive breaths, like it was simply admiring the view of my safehouse with its horrible face and horrible body, like someone gazing at a soon-to-be-consumed gingerbread house. That’s all I was, a treat for a…a thing.

And then it left. That was the worst part. It didn’t break our toys in the yard, didn’t dent the neighbor’s car, didn’t knock over the trash bins. The thing turned around, achingly slowly, and began going back the way it came. I watched it leave. Even from behind the window, I could hear trees groaning, branches bending to make way for the creature’s figure. And I realized that we never broke eye contact, my stomach cramping at the sight of its grotesque neck twisting to keep its wide, white face towards me. That image haunts my nights, a thing, not a person, who knew more than I did, who had me under its thumb, and who knew I had seen it.

Fuck, I had seen it.

I’m there now, looking through that window. The scratches on my face burn with the salty tears that I spread trying to wipe them away. Pain was far from my mind, my young eyes glued to the now too empty trees. I hear those childish thoughts, semblances of plans.

I never told my mom. Not because I was scared she’d be mad, but because I knew she wouldn't believe me. She’d think I was just telling more stories.

But now I have nowhere else to hide. Nothing I can do to warrant getting away from something that’s chased me for this long. I’m lying in this hospital bed and feeling it breathe over my shoulder.

I hope it approves of this retelling.

~

If you’ve read all of this file, you’ve caught up with me.

I don’t know what to say. I’ve started typing, writing pages and pages of excuses for a lost mind, a girl who suffered intense trauma from a) a car wreck and survivor’s guilt and b) a childhood fever dream at the most. And yet, each time, I delete it all. There is something here that cannot be explained away. I have no credibility with this creature, this entity. What can you say to an idea? Disregard its existence? It stands in front of me, plain as the words on the page.

If I was to read this without the prior knowledge of those meetings, if I had never read the file, if I was simply handed that story, I would have called it fanciful. I would have said the writer had a future in sci-fi, maybe as a novelist. I would have wished them the best.

I do not have that luxury. Rose Thompson was a very real girl. She had a very real reason to be afraid.

I pulled some strings and got CCTV footage from her room. I watched weeks of myself walking in and out, watched her family visit, watched her sleep. I sat up straighter when last Monday began playing. She’s lying on the bed. I can see her face illuminated by the laptop screen that now sits on my desk. I can see her type each word with her pointer finger. She does this for hours. I realize how difficult it must have been for her to write the story, let alone the mental strain she was put through in its creation.

I found myself drawing the thing days later. I can’t explain how, it simply would manifest beneath my pen or pencil. The worst part? I couldn't get it the way my mind’s eye imagined it. It’s ever changing. I needed to know exactly what Rosie saw. A voice in me screams what a morbidly curious thought this is. She gave up everything to satiate me, and I crave more. I need to know it all.

I’m standing at the edge of the woods. The swing set is gone, so is the plastic house. I can see the front window, though. It’s just as she said, facing the woods. I don’t know what I want. The plane ride away from the hospital and Mrs. Thompson was something I never saw a professional like myself doing, but if I don’t find the clearing or this thing, what will my job be worth?

If not for that, what will this life be worth? I have to know. That’s my job.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

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