Found [Ongoing Serial]

18. Tupper Street Email 2 - Printed

FROM: Peter Napping

Email Message - Dated March 5, 2012 - Subject: I did what you said

Hey Cindy,

I did what you said.

I went back out to the woods and brought my camera. 

Going out into that woods to that place BY MYSELF (!!!!) was insane. I don't mind telling you that I was scared as shit.

The only way I could get myself to do it was to not schedule a time or day to do it in. Otherwise, I couldn't sleep at night. I waited for a day that was sunny and no wind. That was yesterday. Then I left my house at 10 so I could be at that weird house at 12 when the sun was highest in the sky.

The house was still there in all its strange glory.  There were still no sounds of any animals or birds when I got there. I don't know. Maybe that's just because it's winter. Whatever. But I walked all around it and took a bunch of pictures of it and the beams and surrounding forest. They were too big to send in one email, so I'm going to have to send about 10 or so email messages to you. Sorry.

[NOTE: We found no printouts of these pictures - we still don't know what the house looks like except for its description in the documents found in the town after 2020.]

When I left the house, I was so happy. Nothing happened while I was there.

But when I left, that was a different story.

I was only about a five minute walk from the house when I swore I heard women laughing. Like young. Maybe even a high school girl. So I stopped and listened some more. And, Cin, there was laughing. I could hear it as clear as I can hear the radio on in my room right now.

"Hello?" I yelled. The laughing didn't stop or change in volume.

So I tried again, but this time I called out, "Carol?"

Now, this girl has been missing for weeks. If she's still in the woods, I don't think she'd be laughing. And these laughs were not from someone who is weak from starvation or being in the elements. This is someone having a good time.

It freaked me out because who is laughing and having a good time in the woods in March and doesn't shout back when someone yells hello? That kind of laughing is creepy.

It felt like the laughing was all around me, but I picked a direction to walk, off the path, of course, and started off. It seemed like I picked the right direction because the laughing got louder.

Instead of leafless trees, I was now walking through bushing cedar, spruce, and pine. It was getting harder to walk and see ahead of me. But the laughing was getting louder, and now, and you won't believe this Cin, I could hear splashing. Like people were in water playing and jumping around and splashing each other. Girls or women because there was clearly more than one of them. All having a grand old time in the water like it was the town pool in August.

I called out again, and still no one yelled back. So I kept walking until I got to like a hedge of cedar trees somehow growing wild in the woods. As soon as I got through that hedge, the laughing and splashing stopped.

Right in front of me was a large pond fed by a little waterfall from a cliff above it. Like it was a stream, really, but it was still flowing, even in March. No one was there. The water was rough. Like someone - a bunch of someones - had just been in it seconds before jumping and playing around. 

There was no wind Cin. That pond should have been glass still.

The silence after the laughing was like a physical thing pushing down on top of me. It was like the absence of noise was more real than noise itself. My mouth dried up, and I got goose bumps.

"Hello?" and this time, I really just said it. I was too scared to yell.

I heard dogs, Cin. Not nice, happy dogs. Angry dogs. Braying dogs. Snarling dogs. The kind of dog people put in junk yards to keep people out, but a whole pack of them. Big. They were coming closer to me.

So I fucking ran.  That's when I knew I would never be one of those people who are so frightened they stay rooted to the spot. I ran fast.

But those dogs, they were fast too and they were getting angrier and angrier the closer they got to me.

Eventually I fell, Cin. I fell right in front of a pool of water. It wasn't quite a pond, but it was big.  The water was as still as glass and I don't know what the bottom of it was, like mud or leaves or what, but it was like a mirror. When I opened my eyes and looked into that water, I screamed.

I had horns on my head. I could see them as clear as I could see my eyes, nose and ears. Big horns like a deer.  They were so real I jumped back. I don't know how I did it, because I was on my hands and knees in front of the water and then I was on my back five feet away. Must have done some kind of super jump and flip like a frog or something.

I reached up to my head. There were no horns. Only hair.

The dogs were still there. I couldn't tell if they'd gotten closer to me. They were still as furious sounding as before. So I got up and ran. Eventually I hit the path back to town and kept running until I couldn't anymore, which was maybe 5 more minutes. Then I slowed down to a jog.

No dogs barking. No women laughing. Birds calling to one another, in fact.

I jogged all the way back to town.

What was that about, Cin? Did I hallucinate? Can you hallucinate sound? I dunno. Maybe the horns. But I am sure of what I saw in the pond.

Funny thing was I got home, crawled right into bed, and woke up to write this email. No dreams at all.

I'm going to do what you said next. I'm going to start to ask my friends around town who work retail about Carol and what they saw. You're right - retail workers see everything.

One of them must know something about what happened to that kid. Or what she was up to.

But it's weird. The whole thing is weird. It feels like a dream. Or a nightmare. And everyone is acting like it's normal.

Maybe if we find out what happened to Carol, we can all wake up.