Creepypasta origins (Finished)

The girl in the picture

 For awhile now, this picture has been floating around on the internet. You've probably seen it by now. The photo is a simple black and white, grainy still of a young girl in the woods. The girl has a dark shadow over her face and is posing in a strange, standing position. There has been some debate as to whether she is running, jumping, or simply posing for the camera.

The story surrounding the photo has only added to the intrigue. Apparently, this photo was discovered on a trail cam in Cambridge, New York. If you don't know, trail cams are specialized equipment used by hunters, researchers, and farmers to track game and other wild animals. These cameras are made to snap a picture when a motion sensor picks up movement in the lens' view. The landowners had set up this trail cam for hunting purposes.

There are people on the internet who have latched onto the idea that this picture is of a long-dead girl; that this picture is of a ghastly presence. Others yet wonder if this is just a girl and why she might be alone in the woods. Police have gotten involved to find the identity of this child.

This afternoon, I saw the picture while screwing around on Facebook during my lunch break at work. When I saw it, I froze. I knew who was in the picture. It was a face I hadn't seen in years.

I left work early. I had to call my mom and get the facts straight. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm on my fourth shot of Malibu as I type this out. The booze helps. After all, what else can I do but tell a bunch of scary story junkies what I have to say? Nobody would ever believe me anyways. Nobody I told believed me.

I'm rambling again. I'll take it easy on the sauce until I finish.

My name is Rebecca, but everyone just calls me Becca these days. I grew up in Coila, a small township within Cambridge, New York. Compared to the hustle of my current home in Manhattan, Coila was a hole. I'm pretty sure more people live in my apartment building than lived in all of Coila.

My best friend was Zoey. Zoey was fun, brave, and so adventurous. God, I haven't thought about her in years. You could probably say Zoey was my first love. Of course, at our age, I was too young to see it that way but isn't that how you always see friends from the past? They are a grainy photograph in your mind's eye; a caricature. You remember all of the good and ignore the bad.

I was 12 years old on the last day I saw Zoey.

Every small town has rumors. Coila was no different. In the late 1980's the rumor mill was spinning stories about a Satanic cult. If you've ever heard a cult story (I'm guessing you have) then these stories were nothing too shocking. Rituals in the woods, animal sacrifices, evil chants overheard in the trees; these were the stories spread from child to child and, unbeknownst to me at the time, adults as well. Supposedly, a cult had taken residence in a house in the woods around Cambridge and Coila and were privy to these and more depravities.

The word on the playground in elementary school was exaggerated to the nth degree. According to my old friend Ricky Davis, these cultists would take children and "molester" them (I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded bad). After they were done, they would kill you and use your blood to make cranberry juice, the worst juice of all according to Ricky.

I know this sounds silly, but you have to understand, this is what we thought about these supposed cultists at the time. We were kids in the 80's in a small town. We had no internet. We were much more sheltered to the realities of the world than today's kids. If I'd had even a clue as to what was really out there...

I'm jumping ahead again. Back to Zoey.

I met Zoey about a week before kindergarten. Her family had just moved from Manhattan to settle in a quiet community. The house they settled on ended up being right across the street from my house. Being the same age, Zoey and I become fast friends. We stayed over with each other, ate dinner at each other's houses, and did virtually everything together. By first grade, our parents would joke that they shared a pair of daughters.