More research. More answers. This time, a source not so far from me.
Marissa's ghost seems to be here to stay. As I've said, she's not present all the time, but nearly every night I catch a glimpse of her or hear her playing or crying quietly. If she is a ghost, she seems to be a very friendly one. It seems to me that the most likely reason for seeing her now is that she's some sort of recurring hallucination that's manifested since being drowned. Other people can't seem to see her, and dreams and hallucinations are not outside the possible symptoms of something like PTSD, from what I understand. I'm not an expert - far, far from it, but anyone who's been in the military has a story about or knows someone with PTSD. Were I an expert, I'd probably tell myself to go and get professional help.
Especially now that I'm starting to believe that her appearance may not just be a part of my own mind, but some other conscious thing as well. She does and says things that I have no control over. She saw that man standing behind me before the hairs on my neck even stood up or I felt like I was being watched. And she knows something about the secret in my hometown.
Dealing with the stress of the nightmares has been harder and harder lately; each time it happens is an exhausting experience. I'm so sleep deprived that whenever I close my eyes and feel sleep coming on it feels like a glass of water coming to a parched man. Every time that it's denied by the recurring nightmares, it's like finding out that instead of clear refreshing water, it was full of ocean brine.
As I rely more on caffeine to get my through the days and alcohol to put me to mercifully dreamless sleep, at the moments when I'm feeling the least centered, Marissa appears to be the most "solidly" in this world.
As I said, I haven't given up on finding out what I can about the mystery in Oregon. The trail has long since gone cold. Especially with the vast amounts of time and distance between whatever happened there and me now. But for Marissa, it's not ancient history.
There are few things that I've gleaned. It's almost like solving a puzzle, since I have to figure out precisely the right questions to ask or I get nothing. For example, "Monster Medicine" as she called it, originally made me wonder more about Newport Pharmaceuticals. After talking to Ryan, it made more sense to ask about the "old hospital" where she likely would have been given medicine.
"Marissa, do you ever have to go to the doctor?" I asked gently. She stopped playing with her favorite toy, an old Raggedy Anne doll, and looked at me with an anxious frown.
"I don't like the doctor. The doctor's not nice."
"What do you mean 'not nice?'"
Marissa covered her scar with her hand, something I had never seen her do before. "He hurts me."
"He hurts your head?"
"Mmhmm."
"Why do you think he does that, Marissa?"
"I dunno. Daddy says he has to fix it."
"Fix it?"
"My head."
"What's wrong with your head?"
"Um... Monsters?"
"Monsters in your head?"
"Uhh, yeah. Monsters like Monster medicine."
"Do you see monsters, Marissa?"
"No."
"Then what do you mean 'monsters?'"
"Um... Doctor Monster?"
"Doctor Monster? Is he the one who's hurting your head?"
"Yeah."
This is what led me to find Doctor Philippe Reece Menser.
Menser was, from what I could gather, nothing short of a genius. It was relatively easy to find content related to his name: he had co-written countless scientific and medical articles during a period of only a few years, most in the early 1950's, which I found out later was during the time that he attended college. At first, I thought that Philippe R. Menser was a common name because the journals in which they were published were so variegated. Everything from micro- to macro-biology was present, and all the way up through several different systems of human anatomy. First, I was finding them piece-by-piece through my old university's research search tools, but then I found a huge collection from a book that had been scanned and uploaded onto a very '90's-looking HTML site. I tried to skim the articles. I tried.
I should mention that the journals themselves in which he was able to publish his work did not seem to be particularly credible. If he had had an equal number of articles in, say, the American Journal of Public Health, then surely he would have been known world-wide as some sort of great pioneer of modern medicine. Even still, the sheer range of topics he covered in such a short time left no doubt that he was something remarkable. I began to realize as I skimmed the articles listed on the website that he had seemed to have focuses in a few subjects.
First, was medicine and pharmaceuticals; development, testing, chemical makeups, etc. Keep in mind that the rise of Penicillin was during, or slightly before this time.
Second, was neuroscience. This was the area where his designed experiments were more understandable to a layman like myself. There were hundreds, ranging from the mundane to the extreme.
Third, and indisputably the most prevalent subject, was religious science. Many of these articles had gone unpublished, and it was clear why. There was a unique blend of chilly scientific fact, mixed with long passages from the King James Bible intermingled with rambling interpretations of the subject matter. A lot of them read like sermons - sermons given by a very knowledgeable doctor trained in several fields of study.
If I can conclude anything from what I saw, it's that this Dr. Menser was both brilliant and stubborn in his attempts to prove his deeply-held spiritual beliefs with the science that he had devoted most of his life to. As I reached the end of the list, I realized that I felt a little like I knew him. I honestly cannot think of anyone who has been so prolific and put so much of themselves into writing that just an erratic skimming the surface could give an impression of knowing them. I could see his lifelong struggle laid bare before me in writing.
The last item in the list, dated January, 1956, was a piece describing the chemical reactions which preceded the rejection of a transplanted body part, and hypothesized how that outcome could be avoided through the prescription of certain, unpronounceable medications.
The unique front cover contained the words "property of Newport Pharmaceuticals, Newport, California."
Monday, March 24, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
The Dreams
I've been having bad dreams since returning home - horrible nightmares. It's been getting worse lately, especially since the break in.
They all seem incredibly real. All of them begin with waking up, and they'll go on for what feels like hours. For this whole section of the dream, it might as well be my real life. I'll start going to work, or doing something around the house before something odd happens. I guess "odd" is the right word for it. I'll come back into the kitchen and cockroaches and ants will have swarmed in the middle of my kitchen. Or someone on the street will start calling my name. Time will jump several hours. Something weird will happen, like some small part of the real world has broken. Some inconsistency with reality occurs.
At this point, it's like being in an elevator that suddenly stops. You can't see it, but you feel it through your whole body that your environment has changed.
A while after the break, the world will start to fill with water. If I'm outside, it seeps up from the grass and the sewers like there's a massive broken pipe somewhere. If I'm inside, it will pour from the cabinets and drawers and cracks in the ceiling. The attic door will drop open from the weight, and gush water into the hallway. My car will start to pump it out of the vents, filling the car. It starts off slowly, but soon it is unavoidable and I can feel how cold it is. I can feel my clothes start to stick to me with wetness. I see, hear, feel, and smell it happening as though it's real. My rational mind rails against it, but my senses tell it this is happening. It's impossible not to be terrified.
People start coming up from the water. They're not zombies, or dead. They're just people. My mother; my father; my uncle; Marissa; the librarian; Pastor Charles; old teachers... Anyone from that town in the past. The people come toward me, soaking wet like someone who has just come up from a baptism. When the dream takes place in my house, they walk out of the bedrooms and closets. At first, they slowly approach me, like maybe they hope that I won't run. Maybe I'll welcome them. When I'm outside, I try to run and they chase me.
Like I said, it's all very realistic; It's not like you'd expect in a dream like this. I can run, and a lot of times I'm faster than they are. I've even seemingly gotten away from them, but the water level keeps rising. It rises until I can't stand and touch the bottom any more. Until whole buildings are sunk under the flow of the water, and, like a flood survivor you see on the news, I end up huddled on a building or on some floating debris somewhere. The whole world around me is swept away and I'm stranded.
The dreams all end the same way. The people from my past always find me, like they're drawn to me. They come out of the water or around the corner. It's not always the same person, but the others are never far behind. They grab me and drag me down into the water and I experience drowning all over again. Only this time, it's not serene like when I drowned in that cursed lake. I'm fighting every minute of it. The bodies of people are holding me down, arms and legs and torsos and faces all holding me in an entangled web. Then, even though I should be getting deeper, the sound and turbulence increases. Bubbles start frothing around me and then like I'm being spewed out of a drainpipe, I awaken.
Like I said, I haven't slept for more than five minutes at a time, but somehow these full, detailed dreams occur when I close my eyes. I drink all the coffee and Monster Energy drinks I can to stay awake, and then Alcohol, Ambien, whatever just to try to sleep deep enough not to dream. Nothing works. Every time it's the same terrifying feeling of sinking, being closed-in on, and drowning.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
So What Do I Know now?
I've done what I can to stay in contact with Nicole. Over this last week she's been telling me some pretty scary things. First, the local paper for the town had an ad in that sad I was a "suspected missing person." She forwarded me the article.
Adam Gray, age 23, was last seen leaving his uncle, Hank Smith's house on the night of February 24. Witnesses reported that he seemed to be very distraught over his mother and uncle's recent deaths. [Town] as well as county police have begun a search to find the [Town] native, but as Police Chief Richard James explains, "He could just be anywhere, at this point. He kept to himself and didn't disclose where he'd been, or where he'd go if something went wrong." If you have any information, please call (555) 444-1111
Nicole did call, to tell them that I was okay. Even though she called anonymously, she said that they were trying to pressure her for her name and information. After her phone call, the ad disappeared, but there's more:
I needed to know if the police were in on my attempted murder, so I got Ryan's e-mail address by calling the police station last week. I did what I could to be careful, in case he was on their side after all.
Ryan's a beat cop, not an FBI agent. I realize that police work isn't like what you see on television, but he was the only person I knew. Besides, he seemed to be helpful and seemed like he knew that things weren't right when I was there the last time.
When he called, he answered in a hushed voice. It sounded like he was outside.
"Adam? We gotta make this short. They're trying to cover it up. It's... Something is wrong. There was an article in the paper, and an investigation -"
"I heard."
"Yeah, but they never did anything. Not even going through the motions. All fake. I was the last one to see you before you left, and no one came to question me. No one here would even let me help try to locate you."
"You weren't the last one. They tried to kill me."
"I'm sorry. I... Damn it, I knew. You're not the first, either. I think there are at least five or six others that they've done this to. It's a cover-up, Adam. They're blocking me out, but I am sure none of them got away. There's a sort of process to it, now. First, they put an article in the paper, then they wait for a few days. Then they build a story about how they got lost, or caught by a sneaker wave at the beach. You can tell when these things really happen because it affects everyone. People start pulling longer hours and providing 24-hour coverage. With these other few people there's none of that, it's all kept quiet.
"So this time, after they find out that you haven't actually 'disappeared,' they start to freak out - especially Chief James. He lost his shit. I've never seem him so on edge. I'm pretty sure he was trying to track you, but couldn't get authority to follow you across county, let alone state lines. Not officially, anyway. Anybody come over there last week?"
"No. No police... I had a guy break in last weekend."
"What day?"
"Saturday night."
Ryan sighed. "We had a guy in lock-up. Public intoxication; homeless guy. A couple of officers picked him up in Old Town on Friday night and brought him in for the weekend, but when I got to work on Sunday, he was gone. I couldn't find any discharge papers for him either, which was weird. I thought someone was going to get fired for losing the guy... But then something weird happened. I saw Chief James and he was back to normal - giddy, even. I asked where our missing man was, and he said 'Hospital. He'll be back tomorrow.' The Chief's not a giddy guy, Adam. I didn't know - *don't* know - how they're connected, or how the guy got all the way there and back, but the guy was back in his cell the next day."
"Normal?"
"No. Definitely fucked up. His eye went all white and he was screaming bible verses."
"That's the guy. What the fuck?"
"I don't know, Adam. Just... Stay safe."
"How should I do that, Ryan? They know where I live. I am not safe - I am the opposite of safe. I haven't slept more than five minutes at a time in two fucking weeks, now. And do you know why? Because they drugged me and tried to kill me. I think they killed my uncle. Maybe they killed my mother too, and my sister. What the fuck happened to my sister?"
"Sorry. I don't know for sure."
"So, what *do* you know?"
"Just rumors. I don't want to be the one to tell you this."
"Who else am I going to ask? Look, I'm not crazy. I know you weren't a part of whatever happened, but I need to know."
"I always thought maybe she was sick. All I remember is that my parents were talking about the new hospital and something going wrong before. That's why they had to build it."
In our hometown the "new" hospital, as it seems it will perpetually be dubbed, was actually built in the late 1980's.
"They said something like 'It doesn't always work.' Whatever that means. "
"Hm," I grunted as I mulled over this information. There was a sound on Ryan's end of the line like a voice in the distance.
"Shit, I gotta go. Like I said, man, stay away. I'll get ahold of you if something happens..."
So what do I know now? The people of my town are a part of some conspiracy, involved in covering up murders. They tried to kill me, because of... Marissa? It had to be - they found the pictures, realized that they'd been leaked and tried to dispose of every trace of it. Of the whole thing. Even though at some point it seemed like it had been common knowledge.
I also know that whatever is going on there stretches back to some time in the 1970's, and seems to have something to do with Newport Pharmaceuticals. Something, but I'm not sure what. Lastly, I know that it's still extremely dangerous, and there's no safe place for me anymore. They are still attracting people to their cause and can apparently move them anywhere in the world. I don't remember [Town] Municipal Airport having any private jets.
Adam Gray, age 23, was last seen leaving his uncle, Hank Smith's house on the night of February 24. Witnesses reported that he seemed to be very distraught over his mother and uncle's recent deaths. [Town] as well as county police have begun a search to find the [Town] native, but as Police Chief Richard James explains, "He could just be anywhere, at this point. He kept to himself and didn't disclose where he'd been, or where he'd go if something went wrong." If you have any information, please call (555) 444-1111
Nicole did call, to tell them that I was okay. Even though she called anonymously, she said that they were trying to pressure her for her name and information. After her phone call, the ad disappeared, but there's more:
I needed to know if the police were in on my attempted murder, so I got Ryan's e-mail address by calling the police station last week. I did what I could to be careful, in case he was on their side after all.
Ryan's a beat cop, not an FBI agent. I realize that police work isn't like what you see on television, but he was the only person I knew. Besides, he seemed to be helpful and seemed like he knew that things weren't right when I was there the last time.
When he called, he answered in a hushed voice. It sounded like he was outside.
"Adam? We gotta make this short. They're trying to cover it up. It's... Something is wrong. There was an article in the paper, and an investigation -"
"I heard."
"Yeah, but they never did anything. Not even going through the motions. All fake. I was the last one to see you before you left, and no one came to question me. No one here would even let me help try to locate you."
"You weren't the last one. They tried to kill me."
"I'm sorry. I... Damn it, I knew. You're not the first, either. I think there are at least five or six others that they've done this to. It's a cover-up, Adam. They're blocking me out, but I am sure none of them got away. There's a sort of process to it, now. First, they put an article in the paper, then they wait for a few days. Then they build a story about how they got lost, or caught by a sneaker wave at the beach. You can tell when these things really happen because it affects everyone. People start pulling longer hours and providing 24-hour coverage. With these other few people there's none of that, it's all kept quiet.
"So this time, after they find out that you haven't actually 'disappeared,' they start to freak out - especially Chief James. He lost his shit. I've never seem him so on edge. I'm pretty sure he was trying to track you, but couldn't get authority to follow you across county, let alone state lines. Not officially, anyway. Anybody come over there last week?"
"No. No police... I had a guy break in last weekend."
"What day?"
"Saturday night."
Ryan sighed. "We had a guy in lock-up. Public intoxication; homeless guy. A couple of officers picked him up in Old Town on Friday night and brought him in for the weekend, but when I got to work on Sunday, he was gone. I couldn't find any discharge papers for him either, which was weird. I thought someone was going to get fired for losing the guy... But then something weird happened. I saw Chief James and he was back to normal - giddy, even. I asked where our missing man was, and he said 'Hospital. He'll be back tomorrow.' The Chief's not a giddy guy, Adam. I didn't know - *don't* know - how they're connected, or how the guy got all the way there and back, but the guy was back in his cell the next day."
"Normal?"
"No. Definitely fucked up. His eye went all white and he was screaming bible verses."
"That's the guy. What the fuck?"
"I don't know, Adam. Just... Stay safe."
"How should I do that, Ryan? They know where I live. I am not safe - I am the opposite of safe. I haven't slept more than five minutes at a time in two fucking weeks, now. And do you know why? Because they drugged me and tried to kill me. I think they killed my uncle. Maybe they killed my mother too, and my sister. What the fuck happened to my sister?"
"Sorry. I don't know for sure."
"So, what *do* you know?"
"Just rumors. I don't want to be the one to tell you this."
"Who else am I going to ask? Look, I'm not crazy. I know you weren't a part of whatever happened, but I need to know."
"I always thought maybe she was sick. All I remember is that my parents were talking about the new hospital and something going wrong before. That's why they had to build it."
In our hometown the "new" hospital, as it seems it will perpetually be dubbed, was actually built in the late 1980's.
"They said something like 'It doesn't always work.' Whatever that means. "
"Hm," I grunted as I mulled over this information. There was a sound on Ryan's end of the line like a voice in the distance.
"Shit, I gotta go. Like I said, man, stay away. I'll get ahold of you if something happens..."
So what do I know now? The people of my town are a part of some conspiracy, involved in covering up murders. They tried to kill me, because of... Marissa? It had to be - they found the pictures, realized that they'd been leaked and tried to dispose of every trace of it. Of the whole thing. Even though at some point it seemed like it had been common knowledge.
I also know that whatever is going on there stretches back to some time in the 1970's, and seems to have something to do with Newport Pharmaceuticals. Something, but I'm not sure what. Lastly, I know that it's still extremely dangerous, and there's no safe place for me anymore. They are still attracting people to their cause and can apparently move them anywhere in the world. I don't remember [Town] Municipal Airport having any private jets.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Insanity Feels Like Home Now.
I'm back home.
"Home."
What is home?
Is home where you go at the end of the day? The place where you park your car? Where you sleep? Because if so, then yes. I'm home now.
But maybe home is where you come from; where you were born and grew up. The place that formed you into the person you eventually became.
Maybe it's the place where you feel like you belong. That part of the world that continues to shape as well as reflect you. Like when you tune a guitar and you can hear the dissonant vibrations getting smaller and smaller until the sounds become indistinguishable from each other. A place that resonates with a person. That sounds like home to me.
In any case, I'm back from my trip to Oregon, my hometown, and the nightmare going on there.
I've had a really hard time dealing with everything over the past week. I haven't slept. I go back and forth between wanting to figure out what's happening there and getting frustrated when I can't find anything new. I should probably just consider myself lucky to have gotten away alive. I wish that I could just forget the past and move on.
But growing up in that town has rubbed off like a stain on my mind. Going back and *dying* there...
For starters, I see my sister now. That sentence looks insane sitting on the page. I feel insane. But I'm too tired and too scared to deny that it's true. I see her nearly every day. Sometimes, especially after more than a few drinks, we'll even talk. What's weird is that her presence seems normal now. What could be normal about seeing your dead sister's ghost walking around in your house? Though, I'm not even sure that she is a ghost. I think there's a chance that she's always been there, but I just couldn't see her.
I wish I could ask her what's going on. I wish I could ask her for help in closing whatever I opened by going back to that town. But I can't, because aside from being dead, she's just a normal four-year-old who doesn't know much.
"Marissa, where does your daddy work?"
"He makes the Monster 'Messanin' at the fac-tor-y. He makes the Monster Messanin!"
"What's Monster Medicine?"
"Um. It's a messanin."
"Do you take Monster Medicine?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"'Cause I go to sleep, and I eat the messanin!" she says, jumping on my bed.
Newport Pharmaceuticals is still around, by the way. Please don't bother them. I wrote them an email through their website to ask if they'd ever owned a factory or laboratory in Oregon near my town, and I got a response a couple days later saying that they had no records of it. The company has primarily moved to Europe though, and no longer operates near Newport Beach, California or Newport, Oregon (which, to clarify, is not the town I'm from though neither are far away).
So that's a dead end. Again. I'm not sure where to go from here.
I don't know what else to ask her, though. Like I said, most of the time she's mute. Sometimes she's here and other times she seems to disappear. Most of the time, she's sad, and I've heard her crying at night. Physically, she seems normal, except for a long scar on her head where her hair doesn't grow. It looks like I'd imagine a brain surgery scar would look like, but I'm not sure. I can touch her, but she draws away, like the contact causes her discomfort.
Two nights ago, I got back from work after dark, exhausted. I re-heated some pizza and shakily poured myself a drink, sat down and flipped through the pages of Reddit. My eyes were already heavy, and after nodding off on the couch a few times, I got up and started to clean the kitchen before going to bed.
Marissa had shown up, and I could see her pacing in the hall to my left as I faced the sink. I had turned the garbage disposal on and was spraying out the egg shells and coffee grounds from the morning down the drain when I noticed that she had stopped moving.
I finished spraying out the sink and loading the dishwasher, then looked up at her, which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. She was backed into the corner where the floor meets the wall, with one finger pointed straight out at something behind me.
I slowly turned and like a nightmare you wish you could wake up from, saw a man in shabby clothes standing in the doorway to the living room not six feet away from me. I have no idea how long he was there watching me. He was wet, his long hair and beard were scraggly and matted, with streaks of gray. I froze again, not sure what to do or which way to run.
Then he flashed a smile, as if he'd been waiting to be acknowledged. I noticed that one of his eyes was pure, milky white. He anxiously pawed at his neck like someone satiating a nervous tic. "You're not supposed to be here," he said, his face sinking into a confused frown.
"Okay, whoah, if you're here to rob me... I don't have much. Take what you want and just go."
"Rob you?" he asked slowly, as if processing each word separately. "No. No, no, no, no." With each word, his eyes traced some invisible thing moving back and forth across the floor. His hand shot up to his neck again. "It's already mine. You're dead." The man backed up through the door into the dark living room and disappeared from view around the corner.
I left through the front door. On my way out, I heard him yell from the living room, "Jesus continued: There was a man who had two sons!" before I shut the door. I called the police from my cell phone, telling them what had happened. When they came to the house and searched it, they didn't find anyone, though the sliding door in the living room was left open.
Then the smelled the alcohol on my breath and began to question me. You could see the exact moment that each officer lost faith in what I'd told them.
"So tell us again what he looked like, sir."
"Like I said, he had gray hair and a beard. Maybe 40's or 50's? About the same height as me, and he had a dark raincoat on."
"A raincoat? What color was it?"
"I couldn't tell, it was all wet."
"It was wet? Is there a river or a lake around here?"
"Um... No. It was probably wet from the rain. Like he walked in from outside."
"Sir, it doesn't look like it's rained for a week here..."
They left pretty soon after that. Finally after triple-checking that I'd locked all the doors and windows, and as many drinks to calm my nerves, I laid in bed. The door opened and Marissa came in, crawling up onto the foot of my bed.
"Who was that?" she asked.
"I dunno. Some tweaker."
She laughed. "Like Tweety Bird?"
"Yeah, if Tweety Bird was a drug addict."
"Oh," she said very seriously, with feigned understanding.
God, I'm so tired. I wonder if this even makes sense anymore.
What if I really did imagine the man? From the white eye to the wet rain jacket... two sons... What if I really am losing it? Or what's worse, what if this is all real? I just don't know anymore.
What do I do now?
"Home."
What is home?
Is home where you go at the end of the day? The place where you park your car? Where you sleep? Because if so, then yes. I'm home now.
But maybe home is where you come from; where you were born and grew up. The place that formed you into the person you eventually became.
Maybe it's the place where you feel like you belong. That part of the world that continues to shape as well as reflect you. Like when you tune a guitar and you can hear the dissonant vibrations getting smaller and smaller until the sounds become indistinguishable from each other. A place that resonates with a person. That sounds like home to me.
In any case, I'm back from my trip to Oregon, my hometown, and the nightmare going on there.
I've had a really hard time dealing with everything over the past week. I haven't slept. I go back and forth between wanting to figure out what's happening there and getting frustrated when I can't find anything new. I should probably just consider myself lucky to have gotten away alive. I wish that I could just forget the past and move on.
But growing up in that town has rubbed off like a stain on my mind. Going back and *dying* there...
For starters, I see my sister now. That sentence looks insane sitting on the page. I feel insane. But I'm too tired and too scared to deny that it's true. I see her nearly every day. Sometimes, especially after more than a few drinks, we'll even talk. What's weird is that her presence seems normal now. What could be normal about seeing your dead sister's ghost walking around in your house? Though, I'm not even sure that she is a ghost. I think there's a chance that she's always been there, but I just couldn't see her.
I wish I could ask her what's going on. I wish I could ask her for help in closing whatever I opened by going back to that town. But I can't, because aside from being dead, she's just a normal four-year-old who doesn't know much.
"Marissa, where does your daddy work?"
"He makes the Monster 'Messanin' at the fac-tor-y. He makes the Monster Messanin!"
"What's Monster Medicine?"
"Um. It's a messanin."
"Do you take Monster Medicine?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"'Cause I go to sleep, and I eat the messanin!" she says, jumping on my bed.
Newport Pharmaceuticals is still around, by the way. Please don't bother them. I wrote them an email through their website to ask if they'd ever owned a factory or laboratory in Oregon near my town, and I got a response a couple days later saying that they had no records of it. The company has primarily moved to Europe though, and no longer operates near Newport Beach, California or Newport, Oregon (which, to clarify, is not the town I'm from though neither are far away).
So that's a dead end. Again. I'm not sure where to go from here.
I don't know what else to ask her, though. Like I said, most of the time she's mute. Sometimes she's here and other times she seems to disappear. Most of the time, she's sad, and I've heard her crying at night. Physically, she seems normal, except for a long scar on her head where her hair doesn't grow. It looks like I'd imagine a brain surgery scar would look like, but I'm not sure. I can touch her, but she draws away, like the contact causes her discomfort.
Two nights ago, I got back from work after dark, exhausted. I re-heated some pizza and shakily poured myself a drink, sat down and flipped through the pages of Reddit. My eyes were already heavy, and after nodding off on the couch a few times, I got up and started to clean the kitchen before going to bed.
Marissa had shown up, and I could see her pacing in the hall to my left as I faced the sink. I had turned the garbage disposal on and was spraying out the egg shells and coffee grounds from the morning down the drain when I noticed that she had stopped moving.
I finished spraying out the sink and loading the dishwasher, then looked up at her, which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. She was backed into the corner where the floor meets the wall, with one finger pointed straight out at something behind me.
I slowly turned and like a nightmare you wish you could wake up from, saw a man in shabby clothes standing in the doorway to the living room not six feet away from me. I have no idea how long he was there watching me. He was wet, his long hair and beard were scraggly and matted, with streaks of gray. I froze again, not sure what to do or which way to run.
Then he flashed a smile, as if he'd been waiting to be acknowledged. I noticed that one of his eyes was pure, milky white. He anxiously pawed at his neck like someone satiating a nervous tic. "You're not supposed to be here," he said, his face sinking into a confused frown.
"Okay, whoah, if you're here to rob me... I don't have much. Take what you want and just go."
"Rob you?" he asked slowly, as if processing each word separately. "No. No, no, no, no." With each word, his eyes traced some invisible thing moving back and forth across the floor. His hand shot up to his neck again. "It's already mine. You're dead." The man backed up through the door into the dark living room and disappeared from view around the corner.
I left through the front door. On my way out, I heard him yell from the living room, "Jesus continued: There was a man who had two sons!" before I shut the door. I called the police from my cell phone, telling them what had happened. When they came to the house and searched it, they didn't find anyone, though the sliding door in the living room was left open.
Then the smelled the alcohol on my breath and began to question me. You could see the exact moment that each officer lost faith in what I'd told them.
"So tell us again what he looked like, sir."
"Like I said, he had gray hair and a beard. Maybe 40's or 50's? About the same height as me, and he had a dark raincoat on."
"A raincoat? What color was it?"
"I couldn't tell, it was all wet."
"It was wet? Is there a river or a lake around here?"
"Um... No. It was probably wet from the rain. Like he walked in from outside."
"Sir, it doesn't look like it's rained for a week here..."
They left pretty soon after that. Finally after triple-checking that I'd locked all the doors and windows, and as many drinks to calm my nerves, I laid in bed. The door opened and Marissa came in, crawling up onto the foot of my bed.
"Who was that?" she asked.
"I dunno. Some tweaker."
She laughed. "Like Tweety Bird?"
"Yeah, if Tweety Bird was a drug addict."
"Oh," she said very seriously, with feigned understanding.
God, I'm so tired. I wonder if this even makes sense anymore.
What if I really did imagine the man? From the white eye to the wet rain jacket... two sons... What if I really am losing it? Or what's worse, what if this is all real? I just don't know anymore.
What do I do now?
I Came Back Home and They Tried to Kill Me.
I don't know where to start. I don't know how to make this make sense. If this even can make sense.
Last week my uncle, the last living relative I had in my hometown, died. With him gone, the police and other prominent members of the town had me followed away from town. They also took some pictures which had revealed after my mother's death that I had had a sister who died before I was born.
The police warned me not to get involved. They said it would be better if I got away while I still could. They said that the people who were at my uncle's house after his "suicide" were dangerous people. People capable of making someone, a child, disappear.
In spite of that, I had to know. If I'm being really honest, what I wanted more than anything else was to finally put my past to rest. That's the real reason I came back to Oregon after my mother died. The feeling throughout my whole life that the town I'd grown up in was rotten, backwards and wrong.
After I was sure the police had stopped following me, I turned around and came back to my mother's house. I'd been staying there and doing research on the town. I'd started with some of the prominent members of the town and their families.
What I learned is that many of the older adults who "run" the town, from the fire and ambulance services, to the schools, construction, police, commerce, and even the mayor have something in common. They all have past records of being homeless. Almost every well-known person in town that I could think of had something like this. Suspiciously missing from this list was Pastor Charles, the massive man who operated the local church. This wouldn't necessarily mean anything, of course. However, it did seem strange that all these prominent people had come from around the country, and in fact the world, to this one small town and had all done extremely well here.
I began to shift my search to what might have drawn them here. In the 1960's through the 1980's, jobs had been as plentiful as the trees here. Then in the 1990's, those jobs had dried up.
I found a few old scans of newspaper articles from the 1990's (since none of the people who were still here were involved in the fishing or timber industries), but none of them showed any kind of attraction to this town in particular. Good schools, fast growth, but little else. So I went to the library, where they kept a near-complete collection of local newspapers and found a front-page article from 1985, which included a black-and-white picture of a ribbon-cutting ceremony in front of a huge pharmaceutical plant. A man in a black suit who I didn't recognize was holding the scissors in the age-old pose, but it was the people behind him that shocked me. There they stood, half of the people I felt were responsible for whatever was wrong with this town. And my father in a white lab coat.
I went to print the page article and got an error message about paying a fee to the librarian. Stupidly, I went to the front desk. As I approached, the girl working there did a double take, and then slowly got up and walked to the back room.
It was time to leave.
I got in my car and scribbled down what I could remember from the article. "Newport Pharmaceuticals Plant Opens Doors." "55 new jobs." "November 13, 1985."
I'd never heard of any kind of plant near here or "Newport Pharmaceuticals." As far as I'd known, my father had moved here shortly after he was born, and the whole time I'd been growing up, he'd never had a job for longer than a year.
I headed back to my mother's house to see what I could find on the internet. I hid the car as before and walked up to the front. I was walking up the driveway when I saw the neighbor sitting on the front porch. She'd seen me, so I couldn't get away, though she was smiling as if she was happy to see me.
She said she was locked out of her house, and came to see if my mother had a spare key. She must have been going absolutely senile, because she didn't even seem to realize that she hadn't seen me since I was 18. In fact, the last time I'd seen her was after one of my mother's fits when she'd kicked me out of the house. I'd ended up going next door and having dinner. Even though I'd had to sit through an hour of her and her husband tell me about how it wasn't that bad and that I should forgive my mother, the food had at least been good.
I told her that my mother was dead, and she looked so sad. "Oh no. Oh, you poor thing," she said, coming closer with her arms outstretched. I half-heartedly returned the tiny woman's hug, eager to get inside where I wouldn't be seen, when I thought I felt an insect sting me on my ribs.
I went to brush it away, but didn't feel anything remaining on the spot where I'd felt the bite. Then I realized that the old woman was smiling widely again. I started to feel dizzy, and tried to escape back to my car, but before I could even make it off the porch, I was unable to walk. Suddenly, several people came from inside the house and carried me into a car.
They drove me to the lake, and loaded me into a small boat. Two older men, one who owned a furniture store in town, and the other who I'd seen before, but didn't know his name, took me in the boat to the deep center of the lake.
I don't swim. I haven't been able to get over my fear of open water since I was 12 years old, when I saw something terrible lurking deep under this same lake. It was dark now, the only lights were the colored running lights. I fought to move, to fight, to get away, to scream. Anything. I couldn't move. I could barely breathe, my chest felt like it was being crushed. The two men were waiting for something that I couldn't see, and after what felt like an hour, I finally gave up. I felt cold, and tears streamed down my face as I lay in the bottom of the fishing boat.
One of the men broke the silence, "There. Let's do it."
One grabbed my arms as the other grabbed my ankles, and with a grunt, they heaved my body like a bag of cement over the side of the boat.
I know that I drowned. I felt every second of it, clearly as I am sitting here typing this out. The fear forced the precious air out of my lungs and I sank, serene and peaceful, down into the black.
Inside my mind, a primal panic broke loose again, creating chaos but my body remained motionless. The last thing I remember was the intense pressure, and the sensation of losing consciousness.
Then, impossibly, I woke up. It was almost like going through a door, on the one side was one world, the world you feel when you're awake, the "real world." And then on the other side, I woke up into a completely different world, in a different place. I wasn't in the lake any more. I stood up in the middle of an empty house I'd never seen before. There was enough light to see around myself, but it didn't seem to be coming from anywhere, like maybe I was glowing.
I walked from the living room into the dining area, which had a large table and was set for seven. I heard a sound, like a child giggling and small footfalls coming from the doorway on the other side of the room.
"Hello?" I tried to shout loudly, but no sound came out. I ran through the doorway into the kitchen, and heard more footsteps sounding like they were going upstairs. I ran after the sound and came to the top of the steps. The door on my right was open slightly, and I could hear a child laughing and talking on the other side. I pushed it open slowly, and there sat my sister who I'd never known, playing with a pair of knitted dolls. She like she was about four years old, just like she'd looked in the pictures I'd seen of her.
She looked up at me as I walked in with a big, sweet smile and then held out one of the dolls for me to take. Jesus Christ, I got down on the floor in that dark, otherworldly house and played dolls with my dead sister.
Then the sound of a door opening and closing came from the bottom of the stairs. My sister looked sad. "You have to go," she said. "I hope you come back. I don't like it here. He's not nice."
I tried to ask her who? but still no sound came out. Heavy steps were coming steadily but slowly up the stairs.
The bedroom door opened, but all I could see on the other side was blackness, then a huge, bone-white hand shot out of the darkness, grabbed my whole head and pulled me through the door. I woke up in the lake again, able to hear something crashing through the brush on the banks. I dragged myself onto the shore, and heard a woman's shrill voice yelling "Oh thank God, you're alive. Are you okay?"
The woman's name is Nicole. She took me out of the lake and to her small house in the woods near the lake. I'm alive, and feeling better now, thanks to her. I don't know what to think anymore. Tomorrow, I'm leaving the state and going back to my old life. I think it's clear that what's going on here is beyond me. If any of you have any idea of what's going on here... please, help me.
I should never have come back home.
Last week my uncle, the last living relative I had in my hometown, died. With him gone, the police and other prominent members of the town had me followed away from town. They also took some pictures which had revealed after my mother's death that I had had a sister who died before I was born.
The police warned me not to get involved. They said it would be better if I got away while I still could. They said that the people who were at my uncle's house after his "suicide" were dangerous people. People capable of making someone, a child, disappear.
In spite of that, I had to know. If I'm being really honest, what I wanted more than anything else was to finally put my past to rest. That's the real reason I came back to Oregon after my mother died. The feeling throughout my whole life that the town I'd grown up in was rotten, backwards and wrong.
After I was sure the police had stopped following me, I turned around and came back to my mother's house. I'd been staying there and doing research on the town. I'd started with some of the prominent members of the town and their families.
What I learned is that many of the older adults who "run" the town, from the fire and ambulance services, to the schools, construction, police, commerce, and even the mayor have something in common. They all have past records of being homeless. Almost every well-known person in town that I could think of had something like this. Suspiciously missing from this list was Pastor Charles, the massive man who operated the local church. This wouldn't necessarily mean anything, of course. However, it did seem strange that all these prominent people had come from around the country, and in fact the world, to this one small town and had all done extremely well here.
I began to shift my search to what might have drawn them here. In the 1960's through the 1980's, jobs had been as plentiful as the trees here. Then in the 1990's, those jobs had dried up.
I found a few old scans of newspaper articles from the 1990's (since none of the people who were still here were involved in the fishing or timber industries), but none of them showed any kind of attraction to this town in particular. Good schools, fast growth, but little else. So I went to the library, where they kept a near-complete collection of local newspapers and found a front-page article from 1985, which included a black-and-white picture of a ribbon-cutting ceremony in front of a huge pharmaceutical plant. A man in a black suit who I didn't recognize was holding the scissors in the age-old pose, but it was the people behind him that shocked me. There they stood, half of the people I felt were responsible for whatever was wrong with this town. And my father in a white lab coat.
I went to print the page article and got an error message about paying a fee to the librarian. Stupidly, I went to the front desk. As I approached, the girl working there did a double take, and then slowly got up and walked to the back room.
It was time to leave.
I got in my car and scribbled down what I could remember from the article. "Newport Pharmaceuticals Plant Opens Doors." "55 new jobs." "November 13, 1985."
I'd never heard of any kind of plant near here or "Newport Pharmaceuticals." As far as I'd known, my father had moved here shortly after he was born, and the whole time I'd been growing up, he'd never had a job for longer than a year.
I headed back to my mother's house to see what I could find on the internet. I hid the car as before and walked up to the front. I was walking up the driveway when I saw the neighbor sitting on the front porch. She'd seen me, so I couldn't get away, though she was smiling as if she was happy to see me.
She said she was locked out of her house, and came to see if my mother had a spare key. She must have been going absolutely senile, because she didn't even seem to realize that she hadn't seen me since I was 18. In fact, the last time I'd seen her was after one of my mother's fits when she'd kicked me out of the house. I'd ended up going next door and having dinner. Even though I'd had to sit through an hour of her and her husband tell me about how it wasn't that bad and that I should forgive my mother, the food had at least been good.
I told her that my mother was dead, and she looked so sad. "Oh no. Oh, you poor thing," she said, coming closer with her arms outstretched. I half-heartedly returned the tiny woman's hug, eager to get inside where I wouldn't be seen, when I thought I felt an insect sting me on my ribs.
I went to brush it away, but didn't feel anything remaining on the spot where I'd felt the bite. Then I realized that the old woman was smiling widely again. I started to feel dizzy, and tried to escape back to my car, but before I could even make it off the porch, I was unable to walk. Suddenly, several people came from inside the house and carried me into a car.
They drove me to the lake, and loaded me into a small boat. Two older men, one who owned a furniture store in town, and the other who I'd seen before, but didn't know his name, took me in the boat to the deep center of the lake.
I don't swim. I haven't been able to get over my fear of open water since I was 12 years old, when I saw something terrible lurking deep under this same lake. It was dark now, the only lights were the colored running lights. I fought to move, to fight, to get away, to scream. Anything. I couldn't move. I could barely breathe, my chest felt like it was being crushed. The two men were waiting for something that I couldn't see, and after what felt like an hour, I finally gave up. I felt cold, and tears streamed down my face as I lay in the bottom of the fishing boat.
One of the men broke the silence, "There. Let's do it."
One grabbed my arms as the other grabbed my ankles, and with a grunt, they heaved my body like a bag of cement over the side of the boat.
I know that I drowned. I felt every second of it, clearly as I am sitting here typing this out. The fear forced the precious air out of my lungs and I sank, serene and peaceful, down into the black.
Inside my mind, a primal panic broke loose again, creating chaos but my body remained motionless. The last thing I remember was the intense pressure, and the sensation of losing consciousness.
Then, impossibly, I woke up. It was almost like going through a door, on the one side was one world, the world you feel when you're awake, the "real world." And then on the other side, I woke up into a completely different world, in a different place. I wasn't in the lake any more. I stood up in the middle of an empty house I'd never seen before. There was enough light to see around myself, but it didn't seem to be coming from anywhere, like maybe I was glowing.
I walked from the living room into the dining area, which had a large table and was set for seven. I heard a sound, like a child giggling and small footfalls coming from the doorway on the other side of the room.
"Hello?" I tried to shout loudly, but no sound came out. I ran through the doorway into the kitchen, and heard more footsteps sounding like they were going upstairs. I ran after the sound and came to the top of the steps. The door on my right was open slightly, and I could hear a child laughing and talking on the other side. I pushed it open slowly, and there sat my sister who I'd never known, playing with a pair of knitted dolls. She like she was about four years old, just like she'd looked in the pictures I'd seen of her.
She looked up at me as I walked in with a big, sweet smile and then held out one of the dolls for me to take. Jesus Christ, I got down on the floor in that dark, otherworldly house and played dolls with my dead sister.
Then the sound of a door opening and closing came from the bottom of the stairs. My sister looked sad. "You have to go," she said. "I hope you come back. I don't like it here. He's not nice."
I tried to ask her who? but still no sound came out. Heavy steps were coming steadily but slowly up the stairs.
The bedroom door opened, but all I could see on the other side was blackness, then a huge, bone-white hand shot out of the darkness, grabbed my whole head and pulled me through the door. I woke up in the lake again, able to hear something crashing through the brush on the banks. I dragged myself onto the shore, and heard a woman's shrill voice yelling "Oh thank God, you're alive. Are you okay?"
The woman's name is Nicole. She took me out of the lake and to her small house in the woods near the lake. I'm alive, and feeling better now, thanks to her. I don't know what to think anymore. Tomorrow, I'm leaving the state and going back to my old life. I think it's clear that what's going on here is beyond me. If any of you have any idea of what's going on here... please, help me.
I should never have come back home.
The Family Home.
This morning when I finally reached town, I noticed a squad car tailing me. It followed me all the way up to my uncle's house on the southern edge of town. The police officer never turned their lights on or anything, but it wasn't exactly trying to be subtle.
I parked in the driveway, and stayed in the car. The squad car parked behind me. Two overweight officers got out and slowly walked over to flank my rental car. "Good afternoon!" said the officer on my left. His voice was stern, formal, and bored. Almost sarcastic. But it was because it sounded so young, that caused me to do a double take.
"Ryan?" I said.
"Hey Adam." He said sheepishly. Ryan and I had been in the same class in school. We weren't close friends, but when you've known someone through 12 years of school and grew up in the same small town, you get to know them. "Listen, Adam. I'm afraid I've got some bad news."
My uncle is dead.
Ryan and the other officer who I didn't know both tried to stop me from going into the house. They said it was suicide. He hanged himself in his bedroom. I told them that all my belongings were inside the house, and firmly told them to let go of me.
Ryan told the other officer to wait while he escorted me inside. In the living room, there were several people, a few who I could recognize. The pastor of the local church, the old lawyer, and a few other people I knew from around town.
As soon as he saw me, the pastor came over to me and Ryan purposefully. "Adam. You really shouldn't be here right now," he said.
Just looking at him, made something rise up inside me. Learning about Marissa yesterday, and having this hostile greeting today... The fact that all these people had suspiciously shown up here at my uncle's house, and now I wasn't allowed. I opened my mouth to tell them all to get the fuck out, but thought better of it. I didn't need to get off on the wrong foot with all these people at once. "I'll just grab a couple things and go," I said, and walked purposely toward the second bedroom that I'd been staying in.
Behind me, I could hear the pastor whispering harshly to Ryan.
Once in the room, I shut the door. Quickly, I threw my few clothes and belongings into my backpack. Clearing the small desk, I noticed the plain envelope that had contained the pictures from the night before. It was empty.
I searched around on the floor and under the bed when I heard someone open the door. It was Ryan. "All right, Adam," he said, "you ready?"
I looked at him, taking in his expression, and sizing him up. Who the fuck could I trust anymore? "Something is missing," I said flatly.
"Sorry about that. You could try asking the people out there if they've seen it. But..." He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "Adam, they want you *gone*. I'm not charging you with anything, but they're starting to whisper that you had something to do with your uncle's..."
"What?"
"Hey I'm not accusing you of anything, like I said. But I think you should get out of here. Now. Leave town and don't come back. These are people you don't want to get mixed up with. Dangerous people." His face was deathly serious as he said these last words.
Someone knocked on the door and started trying to push Ryan out of the way.
Pastor Charles was a huge man. He must have been about 60 years old now, but I can still remember him closer to his prime playing sports with my father when I was much younger. It was as if every aspect of himself was hand-picked to make him physically imposing. He stood at 6'6" and wrapped in muscle. His customary black suit was fit him like he'd been poured into it. As a kid, what had scared me the most about him had been his left eye, which was pure milky white and completely blind. He pushed his way into the room, and reached to grab my arm.
"It's time for you to leave, child" he said, staring at me intensely at me with his one good eye.
I told him to get off of me and stormed out through the living room. The people there had all joined hands, with one opening presumably left for the Pastor.
Ryan's squad car followed me a few miles outside of town before turning back. This whole thing has me really scared.
What was that? Is this how law enforcement usually handles a suicide?
Maybe this was stupid, but I went back to my mother's house. I took another road that skirted the edge of town so that any police that were posted on the highways wouldn't see me. I drove by once to check that no one was there, but with my deep tire tracks and disturbed gravel still there from when I left, I was fairly certain that no one had been there since that night.
I hid the car on a side street and walked back. In the afternoon sun, the house didn't seem as menacing. I opened the front door and quickly slipped inside before anyone could drive by. The carpet in the living room was still dark and smelled strongly of mildew from the spill, the TV screen was still broken and gaping. Everything looked just like I'd left it. I shivered as I looked at the spot on the couch where I last thought I'd seen my mother.
Maybe I'm crazy, and maybe this won't help. This might even be a really bad idea, but I just need somewhere to think. I've been feeling like there's some kind of purpose for my coming back to Oregon. Like something drawing me here. Maybe it's Marissa, or maybe it's my mother. Either way, I'm not taking any action just yet. I'm going to spend a few more days here to see what else I can learn about my sister and my uncle's death.
I can't just run away from this. Not yet.
EDIT: Sorry I can't update any of you now. Since I got here, I've been feeling sicker and sicker. I slept feverishly all night and day today. Feeling too weak to even do anything else. When I'm back on my feet, I'll clue you all in on what I've turned up in my search of the town's history. Unfortunately it's not good news.
I parked in the driveway, and stayed in the car. The squad car parked behind me. Two overweight officers got out and slowly walked over to flank my rental car. "Good afternoon!" said the officer on my left. His voice was stern, formal, and bored. Almost sarcastic. But it was because it sounded so young, that caused me to do a double take.
"Ryan?" I said.
"Hey Adam." He said sheepishly. Ryan and I had been in the same class in school. We weren't close friends, but when you've known someone through 12 years of school and grew up in the same small town, you get to know them. "Listen, Adam. I'm afraid I've got some bad news."
My uncle is dead.
Ryan and the other officer who I didn't know both tried to stop me from going into the house. They said it was suicide. He hanged himself in his bedroom. I told them that all my belongings were inside the house, and firmly told them to let go of me.
Ryan told the other officer to wait while he escorted me inside. In the living room, there were several people, a few who I could recognize. The pastor of the local church, the old lawyer, and a few other people I knew from around town.
As soon as he saw me, the pastor came over to me and Ryan purposefully. "Adam. You really shouldn't be here right now," he said.
Just looking at him, made something rise up inside me. Learning about Marissa yesterday, and having this hostile greeting today... The fact that all these people had suspiciously shown up here at my uncle's house, and now I wasn't allowed. I opened my mouth to tell them all to get the fuck out, but thought better of it. I didn't need to get off on the wrong foot with all these people at once. "I'll just grab a couple things and go," I said, and walked purposely toward the second bedroom that I'd been staying in.
Behind me, I could hear the pastor whispering harshly to Ryan.
Once in the room, I shut the door. Quickly, I threw my few clothes and belongings into my backpack. Clearing the small desk, I noticed the plain envelope that had contained the pictures from the night before. It was empty.
I searched around on the floor and under the bed when I heard someone open the door. It was Ryan. "All right, Adam," he said, "you ready?"
I looked at him, taking in his expression, and sizing him up. Who the fuck could I trust anymore? "Something is missing," I said flatly.
"Sorry about that. You could try asking the people out there if they've seen it. But..." He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "Adam, they want you *gone*. I'm not charging you with anything, but they're starting to whisper that you had something to do with your uncle's..."
"What?"
"Hey I'm not accusing you of anything, like I said. But I think you should get out of here. Now. Leave town and don't come back. These are people you don't want to get mixed up with. Dangerous people." His face was deathly serious as he said these last words.
Someone knocked on the door and started trying to push Ryan out of the way.
Pastor Charles was a huge man. He must have been about 60 years old now, but I can still remember him closer to his prime playing sports with my father when I was much younger. It was as if every aspect of himself was hand-picked to make him physically imposing. He stood at 6'6" and wrapped in muscle. His customary black suit was fit him like he'd been poured into it. As a kid, what had scared me the most about him had been his left eye, which was pure milky white and completely blind. He pushed his way into the room, and reached to grab my arm.
"It's time for you to leave, child" he said, staring at me intensely at me with his one good eye.
I told him to get off of me and stormed out through the living room. The people there had all joined hands, with one opening presumably left for the Pastor.
Ryan's squad car followed me a few miles outside of town before turning back. This whole thing has me really scared.
What was that? Is this how law enforcement usually handles a suicide?
Maybe this was stupid, but I went back to my mother's house. I took another road that skirted the edge of town so that any police that were posted on the highways wouldn't see me. I drove by once to check that no one was there, but with my deep tire tracks and disturbed gravel still there from when I left, I was fairly certain that no one had been there since that night.
I hid the car on a side street and walked back. In the afternoon sun, the house didn't seem as menacing. I opened the front door and quickly slipped inside before anyone could drive by. The carpet in the living room was still dark and smelled strongly of mildew from the spill, the TV screen was still broken and gaping. Everything looked just like I'd left it. I shivered as I looked at the spot on the couch where I last thought I'd seen my mother.
Maybe I'm crazy, and maybe this won't help. This might even be a really bad idea, but I just need somewhere to think. I've been feeling like there's some kind of purpose for my coming back to Oregon. Like something drawing me here. Maybe it's Marissa, or maybe it's my mother. Either way, I'm not taking any action just yet. I'm going to spend a few more days here to see what else I can learn about my sister and my uncle's death.
I can't just run away from this. Not yet.
EDIT: Sorry I can't update any of you now. Since I got here, I've been feeling sicker and sicker. I slept feverishly all night and day today. Feeling too weak to even do anything else. When I'm back on my feet, I'll clue you all in on what I've turned up in my search of the town's history. Unfortunately it's not good news.
Home of the Deceased.
As some of you know, I recently came back home to the Oregon Coast because of my mother's death.
Last Thursday I went to her funeral. The service itself was somber and... respectful. My mother had made very few friends in her life. Not that her family had ever mistook her for a friend.
The next day, we got a call from the elderly lawyer who was handling her estate. As I said, apparently I was named for something in her will, even though she had said I would get nothing. That afternoon we met with him in his small office.
"Thanks, gentlemen, for coming in today. I called you in to discuss the last will and testament of the deceased Rachel Smith. Henceforth referred to as 'the deceased.'" What followed was a listing and rather boring conversation about the things that my mother had owned. I sat awkwardly, feeling out of place wearing torn jeans and hoodie in the lawyer's clean, new office. Even worse, was the nagging thought that had my mother not hated me, I might have been the one having this discussion right now instead of my uncle.
"Finally, Mr. Gray." The lawyer said, continuing his drone.
"The deceased has specified that you are to have this." The lawyer pulled a plain, white envelope from his folder and placed it face-down on the table in front of me. "This concludes today's business." He read off of his notes, showing an expression of surprise that it had ended so abruptly, checking the back of the page, as though he had expected to go on quite a bit longer. Then he looked intently at the envelope and at me, then to my uncle. I could be wrong, but I thought he looked nervous at whatever was in the envelope.
Since I wasn't sure what was going to be inside, I stuffed it into my wallet without looking at it. If it was a message from my mother, I didn't need to be getting emotional here, in front of anyone and everyone.
I fell asleep in my uncle's truck on the way back and had a vivid dream. It's a dream I'd had before, when I was young. It starts out with a faceless marionette in one of those little curtained booths. The puppet looks like it's trying to talk to me, only I can't hear, like I'm deaf. It looks over it's shoulder and turns to me like it's pleading, but I can't help it. Then my mother's face lowers from behind the curtain on the top, with a huge smile.
I woke up as my uncle pulled into his driveway.
I waited to open the envelope until after midnight when my uncle went to bed. Inside were four faded pictures of a girl I'd never seen. She looked to be about four years old. The first two pictures were of her walking outside. The third was of the little girl on a stage of some sort. The last picture made my hair stand on end though, because it was the little girl being held by my smiling mother and father inside the first house I ever lived in.
I flipped back to the previous picture, and recognized the stage as being from the church that my father had taken me to as a child. In the background, you could just make out other children standing in a row, their parents behind them.
I focused on her face, her blond hair and blue eyes. She looked so much like my mother. Like me.
In my head, I heard the small voice that had whispered in my ear my first night back home.
"Unwanted."
In the corner of my eye, I saw something move in the shadows. I jumped off the couch and turned to face it. My uncle was standing there frozen.
"Adam." He said. I could tell in his eyes and tone of voice that he knew what I'd seen.
"Who is that?" I asked, the fear and hurt tightening the muscles in my throat.
"Adam, I'm so sorry. Adam, I want you to know... I thought they should have told you. I tried to tell your mom. She wouldn't listen to me though."
"Who is she?" I asked again, louder as I held out the pictures.
"Her name was Marissa. She's your sister."
"What?"
"She died before you were born. Your mother... She threatened everyone so that they wouldn't tell you. She tried to act like it never happened, that Marissa had never been alive."
Hot tears stung my face now. I'd known my mother had been crazy, but to have had a sister, and to have had the whole town cover it up. I looked at my uncle, ready to scream at him, but then I saw that he had tears in his eyes too. His expression was so guilty. So sad. You could tell that he thought he deserved whatever I could do.
I deflated, sitting back down on the couch and dropping the pictures onto the ground. He came and sat next to me, and wrapped his arms around me.
Today I drove to see her grave.
Marissa Gray
1984-1988
The grave site was almost two hours away from the the town we lived in, the graveyard where we'd buried my mother three days ago. It was inside one of the largest graveyards in the county. A simple granite plaque, just one among hundreds. It took me most of an hour to find hers.
I stayed for a while, just staring, wondering what my life would have been like had she not died - wondering whether I would have even been born. I put off getting back in my car. The truth was out now, and eventually I'd have to go back, knowing that everyone in my small hometown had been carrying a secret - keeping it from me. A thousand little uncomfortable silences and awkward stares started to make sense.
A dark cloud moved in front of the low sun and shot a chill down my spine. You know that feeling of being watched, even though you know no one is around?
With that, I figured it was time to leave, and briskly made my way to my car. As soon as I turned the key in the ignition, heavy rain started to pour down.
Oregon, I thought to myself.
On my way back West, the rain got worse as the sun dropped behind the hills ahead of me. One thing about this area, is that it's full of back-roads. One wrong turn and you could end up 40 miles in the wrong direction. Even though I'd driven this road dozens of times, before long everything started to look unfamiliar.
Wherever there weren't trees overhead, I had to slow down to a crawl just to see the road through all the rain. I came around a turn and out of nowhere, I saw something huge in the middle of the road. I slammed on my brakes and turned the wheel, and skidded off into the gravel shoulder. Behind me, in the middle of the road I could just make out a pair of traffic barriers.
I heaved a sigh of relief that I hadn't crashed and reversed out of the ditch. My headlights illuminated a wooden sign on the side of the road that just said, "Welcome to," which stuck me as being really unusual.
I stopped at a bed & breakfast not far up the road from there to ask for directions, but the owner kept smiling and seemed so happy to see me (and was so bad with directions) that I decided to stay the night here instead.
At least they have free Wi-Fi.
Tomorrow I'll go back and try to find out more about Marissa. I don't think this is done yet. How does a person convince a whole town to not tell them about their family? About the people they grew up with?
I tried calling my uncle, but he didn't answer. I think I'll try to get some sleep and head back in the morning.
EDIT: Left the B&B early... The whole place smells like no one's actually stayed there since the 90's. Also, I didn't really feel like eating breakfast with the overly excited caretaker and his I'm-going-to-steal-your-kidneys smile.
I ended up having to take the long way, since the closed road to the south actually leads to the highway. Weird thing is that when I was almost to Veneta, the road was closed on the East side too. Like all of Veneta's been closed off. GPS is jumping to random locations, so I'm going to have to try to find a way around on my own.
Before the sun came up, I kept thinking I was seeing kids on the side of the road, but as soon as I would look at them, they weren't there. I just stopped to write this update when I thought I saw a little girl behind me in my rear-view mirror. Creepy day today.
Last Thursday I went to her funeral. The service itself was somber and... respectful. My mother had made very few friends in her life. Not that her family had ever mistook her for a friend.
The next day, we got a call from the elderly lawyer who was handling her estate. As I said, apparently I was named for something in her will, even though she had said I would get nothing. That afternoon we met with him in his small office.
"Thanks, gentlemen, for coming in today. I called you in to discuss the last will and testament of the deceased Rachel Smith. Henceforth referred to as 'the deceased.'" What followed was a listing and rather boring conversation about the things that my mother had owned. I sat awkwardly, feeling out of place wearing torn jeans and hoodie in the lawyer's clean, new office. Even worse, was the nagging thought that had my mother not hated me, I might have been the one having this discussion right now instead of my uncle.
"Finally, Mr. Gray." The lawyer said, continuing his drone.
"The deceased has specified that you are to have this." The lawyer pulled a plain, white envelope from his folder and placed it face-down on the table in front of me. "This concludes today's business." He read off of his notes, showing an expression of surprise that it had ended so abruptly, checking the back of the page, as though he had expected to go on quite a bit longer. Then he looked intently at the envelope and at me, then to my uncle. I could be wrong, but I thought he looked nervous at whatever was in the envelope.
Since I wasn't sure what was going to be inside, I stuffed it into my wallet without looking at it. If it was a message from my mother, I didn't need to be getting emotional here, in front of anyone and everyone.
I fell asleep in my uncle's truck on the way back and had a vivid dream. It's a dream I'd had before, when I was young. It starts out with a faceless marionette in one of those little curtained booths. The puppet looks like it's trying to talk to me, only I can't hear, like I'm deaf. It looks over it's shoulder and turns to me like it's pleading, but I can't help it. Then my mother's face lowers from behind the curtain on the top, with a huge smile.
I woke up as my uncle pulled into his driveway.
I waited to open the envelope until after midnight when my uncle went to bed. Inside were four faded pictures of a girl I'd never seen. She looked to be about four years old. The first two pictures were of her walking outside. The third was of the little girl on a stage of some sort. The last picture made my hair stand on end though, because it was the little girl being held by my smiling mother and father inside the first house I ever lived in.
I flipped back to the previous picture, and recognized the stage as being from the church that my father had taken me to as a child. In the background, you could just make out other children standing in a row, their parents behind them.
I focused on her face, her blond hair and blue eyes. She looked so much like my mother. Like me.
In my head, I heard the small voice that had whispered in my ear my first night back home.
"Unwanted."
In the corner of my eye, I saw something move in the shadows. I jumped off the couch and turned to face it. My uncle was standing there frozen.
"Adam." He said. I could tell in his eyes and tone of voice that he knew what I'd seen.
"Who is that?" I asked, the fear and hurt tightening the muscles in my throat.
"Adam, I'm so sorry. Adam, I want you to know... I thought they should have told you. I tried to tell your mom. She wouldn't listen to me though."
"Who is she?" I asked again, louder as I held out the pictures.
"Her name was Marissa. She's your sister."
"What?"
"She died before you were born. Your mother... She threatened everyone so that they wouldn't tell you. She tried to act like it never happened, that Marissa had never been alive."
Hot tears stung my face now. I'd known my mother had been crazy, but to have had a sister, and to have had the whole town cover it up. I looked at my uncle, ready to scream at him, but then I saw that he had tears in his eyes too. His expression was so guilty. So sad. You could tell that he thought he deserved whatever I could do.
I deflated, sitting back down on the couch and dropping the pictures onto the ground. He came and sat next to me, and wrapped his arms around me.
Today I drove to see her grave.
Marissa Gray
1984-1988
The grave site was almost two hours away from the the town we lived in, the graveyard where we'd buried my mother three days ago. It was inside one of the largest graveyards in the county. A simple granite plaque, just one among hundreds. It took me most of an hour to find hers.
I stayed for a while, just staring, wondering what my life would have been like had she not died - wondering whether I would have even been born. I put off getting back in my car. The truth was out now, and eventually I'd have to go back, knowing that everyone in my small hometown had been carrying a secret - keeping it from me. A thousand little uncomfortable silences and awkward stares started to make sense.
A dark cloud moved in front of the low sun and shot a chill down my spine. You know that feeling of being watched, even though you know no one is around?
With that, I figured it was time to leave, and briskly made my way to my car. As soon as I turned the key in the ignition, heavy rain started to pour down.
Oregon, I thought to myself.
On my way back West, the rain got worse as the sun dropped behind the hills ahead of me. One thing about this area, is that it's full of back-roads. One wrong turn and you could end up 40 miles in the wrong direction. Even though I'd driven this road dozens of times, before long everything started to look unfamiliar.
Wherever there weren't trees overhead, I had to slow down to a crawl just to see the road through all the rain. I came around a turn and out of nowhere, I saw something huge in the middle of the road. I slammed on my brakes and turned the wheel, and skidded off into the gravel shoulder. Behind me, in the middle of the road I could just make out a pair of traffic barriers.
I heaved a sigh of relief that I hadn't crashed and reversed out of the ditch. My headlights illuminated a wooden sign on the side of the road that just said, "Welcome to," which stuck me as being really unusual.
I stopped at a bed & breakfast not far up the road from there to ask for directions, but the owner kept smiling and seemed so happy to see me (and was so bad with directions) that I decided to stay the night here instead.
At least they have free Wi-Fi.
Tomorrow I'll go back and try to find out more about Marissa. I don't think this is done yet. How does a person convince a whole town to not tell them about their family? About the people they grew up with?
I tried calling my uncle, but he didn't answer. I think I'll try to get some sleep and head back in the morning.
EDIT: Left the B&B early... The whole place smells like no one's actually stayed there since the 90's. Also, I didn't really feel like eating breakfast with the overly excited caretaker and his I'm-going-to-steal-your-kidneys smile.
I ended up having to take the long way, since the closed road to the south actually leads to the highway. Weird thing is that when I was almost to Veneta, the road was closed on the East side too. Like all of Veneta's been closed off. GPS is jumping to random locations, so I'm going to have to try to find a way around on my own.
Before the sun came up, I kept thinking I was seeing kids on the side of the road, but as soon as I would look at them, they weren't there. I just stopped to write this update when I thought I saw a little girl behind me in my rear-view mirror. Creepy day today.
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