My first memory was finding a dying woman.
It was a beautiful day at the beach. Mom fell asleep sunbathing, and dad was getting us ice cream. I spotted a funny looking bird and wandered off. Not too far, but far enough that I couldn’t see the beach anymore. There, lying in the underbrush, was a woman.
All I could focus on was the way she looked at me. Her intense eyes. Her gasping breath. The way she moved her jaw like a fish out of water. She made this popping noise every time she opened her mouth.
I must’ve stood there for about half an hour. I don’t remember seeing her die. All I remember was a man leading me back to my parents. Everyone was crying and screaming, and mom hugged me so tight I could barely breathe.
But in the back of my mind, that sound just never went away. Her mouth opening and closing, but no air rushing into her lungs.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
This was years ago. It was, quite literally, my first memory. I’m in my late 20’s now. I finished high school, got my degree at WVU, and moved back home to the middle of nowhere to live the quiet West Virginia small-town experience. Mom and dad have long since separated. Mom moved to Cali, while dad married someone he met at the DMV and moved to Michigan. I bought the old house for a fraction of the cost, and my remote work in a specialized field has afforded me a comfortable life style. I gotta say, it’s not too bad once you get past the zoom meetings.
Juniper (WV) is the kind of town that doesn’t really have a “downtown” area. There’s a slightly larger street where most shops happen to be, but it’s not really planned out. But there’s this one bistro that does a lot of Appalachian dishes, and it’s just to die for. I go there twice a week. Partly to flirt with the waitress (she started it, I’m not a creep), and partly for their hot dogs. That thing is a whole meal. And if I’ve had a particularly rough week, you can get a pawpaw ice cream that’s just out of this world. Look it up, you’d love it.
That’s where this all started.
I was sitting down with my hot dog, thinking about how much of a tip I should put down for the waitress to talk to me a bit longer, when I had this awful knot in my stomach. It felt like I’d swallowed a block of ice. Then I had this tingle, like someone softly blowing into my ear. In the mirror behind the pretty waitress, I could see a vague shape. And then I heard it, clear as day.
Pop.
I shot out of my chair like a bat out of hell. Plates and glassware clattered to the floor, sending my hot dog sprawling across the hardwood. My heart was pounding like a hammer on an anvil, sending painful surges of adrenaline straight through me. Like the entire world was screaming at me to run.
It took me a few seconds to realize they’d all gone quiet. I was just standing there in the middle of the shop. Smooth jazz still playing in the background as my root beer sunk into the floor. A little bell ringing from the front door as an elderly man walked in; staring at me like I was a maniac.
There was no tip in the world that could make the waitress talk to me at that point.
I was just caught completely off guard. Up until that point, I hadn’t given that first memory a second thought. It was buried so deep in the back of my mind that it’d turned into something ethereal. Like the way you can almost remember the rubber taste of a binky, or you hear a radio jingle that tickles your memory in a funny way. But at that moment, on from that moment on, that memory has been clear as day.
Her pin-sized eyes. Her convulsing chest movements. That lake-roughened brown hair, tangled into the underbrush. And that sound. If I were to forget my own name, I still wouldn’t forget that sound. A dying body mechanically trying to inhale into failing lungs, forcing cold lips apart.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
I helped them clean up and promptly left. I was too embarrassed. They assured me that it was fine and asked me if something was wrong, but I just couldn’t put it into words. I didn’t understand what’d happened, and I needed to get away. My pulse was pounding so hard that it hurt, and my face was getting flustered. To an outsider, it might look like I was having a heart attack.
Maybe I was.
I got back in my car. My hands were shaking so bad that I had trouble putting the seat belt on. I was so pumped up that my frustration got the better of me, making me slam my hands into the dashboard and scream. It was like opening a high-pressure valve. I slowly cooled off as I dug my hands into the steering wheel.
“Focus,” I whispered to myself. “Deal with this.”
I took the long road back, avoiding the highway. I still wasn’t 100% sure that I wasn’t having some kind of episode, and I didn’t want to put others in danger.
I had a hundred thoughts passing through my mind at once. When was this? Who was that woman? And what had made that sound crawl its way back into my mind?
It was such a strange and alien sensation, like having someone pet your brain. So I did what I should’ve done long ago; I called my parents.
I got a glass of red and curled up on my living room couch, looking out my back yard. The gentle swaying of the sugar maple trees soothed me enough to make me to push the green call button.
But my mom has never been good at talking about serious things. Her view of the divorce was “a hiccup” that barely needed to be mentioned at all. Her moving to Cali was just “something to do”. So trying to make her talk about me witnessing a dying woman as a child was not gonna happen. I got a lot of “it was so long ago” and “I’m not sure that ever happened”. Finally, as she always does, she avoided the topic entirely. We ended up having a 20-minute discussion about inflation instead.
My dad is a whole other story. This is the most cheerful man you can imagine. Everything he says turns into a joke, so trying to talk about something serious is akin to swearing at a priest. It’s something that you just don’t do.
But I had to.
So I called him and brought it up. That first memory, and what it could mean. He went quiet for a solid ten seconds. All I heard was daytime TV running in the background, and static.
“You… you remember that?”
I could hear him collecting himself. Trying to find the right words. All the while, I tried to stay on-task and not let myself get distracted by how uncomfortable this was to talk about. With a heavy sigh, my dad told me all there was to know.
Sally Alger, age 19. She’d been camping with her family when she was brutally murdered in the middle of the day. She’d been stabbed and left to bleed out. Her actual cause of death was asphyxiation, as the blood in her lungs stopped her from breathing. Her assailant, the (at the time) 31-year-old Jonah Morley, was sentenced to life imprisonment. He had been seen chatting up Sally a couple of times that week, and the murder weapon had been found in his personal locker; which had a padlock that only he had access to.
Now, I can’t stress this enough; it was painful to drag this out of my dad. I had to stop him from making jokes, changing the subject, or excusing himself entirely. I had to ask for specifics, for names, for places. And it’s not like he didn’t know; he could say it all off the top of his head. He just didn’t like to talk about it.
“I’m sorry you remember that,” he sighed. “I thought you were too young.”
I finished my glass of red and let him ease the tension with a couple of puns, and we hung up.
An icicle trickled down my spine, as I looked out at the sugar maple trees. My tongue swelled as I could taste the salt of my sweat. It was coming.
Something was there.
Pop.
Chaos, panic, and paranoia. Where was it coming from? Why now? I had to catch my wine glass from tumbling off the coffee table as I got up.
For the next few days, this was all I could think of. That popping noise would go off seemingly at random. Once when I was at the supermarket, another time when I was pumping gas. And every time it happened, I couldn’t stop myself from freaking out. I’d cover my ears, or scream, or wave my arms like I was fighting off an invisible swarm of bees. And every time I saw someone looking at me like I was an idiot, my heart just sank deeper. I could feel their eyes digging into me, the same way that dying woman had stared at me with those pin-sized pupils. Hell, the old man from the bistro had seen me like this at least three times by now; he must’ve thought I was mentally ill.
Maybe I was.
It came to a point where I heard it while driving down the highway. I had to stop myself from swerving off the road at 65 mph. I sank my face into my hands and cried out the frustration, and swore to myself that this had to stop. I was going to do something about it. Whatever this was, and whatever caused it, was going to end.
I just couldn’t get that feeling of dread out of me. Like it wasn’t merely a memory.
It was more like death herself, reminding me just how close she could be.
I got a few friends in the area. One of them is Darren, who I went to college with. We moved back to Juniper together, but sort of lost touch as he settled down with his wife. They’re expecting a kid any day now.
But Darren has a dad who works as a prison guard. And, as it happens, a certain Johan Morley is incarcerated at that very prison. A few phone calls and pleasant memories shared later, and I was on my way to have a chat with the man who caused this all to happen in the first place. I figured that seeing him could kick some other memory into high gear. Maybe if I saw him, my mind could finish this puzzle and leave me alone. It’s like when you have a song stuck in your head; listening to it can make it go away.
It was a windy Thursday when I went to meet him. I met Darren’s father in the parking lot, and he showed me inside. I signed the necessary paperwork, left all sensitive items behind, and bought a little blue charity pin to support local law enforcement. I didn’t mind, it was pretty cute. A little blue sunflower.
I got past the metal detector and walked down the long concrete corridor. I could hear the wind howling outside, like a reminder that reality was waiting for me. By the time he put the keys into a reinforced door, I was already regretting it. I was trying to tell myself to walk away, and that this wouldn’t mean a thing.
But I had to try.
Jonah Morley is about to turn 57 years old. He has been incarcerated most of his life, and it showed. The pictures I’d seen of him had shown a skinny surfer kind of guy, but the one sitting across from me looked more like a depressed accountant. Wavy sand-blonde hair had been cut down with an electric buzzer, leaving little uneven stripes where he hadn’t bothered to fix it. Dark, unblinking eyes.
We were two strangers. Nowhere in my memory did I envision this person. Still, this was him. The guy. The murderer.
“I didn’t do it,” he sighed.
It caught me off guard. I hadn’t said a word.
“You’re with the Algers, right? Wanna ask me why I did it? You’re wasting your time.”
“I’m not with the Algers,” I said. “I, uh… I was there.”
Jonah rolled the words over and over in his mind and furrowed his brow. He leaned forward, rattling his chains. His eyes lit up with realization.
“So you… you know then,” he nodded. “You… you know it wasn’t me. Did you, uh… did you see the guy? The, the, uh… the murderer?”
“No no, I-… I didn’t,” I said, showing my empty hands. “I barely remember it. But I was, uh… I was there.”
Jonah leaned back and thought about it. He squinted at me, choosing his words carefully.
“You’re…. you’re the kid.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “That’s me.”
“That’s fucked up, man. You were tiny.”
He leaned forward again, easing his expression.
“Can’t imagine you’d forget something like that. Must’ve been awful.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “That’s sort of why I’m here. I’m trying to figure out what happened.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Jonah shrugged. “I didn’t do it. I was getting high behind the dressing room.”
“But they saw you talking,” I said. “And you had the knife.”
Jonah leaned back and sighed. He’d heard this before. All his energy sort of poured out of him.
“She talked to me. I appreciate a pretty girl like anyone red-blooded man, but I had something going on with this Minnesota chick. See?”
He pulled up his shirt, showing me a crudely drawn ‘Millie’-tattoo.
“Love of my life. Wouldn’t trade her for anything. But sometimes when you talk to a pretty girl, people just start assuming things. Assuming you’re a… a creep. A perv. Especially when you’re not.”
The image of the pretty waitress came to mind. I could relate.
The conversation with Johan Morley lead absolutely nowhere. Still, for the rest of the day, I didn’t feel that pop a single time. Maybe he’d helped more than expected. Maybe it could go away.
I took some time off work and kept to myself for a while. And for a few days, all was well. I could feel my real self shining through the cracks of the stress I’d built up. I could even fall asleep before midnight. I could shower without worrying about spazzing out and breaking my neck, or brushing my teeth without shoving my toothbrush into the back of my throat.
For a while, I felt like myself again.
So I figured I’d give that bistro another go. Maybe I could ask for her name this time. I decided I’d go a little later, when there weren’t as many people around. Maybe.
I ended up walking past the place about an hour before closing time. The sky was going dark, and the wind was going strong. I could see she was still working. I felt a bit guilty about it, but I still made my way inside and ordered a hot dog and some sweet potato fries. If I could build up the courage, I wanted to ask if she’d like to get some pawpaw ice cream with me. I’d seen her eat it before.
As the customers finished, the pretty waitress started to lock things up. There was this display case in the window that she couldn’t close, and she kept messing around with this half-broken padlock. She fuddled with it for a solid five minutes before one of the regulars, an older man, fixed it for her. Can’t underestimate old-timers, they got the magic in their wrists.
And as that lock clicked shut, it all came back with a vengeance.
Pop.
This time I shot out of my chair, cursing like a sailor. I tore at my hair and jumped up and down, trying to warm myself up and get the adrenaline out. I looked at the pretty waitress and the old man, only to see a third figure just behind them.
A woman with brown lake-roughened hair.
Opening and closing her mouth, like a fish out of water.
Staring at me with pin-sized eyes.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
I just ran. I got up, fell through the front door, and just ran.
Pop.
It was louder, sending spikes of ice up my spine. I couldn’t feel my feet, causing me to stumble every step of the way.
Pop.
I finally collapsed in a nearby alley, violently throwing up as stomach acid made its way up the back of my throat.
But it didn’t stop. It wouldn’t stop.
She was there. I looked up from the ground, only to see her pallid feet. I could smell nothing but blood and wildflowers.
Pop.
I backed out. I could hear her following me. People were staring at me from across the street as I made my way back to my car. I got my keys, got in, and locked the doors. I covered my ears and eyes, rubbing my hands against my head.
I could still hear it.
Her.
Sally.
Pop.
Dead eyes in the rear-view mirror.
Convulsions rubbing against the backseat leather.
“Fuck off!” I screamed. “Fuck off, and-“
I turned around.
And there was nothing.
I sat there for at least fifteen minutes. I tried calming myself down. I wiped my shirt clean, and I tried to cry some frustration out. I couldn’t go on living like this. I couldn’t live in fear of being judged every time I stepped outside. I had to do something. Anything.
I got out of my car. The bistro had closed. Desperate to explain myself, I looped around the back. I figured I could explain myself, at a distance. Just… say something. Try not to look too threatening.
There was only one car in the parking lot behind the bistro, and it was empty. I cursed myself for being an idiot. I felt like a stalker. The words of Jonah Morley rung in my ears. In a way, I must’ve looked just like him. Someone seemingly obsessed with a pretty girl.
A thought crossed my mind.
An uncomfortable thought.
I took a closer look at the car. The left front tire was flat. I looked a little bit closer.
Now I’m no expert, but it sure looked like it’d been cut with something sharp.
I straightened my back and thought about it. The knife that’d convicted Jonah Morley had been found in his locker; behind a padlock. He’d been seen talking to this girl in a very public place. And he’d been marked early on as a bit of a weirdo; maybe because of his recreational drug use.
This was feeling a bit too similar. Like, hauntingly similar.
And as I looked across the parking lot, I saw Sally Alger, standing under a streetlight.
She didn’t make a single sound.
She just pointed down the road.
This time, I ran towards danger. The exact opposite of where my instincts where telling me to go. The ice in my stomach gave way to warm blood, pumping through me like a steam engine. I ran down a small one-lane road, leading back to a set of row houses. My loafers smacked against the pavement in a rhythm that put me in a trance. My breathing grew steady.
In-in-out. In-in-out.
Another streetlight.
Sally pointed me in a new direction.
I followed a small dirt path into a dark forest. Past the sugar maples, not too far from my neighborhood. I could hear people talking. A young woman. An old man.
A scream.
As I came around the bend, I saw the pretty waitress and the old man; her regular. The same one who’d helped her with the lock for the display case. The same one who’d looked me straight in the eye that first time I heard the popping noise. The one I’d seen around town. Hell, he probably drove by me all the time.
This was it. This was what Sally wanted me to see.
He had a knife.
The waitress was holding the side of her stomach, fumbling backwards.
I tackled him. It wasn’t a good hit, but it was straight on. The guy was built like a retired quarterback, but I rattled him. Still, in that moment, I knew I’d fucked up.
My head suddenly started spinning as he headbutted me. I was sent reeling back, pushed up against a broken old streetlight.
“Who the fuck are you?!” he screamed at me. “Why the fuck do you keep staring at me?!”
A thrust of the knife, going straight through my triceps.
“Why are you staring?!” he kept repeating. “Why the fuck are you staring?!”
He kicked me, smacking me into the streetlight again. I sank to the ground, holding my arm. I looked for something – anything – but there wasn’t even a rock around. Just gravel, and I couldn’t lift my arm enough to throw it.
The old man took another look at me, and a moment of recognition washed over him. Maybe I looked at him the same way I’d looked at him that day, all those years ago.
We knew each other. He took me back to my parents.
In that moment of hesitation, there was a flicker.
And as the streetlight turned itself on, there she was.
Sally Alger, with her lake-roughened hair.
The old man turned to face her.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t attack. She just looked at him and opened her mouth.
Pop.
He fell to the ground, lifeless, as the lights went out.
And then Sally was gone.
Turns out that old man was Peter ‘Pops’ Harrigan. A retired police detective who’d investigated the murder of Sally Alger. He’d been pretty close to her, which is why he’d been handed the case in the first place. Turns out, he was the one who’d conveniently found the knife. After that case, he’d moved upstate. He recently moved back to his hometown of Juniper and decided to take up this… old hobby of his. Since his death, officers discovered there was some ‘disturbing evidence’ in his home, but the details were never revealed to the public.
Things kicked into high gear just days after that. I went through grueling interviews with people who personally knew ‘Pops’, and they weren’t all too friendly about it. But the waitress corroborated my story to the best of her ability. I’d heard her scream, and been a good Samaritan. That was that.
They figured the stress of being confronted was just too much for his heart to bear. Some kind of blood vessel had burst.
Jonah Morley is currently in the process of being exonerated. I don’t plan on meeting him again, but I’m glad the truth came out. I hope he can find some kind of peace in himself.
And as for me? Well, this ain’t no fairy tale, but the waitress’ name is Elaine.
And we’re meeting up for pawpaw ice cream next week.