Don’t follow the faces in the mist. It was a throwaway line, but one I should have listened to.
We had finished up a block of training and our instructor, a wiry man everyone called Buck, invited us out for drinks. Most of the group joined, but few stayed long. A lot of them were locals and had places to be. I was happy to have the company.
As the night wore on, Buck’s stern exterior came down. It is common enough to almost be a rule that sternness comes from a place of care and concern. Though sometimes misplaced, it was not so with Buck. His job was to prepare us for what we would face out in the field. Provide us with the tools to execute our jobs as Rangers. And he took it seriously.
I was happy to have him as a teacher and at the end of the night, as we said our goodbyes, I told him so. He slapped down a hand on my shoulder and took in a breath. He lifted his head and his drooping eyelids and looked at me with a sustained intensity that shook clear the clouds of a drunken mind.
He said, The Smoky Mountains are a remarkable place. But promise me one thing. Do not follow the faces in the mist.
It took five years before I discovered why.
The call came through in the early afternoon. A kid had wandered off from the campsite a few miles down the road from the Ranger Station. The situation is common enough, someone had wandered off and couldn’t find their way back or had managed to get themselves stuck. The majority of these calls resolve themselves the same day, we find the person and issue stern warnings. Hell, sometimes it is all over by the time we get there.
But not always. And no one in our Station needed any reminding. Posted on the noticeboard beside the front door is a picture of Jessica. Her photo has been there the entire five years I have worked the Station. She went missing the summer before I started. She is still there because we never found her. Jessica’s father insisted the photo stay until she either walked back out of the forest, or the alternative no one wanted to give voice to.
I know that photo better than any photo of my family or friends. Six-year-old Jessica with blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. Fingertips poking out the sleeves of a red puffer jacket one size too big. A pair of bright yellow boots pushing up over faded denim jeans. A big toothy open-mouthed smile.
Her family took the photo the day they arrived at the campsite. When the sun set on the search, her father had a copy printed and plastered them all over the surrounding towns. They were the clothes she had been wearing when she wandered off during the hike the family took up to the waterfall. The copy hanging on our notice board is the only one left.
We pulled up to the campsite in our truck. A woman with a bright red beanie pushed down over dark hair was upon us as soon as we got out. She had her phone pressed to her ear and stuffed it in her pocket absent-mindedly when she saw us.
Adrenaline made her voice shrill and pushed her words together. Kyle nodded and added a few calm words to get her on track. His voice and manner are perfect for these situations. He didn’t interrupt, he didn’t raise his voice, he only slipped in enough words to get the information we needed.
Her name was Polly. She was six years old. She had been wearing a red beanie like her mother’s and a faded brown jacket that had been passed down through the family. She had dark hair and brown eyes. And where was she last seen?
They had hiked up to the waterfall in the morning and planned to picnic up there. When they made it to the top the mist had come in so thick they couldn’t see anything of the view. That combined with the chill in the air convinced them to come back down. The four had walked together, mother, father, older brother Will, and Polly. She had been there with them when they made it down, on that point both mother and father agreed. Will had shrugged his shoulders.
At the campsite the air was clear and the fall sun warmed our shoulders. Up the mountain could very well be a different story. It is like that around here.
Had they left Polly behind during the walk back? We got a vehement No. She came down off the mountain. Somehow in the time between coming back and setting up the picnic at the fold-out table beside the camper, Polly had wandered off. It wasn’t like her. She was a good girl.
As we listened a small crowd circled us at a distance. Being the middle of the day most of the campers were off walking a trail or sightseeing in one of the nearby towns. The ones that were around, elderly couples on retirement and families on holiday, picked themselves up off their deck chairs and came to see about the commotion. No one had seen little Polly.
Kyle split us into two teams. The first was to search down around the campsite. This was the most likely place she would be. At the back of the campsite a tree-lined creek meandered down the mountain. Beyond, the terrain was rough, grass covered hills and gullies filled with thick bushes. If she had ventured out there, a slip could send her tumbling into a stack of reeds and no one would see her.
The second team was to go back up the trail. Retrace the steps the family had taken to come down. It was unlikely, but sometimes people had what Kyle called a ‘McAllister moment’. This is when a parent is sure their child is, or isn’t with them, and they are wrong. It is the sort of thing that leads to parents leaving their children in cars on hot days, and, famously, a family named McAllister leaving their child home alone to stave off some would-be thieves at Christmas time.
Mark and I ended up on the team heading up the trail. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed. Like Kyle I was sure Polly was somewhere around the campsite. It is a selfish thought, but on a search you always wanted to be the one who finds the person. I was sure now that it wouldn’t be me.
We started up the trail leaving the campsite and the search effort behind. Before we left, the mother had shown us a photo of Polly taken up at the waterfall. I kept the picture in my head as we walked. I hoped we wouldn’t be adding it to the noticeboard.
The trail was eerily quiet. I had walked it many times and always come across people powering up or coming back down. Not today. The trees surrounded us on all sides and the world went silent. We walked slowly, scanning through the forest either side and calling out her name.
We hadn’t gone far when the mist came in. Thicker and faster than usual. When you live up this way you get used to it. There’s a reason they call it the Smokies.
Before long visibility was down to only a few yards. I stopped and looked back down the trail. It was no better than the visibility ahead. It almost seemed unnatural how quickly and completely the mist had arrived. I was about to say I had never seen anything like it when Mark took the words out of my mouth. It was comforting that it wasn’t just me. No wonder the family had turned back.
The ferocity of the mist gave rise to a terrible thought. Polly may be up here in the forest somewhere. It would be easy for a child to wander off, or even to stop to fumble with a stray shoelace for long enough to get separated from her family. The parents had been sure she made it down, but then there was the McAllister effect.
I called ahead to Mark who had walked on ahead. When I received no response I skipped a few paces to catch up. As an adult and knowing the area as well as I did, there was still a moment where fear at being alone spiked in my stomach. I could only imagine what Polly was going through if she was up here all alone.
Mark had stalled on the trail up ahead. He turned as he heard my footsteps. He pointed out to the right. He thought he heard something. I squinted through the mist. Nothing moved. He couldn’t give any other details, only that something had caught in the corner of his eye and was gone as soon as he turned his head.
I stepped into the trees and called after Polly. A few steps more and I stopped and listened. Nothing.
Back on the trail Mark was fixed in place. His face had gone pale.
“It moved,” he said.
“What did?”
“The mist.”
I turned behind and then back to Mark. I waited for a punchline or for him to break into a smile, but none came.
Let’s keep going.
I found myself on edge. The mist enclosing us had a sudden menace to it. As we climbed it only grew thicker. I buttoned up my coat against the cold. It was like being high in the air and inside a cloud.
We walked in silence. I called out after Polly half-heartedly. When I noticed Mark was no longer by my shoulder I stopped and turned. I strode back down until I found him, stood as a statue.
He shook his head at me. He wanted to go down.
I grabbed his arm and told him we had to keep going. It was our job and if Polly was up here she was relying on us to come find her. Mark is a big guy, but in that moment he looked small and fragile. He looked up to the sky and then back to me. He nodded and we continued.
Up ahead the trail turned to the left. As we approached the bend shapes started to appear in the mist. At first I took them to be the outline of branches leaning over the trail. But as we came closer the outlines stretched and deformed like a cloud changing shape under high wind.
The shape coalesced into something that vaguely resembled the outline of a small child. I blinked my eyes and refocused and it was still there. The outline of a child running away from us, around the bend in the trail.
I broke into a run and rounded the bend, chasing after the shape in the mist. On the other side there was nothing. Only a blank wall of mist like before. Had I imagined it? Was my mind playing tricks? I turned to Mark to check if he had seen it, but Mark was not there.
I ran back to the bend and rounded it again in the other direction.
“Mark?”
I ran a few more steps and still nothing.
“Mark?”
I called out again and again and only silence. He was just here. He had been beside me when the bend came into view, I was sure of it. Or had he? We had walked in silence. Had he flaked, turned back and left me alone. Surely not. Mark was a reliable guy, he wouldn’t do that to me. Maybe I’d had a McAllister moment.
But then where was he?
“Mark?”
I called again and again. I ran fifty yards back down the trail and nothing.
I stood with my hands on my hips unsure what to do next. I didn’t want to walk back down to the campground without Mark. I also didn’t want to hike further up the trail alone.
A pocket of warm air washed over the back of my neck. It was as if someone pushed their mouth right up against my skin and exhaled. I snapped my head around and no one was there. I almost called out again for Mark and thought better of it.
I took a few steps back up the trail towards the bend where I had seen the shapes in the mist. On my left the rustle of leaves and a sharp crack of a twig snapping. I stopped and peered through the mist and the trees.
Something in there moved. I leaned forward. A few feet above the base of a tree a small pocket of mist turned in a circle. As I neared it coalesced into a face. The face of a child, a small girl. Polly.
I jumped forwards and the face pulled back further into the forest. I called after the girl. I followed her into the forest. If she was up here I had to look. I had to be sure.
Soon trees surrounded me on all sides. The mist hung as heavy in among the trees as it had done out on the trail. I looked left and right searching for the face I had seen, or thought I had seen. No, it had been there.
There again, up ahead the vague outline of a small girl. I put the picture of Polly back into my head so that I would know her. Red beanie. Faded brown jacket. Dark hair and brown eyes. But as much as I tried to picture Polly, it was the other girl, Jessica from the photo on the noticeboard that I saw. The blonde hair and red puffer jacket and that big smile. I couldn’t shake the image.
I followed the face of the girl in the mist. I skipped a few steps to catch up and all at once she disappeared. I stood panting a little and called out. And there she was. Direct ahead, standing in a small clearing. Red puffer jacket and blonde hair. Six-year-old Jessica. Six year old Jessica who disappeared five years ago and was now here, still six years old.
I squeezed shut my eyes and shook my head. When I opened them she was still there, smiling up at me with that big, goofy grin. I trembled. This shouldn’t be, it was Polly I was searching for. Dark hair and red beanie.
I’m looking for Polly, I said and immediately felt foolish. The child looked up at me confused, the smile gone. She turned a circle on the spot and when her face came back into view her face was different. And not only her face. Her hair was dark and she manifested a red beanie. It was Polly now where it had been Jessica a moment ago.
“Polly?” I said.
She made the same goofy smile as Jessica had in her photo. I shook my head and almost yelled at her.
“You are not real. This can’t be real.”
The grin faded again and her mouth twisted into a grotesque snarl. Her mouth opened wide and then wider still, unnaturally so, and her crooked child’s teeth morphed into razor sharp fangs. In the moment before I turned to run I locked eyes with the creature, yellow and menacing.
I raced through the trees desperately seeking the trail. I swung my head around and in the mist a wall of faces closed in from behind. I gave an involuntary yelp and forced myself to look away.
When I finally found the trail I turned and ran at full speed down and towards the campsite. Mark be damned, I didn’t want anything to do with whatever was hiding in the forest.
I turned back and before I could process anything I hit a wall on the trail and tumbled to the ground. It was Mark. I scrambled to my feet. Mark stared up at me with eyes filled with terror.
“Did you see it?”
I didn’t answer him. I grabbed him by the arm and started us down the trail. We had to get down.
Mark made a noise, a half-laugh, half-cry and I turned and followed his outstretched hand. There in among the trees was Polly. But it wasn’t Polly. She stood and watched and held out an arm and beckoned us into the forest.
“Don’t look at it.”
I fixed my eyes on the trail ahead trying to give myself tunnel vision. In my imagination the faces sprung up again on each side. I covered my head and yelled at them to stop.
And then, as if someone flicked a switch, I felt the warmth of the sun on my face. I looked up and saw the blue of the sky. We were out of it. We slowed to a walk.
When we came back to the campground Kyle asked us if we were ok. He could see we were shaken. I didn’t know how to explain what we had seen and so I told him simply that we did not find Polly. The team at the base had not found her either.
I am convinced of two things. That Polly went missing up on that trail somewhere in the mist and that whatever we saw was not her.
There is a second photo hanging on our noticeboard. Polly has joined Jessica. Two girls taken by something lurking in the mist.