The Ochre Falls State Reservation. Folks around here call it Ochre Falls, or just the Falls, but after what happened yesterday, I did some Googling. Established 1926, after the land was purchased from the wealthy family that owned a lumber mill here at the turn of the century. 400 or so acres, with a playground on one side, a small pond with a swimming area and picnic tables on the other, and between them, forest. Not wilderness, though: tame, settled woods, veined with well-maintained trails where people walk their dogs and go for morning runs. And, flowing through them in a crooked bend, a section of the Ochre River, host to the falls themselves somewhere upstream.
Ironically enough, the reservation was part of why I settled on my new apartment in the first place. After college “didn’t work out” (as my mom puts it), the plan was to find somewhere dirt-cheap to live and a job to get by on and start figuring my shit out from there. I could have gone anywhere, I guess, but without any direction or the money to get very far, I ended up choosing a quiet suburb just a couple towns over from where I’d gone to school.
The job part was pretty easy: it’s an employee’s market, and when I confirmed that I could work an espresso machine, the owner of the diner downtown hired me on the spot. The apartment I found is a hideous little box with carpets that smell like cigarettes, but I’ll be able to afford it and it’s a one-bedroom, which suits me fine.
And, as I discovered when I first looked up the address, it’s located right on the edge of Ochre Falls. My therapist back when I was in school (since I dropped out I can’t afford a new one) had suggested more than once that more exercise and time out in nature might do me good. I’ve recently been coming to terms with just how much of my life I’ve wasted stoned on a couch watching cartoons while depressed out of my mind, and looking at the pale green blotch on the digital map that represented the reservation, I decided I was ready to give exercise and nature a try, if I could only work up the motivation.
Plus, this town is like most places in the US: there are hardly even any sidewalks, and it’s almost impossible to get anywhere without a car.
Except, as my GPS informed me, by way of Ochre Falls. If I cut through the reservation, my new job, and the rest of downtown, are all just a 30-minute walk away.
It turned out to be a lucky thing, too. My twenty-year-old Subaru barely made it through the move before giving up the ghost, and the mechanic said I’d be wasting my money trying to get it running again. Dad said he’d help pay for a new one, but we both know he and Mom are barely scraping by as it is. Here’s that motivation you asked for, Jess, I told myself as I watched them haul my old car away. Until I could save up enough for some new hunk of junk, I’d be walking.
I start my new job on Monday, and I’d planned to spend this weekend unpacking. But as it turns out, I don’t own much. It only took a couple hours to put everything in the moving boxes away into cupboards and dressers and to hang up my few decorations, and by mid-afternoon yesterday, I found myself with nothing left to do.
I tried sitting down with my journal (another holdover from therapy) to write down my feelings about the move, but found that I was mainly just relieved that it was over with. I spent some time on the couch fucking around on my phone, but pretty soon I was bored, and more than that, antsy. I’d spent all day cooped up in this apartment, which I’m not crazy about to begin with.
That was when I had my bright idea: why not take my first walk through Ochre Falls? Not only would it get me out of the house, but I could take my time figuring out my route to get to work. Better to get lost now than on Monday morning. Plus, when I made it to the other side, I could do some window shopping downtown, maybe even buy myself a little treat.
I put on my shoes and jacket, grabbed my phone, earbuds, keys, wallet, mace, and sunglasses, and headed out the door. It was a bright early fall day, warm sun with a crisp breeze. I walked the couple of blocks to the trailhead. My side of the park is the one with the playground, and I was met with happy shrieks as kids chased each other around the monkey bars. One of the young moms, sitting on a bench with a baby in a stroller, gave me a friendly smile as I passed, and I smiled back. Seemed like being outside was already doing something for my mood already. Another point for you, Dr. Winchell.
I crunched up the gravel path into the trees that waited beyond. I’d thought I might need to use GPS to navigate, but there were plenty of well-placed signposts along the way to direct me, so instead of staring at my phone, I could fully enjoy the birdsong above and around me, the fresh earthy smell in the air, the late-afternoon sunlight filtering through the leaves on the trees, just starting to tinge with autumn colors at their edges. I passed a few people on the way, smiled at the cute cockapoos and labs jingling along on leashes. I liked Ochre Falls a lot already, I decided.
About fifteen minutes in, I heard the sound of rushing water up ahead where the trees seemed to thin out. I turned a bend, and there it was: a slow-flowing river, lush with reeds and overhanging branches. And stretching over it, one of those wooden boardwalks, long and straight, so that I could look across and see the trail continuing into the woods on the other side.
The reason for the ‘Ochre’ part of the river’s name became obvious as I approached: the water was a reddish-orange color, no doubt due to iron or some other mineral. I even thought I could smell something metallic in the air.
The railings of the boardwalk were covered in patches of green and orange lichen. They felt slightly damp to the touch as I stepped up onto the wooden planks, which creaked gently under my weight.
I started across. The river wasn’t terribly wide here and it wouldn’t take long to get to the other side, but I found myself taking my time. The sound and smell of the water was soothing; the stands of reeds growing by the banks and the lilypads drifting across the dark, quiet surface were beautiful. How nice it was going to be, I thought to myself, to cross here every day on my way to and from work.
Hindsight is funny, isn’t it.
About halfway across, I was jolted out of my thoughts by the distinct sensation that I’d walked through something.
I stopped in my tracks, a reflexive shudder going down my spine. It was the same instinctive, panic-tinged ‘yuck’ that you get when you accidentally walk face-first into a spiderweb, the silky strands brushing and clinging. Only this barrier hadn’t felt physical: more like a thin, invisible wall of static, that for the moment I was passing through it, had hummed and crackled along my skin and made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
But what had really frozen me in place was the sudden, unnerving certainty that struck me. Not the feeling of being watched, exactly: I’ve had plenty of creepers stare at me from across dark parking lots, and by now I know what it’s like to sense a pair of eyes on me even before I see them.
This was different. Somehow I could feel that… something… was now aware of me. When I’d walked through whatever it was I’d walked through, I’d alerted it of my presence, and now it knew I was here.
Something without eyes or ears. Something nearby.
I realized then how alone I was in that spot. No friendly joggers or dog walkers in sight. Just the birds and plants and breeze and quiet water flowing past, as I stood there in the middle of the boardwalk, exposed on all sides in broad daylight.
Stop it, I told myself, trying to shake it off. I’ve never believed in ghosts or spirits or anything like that, and I wasn’t gonna start now. Deliberately, I started walking again, ignoring the urge to bolt and run the rest of the way across. I told myself that it was the time of year when lots of static electricity builds up in everything (in bridges? in a single location?), that I’d just gotten spooked out in the woods by myself (I wasn’t spooked before, was I?).
But I found that I was holding my breath, and that my pace had quickened into a quick, efficient walk.
Despite myself, I felt a wave of relief as I stepped back off of the boards and onto the waiting dirt on the other side. Refusing to look back over my shoulder, I continued along the path back into the woods.
Back among the trees, I made myself breathe in the fall air. But try as I might, I couldn’t quite recapture the same pleasure in the walk. I could feel the edginess in my own nod and tight smile when a man biked past me in the other direction. I had to be almost through, now, didn’t I?
Sure enough, the trail soon led me past the pebbly waterfront of the pond, past a metal gate and back out to sidewalk and civilization. There were the cars, the houses, the street signs. Something in me relaxed, finally, the same way it did when I was a kid playing tag and made it safely back to my team’s base.
When I turned onto Main Street, the sun had sunk low enough in the sky to dazzle back at me off of the storefronts. I’d forgotten that a lot of places would be closed early for the weekend, but I still enjoyed my stroll down the street, stopping looking in the dark windows at hand-made jewelry and frou-frou clothes I could never afford, at the still-lifes and landscapes painted by local artists hanging proudly in the window of the tiny art gallery.
Most of the places still open were dining establishments, restaurants and bars. The diner I’d interviewed at a few weeks before was lit up, and I could see inside where patrons were lined up on stools at the counter eating eggs for dinner. But I figured it’d come off as a little clingy to stop in there ahead of time, like I just couldn’t wait to get started. Instead, I opted for the convenience store a block down. I’d promised myself a treat, after all.
The place was small and dingy, with shelves of boxed mac-n-cheese and humming fridges full of beer and soda. I headed straight for the snack section, knowing just what I was looking for: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and something made by Hostess to wash them down.
Heading to the counter with my spoils, I stopped and waited for the girl working it to ring up an older gentleman’s lottery tickets. She looked about my age, and cute, I couldn’t help but notice, slim and dark-eyed. When it was my turn, she smiled at me as I stepped up to the counter. “Find everything OK?”
“Yes, thanks.” I smiled back, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious about my selections. (If you were the chubby kid in high school, you get it.)
But it was me she turned a seemingly thoughtful eye on as she rang me up. “I saw you walking up and down the street earlier,” she said, sounding curious rather than suspicious. “Are you here on vacation?”
I refrained from commenting that if I could afford to go on vacation, this spot wouldn’t be my top choice. “No, I actually just moved to town,” I said. “I’m starting at the diner on Monday.”
“Oh, cool,” she said with a smile as I put my card in the chip reader, and it sounded like she meant it. “Where are you living?”
“The complex on the other side of the Falls,” I told her. “I walked here. It’s a beautiful park.”
Thinking back on it now, I’m still not sure: did I imagine the flash of recognition, of resignation, almost, in her eyes, as she looked back down at the register?
She was smiling politely when she glanced back up as my receipt printed. “Nice,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you around, then.”
“Yeah, for sure,” I said, and trying for a joke, “I’m gonna need a local Cheetos hookup, after all.”
She laughed, which was nice. (As an average lesbian, I’ve misinterpreted my fair share of chatty straight girls as flirting, so I tried not to read into it, but still.) “Yeah, we’ve got the market cornered there.” She handed me my little plastic baggie of snacks and my change.
I thanked her and almost promised I’d be back, before deciding that might be a little too stalkerish. “See you later,” I opted to call instead as I headed for the door.
She called back a cheery reply. It was only when I was already back outside in the cool evening air when my brain fully processed what she had said:
“Don’t look behind you ‘til you get to the other side!”
I stopped on the sidewalk. Not only was that… a pretty weird thing to say, but the way she’d said it was distinctly odd too, in a pleasant, customer-service tone of voice, just the way a cashier might call out Have a nice day! or Thank you, come again!
Maybe it was some sort of, like, regional expression? I glanced back through the window. She’d picked up a landline phone behind the counter and was holding it between her ear and shoulder, listening closely and writing something down on a sticky note.
Trying not to give it much more thought, I adjusted my grip on the bag and set back out in the direction of the park. As the waterfront came back into sight, and the trail into the forest beyond, a creepy feeling started to come over me again. Maybe it was just residual nerves from earlier, or what the girl behind the counter had said to me, or maybe it was the fact that when I’d set out in the first place, I hadn’t given much thought to the time. The sun was nearly at the horizon now, the day turning into dim twilight, and while it wouldn’t be fully dark out by the time I got home, it’d be pretty damn close. Whatever the reason, some part of me was saying that it did not want to go back into those woods, so bright and pleasant before, now looking tangled and foreboding, streaked with long, deep shadows.
Stubbornly, I ignored myself: it was a municipal park in the middle of a well-populated area, and I had my phone and my mace on me if anyone tried to mess with me. Besides, there was no other way to get home, was there? My feet were tired and I was getting hungry for dinner. There was only a short walk left between me and food and rest. The water slapped quietly against the buoys bobbing on the pond as I walked back into the trees.
No one else was still out on the trails at this time of day. It was just me walking along the trail, as the shadows around me deepened and the sky I could see through the branches above turned from pale blue to pale gold and then began fading into dim gray. There were still scattered bird calls, now joined by the chirring of insects, and I could hear little animals scurrying in the underbrush, but other than that, the crunching of my feet on the path sounded very loud to me.
With a flicker, a series of lights lining the trail blinked on. At first I was grateful for the visibility, but pretty soon something about their pale, fluorescent glow, that formed a series of cold, hard spotlights along the trail, started to creep me out. The eerie feeling inside of me kept growing, no matter how hard I tried to push it down. Even the signposts that had seemed so friendly before loomed up, long and skinny, out of the shadows, silent sentinels
I’d been walking for fifteen minutes when I heard it up ahead: the faint sound of rushing water. My heart sank. I’d been trying not to think about it all along, but of course I’d known that I’d have to cross the boardwalk again on my way home.
Soon enough, the trees thinned out, and there it was up ahead, the long wooden structure stretching out over the dark stretch of the water. At least the twilight was a bit brighter out here, without the trees blocking out what remained of the dying light still left in the sky.
I paused at the foot of the boardwalk, feeling the clamminess of my hand wrapped around the plastic handles of my shopping bag, hearing my own breathing becoming shallow. I clenched my jaw against the feeling of mounting dread, told myself once again that this was stupid, it was just a fucking boardwalk, that the sooner I crossed it, the sooner I’d be home.
Ignoring the protestations of my own instincts, I squared my shoulders and stepped up on to it, intending to speed-walk across the damn thing without stopping. The water rushed quietly under my feet as they scuffed along the wooden boards, and I kept my eyes fixed on the trail on the other side.
“Jess!”
I was almost at the middle of the boardwalk when the shout from behind me startled me so badly that I was rooted to the spot. It was a jolt of adrenaline, yes, but also a jolt of recognition.
I’d know the voice anywhere. It belonged to my one real friend from school, Michelle, a good-natured lacrosse player who’d tried to take me under her wing and introduce me to her friend group, even though at the time I’d been far too in my head and screwed up to really benefit from her kindness. She was the only person I’d bothered to even tell I was dropping out, and she’d given me a big hug with her strong arms and we’d promised to keep in touch over text. I’d felt pretty guilty about my own failure to reply to the few texts she’d sent me since, wondering if she was mad or hurt or, worse, didn’t really care all that much.
“Jess, it’s Mickey!” Yes, that was definitely Michelle’s relaxed, husky voice, a dozen or so yards behind me but audibly drawing nearer, as if she was hurrying to catch up. “What the fuck are you doing out here?” she called, laughing a bit, sounding exactly like I’d have wanted her to sound, no hard feelings at all, just her warm lovely self, sincerely glad to see me, waiting for me to turn around and greet her.
Any other time, I would have been thrilled. But what welled up within me, here and now, was a deep, primal terror.
Don’t look behind you ‘til you get to the other side!
My hand shot into my pocket. I fumbled out the case for my wireless earbuds. My fingertips numb and clumsy, I pressed them into my ears as quickly as I could. Then, spine stiff with fear, eyes locked forward, I started walking again, as fast as I could.
Here was the logic that my terrified brain was capable of: if it really was Michelle back there (and of course, of course it was, who else could it be?), I’d get across the bridge and then turn around and take out my earbuds as she was catching up to me, claiming I hadn’t been able to hear her over the water and my music. Which she’d hopefully buy, and would hopefully come across as less weird than me just straight out ignoring her.
I wasn’t actually listening to any music, of course, and I could still hear just fine. “Jess?” Michelle called again. “Ah, shit, she can’t–” I heard her mutter to herself, and then she tried again, louder, with the distinct sound of hands cupped around her mouth to help amplify her voice. “JESS! Jess McDonald! Hey dummy! Turn around!”
Only a few more yards to the end of the bridge. It took all of my willpower not to break into a sprint, knowing how it’d look to Michelle, but I was walking so fast I was practically running.
“Oh my God.” She sounded annoyed now, and a pang of guilt and self-loathing shot through me. “For fuck’s sake, Je– OW!”
Despite myself, the strangled cry of pain stopped me in my tracks once again, steps from the dirt of the trail on the other side. Behind me, I heard the sound of someone falling to their knees, a tight sob.
“Jesus Christ, I rolled my ankle– it hurts-- Jess! Jess, please, please turn around, I need help…”
The pain, the strain and distress in her voice, was visceral. God, what the hell was I doing? I needed to drop this, this silly, paranoid behavior, to turn around and help her like a decent human being.
And yet, whispered a voice in my mind. Awfully convenient, wasn’t it?
This time I took off running, my shoes slapping against the boards. If it really was Michelle back there with a sprained ankle, time was of the essence, and if it wasn’t–
“Jess!?.Jess, where are you going, don’t leave me here, please, Jess, JE–!”
I hit the other side. And as soon as my foot touched dirt, that very split second, Michelle’s voice cut out, mid-wail. Not like someone trailing off, or losing their breath.
Like a recording, abruptly shut off.
Instant silence. Just the bugs, the wind, the water, and my own heavy, half-crazed breathing.
As I reached up to remove my earbuds, I found that my hands were trembling. I swallowed, my mouth dry and tacky. All I wanted to do was keep running until I was back at my apartment with the door locked behind me. But I was on the other side, now, and I had to look back. I had to.
Slowly, slowly, I turned my head and looked back over my shoulder.
Nobody was there. No Michelle. No anyone. Just the empty boardwalk under the gray twilit sky, almost hard to see now in the falling darkness. Empty, except for the plastic bag from the convenience store, which lay a few yards back where I’d dropped it without even realizing it in my mad dash, its content spilling out onto the planks.
Like hell if I was going back for it.
I turned, facing the trail ahead of me and the long, exhausting trudge the rest of the way home. The urge to run had drained away entirely. The danger, I knew, was already behind me.
--
Of course, the likelier explanation is that there was no danger at all. That everything I experienced yesterday was the beginning of some kind of paranoid psychosis. It’d make sense, too. Maybe that’s why I’d failed all my classes at school; hadn’t made any friends; had spent the past semester miserable and terrified, hiding from the world in my dorm. An imminent breakdown.
Cold comfort.
Or maybe I’m not crazy. Maybe all of it really happened, just as I’ve described it. Which is even colder comfort. No comfort at all, really.
I’ve spent today locked up in my apartment, Google mapping like crazy. But there’s no way around it. I’m without a car for the foreseeable future; there are no buses here; I can’t afford Uber; and walking the long way around to the diner would take something like five hours.
I’ve even studied the grainy JPEG of the map of the Falls on the town website, zooming in on every little path and trail. But as it turns out, all of them converge about halfway through the park. All at the same spot.
There’s no other way across the river. And I start work tomorrow.