I want to tell you my story in order to help you protect your children. And in order to tell it correctly, I need to alternate between what I went through as a kid to what I went through as an adult.
Children always seem to have different fascinations. And who can blame them? With a creative imagination and the whole world to explore, it only makes sense. Some kids get obsessed with Marvel, others create rock collections, and some get really into games like Fortnite or Minecraft. My fascination as a kid? Socks.
I mean, I was captivated by the things. I loved the cozy embrace of their soft texture, the vast array of intricate designs, and the diversity in lengths that could range from just covering the toes to extending up to the ankle. In my mind, socks were too often overlooked, viewed as simple pieces of fabric by most, when they were essential to the world running properly. People would always talk about what shirt they wore, what their favorite hat was, but never about their socks. I would always think to myself that without the cushioning and protective layer of socks, our feet would be susceptible to the harsh rub of our shoes, leading to painful blisters and sores. “Such discomfort would severely limit our mobility,” I had thought, “restricting us to only wearing those dreadful sandals.”
Admittedly, I had a bit of an obsession. My sock collection was vast, ensuring I never wore the same pair within a month. My assortment included polka-dotted socks, Nike-branded ones, and socks with whimsical designs such as pandas driving taco cars. I owned a mismatched pair: one sock represented milk and its counterpart, a cookie. Another illustrated arguing chickens, and there was even a pair covered with silly photos of my own face. I’d craft socks into puppets for school show and tell, proudly sharing them with my friends. Whenever I saw a donation box, I’d happily toss a pair of socks in the next time I came by.
Can you really fault my excitement? After all, I think I started really getting into it at 5 years old.
It was at 9 years old that I threw them all away. I only wore sandals for a while after that. True, I was made fun of at school, but I didn’t care. My parents were baffled at the sudden change, and after the school complained that I wasn’t following the school dress code, my parents tried to get me to wear socks again. But after feeling me tremble with symptoms of a panic attack every time they tried to put them on me, they stopped trying and instead helped me find shoes that you can wear without socks like boat shoes and moccasins. One night on the stairwell, I overheard them talking about taking me to see a therapist, but my dad voiced opposition, afraid a child my age going to therapy would cause me to think there was something wrong with me and cause more issues.
At 34, I now live in western Oregon, just outside Portland. I don’t really like being in the city. I miss the small-town comfort where everyone knows each other by name, there’s no rush or traffic to get anywhere, and it’s much quieter. But when I moved out of my parents’ house, I immediately left my small town in the woods in order to get closer to more people.
One of my daughters, Madison, has an obsession with bumblebees. She wears a bumblebee costume every year for Halloween, and she constantly asks me when we can get our own beehive. I tell her that when she is a little older, we can get one, but I think in reality, I keep pushing it off because I’m afraid we’re going to mismanage them and get attacked at some point.
I’m very watchful over my two small children. I haven’t tried to restrict them or hide them from the world, but I am always there to make sure they never go too far. Occasionally, they will say that I’m overprotective, but they haven’t seen what I have. The world is wicked, and there are things out there that I hope they never discover. She’s a couple years older now than I was on that sinister day. Smarter and tougher too.
I always get paranoid when our kids disappear, even if only for a few minutes. Back in May, after some afternoon shopping at the mall, I gave in to my youngest daughter’s wishes that she could visit the toy store next door while I paid for some clothes. Minutes later, I couldn’t find her. I even yelled at the toy store cashier when she told me she hadn’t seen Jillian. Panic-stricken, I notified mall security and demanded they scour all of the security cameras to find my little girl. After an agonizing 15 minutes, I found her sitting at a reading corner in a bookstore just across from the toy store, engrossed in a “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book. I know some people find it to be over the top, but I guarantee all parents get a little frightened when their kids disappear. It’s for good reason.
My family was living in the town of Welches, and we had just begun fall season. I was walking home from the bus stop, not even a 5-minute walk, when I noticed a dark, red-colored sock on the edge of the woods just off the road. It was hanging on top of a stick that had been propped up coming out of the ground. Surprised, I walked over and inspected it. It had rained the night before, but the sock looked dry, so I knew it must’ve been placed there that day. In fact, it looked perfect as if it had never even been worn. It had a design of colorful blue and green zigzags lining across it. The only thing that came to mind was that someone was stepping into a pond or stream and didn’t want to get their socks wet, but I looked around, and no one was close by.
But there was something bright yellow hanging from a stick deep in the woods, just barely in sight. Intrigued, I began walking towards it. Upon reaching it, I discovered it was another sock, its fabric contrasted starkly against the dark bark of the tree. This one was solid yellow, and as I studied it, my eyes were drawn deeper into the woods where another splash of color sat in the sunlight filtering through the trees. I looked back, knowing that I should be getting home, but then I heard a voice in my head. It was a soft, soothing voice of a woman who simply said “follow the socks”. And so I did. “Besides,” I thought, “I can easily retrace my steps by following these socks out of here.” And so, I continued. Sock after sock, much farther than any other child my age would have dared to walk. In total, there had to have been at least 20 socks along my journey. Each one pristine, each one seemingly untouched.
I roamed through the forest around brush and branches, having to jump over a couple of streams and whatnot, until I saw one hanging out of the side of a tree. A large, dark oak tree with black sap seeping from its sides. The tree didn’t look like an oak tree in the middle of fall. It had no leaves and was tilted to one side. The bark was peeling and gave the tree cracks all along its trunk, and several dead branches lay at the foot of the tree. I walked up to the dark sap and touched it. It was sticky and had an aroma that would make one sick to his stomach. It wasn’t until much later in life that I learned that the smell was that of rotting flesh.
Earlier this year in the summertime, I was in my office reading when I glanced out the window and saw Madison picking small, white dandelions in our backyard. I smiled and went back to reading. After another few minutes, I looked back out the window, and she was gone. Immediately, I set down the book and walked downstairs to make sure she had come inside. “Have you seen Madison?” I quickly asked my wife, who was at the table on her laptop. “Yeah, she’s out playing in the backyard.” I walked out back, but she wasn’t there, and the small gate on the side of our house was open.
I walked around to the front of the house looking for Madison, but she wasn’t in our driveway, and she wasn’t on the road. I quickly walked back inside and asked my wife if she was sure she didn’t know where she had gone. “Pretty sure, I haven’t moved from my chair in a while”. I could feel my heart begin skipping beats in my chest. “But did she say what she was going to do today before she went outside? And are you sure you didn’t see her walk to the side of the house or something?” “Will you calm down? You’re making me nervous. I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.” She then rolled her eyes and looked back to her computer.
“She’s probably right. Madison’s fine. But she knows not to leave our house without telling us where she’s going first,” I thought. Jillian, who was sitting on the carpet in the living room, asked if I wanted to play kitchen with her. “Sorry sweetheart, not right now”. I pulled out my phone and went to my Life360 app to find out where Madison was. Now, I know young girls shouldn’t have smartphones, and my wife was certainly against the idea when I first brought it up. But there are tons of parental restrictions that I placed on their phones so that it hardly functions as anything more than a device to call people with. After taking a moment for the data to load, it gave me her location. She was walking into the woods, almost a mile away.
I glanced around to see if another sock was within sight, but none were visible. Holding my nose, I cautiously approached the hanging sock adorned with small jack-o’-lanterns. With Halloween just around the corner, I decided to take it and collect the other socks on my way back to the road. Standing on a small portion of the tree’s base that was sticking out, I balanced on my tiptoes to reach the dangling sock. Yet, as soon as I touched it, a withered, skeletal hand with broken nails and age spots shot out from a crack in the tree, grabbing me. My screams echoed through the woods as the face of an old, deformed woman emerged from within the fissure. The creature had a haggard appearance with disheveled, long, dark hair, a pallid and waxy complexion, and vacant eye sockets. She was rabid, pulling my arm towards her with a desperate groan.
I continued to scream, struggling to break free, but her relentless grip tightened, eventually pulling half of my body into the tree. Squirming and squealing, I felt my torso squeezed through the crack, landing in a pool of murky liquid. The liquid was so high that while standing I barely could keep my mouth above the surface. I wiped the liquid from my eyes and found myself in a vast pool of mud and gallons of blood, carcasses, and the skeletons of unidentifiable creatures. The dark, blood-stained bark of the tree’s interior enclosed me. To my horror, the creature then leaped into the pool with me.
I began to run out of the house, urgently informing my wife that Madison was in danger and instructing her to stay with Jillian. While dialing 911, I rushed to the car, and the 911 operator answered, asking about the emergency. I gasped, “My daughter is in danger! She’s in the woods near 27th and Mallard! Send the police now, I’ll meet them there!” Confused but responding affirmatively, the operator asked further questions as I continued to shout in desperation. I drove my car straight into the woods but had to abandon it after a few feet when trees blocked my path.
Phone in hand, I watched Madison’s phone continue moving deeper into the woods. I ran as quickly as my feet would carry me, tears filling my eyes, yelling her name repeatedly in hopes of catching her attention and urging her to turn back. As I sprinted, I began to notice something after only a minute. I was devastated by the realization. On the path I was following to get to her, I kept seeing these very large, beautiful beehives.
I struggled to spit out the murky liquid that filled my mouth, but it continued to rush in. My movements were restricted, and I frantically splashed my arms in a backward attempt. Reaching the pool’s edge, I grabbed the wood, trying to pull myself up, but it broke away due to its wet and rotted state. I stretched my arms out in front of me to give myself some kind of barrier in between me and the monster, and in the murkiness, I felt something large and hard. I pulled it out of the water to reveal a bone. I waved it in front of me, trying to prohibit the creature from getting any closer, but it continued until it was just outside of reach. It then moved quickly and tried to snatch the bone I held but missed, and I swung it straight against the creature’s head. It let out a squeal and moved towards me again, obviously enraged, and again I made contact and pummeled it. This time, it disappeared under the surface.
I stood there terrified, waiting for it to either reemerge or grab my legs underneath where I couldn’t see, but it didn’t. After a minute, I decided to break for it and walked along the wall, avoiding the center of the pool where the creature had been. Once I was almost under the slit that led to outside, a large thrashing ensued at the spot where I had been at, and it appeared from under the blood clawing around and at the wall, hoping I was still there. I picked up that it was waiting for me to move, trying to detect ripples in the pool or a sound. I stayed perfectly still, my mouth still barely above the surface. I tried to hold my breath but knew that a loud gasp for air would be too loud, so I risked breathing softly instead. It then began moving around, once again arms outstretched searching for me. Trying to grab me. I very gently swooshed my hand through the water searching for something to throw. In what probably saved my life, I found a piece of rotten carcass and picked it up. I then held my breath, counted to three, and threw it as far as I could, and it landed in the water on the other side of the pool. The creature immediately let out a piercing scream and thrashed towards the meat, and as quickly as I could I moved under the crack. I grabbed the wall and attempted to climb, but just like the other side, it was rotten and ripped away when I tried to climb it.
The witch emitted a piercing scream, thrashing around and attacking the meat. I again tried to climb but to no avail. I turned my head around to see the creature had torn the meat to shreds and a large chunk was now dangling from its mouth. Noticing me, it clenched its rotten and ragged teeth and began thrashing in my direction. I desperately scratched at the wall, praying I could climb up, and felt my grip hold. I tugged myself up and as I did, I was able to grab another dry section higher up. I again tugged and was able to get both arms onto the edge that went outside. I used all my strength to crawl under the crack, with the witch briefly grabbing my leg before losing its grip. I pulled myself out, drenched and covered in the murky liquid. As I looked back, the witch stared at me from the crack in the tree, its tongue hanging out, licking the spot where I had escaped.
Frightened and covered in blood, I led my parents to the location where the first sock had been hanging by the road, but it was gone. The police conducted a DNA test on the blood but found it inconclusive, as it was a mix of various animals.
The dot on the app eventually stopped moving, and hope returned that Madison had decided to turn back. But then something alarming caught my attention. Her dot was grey, indicating she was offline. After running for several minutes, I noticed that there were no more beehives. I prayed that the dot would turn green again, but it didn’t. As I reached the dot my worst fears were confirmed. There stood a large, dark oak tree. I frantically looked around it, but no slits or cracks were present.
I pounded on it, hit it, did everything in my power to get it open but there was no use. By the time the police finally arrived, they called me crazy for saying my daughter was in the tree and said that the grey dot just meant that’s where she lost a signal before going deeper into the forest. “Don’t worry Mr. Johnson, we’ll find her. She must be in these woods somewhere”. Ignoring him, I immediately paid a company a large sum that day to come out and quickly dismantle the tree. When they were finished, they showed me that at the root of the tree there was a large empty pit. At least, they thought it was empty until I dug around and found a broken phone lying there. Madisons phone.
Every week, I’ll walk from my house to that tree stump, thinking of Madison. And I swear to God that sometimes I’ll hear something inside my head whisper the words “Follow the bee’s”.