The police gave me my friend’s journal after her passing. They said she was still holding it when she died. I found a few strange entries that I think might help in figuring out what happened to her.
Entry One: 4:00 am. Four in the morning is a perfect time. Five is too close to sunrise, and three is too much of a trope. So of course, it was four in the morning when we felt something dragging down the truck bed.
Entry Two: 4:15 am. Sorry for writing this down crudely; I’m just worried. We need to stop for gas. We started to pull into a gas station in a small ghost town. However, we couldn’t stop the truck, fearing that it crawled farther into the truck bed.
Entry Three: 4:30 am. I’m watching the trees and counting the houses. I’ve only counted two since the ghost town. Not only that, but I saw things between the trees. Something is following us.
Entry Four: 4:45 am? 5:00 am? 3, 4… We’ve been driving for almost an hour with this thing in the truck. The snow in front of us is getting heavier to the point that we can’t see.
Entry Five: 5:30 am? We passed dirt roads. I like to imagine that people are standing at the end of each one. People who feel their lives are agonizing and need an escape. So, they run and run. Then, I imagine a glass wall blocking the end of the road, and they stand there screaming.
Entry Six: 6:00 am? 7, 8… We’ve been driving so long you’d expect the sun to rise. I can hear it tapping on the back window. It wants my attention. I’m not going to acknowledge it.
Entry Seven: I have no clue what time it is. It should be around 6:30, maybe 7 am now. There’s no sign of sunrise or the town we’re headed to. The thing in the forest is now taller than the trees, pushing them out of the way as it crawls along with the truck.
Entry Eight: It should be 7:30 am, but it’s still dark. We’re passing open fields now. It stands probably 30 feet tall, and it’s hunched over. It looks like a familiar shadow. The tapping hasn’t stopped.
Entry Nine: The clock reads 6:30 am. It doesn’t feel like it. The lights of the town killed the thing on the back of the truck. It screamed as it went. The creature in the trees seemed friendly. I hope I don’t see it again.
Entry Ten: 73? Days since the accident, 10:00 pm. It’s been months since the accident now. I can’t find that road anymore, the never-ending one. I still hear the tapping on my bedroom window every night. It’s white noise to me. Sometimes, I wonder where the tree creature is now.
Entry Eleven: 79 days since the accident, 9:00 am. It’s been a few days since my last entry. I’ve started to notice cracks in my windows. I think it’s trying to get in.
Entry Twelve: 84 days since the accident, 1:00 pm. I had my windows replaced today. The cracks were minor until yesterday. I don’t know if I’ll survive.
Entry Thirteen: 84 days since the accident, 3:30 am. The tapping on my bedroom window was deafening tonight. It hurt my ears so much, I needed to leave. I called a friend to pick me up. He should be here soon.
Entry Fourteen: 4:00 am. Four in the morning is a perfect time.