I need help, I don’t know what to do. I promise, I’m not crazy. I’m not…I don’t think I am any way. But I see them. I see them everywhere I go. They’ve been following me everywhere. I’ve run, I’ve moved, I’ve screamed at them, begged them to leave me alone, but they never do. They’re always there. Always. Please…I’m desperate.
I guess I need to start from the beginning? I’ve never had to go to the internet for advice before, I don’t know where to start from. Maybe the first time I saw them? For context I’m agnostic, when it comes to the supernatural. I don’t necessarily believe it’s impossible for ghosts to exist, or skinwalkers, or wendigos, but I need proof. I consider myself open to the experience, but I’ve never seen them before. Well, until now? Maybe? Sorry, I’m getting off track. I just need you to know that I don’t look at anything that “goes bump in the night” as someone’s great-great Granny’s ghost.
Two years ago I was driving to my then boyfriends house, he lived a good forty minute drive away and I like to drive, so I did the majority of the traveling. It was early autumn so the leaves were starting to fall, the trees were giving more visibility to the fields behind them. My boyfriend, Samuel, we always joked that the house next to the train-tracks off the highway was haunted. Something about a farmer that went crazy. I don’t think anything actually happened in the house, it was just old, but that area always had a creepy energy around it. I think Sam actually believed in the ghost farmer, at least a little. I never put much stock in it. Personally, I believe the feeling that we get in old houses that most people describe as “supernatural activity” is just our subconscious processing the decay of someone’s home or a once populated, lived in area. I had never seen anything at the old farm house, but Sam said he had, he called the ghost Hank. Hank never showed himself to me but I always waved when I drove by the house, told him hello. I joked about bringing him a basket of fruit a few times, maybe I should have.
I was rounding the corner just past Hank’s house when I saw something in my peripheral vision. I glanced over to the train tracks but saw nothing, maybe it was a rabbit. When I turned my attention back to the road I had to slam on my breaks and swerve into the other lane. There was a child. Standing in the middle of the road. I turned my hazard lights on and got out to check on her, maybe she was lost. I left my car door open in a hurry, but when looked she was gone. I swear she had been. I had seen her plain as day, she was wearing gray rainboots even though it was still warm for mid-September, and I clearly remembered her hair. It was dirty blonde, long, and wild. It looked like it hadn’t been brushed in weeks. I think she had been holding something, maybe a stuffed animal? It looked fuzzy.
I searched around the tracks for a few minutes, but never came up with anything. She was there, wasn’t she? Maybe not, it had been a long week, I was stressed. That had to be it. Even she had been there, she wasn’t anymore. I thought about calling the police, but she hadn’t looked hurt, and if I called what would I even say? There was a child that’s not there anymore? I didn’t want to waste their time. I filed it away in my mind and got back in my car. As I pulled it off the shoulder I felt a chill. You know that feeling when you’re being watched? Like you can’t really see anything or anyone, but you feel it in your bones. I felt eyes one me, and it made my hair stand up. I was freaked out, but I chalked it up to coming down from the adrenaline high I had just experienced. I meant to tell Sam when I got to his house, but the experience seemed to slip out of my mind the further I drove from the tracks.
I saw her again on my way home. This time she was standing on the tracks, holding the hand of a tall man. I slowed down as I passed them, this time I could see her face. I wish I had looked away, I wish I had kept driving and not looked back…I didn’t though. I was right. She had been holding something, but it wasn’t a teddy bear, and she wasn’t holding it in her hands. She had a small rabbit clenched between her teeth, it’s head at an odd angle, clearly dead. There was no blood…her clothes were dirty, but the kind of a dirt you would expect a kid to collect after playing outside all day. I remember trying to look at the man, but my eyes were fixed on the little girl. She was staring right at me. Or, through me. That’s more accurate. Her eyes were focused on me, but I somehow knew she didn’t see me. At least not me physically; I think she saw inside me. Her eyes were the last thing I saw before crashed head on into an semi-truck. Somehow though, I didn’t know what color they were.
I was in a coma for almost a month. The truck driver was fine, but I had sustained some serious injuries. I was out of work for three months. He had been driving inebriated, the police encouraged me to press charges, but like I said, this was two years ago and a deal hasn’t been reached. I don’t even really care about the money, the accident somehow shook me less than the girl. She was in my dreams the entire time I was unconscious, and when I finally came too I spent the rest of my time in the hospital trying to do any research I could to figure out what I saw. I wrote out reports, I tried my best to draw what I could remember, I was obsessed. I could still feel her eyes piercing through me, still see the rabbit locked in her jaw.
I guess that covers what happened the first time I saw them, but it’s getting late now, and I need sleep. I’ll write more when I get a chance, I still need help, and I still need answers.