Now that I knew things were real, I started to pay attention to my memories a lot more. Up until I spoke with Sam people either wrote it off as me trying to get attention or having an active imagination. I’d consider her a friend. We only spoke a few more times, but we’re on ‘nodding’ basis when we see each other in public. You nod to say hello to a friend, you point with your chin. No idea why, just something you do here. I’m not on ‘nodding’ basis with many people.
Not to say that I’m a complete social pariah. I tend to attract the people who have… altered mental states. Crazy people, we can smell our own kind. I think it’s more like a radio frequency. We don’t exactly match up, but I’m closer to them than the one the general public uses. That kid that has ‘behavior’ issues? We get along. Not friends, but he’s relaxed around me. It means we spend a lot of time sitting next to each other in school. That creepy kid that is a little too interested in fire? She giggles a lot when people find something missing that she has burned.
My ‘calming effect’ didn’t go unnoticed by the staff. I was offered a job after I graduated as a study hall tutor for a class full of kids like that. One of the teachers called me ‘crazy people catnip’ when they didn’t know I could hear them. They saw a sharp drop in violent incidents and an overall increase in grades. At the end of the year, I put a package of catnip treats on their desk.
I didn’t get invited back for another year. Still worth it.
My first encounter with something different, supernatural, whatever you want to call it was the train. I will start by saying this. I was not a ‘train’ kid. They didn’t take up anymore attention than a passing ‘oh look a train, don’t see a lot of those’ type of thing. It was odd when I started having dreams about being on one. The same train too. I didn’t find myself in some fancy dining car or private luxury one. It was just a simple passenger car.
The dream would be the same. I’d wake up and find myself on the train. There would be a guy older than my dad, but younger than my grandfather nearby. He would look at me, snort in derision, and then move to another seat. Apparently, my Ninja Turtles PJs were not up to his standards.
I ignored it at first. It wasn’t until the third time that I started to get curious. This started the sleepwalking phase of my life. Now, I would get out of bed and try to move around the train. Most of the time I’d wake up smacking my face against the closet door, the wall, or something like that.
My parents found out about these dreams on accident. One night I had forgotten to close my closet door. I woke up as I hit the back wall and couldn’t find the way out. Half-asleep and terrified, I started to thump around the small space and scream. My parents rushed in to find me in a blind panic, trapped in the closet. I could only ramble about trains until I passed out from exhaustion. We didn’t talk about it again.
I purposely ignored the train after that. When I woke up to find myself on it, I’d just roll the other way and close my eyes.
Now that I think about it, there were more signs about the train. Ones that were harder to ignore. We lived in a single-wide trailer up on a hill that was on the edge of my grandparents’ property. Every night the trailer would rock from the traffic on the road nearby. I’d be lulled to sleep by the motion. It made sense at the time. The highway was right there, of course it was the traffic.
The fact that it was almost constant through the night wasn’t an issue. Or that we lived on top of a hill a quarter-mile from the road and there was a line of trees planted beside it as a wind-break.
Is that odd? I don’t know anymore. Google has failed me.
Why am I rambling about trains?
A few years later, my parents purchased a square of land on the other side of my grandparents’ house. It was wild, undeveloped, and needed a lot of work before the foundation could be set and the various utility lines could be laid. I don’t remember the details. Just that I spent a couple of days along with my dad and a few of his work-buddies digging two trenches in the property. One that stretched the entire width, and the other that went about halfway along the length. Thankfully, we didn’t have to dig the septic tank. That would have sucked.
When we started digging the width we found a couple of old railroad ties after a couple feet of digging. My dad thought that was cool, he’d use them in future landscaping. A railroad tie is those thick pieces of wood that they nail the rails on. When we started digging the trench that ran the length of the property, we hit a buried railroad tie every couple of feet. My dad was really excited. We ended up digging up the entire stretch and removed each one we could find.
It turned out that the entire line of houses was built on what had once been a connecting train route. The stretch of property was up for purchase once it had been decommissioned. It ran parallel to the road down the hill and went lined up with my room in the old trailer. I knew enough by then to not mention the connection.
Thankfully, my new bedroom didn’t sit on the old rails. The noise shifted to a manageable hum at night and the rocking wasn’t nearly as strong.
That was shorter than I thought it would be. Enough focus on the past, now for some general stuff.
Things disappear. Mostly trees, rock formations, and caves. Sometimes an old house, but those are usually abandoned or ruins. It’s a curiosity rather than a big issue. There was a mesa that my friend and I would climb up when we wanted to have an adventure. Most of the time, there was a crack in the side that we could scale. Sometimes there was a sheer wall of sandstone in the same place.
The most popular are the caves. If you’re lucky, you can find them and explore. They are never too big, usually a room or two, but they only show up when they want. It was annoying to climb some hills only to find that the cave was closed. A flat wall of rock where a well-marked entry was supposed to be. It’s better to find it that way than to be inside when it disappears.
The animals that disappear, those are the real trouble.
No matter how mundane an animal seems, if it disappears, leave it alone. I’m not talking about house cats or dogs, they either know how to survive outside or end up dinner to something. The most common I’ve encountered are deer. During hunting season, they show up as a buck with a good rack. Otherwise, they appear as a female deer. It’s not too big to be frightening, in fact, it gives off the feeling of being afraid. There is a pull to help it.
I’ve almost fallen for it a couple of times. They like to show up when you’re alone. I’ve never encountered one when there are more than three people in a group. They wait until you get close then dash off just far enough away to keep in sight. It will repeat the process once or twice until it finds a way to break line of sight. They like to use trees. It will lock eyes with you, jump behind the tree, and just not land on the other side.
There is a lot of open stretches of land in New Mexico. It’s easy to track an animal by sight even if it makes a quick escape. This isn’t that. They simply aren’t there anymore. No sound, no tracks, not even a scent. Gone.
Two things can happen next. You either search for the animal, or you walk away. People who go looking for them don’t make it back. The rare few show up after a while and to them it’s been an hour or two top when they’ve been missing for days.
In lean years, when the drought gets really bad, they’ll show up as a bobcat or mountain lion. Those ones like to lurk around residential areas. They’ll get the neighborhood dogs barking, then lure someone to chase after them. They never go after the dogs, just the people. The real mountain lions aren’t as overt. You don’t realize your dog is gone until you let it out and doesn’t come back when you call. When they attack a human, it isn’t quiet, and it leaves a lot of evidence. Blood, scraps of fabric, that sort of thing. People can fight off a mountain lion. Those that do get killed have bodies to be found. They don’t disappear.
It sounds weird, but the people who disappear aren’t as dangerous. The ones that take the form of a person, that is. Those times when there were five people around the campfire when there were only four people on the trip. An extra person in the group that no one knows. Usually, they just kind of lurk. I’ve only heard of them appearing outside. One did get hurried onto a bus during a field trip, but they disappeared once they took a seat. Almost everyone I know has encountered one. It’s hard to describe what they look like. They are the impression of a person, but the details aren’t there. They always fit in with the group enough to pass. It gets harder to figure them out the longer they stay. Is that the little brother of guy, the cousin of other-guy, the friend that guy-three brought? Their faces have features that are recognizable, but never in the right combination. I don’t know if it’s the same one every time, or if there are hundreds of them. The people-shaped ones disappear when they want. I don’t know why they show up. The ones I’ve encountered just kind of hang out.
They aren’t the same as echoes.
Echoes are closer to ghosts. Ghosts are connections to an individual. An echo is like that, but for an area. They don’t really interact with people. Instead, they focus on the tasks of the day. The echoes are the accumulated imprints of people going about their life. A teacher that works at a station for years and eventually is replaced by another that again works there for years. It all compresses into an echo of the teacher, the general manner, the common tasks. Echoes are fine to leave people alone as long as they are left to their own devices. Generally, they move things around, close doors, open doors, and other minor annoyances.
An actual ghost is a person. Each one is different. They have their own motives, wants, and desires. I try to avoid ghosts. They are annoying. For them, it’s all about attachments. A place, a thing, a person, or feeling that they hold onto enough to stick around. You can’t help them. Imagine a fanboy without object permanence. They really, really want that rare collectable. The one specific, special thing that they absolutely desire. They NEED it. You can give it to them, but once it’s out of sight, they go right back to look for it. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell them they already have it, give it to them, or that IT IS RIGHT FUCKING THERE. They want it. They need it. They have to find it.
Like I said, annoying.
Interacting with the various things here was benign until I got older.