How often do you think PIs get a call about a ghost? Or just anything supernatural actually? Well, let me tell you that it is not often. So not often in fact that when I got a call at 1 in the night from a woman screaming into my ear “My husband’s ghost, he came back again!” I slapped myself multiple times just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
“Is this a prank?”
“W-what?” she stuttered “I’m speaking to the detective from the ad at the town square, no?
“Aureli Łyszczyk, yes, not an exorcist.” I replied. Ready to disconnect and go back to sleep.
“You’ve got to come here, please. It’s the third time this month he’s out in my backyard!” she managed to say before I made the better choice of ending our little talk.
“I’m sorry. There’s someone in your backyard at this hour? Have you considered calling the police?” I asked. The voice of the woman seemed to indicate she was fairly old so the least I could do is give her some advice.
“They haven’t done anything the last 2 times, why would they do anything now? I’m scared he’s coming to take me with him, please, help me.” she pleaded. Despite my better judgment, I knew I wouldn’t fall back asleep so I asked for her info and rolled out of bed.
The woman’s house, whose name was Bern, was located just 5 kilometers from my shabby apartment in the direction opposite of Groblewski town square, our gorgeous, muddy, and cobblestone-paved town somewhere in between a couple of polish forests, meaning, the road only got muddier and forested the further I went. As I passed through the trees into a clearing I was met with acres of dead corn and wheat fields to my right and a single house backed by more trees to my left. This was pretty much what I expected from the directions Bern gave me. I parked my car at the front gate and got out straight into a puddle of watery soil deep to my ankle.
I hate the fall.
The area was quiet, as expected at 2 am, although the lack of any street lanterns only amplified the silence, I turned on my flashlight to see where I’m going, quickly confirmed the address next to the door, and went for the doorbell, before I could though, the door flung open and I was greeted by a tiny babushka with a shawl over her head and a sleeve in a knot where her right arm should be.
“Please, come in, he’s still there!” she said, gesturing for me to follow “And lock the door behind you!”
“The man is still out there?” I asked curiously. Usually, when people call in the middle of a situation I’m a bit too late to catch someone in the act. Assuming my new client is not just experiencing old age at its fullest, this might be over faster than usual. She took me to a darkened living room in the back of the house, stepped to the side of the window, and peeked out just a little before immediately retreating, exclaiming “Oh god and holy Marie! look for yourself!”
And so I stepped her way, put my hand on the windowsill, and looked out into the small field which she called a backyard, and… sure enough, my doubts were erased as I saw a figure at the edge of the forest maybe 20 meters away, blanketed in the darkness of night it was hard to figure out the details, but it looked to be an elderly man with rather well grown out white facial hair and a bald spot on top of his head. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was wearing, it was too tight to his body to be the attire you’d expect someone to wear in this kind of cold weather.
“Believe me now? It’s Harold! I knew that bastard wouldn’t let go of me even six feet under!”
“How long has he been standing there?” I asked not taking my eyes off of the figure, there was something strange about him that I couldn’t place my finger on, maybe the way he stood perfectly still, not even a twitch of the arm or a shift in his posture.
“When I saw him I called you immediately, he was here last Friday too, and the one before that, always sometime after midnight. Please do something, I don’t know how to sleep anymore because of that freak.” She said, once again proclaiming her dislike towards her late husband.
“I’m going to speak with him, is there a backdoor here?”
“Yes, it’s in the kitchen” She pointed toward the door in the hallway, opposite of the living room. “But what will talking do? Aren’t you scared?”
“Since I am already here, and someone is trespassing, the least I can do is maybe talk some sense into this ‘ghost’ that’s harassing you,” I said dismissively and turned toward the kitchen, truth was I really didn’t have anything to do with this. My job usually consisted of following suspects in public and on all manners of social media, not dealing with weird trespassers. If you thought I should at least try to arrest him for it, it doesn’t work like in the movies. A PI can’t arrest people like the police, in fact, we can’t even carry a firearm. While I do carry handcuffs in my car, I never had to use them, because as I said my job is just collecting info on a person I was hired to follow and not getting caught while doing it.
I stepped across the hallway when I thought I heard something skittering on the wooden floors deeper in the house, chucking it up to a pet I went into the kitchen and popped open the backdoor, somewhat expecting the guy to be gone or running away, but no, he was still just standing there ominously. The light from the inside illuminated a couple of meters outside the door, but not enough to reveal anything I haven’t seen yet, so after coming up with what to say I made my way toward the figure and took my flashlight out of my coat pocket. I was maybe 6 meters away when I turned it on and pointed it at him.
“You lost… sir?” I said, caught off guard by what I saw. The man looked like a deer in the headlights, with an expressionless look on his elderly face and those eyes that shined like a wild animal’s were pretty jarring, I could now tell the man was 60 to 70 years old at the least, deep wrinkles and long thick eyebrows painted him that way, but what was the most unusual about him was his get-up. This delirious-looking grandpa was wearing… some sort of ghillie suit?
That’s the closest thing I can describe it as. A ghillie suit if you didn’t know is that grassy camouflage snipers wear, still, this one was different, with none of that extra fluff hanging off of the typical suit making it lay pretty flat with his body. It was as if someone took a patch of the forest floor and sewn it into a shirt and a pair of pants, no hood, no hand and feet covers, just the top and bottom. In fact, now that I looked at him, what I thought were shoes were just his bare feet covered and buried slightly in the mud. Whatever this old sport was doing here at this hour, he was definitely not okay.
“No.” He responded firmly, never changing the look on his face. His voice was seasoned, but strong, not what I expected after seeing him up close. Never judge a book by its cover I suppose.
“Well if you aren’t lost do you mind telling me what you’re doing in someone’s backyard? In the middle of the night?” I tried to question him, hoping he’d be a bit more informative than a simple yes or no.
“I am home.” He said simply. Great. This guy was not right in the head if it wasn’t obvious already.
“And what’s with the clothes? You a forester around here? A hunter?” He tilted his neck a little bit at this question. Finally some kind of reaction from him, until now he was stiff as a pole. But that was all I got out of him, he just kept staring at me for what felt like minutes with those reflective eyes. I was just about to say something else before he beat me to it.
“Begone. All of you” he said.
“Wha-” I barely managed to spit out as he twisted around and took off into the forest. Shit. I had no time to think as I just started running after him, trying not to slip on the wet ground, I could see him right in front of me taking turns and zigzagging through the trees, with each one giving me a slap in the face with a twig, or a protruding root almost tripping me up. The guy must’ve scouted the area for a while now since he knew exactly where to lead me to slow me down. The trees seemed to almost bend to his advantage, just to hit me with a branch somewhere as soon as I passed by them. And it was working, but I started dodging them better with each one by simply giving them a larger margin of clearance, and the old fuck was still a good couple of meters away. Now that I thought about it I was sprinting, at full speed, and he was still just slightly faster than me.
Let me just tell you, I’m 27, and I ran track most of my school time. I might not be in my prime anymore, but I’d still expect to outrun some half-dead retiree. Something was not right. So as I always do I rationalized, I rationalized that he must have experience running barefoot, which gives him a better footing on a muddy forest floor, that’s the best explanation I can come up with. However ridiculous it is, no matter, I had to focus on catching up. Wait.
“What the fuck?!”
He was gone. One second he was there, the next, he veered behind a tree and was just gone, like a cartoon. I stopped dead in my tracks and circled the tree 3 times just to make sure I’m not hallucinating, but no, nothing, not a sight or a sound from the sprinting old man I was just running after. After his display of stamina, I half expected him to have climbed up that tree or dropped cold on the ground, but he just wasn’t anywhere. From where I was standing I could see the light of the backdoor I came out of through the treeline a good distance away which meant we were running in a pretty straight line despite him trying to shake me off, so the only idea I had at the time was that he somehow snuck off further into the forest. I walked for a couple of minutes around the area to check for clues… or footprints… or whatever I could find when I stumbled upon something that caught my eye on the ground.
Between two of the trees I passed before was what I presumed before to be a root I almost tripped over, but upon getting a closer look now I could see it was actually two young oak saplings, twisted and braided together to make a tight knot parallel to the ground, high enough to function like a makeshift tripwire. Did that guy make it? Did he expect someone to run after him and booby-trap the whole trail? If he did, what for? To harass an old woman in the middle of the field by standing like an idiot half dressed in her yard once a week? Even for someone delusional, this was completely ridiculous and over the top. I had a couple of targets with mental health problems but the most they’ve resorted to is coming over to bang on my client’s door or scream at their window in the middle of the day about how much they love the other person and they will never leave them, but this guy, he is way over my paygrade.
“HELP ME!” a male scream cut through the quiet night, and my blood ran cold as soon as I heard it. I thought it was the guy from before, but compared to his baritone voice this sounded like a little boy, just a bit deeper into the forest. I took off, This situation was only getting weirder and weirder by the minute, and my legs were starting to get tired from the running,
“Where are you?!” I yelled, stopping for a moment, trying to get an idea of which direction I should go. Now that my footsteps didn’t fill the air, the forest was once again quiet. I hoped for any sound of struggle or movement, but couldn’t catch anything, so I yelled again “Hey! Where are you?!” this time I got a reply.
“HELP ME!” The same voice and tone as before, just a couple paces away, slightly to my right, scanning the area with my flashlight came up with nothing so I started moving deeper into the trees when I noticed something about the forest changed, like passing a treeline for a second time and entering it again, I couldn’t place my finger on it but something was just different. It definitely wasn’t something that would stop me from finding this kid. I ran for just a couple of meters further when I heard it again
“HELP ME!” Right to my left. As if the kid was standing next to me, It startled me enough to almost land me on my ass. I twisted around scanning the area. My hand shaking with anticipation. Something was wrong, the screams were too uniform, like a recording on loop, but you can tell a recording when you’re standing right next to a speaker, this was a voice coming out of someone’s throat, I was certain. It had to be. And yet I couldn’t see anyone? WHERE ARE THEY?
“Can you hear me? I’m right here. Tell me where you are.” My mind was exhausted after not getting any sleep. I felt like a maniac, every second falling deeper into psychosis. First that freak wearing leaves, now an invisible kid that only knew 2 words. I am so fucking done with tonight.
“HELP ME” I heard it again, blasting into my ears, right in front of me. What is going on? I calmed down a little and got closer to the possible point of origin. Is he underground? I started probing the ground to see if there was a fake floor somewhere. If you couldn’t tell, I was out of ideas and I was getting frustrated. Fuck, I just want to get this over with. While removing a twig of a maple tree next to me to use as a poking stick to further check the ground, my eyes caught something out of place. Sticking out of the same maple was a twig, like the one I just ripped off, except on the end of it where you’d expect to fork out into a bunch of leaves, was some sort of… Pod? I only saw its smooth, woody side from the angle I was standing at and couldn’t make out the details, so I took a few steps toward it. And revealing itself to me at the front of the pod was an almost perfect recreation of a… human… vulva.
The sides encasing this… thing was the smooth woody pod that I mentioned, but the actual… anatomical part of it was somewhat veiny but shiny and a deep auburn red, like an autumn leaf. I stared for what felt like hours at this absurd structure in the branch. I have no words to describe what I felt, just utter, dreamlike confusion when. It couldn’t have been too long because at some point this thing screamed at me. It fucking screamed the same two words I have been chasing all this time, slightly ovulating when it did to somehow produce a boy-like voice yelling “HELP ME!”. This was too much for me. I think I was scared, a cold sweat going down my back. Did it lure me here? Has that guy take me here to see this? Does this mean I’m in danger? The forest was still dead quiet immediately after the yell. I had to get out of here, but one more thing. I took out my pocket knife, while it might not cut through this thick branch at the base of this thing, it did have a saw edge on the opposite side of the blade. I had to take something with me, something to make sense of it all. My hand lifted towards the infernal thing, but before I could start what I intended everything went dark.
I woke up in an ambulance, an EMT with medium-length red hair and a face too pretty for this town standing above me and doing something to my head, a cold feeling spread through where she touched me.
“What happened?” I asked groggily, my head still somewhat spinning.
“You got whacked over the head with something. An older lady called us saying she found you lying prone outside her house, face down in the mud. She was very certain you were dead despite only seeing you from her window. I’m just applying a cold compress to reduce swelling. You homeless fellas used to fight in the streets, you do it in forests now? ” The miss said in an
accusing manner. Despite her pretty face and voice, she had a rather crude accent, the type you either hear in a hardworking country household or the post-communist apartment blocks in the town center, she was definitely from here.
“Homeless? I’m a Detective. I was doing my job, not fighting hobos for shelter. You talk to everyone like they’re below you or just the prettier guys?” I replied smugly, trying to get some footing in our little chat. If there is something I hate more than the fall, it’s arrogant women. The least you could do when talking to a stranger you don’t know anything about is try to be polite.
“Ooh, a detective huh? Then I’m sure you can help the police figure out what happened, they’re just outside.” She said pointing to the door and handing me the compress as I sat up and sure enough two knocks hit the ambulance door and a police officer opened them
“Hello sir, I’m here to ask a couple of que- Aureli?” The young, tall man of 22 years with a short brown cut on top of his head looked in disbelief at me. My good friend from the station doesn’t usually see me this way, rather I see him to deliver something incriminating, like a photo of someone’s neighbor selling a gram of weed, or a rebellious teen scratching someone’s car, so that he can give them a warning and a scolding. The one good cop on the force.
“Hi Jacob, good to see you.” I said
“So you didn’t lie? You are a detective?” The redhead asked surprised, guess she didn’t expect this, just as much as Jacob didn’t expect me.
“The best and only in town.” Said Jacob with a grin “ I see you met Anna. She’s the new addition to our medical team in Groblewski.”
“Yeah I did, pleasant girl” I stood up and got out of the ambulance “Now what did you want to ask?”
He proceeded to ask me about what I was doing there in the middle of the night. I told him pretty much everything I could except the strange thing on the tree, as I didn’t know yet if I just hallucinated it with my tired mind or maybe… someone wants me to think I’m crazy, I don’t even want to think about it. Jacob was just as shocked to hear all this as i was telling it. The police decided to scout out the area of the forest i chased the man into. Now that the lady had me as a witness they had to take it seriously. Something was going on but I had too many pieces of the puzzle just scattered around to tell him what I thought of it all. Who was that guy dressed in leaves? Why did he boobytrap the forest? Why would he bring me to safety after knocking me out? Maybe he’s trying to hide something, doing this whole show to divert attention? And how was he so fucking fast? I’ll be back here yet, to solve it all.
“That’ll be all I think,” Said Jacob snapping me out of my pondering. “Can I help you with anything? Need a lift maybe?”
“Yeah, actually.” I replied. “Get me a drug test.”