My 8-year-old son Dylan ran away three days ago. He was happy at home and would have had no reason to leave… due to this, I feared the worst. The police were called in, searched in multiple states… Now, the last time Dylan had been seen was when he went over to his friend’s house.
His friend (who I’m keeping nameless for safety but will call J) confirmed that he did show up and they hung out for about an hour. J went into more detail. J and Dylan were playing video games when the doorbell rang. J went to answer, it was just the mailman with a package. But when J went back into the house, Dylan was gone, and the back door was wide open. J went in the backyard, as he assumed Dylan had just gone outside to play.
He spent 20 minutes looking, he said. J had just assumed that Dylan was hiding somewhere to prank him. But Dylan was nowhere to be found. J knew there was only one place Dylan could have gone. The woods behind the house. Both of them had been forbidden to go into the woods alone, and both boys were scared of them. At this point, J was very confused, and called his parents out. I get the call that Dylan is missing from J’s parents, the police search begins.
For the first day, the police comb the woods, but can’t find anything. The next day, something is found about 8 miles into the woods: Dylan’s journal.
I knew Dylan kept a journal, but being a decent human being, I never checked it. But when the police gave me it after they’d given it a read, I knew I had to see it. If it would provide any sort of clue to Dylan’s whereabouts, I’d have to do it.
The journal started off normally, the type of things you’d expect from an 8-year-old. I spend a few hours reading it, nothing seems off at all. But then we got to an entry from 2 weeks ago. This entry is just… off.
“I had a bad dream last night. I was sleeping in my bed when something woke me up. I opened my eyes and saw a bad man. He had green clothes and a green hat. He was very big and had a mustache. All he did was watch me sleep, with a big smile on his face. I think I’ll name him Mr. Desmond.”
On the next page, there was a drawing. It showed a man with a very large presence that I could only assume was this “Mister Desmond” from Dylan’s dream. He wore a green suit and a green top hat with a pink band. And his face…
I didn’t expect a drawing made by my 8-year-old son to give me the shivers like this one did. He had black beady eyes, and a huge toothy smile. A handlebar mustache completed his… “old timey” look. In his hand was an old leather doctor’s bag, which I have no idea how Dylan would even know what one of these looked like, let alone draw one. I really couldn’t stand looking at this picture for any longer than I had to, so I turned the page.
“Today M (Dylan’s babysitter who I am keeping anonymous) and I went for a walk on the forest trail. It was fun but sort of scary. At the area where the trail becomes 2 trails, I heard whistling from the left path with big heavy footsteps. It was Mr. Desmond, I could tell. We took the right path instead, but I felt watched the whole walk.”
After reading this, I called M. Maybe she would remember something that Dylan didn’t or could provide something.
M picked up very soon after I called. “I’m so sorry to hear about Dylan, [MY NAME]. I’ll gladly help look, please let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank you, M, it’s really hard. I’m trying to remain hopeful that Dylan could be found any day, but each hour without a new lead, that prospect feels less and less likely.” This conversation was already getting difficult, I could feel the lump in my throat. I had to ask the question before I started bawling into the phone.
“There’s one question I have for you. Last week, you went for a hike in the woods with Dylan, right?” M confirmed this. “Yes, I did. Nothing weird at all happened, I don’t think…” I wasn’t confident this was true.
“You’re sure he didn’t act strange at all? Was he normal when you reached the fork in the trail?” This question quickly had what I believe to be a memory rushing back to M. “…oh, yes.”, she said into the phone, sounding concerned.
“Dylan mentioned hearing footsteps from the left trail. I tried listening, but I didn’t hear anything. He gave me a look of desperation; he clearly didn’t want to go on the left trail. I wasn’t sure what Dylan was talking about, but he seemed to for sure be genuinely scared about something. That’s what happened.”
I hurriedly thanked M for her time and hung up. Something felt so wrong about all this, even more wrong than a situation like this would normally be. I’ve never believed in the supernatural, there had to be a reasonable explanation here. Maybe, I shuddered at the thought, this guy was some creep who snuck into the house at night and stalked my son, who thought it was a dream, before my son saw him and ran away into the woods.
This “Mister Desmond” was either just some creep, or a nightmare that really spooked my kid. A child’s mind can be affected by things like that, it would be quite upsetting if that was the case, but it had to be something like that, something that made sense. It couldn’t be some sort of Bogeyman. Nothing like that is real. I decided to go back to square one, see if J remembered anything he hadn’t mentioned.
J was clearly worried about his friend going missing. I felt bad for the kid. I was going through a lot of stress from this; I imagine your best friend popping out of sight like that would be awful. But upon talking to J… I was shaken to my core. This whole scenario didn’t fit together, J’s information cemented this.
I described everything to the kid. It might not have been the best thing to do, but I felt it would be best to not sugarcoat anything. J was always kind of an older brother figure to Dylan, he was always quite mature for his age. I told him it all, from the journal found in the woods, to M and Dylan’s hike, to Mr. Desmond. J just listened to it all. When I finished talking, J paused. He was clearly in thought. A few moments later, he let out a single sentence. The sentence that chilled my bones, that made me doubt I would ever see my son again.
“Dylan didn’t bring a journal when he came over.”