Scary Stories - Mystery Man

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2:00The Discovered Top Rated Stays Loved by Guests. Rated Highest by Real Guests through Authentic Reviews. Verbo. Book of Vacation Rental Loved by Guests. My wife grew up in a town where people kept their doors unlocked, cookie cutter houses, manicured lawns, silver minibans adorned with, my child is an honor student, bumper stickers. We've all visited a town like it. Maybe you've lived in a similar town. Maybe you live in one right now. Fair View was a slice of the American middle class comfort pie, a place where bad things simply did not happen. I never intended to live in such a town, but ended up in one anyway. At the time, I was in my late 20s. I'd wanted to move to Los Angeles to take one last shot at my childhood dream, a career in screenwriting, but my wife Melanie, whom I'd married young, wanted to stay put on the East Coast to be near her parents.

3:01After much deliberation, we agreed that we would move to Los Angeles on the condition that first, we stay with her parents for nine months so she could spend quality time with them before heading out west and think of all the money we'll save not paying rent. She'd said, you won't even have to work full time, you can just focus on writing. At the end of our lease, we put our furniture and storage, said goodbye to the trendy Brooklyn neighborhood a week called home for the past seven years and headed to the suburbs. The adjustment at first was surprisingly smooth with access to a big backyard, a dog to play with and a car for running errands. I found myself wondering why I'd ever put myself through unair-conditioned subways and high rent shoebox apartments. But after a few weeks, the rosy newness wore off and was replaced by a vacant malaise. The problem was there was nothing to do in Fairview. Nothing, I longed for green witch village, art house movie theaters, Chelsea galleries, hold in the wall restaurants.

4:03I even miss sweating on the subway. At least subway sweat was interesting. My boredom was at its worst in the afternoon. With the move, I got in a part time as a video editor at the local news station. I worked the night shift, which paid well, but meant that I hardly spent any waking hours with Melanie or anyone else for that matter. I thought that the solitude would be a fruitful source of writing inspiration, a way to get a head start on a feature script or a TV pilot before we went to LA. But it was not to be. Melanie's mom ran a daycare in their home, meaning that between three and five pm, my prime writing hours, there were 10 to 14 children screaming at the top of their lungs, desecrating my brain space. I suppose I could have gone to a coffee shop or a library to work. But if you give a writer an excuse not to write, he'll take it every time. And so the walks began. Each weekday, after sleeping through the morning and into the early afternoon, I would lace up my chuck tailors and venture out into the quiet streets of Fairview.

5:05I had nowhere specific to go. In the route I took each day varied, rain or shine, I explored my new neighborhood, memorizing street names, taking note of new additions being added to houses. I justified the long walks by telling myself they were productive, a time to gather my thoughts in outline screenplays in my head. But they never were. Most days, I would just listen to old jazz music, fake smile at the dog walking neighbors and count the days until I could get the hell out of the suburbs. One rainy afternoon, I stumbled upon an off-road path, the path ran under a set of towering power lines and seemed to carry on endlessly. I stopped and stared, intrigued. It felt both out of place and right at home, like pimples on a teenager. I looked for signage telling me I wasn't allowed on the path, but it was unmarked, which I took as an open invitation to explore. Anyway, I told myself, I could always leave if anyone gave me a hard time.

6:06In a move that would haunt me for years to come, I stepped off the pavement onto the gravel, the rocks made a dreamy, satisfying crunch beneath my feet, an audible signifier that I'd crossed over. I started walking, letting the power lines guide me, unsure of where they'd lead. Five steps onto the path, it was like I'd left fair view. The signs of the path were damp and muddy, overgrown weeds stretched up through cracks in the gravel, and tickled my exposed knees. The smell of sewage permeated the air, wafting up as if from the earth itself. Mosquitoes nibbled at my ankles, rodents scurried around and burrowed into the ground, probably to get away from me. But despite its wretched ugliness, I found the path to be quite lovely. Having lived in the city for so long, there was an element of grimey danger to which I'd grown accustomed and quite frankly, missed. The path filled that void. On the path, I was vulnerable, alert, alive.

7:11But mostly, I was alone. Yes, there were signs of life on the path, a few torn blankets, some newspapers, a collection of empty icebreakers, gum containers, the big ones that held a hundred pieces. There were the remnants of late-night teenage escapades, empty beer bottles, graffiti manifestos, painted on the back of vinyl fences, but I didn't get the feeling anybody went there during the day. During the day, it was mine, mine mud, my overgrown weeds, my sewage smell. The path was freedom. It was liberation. It was an ounce of control in a life that every day felt more and more like it belonged to somebody else. I didn't walk too far down the path that first day. I wanted to leave some mystery for the next trip. The second day, I went a little farther, and even farther than that, the third and fourth days. After a week, I walked so far that I came home late for dinner. Where'd you walk today? Melanie said, around, I said,

8:14around where? You know, the neighborhood, nothing crazy. One of the most curious features of the path was how it could straight through fair view, like an artery. Houses ran parallel to the path. Their backyards separated only by a row of fencing. Most of the fences were tall, white, and opaque, but the ones that were short or otherwise see-through offered a rare glimpse into suburban life. Untended sprinklers? Be infested wooden sheds, neglected swing-sets? Sometimes I'd see a housewife through the window, sipping her afternoon wine, or I'd catch a TV playing Fox News to a sad, empty room. I found it fascinating how some houses, which looked so pristine from the front, appeared to be in total disrepair from the back. For every new paint job, there were ten peeling shingles, two cases of stain-siding, and a green scummy pool filled with tadpoles. It was as if the residents started refinishing their houses,

9:14but ran out of money after the contractors finished the facade. I suppose the owners of the houses figured nobody would ever see the back, because who in their right mind would be walking down this disgusting path and think to look in? I would often catch myself thinking about the power lines themselves, how they blended in like set dressing, despite their vast importance in our everyday lives. Power lines fuel our internet, our televisions, our home security systems, and yet we don't give them a second thought until those comforts are compromised. We don't protect them or cherish them. In most cases, we relegate them to an out of the way spot where we can pretend they don't exist, a spot where anybody with a mind for trouble could tamper with them. The day I saw him started like any other, I got home from work at 4 a.m. Slept until 1.30 p.m. ate a little snack, thought about doing some writing, didn't do any writing, then set out for my walk. I'd been visiting the path for a month at that point,

10:16and summer had begun to turn to fall. Though the path itself was treeless, the people who lived adjacent to it would rake their leaves and throw them over the fence, so as to avoid having to bag them. The colorful foliage made my path oh so enchanting and helped mask the smell of sewage. Donning my denim jacket, I strolled the foggy, multicolored wonderland and meshed in a childlike sense of belonging. I began to give serious consideration to whether or not I might be better off just staying in the suburbs, staying with my path. But that all changed. When I saw a man in the distance, he was dressed in black from head to toe, walking toward me down the path. He had a crooked limp in his left leg, and his shoulder dipped with each step. I felt an immediate sense of dread when I saw him. The kind of lurching repulsion you get, when you see a rat. BEEP Stop wasting your nights on a mattress that doesn't get you. Experience the most comfortable mattress in the world.

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12:21Your favorite is now your wallet's favorite, too. Extra-value meals are back. Get a big something extra. With a big Mac or 10-piece McNuggets, fries and a medium Coke all for just $9. Limited time only, promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Bada-bada-bada-bada. At the scurry across the street and no on an animal level, you should avoid it. My first instinct was to turn around and try to get off the path before he caught up. But he'd spotted me already and to turn away would be a sign of fear. As I drew closer to the mystery man, I realized that he was not wearing black, but rather varying militaristic shades of dark grain as if to camouflage himself. His hair was curly and graying on the sides. He was bald on top. The sewage smell flared up as we approached each other and continued to grow stronger with each step. He had holes in the knees of his pants, holes on the elbows of his jacket, holes in the top of his shoes.

13:23He kept his hands in his pockets. But if he was wearing gloves, I'm sure they would have had holes in them, too. And then I saw his face. His face was not ugly, per se. But there was something off about it, something hard to place. There was the dirt, a layer of sweaty grime that coated his forehead and cheeks and made him look splotchy. But that wasn't it. I'd seen plenty of people in the city, homeless people, construction workers, some far filthier than this mystery man. But none of them had ever possessed such an uncanny quality. No, it wasn't the dirt. Nor was it his uneven bushy eyebrows or his crooked once broken nose. No, that wasn't it. As we moved within talking distance, my heart raced and my fingers went numb. A prickly tingle rushed down my spine, like spiders crawling on my skin. How many times had I walked home alone late at night? Crossed under deserted bridges,

14:24shared a vacant side street with a stranger. But still, never before had I felt as uncomfortable as concerned for my safety and well-being as I did with this man. I wasn't sure if I should make eye contact or pretend he wasn't there. As we crossed paths, I instinctively glanced at him, only to discover that he was looking back at me. Eye contact it was. As a self-defense mechanism, I gave him a nod and acknowledgement that I could see him and knew his face enough to pick it out of a police line-up. With my nod, the corners of his dry cracked lips spread into a wide smile. And it was then that I realized what gave his appearance that uncanny quality. His teeth, paired with a dirt and grime and torn clothing, was a set of spectacularly white teeth, movie star white, white like the intense ring of light

15:24around a solar eclipse. These Cadillac white teeth were out of place on such a disheveled man as if they'd been stolen from another mouth and implanted in his via black market bath tub surgery. They were a bit large too, like they didn't quite fit. And while he smiled at me with those porcelain pellets and I stared back, I heard a small sound that cut through that of the dead leaves and gravel crunching below the man's water stained boots. It was a kind of rhythmic sucking pop that with the motion of his jaw, I recognized as gum chewing. He looked me in the eye for a moment longer, though it seemed like he was looking through me, not at me, popped his gum a few more times and walked on. I kept walking too, picking up my pace and trying not to make it obvious that I was peeking back over my shoulder. When I did catch a glimpse of the man, he was about a hundred feet away and showed no signs of slowing.

16:26With my second glance, he faded into the horizon alone again on the path and once again feeling safe, I let out a loud relieved laugh. How paranoid I'd been to suspect that man, how judgmental. Yes, he was dirty and his teeth were a bit odd, but all he was doing was taking a walk, same as me. And since when was that a crime? He was probably just as afraid of me as I was of him. And there I was, standing around, laughing to myself like a lunatic. I wiped a silly tear of relief from my eye. This town I reminded myself, nothing bad ever happens in this town. Weeks passed and I continued my walks down the path, switching out my denim jacket for a winter coat and my favorite orange beanie. I didn't see the man again, but a few new gum containers, which I figured probably belonged to him did appear during that time. I spent Thanksgiving in Hanukkah down in Florida with my parents. The warm weather and pastel scenery

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18:27It highlights top rated vacation rentals with near perfect ratings for cleanliness, location, and all the good stuff. So no more walking into a surprise. We've done the heavy lifting so you can get straight to relaxation. Book your next day with Verbo now. Who worked in finance and how he might be able to connect me to a higher paying job. I found myself missing fair view. As soon as I got back, I took a nice long stroll. Melanie took three weeks off around the holidays. One last hurrah where the family could all be together uninterrupted by work. This vacation put her at home during the daytime when I would normally go walking. While I was thrilled to finally spend some time with her, I couldn't help but feel each day was incomplete without my walk of solitude. There were a few afternoons when I was able to convince her to go on walks with me, but Melanie was quick to complain about the cold and we ended up cutting the walk short. Why don't we just go home and have hot chocolate instead? Melanie would say

19:29we celebrated Christmas on the night of the 24th. It was a cozy evening filled with laughter and good food. We all wore pajamas and opened presents at midnight. Melanie's parents bought me a new pair of boots. We know how much you like to walk. Melanie's father said as I tried them on. Since we'd celebrated the night before, the plan for Christmas day was to go out to a movie and eat Chinese food. Having grown up in a Jewish household, this made me feel right at home. Melanie's family even let me pick the movie. We woke up late, cleaned up and he left over mess from the night before and had a leisurely breakfast. The weather was warm for Christmas day, hovering in the low forties, an intermittent drizzle fell throughout the morning and coated the landscape in gray. Had we not purchased our movie tickets in advance, the weather may have been enough to keep us home. As we navigated the neighborhood in Melanie's parents' minivan, a blue light obscured by rain and fog appeared in the distance. What's that? I said, what's what?

20:29Melanie replied, craning her head. She squinted. It looks like a police car. Maybe it's the Santa thing. Santa thing. Melanie's dad said, it's the, you've seen it, dad. Every year, the thing where the police drive the guy in the Santa costume, any hands out the candy canes. Isn't that the fire department? I said, Melanie shrugged. We pulled up and the scene came into view. The light was not coming from a single police car, but many. They were parked in a line down the street. I counted eight in total, all of the SUV variety, a brigade at the end of the line of cars were two ambulances. The car in front of a slowed down, presumably out of curiosity, which gave us a chance to take a look as well. Halfway up the block, there was a house surrounded by yellow police tape. A few police officers stood on the lawn, trekking across the wet grass and pulling up mud with their boots. One of the officers had a clipboard in his hands and was taking notes

21:31while another pointed at the grass and spoke. Having watched so many movies, the demeanor of the police officers surprised me. I was used to fast-talking cops with sharp haircuts who had all the right moves, but these cops were the opposite of that. They looked uncomfortable, timid, unsure of their actions. One in particular, a young cop, younger than me, probably no older than 25, looked pale, green, and a little nauseous. His cheeks were puffy and damp, as if he'd been crying. He stood with his hands in his pockets, and rocked gently back and forth on his heels, keeping his red eyes trained on the ground. When the front door opened, the car in front of us stepped on the brakes to watch. We were on a narrow, one-lane road, so we had to stop as well. Two paramedics emerged from the door, wheeling out a body draped in white cloth. After a few feet, the wheel of the gurney got stuck in a deep groove on the sidewalk. The paramedics counted to three in unison,

22:33then lifted the gurney to get it moving again. The cloth-wrapped body looked a little half-sized, feeling guilty about gawking. I turned my head away from the scene, and caught a glimpse of the across-the-street neighbors. They were out on their front porch, reclining in lawn-shares, watching the drama unfold. They had Santa hats on their heads, beers in their hands, and looks of giddy fascination on their faces. Whatever unfortunate event was taking place had turned into a spectator's sport. The front door of the house burst open again, this time, rather than medical or police professionals, a lone woman stumbled out. She looked to be in her mid to late thirties. Her curly brown hair was a mess, and once leave of her salmon-colored nightgown was slipping down to reveal a freckled shoulder. She'd clearly been crying. The woman took a few dizzy steps, then started running after the paramedics, her bare feet slapping against the paved walk-up, as the paramedics loaded the body into an ambulance.

23:33The woman tripped over her feet, and dropped to her knees on the wet lawn. No, no, don't take him. She cried, throwing her arms out, and bending at the waist as if in prayer. The paramedic shut the door of the ambulance, and the woman, too distraught for words and now choking on her own spit, began letting out a throaty, animalistic, keening. Even though the car window was closed, I could hear how violent the sound was, how much it was shredding her vocal cords. The paramedics drove away, and the woman went limp, flopping down in the grass, and lying face down, a sad-looking man with hunched shoulders, and an un-stylish mustache came out of the house, and peeled the woman off the ground. The front of her gown was soaked through and stuck to her breast and abdomen as they rose and fell with each desperate breath. I was called in to work that night. It was Christmas, but if you work for the news, you work when there's news. It was my assignment to cut together the segment

24:36about the house with a weeping woman, making me both the editor and a primary source. There, working late into the night, in a closet-turned editing room, I learned what had really happened. The story revolved around a married couple, who, in the continued pursuit of anonymity, I will refer to as Jeff and Stephanie Sarcob. Like Melanie and Mae, Jeff and Stephanie had spent their 20s in the city. He worked as an analyst for a mid-sized investment company, and she worked as a secretary for a since-desolved PR firm. They met at a bar on the lower east side, and fell in love instantly. After dating for a couple years, they tied the knot with a modest but charming wedding in Cape Cod. They moved shortly thereafter. Eleven months after the move, they welcomed their first and only child, Ethan, into the world. In the almost decade since Ethan's birth, Jeff and Stephanie had slid comfortably into the Little League's coaching, Cressless Sandwich Making Life of suburban parents.

25:37Ethan, a chipper, if not slightly hyperactive, nine-year-old, was a Christmas fanatic. Among with his favorite holiday pastimes, were decorating the tree, going to see the rock hits at Radio City Musical, and making hand-drawn cards for his parents. But his favorite tradition, without fail, was sleeping downstairs on the couch on Christmas Eve in the hopes of meeting Santa Claus. Each year, he would stay up as late as he could, only to awake the next morning and find that he had just missed the big man in red. Nevertheless, he always tried. The year that I discovered Ethan, he'd staved off sleep until 1215, a new record, before he finally succumbed to exhaustion, shut his little eyes, and dosed off. Once Ethan was asleep, Jeff and Stephanie tiptoed into the living room and slid Santa's presence under the tree. Jeff took a few bites off the carrots, Ethan had left for a root off, and Stephanie nibbled the cookies and sip the milk.

26:37They went upstairs, got in bed, and fell asleep to an episode of Criminal Minds. When they awoke at 11 a.m. the next morning, having gotten their best and most complete night of sleep in 10 years, Jeff and Stephanie knew something was wrong. Normally on Christmas morning, Ethan would have woken them at the crack of dawn, buzzing with excitement over Santa's visit, but they hadn't heard a peep from him. They got out of bed and walked down the stairs, both secretly praying that they would find Ethan sitting crisscross applesauce next to the Christmas tree, surrounded by wrapping paper, playing with one of his new presence. But upon entering the living room, Jeff and Stephanie discovered a bizarre scene, gone were the cookies, the milk, the carrots, gone were the stockings, the ornaments, the presence they had left under the tree, and most noticeably, gone was their son. The only Christmas related items left in the room were the naked fir tree, and beneath the tree,

27:38a single unfamiliar gift wrapped box, which neither Jeff nor Stephanie had placed there. Nobody knows how they reacted, not even Jeff or Stephanie, who were so rattled by what came next, that they explained it to the police three times, differently with each telling. But since I've now had some time to think it over, I've taken the liberty to imagine how the events of the morning might have transpired. Picture, if you will, Jeff and Stephanie standing dumbfounded at the base of the stairs, each waiting for the other to take initiative and make a move. Stephanie places an open hand on her chest. Jeff curls his big toe inside of his frame, cotton slippers. Finally, unable to bear the silence, Stephanie mumbles, should we open it? Yeah. Jeff says, his voice cracking. Jeff takes a step forward towards the tree, his mustache fluttering with each nervous breath.

28:39He reaches the tree and wraps his plump fingers around the edge of the box. He picks it up, surprised by its heft, giving the box a timid shake. Jeff turns and looks back at Stephanie, whose fingers have moved from her chest to her mouth, as she naws off her candy cane-pattered nail polish. She gives Jeff a nod, as if to say, continue. Jeff unties the bow and peels off the wrapping paper with neat and unnecessary precision. He folds the discarded wrapping paper into a small square and places it down next to the box. Jeff opens the lid. For a moment, he smiles, relieved at the sight of his son staring back up at him. Oh, there's Ethan. He thinks to himself, we had nothing to worry about. But his smile fades as Jeff realizes that there is nothing but air in the space between the ground and the box in his hands.

29:41What is it? Stephanie says, Jeff doesn't answer. Babe, what's, say something, Jeff? Jeff turns to Stephanie. It's, Jeff starts, unable to finish the sentence. Jeff reaches into the box and grabs Ethan, pulling him out by the hair. Stephanie shrieks and collapses to the ground. Jeff startled by Stephanie's reaction, drops Ethan's small head. It rolls a couple of feet, smudging semi-dry blood across their Tuscan yellow IKEA carpet, Jeff vomits and Stephanie screams again, and she keeps screaming without pause until a few hours later when I see her through the window of Melanie's family's minivan. At around 4 a.m., my boss popped his head into the editing room. He was wearing a Santa hat and strap on beard. His eyes were bloodshot, tired.

30:44You can go home if you want. He slurs. I know this is supposed to be your day off. I don't mind. I'm almost done anyway. I say, all right. He says, well, there's some more eggnog in them. He burps and pats his chest. And the break room. You want me to get you some? Sure. I say, copy. He walked out of the room, and I looked back to the screen. Alone again, I began second-guessing my decision to stay. I just reached the part of the story where the reporter was talking about the police finding the rest of Ethan's body in the fireplace, and I couldn't help but wonder if so much negativity was bad for my mental health. My boss returned a minute later and handed me a cup of eggnog. I thanked him, took a swig, and got back to work. After another hour of editing, I finished the segment I was about to hit the export button, but decided that this piece, this subject matter,

31:44deserved one last watch through for mistakes. I hit the space bar, and the video began. It played as expected, shots of police lights bouncing off of freshly painted sighting, our local reporter on the scene, interviews with the neighbors, beers and hand. I hate to see it, but it was some of my finest editing work. I couldn't help but admire how compelling the story was, how much it drew me in, made me want to invest my time. Near the end of the video, I noticed that I'd forgotten to include a Ken Burns effect on a photo of the Sarcob house. I paused on the image, and it just begun rendering the effect when a small black line in the upper right-hand corner of the frame caught my eye. At first, I thought it might have been some dirt or maybe a crack in the screen. I reached out and tried to scrape it off with my finger now, but the surface was smooth and unblemished. I zoomed in on the black line, and it grew larger. Up close, I could see that it was three-dimensional, rounded out,

32:46receiving light from the same source as the rest of the house. It was part of the image. I stared at the pixels trying to make sense of this strange charcoal sky spaghetti. And then I recognized it. The angle, the placement, the gentle curve. It was a power line, running parallel to the Sarcob house, lurking just barely in the distance. I hit the export button and waited in silence. The moment the video finished, I grabbed my coat, put on my orange beanie and headed for the exit. On the way out the door, I heard my boss say, Merry Christmas! I rode my bike at a rapturous pace from the studio to town. The freezing winter air bit my face. Watery, clear mucus ran down from my nose to my upper lip and filled my tongue with a taste of salt. The roads lit by a subtle green and red glow of Christmas lights

33:46were eerie and desolate. I had a tight feeling in my stomach, a crocheting of my innards that reminded me I was riding and to trouble. I cruised past Melanie's house. The light was off in her window, our window. I worried that the loud clicking of my poorly lubricated bike chain might wake the family dog, but I made a pass the house without a single bark. Onward, I rode my normal walking route, which seemed shorter and less interesting on a bike. The sun had just begun to rise when I arrived at the power line path, though it hadn't yet reached the horizon, leaving the landscape stark and blue. The leafless trees hung over the scene ominous and dark. The gravel on the path was too loose and rough to ride over, so I climbed off my bike and hid it behind a wild pine bush. Then, with my body shaking from a combination of cold and nerves, I set off down the path on foot one last time.

34:46I observed the familiar details and noted how they changed in my two-week absence, the frozen ground, the mud, the erratic arrays of garbage and abandoned clothing, the differences were slight, but felt. I looked at the houses, plumes of smoke drifted out of a few chimneys. Some houses appeared more run down than they had just a couple of weeks before, a reminder that our protection from the elements is a thin and flimsy comfort. I thought about the people inside the houses who hadn't yet heard the news, how in just a short time, a TV report would dismantle their sense of safety and comfort forever. I walked down the path, looking for that vague something, a hint, a clue, an indication that I wasn't wasting my time. And then I found it, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a flash of an unnatural yellow color next to one of the houses. It took a moment, but I recognized it as police tape,

35:46a dead giveaway, that I was looking at the house that belonged to Jeff and Stephanie Sarkob. There it was, standing cold and empty, tragic in its plaintness, had it not been for the police tape, I never would have noticed it, an old cracked kitty pool in the backyard, an expensive swing set that didn't look like it got used much, it could have been any house in town, except it wasn't any house, it was a house of horror, a new amityville, a place where future generations of teenagers would go on Halloween to test how brave they were, then laugh about it later. The house was separated from the path, only by a low chain-link fence, the blinds were open and the lights were on, giving me a clear view into the living room. I could see a few framed photos, the Christmas tree, the couch where Ethan would have slept, the life of the Sarkob's was there on display, available for me or anybody else, who had ever stood in this spot on the path

36:47and felt compelled to look, a chill ran through my body, and I took a step backward, something hard crunched under my foot, and made me jump. I looked down, it was just one of those empty ice-breaker gum containers. I went to kick it out of the way, but stopped before my foot made contact. I'd broken the container when I stepped on it, and now a lightning bolt-shaped crack ran down the base to the lid, and through that crack, I could see the faint outline of something round and oblong inside. It was pale in color, and about the size and shape of a battery, too big to be a piece of gum. I picked up the container, and gave it a little shake. The mystery object made a soft dull, thudding sound, as it knocked against the inner plastic walls. I slid my finger under the lid, and flicked it open. The first thing I saw was the nail, chipped like driftwood, and yellowing at the edges.

37:48The skin was pale and purplish, and loofs around the knuckle. The bones stuck out at the bottom were a small amount of blood who was smeared against the plastic. I let the container fall from my hand, then dropped to my knees and dry heaved. The taste of eggnog was faintly present on the base of my tongue. I grabbed a handful of gravel, and held it tight, bracing for violence. When the nauseous feeling passed, I tilted my head up, and stared at the rest of the gum containers scattered across the ground. I didn't want to look, but I had to know. I grabbed another one and flipped it open, and like the first, there was a finger, a thumb this time. Frantically, I opened the rest. I counted as I went, three, four, five, six. I just finished counting the final container, number 11. When I heard the faint sound of a leaf crunching underfoot behind me,

38:48I froze like a possum, foolishly playing dead in broad daylight, with my back turned to my would-be attacker. There was total silence for a moment. Then a popping sound. It was a sound I'd heard just once before, but that had ingrained itself into my DNA like a fear of spiders or snakes. The popping sound continued, chewing on his gum. I turned my head slowly, looking back over my shoulder, just far enough to catch a glimpse of his gleaming white teeth. And then I took off. I ran with a fear of God, or worse pushing me forward. I ran like I hadn't since high school gym class, sprinting, my legs getting ahead of my body, arms flailing to maintain balance, my beanie flew off, but I kept going, not even thinking to look back. Finally, after what felt like 30 miles, I hit the main road. It was the end of the path

39:48where the power line split off to carry electricity to the next town over, wheezing from the cold air that punished my lungs. I bent at the waist and looked back behind me. There was no sign of the man with a pristine smile. Only the path, darting straight into the distance, disappearing into the single vanishing point that was fair view. It took me an hour to get back to Melanie's house. The path that turned out was the only direct route from where I was to her neighborhood, so I had to walk down the main road and loop all the way around town. By the time I got home, the house smelled like coffee, a sign that Melanie and her parents were awake. Melanie was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a book, her mom was cooking behind her. You just getting home from work now? Melanie said, flipping a page. She looked up over the edge of her book, and I could tell from the change in her expression that I must have looked terrible. I... I started, but then lost the breath in my chest.

40:50She looked down at my wet, mud-coated boots. The same boots her parents had gifted me less than 48 hours prior. Hun, you okay? My knees buckled, and I lowered myself to the ground. By the time Melanie reached me, the tears had already started. What's wrong? She kept asking, but I was crying too hard to answer. Her mom got me a glass of water and after 20 minutes I was able to talk. I told Melanie the whole story, the walks, the path, the man with a white teeth. When I finished, Melanie sat there in silence. Why didn't you talk to me about this? She said after an eternity. I shook my head and just looked down at the ground. I don't know. I said, Melanie took a deep breath and bit her lip. She looked up at the ceiling, her eyes glistening in the overhead lighting. I think you should call the police. She said, the police sent a team to the path to look for evidence.

41:51They brought in UV lights, DNA experts, and dogs trained on Ethan's scent. They sent a helicopter to do a flyover on the entire area. But they found nothing. The scene it seemed had been wiped clean. They brought me into the station a few days later for official questioning, but I was cleared right away. My alibi confirmed by Melanie and her family. As news of my finding spread, somebody from the police leaked it. Outrage grew among the public that the police had failed to sweep the scene properly. How could they have missed it? Was the question everybody kept asking? How come they didn't take a closer look at that path? But to me, the answer was simple. They missed the path because they didn't think to look to the people of Fairview, police included, the path was an ugly blemish, an unsightly oozing wound that was easier to ignore to the point of infection, then confront. To them, the path did not exist.

42:53And why would they look at something that wasn't there? Time passed un-eventfully after that. A slew of first-sale signs popped up around town in the weeks and months following the murder. But there were no additional incidents. Personally, I felt fortunate to have come out of the whole thing unscathed. Yes, there were there occurring night terrors about my teeth falling out, and I would sometimes have trouble breathing when passing by packets of gum for sale at the supermarket. But that mostly went away with time. After our nine months in the town were up, Melanie and I packed our life into a U-Haul, drove across the country, and moved into an apartment in the silver-like neighborhood of Los Angeles. She spent her days working remotely from home, and I spent mine trying to write screenplays at a coffee shop on sunset Boulevard. After a full year, I was able to piece together a presentable script, a hard-boiled serial-cular mystery, nothing groundbreaking. I sent letters to agents and managers all over town

43:53and heard back from only two, both of whom informed me that, for legal reasons, they weren't allowed to accept unsolicited material. I started going for long drives during the day, wasting large amounts of money on gas to see how far I could get into the desert and still make it home in time for dinner. Sometimes I imagined myself driving into death valley until the sun melted the car, and I became one with a sand. One evening, after driving all the way to Prim Nevada and back, I found Melanie sitting at the kitchen table. Her eyes wet, tears drizzling down her cheeks. What's going on? I said, she looked up at me and said the thing that had been on both our minds for the past few months. I don't like it here, and I want to go home. We ran out our lease, packed a U-Haul, and went back to our family's house in Fairview, completing our extended cross-country trip. I returned to my job at the new station. It was like we'd never left, and nothing had changed.

44:56One day, on a whim, I decided to go for a walk. I perused the neighborhood, letting my feet guide me. It was winter again, and the Christmas decorations were out in full force. After a series of random turns and curves, I found myself facing a familiar street, a street that led to a familiar path. Fear ran through me, like an acid flashback. But still, I was drawn to it. I took a step forward, and walked toward the path. When I arrived at the entrance, I was both relieved and disappointed, to find that the town had put up a metal gate blocking off the path. The gate featured two steel locks, and three no trespassing signs. So that's that. I thought, I turned to walk away, but stopped as an image popped into my mind. Wheels, spokes, handlebars, and under-lubricated chain. I figured that the bike wouldn't still be there,

45:57but it was worth checking. I walked around the pine bush, and sure enough, there it was, dirty and rusted, but still in good enough condition that I might be able to sell some parts and recoup a bit of the money I'd blown on the move. I dug the deflated wheels out of the grooves in the ground, into which they'd sunk. As I pulled the bike away from the bush, a piece of orange fabric fell off one of the handlebars. I bent down to pick it up, and I froze when I realized what it was. My beanie, which I'd not seen since it had fallen off my head, was as bright and orange as the day I bought it. I pinched the fabric between my fingers. It was soft and clean, and smelled of laundry detergent, not at all the condition in which one would expect to find a piece of clothing that had spent almost two years outside in the northeast. I turned my head, and let the bike fall to the ground. The frozen bell clanked as it impacted and above ground root.

46:59The wind blew, and my body shook. I was suddenly cold, colder than hail, colder than night, colder than vast and empty space. My teeth shattered and knocked against the inside of my skull. Hands shaking. I pulled the beanie onto my head and crossed my arms for warmth. And there I stood, freezing and alone, looking over my shoulder in a town, where bad things just don't happen. Stop wasting your nights on a mattress that doesn't get you. Experience the most comfortable mattress in the world. The sleep number smart bed at the touch of a button. You can personalize your comfort. Choose firmer or softer. Adjust cooler to warmer. And right now, save up to $2,500 during our massive Labor Day event.

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