I Think I found Something I Wasn't Supposed To. Part 3

I sat down last night to actually go through the journal properly, like I said I would. Front to back, with a legal pad next to me so I could try to keep track of anything that looked like a pattern.

The names and dates start way earlier than I expected. I knew this thing was old, but I didn't realize how old until I started actually tracking it on paper. The earliest date I could make out is from before my grandfather would've even been born. I started writing down every date I could actually read clearly, in order, just to see what it looked like laid out. Once I had a decent chunk of them down the pattern jumped out almost immediately. They're not exact to the day, but they cluster tight, roughly every ten years, give or take. Not once in a while. Not random gaps. Ten years, over and over, going back further than I have patience to guess at.

I cross referenced a few of the names I could actually read against old newspaper archives online, just search engine stuff, nothing fancy. I found two of them. Both listed as missing persons, decades apart, both cases that were apparently never closed. I'm not going to post the names here, I don't think that's mine to do, but I sat there for a while just looking at my laptop screen after finding the second one.

There's writing in the margins here and there too, not just names and dates. Most of it's short. A few lines I could actually make out say things like "she asked too many questions, had to change plans" and "later than last time, it noticed the delay." That second one is the one I keep coming back to. It noticed. Like it's aware enough to keep track of when it's supposed to get something. Whatever the hell It is.

I was in the middle of trying to make out a few paragraphs my grandfather had clearly written in one sitting given how the ink looks consistent all the way through, when I heard something outside.

I want to be careful about how I describe this because I don't want to oversell it. It wasn't loud. It was out past the yard, somewhere near the tree line, and at first my brain did the normal thing and tried to pass it off as a branch falling or something. I know these things happen with old trees in the woods. But this didn’t sound like that. It wasn't footsteps exactly. It also wasn't not footsteps. 

I got up and looked out the window facing the back of the property, and for about two seconds, right at the edge of where the yard gives way to trees, I thought I saw something standing there. Tall. Too tall, actually, taller than it had any business being if it was standing on two legs. Which I don't even know if it was, because by the time I actually processed what I was looking at and my eyes adjusted properly to the dark it wasn't there anymore. No sound of it moving off either. Just gone.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you I got a good look at anything. I didn't. It was dark, it was far away, and my brain was already primed after everything I've been reading for the last hour to see shapes that probably weren't there. I know how that sounds, and I'd be the first person in the comments telling someone else in my position that it was probably a tree, or a trick of the porch light, or their own nerves.

But I also don't think it was a tree. I've looked at that tree line during the day plenty of times now. I know what's actually out there in daylight.

Otis wouldn't settle back down for almost an hour after that. Kept his ears up, kept looking toward the back door even after I closed the curtain. He's asleep now finally, snoring next to me while I type this, which is somehow both comforting and not helping my nerves at all.

I didn't finish the journal. I got maybe two thirds of the way through before I lost the nerve to keep going for the night. I'll finish it tomorrow, in the daylight, getting freaked out in the dark is just too much.