It took a couple more nights before I was feeling brave enough to return to the woods.
“Aunt Ruth, I’m going outside for a few minutes; I’ll be back soon,” I said.
“Ok, dear, don’t venture too far into the woods at night.”
I grabbed a flashlight and walked out into the woods past the spring creek and into the larger trees again. An eerie wind blew the few remaining leaves in the large oaks and a barred owl hooted some distance away, adding to the gloomy nature of the situation. I didn’t have to wait long before sleep overtook me again. It was odd the way my narcolepsy was so frequent in this one location. I couldn’t help but think there was something strange at work here, as if something were reaching out to me to tell me something through my condition.
When I came back into the dream state, I looked around for the little girl again. I walked over to the place where I had seen the little girl struggling with the man but did not see her anywhere. Instead, I saw the shadowy man, his features obscured by the darkness, digging a large hole some distance further on into the woods. I crept closer and closer, moving from tree to tree in case the man might spot me. I stopped behind a large beech tree and saw to my shock and dismay a large cloth bag sitting beside the man. The hole that he was digging was quite deep; he stopped and stuck his shovel into the ground. He took the bag and hurled it into the hole. Then, a second later, the man seemed to look in my direction. My heart leaped in my chest as I ducked behind the beech tree.
Consciousness returned to me. I looked at the spot in the ground where the hole had been dug and there was nothing there now but tall grass—nothing to indicate what I had seen before.
“That horrible man killed that little girl,” I said aloud to myself. I felt the sudden urge to get out of those cursed woods and get away from the site of the grizzly murder.
I went upstairs and called my friend, Kayla, who lived not too far away.
“I’m telling you, that man killed the little girl and buried her in the woods just a mile or so from my aunt’s house,” I said.
“It’s just a dream, Rosie,” Kayla said, doubtfully.
“It was so vivid, and each new dream picked up where the other one left off. I’m telling you, it really happened at some point,” I insisted.
“Tell you what, why don’t I come over there tomorrow and we can dig in that spot to see if we can find something? If nothing’s there, you’ll know they were just dreams,” Kayla said.
“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed.
The next afternoon, we set out for the woods. I wondered if the narcolepsy would occur again, but nothing happened.
“It was over here in this small clearing,” I said.
“Ok, let’s get digging,” Kayla said as she tied up her blonde hair and gripped the shovel. Kayla was a tomboy who was much more of a skeptic and less emotional than myself. She began to dig as the clouds obscured the afternoon sun overhead. As Kayla dug, I looked away for a moment, further off into the woods. Something brown and jagged caught my eye—it was the edge of a roof atop a small cabin.
“Look, there’s a cabin back there. I never noticed that before,” I said. Something about it being back there was unsettling to me, like a secret spy that had been watching my activities in the woods. Then, something moved not too far from the cabin in the woods.
“There’s something out there,” I whispered to Kayla.
“Of course there’s something out there; it’s the woods. Probably a squirrel or something,” Kayla said. “Here, you dig for a while; I’m getting a little worn out.” she handed the shovel to me. I began to dig as Kayla wiped her sweat off her brow. I had not been digging for more than five minutes when my shovel hit something that felt like cloth.
“I’ve found something,” I said. Kayla helped me uncover what looked to be a large cloth bag.
“Oh my god, it’s the same bag from my dream, Kayla, I swear it,” I said in a frightened voice.
Kayla didn’t know how to respond. She picked up the bag and set it on the ground beside the hole that they had dug. She untied the top and peered inside. Her expression was grave and white.
“What do you see?” I asked, trembling slightly.
“Bones,” Kayla said.
We stared at each other for a second as we both realized that my dreams were connected to an actual horrendous murder that had taken place. We both desired to get out of there as quickly as possible and tell my aunt, and then the authorities, about what we had found.
“Hand over the bag,” a voice said suddenly from the direction of the cabin. Both of us turned suddenly to face the direction that the command had come from. An old, haggard man with the same flat cap from my dream was holding a shotgun. We held our hands up in the air, and Kayla let the bag fall to the ground.
The man strode forward and grabbed the
