Chapter 20: A Trail of Confusion
I plunge my head beneath the warm water in the bathtub. The reinvigorating water surrounds my body, creating a refreshing euphoria in my mind. My hope is that when I plunge upward to the surface, the anguish would flow away from me, allowing me to function as my normal self. The reality is that as I hold my breath beneath the water, waiting to resurface, all I can think about is my parents.
There is no hope, no revival for them or me. There is no shade of reality where mere water could extinguish my filth and return me to solid ground, for I have done nothing good while trying to figure any of this out.
As my thoughts grow into pure helplessness, the water seems to get hotter with each soul wrenching truth. My body convulses in the tub as my skin begins to burn down to the bone. I quickly shoot myself up from beneath the water. I take a giant breath causing the oxygen to burn my insides as the water continues to burn my extremities. Seeking relief, I jump out of the bathtub.
My wet feet hit the wood floor, sliding forward quicker than I anticipate, as I crash to the floor hitting my back and shoulders against the bathtub. The burning stops once I’m out of the bathtub, but the gut wrenching pain hurts just as much. My eyes shut as my teeth grind away the initial pain.
When I open my eyes, I’m staring at the ceiling next to the nightstand beside the bed. My body is dry except for the slight pooling of sweat around my hairline. What is going on?
In the confusion, I force my aching body off the floor and stumble into the bathroom. The bathtub is dry as a desert and there are no signs of me ever taking a bath. My fingers and palm of my hand run across my forehead and down my face. Did I fall asleep? I must have because I wasn’t in here.
Burdened by the pain, boredom, and confusion, I head into the living room to check the news, but before I can turn on the television, a buzzing sound comes ringing from the bedroom. I quickly identify the buzzing as my cell phone vibrating against the nightstand. Now what does this stinking person want?
When I pick up the phone, instead of seeing the unknown number I see Ryleigh’s number. As soon as I answer the phone, there is screaming and chaos. Ryleigh’s frightened voice begins speaking, “Please, you don’t have to do this. I don’t know what you have done, but whatever it is, I won’t tell. Just leave me alone Jim… What do you mean? I never did anything to you. No, please just let me stay here by the water. I won’t…”
The line breaks up for a few moments, then more screaming reemerges before the line cuts out. I try to reconnect, but it goes straight to the voicemail, which hasn’t been set up. “I knew this would happen! Ugh! Why couldn’t she stay in the cabin? I swear!”
What do I do now? If I go try to find her, I might end up dead or worse, but I can’t leave her out there. I have to go help her. She said something about water, meaning she is probably down by the river. I’ll check there first if I can make it down there.
I rush out the cabin, my teeth grinding together, without even shutting the door. I sprint around to the back of the cabin and find the trail leading down to the river. The trail is jagged and rough in some spots, which, along with the pain, makes it hard to push my tempo. There are branches hanging over the trail in some places causing me to slow to a snail’s pace. I don’t remember it being in such bad shape the last time I was here.
There are no signs of Ryleigh or anyone else around the trail. I don’t remember how long the trail is, but after probably about fifteen minutes into my rescue mission, my composure starts to wane. My legs start to cramp, and my mind begins to drift to images of a dead bloody Ryleigh floating in the river.
As the trail conditions improve into a sandier surface, I notice fresh footprints heading in the direction of the river. Upon noticing the prints an immediate influence of sweeping fear and discouragement highjack any optimism. It’s not the footprints heading to the river that are discouraging because that is what I expected to see. It is the fact there are no footprints returning in the direction of the cabin that promotes the discouragement and fear.
Ryleigh is dead. I know it. Whomever this Jim guy happens to be, I hope he knows he really has it coming to him. He has taken my parents and now my forgotten girlfriend. I don’t know what I’m going to do if she is dead or hurt. She is my only ally, but at the same time, she was incredibly stupid and deserves whatever she got herself into, but I don’t know if I can make it through this without her.
The trail starts to go into a big incline, so I stop running. I’m completely worn out, but the more important reason that I stop is that I remember the river is just over this hill. I slowly walk up the hill trying to stay as quiet as possible.
I have to prepare for the worst. What do I do if she’s hurt or dead? I can’t exactly call the cops. I’m not prepared for this. What if the person that attacked her is still down here? Why does this crap have to happen to me?
I creep over the hill not knowing what to expect. The images of a bloody, lifeless Ryleigh are all I can picture, so when I make it over the hill and see nothing but the river and trees, it's actually a relief. The relief of not finding her dead causes me to let my guard down even though there still could be danger. I follow the trail to its ending into the river, but find no sign of Ryleigh.
I stand by the water’s edge just staring at the slow moving current. The murky water covers up the riverbed with a coat of gray dirt and rocks. My sense of relief slowly dissipates as I realize the time it took me to get to the river; Ryleigh’s body could have been swept away by the current. Before I can follow that thought through, something lying at the edge of the forest to my right distracts me.
There sticking out of the grass is a Nike running shoe. It’s definitely Ryleigh’s shoe, which at least proves she was down in this area. But where did she go? And if there was a struggle that led to her losing a shoe, is she ok wherever she is?
If they didn’t return up the trail I came down, then there are only a couple plausible options. They could still be down here by the river, but I don’t see any signs of anyone still being down here. I guess they could have left by going down the river, but I highly doubt it. The only logical option remaining is that they left by going up a different trail. “But where is it? I only see one trail.”
The end of the forest is fairly thick in most places with vines, briars, and tall grass making it nearly impossible for anyone to escape directly into the woods. There are only a couple spots where it looks like the overgrown foliage thins out enough for someone to maneuver through the thicket while the overgrowth remains dense enough to hide a trail from a distance.
I pick the closest one and take soft, ginger footsteps as I walk towards the opening. Even though I dismissed the possibility of them still being in this area, I’m still completely unnerved by being down here alone while somebody possibly lies in wait to kill me. Especially, if they know the area well enough to escape down a forgotten trial.
The first break in the forest turns out to be a bust. There are only about fifteen feet of maneuverability before the forest completely takes out any attempt to push deeper. There has to be another trail. It’s the only way any of this makes any sense at all. With slight optimism, I spot the next possible area that could hide a trail. This one might be fruitful.
I’m about thirty feet away when the noise of wood breaking stops me from inching any closer. A few feet into the crevice of the forest a shadow darts behind a tree. “Ryleigh is that you?”
Unfortunately, there is no reply or further movement. The only sound is from the trees whistling in the wind. I would almost rather someone jump out and come running after me, if it meant I could stop this avid searching in the middle of nowhere. Since my wish doesn’t come, I progress towards the crevice, my fist clenched tight in case I need the use of an emergency punch. The tree that the shadow disappeared behind nears, but before I reach it, a family of birds flies out from behind it. So much for my lurking shadow.
The area is overgrown with thistles
and vines that make it difficult to walk through without being scratched. At around the level of my knee, the growth hits a stunted height. I’m careful not to prick myself on any of the thorns protruding from the growth, and after I carve myself a few feet into the crevice, a narrow path cutting into the forest begins to form.
A glimmer of hope resonates from the sight of the trail. I take up more energy than my body really wants to exert as I stomp my way further into the crevice. I literally have to push the weeds and thorns down with my feet in order to walk. I check behind me to see what the path looks like, because it looked untouched before I set myself into its teeth covered grasp. After each step, the trampled overgrowth plunges upward to its initial position, hiding any evidence I had even taken a step.
With that observation, the possibility that I am on the right path remains just that a possibility. The image of Ryleigh being forced to wade through the thorns with only one shoe scrambles my insides. Although a painful experience, at least it would mean she isn’t dead. But I suppose not everything, is better than being dead.
The overgrowth gets thinner as I go, and I suffer only mild discomfort as a few thorns rip into my sweatpants. Upon making it through the overgrowth to the narrow hidden trail, I am surprised that not only do I find a trail, but I also find fresh footprints. The footprints lead my eyes down the trail to a shoe laying directly in the middle of the beaten grass and dirt path. It is the matching shoe to the one I found by the river. There is little doubt that Ryleigh had been taken down this path a short time ago.
The trail has tree limbs stretching out from various angles making it impossible to move at any pace but a walk. With the trail in this state, there is no way she could possibly get away. Then again, there is no way she could be pulled or forced down the trail because of the tree limbs. Whoever took her probably walked behind her as she walked in front. I wonder if whoever took her has a weapon? That would make sense given she would be walking on her own accord as she climbed over and under the tree limbs.
The trail takes a sudden, sharp bend to the right. Several trees prevent me from seeing around the bend. This sudden blind spot sends a wave of panic and anxiety throughout me. For a moment, I envision someone jumping out from around the bend with a gun. Thankfully, upon reaching the bend no such event actually occurs. All that is waiting for me around the bend is more trail, foliage, and footprints.
Branches and insects eat up my arms and legs as I steadily make my way down the trail. It’s hard to gauge the distance that I have traveled on the trail, because my body was already weak, and the slow creeping pace makes every few feet seem like an eternity. My back begins to ache from bending under the stray branches.
I pick up a broken tree limb and begin using it as a walking stick, without it my exhaustion would force me to stop. The mugginess begins to take its toll as sweat drips from my brow onto my shirt. The fact I haven’t had much to drink besides scotch also doesn’t help by condition any. “Shoot, nobody needs to kill me. I might simply keel over just by walking this darn trail.”
A branch comes out of nowhere nearly decapitating me as I finish my sentence. The only thing that keeps me from hitting the ground is my walking stick. Nature tries to kill me. Nature saves me. I can’t help but chuckle slightly at my own prophetic insight. As if, it would take much more than a branch to break me at this point.
The real reason the branch hit me is the trail has started to get even narrower. After avoiding a few more branches, the trail closes itself off into nothing but overgrown stalks of grass. It's similar to the overgrowth from the beginning of the trail, except there are no thorns involved at this point. My poor eyesight, restricted by the overgrowth, impairs my ability to see where the trail will turn next. Despite the trail ending, the footprints or now foot indentions have kept going.
I follow the indentions through the high stalks of grass. It isn’t very far at all before I plunge out onto the road that leads to the cabin. I don’t know where I expected it to lead, but I sure didn’t expect it to lead back to the road. Although, the road is a logical place for an old trail to run into, but it doesn’t make any sense when it comes down to the abduction.
The cabin is just up the road. If someone knew we were out here, why not come after me at the cabin? Why go after her at all, when my parents are the ones that were killed? It just doesn’t make sense. How did they even know she was going to be down by the river? She could have easily stayed in the cabin.
Regardless of why, the reality is the trail has ended, and Ryleigh is nowhere in sight. Feeling once again at a complete loss, I’m left with only one option. I have to go back to square one. The problem is I don’t know what square one is anymore. If only I knew where to begin, then maybe I could figure out how it all fits together.
I begin walking up the road towards the cabin. She was looking at the file all night. It has to have some answers in it. It has to. “Who knows the file may be gone too when I get back. I wouldn’t doubt it. Everything else has left me.”
Buried Truth Page 20