No More Road Trips

"Did you hear that?" I quietly asked as I turned my head toward the faint sound coming from the deep woods.

We sat there in silence trying to listen for more.  But there was nothing.

"What was it?" He wondered out loud.

"It sounded almost like a woman screamed," I replied.

He shrugged and said, "Well, maybe we're not the only ones out here. Must be some kids goofing around."

"You're probably right.  Let's get some sleep.  We still have a long drive tomorrow and I'm exhausted."

As we put out the campfire and started climbing into our tent, I couldn't help but notice there was an eerie silence surrounding us.  Granted, we did pick a very isolated patch of woods to set up camp for the night.  But oddly, the usual sounds of nature were not present.  I tried not to think much of it.  I was so tired that by the time I rested my head on the pillow, sleep came over me.

"HELP! ...HELP ME! ... SOMEONE PLEASE!"

We both jolted up from our deep sleep.  We stared at each other with wide eyes, in silence.  It was dark, and we were both so still, listening, too scared to move.

"PLEASE! SOMEONE HELP!"

It sounded again like a woman.  The screaming was much closer now than before, close enough that we could make out the words clearly. I didn’t know what to do.  My body was temporarily frozen, so much that I didn't even blink or breathe. My brain was trying to process the situation, and having trouble doing so.  I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not, being that I was so peacefully sleeping just seconds before.  I held his hand that was next to mine for some sort of comfort.

Suddenly, the once before silent woods surrounding us, weren't so quiet now.  There was a strong rushing noise outside the tent.  Sounds of leaves crushing and twigs snapping, as if someone was running through them.  Shortly after there was a loud thump, it seemed like the person running had fallen hard to the ground.  We heard the woman again, now much louder. She was crying, uncontrollably, right outside the tent. 

"NO! PLEASE DON'T! STOP IT! PLEASE!"

We could still hear her desperate sobbing.  She sounded so scared.  This definitely was not ‘kids goofing around’.  The woman’s cries then seemed to be muffled.  Almost as if someone had their hand over her mouth, trying to keep her quiet.

"That's it, I'm going out there," he whispered loudly as he inched towards the front of the tent to pull the zipper open.

Tears were forming in my eyes and anxiety kicked in.  It was hard to breathe.  I couldn't stand to think of him going out of the tent, not knowing what was going on or who was out there.  He quietly stepped out into the darkness and closed the tent behind him.  I shut my eyes real tight and whispered to myself, "Please, be safe. Please don't get hurt.  Please."

What seemed like forever passed by before I heard the zipper opening again.  My body tensed up, not completely knowing if it was him or not.

"There is absolutely no one out here," he announced as he got it all the way open.  My muscles began to relax again.

"That's impossible!  She was right outside of our tent!"

"I know, I know.  Come see for yourself."

He took my hand and I nervously crawled out.  Pointing his flash light all the way around us, there was nothing.  He took me a little further out, still no sign of her being there.

Still shaken, we decided that there wasn't going to be any more sleep for us tonight, especially not here, so we began to quietly pack up the tent.  Every once in a while I looked over my shoulder, paranoid that there was still danger.

By the time we got everything into the car, the sun was slowly starting to rise.  We decided to drive into town and find a place where we could eat some breakfast before the long drive ahead.  The ride in was a silent one, each of us not knowing what to say.  I couldn’t help but think what would have happened if we had got the nerve to try and intervene sooner.  Could we have helped the woman?  Would we have put ourselves in danger?  What happened to her anyway?  Is she alright?  So many questions were running through my head, and I didn’t know how to process them all.

We pulled into a local diner that was open and sat down at the table.  After we placed our order I was still antsy, looking around at everything.  I spotted a rack with newspapers on it.  One of them was today's local newspaper, with a large picture of a pretty young girl on the front cover.  I got up and grabbed it to read.  The title of the front cover story was "Remembering Lisa".  It read, "One year ago today, the body of 16 year old Lisa Ackerman was found in the nearby woods by local hikers.  She was reported missing the day before.  Her death was ruled as a murder.  To this day, the killer has not been found and the case remains open.  We urge anyone who has information about this case or about Lisa and her whereabouts the day she went missing, to contact local authorities."

Shocked by this, I read it for the second time, but out loud for him to hear.  Once I was finished I looked up from the page.  We again found ourselves staring at each other with those wide eyes, in silence.