PART 9: THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE SCARED TO CAMP IN THE DARK DIVIDE WASHINGTON – Bigfoot Stories
PART 9 — THE PEOPLE WHO CAME BACK
The driver’s face finished changing.
Warren watched in silence.
The man beside him was no longer a stranger.
He was Warren.
Not exactly.
The features were almost right, but something about them was too smooth. Too deliberate. As though an invisible hand had built a human face from memory without understanding what made a person human.
The imitation smiled.
“You know me.”
Warren crawled backward across the pavement.
“No.”
The thing tilted its head.
“You know me.”
“No!”
Warren grabbed the radio and threw it into the ditch.
The imitation didn’t move.
Instead, it looked toward the forest.
Then back at Warren.
“You left something behind.”
Warren’s breathing stopped.
“What?”
“Your name.”
The creature smiled.
“And it wants it back.”
Warren scrambled to his feet.
Cars were passing on the highway now.
Real cars.
Real people.
A woman in a sedan slowed down and stared.
A pickup truck honked.
Nobody seemed to notice what was wrong.
Nobody seemed to notice the impossible man standing beside Warren.
The creature leaned closer.
“Tell them.”
Warren shook his head.
“Tell them who you are.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“No.”
“Warren Ashby.”
The moment the name left the creature’s mouth, every car on the highway stopped.
Every engine died.
Every driver turned toward Warren.
Hundreds of faces looked at him.
Then, one by one, they smiled.
Warren stumbled backward.
The driver whispered:
“Now they know you.”
A horn sounded.
Then another.
Then all of them.
The highway erupted in noise.
Warren covered his ears.
The drivers began climbing out of their vehicles.
Every single one looked toward him.
Every single face was smiling.
And every single voice said the same thing.
“Warren Ashby.”
He ran.
He didn’t know where.
He simply ran along the shoulder of the road.
Behind him came hundreds of footsteps.
He turned once.
The road was empty.
No people.
No cars.
Nothing.
Only the forest.
Warren stopped.
His chest heaved.
The highway was completely normal.
Traffic moved again.
Cars passed.
Nobody looked at him.
He stood there trembling.
Then he noticed something lying in the grass.
A notebook.
The same notebook the other Warren had been carrying.
Warren picked it up.
The cover was wet.
The first pages were filled with names.
He turned them quickly.
Each name had a date.
Each date corresponded to a disappearance.
Some names were decades old.
Others were recent.
Warren stopped at one.
Sandra Mercer — 2009.
He remembered the name.
Everyone in the area knew it.
A young woman who disappeared while hiking.
No body.
No evidence.
No explanation.
Warren turned the page.
There was another name.
Daniel Cross — 1997.
Another.
Michael Harlan — 1984.
Another.
Rebecca Sloan — 1971.
Dozens.
Then hundreds.
At the back of the notebook, the handwriting changed.
The entries became frantic.
Short.
Desperate.
They don’t disappear.
Warren read the next line.
They change.
The next page:
Some come back.
Then:
But they aren’t the same.
Warren’s hands trembled.
He turned another page.
A photograph had been taped inside.
It showed a group of people standing beside a forest ranger station.
There were seven of them.
Warren recognized Sandra Mercer immediately.
She looked exactly as she had in the missing-person photographs.
But there was someone standing beside her.
A man in a ranger uniform.
Warren stared at him.
He knew that face.
It was the ranger who had responded to Warren’s original distress call.
The man who had told Warren the turnaround was safe.
The man who had disappeared three days later.
Warren slowly turned the photograph over.
Written on the back were four words.
THEY CAME BACK WRONG.
A sound came from behind him.
“Warren?”
He dropped the notebook.
The voice belonged to a woman.
He turned.
An elderly woman stood beside the highway.
She wore a gray coat.
Her hair was white.
Her face looked exhausted.
But her eyes were unmistakable.
Warren had seen them in the photograph.
“Sandra?”
The woman nodded.
“You know my name.”
Warren couldn’t speak.
She approached slowly.
“That’s dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Because it knows names.”
“What knows names?”
She looked toward the forest.
“The thing that lives there.”
Warren stepped closer.
“You’ve been there.”
“I never left.”
“What?”
Sandra looked at him.
“I escaped once.”
Her voice became quieter.
“I thought I escaped.”
Warren looked at the notebook.
“Who wrote this?”
“I did.”
“But you disappeared seventeen years ago.”
Sandra smiled.
“Seventeen years for you.”
She touched the notebook.
“Not for me.”
“How long?”
Sandra looked toward the trees.
“Three days.”
Warren stared.
“What?”
“I was there for three days.”
“But seventeen years passed here.”
“Yes.”
“Where were you?”
“Somewhere else.”
“Where?”
She hesitated.
“Between.”
Warren felt a chill.
“What does that mean?”
Sandra stepped closer.
“You’ve heard the voices.”
Warren nodded.
“You’ve seen copies.”
He nodded again.
“Then you already know.”
“Know what?”
Sandra looked directly into his eyes.
“The forest isn’t haunted.”
Warren waited.
“It isn’t cursed.”
Another pause.
“And it isn’t inhabited by one creature.”
Warren’s face tightened.
“What is it?”
Sandra whispered:
“A door.”
The word seemed to echo across the road.
“A door to where?”
“Not where.”
Sandra corrected herself.
“When.”
Warren stared at her.
Sandra continued.
“Time doesn’t move correctly inside that place. You can walk ten minutes and come out twenty years later. You can stay for a week and return before you entered.”
Warren remembered the clock.
1:17.
He looked at his watch.
1:17.
The same time.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what is the creature?”
Sandra’s expression changed.
“That is what you’re calling it.”
“What should I call it?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“Because names give it shape.”
Warren looked toward the forest.
Sandra lowered her voice.
“It has no body.”
“Then what did I see?”
“It borrowed one.”
“From whom?”
“From you.”
Warren’s stomach dropped.
Sandra opened the notebook again.
“There are rules.”
She turned several pages.
“Don’t say your name.”
Warren nodded.
“Don’t answer voices you recognize.”
He nodded.
“Don’t follow someone who looks exactly like you.”
Warren remembered the other Warren.
Sandra continued.
“And never cross back through the same place you entered.”
Warren looked toward the forest.
“Why?”
“Because something comes with you.”
A long silence followed.
Then Warren noticed something.
Sandra’s shadow.
The sun was behind her.
Her shadow should have stretched toward him.
It didn’t.
It stretched toward the forest.
Warren stared.
Sandra noticed.
Her face went pale.
“No.”
“What?”
She stepped backward.
“No.”
Warren looked at her feet.
Her shadow moved.
Not with her.
It slowly crawled across the pavement toward Warren.
Sandra turned toward the forest.
“It followed me.”
“What did?”
Her voice shook.
“The thing.”
The shadow reached Warren’s boots.
He stepped back.
Sandra screamed.
“RUN!”
Warren turned and sprinted.
Behind him, Sandra screamed again.
Then her voice changed.
It became Warren’s.
“RUN, WARREN!”
He didn’t stop.
He reached the highway.
A truck nearly hit him.
The driver slammed the brakes.
Warren fell onto the shoulder.
The driver jumped out.
“Are you insane?”
Warren looked up.
The driver was a young man.
Normal.
Human.
Warren began crying.
“Please.”
“What?”
“Take me somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
The driver stared at him.
Then nodded.
“Get in.”
Warren climbed into the passenger seat.
The truck pulled onto the highway.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Warren watched the forest disappear behind them.
Ten miles.
Twenty.
Thirty.
The road became crowded.
Buildings appeared.
Gas stations.
Restaurants.
Houses.
Normal life.
Warren finally relaxed.
He closed his eyes.
Then the driver spoke.
“You know, Warren…”
Warren’s eyes opened.
The driver smiled.
“You shouldn’t have gotten out.”
Warren looked at him.
“What?”
The driver slowly turned his head.
His face was changing.
Not into Warren.
Into Sandra.
Then into the other Warren.
Then into Warren’s wife.
Then into Warren himself.
Warren screamed.
The truck continued down the highway.
The radio turned on by itself.
Static filled the cabin.
Then a voice spoke.
Not his wife’s.
Not his own.
A voice Warren had never heard before.
A deep voice.
Ancient.
Almost human.
“You opened the door.”
Warren stared at the dashboard.
“What do you want?”
The voice answered:
“More.”
The truck’s headlights flickered.
Outside, the sun suddenly disappeared.
Darkness swallowed the road.
The driver smiled.
And Warren realized the worst truth of all.
The thing hadn’t followed him out.
It had been waiting for him to bring it home.
The radio crackled one final time.
Then Warren heard his wife’s voice.
Only this time, she wasn’t afraid.
She was screaming.
“Warren, don’t come home!”
The transmission died.
Warren looked through the windshield.
A familiar road appeared ahead.
His road.
His town.
His house.
The truck slowed.
The driver turned toward him.
And whispered:
“We’re almost there.”
