FOLLOW ME

FOLLOW ME

Habib Dabajeh

CHAPTER 1

I should have turned back when the path narrowed, and
the eerie wail of the cold wind forced waves to crash on the slick and sharp rocks beneath my boots. But I hadn’t. I would follow her that dreadful night and would find myself in a precarious position fit for a horror classic movie. Amid the Dark Sky Park, in Emmet County, Michigan, we started our walk.

“Follow me,” she said, her voice a melodic whisper, “stay close by my side, it’s just a few yards more.” Her grin, wide and white against her pale skin, seemed to flicker. Her hands, cold and surprisingly strong, tightened against mine as she sped up her pace. Before I could decide, before I could pull myself free and retreat the way I’d come, we were halfway there, and a feeling of foreboding, a cold dread that coiled in my gut, came over me.

Her name was Rosey. I’d met her only a week ago, in the small, isolated village at the foot of the cliffs. She was an anomaly, a splash of vibrant color in a community painted in shades of grey. Her laughter was like the chime of silver bells, her eyes the glittering blue of the glacial sea. I’d been drawn to her, a moth to a flickering flame. She claimed to know the park’s secrets, hidden coves, and forgotten trails, and I, a city dweller craving escape, had fallen for her siren song. The path now was barely a track, a ribbon of cracked earth clinging to the cliff face. Below, the waves crashed against the jagged rocks, their relentless roar a constant, unsettling soundtrack. The feeling of dread grew with each step, a suffocating weight pressing down on my chest. I wanted to stop, to demand an explanation, but the words caught in my throat, strangled by a fear I couldn’t name. Rosey’s pace quickened. Her white dress, stained with what looked like red spots, now billowed around her like a shroud. Her hair, usually a cascade of loose curls, was plastered against her face, and her eyes, wide and luminous, seemed to reflect something other than the setting sun. They held a cold, disturbing gleam that made my skin crawl.

“Almost there,” she said, her voice breathy and almost devoid of the melody I’d grown accustomed to. Her grip on my hand tightened further, her fingers digging into my flesh. “Just a little further.”

We rounded a bend, and the lighthouse came into full view. A tall, imposing structure of grey stone, its lamp was dark, its windows like empty sockets staring out into the vastness of Lake Michigan. But it wasn’t the lighthouse that stopped me in my tracks, it was what lay in the small, sheltered hollow beneath it.

A pile of sorts, ringed by misshapen rocks, and in the center, the form of a freshly planted object. It wasn’t an altar of stone or wood, but a chaotic jumble of moss, driftwood, and rocks. The stench that rose from it was sharp and acrid, the smell of decay and something else, something ancient and unholy. I tried to pull my hand from hers, but her grip was like iron. Panic seized me then, a cold, suffocating fear that made my heart hammer against my ribs.

“Rosey,” I gasped, my voice a strangled croak. “What is this place? What are we doing here?”

Her grin returned, but now it was a grotesque imitation of the smile I had known. It stretched her lips, pulling them back so far that her teeth looked like chipped gravestones. Her eyes, the glacial blue I had admired, were now a dark, inky black. And then I saw the blood trail. The stench grew stronger and filled the air I was breathing, and I felt an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach and became dizzy. There was a pile of sticks and grass just ahead of us, and I could make out a shoe belonging to a leg from where I stood. I silently screamed a primal sound that tore from my throat, but the wind snatched it away, carrying it out to sea. No one would hear me. No one would know. There were no other souls around, but us.

“You know what’s under that pile?” She asked stuttering. I fearfully shook my head signaling no.

“My Father,” she breathed, in a hoarse, harsh sound, no longer the sweet melody I remembered. “It’s where he rightly belongs.”

It was flesh. Human flesh. I was staring at a deceased human being, and I had no words to express my reasoning. My fear was a tangible thing now, a suffocating blanket that threatened to engulf me. I could feel its icy tendrils reaching for my mind, numbing my senses. I wiggled uncontrollably, desperation giving me strength I didn’t know I possessed, but her grip held firm. She was stronger than she looked, her petite frame belying a monstrous force.

Finally, she released my hand from her grip. My skin tingled from her touch, a bizarre mixture of fear and something that felt tragically like sympathy. Her eyes, dark and motionless, stared at the lifeless form of her father. It was as if she were examining a particularly intriguing specimen, not the man who had been her life, but her tormentor. A disturbing silence lingered between us, as the air hung heavy with the coppery tang of blood and the sickly sweet smell of decay. Just moments ago, I had been wrestling with the fear of something evil happening to me, now I stand aghast, my chest heaving, trying to process the horror. Her father, a hulking shadow fueled by cheap whiskey and rage, now lays still, eyes wide and vacant, a grotesque puppet with its strings cut. Rosey stood silent, the moonlight casting long, dancing shadows across her gaunt face. She had been the one to finally end it, a swift, brutal act of desperation with a rusted machete she had secretly carried with her that fateful night. Rosey turns and walks over to me and whispers,

“Ever since I was a little girl, my father would bring me here and do whatever he willed with me.”

My gut twisted. This beautiful angel, which I had mistakenly thought was just as innocent as her shy smiles suggested, was in her horror scene, her stage debut for unspeakable terrors.

She continued, her voice flat, devoid of emotion, “My mother, you see, is bedridden, and has been so for many years. My father chose alcohol to relieve his stress and has not been sober for 10 years. After dinner and putting mom back in her bed, we would leave the house for a nightly walk, and end up here at this old Lighthouse. He would pocket a bottle of liquor in his jacket and drag me here, his rough hand clamped around my wrist, his breath hot and smelling of cheap whiskey. Here, in this subterranean hell, the alcohol would take hold, twisting his features into a grotesque mask. The gentle facade would shatter, revealing the monster that lurked beneath. He’d become a creature ripped from the pages of a nightmare, a sexual predator whose desires were as cold and cruel as the concrete floor beneath my bare feet. There was nothing human left in his eyes, only a predatory hunger that chilled me to the bone. My father knew nothing of love; He wanted something unholy and dark, a depravity that consumed everything in its path, leaving me broken and bleeding in the aftermath. And every time, I would pray for the dawn, praying that this nightmare would release me, that the sun might cleanse the awful stain.”

I heard her and more confusion circled my brain. What should I say? How does one respond in circumstances like these? I knew I was no longer in danger, and that gave me hope and strength to offer a voice. Each word she spoke sliced through me. I had known her family was… troubled. The whispered rumors in the small town, the way she flinched at sudden movements, the perpetual weariness in her eyes. I had chalked it up to poverty, to the harsh realities of their isolated existence. But this… this was a monstrous truth I couldn’t begin to comprehend. I wanted to speak, to offer some sort of comfort, some platitude to mend the gaping wound of her existence. But the words failed me. What could I say to a girl who had spent the last eight years in a cell of torture? Her eyes, still dark and unnervingly calm, met mine. A tiny smile, the kind that didn’t reach her eyes, played on her lips. It was a smile that chilled me to the bone, for it held not relief, but resignation. It was the smile of someone who had seen too much, someone who had been broken in ways I couldn’t even imagine.

She lifted a flat rounded rock, her grip surprisingly gentle as she turned it over. I saw a glint of metal then, a wicked-looking machete, its blade blood-covered and shimmering under the faint moonlight. Tears streamed down her face as she held it and silently gazed upon it.

“It’s over now.” She whispered, her voice barely audible above the wailing wind, “My nightmare is lying motionless before me, and a new nightmare for me has begun.”

And in that chilling finality, I understood. It wasn’t over at all. It had just begun. And now that she had freed herself, I wasn’t sure what she would become. The horror wasn’t the dead man on the ground chopped in pieces; the horror was the emptiness that had taken root in Rosey’s soul, an emptiness that threatened to consume us both. This wasn’t the end of a nightmare, but the horrifying start of something far worse. I knew, with certainty that I was now trapped in this tale with her, a story that was far from over. And I had a dreadful feeling that the next chapter in our lives would be even more terrifying than this one.

CHAPTER 2

The violent waves continued to crash, echoed with the mournful whisper of the wind, a sound that always seemed to mirror the unrest in my soul. Here, I was, a prisoner of my own making. Or rather, a prisoner of her making. Moments ago, I was hopelessly, pathetically, in love with an angel, calm and innocent, now, it’s as if fate had summoned a mischievous demon to turn my once heavenly world into a nightmarish hell.

When she spoke describing her father, her words resonated with a painful and chilling truth. I knew she had every right to do what she did, but the idea of dismembering your flesh and blood was terrifying. Slowly, painstakingly, I began to glimpse the real person that stood in front of me. She noticed my quiet observations, my clumsy attempts at acting normal, and instead of dismissing them, she responded with a coldness that made my heart jump:

“Should we bury him now, or wait for daybreak?” She stammered, her voice choked with tears she couldn’t seem to produce.

“We?” I thought silently. I was surprised by her blunt words, by the coldness in her eyes fixed on me, holding me captive with a desperation that terrified me. It wasn’t the look of someone who had just witnessed something horrible. It was the look of someone who had done something horrible. Her voice is dark and stern. She wasn’t asking for an invitation. It was a command, delivered with the cold, unwavering certainty of a mind touched by madness. She began to clear the sticks and rocks that covered her tormentor, and there lay the body. Twisted and contorted, it looked less like a human being and more like a discarded roadkill whose features had been brutally severed by a wild animal. The stillness was unnerving, a profound absence of breath that screamed louder than any imaginable sound. The reality of it, the sheer, brutal finality, punched the breath from my lungs. I wanted to scream, to run, to claw my way back into the normalcy that had existed just moments ago. But I was rooted to the spot, my limbs heavy and unresponsive like they had been filled with lead.

“We?” I finally shouted, my voice resonating through the air.

“I need your help,” she said, her voice gaining a sliver of strength. Her hand, still trembling, reached out and grasped my arm with a grip that was both desperate and frighteningly firm. “I don’t know what to do. I… I don’t know where to put him.”

The words pierced through the haze of disbelief, igniting a fire of panic deep within my chest. Put him? Bury him? My mind recoiled in horror at the implications. This wasn’t some childhood game of hide-and-seek. This was a life, brutally extinguished. And she expected me, somehow, to be complicit in hiding it.

“We need to go to the police,” I managed to choke out, my voice trembling. The words felt feeble, inadequate in the face of the horror unfolding before me. “We have to tell them what happened. It was self-defense, they’ll see. They’ll understand.”

“Self-defense,” she whispered as if trying to convince herself. She wasn’t looking at me, her gaze fixed on her dead father’s face. Or rather, the portion of it that was still intact.

My pleas fell flat against the wall of her panicked resolve. Her grip tightened on my arm, and her eyes, now burning with a terrifying intensity, met mine directly.

“No,” she said, the single word resonating with a chilling finality. “No police. They won’t believe me. They’ll throw me in jail.”

Her fear was palpable, a tangible thing that filled the suffocating air. A fear that somehow, in its desperate intensity, was starting to erode the edges of my reason. But I couldn’t let it. I couldn’t let her pull me into the darkness of this abyss with her.

“But… but this is wrong,” I stammered, the words barely more than a whimper. “We can’t just… hide it. It’s not right.” The thought of wrapping that lifeless body in a tarp, and digging a shallow grave under the cover of darkness, was stomach-churning. I could feel bile rising in my throat at the mere image.

“I’m not going to jail,” she repeated, her voice shaking but firm. “And I can’t do this alone. Please… please help me.”

Another wave of nausea washed over me. Her desperation was a powerful force, a black current pulling me further away from any semblance of reason. I looked from her face, contorted by terror and pleading, to the lifeless body sprawled on the floor. The reality, the stark and brutal finality of it, was slowly sinking in. I was standing in a crime scene. A murder. And I was teetering on the precipice of becoming an accomplice.

CHAPTER 3

My mind was a battlefield, torn between the instinct to flee and the chilling realization that I was, in some twisted way, already entangled in this nightmare. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the suffocating silence.

I opened my mouth to speak, to reason, to beg her again. But the words caught in my throat, a tangled mess of fear and disbelief. The image of that lifeless body imprinted itself on my mind, a terrifying reminder of the gravity of the situation. The weight of it all, the raw, brutal reality, was crushing me. And in the silence that followed, I knew, with a bone-chilling certainty, that my life would never be the same again. I was trapped. I was her accomplice whether I chose to be or not. The darkness had claimed me, and I had no idea how I was going to escape.

As that unnatural silence fell upon us, a chorus of howls erupted in the distance. The sound, raw and primal, shattered the stillness like fractured glass. The wolf pack, wherever they were, carried their song on the chilling wind, each note a jagged shard that pierced our fragile calm. The air grew colder, dampness seeping into our skin, and then the rain began. At first, it was a hesitant drizzle, a weeping from the heavens, then it escalated into a steady downpour, each drops a cold finger tapping on our faces. We huddled together for a moment, our shared grief making us cling to each other. But the rain was relentless, and the rapidly encroaching darkness made it clear we couldn’t stay. We agreed to return in the morning to properly complete the burial and mark the spot.

The walk back to her house was a spectral procession. Each of us was lost in our private hell, the silence between us as thick and oppressive as the rain. No words were exchanged, none dared to trespass on the heavy cloak of despair that had settled over us. The darkness pressed in on all sides, the rain a constant, drumming reminder of the grim task we’d undertaken. I found myself staring at the muddy path beneath my feet, the reflection of the bleak sky in the puddles feeling like an omen. A heavy weight settled in my stomach, a premonition of something terrible to come.

Sleep offered little respite. I tossed and turned, haunted by the image of a rotten corpse. The wolves’ howls echoed in my dreams, morphing into guttural cries of pain and suffering. When dawn finally broke, it arrived like a hesitant intruder, barely piercing the low, heavy clouds. I dressed quickly, a need to get back to that clearing pulling at me with unsettling force.

We met at the front door of her ramshackle house, our faces pale and tight, etched with the shared horrors of the previous night and the unspoken dread of the day to come. We walked in silence, the rain had transformed the muddy path into a slippery trail. Each step felt leaden, our anxieties growing with every passing moment.

When we finally reached the clearing, the scene that greeted us sent a jolt of pure, unadulterated terror through our veins. The pile of sticks and rocks was disturbed and scattered. The corpse was gone.

A collective gasp rose from our throats, a strangled sound that died in the cold, damp air. A wave of nausea washed over me, and my legs felt suddenly weak. I reached out to a nearby tree, my hand gripping the rough bark for support. We stood frozen for a long, terrible moment, our minds struggling to comprehend the impossible. Then she pointed a trembling finger towards the ground.

“Look…”

I followed her gaze, our eyes widening in horror at the sight that awaited us. The muddy earth was imprinted with a chaotic tapestry of tracks – large, predatory prints unlike any we had ever seen. There, intermingled with the normal paw prints of wolves and coyotes, were the unmistakable signs of black bears – monstrous claws and splayed feet, deeply imprinted into the sodden ground.
The horror of the situation began to slowly dawn upon us. The tracks weren’t just a random collection; they were a story told in the mud.

They led from the corpse, snaking around the clearing, disappearing into the dark, oppressive depths of the forest where the sounds of snarling and feasting likely lingered. We followed the trail cautiously, not daring to stray far. The ground was littered with clumps of earth, torn fabric, and splatters of dark, viscous blood. A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach, the scene turning blurry. My breath hitched in my chest as we reached the edge of the forest. The stench of death, of raw meat and decay hung heavy in the air. And mingled in it, was a sickening, unmistakable odor: the acrid stench of human remains. We didn’t have to follow the trail further. We saw the evidence and felt the truth deep within our souls. The wolves and coyotes, yes, but the presence of the black bears – they explained everything.

Her father, a man of unspeakable cruelty and violence, a man who had made her life a living hell… had been devoured.

The realization washed over us in a wave of cold, sickening horror. They had dug up his corpse, and the wild creatures, driven by some unknown instinct, had taken him back to the woods, back to the place that now seemed to be his final, gruesome resting place.
The forest itself seemed to hold its breath, the trees watching us with silent malevolence. I felt both relieved and saddened but mostly broken. She looked like she was undeterred by what she had done, and by what had transpired before our eyes.

We turned and fled, not daring to look back, not wanting to see or know more. The horrifying scenes we had just experienced would be permanently imprinted on my memory, haunting me like a relentless ghost. As we stood there, enveloped in an eerie silence, the weight of our shared trauma hung heavily in the air. Our eyes met briefly, a silent acknowledgment of the unspeakable horrors we had faced, yet we parted ways without a single word, each of us lost in our thoughts, unable to find the right language to express the depth of our fear and despair. It was a farewell marked not by words, but by an unbreakable bond forged in the fire of our shared ordeal, forever sealing our connection in the shadows of that night. Just the echoes of the wolves remained who had howled their hunger tune the night we left, and now appear to be silently resting with bellies full.

©Habib Dabajeh