29 Apr The Reeds

I’ll never forget that day. For so many years, I’ve thought about it, about her, and wished for answers. I doubt I’ll ever get any. I know I won’t. From time to time, I go back to New York to visit my dad or friends, and I consider going back there, but I never have the courage to actually do it. I’ll just ride past it in the car and stare out the window like I’ve seen a ghost… because I have. Let me take you back with me this time and start from the beginning.

October 1993
Baldwin, Long Island, New York

I was far from popular and only just starting to find my own and build my circle of friends in my junior year of high school. I was a shy kid with anxiety, but I was also built with strong values and integrity. I wanted to take care of people and help wherever I could, which is important because it plays a big part in how this all came to be.

My friend, we’ll call her Valerie, had some self-esteem issues like the rest of us misfit toys, but she was a good person and didn’t have a mean bone in her body. It was hard for her to stand up for herself, and she was physically small too, which only made everyone that much more frightening.

She had been trying to date outside of school, to find someone not connected to the people we knew, someone she could be herself with, and back then the internet wasn’t really a thing. People didn’t even have cell phones unless they were a doctor or a drug dealer. We had pagers, and we got messages alerting us that people wanted to talk, and then we ran to the nearest payphone to call them and see what they urgently wanted. This is also important to the story.

I had another friend back then, a girl named Debbie. I’m still friends with her today. It was fall and cold, the ghostly breeze whipping the golden leaves from the trees that lined the roads. It was my favorite time of year, and I loved sitting outside and listening to the wind, as if it were the voices of spirits calling to me. It wasn’t a ghost that called me that night, though. It was Debbie.

I didn’t hear the phone because I was outside, contemplative, enjoying the season, and writing lyrics to what would be my next rock song. The screen door opened with a creak, and my mother’s head poked outside.

“What are you doing out here? You’re not even wearing a jacket. You’re gonna get sick. Come inside, huh?”

“I’m fine, Ma,” I said back.

“Well, you gotta come in anyway. Debbie is on the phone.”

“Oh.” Well, that was a different matter. If a friend was calling me at night, they probably needed me, and I never wanted to let anyone down. When Debbie had trouble with a bully, I took him on. I had been the quiet kid before that, and I was even recognized in the yearbook for it, but there was no avoiding everyone after that. I had gotten suspended for inciting a riot, and people changed the words on my Ned’s Atomic Dustbin shirt to say, “Kill your bullies” instead of “Kill your television.” It wasn’t very creative, and no bullies died, thankfully, but one did catch a walloping. Debbie and I had been friends already, but we would be lifelong friends after that.

I got up and hurried into the house. My mom pointed to the phone on the table, a mustard-yellow coiled cord draping from the wall into the seat nearby. She went to resume her seat on the couch in front of the TV. My mother had her scheduled programming mapped out and a planner with what shows came on what nights at what times and which ones were more important to watch, and when she couldn’t decide, she had a VCR that my brother had to program for her to record her shows because she couldn’t figure it out. To be fair, I didn’t know the first thing about it, outside of play, record, stop, and rewind.

She took up her vigil in front of the TV, white Russian in hand, and I went into the kitchen to answer the phone.

“Hey,” I said, sitting at the table.

“It’s Valerie,” Debbie said, sounding panicked.

Immediately, I abandoned my seat and walked around the corner toward the back door, stretching that phone cord until there wasn’t a single coil left in it.

“What do you mean? What’s wrong?” I asked, her worry contagious.

“Valerie met this guy. He’s a college guy, and creepy, and he wanted to date her, and she was so happy to have the attention that she said yes.”

“Alright,” I said. “Don’t panic yet. Maybe he’s a good guy.”

I swear I could hear her shake her head.

“He’s not. He gives me the creeps, and Chisto, he isn’t coming to pick her up. He asked her to meet him at the elementary school on Mourne Ave.”

“Okay, that’s a little weird,” I admitted. “Why would a college guy with a car want the high school girl to meet him at a dark school after hours?”

“Exactly!” she exclaimed, her fear palpable. “It’s not safe out there without a creepy college guy, never mind with him. We have to do something.”

I nodded my agreement and then realized she couldn’t see it. Life is so much easier now with video chatting.

“Yeah, no… yeah, I agree,” I said. “Can you get out? I’ll get my bat and head over there. It’s pretty close to my house, and I can get there fast. If she’s in danger, I’ll keep her safe, I promise.”

“Yeah, I’ll meet you there. See you in a few,” she said, immediately hanging up.

I walked back to the base on the wall and hung my phone up as well.

I went around the corner into my room and seized my Louisville Slugger. Then I checked on my mom, who was focused on the TV.

“I’m running out to help Debbie with something, Ma. I’ll be back in a few minutes, promise.”

“Take your jacket so you don’t end up with pneumonia,” she said without turning to look at me. Someone on TV was telling a criminal to stop, or they would shoot.

I grabbed my jacket off the back of a chair at the dining room table and raced out the door. The school wasn’t far from my house, but I was still nervous because Valerie’s house was even closer to it, and I didn’t know when she left to meet this guy or what he or his car looked like. It didn’t take a grown man long to hurt a girl.

I walked as fast as I could, and the wind swirled around me like it was physically following me. Leaves swirled around me like I was a mini cyclone ripping them from the ground as I hurried by.

It didn’t take me long to get to the school. I’d only seen it during the day, and I never went there, as I only moved to Baldwin for high school, so I had no fond childhood memories connecting me to the place. Seeing it now, in the pitch-black night, it looked seriously ominous. The windows were covered in construction paper, which only served to make it darker. I swallowed a lump in my throat and slowed my pace, walking slowly toward the front of the school.

There was a creek behind it, covered in tall reeds, so it was obscured from view, but the water brought an even stronger breeze. The reeds swayed back and forth like jaundiced skeletons waving at me mockingly.

“Hey!” Debbie called, making me jump out of my skin.

With a hand on my heart, I turned to look at her. She grinned and said, “Sorry, I thought you saw me.”

“I can’t see anything,” I said. “I can’t believe how dark it is.”

“Right? It’s creepy out here, but that was exactly my point. Why in the hell would this guy Carey want to meet Valerie here, of all places?”

I paid a glance toward the creepy school and nodded. “Yeah, no, you’re right. It’s definitely shady. Have you seen her at all? Or spoken to her?”

“I tried to call, but I only got her mother, who said she’d already left, and I didn’t want to freak her out, so I didn’t tell her why I was worried. I figured we had it under control. Apparently, she told her mom she was going out to meet me, which is true, but Valerie didn’t know that. I could choke her using me for her lies when she’s going out to meet some creeper by the murder creek in the middle of the damn night.”

“Yeah,” was all I said.

I crossed the street, and Debbie followed until we both stood in the grass on Mourne School grounds. There was a stone bench, and I pointed at it.

“Let’s split up and look for Val. We’ll meet back at this bench in a few minutes.”

“Sounds good.”

The last thing I wanted to do was walk all around that creepy-ass school by myself, or send Debbie to do the same, but if Valerie really was in trouble, we needed more chances to find her and rescue her. I felt better when I realized that Debbie had brought a bat of her own. Great minds think alike. If this guy really was up to no good like she suspected, then we were going to have a home run derby and make sure he regretted his choices.

We walked opposite ways around the giant building, towards those waving reeds. The way the wind whistled through them, they sounded like they were whispering and laughing, and it made me shiver. They had to be taller than my dad, maybe seven or eight feet tall.

A crow squawked from somewhere, and I couldn’t see the black bird in the dark of night, so it made me jump.

I could hear Debbie calling for Valerie, her voice getting quieter as she got further away from me, though Debbie was someone who could definitely project. She was always loud and boisterous, and I grew to love it.

I didn’t call for Valerie as I went the other way. If this guy was on top of her or something, I didn’t want him to know I was coming until it was too late and he was within swinging range. If he was hurting her, I was not going to let him out of there so easily.

I didn’t see anyone, and I was afraid of passing them in the dark. Nowadays, I would just turn on the flashlight on my cell phone, but I didn’t have that option back then. I just had to squint through the dark and hope my eyes would adjust. I walked slowly and quietly and bent down to see close to the ground. I looked behind the trash cans and bushes, behind the trees, and behind the bike rack.

I didn’t see Valerie, or anyone, for that matter. All I saw were leaves dancing on the wind while the reeds laughed at me for being frightened. I flipped up my middle finger at them.

I really hope you’re not in there, I thought. Please don’t be in there.

My gut told me to check, but I didn’t want to. I’d heard talk of alligators being in there and the creek leading to the sewers. I’d watched way too many horror movies to go pushing my way through there, where no one would see me get dragged off and eaten or butchered. Hell no. Nope. Sorry. Not me, not tonight.

If we couldn’t find Valerie anywhere else, then Debbie and I could go inspect the reeds together, loudly, and in that case, I would be glad to scare off anything or anyone in hiding. Shoo! Get out of here! You can’t eat us! We’re just kids.

The crow flew past me in a wild flurry of wings, and I hadn’t seen it coming, so I yelped, immediately covering my mouth in embarrassment. It landed on the school roof and looked at me. I glared back at the creature and said quietly but forcefully, “Not cool, bro. Not cool.”

My hands gripped the handle of the baseball bat more tightly. The shadows started playing tricks on me. I kept thinking I saw Valerie or someone lying in the grass or leaning against the brick siding of the building. When I got closer, bat raised high and ready to strike, I always found nothing.

The reeds continued to whistle and whisper, and I wanted nothing more than to just find Valerie and go home. I wanted to get away from that place, not just for this moment but forever. I decided right then and there that I hated that school, and I was glad I never attended it.

What would they have that creek and those big, tall, scary reeds behind an elementary school anyway? It didn’t make a lick of sense to me. There’s no way it wasn’t a safety hazard. If a little kid wandered away from their class and went in there, no one would see them. Even if they didn’t get snatched, like my mind immediately went to, they could have just as easily fallen into the creek and gotten swept away in the current, slapping them against filthy mossy rocks and dragging them down into the sewers or wherever that thing led to. It was definitely a terrible design, I decided.

If I still lived there when I grew up, I declared to myself that I would never send my kids there. I don’t live there anymore. I moved away long before I had any kids, so that prophecy came true, I suppose.

I felt my skin crawling, as if ants were running all over it. If Valerie had left before we did to go there, we should have at least seen her walking up like we saw each other. She should have been there somewhere.

Then I got a terrible thought. What if he did meet her there with his car? What if he saw us or someone else and decided to drive away with her and take her to a different but equally terrifying part of town?

I had to find Debbie. We had to page Valerie and see if she called back. If we could get a hold of her, that was a good sign. Surely, if she had been abducted by some evil guy, he wouldn’t let her go to a payphone and call her friends back. Or even if she managed to sneak away to call us, and he found her and got angry, she could tell us where she was, and we could run there.

All the worst thoughts ran through my mind of places he could have taken her and parked the car for absolute privacy, and the terrible things he could be doing to her on this dark autumn night. I said a quiet prayer to God as I looped around and approached the bench from the other side.

Debbie was already there, sitting on it and twirling her baseball bat before her while she waited for me.

“Nothing?” I asked as I walked up, hugging myself more against the fear than the cold.

She shook her big poof of hair. “Nope. Not a thing. Maybe she changed her mind and decided not to come.”

“Or maybe he chose this place because no one would see, and when she did come, he stuffed her in the car and took her to a different creepy spot where he could have his way with her or kill her or God knows what else,” I said in a panic.

“Shoot, you’re right,” Debbie said with a frown. “They could be anywhere.”

“Do you know her number by heart?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said with a “pshh” sound. “That’s my homegirl. She’s been part of my posse since grade school.”

“Can you find a payphone and call her? We need to know, and we can’t know for sure without trying to get a hold of her.”

“Word. I’ll go page her and see if she calls me back. Stay here in case she shows up or we missed her and she’s here somewhere and cries for help.”

I nodded. “You got it. Try to be quick, though, okay? This place gives me the creeps.”

She nodded and turned without a word to run up Mourne Ave.

A moment later, I was staring at the dark school, and something tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped and heard laughter. When I looked, Debbie was beside me.

“Sorry, dude. I need a quarter.”

Cursing under my breath, I dug in my pocket until I fished out several quarters. I always kept some on me… just in case. My mother had anxiety, so I was always raised to plan ahead and be ready for anything. I slapped the quarters into Debbie’s hand, and she ran off again.

This time, I watched her until I couldn’t see her anymore. I didn’t want her or anyone else sneaking up on me. I wriggled like a snake shedding its skin, uncomfortable and scared.

When I knew she was gone and would be for a few minutes as she tried to get ahold of Valerie, I turned back toward the school. The fact that I was alone out there hit me like a slap in the face. Bravado only goes so far.

I clutched tightly to the baseball bat and stared past the school at the reeds. They seemed to stare back. I tried to will Debbie to hurry.

The reeds waved in the breeze and whispered their strange words, calling me over to them.

We never did check, I thought with a frown. I should at least look, right? What if she’s hurt in there somewhere and needs help?

Reluctantly, I started toward the creek at the back of the school. The wind increased, howling like a wolf at the moon. Leaves lifted from everywhere and slapped against me.

Now that I think back on it, I wonder if they were trying to stop me, to warn me away. If they were, I didn’t listen.

“Come,” said the reeds. “Come to us. Come see what we have to show you. Come look. Come.”

My instincts told me to cut and run. Debbie would find Val, and everything would be okay. Just get the hell out of there.

But my body didn’t listen. I kept approaching those reeds with slow, deliberate steps.

Caw! Caw! shouted the crow.

“Come,” whispered the reeds. “Look.”

The breeze whistled and moaned like a woman in agony.

I walked forward until I couldn’t anymore. My legs stopped moving. I tried to force them, but they wouldn’t budge. It was like two strong hands had broken the earth and reached up from underneath to seize my ankles and hold me in place.

“What’s happening?” I whispered.

I was staring at the blowing reeds when they grew impossibly still. The whispers fell into silence, thick, tangible silence.

Before my eyes, the reeds parted like the curtains at a stage show, moving to open the scene.

I no longer wanted to see what was behind them, and I tried to turn my head, to look away, and I couldn’t move my head any more than I could my legs. Phantom hands grasped my jaw and held it, forcing my face forward. I couldn’t fight against it no matter how hard I tried, and God, did I try.

Tears rolled from the corners of my eyes.

There was a man standing before me, unmasked by the reeds that moved aside. He was menacing, to say the least, and held a limp girl in his arms, draped over backward like they were in a dance competition.

I had never been so afraid in my life, for one particular reason: I have aphantasia.

I didn’t know what it was called back then or that it even had a name, but it means I can’t visualize things. I can’t imagine things in pictures. I can’t daydream in images. My dreams at night are as black as this fateful autumn evening. I couldn’t even close my eyes and picture the face of my own mother or someone I saw every day.

So, seeing these people behind the reeds right at that moment meant either they were real and it was currently happening, or…

I didn’t want to think about the or.

He had a weathered grey Stetson casting a shadow over his eyes, a button-down shirt, and a bolo tie. His sleeves were rolled up, and a thick, wide scar cut through the Celtic cross tattoo on his tanned forearm. His fist held the thin fabric of the young woman’s baby doll dress, fluffy and pink. His other hand held a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey that he sipped from. It was almost empty, and just a small bit sloshed at the bottom when he took it away from his mouth. There were dark stains on the glass. Was it blood?

The girl’s face was already bruised and swollen. Her hands clawed at his chest weakly like her heart wanted to fight, but her body didn’t have the strength left to comply.

I knew I should help her. I needed to help her. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. All I could do was watch, and my heart broke in my chest.

Then the man’s head turned. It was unnatural, like he was a marionette whose string had been tugged. I would have gasped if I could have.

Her head turned too, her piercing blue eyes stabbing me like knives. Her mouth fell open, and she croaked out a plea for help, but it was unintelligible. It was the bizarre whispering of the reeds.

Then the man lifted the thick glass bottle and started to bash the girl in the face.

I was desperate to move, to at the very least look away and not watch this horrible brutality, but I wasn’t given a choice.

When at last he dropped her in a crumpled, broken heap, her pink dress stained red, the reeds closed once more, and the horror movie ended.

The wind resumed, and a leaf slapped me in my tear-wet cheek. I peeled it away and threw it to the ground, my heart racing.

I waited for something else, but there was nothing.

I noticed the bat I was carrying was on the ground in front of me, lying in the grass. I shivered and realized I wasn’t wearing my coat anymore.

“Hey,” Debbie said, and I screamed.

“Whoa, you okay? Why aren’t you wearing your coat? It’s freezing.”

“I—I don’t know,” I said honestly, bending to pick it up.

“Sorry it took so long, but the only payphone was at Buttafuco’s shop, and I had to page her and wait for her to call back. But the good news is, she’s okay. She made it halfway here and got scared, so she turned back. She’s home. I guess he realized she wasn’t coming because he must have left too.”

“Yeah, that’s good,” I said, shrugging my coat on. My eyes kept moving to the reeds, though. I couldn’t help it.

I walked over to them now that my legs were willing to let me, and Debbie walked with me.

“Yeah,” she said as we reached them. “That’s why I was so scared. A girl was killed behind these reeds last year. She met a guy at a bar with a fake ID, and he ended up beating her to death with a liquor bottle. Scary stuff, man. I heard he was never caught.”

My head whipped around hard enough to give me whiplash. I stared at her.

“Are you serious right now?”

“Yeah. That’s why I was freaking out. I thought you knew. Everyone knew.”

“I didn’t… no… I didn’t know.”

“What’s going on with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I looked away from her and pulled the reeds open like the curtains they showed me they were. Behind them was grass littered with bottles, cans, empty chip bags, and condom wrappers. Beyond that was the creek, flowing by peacefully.

I looked back at Debbie as I let the reeds fall closed, and I said, “I think maybe I did.”