Sarah Came Home

December 2024

Cheri Reed was feeling extra festive this holiday season.

The handmade wreaths and centerpieces she'd displayed over the Thanksgiving holiday had been well received by her friends and family.

As they had been made out of real branches and boughs though, they didn't last long.

The weather had been relatively mild for December which meant less mud and muck to deal with in the nearby forest.

Cheri decided to get an early start since the daylight hours were very short this time of year, so after her morning coffee, she hopped into her SUV and headed for the woods to glean natural supplies for the project.

Normally, she would have taken a left turn once she reached the foothills, but she felt both nostalgic and adventurous on this day.

Cheri, her dad, and grandfather used to drive up the mountain on a semi-primitive road that had once been used for the logging camps of the 1930s. Cheri's grandfather had worked at one of the camps when he was just fifteen years old. It was the last one of its kind and closed its doors only two years later.

Remnants of the camp remained and back when Cheri had been in high school, some of the kids would go up there to party and tell ghost stories. Cheri went a few times but preferred driving further up the bumpy road with her dad and grandpa. It had been a good way for them to bond and spend quality time together.

They had even been part of a search party that combed the area looking for a missing girl back in 1988.

"If someone wanted to not be found up here, there are a lot of places a person could hide," her grandfather had said as the search had commenced.

All they wound up finding was the girl's backpack. As far as Cheri knew, the case had gone cold years ago.

That had been over thirty years ago, but the thought of it still sent a shiver up Cheri's spine.

Still, something was egging her on; the pressing urge to drive up to that old camp, then maybe past it a mile or so.

So she turned right.

Immediately, the road was bumpy and unwelcoming, but Cheri's outdoorsy upbringing and 4X4 vehicle made easy work of the ascent.

Soon, she reached the old encampment and couldn't help but stop the car and get out to look around.

There were a couple of old beer cans on the ground and upon further inspection, she noticed that they were not recent.

"Wow, that's a relic," she whispered to herself as she nudged a can with a stick. "The brand hasn't looked like that since I was a teenager."

Had it really been that long since anyone had driven up here? Or had anyone else who had been up here been equally impressed with the antiquities of the site that they had just let them be? Kind of like some kind of unofficial historical site.

Either way, it made Cheri smile.

She remembered coming up here the weekend before her high school graduation in 1990 with some friends. Robby Hendricks, the cutest guy in their class, was with them. Robby had passed around one of those oh-so-interesting smelling, hand-rolled "cigarettes," and soon everyone started getting paranoid at every little sound they heard.

"You all are a bunch of lightweights," he'd laughed. "Of course, there are creepy sounds in the forest! You never know what's lurking out there!" He held the flashlight under his chin and made a menacing face before breaking out into voracious laughter.

Cheri loved to see him laugh but she was pretty sure that she'd heard actual footsteps crunching through the woods, in the distance.

"Robby, I think there's someone out there," she'd whispered as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

Robby was still laughing when the crunching got louder.

He slowly turned his head and called out "Who's there?"

The footfalls continued getting closer.

Cheri began to feel sick to her stomach and was just about ready to start heaving when a couple of raccoons became visible.

This had caused everyone to break out into laughter; Robby fell onto the dirt clutching his stomach from laughing so hard.

It was a good night and a sweet memory.

Cheri was still smiling as she glanced at the area where she had been sitting next to Robby. She had so hoped to kiss him that night, but that never happened.

"Okay, enough memory lane, Cheri. It's not like he's reminiscing about you right now, wherever he may be. Go collect your tree branches!" She scolded herself.

Cheri got back into her vehicle and kept climbing up the road - which seemed more like a creek bed than an actual road. She knew there were some beautiful alpine trees higher up, with their gnarled little trunks and branches. Some bits of that kind of wood would do nicely for what she had in mind.

The road started to veer to the right. She was already going very slowly and it was a good thing she was.

There, standing right in the middle of the road was a woman.

Cheri slammed on her brakes and gasped.

"What in the hell?" She cried out in disbelief.

The woman appeared to be close to her same age, and although it was not a typical December day, she was not dressed appropriately at all.

She was in a little black gown and was wearing a pair of very worn-looking tennis shoes that were clearly too big for her.

Cheri reached for her phone but naturally could not get a signal.

"Dammit!" She spoke. "What to do, what to do," she kept whispering to herself, slight panic setting in.

"HELP HER, YOU IDIOT!" She forcefully answered herself.

She slowly looked down at the small firearm she took with her when she traveled alone, and put it in her coat pocket.

Then she opened her door.

The woman had been just standing there, not moving, but the sound of the opening door and the emerging person caused her to gasp a little and start shaking.

She turned to look around her as if she was expecting to see someone following her. Then she tried to take off running, but the shoes caused her to trip and fall.

Cheri put up her hands in a reassuring fashion and said "I'm not going to hurt you - let me help you!"

This seemed to calm the woman who then reached her hands up as if asking for Cheri's help.

Cheri walked toward her slowly then reached out to take her cold hands in hers.

Once the woman was on her feet, she grabbed Cheri tightly and began to cry.

As Cheri hugged her back, she realized that this was the exact spot where they had found the missing girl's backpack, all those years before. Just then, the woman broke the embrace and gestured for Cheri to stop touching her.

Cheri stopped and backed up slowly.

The sound of the breeze made a low moaning sound, causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand once more as she began to feel like they were not alone.

"We've got to get you to a hospital," She whispered, gesturing toward the SUV.

She directed the woman to the passenger side of her vehicle, then reached into the back to get a blanket.

The woman grabbed the blanket and looked at Cheri with gratitude in her eyes. She allowed Cheri to tuck it around her cold bare legs. Cheri then quickly walked around the front of the vehicle and got in.

She couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard voices off in the distance, so she locked the doors before putting the car in gear and driving out of there faster than she probably should have.