27 Dec I Took a Walk for Seven Years

Posted at 11:00h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 1 Comment

📅 Published on December 27, 2024

“I Took a Walk for Seven Years”

Written by Kitty “The Odd Cat Lady” Olsen
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 7 minutes

Rating: 9.25/10. From 4 votes.

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It was August 9, 2010. I was thirty-eight years old. My oldest daughter, Avis, was twelve, and the younger pair, my twins Joanne and John, were nine. I’d been married for fifteen years. I worked at an insurance firm. And every Sunday, while my wife and Avis went to church and the twins went to my mother’s house, I took a walk.

It was a clockwork sort of arrangement. My wife knew never to push me into going with her; I was an atheist and set on staying that way.

Of course, given what’s happened, my views have changed.

It was just a typical day. Avis gave me a kiss on the cheek and told me not to forget my coat, even if it was an abnormally warm day. I’d say it was about sixty-five, maybe sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. My mom picked up the twins. And I started down my walk.

We lived off the beaten path, so to speak. Our road was never busy, and most of the area was occupied by farmland. A truck passed me on the road, and I waved. I was pretty sure it was my neighbor Art, although it could’ve been one of his sons on his way to church. Either way, he waved back.

I took a turn to the right onto Hensel. Hensel was a dirt road, but it was never traveled except by farmers, and today it was quiet. A good time to collect my thoughts.

Every other time before this, I’d turn back around once I reached Art’s farmhouse, although occasionally, his wife would pull me in for lemonade and gossip.

But August 9th would be the day I took the longest walk of my life.

I was passing by the cornfield when I heard laughter. More specifically, it was a child’s laughter. I paused and looked into the cornfield.

A pair of forest green eyes looked back at me.

The girl looked to be no older than seven, had red hair tied into twin braids, and I assumed she was one of Art’s grandchildren. She smiled broadly.

“Catch me!” she squealed.

She darted back into the corn, and I could hear her giggles slowly fade away.

Usually, I would’ve scoffed at going into the field, as I’d have to cross the ditch, and I didn’t want to get dirt on my pants. But I felt a little bit of concern, a small child running around the field by herself. So, with a jump that I knew my knees would feel in the morning, I leaped into the cornfield.

Using the sound of her laughter, I started pushing through the corn. The dry leaves scratched at my face and hands, and dust kicked up into my face.

I knew she couldn’t outrun me for long. Even if she was a child with boundless energy, I had longer legs.

However, I exited the cornfield in a place I didn’t know.

My house was nowhere to be seen. A light layer of snow covered the ground.

I spun around, but the corn was gone, replaced by frosted evergreen trees. The temperature had significantly dropped, and I was thankful that my daughter had insisted that I bring a coat. I shivered and spun around a few more times, trying to make sense of this dream I’d apparently fallen into. Where was that little girl?

“Hey! Mister!” a voice called from behind me.

I finally spun around enough to see her peering past a branch. She grinned.

“If you catch me,” she said, “I’ll show you the way out!”

That began the chase.

Getting smacked with tree branches was far worse than the corn, the needles tearing at my skin like knives as I pushed past them to find that little girl. Whenever I got lost, I’d hear her laugh. She was having fun. I was not.

The wet snow beneath my feet made it impossible to gain traction. And forget running—I’d slip if I so much as stepped wrong. With every minute, I got colder and colder. My teeth chattered so hard my jaw ached.

Then, I broke from the treeline into a grassy meadow.

I didn’t expect the change, so I ended up toppling over. The grass smelled as sweet as honey. A fat bumblebee trundled past my head and landed on a black-eyed Susan. It was heaven.

But the meadow’s peace shattered with the sound of the girl’s laughter.

“Aw, are you giving up already?” she chided me.

The warm sunlight made her glow like a tiny angel, but as I stumbled to my feet, I caught something behind those big eyes I hadn’t before:

Malevolence.

She was toying with me.

I can’t tell you how many times the environment changed. One minute, I’d be across a meadow, then a desert during a sandstorm. In places like that, I had to navigate entirely by sound. Sometimes, we’d be back in the cornfield, and I’d shout for Art to get me out of there, but no help ever came. Sometimes, we’d be running across barren tundra, where she’d be just out of my grasp.

She wasn’t always a little girl. Sometimes, she was a young teen with a gap between her teeth who’d hum sweet tunes. Sometimes, she was a ravishing model of her early twenties, with fiery hair and a flirtatious grin. And the times she wasn’t any of those, she was an ancient crone with a bent back and arthritic hands that clutched her cane but still managed to hobble away from me.

She called herself Clarice occasionally. Other times, it was Lolita, Dixie, Isabella, or Hope. I lost count of her names, too. A straight answer was impossible. She’d never lie to me, though; she’d just avoid answering any of my questions.

That’s how I knew she was my key out of there.

I finally caught up to her in the meadow.

This time, she was a little girl again, and her taunting was beyond cruel. She’d stop, pick bouquets, and dart away before I could grab her. She’d toss the flowers about and sing ridiculous nonsense songs; I knew I could never win like this.

I dropped to the ground, and the little girl stopped.

“Oh, are you really giving up now? You’re sooooo close!”

I gave no reply. I remained still as I gasped for breath.

I heard her get closer and closer.

“Mister, are you okay? Do you need a break?” she asked. “You’ve been going on for a really long time.”

Once I saw her shadow, I lunged.

She almost got away, but my hand wrapped around her braid, and I pulled her back so hard I could’ve snapped her neck. I embraced her in my arms and victoriously breathed out, “I’ve got you!”

I’d never felt so successful in my entire life. I’d finally done it.

She turned around and frowned.

“Can we play again? We were having fun,” she begged. “You don’t have to go back. We can stay here.”

No way. I was done with the games.

“Nope. You let me out of here right now,” I said, “or I’m strangling you with your own braids.” It was a little dramatic, perhaps, but I gripped her hair tightly to make it clear I was serious.

She sighed before she kissed my cheek. The same way Avis would before church.

“Okay,” she replied.

* * * * * *

When I woke up, I was lying in the middle of a familiar cornfield.

It was springtime, and the water was freezing cold. I peeled myself off the freshly plowed ground, recently churned to mud, and staggered to my feet. I had one goal in mind–home. I could finally go home.

As I stumbled toward my destination, I noticed how tired I truly was. I was as parched as the deserts I had run through, and my body was stiff, aching as if I’d run a thousand miles. For all I knew, I may have just that.

After tripping in the mud a dozen times, I finally caught sight of my house and burst into tears. Barely able to move, I headed for the backyard. My wife should be home about now. Surely, she’d see me and come to my aid.

Two teenage boys were on the back porch; one was smoking while the other was playing on his phone. I recognized neither of them. Had my family moved? I raised my hand and attempted to speak, but it came out as a raspy moan.

The boys both jumped out of their skin. The one smoking dropped his cigarette and backed off. The shorter one raised a hand. “Sir, you’re gonna have to…” He trailed off, and his eyes — eyes that looked exactly like my wife’s — widened.

“D–Dad?!” he cried.

I lost consciousness just a few steps from the back door.

* * * * * *

I woke up in the hospital. I’d been cleaned up and had an IV running into my arm. Sitting beside my bed, I saw a young woman, fast asleep. She had a tattoo of a bird on her neck–a sparrow, to be exact.

Avis always loved sparrows.

I’d been gone for a little over seven years. When I hadn’t returned from my walk, my wife reported me missing. At first, law enforcement assumed I’d just run off with another woman, but when that line of investigation went dry, they suspected I’d been the victim of foul play.

Search parties were formed, and people were questioned. A few were detained, but no arrested were made, and no one was convicted. They never found me. And life marched on.

Art apparently died about a year after I went missing, from a stroke. His sons inherited the family farm, then sold it to another family—a family oblivious to the fact that their property was the place I had been spotted.

The boys on the back porch were, in fact, my boys. I just hadn’t been around when Joanne, at the age of thirteen, announced that they now identified as James. I wish I could’ve been there to help him become a man.

I apparently had a good replacement, though.

Four years later, after it looked like I was gone for good, my wife met Clark. Six months after they met, they were married. Clark is a real outdoorsman, enjoys hunting and fishing, and loves to go camping. As I chased a fairy child through her playground, he was taking James and John out on trips every weekend and putting away money to help James afford his surgeries and related expenses. Clark had two kids of his own, and before long, I was little more than a memory in my former home. They could survive without me.

Avis was the only one who hadn’t given up on me. She pursued every lead, every dead end. If there was so much as a slight chance I could be found, she chased it. She was such a stubborn girl. My girl. But even she had grown up since I’d been gone, from a girl to a woman, and it was like talking to a stranger. One who had my chin and nose, but a stranger nonetheless.

My wife did what she could to help me adjust and kindly offered me a guest bedroom while I recovered. I looked like I’d been through hell–bones broken and healed, muscles torn and strained beyond their limits. I was malnourished, could barely stand without a walker, and had nowhere to go.

It was clear, however, that I couldn’t stay there. Not anymore.

Clark’s kids looked at me like I was some bogeyman who lived down the hall. He and I tried to be polite to one another, but tension mounted as my wife struggled to decide who she would officially divorce.

She chose to end our marriage–and just like that, I was a stranger in my own home and no longer welcome. I was only in the way.

I’d lost just about everything–but not everyone.

The little girl wasn’t gone. To be honest, I don’t think she ever left.

Nightly, I’d see her outside my window, peering in with those big eyes as she mouthed the words, “Come with me.”

I’ve told everyone I’m just going out for a walk.