Cryptidcore

thursday, september 13: shiloh and the mean dog

Maddie woke up in the woods last night.

She told me before first period. Her eyes were all red-rimmed, she wasn't wearing makeup, and her hair was wet. 

I was at my locker, grudgingly pulling out my history book, (which I really should have brought home and studied from but what can you do) and she seized my elbow on her way by, and dragged me down the hall into the bathroom.

She pushed open every stall first, and when she found them empty, she leaned against the sink. 

She stared at herself in the mirror and said, "I woke up in the woods last night." We stood framed over the sink together for a long moment, silent and pale before she finally turned to look at me.

"Well that's great," I said. It felt a weird frantic dread because while I've always sort of expected Madelyn to be chosen, it doesn't mean it wasn't concrete evidence of how much cooler, smarter and more beloved she was than me. "Now you can tell me everything. Who was it? What did you do? Was there a freaky ritual. Did you have to blood sacrifice something? Please let there be blood sacrifice, no sisterhood is complete without —"

"I don't remember," Maddie said, still looking at herself in the mirror. "I just woke up in the woods."

I lost my battle with jealousy. It was like I dropped the leash of a mean dog and now it was free bite whoever it wanted. 

I said, "Yeah, yeah okay, but like... what really happened?" 

"No, you're not listening," Maddie said. She turned and looked right at me. "There was no one out there. I was completely alone. I was naked and alone in the freezing cold in the middle of the night."

I stared at her. The mean dog was growling, just waiting to say something awful.

"Maybe you were sleep walking."

She took me firmly by the shoulders. "I need you to really hear me on this, Shi," she said, and the mean dog sat down, confused. "There is no sorority." And then, whispering: "There's something in the woods." She put her hands on either side of my face. "I need to tell you something."

It felt important. It felt so important that the mean dog whimpered and cowered behind my legs. It felt so important I'm still freaked out writing about it now.

I stared at her and she stared at me and we might still be there staring at each other if Maddie's girlfriend Georgia hadn't appeared in the bathroom.

"Mads! There you are!" She took one look at us and frowned. "Babe? Everything okay?"

Maddie sorta shook herself and smiled and said, "Yeah of course. I'll see you at lunch Shiloh?" And they left the bathroom as the bell rang.

I just got home from school. Obviously I couldn't focus all day.

I have been talking about the girls who wake up in the woods my entire life, in the passive, vaguely interested way you talk about the SATs and Prom. We've had a thousand theories as to what happens out there.

It has literally never crossed my mind to think that the girls were actually waking up alone out there with no memory of how they got there.

Now that it's happened, I think I always figured Maddie would be chosen. Maddie's always been exactly the kind of girl that gets chosen; smart, driven, fun, kind, popular. I never dreamed she wouldn't tell me how it happened.

I still don't think she would. I think she's telling me the truth.

Madelyn just called me. She says she's scared to sleep in her bed tonight and asked if she could spend the night with me. We're gonna listen to girl music, and eat junk food, and lay in my bed.

She's on her way over here now. I'm going to ask her what she remembers. Maybe we can get to the bottom of this thing.

(Or maybe I've been watching too much X-Files)

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

On her original blog, Shiloh only wrote one post per day, but sometimes she would return to a post and add more to it if something else significant happened that day. 

When she did that, she added the graphic you see above -- the big clock collage that says LATER in giant red letters, you can't miss it. I'm doing the same for clarity.