The Wisp

THE WISP

Just south of Boston rise hills remarkably spared of man's ambition. Native brook trout still swim in several streams, and stone fences left over from a Puritan past run in lines unchanged for centuries. At least one Native American graveyard is said to lie within the range .

Wandering among the marshes, towering pines and granite peaks one could question their senses, so contrasting from the city is this natural world.

For years, maybe centuries, strange stories have been told of the hills. I'd heard them all for all my life. They were just children's fare to me, campfire tales and nothing more.

They certainly weren't on my mind when I chose to live there, among the myriad creatures, away from everything I had ever known.

I didn't want to go back to the place I'd been taken to the last time. It wasn't a prison, exactly, but it was to me. I didn't like the people there: not the ones who stayed there, and more so the ones who ran it. I decided I had to get away to the only place I could think of to hide.

The spot I chose was about a mile from the nearest main trail, a sunny oasis in a canopy shadowed world. The marsh a few dozen feet away was alive with the calls of frogs and birds.

I had been camping before, but revelations awaited.

Owls were more abundant than I could have imagined, and their various hoots, hisses and and whistles filled the night.

Flying squirrel were also visitors, and one morning I found the tracks of a bobcat along the edge of the marsh.

I watched the sky every evening that the weather allowed. The stars when one is away from city light and the night is cloudless seem like they could be plucked from the sky.

Other discoveries were less enamoring. I never realized how much water a human consumes. At first I filtered it from a nearby stream, but my pump would clog very quickly. Though it meant sediment and an undesired taste I eventually chose to simply boil my water.

Mosquitoes appeared as clouds, and hungry ones at that. I kept them at bay with a small fires smothered with leaves.

I was tending to one of these fires when I first saw the strange thing, hovering slender and pale above the marsh.

It swayed slowly and its glow was soft but obvious, and after half a minute was gone.
For several nights afterward I waited for the peculiar light, at some point coming to assume it to be the 'will-o-the wisp' phenomenon common near wetlands. Each night it appeared for a minute or two, and then was gone

I noticed with some surprise that the creatures of the night reacted strongly to its presence. The frogs would cease to call, and once I watched a raccoon follow its motion with a concerned gaze before scurrying away in apparent fear.

Still I felt little alarm, even as the 'wisp', as I came to think of it, seemed to be getting nearer with each visitation.

It was a warm evening in early July when that emotion changed. I awoke, jarred from a sleep that had strange dreams filling my head, to what I thought was the light of morning. To my shock I realized it was the strange thing, hovering directly above my tent.

I thrashed at it as if it were a cloud of mosquitos, and a greater relief I have never felt as its glowing form retreated hastily to the marsh. Perhaps, I told myself, it was merely curious. But a curious what?

The next night, while looking out on the marsh I again saw the wisp: it swayed momentarily before, as if inspired by my gaze, a rapid attack.

This time there was no retreat, and the net of blinding light which seemed to have been thrown rendered me unconscious.

The next I knew I was waking up in the woods. Pines loomed LIKE black daggers in every direction and the mosquitoes were innumerable and rapacious. I had no idea where I was.

I followed a single star, reasoning that if I went in one direction I would at least avoid the worst of situations- travelling in a circle. Finally I came upon my familiar little ROGUE and made my way back to the marsh.


Two nights later the strangeness took a terrible turn. I awoke beside a stream with a large bump throbbing above one eye, and my hands covered in blood. Later, as adrenaline wore off, I discovered a bite mark on my shoulder. I assumed I had been attacked by some animal.

It wasn't until late the following afternoon as I listened to my radio that I learned the truth. An assault had occurred in a neighborhood which bordered the woods two miles from the marsh. The man survived but had been hospitalized with severe injuries. I tried to tell myself it was a coincidence, that it had been the act of another, but I knew better.

'What came over you?' I asked repeatedly. Then I recalled, as if retrieved from deep in the subconscious, that before the episode I had again awakened with the light of the wisp enshrouding me.

I should have left the marsh, those hills as a whole, then and there. How I wish I had, for just one night later the worst that could happen came to be. I woke from my trance to the sound of a police siren. I was on a residential street unfamiliar to me, a street that could have been anywhere. As I raced toward the woods flashing red from the police cars behind me. I still don't know how I got away.

It took hours to find my way back to the marsh, and only there did I discover I was covered in blood, including around my mouth.

The attack had been hideous, savage and animal like in nature. As this time, I soon discovered, murderous as well..

I pondered turning myself in, only to cower from the thought. I decided I would return to the city, living among the homeless, far removed from the marsh and the strange demon who drove me to malevolence.

Quickly someone was arrested for the crimes. His had been a life of repeated transgressions, and this, along with being in the wrong place at the time of the murderous attack, were all that was needed to justify his apprehension. Two weeks later I learned he was released, though due in no part to any efforts of mine.

I wandered in a world of concrete and soot covered brick, part of the sea of tattered and often broken souls alive only in the physical sense. My appearance changed so dramatically I'm sure I would not be recognized by former friends and colleagues if they walked right past me.

The seed of the devilish wisp must has done more, however, for today I returned to the marsh. The shadows are slowly deepening and the creatures of the night have begun to call.

God have mercy on the next innocent who becomes my victim! I know I should confess the whole of the strange experience and render myself harmless to the world, but who would believe me?

Who would believe that it had been the visitor from the marsh who drove me to the terrible acts?

Who would even think there could be such a strange and evil thing as the wisp?