Really Strange Stuff - Ch.25 - Witnesses (Patreon)

=::= Serenity's PoV =::=

"So it looks like Walden is only about a half hour's drive from here," Callie said as she stared at the paper map she had spread out on the table next to her. "That should bring us into the middle of the community right around noon, assuming we head straight there after we're done here."

It would have been easier to just set up the route on her phone's GPS, but we'd already run into some trouble relying on modern technology earlier on this trip. We'd be heading into some pretty remote locations today, and when you got down in those little valleys our phones tended to lose the signal. So it was always a good back-up plan to have paper maps, and to know how to use them.

While my cute calico girlfriend continued studying the paper map my foxgirl girlfriend was staring at her phone screen.

She commented without looking up, "I don't see anywhere to stay when we get to Walden. There's a campground not too far away though? It's only about a ten minute drive, according to my phone. If we're going to do some camping though, we should stock up on food at that grocery store across the parking lot before we go."

My girlfriends and I were just finishing up a late breakfast in the lobby of a hotel off I-79, just a little ways north of Elkview. We'd spent last night here, after packing up and leaving Point Pleasant late yesterday afternoon.

Frank's story had lit a bit of a fire in all three of us, and despite the fact that we'd agreed that this wasn't going to be a working holiday we were all excited to follow up on the lead he'd given us. And the bottom line was we still had a full week before we were supposed to head home, and no firm plans on what to do or where to go next. So following up on that lead seemed like a no-brainer.

And unlike a lot of so-called 'hot tips' we got over the years, Frank was able to give us full names and even some addresses. About the only thing he didn't have was contact information for any of the witnesses, so we couldn't call or text people in advance to try and arrange interviews.

I finally responded to Bailey's comment, "Considering how dangerous this cryptid's supposed be, I'm not sure I'm up for camping anywhere near the place. We're only talking about a half hour's drive to get back here, and the hotel staff have been really nice. The bed's comfy too, so I think I'd rather just head back here tonight."

"Sounds good to me," Callie agreed.

"Do we really think it's as dangerous as Frank said?" Bailey asked with a slight frown. "That's the part of the story I'm having trouble believing. This thing allegedly hatched from an egg over the winter, and by April it was big enough to eat an adult human? That's an unbelievable growth rate, and if it kept that up it'd be enormous by now."

Our calico girlfriend reminded her, "I already told you both last night, nothing Frank said was a lie."

"That doesn't mean it's objectively true though," I reminded her. "He was honest about relaying the story as he knew it, but that doesn't mean the story itself is completely true."

Then I looked to Bailey and added, "On the other hand if it is true, then you have a point. That's an incredible rate of growth, but it actually fits some of the 'worm' legends."

"Frank mentioned the Mongolian Death Worm," I continued, "Which is supposedly only a few feet long. But he also compared this thing to the Lambton worm, which was an entirely different creature."

Callie admitted, "I'm not actually familiar with that second one. I've heard of the first one though."

I explained, "The Lambton Worm isn't a cryptid as such. It's more of an old British folk story? And the worm in the story was more like a serpent of some kind. In fact a lot of 'worms' in old English folklore are more like what we'd call dragons."

Bailey agreed, "I don't remember the etymology off-hand, but I think that kind of 'worm' comes from 'wyrm'. Which is related to words like 'wyvern', which is a kind of dragon."

"Right," I nodded. "Which makes me wonder, are we looking for a two- or three-foot long snake-like creature? Or are we going to stumble onto a huge serpentine dragon big enough to coil around a hill and rip trees from the ground with its tail?"

Callie's ears and tail all perked up as she grinned, "Only one way to find out!"

"And who's to say it can't be both?" she added a moment later. "Big things tend to grow up from little things."

Bailey and I exchanged a look, then the cute foxgirl grimaced. "Let's just hope if we find it, it's in the smaller larval stage. I don't think I want to go up against a full-grown dragon."

That thought left me frowning, "Maybe we need to put a little more thought into staying safe? Whatever this thing turns out to be, it's supposed to have killed and consumed at least one dog, and possibly a grown man. I can't help thinking a couple catgirls and a foxgirl might look like a tempting snack to a large hungry dangerous cryptid."

Our little calico flashed a cocky smile as she stated quietly, "Y'all haven't forgotten we've got divine backing, right? We're disciples of Chaos, our Goddess isn't going to let some pumped up worm hurt us."

"Callie might have a point," Bailey commented just as quietly. "Then again, Cassandra probably doesn't want us relying on her for everything. So we should definitely be careful, and maybe think about taking some precautions?"

That led to a short quiet debate about what sort of precautions we could take that would be both practical and appropriate. One thing was for sure, we wouldn't be bringing any weapons with us. Not that we had or wanted any, but we figured if a trained soldier couldn't stop the worm with a shotgun then there was no chance any of us would do better. Plus we didn't actually want to kill anything, we were more interested in documenting it.

Still, we all felt like we needed something. And since we might end up wandering around in the woods looking for this thing Bailey suggested maybe we could get hiking sticks. A quick search led us to a second-hand sporting goods store, but they didn't have what we were looking for. That's not to say we left there empty-handed though. We ended up buying a few other things that were completely impractical, yet somehow felt totally appropriate for three agents of Chaos out looking for a giant man-eating worm.

In my case it was a single lightly-used golf club that caught my eye, specifically a nine-iron. Callie got herself a baton, one of those two-foot long metal things with pink rubber ends like you'd see girls twirling in gymnastics, or like a drum majorette would have in a marching band. And Bailey found herself an old wooden lacrosse stick.

We also stopped to top up the car's fuel tank, and visited the nearby grocery store to grab some bottles of spring water and a bunch of snacks incase we couldn't find anywhere to stop for dinner while we were hanging around Walden.

All that meant we didn't get on the road for at least another ninety minutes, so it was mid-afternoon by the time we finally pulled into the little community in question. It was about the size of a small village, maybe a mile or so from one end to the other with roughly fifty or sixty houses clustered along either side of the main road.

At its heart was a handful of commercial buildings, including a gas station, a bank, a post office, general store, and even a little public library. They were all set up around an old bridge where the main street passed over a small river. A little further out on a side-street we passed by a school, and on another side-street we found an old abandoned mill next to that same river.

There were more side-streets that stretched further away, but we didn't want to wander too far from the village just yet. At the top of our list was trying to speak with Mike Howard, to see if we could get the story first-hand from him. And according to Frank he worked in the general store, so that's where we headed.

Callie parked the car next to the building, then the three of us headed for the front door. None of us had cameras out yet, but Bailey set her phone's audio app recording then tucked it into one of her hoodie pockets.

Just inside the door we found a middle-aged woman standing behind the counter, and my best friend walked straight up to her with a friendly smile. Out of all three of us Callie was always the most outgoing, and usually the first to approach and talk to strangers. She was good at it too, which I chalked up to her Arkansas accent and her Southern charm.

"Hey there," she greeted the woman. "How are y'all doing this afternoon?"

The woman looked all three of us up and down, and from her expression it was pretty obvious she was wondering what was going on with our ears and tails. She finally responded, "I'm fine thanks. What can I do for you young ladies?"

"We're hoping we could talk with Mike Howard," the cute calico replied. "My name's Callie by the way, this here's Serenity and this is Bailey."

The woman introduced herself as Joanne then shook her head, "Sorry Callie, Mike's shift doesn't start until five o'clock."

"That's alright," my girlfriend said with a smile. She continued, "Hey maybe you can help us out in the meantime? We're actually paranormal investigators, and we're here because we heard about some strange stuff that went down here a few months back?"

Joanne grimaced, "You mean that monster worm thing, right? Lotta folks round here been talking about it, especially Mike..."

From there she went on to tell us a lot of the same things we'd already heard from Frank. And while she was talking there were other folks who came by the store for whatever reason, and when they found out some paranormal researchers were there asking about their monster they wanted to share their own stories as well. We did get some questions about our ears and tails, but nobody gave us a hard time.

Over the next couple hours we must have spoken with more than a dozen people, and the most compelling thing about the whole situation was how much the different stories overlapped and seemed to corroborate with each other. And through the whole thing I was taking notes on my phone while Callie got folks to point out locations on a map, and Bailey's phone was still recording audio from where she left it tucked in her pocket.

Mike Howard even came in to the shop early after he heard what was going on, so he could spend some time talking with us before he had to start his shift.

His story was a little more poignant since Dave was his buddy, so he was talking about the loss of a friend. He was able to give us more insight into the situation though, and what kind of person Dave White was. He painted a picture of an honest dutiful man who loved his wife and kids as well as his country. From the way he described his friend it was easy to imagine the man feeling responsible for inadvertently releasing this monster into his home town, and wanting to do whatever he could to stop the thing.

Mike also shared some of his own first-hand experiences, from those nights he spent with Dave hoping to get a shot at the thing. The biggest take-away from that was the Worm didn't like light. Apparently the thing wouldn't come near homes or cars if there were lights on. So consequently, a lot of local folks had taken to leaving their outdoor lights on all night long.

Eventually it seemed like we'd got all the information we were going to get, so we thanked Mike and Joanne and the other folks who'd been hanging around. We gave out a handful of our RSS stickers with our contact information on them, and Mike shared his number and email address with us too. Then we finally headed out to the car. In fact it was about dinner time by then, and we'd passed a restaurant on our way into the community earlier so we headed back that way for something to eat.

It was a little BBQ place at a fork in the road about ten minutes south of the village, and the three of us headed inside. We placed our orders at the counter, then got our drinks before heading over to a table by the window.

"So what do y'all think about Walden? Pretty wild, right?" Callie commented as we all got seated.

Bailey agreed, "I honestly didn't think we'd get anything at all. I thought people would clam up, or be suspicious of us for being outsiders."

I shook my head, "When people have a story to tell, they want to tell it. Especially when you make it clear you're interested and not there to judge or mock them."

Callie nodded then asked, "So we're going back there after dinner right? We have to find this thing, get pictures of it."

"I don't know," our foxgirl girlfriend frowned as she slowly shook her head. "As much as I want to get a look at it I can't help feeling a bit scared too. There's definitely something here, and it's dangerous enough to have a lot of those people spooked."

The cute calico insisted quietly, "We'll be fine Bails, don't you worry about that. We're disciples of Chaos, we've got divine backing. And this is what we do, right? We've spent too long working on those Council files from the safety of our studio. It's about time we did more hands-on boots-on-the ground work."

"Hey this is like when we first met!" she added with a grin. "Remember the three of us spent the night out in Bremen Grove? Same thing."

That made me smile slightly as I corrected her, "It's similar. The difference is the Bremen Brownie is supposed to be small and friendly, and hasn't killed and eaten anybody."

"Anyways I'm up for heading back to Walden after dinner," I added. "If nothing else, we should go check out Dave's property. Maybe we can find some tracks or something, before it gets dark out."

Both my girlfriends agreed with that, although Bailey was less enthusiastic about it than Callie.