Mrs. L.T. Thurgood, Musgrove County Sheriff’s Office, September 24, 2016 

“Now I can’t tell you what it was, but I can tell you what it weren’t. Weren’t no ordinary people. It weren’t no family of five you see screaming the heads off one another as they run late on a Sunday, then--taking up a whole pew instead of the half they need--soothe into a smile at a pulpit joke or the prospect of fried chicken. It weren’t even like those people who think it’s alright to wear their slippers and housecoats in the grocery store, despite knowing right well that they’re making their grandparents roll in their graves like rotisserie birds. Naw, nothing like that at all. I’ve never seen nothing like it, and I know my John hasn’t either. 

“It was a good week ago, maybe more, my John said, ‘Hey, Mama. Whatcha say about riding out to the park for a walk?’ And I said, ‘Well, what park you mean?’ And he answered me, ‘Oh you know the one. Down by the river. . .through the old forest.’ That’s his way of saying, ‘Where there ain’t no pine trees.’ So I says to him, ‘Well alright.’ I don’t know why he’s so keen on going walking through places we don’t know well when we have a good four acres of woods right out by our house, but his father was the same. So I just go along with it. You learn to after awhile. 

“It was a good ways after lunch, so we didn’t pack anything to eat. My John said that perhaps we should bring a snack. But I said, ‘Uh-uh, son. I ain’t risking attracting no bears, most certainly not when I got a good soup in the crockpot.’ So we didn’t take no snack, but I did have him take a water. He is prone to being dehydrated; he forgets all drinks but his coffee. He told me he doesn’t need anything else, but I said, ‘If that was true, the good Lord would have made rivers flowing dark roast.’ He didn’t have anything to say after that.

“I know some people don’t pay the parking fee out at that place. My cousin Doreen don’t. Says don’t nobody ever check for the tickets, so she’s not throwing away five dollars for an hour. She won’t stay longer than that; the mosquitoes find her as desirable as she wishes the men would. But I always pay it. Park rangers give me the impression that they are not to be messed with. . .a kind of pit bull on a golf cart. 

“I gave my John the money for the ticket while I went to the ladies’ room, then off we went. Weren’t nobody else in the parking lot, which my John said was a good thing. He don’t like it when there’s a bunch of kids or teenagers around that park.” 

“They look as if they would like to push me into the river.” 

“And I don’t doubt they would, John, by the looks of some of them. My John is easily nervous. His father wasn’t like that, but I think it does come from that side of the family. Not from my side. 

“I would say we walked around a half mile down the river trail before we first noticed the smell. My John said, ‘Smells like someone who ain’t bathed in awhile.’ But I said, ‘Son, if you smell like that without a shower you better check yourself. Naw, it smells like something up and died.’ 

“The smell got stronger for about a quarter of a mile, then just stopped. I said, ‘Well, John, wasn’t that something?’ So we took a few steps back, then a few more, but it didn’t make a difference. We couldn’t smell nothing but the dirt and trees. So we just went right on, deciding not to give much mind to it. Then came the footsteps.”

“Mama, I think it was the cryin’ first.” 

“Ah, that’s right. We heard something like a youngin cryin’, and my John said, becoming all gloom and rain clouds, ‘Well, there’s children here after all.’ I says to him, ‘A baby can’t do nothing to you, John, but look at ya.’ He said, ‘Maybe that’s the worst of it.’  

“We stopped as the crying got louder, sounding as if it was coming from towards the back and right of us. We turned our chests and heads in that direction, the same way my husband used to stretch after a good meal, but we couldn’t see anything. ‘It’s probably someone and their baby out in the parking lot,’ I said to my John. He said, ‘That’s one loud baby.’ He was right. The parking lot was nearly a mile behind us now, and a baby that could make that much noise ain’t bred in Georgia, no matter what goes on in the rest of the world. 

“The footsteps gave no warning, they just appeared in our ears as if they were our own. We were still standing in the middle of the trail as our heads veered to our right. At first, we saw nothing but young sassafras trees and poison ivy. But, as if we had waved a fairy wand, something appeared behind a far off tree. All we could tell at first was that it was dark and moving a little faster than the rate at which we’d been walking before. But it only took a second before my John said, in a whisper, “Mama, it’s a person.’ 

“Now John never whispers. His voice is naturally quiet, matching his style perfectly. But this took him and his style both by surprise, so everything was in a confusion. 

“It wasn’t very long before another figure stepped out from behind the tree, followed by a whole heap of others walking with the same pace as the first dressed in black. They all wore hoods that peaked like mountains--or fresh whipped cream--near the backs of their heads, but the hoods were different colors. In order, if I remember it right, their colors were--black, red, yellow, green, and red again. I don’t pretend to know fabrics or sewin’--I have to get my John to help me with replacin’ buttons on my blouses--but I ain’t never seen a fabric move like these hoods did. The fabric, just thick enough to not be seen through, seemed like it could hardly wait for the
figures to take their next steps, bouncing ahead, ever so slightly, as if it was moving on its own. 

We couldn’t see none of their faces, but the last one had blonde hair falling down to its waist, so we figured on it being a girl. Resting on her hip was a baby, ‘bout six to eight months old, and stark naked all except a little necklace ‘round its tiny neck. The necklace gathered together a bit above its belly button, and it was decorated with five, large beads. The beads were in the same order of color as the people’s hoods, which we took as either odd or well-planned. 

“I felt sorry for the poor child, who was crying and screaming as loud as its little lungs possibly could, so I said, ‘John, see if they need help. That baby’s gonna catch a cold like that.’ He said, ‘It ain’t cold out here, Mama.’ But I says to him, ‘Not for you, all in your jeans and collar shirt. If you was out here without a stitch on your body, I don’t doubt you’d be chilly, and most likely crying just like the poor thing.’ He took this as a bit of an insult, I could tell from his face, but he turned and called out, ‘Hey there! You need help?’ 

“After they just kept walking, my John said, ‘Maybe they’re deaf, Mama.’ I said, ‘No, John, look. That one’s holding her finger to the baby’s lips; she can hear ‘im. Just try bein’ louder.’ 

“So he yelled out three more times, didn’t you, John?” 

“Yes’um, like this, ‘Whoop! Hey! Whoop!’” 

“Ya didn’t have to stand up to demonstrate, John. But that’s exactly what he did, wavin’ his arms just the same. And still they walked on, not looking at us. That’s when the dog run up.” 

“But not like a normal dog.”

“Hush, John. I was getting to that. He’s right, it wasn’t like no normal dog. It came rushing up to them outta that same nowhere, but all on its hind legs. Its front paws were held up and close to its chest, folded like the hands of a praying mantis. It was a dark, dark gray all over except a patch of white, shaped like a skull, by its left hind leg.
 
“As the dog got right up to the girl and baby, it dropped onto its fours for a spell, walking near them with its tongue draping over its bottom lip. After a few steps like this, it came back on its hind legs and ran ahead, every now and then spinning around in a full circle. As long as we saw it, it never did drop back down to all fours. 

“All at once, my John and I blinked, perfectly in unison, and the group was gone. No footsteps, no crying baby, no nothing. Then came the dark all in one second, as if the sky had been holding in its breath, waiting for us to blink, then exhaled the stars and moon once we opened our eyes again. 

“‘Mama,’ said my John, ‘we ain’t been here but a half hour. It can’t be more than five o’clock. I wouldn’t even bet on it being that late.’ He looked at his watch, one of them fancy glow inna dark ones he got when my husband passed. ‘Mama, it’s saying that it’s now after eight-thirty!’ ‘Well Lawd,’ I says to him, ‘I hope my soup ain’t ruined.’ 

“We got back to our car ‘bout double the time it took to get to where we seen the people, havin’ to go real slow in the dark. Them river creatures and the ones hanging out in the bog out there make the worst noises when you’re already frazzled. I ain’t never been one to frighten easy, but the frogs and katydids were near the point of unnerving me when we finally got to our car. And the smell! That same smell done picked up again, so strong I feared my John would drop over.‘Well,’ I said to my John, ‘look here. Ain’t no other cars in this parking lot.’ ‘Maybe they was dropped off,’ he said, ‘Or maybe they didn’t get here by car ‘tall.’
 
“Once we got on home and et our soup, I said, ‘John, I done made up my mind. We ain’t never stepping foot in that park again, no matter how you coax and beg. The Chattahoochee is big ‘nough you can see it from other places ‘round here besides that one park. Don’t you try to get me to go there ever again or Imma take my switch after you.’ But he went right along with it, saying that he never did want to go back there again no how. 

“And of course we ain’t been back. Or to any other parks for that matter. The thought of going walking again makes us both feel down right sick to our stomachs. But when I read that about the investigation in the paper yesterday morning, I felt a new kinda sick all over. I showed it to my John and all we could say for a good hour was, that poor baby.”

Grace Helton is a writer based in Northeast Georgia and the editor of The Andalusia Review, a literary journal named after Flannery O’Connor’s home.