This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Saturdead on 2024-10-19 15:46:51+00:00.
Nick and I didn’t get much time off after our run-in with the mask folks. Enough for February to make way for March, but that was pretty much it. I spent most of that time making myself comfortable in my house again, but no matter the furniture and the ‘new floor smell’, I still had that feeling that something was out there; just out of sight. The town of Tomskog was relentless that way. You could never really be sure that you were alone, or safe. I had no idea how the long-term locals did it.
Once the dust settled, we were put back on active duty. Nothing big, just surveillance. John Digman and his relative were holed up at this old ranch by the southwestern exit of town. There weren’t a lot of spots to position ourselves for a stakeout without outing ourselves, but we settled on a hill within a viewing distance. The station had plenty of binoculars.
There were three surveillance teams. Nick and I ended up on the evening shift, starting at 5pm and ending around midnight. Round-the-clock surveillance.
Being forced into such a proximity with another person has a couple of unintended effects. I think this is the time where Nick and I became real, actual friends. Up until that point we were still sort of work buddies, but we hadn’t really sat down and just talked.
I learned a lot about Nick during those days. I’d no idea he used to be married, for example. His wife had run off with a male stripper from Salt Lake City. Six years of marriage down the drain on a single ill-timed company retreat. Then there were his ridiculous pink sunglasses. As he described them;
“They make you brave, you know. When you look at the world through rose-tinted glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”
One evening, as we bonded over shrimp and fried rice, the conversation lulled a bit. The Digman’s were keeping to themselves, so there was nothing to report. We were just sitting there, vibing to his classic hard rock collection. I decided to bring up something that’d been on my mind for a while.
“I don’t get why everyone doesn’t know about this town,” I said. “It’s unreal. It’s literally unreal.”
“You forget,” Nick explained. “You just sort of forget. All these things, they’re so unlikely that you start to fade it out from your mind over time. Like a story you forgot you read. It’s like it never really happened to you, you know?”
“Yeah, but people around here go missing too. Do y’all just forget about them and move on?”
“Sometimes,” Nick nodded. “But it’s not like… a willing thing. Sometimes things just disappear, like they were never here to begin with.”
He tapped the dashboard, as if trying to conjure a thought. Then he snapped his fingers.
“Your desk!” he exclaimed. “Remember how it had no name?”
“Yeah?”
“It most definitely did, once. But whoever used it is just sort of gone. Poof.”
After our shift, Nick took me on a ride to show me what he meant. There were a couple of houses that were fully furnished and clearly inhabited, but there were no names registered to them. No initials on the mailbox, nothing but empty frames on the walls.
“These show up from time to time,” Nick explained. “There’s nothing we can do about it. Even if they were our best friends at some point, how would we know? It’s like they never existed.”
“You know what’s causing this?”
“Take your pick,” Nick shrugged. “Ain’t just one thing that can cause it. It’s like… once you go too far and touch something you shouldn’t, it takes you away.”
We just stood there for a moment, looking at this ghastly house. The fancy living room rug, painstakingly selected. Empty plates from a dinner finished months ago. A shirt casually tossed over a chair, now the home to a curious spider weaving a brand-new web.
It was a life frozen in time, waiting for someone to come home. Someone that wouldn’t.
I tried not to think too much about it, but the thought surfaced every now and then. The next time Nick and I went down to the station, I took some time to go through the desk I’d been assigned to when I first joined. There were still a few items left. A couple of empty picture frames, that was to be expected. A pack of gum, an empty wallet, a couple of blank receipts. The strangest things were a set of smooth keys. There was no way to tell what they’d be used for. Handcuffs?
It was pointless. Whoever this person was, I’d never find out. And while the rest of Tomskog PD seemed perfectly happy with not knowing, it just gave me the creeps. If something could affect people on such a personal level, nothing was off the table. I tried not to think about it too much, but the implications were mind boggling. You could just disappear, and no one would know.
Nick didn’t seem too bothered though. He saw me rummaging through the desk and gave me what can only be described as a sympathetic shrug. I guess he figured I had to come to terms with this in my own way.
That night, as I went to sleep, I had the strangest feeling in my stomach. It was like a new kind of worry. We’ve all had those nights when we twist and turn, worrying about something, but this was different. This was, like… world-shattering. Like existence itself was a fragile thing. It felt like the universe itself was cruel, wishing me only harm and pointless indignance. I lay awake staring up at the ceiling, hoping a comforting thought would look back.
And when it didn’t, I cried. That kind of cry where your sinuses burn and you can’t close your mouth. Where you look like you’re just silently screaming as you stain your pillow with tears.
That night is when I started to write this all down. I figured I hadn’t been forgotten yet, and that in case of my sudden disappearance, there was at least a chance something might be left behind. A remnant. But I saw it more as an act of defiance; a challenge. That if I was taken down and removed, they would have another thing to remove. And I would keep adding to that pile, so that taking me out of the picture would at least be as inconvenient as possible.
I remember I was halfway into my recollection of coming to Tomskog (what would later be my first post here), when I leaned back. As I did, my head bumped into something. Something where there ought to be nothing.
I spun around, but there was nothing there. I figured that was a good indicator to stop for the night. I wasn’t coping very well, but at least I’d gotten some of that pain out on paper. That’d hold me for a bit.
Over the next few days, I regularly took down notes about strange things I’d seen, or stray thoughts that ran through my mind. I was scared that I might end up forgetting something. It was a safety blanket, in a way.
Nick didn’t say anything about it. He’d probably seen something like it before. Hell, maybe he’d been that way himself. It was nice not to have a judgmental stare over my shoulder, while still retaining some form of normalcy. Our stakeouts were drawn-out and frustrating, but at least we didn’t have to worry too much about what we were gonna do that day.
But what stuck with me was the little things. The little moments in between. Nick and I would sometimes have these long talks over dinner, for example. I remember the takeout bag from the gas station still warm on my lap.
“Digman uses no power,” Nick once said in-between bites of his second hot dog. “Nothing. He’s completely off the grid.”
“So?”
“So?! So look!”
I brought up my binoculars and had another look. There were plenty of lights on at Digman’s place; and that was only what we could see. There were also satellite dishes on the roof, a large radio antenna, and a couple of large black cables running from the main building to the guest house.
“You can’t say that’s not weird,” Nick insisted.
“Sure, yeah,” I agreed. “I see no solar panels, so it’s gotta be something else.”
“I’ve been saying that for years,” Nick sighed. “But it’s just one of those things, you know. One of those weird, weird things.”
“Digman,” I sighed, shaking my head.
“Fucking Digman.”
We ended up taking turns checking out the place, making notes whenever someone came or went. We’d use the binoculars for an hour each, letting the other one use the charger as we browsed on our phones. It made things bearable, but the long hours would get painfully slow at times. We couldn’t move around too much, or there was a chance we’d be spotted, but by the fourth day or so we were almost praying to get noticed. But hey, at least we didn’t get the night shift.
I remember getting out to stretch my legs. It was about 10 pm or so, and the clouds had slowly settled overhead. There was pressure building; we’d probably have bad weather within a couple hours. I took out my phone to check an article from my hometown, when a red light came on. As I tapped the screen, there was a second brief flash of bright red.
I blinked it away and looked up. Something had changed. For some reason, my heart was beating a little faster. March in Minnesota can get real dark real fast, so no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t see anything. There could’ve been a hundred people in those woods staring at me, and I’d be none the wiser.
I got back to the car, suddenly feeling vulnerable. Uneasy.
Was this wha…
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