The Wisp

THE WISP

Just south of Boston rise hills, almost small mountains, remarkably spared of man's timeless ambition to destroy and recreate. Native brook trout thrive in several streams, and stone fences remnant of a Puritan past run in lines unchanged for centuries. .

Atop the range's highest peak one could find themselves questioning their senses: the forested world is so removed in it's way from an urban world it might seem shocking that Boston is so nearby.

For as long as anyone can remember strange tales surrounded the area. To me they were just ghost stories. They certainly weren't on my mind when I left the life I had known behind, along with so much else, and chose to live in those hills.

I was a professor for almost a decade in one of the larger, if not quite prestigious local colleges. When the troubles began I thought l just needed a vacation. I took a long one and nothing improved. Strange thoughts, and then dreams were coming into my head. My response was to drink heavily, and occasionally worse, something I wouldn't have thought possible just a year earlier. Soon I began missing work. I was told I had a breakdown, and I know now it was true. When the University dismissed me, however, I was still in denial: I was irate and confused, and a wounded and foolish pride guided me..

I bought what I needed to live in those hills and, almost before I knew it, that's what I was doing.

It was a spot as far from the nearest trail as I could find. A marsh lined with birch and alder trees was alive with the calls of frogs and other creatures.

I had been camping before, but revelations learned from weeks as opposed to days in the woods awaited.

Owls were more abundant than I could have imagined, the most common sounding not the familiar 'hoot' but instead a ghostly whistle.

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

The stars when one is away from artificial 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. Even 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 greenish yellow above the marsh.

For several nights afterward I would wait for the peculiar light, which I assumed it to be the 'will-o-the wisp' phenomenon common near wetlands, and while only briefly it would indeed appear.

Unlike the flashes of illumination of 'will o' the wisp', however, this was constant. It flickered like a flame but never disappeared.

I also noticed that the creatures of the night reacted strongly to its presence. The frogs would cease to call when and where it appeared, and once a raccoon which had been wandering nearby followed its motion with a concerned gaze before scurrying away in obvious 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 wisp hovering directly above my tent.

I finally gathered the courage to step outside only to see it retreat hastily to the marsh. Perhaps, I told myself, it was merely curious.

I concluded from the experience that it could think, but I was unsure to what level. Furthermore and too hastily, that it was likely benign.
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The next night while looking out on the marsh, still pondering that strange experience, I saw it approaching.

Unlike that instance, however, there was no retreat. It was as if a net of blinding light had been thrown around me.

The next memory I have is waking up in an unfamiliar place in the woods.Trees rose black and in every direction and the mosquitoes were innumerable and rapacious.

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 a familiar path and made my way back to the marsh.

Two nights later, still trying to understand what had happened, the strangeness took a terrible turn. I came to my senses beside a stream with a large bump throbbing above one eye. More distressing my hands were covered in blood. Later, as adrenaline wore off, I discovered a bite mark on my shoulder. In my ignorance I thought I must have 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 my 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 emerged from my trance to the sound of a police siren. I was on a generic residential street unfamiliar to me. The woods were flashing with red lights as I raced toward them. I still don't know if I had been seen.

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.

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 transgression 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 I have returned to the marsh.The shadows are growing 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?