Oak Ridge

Chapter 6

The Sheriff was having one of the most bizarre days of his life. Through all the mystery, he was experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions. He wasn’t sure whether he even had the energy to listen to his son’s wild theory, but decided to allow him to continue. Returning to his feet, the Sheriff stood with his wife, arms crossed, and with a stern look on his face.

“Mitch and I thought we were going to get in trouble about Newbie — I mean, Charlie,” Conor said, launching into his story. “When we heard about his return, we wanted to discuss a plan for what we should do. We began texting, but when mum took my phone away, I snuck out and rode my bike to his house.

“We wanted to talk to him — Charlie — and ask him some questions… see what kinds of things he remembers. We went by the kid’s house, but no one was home. We then heard about the people going missing and thought it’d be best to hide in our fort. We stashed our bikes at the forest’s edge and were making our way down the dark path. Then all of the sudden, we realized we were not alone.

“I spotted it first…” Conor said as his young mind searched for the correct words. “I guess you could describe it as a glowing orb, but it didn’t look like anything I had ever seen. At first I thought I was seeing things, but when Mitch told me he saw it too, we both crouched down like a couple of tigers in the tall grass.”

“A glowing orb?” his father repeated. “Can you describe this orb?”

“I mean, it looked a little like the fiery eye of Sauron… but blue. Well, it was actually multiple colours at once, but mostly blue.”

“Iridescent?”

“What does that mean? Is that like the Northern Lights?”

“It means something that appears to have multiple colours at different angles, like a soap bubble, an oil spill, or the back of a CD. Was it like any of those?”

“I’d say it was more like the Northern Lights, only it was in the middle of the forest and it was much smaller.”

“How big was it?”

“Well, like I said, it was glowing and didn’t have defined edges so it was hard to tell how big it was, but it was definitely in a concentrated area.”

“Could I fit my car in it, or my house?”

“Um… maybe neither. I would say it was a bit bigger than a person.”

“Okay, what else can you tell me about it?” the Sheriff asked.

“It was swirling.”

“Did it make any sound?”

“No.”

“Okay, so you saw a swirling, iridescent, glowing orb in the forest. It was a bit bigger than a person and didn’t make any sound.”

“Correct.”

“Earlier you stated you think you know how the returned are coming back. Get to that part.”

“Right. So Mitch and I must have watched this thing for ten to fifteen minutes without saying a word to each other. We were both speechless. I really wanted to take a picture of it, but as you know I didn’t have my phone with me, but I signaled to Mitch to take out his phone. He took one picture and then mum called. As soon as the ringer went off, the orb disappeared. She sounded pretty upset on the phone so we headed home right away.

“We found the path and ran back to our bikes. Just before we went our separate ways, I asked Mitch if he got a clear shot of the orb. It was the first time either one of us had spoken about what we had seen as we were both a little freaked out. Neither one of us was quite sure what it was, but then we discovered something far stranger than we had realized.