The Presence

Chapter Seven: Follow the Dark Stream

As we walk off the porch Hailey grabs my hand and I turn to see Megan standing still... staring at our house.

"Sis, are you coming?" I ask. She looks at me and slowly walks down the steps.

"We need to be very careful. I feel like it's watching us." We all take another look at our house.  Turning back I see the worried looks on the girls faces.

"We'll be alright as long as we stay together. Come on, lets go," I say.  The girls exchange a glance... and follow me reluctantly.

As we walk past the house and down toward the barn I think about the evil history of this property... and what secrets we may uncover.

"Keep walking. The pond is further down the old road," Hailey says.

As we walk Megan looks at the doors of the barn and they shake slightly as we walk past.

We follow the road deeper into the woods and soon start to smell stagnant water and Hailey stops.

"Well guys, this is it," she says and points to our right.

Megan and I look and see a pond about twenty feet away. Trees surround it and there are a few dead ones standing in the water. It actually looks more like a swamp than a pond.

We walk to the edge and the smell is terrible. The water looks pitch black even though the sunshine is shining bright.

"Guys, can you see that?" Megan asks.

"See what?" I ask.

"The edge of the water. It's... glowing."

I concentrate on the waters edge and begin to see it too.

"Guys, I don't see anything," Hailey says. I gently take her hand and keep concentrating. She gasps, "I can see it now. It looks like it has a blue hue around the edge."  We continue looking, taking it all in.

"Alright, let's look for a stream that may be feeding the pond or one that's coming from it," I say.

We begin searching around the waters edge. We reach the other side and Megan notices something.

"Hey, I think I've found it."

There's a small stream running down the hillside into the pond. We all go over and take a closer look and the running water is black as well.  I think about what Anna said, "Follow the dark stream."

"OK, lets find the source."  We all begin to climb up the wooded hillside...

As we get close to the top I begin to see something. I'm a little surprised at first, then it kind of makes sense.  As the girls catch up, both gasp at what they see...

"This keeps getting weirder and weirder," Hailey says. We stand looking across an old forgotten graveyard...

"Did you know this was here?" I ask.

"No, I didn't. I've never been to this side of the pond before," Hailey answers.

We slowly start walking into the graveyard looking at each of the old monuments.  Some of the stones are warn and can't be read. The oldest ones that we can are from the late eighteen-hundreds. We decide to split up so we can cover more ground.