Geocaching

Finally got myself together enough to type it all out.

I really hope some of you can chime in on what is happening to my wife and me.

Have you ever heard of Geocaching? Without going into too much detail, Geocaching is basically a game where strangers all over the world hide items, provide GPS coordinates for said items and let others find them. So a person takes something, an old toy or, I don’t know, a pair of scissors, packs it up, hides in a hard-to-find place, provides coordinates at geocaching.com, and the rest of the world is welcome to try and find it. Here’s a two minute video explaining the game.

Now, I am not an adventurous spirit, at all. I’d rather lie in my bed until every damn link on Reddit is purple. But my wife is completely opposite. She used to be a flight attendant and she’d travel all over the world, experiencing all these different awesome adventures. However, since she married me, she’s gotten a “real” job and has been stuck in the same city (Atlanta) for a while now.

So I decided to do something for her. As most other men, I get all of my travel ideas from Groupon. After few pages of suggestions, I decided to go with a nice hotel package at St. Simon’s island, Georgia. The place is only few hours from Atlanta and Trish loves beaches, so it was an easy decision.

I wanted to make the trip even better for Trish so I looked for “fun” ideas on Reddit (where else) and came upon this Geocaching stuff. I quickly created basic account and was very happy to find that there was an item hidden right in St. Simon’s island. I was excited. We left five days ago.

First two days of our vacation were spent eating shitty food, drinking lots of alcohol, and watching whatever Redbox had to offer. On the third day (out of 5) I decided to tell Trish about my adventure plans. She was incredibly excited to go searching for the hidden treasure of St. Simon’s island.

After we ate close to 3 racks of ribs from local bbq shack, I entered GPS coordinates into my phone and we started driving. St. Simon’s is a fairly small place, so after 5 or so minutes of driving, we were already close. We drove up to the main beach parking lot, where it became obvious that the rest of the hunt would have to be done on foot.

We must’ve walked through the sand for at least 30 minutes because we started getting cold and even a bit frustrated because we weren’t seeing any signs of treasure out there. Then, Trish saw fire in the distance.

“Should we go?” she asked.

“I guess so,” I answered. Now I wish I hadn’t.

We approached the fire and realized that nobody was there. While it was strange, we were getting pretty cold and warmth of the flames was certainly welcomed.

“Let’s call it a night, maybe we can check tomorrow, when we can actually see?” Trish asked.

“Sure babe, sorry.”

“Oh no, I loved this, we’re definitely coming back tomorrow.”

As I stood up, I noticed something shiny in the sand by Trish’s foot. I started pulling. It was somewhat heavy.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Look!” I got excited. “Perhaps this adventure thing is cool,” I thought.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I pulled the whole thing out. It was a… it was an English Dictionary wrapped in a ziplock bag.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Is that it?” Trish asked as she kneeled down, all excited.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“What else could it be?”

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">As I was about to tear the bag, I heard someone in the distance. It sounded like yelling or screaming, wasn’t sure.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“You hear that?” I asked Trish as I stood up.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Yeah, look” she answered pointing into the distance. I could see a dark silhouette running towards us.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Fuck” was my first thought, not sure why.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">The person got close enough that I could tell he was running.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">10 seconds later I realized it wasn’t a he, it was a girl almost sprinting towards us.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Run” she yelled as she got close enough that I could see fear on her face.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“What?” Trish asked while grabbing my hand.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Run, now.” Girl mumbled while she struggled to catch a breath. She was now standing in front of us. She was unusually tall for a girl, maybe 6’2”.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Run where? Why?” I asked. I swear my heart rate went up in a blink of an eye. You know how when something big happens you feel the rush of blood to your face and your heart starts racing?

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Look, I can’t explain it to you, but you need to go, right fucking now. And drop that thing” she hissed as he pointed at the ziplock bag.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">And just as I was about to ask her again about what in the fuck she was talking about, she stopped breathing heavily, and all of the emotion got wiped off of her face. She was now looking at the line of trees where the beach ended behind us.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“It’s too late now” she said still looking at that scarce forest.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Look guys, if this were the first weird thing to ever happen to me, I’d probably tell this girl to go fuck herself and slowly walk away. But if I had learned anything from my previous experiences, it is that I shouldn’t take strange things lightly.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“We gotta go,” I told Trish. She looked absolutely terrified.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Too late now,” the girl said. “They’re here.”

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Who is?” I asked, but the girl didn’t acknowledge me. I looked around for anything we could use to defend ourselves. All my racing mind could pick was a wooden stick that was lying close to the fire.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Listen, please, help us. Please,” Trish whispered for the first time. It was almost as if she had realized the danger we were in. I pulled her closer to me.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">The girl actually took her eyes off the trees for a second. “Go in,” she said pointing at the water. “And don’t make a single sound.”

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Again, few years ago I would’ve just walked away, but not today, not after all the shit I’ve seen. But the freezing ocean? At night?

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Come on,” Trish said as she pulled me towards the water. “Give me your phone, quickly.” Honestly, I was surprised at her intuition to lead. She would always take the back seat in our horror experiences.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">She threw both of our phones in the ziplock bag as we started walking into the water. God damn was it freezing. When we got in to our hips, I was ready to walk back out. Rather face “them” than hypothermia. But Trish kept pushing. She feared that what was coming out of the tree line was far worse.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">We got in deep enough that we had to start swimming. I turned around towards the beach. We were few hundred feet away from the fire, hidden deep in the dark. The girl was still standing in the same spot.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Look,” Trish whispered as she pointed at the trees. Several silhouettes appeared from the dark.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Quiet now,” I whispered back, struggling not to make noise while staying above the water.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Three men walked out of the forest. We were close enough to make out basic details: two of them wore identical clothing - what I assume was a Muslim outfit – a one piece white robe or dress, whatever you call it. The third man wore an all-black robe and a black turban – he also had a long beard.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">They walked up straight to the motionless girl. We could hear the two men in white yelling at her in a language neither of us understood. The girl didn’t make any noise. Then, the silent man in black walked up to her, not saying anything. The girl just fell to her knees in front of him and started sobbing.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">By this time, I was fucking freezing, and I can only imagine Trish doing even worse. But I gotta say, she surprised me at how well she was handling the whole situation. I wasn’t sure if she was shaking out of fear or cold, or both.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">The man in a black robe turned around and nodded to the other two, who ran up to the girl, grabbed her by the shoulders, and started dragging her towards the trees. She started screaming. Man, I can’t even begin to describe those screams. It was far worse than anything I’ve ever fucking heard. I was very close to yelling and swimming back to the shore, but truth be told, I was selfish. I wanted Trish to be safe, and I cared more about her than the woman I’ve never seen before.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">And just as they were about disappear in the tree line, the worst fucking thing you can imagine happened. Stingray, or some other nightly ocean-dwelling creature touched Trish foot. She didn’t exactly scream, but she released audible enough sound to send chills down my already frozen body. I grabbed her mouth while struggling to stay above the water and looked over to the trees.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Fuck.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">The men had stopped and turned around towards us.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">The woman they were dragging was now completely silent.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">That man with the black robe started walking towards the water.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“It’s gonna be ok babe, I promise you,” I whispered to Trish. Her eyes were so wide, man, fuck, it was awful seeing your wife terrified beyond belief and you couldn’t do shit about it.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I turned to the beach and realized that everything might not be ok. The man had a flashlight.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Now, I could tell you that we dove under water as the man pointed flashlight at us. You know, Rambo style. But that shit doesn’t work in reality. I mean, I did try diving along with Trish, but when we ran out of air and came back up to the surface, the light was shining right in our faces.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Trish started crying silently.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Yallah!” the man in the black robe yelled. I have a few Hebrew friends and I knew that meant something along the lines of “let’s go.” I couldn’t believe it. The men turned around and walked into the dark tree line, taking the girl with them.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I didn’t waste time thinking about what happened. We were about to freeze in that fucking ocean.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">We slowly swam then walked out at the beach, and while completely exhausted and frozen, we weren’t gonna wait around for them to come back. As fast as we could, we ran to the car and sped back to the hotel. Hot bath and four cups of hot cocoa and Bailey’s later, we calmed down.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I won’t transcribe the full dialog between Trish and me, but we discussed if we should call the police and what we would even tell them if we did. We decided to go to the police station the next day and then head home afterwards.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Here’s the strangest part- the English Dictionary I found in that ziplock bag? When I opened it I realized that it wasn’t a dictionary, it was a safe disguised as a book. I took pictures when we got back home (below).

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">We woke up really early in the morning. At first, my brain didn’t even remember last night’s events. When it all started coming back, it was too surreal to believe. I mean, I had trouble trusting that the shit happened; I can only imagine how much you don’t believe me.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">We packed up and went to the police station.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I told the cop at the counter the whole story and he didn’t seem too fazed by it. He noted it down and said that there have been few reports of pranks in this area, so our case was most likely just that, a prank on naïve tourists.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I wanted to believe him, so I left it at that. I didn’t really care, to be honest; I just wanted to get home, far from this place.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">The whole ride home was completely silent, mostly because Trish slept and I had nothing to say. Driving good 15mph over the speed limit, I got us home in record time. The rest of the day was equally quiet but not uneventful. I decided to open the ziplock bag. What I saw made me seriously question if what was happening had anything to do with my past.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Here are some pictures I took:

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Here’s how the “English Dicctionary” looks like unopened.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">And here’s the book when you open it.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I didn’t have the key, but the quality of this safe is obviously not very good, so I was able to pick it with just Trish’s tweezers. Fuck, I should have left it locked and threw that shit out when that girl told me to.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Here’s what was inside. That right there, that right fucking there, that’s a framed picture of Trish and me. Luckily, Trish wasn’t around when I opened this, so she doesn’t know about it yet.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Here’ what worries me even more. Inside the box, there was some sort of a red capsule as well as some sort ofdevice that looks like an mp3 player?. Does anyone recognize either of these things?

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Here’s the thing. You know that supernatural and I don’t mix well. I don’t believe in that shit, and I know that there must be a rational explanation for everything. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out how our framed picture ended up in that box. How could anyone possibly know we were going to find it that night, at that exact location?

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Trish is currently visiting her aunt who lives near Atlanta, and I think that she needs to stay away for few days. I am planning to give that cop from St. Simon’s a call and let him know about the picture of us in that fucking safe.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Quite honestly, I am scared. Things have been going well in the past few months and I truly hoped the only time I’d visit NoSleep would be to tell you old stories about my grandma. Not like this, man.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">What I’m gonna do now is pop open a big bottle of Costco’s Kirkland vodka, drink and think. If any of you have any ideas about what is happening, please let me know. Anywhere, comments, inbox, Fb, whatever.