Full Body Chills - Red Ribbon

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

Come take a walk with me through the woods...Red ribbonby: Minnie SchedeenYou can read the original story at FullBodyChillsPodcast.comThis episode is brought to you by Simplisafe, to learn more check out simplisafe.com/fbc Looking for more chills? Follow Full Body Chills on Instagram @fullbodychillspod. Full Body Chills is an audiochuck production. Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi listeners, this is Ashley Flowers, and I have a story I want to tell you. So come, take a walk with me through the woods, and listen very close. The silence is almost deafening out here. I mean, I could hear a pin drop if I had a pin, but I don't. There's nothing sharp for miles around. Believe me, I've made 100% sure of it. All I have on me are the clothes on my back and my backpack, which is actually kind of cutting into my shoulders. It isn't hot out here, at least not yet. I purposefully started this hike

really early in the morning so that I don't think the heat's going to get to me and hopefully by the time it breaks through the trees I'll be deep enough into the forest where all of the tallest pines grow and I'll be protected by their shade. But that's a ways away and and I just gotta keep walking until then. This isn't by accident, you know. I designed it this way, to be so completely isolated. I needed to be alone, needed to get away from literally everything. I needed time to think. I know isolation isn't a big deal to some people, but I can basically count on my hand the number of times I've ever been alone. Ever.

I'm one of five in my family, and my whole childhood, my whole life has been nothing but non-stop chatter from everyone around me. And being the middle child never helped. With all the chatter going on from other people, I'm not sure how much anyone ever really paid attention to me or listened or even cared. But now, out here, I'm going to be the center of my own world. I can think and move and breathe without someone else interrupting or forcing a thought into my head without my consent. The plan is to hike three miles deep into the forest, and I'm leaving markers on the trail as I go, that way I don't get lost. And I've been wrapping ribbons around the trees as well, you know, just to make sure. Before I came out here, I dyed the ribbons red with leftover dye

I had from like this dusty, unused corner of my apartment in the city. I think it was dye that I initially bought for some abandoned pet project I thought might be a new career. I know that sounds stupid now, but like I've always done things like that for as long as I can remember. Picking up hobbies, hoping they turn into real work, then I'd get bored or worse realize I was never even good at the thing I was trying to do in the first place. And maybe this is a prime example of why I was always disappointing my parents. I was the most disappointing of all my siblings, in fact. Hank, Sally, Truman, Wendy, Robbie, they all had so much more to offer than I ever did. But then again, you know what? Maybe they made sure of that, made sure that I was the failure so they could shine. Whatever. I can't

think about that now. Not yet. Right now, I need to stay focused. I need to maintain a rhythm, a pace for how many steps I go, how many ribbons I wrap around trees. On the fifth tree, I always stop, pull out my ribbon, and tie it around the trunk. And and every time I know it should get old but I stopped to admire my handiwork. The slippery silky ribbon pulled tight around the wooden trunk like a dark ruby necklace stretched across a fine lady's neck or the line of blood trickling horizontal across someone's skin after their throat's been cut. Hmm. I wonder if maybe I should just get lost out here so that no one ever finds me. Can you imagine that headline?

Girl with troubled past disappears into the woods, never to be found again. That would really be something. You know, come all the way out here just to get lost in the woods. But I won't get lost. I came here to be found. I just need to focus. I don't even really know this forest well. I only remember it faintly from a memory a long time ago. My class took a field trip to these very woods. It's how I even know that they're here. And I'm replicating what we did then with what I'm doing now. Hike three

miles into the forest, spend the night, hike back. I don't even know why we did it back then. My school's very focused on outdoors in that way, I guess. They were always wanting us to get outside, come out of our shells. I mean, I wish it would have worked on me, but if anything, it made me retreat farther into mine. On this particular trip, our teacher focused on survival skills, taught us how to find naturally occurring ibuprofen and filter out the river water with dark

gray charcoal. We slept under crinkly tarps beneath the bright stars and the deep blue-black skies, and in the morning we ate dried food off of leaves and rocks. Our teacher and I guess by extension our school itself wanted to teach us about real life and what it meant to have true grit. Basically like how Lewis and Clark were back when there were no planes or trains, automobiles, whatever. But now when I think about it, it wasn't really realistic at all. At least there was nothing truly dangerous about what we were doing out there. We were only 12, and there were chaperones everywhere, which is why it never made sense to anyone who told the story later how Jackson got lost.

We had this boy in our class, quiet, read a lot. His name was Jackson, and I sort of liked him, sensed something in him that I guess I had in me, looked like a feeling of loneliness, kind of like quiet desperation, like he was asking for someone, anyone, to pay attention to him, which I got.

Sometimes he would pick fights with other kids in school, and I heard several stories that Jackson ran away from home a lot as a little kid. Sometimes I heard that his dad beat him as well, but I don't know if that's really just gossip passed around by a bunch of middle schoolers with too much free time. It was kind of a dark rumor, if you think about it, to be spreading around for a bunch of 12-year-olds. And I mean, he never had any bruises that I could see, but I mean, I know firsthand that sometimes

the deepest bruises are the ones you can never see with the naked eye. Those are the ones that hurt the most and last the longest after the final blow is felt. Before anyone realized that he was missing, before the chaperones raised the alarms and we all huddled up in a circle and gave our alibis, I saw Jackson. I guess if you think about it, I was the last person that saw him alive. I'd been playing by myself at the sharp rocks at the bottom of the waterfall. It was like several yards away from our campsite. And I was planning on collecting all of the stones that I could find, like the prettiest ones that were blue and purple in certain lights, the ones that reminded me kind of of sea glass or gemstones. I wanted to keep them and bring them home with me just to have something that none of my sisters or brothers could have.

And I remember cradling one particular gemstone in my hand. It was like iridescent and soft in the afternoon light. And then a shadow crossed my palm and I looked up. And it was right then that I saw Jackson standing on a ledge. He was just staring at me. His face, I don't know, kind of solemn. And I could tell his face was wet, but I couldn't tell if it was from the spray of the waterfall or for something else. And years later, I kind of always wondered if he was crying or not. I mean, he seemed so sad back then.

But I didn't think about any of that in the moment. Instead, I just kind of waved at him. But if I was expecting anything back, I was sorely mistaken. He didn't wave back. He didn't actually do anything. He kind of just stared at me and kept staring until this shiver ran down my spine. And I just remember getting so angry. Angry that this kid thought he could make me feel weird by staring. Angry that he took away my one peaceful

moment alone. Angry that he's collecting the rocks that I'm trying to have for myself. Just so freaking angry. After the chaperones realized that he was gone, they rounded up my crying classmates and shepherded us all back to the beginning of the trail so we could finally call the police and have someone come look for him. They ended up looking for him for five days before calling off the search. The forest was just too big and likely, I mean, if he was on his own, he would have run out of food by then. I never told anyone that I was the last to see him because, I mean, I didn't want to get in trouble. But also, like, what good would it do? He was already long gone.

I didn't think it would help. But later, when we were assigned to speak with his school psychologist, you know, just to make sure we weren't scarred too much by Jackson's death or disappearance or whatever. Kids in my class would say that his disappearance was one of the saddest moments of their young adult lives. And that it was the first time that they'd come across death or true sadness and loss. And they often said that forever that trip would be marked by this horrible tragedy. And I mean, I said pretty much the same thing when it was my turn to talk to the psychologist. And, you know, she looked at me sympathetically when I told her I wasn't sleeping well and had nightmares about Jackson. And then she handed me a Jolly Rancher and asked me to bring in the next

kid. It was so long ago now. And I don't know why, but my most vivid memory from that afternoon were not all the words coming out of my mouth, but rather that sickly sweet taste of the red Jolly Rancher as it rolled around in my tongue. If I were really being honest here, and I guess I consider this now as good a time as any to be honest, I look back on that trip as one of the happiest of my childhood. Because for once in my small little life, I was finally away from my family. Finally got to taste and feel what my thoughts were without one of them yammering in my ear or shoving something down my throat. Sure, we all went to the same school, but thankfully

none of us were the same age. And so those three days, they were all mine. Missing Jackson and all. Shoot. How many trees have I passed? One, two, three, four, five. I'll just, I'll put a ribbon here. Oh my God, I'm starting to feel lightheaded, I need to sit down just remember remember why you're here remember oh my god, I didn't mean to

I didn't mean to do it I didn't mean to kill my family't mean to do it. I didn't mean to kill my family. I swear. God, look at me now. I'm like talking to the trees. I mean, kind of, not really, right? Like trees can't hear me. What's that old saying? If a tree breaks in the forest, that's not right. A tree collapses. Oh God, what's the word? If a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to see it, does it make a sound? Yeah, I think that's it. I'm not totally crazy, right?

But the thing is, I'm here in the forest and I can hear the trees. And I know the trees can hear me. They're hearing everything that I'm saying. What I just admitted to you right now in the deep, dark silence. And what I'm finally admitting to myself. I know they can hear all of it. What I don't know is if they're going to tell anyone. I guess at this point you're probably wondering if I even have the ability to explain my descent into whatever

drove me to do it. Insanity, craziness. I don't even know if those are the words or if I'm just too far gone to really explain the situation. I can give you reasons and they'd probably be right if you asked a psychologist specializing in the murder of your entire family. I'm sure there are a few specialists out there, however gruesome that may seem. And they'd probably explain and pinpoint something about me being a middle child. I killed my family in cold blood. I did.

I did the thing that you never think of doing, never dream of doing in a million years. I get it. They're my family. But to me, that word is so funny. Family. It never really meant anything to me. It was basically a synonym for nuisance rather than for love, for judgment rather than acceptance. And family meant that your father yelled at your mother and your brother stuck bugs so far down your ears while you slept that you had to be rushed to the ER to get them

out. Family meant your sister stole your prom dress and spilled grape juice down the front of it the moment that your date rang the doorbell. Family meant comparison, competition, never being yourself. One entity, one person in charge of their own destiny. Family meant someone was always getting in the way. I mean, I told you, I was never alone. They were always there. Even as I got older, I went to college, I moved into my own apartment. I tried to get away, but they were always dropping by, always wondering why I never made much out of my life, never followed in any of their footsteps, never applied myself. So I snapped.

I admit I snapped. And I'm not saying that it was good. I'm not saying I agree with what I did either. I'm only telling you the thing that I was thinking and what went into it the moment that I made the rash decision and that I had to carry through. I told you I was being honest

but I lied about that I lied about something else too I told you the ribbons were dyed with paint and it's not true if you really want to know I'll tell you the ribbons were dyed with blood. And I know it's not right, but it's why I'm telling you all of this now.

I don't know, I think somehow maybe admittance is some sort of trade for the lives that I stole. But you know what? They stole mine, right? Or have I just been wrong my whole life? Read things the wrong way, alienated myself when they were only trying to help, trying to love me? I don't know. I'll never know. I don't know why that frightens me the most. I lied about something else too. All those years ago when I saw Jackson near the waterfall, wet with tears or cast off from the water, he angered me with his silence. Just like my family angered me with their noise, him being there, taking away my peace.

So I stood up, I went over to him and wrapped my fingers around his neck. That was the beginning of it, of anger I couldn't control. I thought I would never do it again. But here I am, all these years later, and I'm admitting it to you now. By the time you're listening to this, I should be dead. The ribbons have led you to my corpse in the middle of the national forest, my hand clutching the very recorder that I'm speaking these words into. The tapes probably stop by now. Jackson's buried a few feet to my left. I hope that his family can now find some kind of peace.

I know I will. I told you before, I didn't come out here to get lost in the forest. No, I came here to be found. Now come find me. I love you. This episode was written by Minnie Shadeen with editorial production and performance by me, with production assistance and editing by David Flowers. This story was modified for audio retelling with the author's consent. So if you want to read the original story, you can go to our website, fullbodychillsPodcast.com. And be sure to come back tomorrow so I can tell you another story that will give you full body chills. Full Body Chills is an Audiochuck production.

So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?