William Royden

Then, suddenly, he seemed much more certain about where we were to walk.

He gathered up the sheet and dumped it into the nearest trash can.

From Mount Halcyon, we went down Bowler Avenue, then headed south.

As we walked and had videotaped, recording stopped every quarter of a mile or so, and thought for a moment, trying to sense something, but always moving in more or less a straight line.

Then there came a series of turns he took that exactly duplicated the way I used to walk from a 7-11 to my grandfather's house.

I watched in disbelief as he even veered off the sidewalk beside the house where a family called the Vities used to live.

The giant oak tree on the edge of their front lawn was split neatly in two at the trunk, and Cording stepped onto the lawn and bisected that tree the way I used to, every single time I encountered it from the age of six.

He kept going without looking back, joining the sidewalk again.

It was a move completely out of character for Cording and made no earthly sense at all.

The moment when we reached Bryan Lane was the real turning point for me.

The time when I most considered dropping the camera and just running away from this awful task.

We left Bryan Lane and started to walk up a long winding path onto private property.

The path led between reeds and trees starting to shower leaves onto us under the weight of the wind.

Cording was small in the camera frame.

He stopped entirely for a minute, looking around.

Then he gestured for me to come closer.

He said to me, It's here.

Something's here.

Be very quiet.

With that, he continued to move up the dirt path, which bent slightly to the right, and which in about a hundred feet would lead directly to my grandfather's backyard.