William Royden

And I did.

but when Cording thought I hit the record button to start taping again, I actually queued up the playback to see what I could see.

Finally, I pieced the image together enough to realize that what was on the wall was another missing person flyer, identical in format to the one pleading for help for the missing child, except that this one showed Forge Cording.

The photograph depicting his thin, haggard face appeared to be a still frame from the very videotape I had been shooting that afternoon.

The last seen-on date on the flyer registered on the tape very clearly.

It was the current day, October 9, 2005.

There was another 15 to 20 minutes of walking on the trail, and then the path simply ended.

We were in front of a thin screen of trees, and something could be seen through them.

Houses.

We went through the trees and came out roughly where we had intended to go hours before.

We were on Marquette Street.

It was as if we had merely been displaced by a few hundred yards.

It was twilight and we were both exhausted beyond words.

Looking back, I saw the path was still there, waiting for us to return if we were insane enough to do it.

At the Sam and Ma'am Diner, we sat and drank strong coffee as night came.

There in our booth in the corner, courting down cup after cup, he spoke for a full hour, telling me things I will never be able to forget.

It all finally came out uninterrupted in a very calm monotone, as if he were delivering a lecture to a class of one.

He told me of a ten-year-old girl who lived in Robinson 25 years ago.

and of the freakish twist of fate that had befallen her to turn her into something that was less than human.

He told me how his mentor had traveled across the world to Robinsong in order to kill the girl and remove her horrible influence from the town.