The Eyes Have It

The invitation came on my cell phone around 8 a.m. that morning. It read - "Geocaching Fun! Come join us at the Leeland Ave. Park this morning at 10 a.m. to participate in our game." It sounded innocent enough, so I decided to spend my morning looking for items and hopefully getting a big prize at the end.

I went to the park around 9:45 a.m. to get my barrings and see if the whole thing was legit. It seemed to be, as I saw a banner that advertised the activity and even a vendor selling coffee. I approached someone that looked like he was in charge, and he had me fill out a form and disclosure to join the game.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the game will begin in five minutes. Please make sure you have checked in and signed all of the paperwork." After the man made his announcement, I noticed a few people leave and a few more arrive. The game started with a horn blast. Startling at the sound, I ran into the woods ready to find each of the clues. I ran for a few minutes, looking at my phone for the initial coordinates, and quickly found the first item. It was a box filled with pencils that had the next coordinates inscribed on them. I picked one up, entered the numbers and began to run towards the next cache. I saw a few other people running around, but not as many as I thought I should have.

The weather started to change a bit, with a cool breeze making its way across my brow. I welcomed the change and kept looking for the next item.

As I arrived at the correct location, I opened the box and found a piece of paper with the next coordinates, then noticed something that looked odd at the foot of the stump where the box was laying. It looked like a ball with something in the center. I picked it up, feeling something squishy between my fingers and slowly looked at it. It was a human eye! I dropped it in disgust and fell backwards on the hard ground. My skin crawled, and I almost fainted. What possible reason could there be for this eyeball to be in the woods? Who did it belong to? Did the person before me see it, or was it his? I had so many questions then pulled myself together to call 9-1-1. As I started to dial, my phone did something strange and the screen went black. I had just charged it, so it couldn't be that I ran out of juice. I realized after trying to call again that something was blocking my access. This really unnerved me.

Someone was trying very hard to isolate and scare me. Well, it was working. I looked around and didn't see any other participants in the game. I didn't know which way to go since my phone was being blocked. I couldn't use the GPS. I started to hyperventilate and had to sit down for a moment to catch my breath. I remembered my training in Girl Scouts to help with direction and looked up at the location of the Sun. It was around 11:00, so I still had a little direction to work with. I headed west which I knew pointed towards the entrance of the park. As I started walking, I heard someone say my name. I turned around but didn't see anyone.

There it was again. The person said my first and last name. Why? Who was it? I continued walking toward the direction I hoped held the entrance to the park. I heard a branch snap behind me and turned to see a person dressed in black following me. I started to run, going absolutely out of my mind with fear. As I turned around again to see where the figure was, he met me face to face. I screamed and fell back hard onto my tailbone. This knocked the wind out of me, and all I could do was put my hands up to block whatever was coming my way. The person proceeded to laugh hysterically as he took off his ski mask. It was my friend Micah!

"What in the world are you doing?" I said as I got to my feet. "You scared me half to death!"

"I knew you couldn't resist a game like Geocaching, so I organized this event to scare the pants off of you!"

"Wow. Thanks a lot for that. This has to be the worst prank you've played on me. Why did you block my phone? Where did you get the human eye from? I think that may have scared me more than calling my name stealthily."

"Huuuuman eye? What are you talking about? I didn't get a human eye, and I didn't block your phone.

This absolutely freaked me out. I thought for sure that he had left the eye there for me to begin my terror and had blocked my phone to stop me from calling 9-1-1. "Let me take you back to the spot where I found the eye."

We walked back to the spot where it all started. As we walked up to the stump, we noticed two white balls on the ground. No. There couldn't be a second one. I squatted down next to the objects and determined that there was a second eye. This one had a different color pupil! Could it be from a second person or was it an anomaly from one person. Micah was in school to study medicine, so he approached the two orbs in a clinical manner. He took two leaves and picked each eye up and placed them in the box with the coordinates. He determined they had been removed surgically, not from trauma.

We decided to take the box to the starting line and try and call the police. Micah knew the way back to the park entrance because he had helped set up the game. As we walked, we talked about several possibilities of where the eyes could have come from. One possibility was that someone was playing a prank and got the eyes from medical waste. Another one was more sinister, that a person has been murdered, and there was a psycho loose.

"Melody, what do you think this is all about? Micah said with some confusion.

"I don't have a clue."

We reached the starting line and noticed that it was desolate. No one was there. The banner was gone. The coffee vendor was gone. The man who had made the announcement was gone. The hairs on the back of my neck raised to attention as I got my phone out to try and call the police. I looked at it, and to my relief it seemed to be unblocked.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Finally someone answered the phone and took down our information about what had happened. A police officer would be there shortly to meet us.

Once the officer arrived, he said that there had been a body found about 400 yards away, on the other side of the park. The person was a female in her 30's and had been strangled. Her eyes were missing. When he told us this, I had to sit down so I wouldn't fall down. The murderer had been near me in the woods and had placed the eyes there to say.....that he was watching me. I just knew it. Why? Who knows the intricate lunacy of a psychopath and why he would do something so grotesque.