Bear Brook Barrel Girl

Trigger Warning: Real Crime Victims

Bear Brook Barrel Girl

 It was always autumn whenever she became conscious. Time moves very differently when you are dead, and sometimes it's fast, and sometimes it's just still. For the little girl, time seemed to always pause at the moment when her spirit awoke in the barrel. 

  She remembered the dark, cold metal of the barrel and the plastic as it slid against her skin, all slimy. She remembered the feeling of weightlessness as her spirit looked down at her dismembered body parts and the way they intertwined with her sister's. Together forever in a barrel in the woods. She felt her heart sink as she remembered what he had done to them. How could he have done that to them, she wondered. She had loved and feared him, just as her mother and sisters had, but she never thought it would come to this. 

  "Honey, it's ok. Mama is here with you." Her mother said as her spirit opened the barrel top for her to crawl out. 

  It was the most disjointed feeling to know her body was in pieces, but her heart was still intact and breaking. Of course, as a spirit and a toddler at that, the girl didn't understand everything that had happened. Over time, her mother had explained they had been murdered by her father and left in the woods. She learned to forgive.

  She turned her head towards the trees and watched the beautiful leaves swaying. There was a breeze and the ominous feeling of something coming, some change in the air. 

  "Play with me, Sarah." her older sister, Marie, squealed. 

 She was about ten years old and left in the first barrel with their mother. Sarah, about two years old, laughed and jumped after Marie. The girl stood sucking her thumb and holding their mother's hand. How many times they had played tag and hide and seek and climbed the trees were lost to count. They could not leave, but at least they had each other. Bear Brook State Park was massive, and one would expect other spirits to roam around, but the girl had never seen anyone else. She had at first thought her father would come back to visit, but he never did. 

  She studied their mother, who was laughing at the little girls chasing each other. Marlyse was her name, their mother, and she was beyond beautiful. Her dark locks flowed down her back, and her smile was radiant, even if only a faint imitation of what it had been in life. The girl knew Marlyse was not her birth mother, but she could only remember her holding her.  

   Time seemed to shift with them all sitting down by the barrels, and Marie and Marlyse were explaining what school was. The girl found it funny that even dead, the memory of homework was still a horrible thing to her sister. The season had to be summer, the girl knew, for the people that ventured into the woods were in shorts and t-shirts. That year, a boy and his friends found the barrel but only kicked it over, which filled the girls with the hope of being found. Instead, their bodies remained hidden. 

  Nothing more happened for a long time, the seasons shifted again, but no one else ever came by. Some dogs would come by sometimes and notice the sisters. The dogs would stay playing fetch and running around with them. The girl was sad when the animals left, and she made sure she named them. 

  Everything changed on November 10, 1985.

 The day was cold, yet there was no snow yet. The leaves were still green on the trees. The girls were playing school with Sarah trying to teach the girls their alphabet. Marlyse was singing a song that she called pop music from the 1970s. The wind suddenly shifted, and a man with a large gun came around the corner. Everything stopped for a split second, and then the man slowly approached the barrel. The girl watched, amazed that the man couldn't see them, but it was clear to see by the look in his eyes that he knew something horrible was in that barrel. She reached out a hand to touch him as he walked by, but Marlyse stopped her and grabbed her shoulder.

  "No. We can't interfere." She whispered. 

  The man pushed the lid off the barrel with the nudge of his gun and peered inside. The girls huddled around their mother and waited to see what he would do. The hunter placed a hand over his nose, the smell overwhelming the closer one got to the barrel. He gently poked at the barrel, and then one of Marlyse's bones fell out the top. He screamed, "Oh my God!" and went running through the woods. 

  The police showed up, the barrel carted away, but the girls and their mother's spirits remained in the woods. There was hope from the girl that the second barrel, the one holding Sarah and herself, was found, but that was not to be.  

   The girl began to imagine a world where they did not die and where she could grow up. She imagined the kind of jobs she might have or the kind of cars she could have driven one day. Marlyse would cry whenever the girl talked of these fancies, so she mostly kept them to herself. Sarah said she often thought the same things being both had been so young when they died. Marie, on the other hand, refused to talk about what could have been. 

  More and more time lapsed, but no other police or hunters came near. It almost seemed like there would be no moving on to Heaven or whatever was beyond this world. 

   Then one day in 2000, a police officer finally found the second barrel. The girls were not as shocked this time, but Marlyse still warned them not to intervene. The policeman almost missed them just like the first search had, but he took a turn and kept walking. Once he saw the second barrel, he opened it with slight hesitation. His large, shaking hand reached inside and pulled away some of the plastic. To both the policeman's and the girl's surprise, her face popped out of the bag, staring at him. He jumped back, called for more officers, and the second barrel too was removed.   

   The girl cried because she was happy to be found, but she was sure nothing more would happen for many years to come. The girl thought about what her body looked like when he opened the plastic. She wondered if her face still held any resemblance to the toddler that she had been, and she wondered if the fear from that day was still present in her eyes. She wondered if she looked like her father and if so, she hoped that would help the officers find him. 

  One day, the girl was playing in the trees, and when she climbed down, she saw her mother and sisters all crying. She ran over and asked what the matter was. The looks on Marie and Sarah's faces were a mix of sadness, joy, and guilt. 

  "They finally know our names, Honey. We get to move on now."

Marlyse said as she held the girl's face in her hands. The girl grinned and started jumping up and down. She asked where they were to go now, but Marlyse pulled away. 

  "I'm so sorry, but they don't know who you are yet. You have to stay here." She said. 

   The girl fell to the ground in tears and started screaming because her mother said they would be together forever. How was she suppose to endure this endless existence year after year? 

   "It will only take a little more time. You just have to wait until someone remembers you or someone remembers your mother's name. Please understand I did not want to leave you. I never wanted to leave you, but we have to go." Marlyse said and gave her one more kiss and hug. Her sisters soon hugged her too, and she continued to cry on the ground. She couldn't even remember her mother, so how was anyone else suppose to remember who she was. 

  Alone now, the girl couldn't remember the last time she felt so angry. Her family was gone, no one ever came, and she had to stay there in the woods until someone remembered her. She thought about her father and wondered if he felt remorse for what he had done. She thought about if he had hurt other little girls like he had her family. She closed her eyes and lay in the soft, leaves hoping someone out there missed her. Hoping someone out there knew her name. Until then, she would remain the Bear Brook barrel girl.