I tried to post this to the ghost story submits, and got punted clean off line. So here it is.
Lynn
To set the scene, this was about 15 years ago. College graduation was not too far behind me and I was working in my first real job as a probation officer. You know the type, logical, cynical and conservative. The conservative part chaffed me, but I had convinced myself that I was pretending well. I lived in Phoenix, AZ at the time. My best friend, Cindi and I would often spend a Friday or Saturday night, out in the desert, having a few brews and stargazing. At that time, real desert was only about a 20 minute drive.
This night, we chose to drive to just outside a town called Cavecreek, and we parked about a mile and a half from a camp ground.
We had a favorite parking spot in that particular part of the desert. Off a dirt road, overlooking a small depression in the desert. We had seen some amazing things in that spot. Owls hunting at night. Electric blue haze hanging over the desert floor caused by...well...we never did figure that out, but it was pretty. Sometimes we'd walk down into that haze and all the hair on our bodies would stand straight out. The hair on our heads floated around us in an electric buzz. We'd touch each other and giggle from the mild electric shock.
This night though, there was no blue haze. We pulled into our favorite place, climbed into our favorite spot, the bed of Cindi's truck, cracked a couple of brews, and started catching up on things. You know..girlfriend things...how the week went, who was the current flirtation, how work was going...yak, yak, yak. It was a wonderful fall night in the desert. About 70 degrees, no wind, no clouds and a crescent moon. The moon and the stars were so bright that our eyes adjusted within about 10 minutes. We were relaxing in the truck bed, and then to our right we hear..."rustle, rustle, rustle." Something moving. We both stopped yakking to listen. What kind of critter? A coyote? "rustle, rustle, rustle" Cindi and I grinned at each other, sure we were going to see a critter. Perhaps a rabbit. Perhaps a fox. "rustle, rustle, rustle" It was moving away now. We listened. No more sound. We started yakking away again and then we heard it....very faintly...from the direction we heard the rustling. "mama." Soft, young, female...scared. Cindi and I both jumped up, brew spilling everywhere. Shushing and holding on to each other at the same time. Farther away, yet somehow louder. "Mama!"
That was it. Convinced there was a lost child from the campground, we grabbed a flash light from the cab of Cindi's truck and headed towards the sound. Playing the light over the ground, looking for tracks in the desert. We saw nothing. "MAMA! HELP!" A child's voice, a little girl full of terror. We ran to the sound, shouting, "Talk to me! It's OK...tell us where you are!!!!" We stopped, listened, no tracks but our own...no sound. We looked at each other in dismay. What to do? Cindi said, "The campground."
We raced back to the truck and tumbled in. Cindi had that old truck cranked up, turned around and flying towards the campground before I had my door completely shut. She drove that narrow 25 mile per hour twisty dirt trail at about 10000 mph...the rear end of the truck slewing and sliding all over the place. We blew into the campground, horn blaring. Folks in the campground came running to us. "What??? What??? What's wrong???" Cindi and I blurted out our story. I asked "Is there a little girl missing??" Fairly soon, we had a search party. No one was missing from the campground, but Cavecreek was only five miles away. An older fellow grimly reminded us that this part of the desert had been used as a dumping ground for murder victims.
We led the way back to the place where we heard the voice, a motley chain of vehicles behind us. There were at least 15 people out there with flashlights and guns and knives. All thinking that a little girl was lost, or abducted. Cindi led the way back to where we last heard the voice. I was all the time aware that the only foot prints out there were mine and Cindi's. We stopped by a huge saguaro cactus. As one, we all fell silent. Nothing...a gentle breeze....nothing. Then, the hair on the back of my neck began to crawl. I looked at Cindi, her eyes were as wide as saucers. I looked around to the rest of the group...all eyes wide. Strong men, reaching back and smoothing down the hair on the backs of their necks. Then I here, very faintly...."mama.' I look around, I could feel tears starting down my cheeks. Then someone else says..."Did you hear that?" We all nod.
"MAMA! MAMA!!!!! MAAAAAAMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!"
We, all of us, stampede towards the cry. Calling out. "Little girl! Little girl! Where are you???"
We run to a hollow place on the desert floor. A circle, where nothing grew, nothing lived, such a small circle. And all of us skid to a stop. An older woman says, "Honey?" Nothing. We hear nothing. Then the hairs raise...and in that 70 degree desert night, we get cold. I look to Cindi and I can see her breath fogging the night air. We are freezing in the Arizona desert! All of a sudden, the older woman who had called out "Honey?" and her husband are telling us to go...go now. Get the sheriff and come back.
This older couple had such an air of command, and the rest of us were so spooked, we obeyed, without comment, without hesitation. I remember looking back as I was leaving, the old woman sat in the dead, small, circle and started singing a lullabye. Cindi and I drove back to CaveCreek, straight to the sheriffs office. We expected a hard time...we expected not to be believed.
When we walked into the sheriff's office, the flourescent lighting near blinded us. We went to the front desk and talked to a young sheriff. Not much older than me at the time, around 25. I showed him my badge and said, "You may not believe this, but...." We told him what had happened. He turned pale, so pale and looked sick, as if he were about to vomit. He turned around, without saying a word and picked up the phone, dialed a number, a few seconds and then he spoke into the receiver. "Sheriff...sorry to bother you. I think a couple of girls have found Sara. Yes...yes, OK." Click.
Cindi and I are standing there, mouths hanging open, blinking and swallowing. I felt this incredible dread, incredible sorrow and I started to cry. Me, the tough probation officer, I just sat and bawled. Soon the Sheriff came, he was a tall thin man. With a face that usually smiled, but that night was grim. He questioned us and believed every word. He told us that he'd heard what we were talking about, but was never able to follow her. "Follow who?" Cindi asked. "Sara," he said, "show me the where."
We got back into the truck and led him back to the spot. Several other sheriffs cars following in this slow macabre parade. When we got to the small dead circle in the desert, the old woman was still sitting and singing. Some folks from the campground were still out there, standing in a kind of a circle, silent.
Cindi and I were thanked, very kindly for our efforts, then firmly told to go home. And go home NOW. We left, glad to go. Our weird-o-meters had been maxed out. I believe that Cindi and I were all to aware of what was beneath that small circle of dead ground.
We were both called by the Sheriff's office a couple of days later. The bones of a small girl were buried beneath that circle where nothing grew. She had been missing longer than I had been alive. Throughout the years that followed her disapperance "Sara" would visit people in town, visit people in the desert and try to lead them. Both the Sheriff and the deputy we both spoke to had heard her, tried to follow her sound, but she would just stop. Her cry was always the same...."Mama."
Cindi and I never went to that part of the desert again. Several months later, the story was in the Arizona Republic. (Local newspaper.) The story spoke of a mystery finally solved. It did not say how Sara was found, but only that it had been confirmed that it was Sara and that she had been murdered. Who murdered Sara is still a mystery.
Sometimes, in my dreams, I still hear a small, scared voice say. "mama."
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