Rachel's Journal

Well met, my fellow truthseekers. Tonight we're talking about something that is so common place that most wouldn't think twice about a book, a journal. It's only a bound collection of paper meant to keep secrets and thoughts away from the eyes of the world. But what if something much deeper lies within the pages? This is the subject of tonight's tale from Adam Landis 7.

We just moved into our first house, but this is what my daughter found behind the furnace. 

RACHEL’S JOURNALOctober 1, 2014I’m going to try to write in this notebook every day. My mom says these are the best days of my life and I’m going to want to remember them. Plus I want to work on my writing and maybe be a writer 

Amanda is rich and I’m not, but we’re best friends anyway. Besides, I’m only thirteen. I can be rich when I’m older, like twenty. I don’t know her dad, he’s always on trips or at work, but her mom has perfect French nails and gets dressed up even just to sit around the house. It’s a house you could get lost in. “Do you need a map, Rachel?” she asked me once when my trip from one of the bathrooms to Amanda’s room landed me in the kitchen for a second time. 

October 12, 2014I slept over at Amanda’s last night—it’s the best. Her mom buys us tons of snacks and doesn’t ever poke her head in to “check on us” like my mom does. 

Amanda’s room is a cool-girl room. It’s at the end of its own hallway, and has a bathroom inside and a real hammock. It smells like her grownup grapefruit perfume, not like the Walgreen’s baby powdery stuff my mom lets me wear. She has her own flat screen and a little fridge and a closet about the size of my whole bedroom. Posters of boy bands and movie stars watch over her. 

She had a grownup size bed like my parents’ and there’s enough room for both of us without bumping elbows all night. 

“Time for bed, girls,” Mrs. Taylor called to us without even bothering to walk down the hallway. 

We were laughing so hard as we put on our pajamas and Amanda lit some bright pink candles while I opened a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, being careful not to get crumbs on her bedspread. My mom would never let me have candles in my room. 

“I’ll tell you a secret if you tell me one,” Amanda said. “You go first.” “No, you,” I said. She always makes me go first and, I suspect, adjusts her secret accordingly. 

“There’s a man living under my bed,” she said. “He looks at me while I’m sleeping. He says he’ll kill me if I tell anyone. He says he just wants to visit with me awhile.” I could tell by her voice she believed it. I wanted to show her I was braver than her, though. I jumped off the bed and dramatically threw back the bedspread to reveal… nothing. 

Amanda looked at me like it was me that’s insane. “Well of course he’s not there now, you’d be able to smell him. He smells like a rotting animal.” She hugged herself. “You go then.” I took a deep breath while I debated telling my secret. Sometimes if you tell something it jinxes it. “I like Jacob Punch,” I said. I felt dizzy admitting it. He was the cutest boy in our class, but Amanda was my best friend and it was a relief to say my secret aloud. “Oh,” she said. She bit her lip, the candles making her blonde hair look like tinsel. “I’m not sure I should tell you now, but he kissed me. Behind the bleachers in the gym. That was my secret. I lied before.” 

You can keep from crying if you look up hard enough, did you know that? I looked up and my eyes met Harry Styles’ in a One Direction poster. Amanda could probably get him as a boyfriend, too, and he even has an accent. “I’m gonna sleep in the hammock,” she said. Normally that would have bothered me, but I didn’t want to be around her right then anyway. 

November 15, 2014The Monday after our sleepover, Amanda and Jacob became an official couple, which meant walking around the hallways holding hands between classes and kissing at each other’s lockers. 

But that’s not why Amanda and I stopped being best friends.She’s changed. She got kicked off the diving team for missing too many practices. She started cutting class to go smoke with the burnouts in the baseball dugout. Jacob dumped her for a cheerleader a grade ahead of ours. And her dad moved out. 

December 2, 2014“He still comes to visit me at night. That thing,” Amanda said, not looking at me, leaning against the locker next to mine while I grabbed my Spanish textbook. She was wearing sunglasses. She reeked of cigarettes instead of grapefruit perfume. “It’s getting worse.” She pulled up the leg of her jeans to reveal her pale leg. There were deep claw marks around her ankle. She left before I could answer. 

People are gossiping that her mom is making her see a psychiatrist. 

January 12, 2015I just found out Amanda changed schools. Her mom put their beautiful house up for sale and they moved away. The official story is that it was because of the divorce, but my gut felt like it was grabbed and twisted by a cold hand when I heard. 

February 14, 2015Happy Valentine’s Day to me, I guess. 

My parents are happy that my grades are so good. I didn’t tell them it was because I don’t really have any friends anymore. 

February 17, 2015The cafeteria was particularly crowded today, so Jacob’s cheerleader and her friends took the empty seats next to me. I don’t know who said what, but this was the conversation: “Did you hear what happened to Amanda Taylor?” “Besides that she’s in a next-level psych ward?” 

“I know, right?” “No! Some creepy guy was living in a cubby behind her old house’s wine cellar. They found food wrappers, garbage, blankets. They said it looked like he had been there for years. I guess it reeked like shit, that’s how they finally figured it out. Some plumber or handyman found it. The new owners are suing Madison’s mom for non-disclosure or something. She was the realtor.” 

I called Amanda’s cell as I got home. Her number’s been disconnected, though. A wave of nausea and grief washed over me. She was the best friend I ever had and I wasn’t there for her. 

I paused in the doorway of my living room and looked at my boring mom and dad falling asleep watching David Letterman and got a lump in my throat. In that moment I was grateful for parents who didn’t get divorced and did poke their heads in to “check on me.” 

I was grateful for a house you didn’t get lost in. 

I got ready for bed and got on my knees to pray—something I just started doing, not sure why. I prayed for Amanda to find peace. For her to be safe. 

I curled into my pillow. I’ll try to go see her tomorrow once I find out where she is. 

The putrid smell was so bad it woke me up. 

“I just want to visit with you awhile,” said the thing at the foot of my bed.

Be careful what you wish for, it seems. Keep that in mind tonight as you retire for the night, truthseekers.