I made sure I had picked up my cell phone and air pods as I headed for my daily morning jog around my cabin on the outskirts of Clear Creek State Forest in Pennsylvania. It was a bit earlier today than usual, but Hulk, my 5-year-old Cane Corso, was already whimpering and scratching on the door to be let out. As I opened the door, I noticed it was still dark and checked my watch. It was 4 minutes to 5 a.m., an hour earlier than my usual time.
As we were towards the end of November, the winter chill had set in, and there was quite some fog around, not really thick, but we could have a visibility of like 100 mtrs or so, which I said to myself was quite ok.I started my favourite playlist on Spotify and started my jog up the small hilly trail.I noticed Hulk was just a few feet ahead of me and trodding enjoyably, wagging his tail around and once in a while having a quick glance around to check up on me.My mind began to wander back to my life in the city, Clarence, about 25 miles from here.My parents had passed away a few years ago, which left me quite heartbroken.I was quite close to my mom particularly.Losing both my mom and pop in a car accident 3 years ago was something that I had to fully get over yet.I was working and staying in Clarion at that time with both of them.Pop was a retired marine ,having served in Iraq and Afghanistan.He was asked to work with the local government office to oversee some administrative work in rehabilitation schemes for ex marines and their families, which he quite enjoyed doing.It was a good thing for him as he was an active man, strong both physically and mentally, and sitting at home and gardening the backyard wasnt the thing for him.It was he, who had adopted Hulk from a friend of dad’s whose dog had just given birth.He immediately fell in love with the buffoon, honestly, I envied Hulk secretly, it was as if I had a younger brother all of a sudden and had to share dads affection, but as long as it was keeping him happy and healthy, all was fine.One May morning,3 years ago, just as I had reached office, my phone rang, it was my mum, I answered it , about to tell her I will call her back, when a deep male voice at the other end said, Sir, this is the Clarence state police, your parents were involved in a car wreck, you are requested to come immediately to the Lockport Memorial hospital.I looked around, dazed, the whole office spinning around me, suddenly I felt as if my legs would give away.I had to stand up, it was all upto me now, I rushed to Lockport as fast as I could, having an ominous feeling all the while.
They were long gone by the time I made it, and for some odd reason, I could’nt bring myself to tears, it was so sudden and unexpected, it took a while to sink in, after all i had spoken with dad the night before.I had gotten home late,and he was waiting for me in his chair, hulk laying in his feet, tail wagging.As soon as I walked in, I asked him if he had his supper, to which he replied, he wasnt really hungry, he appeared really worried , but he had been this way for a couple of weeks now.He caringly ran his fingers through my hair, and said, dont worry son, have your food and get some sleep, I will talk to you in the morning.Only If, I had sat him down and spoken with him, one last time, father to son.....just maybe!!!!The funeral was a quiet affair with close relatives and friends attending and sharing their memories, everyone knew, we had lost a good couple at heart, one who would always be available for the community, but life moves on.It never did for me though.The neighbourhood, the house itself, the people around would somehow pull me back to their memories, I was struggling to move on, all I had left was Hulk besides me.Thats when I decided with a heavy heart to sell off this property and move on.I managed to find a good cabin out in the woods like 25 miles from Clarence in Clear Creek state.I needed to attend office once is a couple of weeks, so this worked out perfectly.The agent soon enough got me a client for my current house, and after a few round of negotiations, I managed to get what I wanted on it.The buyer happened to be a family of 3, the Clarings, with the wife being the home maker, the daughter a 6th grader and the dad himself working for the local Senator- Tim Mannings.In fact Tim Mannings was the one my Dad used to report to, for the ex servicemen rehabilitation schemes, and he seemed to be a good man.
I checked my watch, it was still 5.20 am and it was still quite dark, well, the sunrise didn't quite happen till 5.45 am, so I knew we had some time to go till then. I stopped to catch a breath and noticed that the fog had grown much thicker, bringing the visibility down to almost under 3 feet. I called out to Hulk as I didn't notice him around, but I received no response from him. I managed to walk a few meters ahead when I heard Hulk whimpering. This made me worried, as Hulk was quite his namesake, he stood well over 3 feet on all fours and weighed close to 120 lbs. There weren't a lot of things around that could make him whimper, a bear perhaps? I was starting to panic a bit now, as the fog wouldn't let me see more than 3 feet away and Hulk had probably seen a bear, though bear attacks and sightings in this particular area are very rare, the last one being in ‘96 when a 35 yr old trekker just escaped with his life, so the chances of a bear attack are very low I thought to myself. Then what could it be??
I remember clearly, that the only other time Hulk would do that was when he would sense Dad was coming home. He would sniff him from 5 blocks away, and start whimpering and wagging his talk like a Chinese fan. I noticed that the fog had thinned down just a wee bit, and I could see Hulk like 40 mtrs ahead, he was looking straight ahead, whimpering and......wagging his tail. I ran towards him, tried to calm him down, It's Ok boy, it's Ok, you notice something? Is something worrying you? But he didn't seem to notice me, and continued staring ahead in the fog. I squinted my eyes, and I noticed a figure ahead in the fog, I looked down at Hulk, and he was looking straight at the figure. Suddenly Hulk shot towards the figure, but I managed to hold onto his leash, restricting him from going ahead. I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. It was a bit clearer now. Even though I couldn't make out the facial features of the figure, I could tell by now, that the figure was around 5.9’ something, and the outline of the figure suggested it was some kind of an army uniform, maybe the Marines. While serving in Iraq, in 92’, my dad was injured by a bullet near his right knee, this had lead to a permanent limp to his right. This figure, by now I had noticed was just a shadow, but I could tell its posture was slightly bent towards his right and was looking straight in my direction. Suddenly, I felt the temperature drop and a chill went up my spine. Hulk’s whimpering had now turned to small soft woofs as if greeting someone familiar, I thought to myself what's wrong with this buffoon, we are probably being mugged and attacked here in the woods, and he's greeting this guy?? I was thinking of making a run for it, but in this thick fog, I had probably wandered off track, as this part didn't seem too familiar, and I might end up being further lost. I held my wits together and yelled, Hello, anyone there, are you in trouble? Do you need anything? But got no response, I slowly tried to make my way towards the shadow, checking all the while if it/he was moving towards me too. The shadow didn't move at all, and it continued to stare at me, even though it had no features, nothing at all, it was just a shadow, it felt eerily familiar, I just couldn't make out at that point as to who it could be.
When I was around 15 feet away from this shadow, it started melting away in the fog, starting first, it started to just float away with the fog, and in less than a minute, it had completely disappeared, just as it had appeared. I was now standing at the same spot where the shadow stood 30 seconds ago. Nothing was left as I had just imagined it, but trust me, I wasn't seeing things, that single drop of sweat that dripped from the back of my neck, till the crack of my butt, was still very much there. I stopped there for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out what had just happened here. The fog had more or less cleared by now, and it was past 5.45 am, so the sun had started to peer out behind the mountains, its golden-orange hue was beginning to spread across the light blue sky, which was just waking up from its greyish slumber. I noticed there was a Beech tree near me and there was a small piece of paper stuck to it. I grabbed the piece of paper, shoved it in my pocket, and made my way towards my cabin. I had a quick shower, still reeling from the course of events that had just occurred and trying to make sense of it all, as I sat down to have my breakfast. Suddenly I remembered the piece of paper I had found and went to look for it. It was hanging outside my pocket, ready to fall and be lost forever as the winds were quite strong today. I grabbed it and sat down, staring at what it was. It looked like it was torn off some diary and read something like TM was ready.... it made no sense at all. I kept pondering over it the whole day trying to recollect if I could connect this somewhere, but I failed. Ass a small gust of wind flipped the piece of paper over, I noticed a signature, a familiar signature. Dad!!! I muttered excitedly, and Hulk who was lying near the door with his head down immediately got up and looked at me, again wagging his good old tail.T his was certainly Dad’s signature.
It all started coming together for me, the color of the paper was not the usual white, it was kind of beige, similar to a diary that Dad used to pen down his days in, I was sure of that. I rummaged through the old stuff in the attic to find this diary, but it wasn't there. I recollected that there was a small cubby hole in our old home at Clarence, in Dad’s room. I had failed to check that out while moving out, but it was so well hidden, almost deliberately, that if you didn't know beforehand it existed, you would look over it.I started to piece this jigsaw together, first, dad seemed upset a couple of weeks before he passed away, which was very unlike him, a day before his death, he wanted to tell me something important, then the shadow I saw today and this piece of paper from his diary, was dad trying to deliver a message to me? The only chance I could decipher this puzzle was by finding Dad’s diary, which had to be in that cubby hole, if, the Clarings hadn't broken down yet. I immediately rushed to my car and whistled Hulk up, Come on bud... Dad has left something unfinished. As soon as I uttered the word “Dad”, Hulk darted to the car, almost shoving me out of the way. I reached Clarence City after 15 anxious minutes, and all sorts of thoughts and memories of Dad jogged through my mind. As soon as I reached the middle of the city, I was greeted by a traffic jam, I looked out of the window, it was some kind of a rally, with people holding placards, I asked a guy walking just adjacent to my car, what this was about. He said there had been an expose of bribery among the funds allocated by the government for ex-servicemen, and they were alleging the senator, Tim Mannings for this, but had no proof, they were just allegations, we all want to see a big guy fall, right? I thought to myself. I managed to park my car to the side of the road and decided to jog to the home.
I rang the bell twice, waiting for the Clarings to answer, meanwhile, I was thinking of excuses I could give to them to enter Dad’s room. I must've waited 6-7 minutes without an answer, which is when I decided to move to the backside, thinking perhaps Mrs Clarings would be in the backyard, but it was silent. I found an open window though. For a moment I deliberated going in and thinking about the consequences if they walked in and caught me in the act, but the anxiety of what Dad had written was too much for me, I entered, and asked Hulk to wait there for me. The house was as it was when I had handed it over, it was as if nothing had moved in or out, it was as if no one moved here at all in the past 3 years, it was all very strange. There was some furniture moved around and not put back in place like someone was trying to search for something. Cobwebs had started forming around corners and some furniture suggesting that no one was here for at least a couple of years after they searched the place up. I picked up my pace to Dad’s room, lest someone come back, which looked unlikely as this house was almost abandoned. I found the cubby hole in Dad’s room, I remembered exactly where it was, but again I thought to myself, it was so obvious that you would almost overlook it if you didn't know it existed there. There was a small cover to the lock which was camouflaged to match the walls. I tried a few combinations in vain, then, as if on cue almost, I fed in 1 9 8 5, the year they got married, and the door flung open, real ingenuine dad, I thought to myself and smirked. There it was before me, Dad’s diary, I grabbed it, rushed out to an anxious Hulk, and whistled to him to hurry along.I reached my car and noticed the rally was almost over.
Just as I was about to open the diary, I heard a familiar voice, How are you doing' sonny, been a while since you visited the city, you could've come and said Hi to the old man. I looked up, it was Pat, Dad’s best friend, and accomplice, I got out of the car and gave Pat a big ol hug. We sat down at a nearby coffee shop, and I filled Pat on the events since this morning. Pat took awhile, like he was adding things up, and said, maybe I know what is up. He explained that after I moved out, the Clarings never moved in, but occasionally Mr Clarings would come in with a few guys, and leave after a couple of hours, this seemed very strange. Hulk was already doing the rounds around Pat, Pat had a special affection for Hulk and was very happy to see him too. As we opened up the diary, everything became obvious. Dad had discovered some discrepancies in the funds for the ex-servicemen beneficiaries, on digging further, Dad found that Tim Mannings, along with his secretary, Rob Clarings (yup the same guy who rented my home, obviously on Tim Manning’s instructions) were raising fake invoices and siphoning off the money.D ad had established the whole money trail and also had some receipts as proof which he had neatly attached to his diary. He was also suspicious that Tim Mannings had managed to find out that Dad had come around this. On the last page of his diary, Dad had written that he along with Mom had planned to approach the cops the next day, he had called up the cops and informed them of this, and he had planned to leave early in the morning with Mom. This is what he wanted to tell me, but he saw I was tired and decided to say to me once he was back from the police station. He wouldn't have imagined that the cops would snitch Tim and he would never make it back. He had laid down his life for the people who served with him and protected this country. It took Dad an intervention in the form that he did to approach me that morning.
Or did he?.....