00:00my name is connie miller i'm currently in my early 40s but this happened in the fall of 1999
00:06when i was 14. my neighborhood sat on the western edge of a small massachusetts town
00:12not one of the famous historic ones that tourists visit but close enough to the old colonial routes
00:17that the surrounding woods still carried some weight it's the kind of place where kids biked
00:22everywhere and parents only started worrying once the street lights came on that october afternoon
00:27was crisp the air was thick with the smell of wood smoke and damp leaves i stay late for an
00:33after
00:33school program and on the walk home i decided to cut through the forest instead of taking the long
00:37way around which is the way i usually went because i would normally walk home with my friends but i
00:43was alone that day the woods bordered the back of our subdivision a girl i had never seen before
00:49stepped out from between two trees at first i thought she was just another kid from school
00:56she looked to be around my age but her dress was all wrong it was dark almost black wool high
01:04collared
01:05long sleeved with a heavy skirt that brushed the ground at the time i thought it was strange i didn't
01:12realize how outdated her outfit was it was like something my grandmother would have worn to church
01:17in the 1950s the girl's face was a bit pale but otherwise looked normal hi she said
01:25smiling like we had known each other forever my name is ashley you live up the road right i blinked
01:33as she fell into step beside me like it was the most natural thing in the world we must be
01:38neighbors
01:39i had lived in that neighborhood for my entire life and i knew everyone on my street i had never
01:45seen
01:45this girl before but maybe a new family had moved in and i just didn't notice we walked together
01:52toward the neighborhood entrance she asked about my classes and complained about how long this walk
01:57was we kept chatting as we turned onto our street the sun began dipping low casting long shadows across
02:05the lawns then ashley disappeared one second her shoulder was brushing mine the next the space beside
02:16me was empty ashley i called out no answer that's when i heard it a little girl scream high piercing
02:28and full of
02:29raw pain
02:34it came from somewhere near the tree line behind the houses but i couldn't see anyone
02:39it didn't sound like someone playing it sounded like someone dying in agony
02:45the scream rose and cut off sharply then came again weaker this time
02:54like whatever was making it was being dragged away
02:56i ran backpack slamming against my back sneakers pounding the pavement all the way back home
03:05i didn't tell my parents the full story just that i had heard something scary in the woods
03:10they blamed my imagination in the approaching halloween season i avoided that path afterward
03:17by winter i had almost convinced myself that it was just a weird daydream
03:25years passed i moved away for college and then work last summer i was back home visiting my family
03:32when i ran into mr coffee at the downtown cafe he had been the town librarian when i was a
03:38kid he was
03:40tall soft-spoken and was always recommending local history books he was now 82 years old and he walked
03:46with a cane but his eyes lit up when he recognized me i wasn't with anyone so we sat together
03:53and caught up over some coffee somehow the conversation drifted to childhood memories
03:58and i found myself telling him about that afternoon in 1999 the girl in the dark dress how she vanished
04:05and that awful scream he listened to my story with a serious expression you grew up on elm court he
04:15asked
04:16when i confirmed he told me the neighborhood had been built in the early 1960s
04:21right on top of old foundations the entire western side of town sat on what used to be a small
04:28colonial
04:28settlement during king philip's war in the 1670s native warriors swept through burning the settlement to
04:36the ground killing or carrying off settlers the survivors fled and the site lay abandoned for
04:43centuries by the 1950s when mr coffee was a boy the ruins were still there charred stone cellars and
04:51crumbling chimneys some of those people never made it out of the fire or the woods for that matter
04:58mr coffee then apologized for being so intense but told me he believed that i encountered a ghost that
05:04day my parents still live in that neighborhood whenever i visit i sometimes walk down that old
05:11forest path i haven't seen or heard anything since that day over 25 years ago but that scream is
05:18something i'll never forget
05:20so
05:21you
05:21you
05:21you
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