Lily tried to talk to my stepmom about how she was incredibly uncomfortable but she mostly just dismissed it. Lily started begging, increasingly freaked out and finally put her foot down, demanding Macy exited the truck with her. So they got out and walked around the front of the vehicle. The house was about 50 yards in front of them (why this guy would have left two young girls in the truck alone while going into the house is beyond me) and they wandered around, looking at it, hesitantly. If this guy really was decent and just trying to give them a ride, it would be super rude to just run off right? My stepmom had this strict upbringing when it came to manners and a public persona and she saw it as an issue of that nature, so she actually started to head back to the truck, opening the front door to climb in behind the driver’s seat. Lily was pissed off and followed her to yell some more.
On the driver’s side floor, half hidden under the seat, there was a big hatchet. It had dried red/brown stains covering the blade and stuck to the floor under it. Lily understandably lost her shit and seeing it, my stepmom started getting hysterical. They decided that leaving was by far their best option at this point, and just booked it off the side of property into the trees. They bumbled around in the trees for a little while until Lily was fairly confident they were on their way back down the hill. My stepmom cried all the way down. Lily felt bad about it, but was also completely freaked out that he would heart it and kept trying to calm her down.
When they finally got back down to the bottom and saw the old wooden fence that surrounded the original parking area, they were relieved. But as they got closer they saw it. The truck. It was parked on the other side of the gravelly makeshift lot. Just sitting there, facing the other way innocently. They couldn’t see if anyone was in it and of course Macy wanted to run for the car, but Lily was super hesitant. She managed to calm my stepmom down; saying she wanted to wait before running out into the open, to see what was out there. Remember, this is the 70s. No cell phones. There was no ranger station or anyone around. The parking lot was big and empty and open and who knows what would have happened if they decided to stroll across it.
Thankfully Lily convinced my stepmom to chill and the two of them hunkered down against a big tree, hidden by bushes and other trees and waited it out for what was seemed to be a couple of hours, when dark started to fall. All the animals started coming out and making noises and my stepmom (predictably) started getting antsy about this and bothering Lily, who was tired and moments away from giving in. She was just planning their dash to the car when they heard a “clunk.” Across the twilight-lit lot, they watched as one of the back doors of their car swung open. And the bearded guy slid his way out of the backseat.
He got out, shut the door, looked around at the surrounding woods for several moments, and then walked back to his truck. The truck lumbered past their car and out of sight. Several minutes after watching him drive away, they sprinted to their car as fast as they could, jumped in and peeled out before they had even shut the doors.”
