Rylee Haynes, August 2002

Rafting always has its dangers, there will always be something unexpected that can happen at any moment. That's just how things are in nature, unpredictably stunning. I was a summer guide for three years. It’s easy money, and I enjoyed the short tours we took down the river. Nothing bad had ever happened until that last summer. A few weeks prior, we had a guide, Sidney; he was out on a tour as usual, two other guides with their own rafts nearby. They went down a small falls and suddenly his raft just… vanished. Not something you could explain either. Just, one moment he was there and the next gone. It's not like he got swept out into the ocean or pulled under either. It's a river, one we're all very familiar with; in an area not so dangerous that you'd need to worry about fighting large eddies turning the raft around or unpredictable falls that are just too tall to safely traverse. I wasn't on the tour with him at the time, but the other two guides couldn't explain the sudden disappearance of the raft. It left us all uneasy for the rest of the week.

Things had finally started to feel normal, it must have been two weeks after Sidney had gone missing. The day started normally. We all clocked in, checked the schedule, paired groups with the guides, checked the equipment. Everything was normal, just a typical Saturday. We had more groups scheduled than usual, but that happens when it’s tourist season and the weather is hot. Nothing unusual, quite boring if you ask me.

Halfway through the day, we lost a guide. Nothing too serious. He just forgot to take his allergy medication during a bad pollen season, so he went home early. We divvied out his groups, and I had his next run. It was me with two other guides, Tom and Louis; we each had mid-size groups with us. Everything seemed fine. They checked in on time, listened to instructions, asked your typical questions, no one even complained about the heat. But when we hit the water I had a feeling something was… off. I don't know how to explain it, almost like things were going too routinely. But I assumed it was just some leftover fear looming in the air after Sidney's disappearance.

Everything started normally too, nothing specific sticking out in my mind like a glaring red flag going unnoticed. My group had about seven people. They were excited about hitting the water, but we ended up being the last in. The other two guides were just barely ahead of me. I could see them with no problem and in the wider areas they floated almost parallel to me. We started to prepare for a rougher area ahead. Tom took up the front, Louis in the middle. My raft was in the back and I talked to my group about what to expect. The rough water came and went, and we were back to floating lazily down the tranquil water when that feeling had returned. Something was off.

I knew what was next after the short rest in paddling, but it's like that stretch of river never came. I had noticed probably too late that we had just been floating peacefully for much longer than we should have. I tried to shout to Louis just ahead, maybe we had navigated the wrong way somehow. But it was like I couldn't shout loud enough. My group didn't even acknowledge my slight panic as I tried to get his attention. That's when the fog started to roll in. It was thick and cold, like a heavy blanket trying to smother you. I could barely make out the other two rafts ahead of me. At first, I tried not to show the panic on my face or let others hear the tremble in my voice. I just didn't want to startle the group with me. But after a few moments, trying to get the attention of the other guides, I gave up quickly.

There had been a woman sitting near where I was standing at the back of the raft. She had been chatty the entire trip. I just tried to ask her if she had seen anything odd before the fog came in, or if she heard anything from the other rafts. But she never responded, acting as if she couldn't hear me. Admittedly, it caught me off guard for a moment, temporarily forcing my attention elsewhere. When I looked up, the other two rafts in front had completely vanished from my eye-line, the fog thickening even more. It was so cold, it felt like I had just taken a polar plunge. I could barely see the tip of my own raft at that point. We all knew how to deal with pretty intense or sudden problems that popped up on the river but... this was just out of my wheelhouse. I couldn't help letting the panic rise up my throat as I tried to force out words.

"Did you see that?"

Nothing, no response from anyone. Like I had whispered my question instead of loudly forcing those words from beyond my lips. My heart rate started to spike; no one could hear me and I could no longer see the other rafts ahead. I felt impossibly alone standing at the back of that raft. I just needed someone to pay attention, anyone at all. At that point, I started shouting. Anything to get someone to notice. While pleading for someone, anyone, to tell me what was going on, my group finally reacted. In unison, they all turned around to look at me. To be honest, I'm not even sure if they saw me, or if what I had seen was even real at that point. Their faces were completely… blank. No expressions, no features, just smooth skin where there should be lips or eyes.

I could feel the bile crawling up my throat as I looked back at those unseeing faces. It felt as if a hundred fire ants were crawling around just below the surface of my skin, prickly and trembling in fear. They all might have been staring in my direction, but it felt like they were looking through me; like they had heard my prior shouts of panic but didn't care to find the origin. I wanted them to stop looking in my direction, wanted things to end. I needed other groups to become visible, for this fog to clear so I could no longer be trapped alone on my raft with unseeing faces. I felt frozen in place, but my body started to move on its own. I hadn't realized I had jumped from the raft until I was sitting on the riverbed. I contemplated even coming up at all, I didn't want to find myself back in the nightmare that waited above me. Plus, it's not like anyone would have noticed my sudden absence. But my lungs started to burn, and my mind was screaming at me to move.

When I broke the surface of the water, the fog had dispersed. Everything looked normal again, my raft abandoned in front of me a few meters ahead. I could see the other two guides with their groups, chatting and laughing like normal. When I shouted for them, I was finally able to get their attention. They were confused about why I was in the water, more confused about why I was out there with them. They both acted like I wasn't supposed to be there. Like there was just supposed to be just two guides on the water. I pointed to my raft holding the faceless group but no one was there. The raft floated lazily towards the river bank, empty except for a couple of paddles. I tried to explain everything to Tom and Louis, but they just looked at me with concern. They acted like I had fried my brain being out in the sun too long, not believing the ramblings of the madman in front of them.

I left after we returned to the equipment building. Went home under the false pretense of "sun poisoning" and assurance that I'd be okay with driving myself home. It's been two weeks and I still can't force myself to return to the cold foggy water.

[𝗘𝗡𝗗]

TBI NOTES: Statement from Rylee Haynes, a seasonal whitewater rafting guide that worked for the company Solus River Rafting. A quick search shows the company closed soon after a sudden disappearance of another guide and their entire tour group. Sidney Dunn, the missing guide mentioned at the beginning, was last seen in the middle of a tour, though any documentation of his group seems to be misplaced. There are no large groups of people reported missing around the time of his disappearance, and no employees interviewed could remember the names or faces of the group he took with him. Attempts to reach out to Mr. Haynes have gone unanswered, friends and family reporting they haven't heard from him in several months.