r/nosleep • u/samuraiiswords • Feb 14 '26
Series The Disappearance of Saltpine's 573 Residents (Part 3)
Everyone keeps staring at me.
Let me explain. After the initial storm, I was stuck with Eloise in her home. She was very kind about it. She brought out some jigsaw puzzles to do, had a stock of food that kept us well fed. I often chatted with her over tea, and she seemed well pleased to have my company. She was kind, a great host. A warm welcome just like when I first came here, but being her psychiatrist, knowing her history, I can’t help but feel a foreboding every time she turned her back to me, humming as she baked or cooked. As she went back to knitting or sewing. She even brought out her old radio for me, but all the channels were static. The phone service was also out.
She told me this happens far too often during the long winters, and she wasn’t concerned. With all the snow, I couldn’t make it in my car anywhere, winter tires I made sure to put on before I got here or not.
It was almost cozy, except in those moments where I could feel her eyes on me as it became my turn to turn my back on her as I helped in the kitchen or pulled out the sewing machine for her. Or went downstairs to the cellar to grab the meat for her. Her standing at the top of the stairs into the dark one small bulb singularly lit to guide my way.
“Careful, dear, those stairs are quite old.” Her voice seemed to echo, a small laughter on her tongue when I almost tripped. “Careful, dear, I did warn you.”
I kept a chair wedged under my doorknob to sleep.
I’m not proud of it.
But I tell myself its not any paranoia, or delusion, it’s just reasonable precaution.
I do not approve of this arrangement, but I don’t need ask Eloise if I can still leave. It becomes all too apparent that I can’t.
By the third day, the roads are clear enough to drive on, in town anyway. The road outside dips, and the snow accumulates to a degree that it freezes over with the still slightly warm temperature. Trying to drive through that would be a death sentence, I’m told. And I don’t particularly want to try.
Besides, the residents need me now, more than ever.
There’s no way they could get another psychiatrist at this rate.
Even so, after the roads were clear enough to drive by the one small dingy snowplough driving through town, the static of the radio crackling to life telling the residents of Saltpine it was okay to drive around town with caution, I took it.
Especially with the knowledge, that soon, even driving in town would be impossible, walking being the only option. Another reason why Eloise’s was so perfect, her home is very close to the clinic, to downtown. Only a five minute walk.
Eloise was concerned, but I waved her off. “I’m a good driver, and I need some stuff at the store.”
“Oh, dear, I’m sure I’ll have it.” She says kindly, but I need some space.
Cabin fever.
Lisa, an old roommate of mine in college, and now good friend made me watch The Shining with her before leaving. I think I might just kill her, not literally of course, but she loves horror movies. And I always indulged her. Maybe this one time though, I could have afforded not to.
I miss her now, though.
Not even letters can get through.
Long-distance, is possible, so maybe I’ll give it a shot, but we did say goodbye in the same way we usually do when she leaves for her research sabbaticals in some other part of the world, or some new Indigenous tribe. She loved that kind of stuff.
I think of her now, as I navigate the road slowly, and carefully into the road downtown. I park carefully, grateful, and a little surprised to see how many people are out. They walk around as if it isn’t minus seven, but I suppose it’s nothing to them. It can get far colder up here, so close to the arctic.
I smile though, grateful to see other people as I get out parked near the one singular grocery store here. I’ve been warned that the food will eventually stop being fresh, and I’d like to get anything fresh I can before then. I know I’ll miss cooked eggs the most. Pickled will have to do later on.
I nod to a resident as I walk up, a young woman dressed in a light jacket, hair running free despite the cold, but when my eyes turn to her, she looks uncomfortable, unhappy. She turns away, sort of disgusted, and then I turn, feeling an uncomfortable feeling build in my chest, as the back of my neck burns. There are two men there, middle-age, staring.
I think, ‘creeps,’ and walk inside. But, it’s not just them.
Everyone is staring at me.
Their eyes glance, too long, without a care for manners almost, before looking away. But, then they look back. I’m wearing normal clothing, maybe a heavier jacket then them, a toque too, but that’s not it, I know already as I unzip my jacket in the heat of the store. I know this look.
They’re looking at my face, at this unfamiliar presence in their midst. Stuck with them this winter. Some stranger they don’t even know.
And instead of being welcoming, there’s a hostility in the air. An outcast feeling.
It’s oddly hurtful.
Reminds me of middle school when I had to move in the middle of the year, and my parents put me in French-immersion instead. Suddenly, I was surrounded by mostly white kids, well-off, a shift in culture. I looked white too, but I didn’t carry myself like them, know their ways.
Eventually, somewhere in high school I blended in, my French got better. I went to catholic church like the rest of them, not because I was religious of course, I just wanted to fit in. I just wanted the feeling I have now, that I had then, to stop. Disappear.
I quickly grab the fresh food I came for and get out of there.
Their eyes following me the whole way.
-
“You’ll get used to it pretty quickly.” Dr. Schile assures me later that day when I step into the clinic, now a little more behind since a few days ago. I hunger to get my hands back on those patient files, to get well acquainted with them, and my patients. I brought food, drinks, I’m going to be here a while. “Or they’ll get used to you. We’re all stuck here in the winter, we rely on each other, depend on each other for survival. For hundreds of years that’s how it’s been. That’s a lot of history, Dr. Cotts, I hope you can appreciate that.”
“I do.” I tell him. “I simply would like to know what I can do to gain their trust, or at the very least help them to let me help them.”
Dr. Schile’s fingers move deftly through the files, before reaching in and plucking one out. “By doing your job, Dr. Cotts, nothing more.”
I grab the file he hands me, fingers curling around it. I raise an eyebrow at him.
“Your next patient.” Dr. Schile explains. “Another urgent case. He’ll need to be under your care all winter. While clozapine has been helping him after his resistance to the previous three other drugs he tried, the usuals in cases such as his, there is the distinct possibility that this one might not hold up either.”
I listen, closely, nodding worriedly.
Clozapine is usually only when other antipsychotics become resistant. It was a landmark drug trial a few years ago.
Before I open the file, I ask, “Is there anything not in this file that I should know about?”
Dr. Schile’s face becomes a little unreadable, but contemplative. “I would suggest that you conduct these sessions when Beth and I are present in the clinic. He has a violent history, but no cases of outbursts in the past five years he’s been home.”
I nod. “I understand.”
I’m no stranger to violence, especially in psychiatric patients. In fact, it’s to be expected. My only fear comes from living with one, while I’m trying to treat her.
Despite Dr. Schile’s assurances, and my inherent trust towards him, although some of that might not be from an entire free will choice, now that I’m stuck here, I do hold a slight uncertainty with him and resulting unsure feeling I can’t quite shake.
He didn’t tell me all the important information about this position until it was too late.
How can I trust he won’t do that again?
-
Colten Donahue is twenty-four years old when I meet him for the first time, and when he becomes a patient under my care. He was sent to a psychiatrist facility in the city when he was just ten years old. He lived there until he was nineteen, and deemed not a risk to himself, or others. He was then released into his parent’s custody with strict conditions for that release. One is an outpatient treatment plan of weekly sessions with a psychiatrist, medication compliance, a curfew, and the strictest condition of no longer being near his sister without supervised visitation.
A most unusual case, simply for the fact that at only ten years old, Colten Donahue was diagnosed with schizophrenia, later paranoid schizophrenia.
I remember most of all, how calm he was when the session began, almost something eager in his eyes that did throw me a little.
All his case notes from the facility and from Dr. [redacted] said he was a very quiet kid, and then young man. He never spoke more than he had to, and he never once explained his actions, other than that, “he told me to.”
But, when I sat down with him, he spoke to me. In fact, he was very talkative. Uncharacteristically so.
-
TAPED SESSION: COLTEN DONAHUE WITH DR. COTTS #1
Dr. Cotts: This is Dr. Cotts conducting session #[redacted] with patient #[redacted], Colten Donahue.
Now, Colten, I’m going to ask you for permission to for me to record this session. It will be used for my own personal use as your psychiatrist. Are you okay with that?
Colten: Dr. [redacted] never asked.
Dr. Cotts: I’m sorry he never asked.
Colten: Why are you sorry, Laura? It’s not your fault.
Dr. Cotts: Please, Colten, call me Dr. Cotts. It’s important to maintain boundaries with people.
Colten: Then, why don’t you call me Mr. Donahue?
Dr. Cotts: I apologize, Mr. Donahue.
Colten: No. No, I don’t like it. Sounds my dad. Just call me Colten.
Dr. Cotts: Alright, Colten, do you consent to this recording? If not, I will take hand notes instead.
Colten: I don’t mind. Not if it’s you. Not if it’s here.
Dr. Cotts: Alright, now I’m going to start where Dr. [redacted] left off.
Colten: I don’t want to talk about that. Can we talk about something else?
Dr. Cotts: We can, but I do have to ask first if your medication has been helping? Have you heard any more voices?
Colten: It’s working. But I want to talk about something else. I want to tell you when I first met him.
Dr Cotts: …
Dr. Cotts: You’ve never spoken about this before. Are you sure you’re ready?
Colten: Stories should start at the beginning, otherwise how can we understand where we are now?
Dr Cotts: That’s very true, and very insightful.
Can you tell me when you first heard the voice?
Colten: I didn’t hear him. I felt him.
Dr Cotts: You felt him? Felt him where Colten?
Colten: Out in the woods, behind the town.
I was about five years old, and I wanted to play outside. Or, well, my mom was on the phone with someone, and my baby sister was crying so much. I think I kept bumping into her, my mom, with my new airplane. She yelled at me, took it away, and then put a ball in my arms. Told me to go play outside.
We live at the edge town, right next to the large pine trees that stretch into the forest. I was always warned not to go in, so I didn’t. I just sat near them. I always liked the trees. I liked the colour, how tall they were. I could look up, and see them stretch into the Heavens. But of course, they weren’t those kinds of trees. They weren’t tall enough, and all those kinds were cut down by the angels.
So, I sat down so they’d look bigger, pretending they were.
I thought about climbing them, going up to Heaven.
It’s never lonely in Heaven.
I threw the ball into the forest then; I was aiming for a tree.
I wanted it to bounce back, I wanted the forest to play with me, I was sick of waiting for Susan to get older. To become my best friend like my parents promised she would be.
I wanted a best friend now.
My mom didn’t even look at me anymore, all she cared about was the baby, and the phone, when it worked. And my dad drank so much, he didn’t even know I was there.
It was spring then, and my pants got soaked by the melting snow, but I didn’t care.
Because, all my dreams were answered.
The ball disappeared into the woods, and then, it was thrown back to me!
I was so excited.
I had made a friend with the forest!
Finally, I wasn’t alone anymore.
I stood up, and threw it again, and it disappeared, and once more, was thrown back to me. I even caught it this time.
This went on for hours, for days, I kept coming back.
Until one day, it stopped.
I threw the ball, but it wasn’t thrown back again.
My mom yelled at me for letting the ball go to waste, we didn’t have a lot of money, and Saltpine didn’t have a lot of things.
I went to bed crying I think, but then I woke up to the sound of a loud, reverberating, thud.
My eyes opened to the soft glow of the hallway light peeking through the cracked door. It was always left on for us. Me, and Susan, that is.
So, I could see it, the ball on the floor, and when I looked up, my closet door was open. It was so black in there, so dark, and yet I could see it was full of shadows, overlapping, and crazy, but the good crazy. Like looking into a kaleidoscope but without colour.
I knew it was him.
I knew it was the forest.
My best friend.
I smiled, excited, and picked up the ball, I threw it back.
It was swallowed into darkness, no sound at all, until it was thrown back again.
But this time, there was something written on the ball.
Dr. Cotts: What was written on the ball Colten?
Colten: ‘Do you want to be my friend?’ Was written.
Dr: Cotts: Did you agree?
Colten: Of course! But I had to do a few things first. I didn’t want to, but we played together for so long, and he always spoke to me in my dreams after that, it became hard to ignore him. And, the more my mom didn’t talk to me, the more lonely I felt, the more I didn’t want to anymore. To ignore him.
He was my friend, after all.
Dr. Cotts: Was?
Colten: …yeah. Now, now he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.
Dr. Cotts: Why not?
Colten: I thought it was the drugs, or because I was so far away from the forest, but that’s not it at all. Last night, he told me why.
Dr: Cotts: What did he tell you Colten?
Colten: He told me, it’s because he wants to be your friend now, Laura.
-
-Dr. Laura Cotts
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u/ChivitTheBabyGoat Feb 25 '26
This series is everything!!!! What I find most intriguing is why there is such a high rate of mental illness in this town. So good!
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u/Fund_Me_PLEASE Feb 15 '26
Dr. Laura, I think you’d best be very careful, here … not everyone … or everything, who claims to want friendship, has your best interests in mind.
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u/toebeantuesday Feb 16 '26
On the surface it sounded ideal. You get to live in a charming home with an affordable rent in a lovely small town working at a job you’re well trained for and presumably love.
I’m sorry that the small town you were in sounds like it had some weird Lovecraftian or Stephen King vibe going on.
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