NEWS HUB—MAINE
JANUARY 6, 2106
PORTLAND, Maine—This fall, two hikers in the remnants of Androscoggin Riverlands State Park were alarmed to hear a woman screaming. Abandoning the trail, they scoured the woods for over an hour, until finally they realized the voice was coming from beneath their feet.
Using two sticks as levers, they removed a square of sod to find an injured woman trapped in a kind of hastily dug underground oubliette.
She stopped screaming as light and air poured in but did not acknowledge her rescuers. Instead, she held one hand aloft, like Hamlet holding the skull of Yorick. “I’ll never forget it,” reported one hiker. “She said: ‘Why is this skull so scary? Why am I afraid of my own head?’ And I don’t know how I knew this, but in that moment, she was playing a chicken playing the role of Hamlet. Does that make any sense?”
“She was weak and delirious,” the other hiker reported. “It was really scary. How did she even get there? Were the people who trapped her still hanging around? Had they laid a trap for us? Of course, we called for help, but you know how long that can take.”
The woman was transported to the hospital, suffering from an affliction called “gas gangrene”—an extremely rare infection originating in World War One battlefields, and caused by the bacterium Clostridia, likely acquired from the oubliette’s dirt and guano seeping into her many wounds.
The woman, now identified as Hester Moss from Albany, NY, has died of kidney failure in the ICU. Despite repeated attempts, no next of kin or close friends have stepped forward to claim the body.
It remains unclear who injured or imprisoned Ms. Moss. No clues or traces of other parties were recovered, and no one has claimed responsibility. Authorities suspect cult activity, but the alarming proliferation of cults over the past decade has made determining exact responsibility nearly impossible.
Ms. Moss arrived at the hospital already delirious. In a moment of lucidity the day of her passing, “she grabbed my sleeve,” said an ICU nurse, “and whispered something about a flower, demanding to know whether ‘the boat had left the port.’” Since the question seemed to cause Ms. Moss some distress, the nurse assured her that the boat had left on time, with the flower on it. This seemed to soothe Moss, who then asked the nurse to “tell her mother everything is all right.”
She passed away not long after.
Authorities have scoured the closest ports for ship departure records, but did not have enough details to pursue any real line of questioning or to understand what or whom they were searching for. The case has been closed due to understaffing.