Story 30 — An Invitation from Rainforest Maxwell

Paranoid Letters
Sep 6, 2018 · 19 min read

It was always exciting when you received a letter from a long-time good friend, that you have been lost contact with for a while, inviting for a meetup.

To be frank, I have numbers of long-time good friends that I have been lost contact with for a while, to which I might not recognize some of them immediately by the time they contacted me. But that little girl is different. By the time I read her name on the invitation letter, I immediately recalled her. First and foremost, because of her name itself.

Rainforest Maxwell. That was that cheerful little girl’s name.

I mean, how many people with “Rainforest” as their name that you ever know in your life? Not many I believe, if there was any. In my case, she was the one and only. So, you wouldn’t be wondering if I immediately recalled her.

Rain, her nickname, was an orphan girl, living in an orphanage near my place, that I met when I was working on an organizational project in a small town of Braga 5 years earlier. She was 10 when I left the town, so that made her 15 years old, a teenager already, by the time she contacted me again.

The message was casual, and short, though the invitation letter looked fancier. It was pinkish, using a thick paper, with floral decorations on each of its corners. It looked more like a wedding invitation letter than a meetup invitation.

“Hi Tia, it’s me, Rain.

I hope you still remember me. I’ve got to be straight and honest, I kinda miss you. I’ll be in your town for a couple of days, so, why don’t we set a meetup?

I know a good place. A really good one, I promise!
Just follow the map included in this letter, and meet me there at 6:30 pm, okay?

See you soon.

Love,
Rain”

I had no idea how she got my home address. She never asked me back when I was working in Braga, and I never tell her as well.

I decided to just go and ask her when we finally met.

I put down the invitation letter and went to the bathroom to take a bath, and dressed up. I drove my car to the location she directed on the map. A place I had never been before in my life. It was 6pm, and the road was dark and silent. I didn’t see any other cars passing me by.

Why would she ask to meet in such a place? There were tons of other good places in the middle of the town.

Seeing the road, I started to doubt whether there was actually a cafe called Morning Cafe there. Especially because it was called “Morning Cafe” and it was already night time when I got there.

To my complete surprise, there was.

Just after I turned in an intersection, I saw a building, a small one, with lights all over it. It shined bright among the darkness of the neighborhood. “Morning Cafe”, according to its 3-dimensional texts attached on its rooftop.

I pulled over, parked my car in front of the cafe and walked in.

The cafe was small, only about 10 x 10 meters, contained only 4 sets of tables, and a bar, where its one and only waiters stood behind it. I sat in one of the tables, the one nearest to the entrance door.

By the time I sat, there were 2 other guests already sat on 2 other separate tables. Both of those other guests sat all by themselves on their desk, regularly checking on their watches and their phones. I assumed they were waiting for a company, just like me.

There wasn’t any clock hanging on that cafe, which I found a bit unusual, so I pulled my left hand up to check on my watch. It was already 7pm, and Rain hadn’t even shown up yet. She was probably still in the middle of whatever event that brought her to the town. Being late for about half an hour was still tolerable for me.

When I looked out the glass door, checking if Rain was about to hop in the cafe, I saw someone pushed the glass door open. It wasn’t Rain. It was a young man, about twenty-something, looking fit, like an American football player. He looked around as if searching for someone he knew before he sat on the only empty table that was left.

I looked around and figured out that the 2 other guests that came before me were still by themselves too, regularly checking their watches.

One of those 2 other guests, a woman in her 30s, turned her head and our eyes met.

“Hey,” she greeted me.

“Hey,” I greeted her back, just trying to be polite.

“I have an appointment with an old friend, but it looks like he’s late,” she opened a conversation, “and I started to feel bored. Can we have a chat? Just to kill the time. I see that you’re waiting for someone too, and it looks like he or she hasn’t arrived either.”

“Yeah, sure,” I replied. I mean, why not? It looked like I could use someone to kill the time too while waiting for Rain to come.

The woman stood up from her seat, walked toward me and sat on a chair next to mine, on my table. She introduced herself as Olivia Dreams, a banker. She had a brunette hair, pretty tall for a woman, and wearing a blazer as if she was just going home from work. “Tiara,” I said, introducing my name, “Tiara Ludwig.”

“Meeting an old friend?” I asked her.

“I hate to be waiting, but this friend of mine never been late before in his life. At least when he had an appointment with me. So, I suspected something is blocking his way. I gotta wait for a while.”

“Why don’t you call him and ask where he is?”

She laughed as if there was something funny in my question. “This might sound silly, but I don’t have his number,” said Olivia, combing her long hair with her fingers to the back of her ear while she said it.

“How did he contacted you, then?” I asked.

“An invitation letter,” she replied, putting her hands in her purse, looking for something inside it. “To be honest, I have no idea how he has my home address, since we haven’t met in 5 years, and we never talked about a home address.”

“There…” she pulled something out of her purse. An invitation letter from her friend. I saw it at a glance and it shook me.

The letter looked fancy. It was pinkish, using a thick paper, with floral decorations on each of its corners. And it looked more like a wedding invitation letter than a meetup invitation. Looked almost like the one Rain had sent to me.

Something tickled me, and my curiosity got the best of me.

“Can I see it?” I asked.

“Sure,” Olivia replied, shifting her invitation to the table closer toward me. It didn’t take long for me to read the name of the sender, her friend, which she had referred to as “he”, a male.

“That… Is that your friend’s name?” I asked her, stuttering, pointed at the name on the cover of the invitation letter.

“Yeah, that’s my friend’s name,” she answered, looking curious after seeing me getting uneasy, “why?”

I opened my bag, and pulled out my invitation letter, and put it on the table, side by side with hers. Both invitations looked identical, from the colors, the decorations, down to the name of the sender: Rainforest Maxwell.

“Oh,” she shouted in surprise, “you are Rain’s friend too? That’s surely a surprise.”

“Yeah. Sort of,” I paused for a while, before I continued, “that was not what actually surprised me.”

“Oh? What, then?”

“You said your friend is a male, right? How old is he and how does he looks like?”

“Yes, he is a male. He was my supervisor when I was working at the Central Bank. Not sure how old is he now, but he’s older than me. Probably about 48 by now. He’s an African-American, slender, and…,” Olivia suddenly paused her words.

“Okay. What is this?”, she stared deeply at me, demanding an immediate answer.

“My friend’s name is also Rainforest Maxwell,” I started my explanation, “but not a male. A female. A teenager, about 15 years old, white, and a redhead.”

“Well, then, that means, it turned out we were accidentally invited by 2 different Rainforest Maxwell. Simple as that,” she blurted out, with a sarcastic giggle.

“That was actually what bugged me,” I said.

“I might be exaggerating things, but Rainforest is not a common name,” I explained, “how many people named Rainforest have you crossed path with, in your whole life?”

“Well, one, but…,” she tried to explain, but I cut in.

“How are the odds that, 2 different people, unaware of each other’s existence, invited for a meetup after 5 years of losing contact, in a cafe in the middle of nowhere, by a different person with the same, uncommon name: Rainforest Maxwell?”

“2 different people,” I repeated, emphasizing the number, “two!”

“Three,” I heard a voice coming from another table. Olivia and I turned our head and stared at the young man sitting at the other table, a fit man that looked like an American football player.

“Excuse me?” Olivia asked the man, squinting her eyes as she said it.

“3 different people, invited by 3 different Rainforest Maxwell,” the young man responded, putting up his invitation that looked identical as Olivia’s and mine.

“You must be joking,” Olivia yelled, “don’t throw inappropriate jokes at inappropriate times, my friend!”. Olivia was starting to get upset.

The young man sat still, and he kept his hand holding his invitation letter in the air. And then, he pointed the name of the sender on his invitation’s cover with the forefinger of his other hand. Both Olivia and I could read the name clearly from where we sat: Rainforest Maxwell.

I could hear Olivia taking a deep breath, as she was about to ask something to the young man. But before it happened, we heard a soft, whispering voice from the other table, the last remaining table in the cafe.

“Four.”

Almost altogether, the three of us turned our head to that table. There was a middle-aged man, about 40-something, with a silver beard and mustache. He was sitting shakingly on his chair, staring at us.

“Four,” he repeated his word, as he put his invitation up in the air. The invitation the middle-aged man held looked identical to the ones I and those 2 other guests had. From we sat, we could read the sender’s name quite clearly as it was written in a quite huge size of font: Rainforest Maxwell.

“Okay! That’s it!” Olivia stood up and slammed her invitation on to the table. “Anyone here must be throwing a prank at the others,” she yelled out loud, pointing one by one at every guest in the room. “Speak up now! This isn’t funny!” said Olivia. She was surely looked angry.

But no one said a word.

“Uh… Hey, mate,” I called out to the fit young man, “what’s your name?”

“Ryan,” he replied, “Ryan Blossoms.”

“Ryan,” I started, “how’s your Rainforest Maxwell looks like?”

He looked hesitant for a while, but then he finally spoke. “A child,” he replied, “last time I met him was when he was 4 years old. It was 5 years ago. He’s got to be 9 years old by now.”

A child? A 9 years old kid? That was very odd for a 9 years old kid to invite a 20 something young man at that hour, to a place in the middle of nowhere like that.

“Did he say who he was to be going with?” I demanded.

“His Grandma,” Ryan said, “he’s an orphan, and is raised by his grandparents.”

“I lived in his grandparents’ house when I was working on a task 5 years ago,” Ryan explained, “I taught him about American football during my stay.”

The three of us then immediately turned our head to the remaining guest in the room, the middle-aged man.

“You, sir?” Olivia asked, a bit rude and half yelling.

“Olivia! He’s an old man! Would you just chill a bit?” I warned her.

I turned my head on the old man, and asked him again, “Sir?”

The old man stared deeply at me, then swiftly at Olivia and Ryan. “An old woman. A middle-aged woman, about my age. She was Asian. I’m a dentist, and she was my former patient. We were dating once, 5 years ago,” the middle-aged man said.

“Your name, sir?” Olivia asked again, still rude.

“Olivia!” I yelled at her again. She just rolled her eyes in annoyance, didn’t respond to any words.

“Daniel Lucas,” the middle-aged man answered.

Okay. So, 4 different Rainforest Maxwell, last time of meeting was 5 years prior. That was one hell of an odd coincidence to put out.

“I have a hunch that our Rainforest Maxwell wouldn’t be here anytime soon,” Ryan opened a conversation, “why don’t we all sit in a circle on one table, and share our version of information about him? Her? Them? Whatever?”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Ryan added.

Everyone was staring at each other, didn’t say any words. But I supposed everyone agreed with Ryan’s idea because then, Ryan and Daniel joined my table, where Olivia already sat on. She didn’t complain or yell about it, which was why I took it that she also agree with the idea.

For a minute, that felt like an hour, everyone just stood there in silence, staring swiftly one by one at the others. No one said a word, until Ryan raised his hand, and asking a question, “date of birth?”

“August, 13th,” I quickly replied, to which then I saw shocked expressions on everyone’s faces. An expression that silently confirmed that all of our Rainforest Maxwell was born at the same date.

“Place of birth?” Olivia asked, but then she immediately corrected her own question. “No, wait. I gotta asked something that would be impossible to have exactly the same answer,” she paused for a while to take a deep breath before she continued with her question.

“Biological parents’ name? Both of them, if you knew,” Olivia asked.

“Sahara and Elena Maxwell,” Daniel replied, softly, followed by everyone’s eyes became widen, staring deeply at the middle-aged man. I could even see Olivia nearly fell off her chair, out of shock.

“Shit,” Ryan calmly swearing.

“No. No way. That’s… That can’t be…,” I stuttered, out of frantic and horror.

“Both of the parents, guys? Really? All are identical?” I asked everyone in frantic.

“This doesn’t make sense!” Olivia shouted, sounded fully upset.

“Favorite movies? Wait! No!” Ryan stopped and he seemed to think about another question, a more effective one, just like Olivia did earlier. “Allergic?” Ryan finally asked again.

“Peanuts,” the other three guests said it simultaneously, followed by a swear word, coming out loud from Olivia’s mouth, “fuck!”

I was about to ask a question, but I saw Daniel raised his hand, so I let him ask the question, “birthmarks?”

“Butterfly-shaped, right at the back of his neck,” Ryan quickly answered, then he glanced at the others to see for a reaction. Everyone was staring at Ryan, we could see in each other’s facial expression, how unbelievable the fact was.

“Okay, that’s it! This is too much already!” Olivia shouted in distress. “This doesn’t make sense!” she said, “4 Rainforest Maxwell, different genders, different races, different ages, different physical features, but have an identical date of birth, identical parents’ names, identical allergy, and identical birthmarks? How many people on earth would have had butterfly-shaped birthmarks right at the back of their necks, huh? Huh?”

“The similarities aren’t many in numbers, but it’s way too specific. It creeped me out already,” Olivia said, “I don’t want to hear any other question! That’s it! Fuck! How could this possible, really?!”

“So, it was like, one same person, with 4 different physical features?” Daniel said.

“Looks like it,” Ryan responded calmly, “but that’s not what seriously freaked me out right now.”

“What freaked me out, “ he continued, “is the fact that 4 of us, 4 different people who don’t know about each other’s existence prior to this, were invited here, at the same place, at the same time.”

“At a strange cafe in the middle of nowhere,” I added.

“Whoever this Rainforest Maxwell is, there should be a reason to gather all four of us here, tonight,” Ryan said again, which I thought was made sense. Whatever had happened, and whoever that person was, there should be a reason for the gathering.

Suddenly I felt my phone vibrating in my trouser’s pocket. I immediately tried to pull it out. I stared at the screen, and I didn’t recognize the number. But I picked it up, anyway.

“Hello,” I said, and then I heard a familiar voice from the other side of the phone, “hey, Tia.”

It was Rain’s voice. Quite different than the last time I heard since she was supposed to be already a teenager at that time, but I noticed the characteristics of her voice, and her accent, and the way she talked.

“Rain?” I asked. I could see everyone on the table seemed alerted, as one of the Rainforest Maxwell eventually made a direct contact.

“You already at the cafe?” she asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m here at the cafe already. Where are you? I’ve been waiting for you. You’re so late,” I replied.

“Tia, Tia, your voice was glitching. The signal was terrible. Can you find another spot at the cafe that could receive a better signal?” she asked.

“Okay. Wait,” I said, as I stood up from my chair, and walked toward the cafe’s glass door. I opened it and stepped outside, standing on the cafe’s porch. As I closed the door, I heard a clicking sound. A sound made by a door when it was locked.

“Rain? Can you hear me clearly now?”, I asked, but there was no response. Only beeping sounds, it seemed like Rain was just hung out the phone.

“That was odd,” I thought as I turned around and was about to enter the cafe again.

What I saw right there and then freaked me out. I saw the other 3 guests fell on their knees, on the floor, holding their necks with both of their hands. Their faces turned red, their mouth opened wide and their tongue stuck out. It was as if they were choked by something and couldn’t breathe.

I quickly pulled the cafe’s glass door’s handle, trying to open it. But it was locked. I tried hard to pull and push it but to no avail. It was locked tight.

“Guys! Guys! Olivia! Ryan! Daniel!” I called out their names while banging on the glass door in panic and horror.

Not long after that, I watched smokes blowing from the back of the cafe, moving forward to the glass door. In no time, the smokes already filled the entire cafe’s interior. I couldn’t see the three of them anymore from where I stood on the outside.

I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, so I kept banging on the glass door.

Then suddenly, I saw a pair of palms banging on the glass door from the inside. I couldn’t see who it was at first due to the thickness of the smoke, but as the person laid his body on the glass door, I could see that he was wearing a waiter’s uniform. When I looked up, I realized that he was wearing a gas mask.

The waiter?

Wait. There was a waiter in the cafe that night. One man. But I didn’t think about him up until that time he banged the glass door from the inside.

And then, he did something I didn’t expect he would do. I pointed his right hand’s forefinger toward the glass door and knocked on the glass door with it repeatedly. I took it as a sign for me to get out of there.

So I did.

I turned around, quickly jumped into my car and drove off as fast as I could, back home. As I drove the dark and empty road on to the bright city light in front of me, a thought suddenly flashed in my mind.

That was a murder, I was sure. Whoever killed them, could just dispose of their bodies, or left them right there. Either way, the police would find out, sooner or later. And by the time it happened, they could tie the event to me. I was there. My fingerprint should be left somewhere on the door or on the table. A piece of my hair or anything that could tie police to me could be found in the cafe.

If I failed to report the event, my situation could be much worse than it should, by the time the police find the cafe. I would have a hard time proving my innocence. So, with that thoughts, I turned at the nearest police precinct I could find and reported the event.

I sat face to face with Detective Lionel Clancy, a thirty-something, African-American man, and he looked friendly. I told him everything that had happened, including my relationship with the so-called Rainforest Maxwell in the past. I told him about the strange situation I had encountered, along with 3 other guests in that cafe.

My story seemed unbelievable to him. It was hard to believe, I know. I wouldn’t easily believe it either if it wasn’t because it just had happened to myself.

Eventually, Detective Clancy told me to go home, and not to skip town for a few weeks, while he investigated my report.

No news from the Detective for 2 weeks, and I guess, I already forgot about the event myself. And then one day, I heard a knock on my door. I peeked outside through the window beside the door. I knew that man. He was Detective Lionel Clancy.

“Miss,” he greeted me as I opened the door.

“Detective. What a surprise. Come in,” I said as I let him into the house.

“You have something to tell me about my report, I assumed?” I asked him, as we sat on the couch in my living room. “Yes, Miss Ludwig. I do have,” the Detective replied.

“I have investigated the location you mentioned, and checking every detail on your report,” he started his explanation. What he said later shook me.

“But we didn’t find any cafe in that location.”

“Eh? What? But…,” I shouted in shock.

The Detective raised his forefinger, as a sign for me to take it easy because he wasn’t done yet with his explanation.

“We didn’t find a cafe or any other kind of building in the location, but,” Detective Clancy took a deep breath before he continued, “we found bodies. 3 dead bodies, as you had mentioned in your report.”

I sigh, a little relieved.

“No cafe? But, was there a table? A chair? A bar? Something that would exist in a cafe, whatsoever?” I asked the Detective. “No, Miss. Nothing. All we found was just 3 dead bodies, lying lifeless on the ground, choked to death by a poisoned gas” he said.

“You said in the report, that there were 3 other guests in the cafe by the time you were there, right? One female banker named Olivia Dreams, one male American-footballer name Ryan Blossoms, and one middle-aged man named Daniel Lucas?”

“Yes, Detective,” I replied.

“Their body was still intact, and you have described them in your report as detailed as possible, so from the physical description you gave, I could tell which body was of whom. And they appeared to look exactly like you had described in your report.”

His last sentence gave an unsettling feeling, so, I asked him a question.

“But?”

“But,” the Detective responded, “the DNA test result had come out, and none of them are Olivia Dreams, Ryan Blossom, or Daniel Lucas.”

“Huh? Wait. What do you mean?”

“The woman’s name was Shakira Lancaster, and she was a lawyer, not a banker,” Detective Clancy said. “The fit young man’s name was Bryan Duncan, an amateur theater actor, not an American-footballer. The middle-aged man’s name was Jethro Kirschner, a former army, not a dentist.”

“Excuse me, what!?” I shouted, “so they lied about their names and their jobs? Why would they do that?”

Detective Clancy lifted his shoulder, “that, we don’t know yet,” he said, “but the investigation is still ongoing. We will surely let you know when we have any updates.”

“Do you happen to recognize the waiter? You said there was one, right?” the Detective asked me again.

“No, Detective. I really wish I do… But…,” I answered, with a regret in my voice, “I sat on the table near the door, right at the front of the cafe, while the waiter sat behind his bar, at the back of the cafe.”

I paused for a while, and then I asked the Detective again.

“Do I get into trouble? I mean, I probably watched too much crime drama, but in a situation like this…,” I asked a bit scared of being jailed, or anything like that.

“You were about to,” he replied.

“I was about to?” I parroted, in confusion.

“Actually, this is one of the things that concerned me. It’s strange, but, you probably familiar, since you watched crime drama on TV, that usually, in a situation like this, you’ll be considered as a primary suspect,” the Detective explained.

“But,” he continued, “we have found several pieces of evidence on the crime scene. The evidence didn’t lead anywhere else, but to one thing: it proves your innocence. Though I suspected it to be planted or staged, all evidence found were valid and cannot be compromised.”

“Apart from it,” he added, “I’m an experienced Detective, I’ve been dealing with so many people, my hunch told me which ones are frauds and which ones are innocents. I see innocence and honesty in you.”

“So far,” he added while laughing.

“Okay,” I sigh, felt relieved. “But, have you found anything related to Rainforest Maxwell?” I asked, full of curiosity.

“No, nothing so far. We’re still investigating it, as I mentioned earlier, but so far we have no clue about someone named Rainforest Maxwell.”

We remained silent for a couple of seconds before the Detective spoke again.

“So, I guess that is that for now, Miss Ludwig,” Detective Clancy concluded, “we will inform you when there’s an update in the case, and also, we do hope you’d inform us too when you have an update, or if you remember something.”

We both stood up from the couch and I took the Detective to the door.

I was hoping for an answer, but Detective Clancy only brought in other questions. Nothing much I could do, though, so I just walked in and resumed my life the way it should. After the event, my life isn’t bothered up until now. Everything went the way it normally goes, so I don’t think I have reasons to worry too much about it.

That, until several days later. I checked on my mailbox, and there was a letter, in a white envelope.

On its front was my name. When I turned it around, I read the name of the sender: Rainforest Maxwell. I was startled. After all those times, she sent me another letter? What the hell?!

I ran back inside, tore the envelope open and pulled the letter out. Unlike the last invitation, the letter I received that day was nothing fancy. It was just a regular letter typed on a white folio paper, folded and wrapped in a regular white envelope.

I opened the letter, and here was what it said:

“Hey Tia, it’s me again, Rain.
How are you? I hope you’re doing good.

I send you this letter just to congratulate you.
You have done a really good job! Everyone here was happy. You should be proud of yourself, sister!

Thank you.

Thank You.

I’ll contact you again very soon.

Love,
Rainforest Maxwell”

Wait… What did the letter just said? “I have done a really good job”?

What the hell?!

What job?!

Paranoid Letters

weird fiction and psychological horror story author. my facebook fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/pg/paranoidletters

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