Autumn Johnson is my, Shelby McCord’s best friend. Autumn was my best friend, when I talked she listened to what I had to say. Her compassionate nature affected everyone around her. Autumn seemed to be great at everything, and was talented. When she told a joke, she made her listeners laugh, often hysterically, and seemed to find humor in everything life threw at her.

Every Fall, Autumn and I head up to the mountains for our annual camping trip to see the leaves change and get a chance to see the beautiful lake before it freezes in the winter.
Our trip was next weekend and this year Autumn was taking her dog, Freckles. I was so excited that I starting packing right away. When I was done, all there was left to do was hold down the anxiety.

It was a long trip down, about four hours, but when we got there it was worth the wait. we set up our tent, while her parents set up there’s. The first thing Freckles did was head for the lake. He wasn’t a very good swimmer so Autumn had to catch him before he went in. That night we made hotdogs and smores, they were delicious. It was such a long day so Autumn and I went straight to our tents. I fell asleep instantly but Autumn heard something in the lake and went to see what it was.

It was Freckles drowning in the lake. He was her first dog and she loved him with all her heart. She ran to save but it was too late. She had already used up all her energy trying to save her dog, she tried so hard to stay up but something was holding her down.

No one knew what had happened to her, until the police found her body in the lake a week later, and there was no apparent reason why her body was there, no trace of murder, and there was no life form in the lake besides harmless fish. So the police came to the conclusion that she just ran out of energy. I cried for days until I realized that I shouldn't be sad because she wasn’t coming back and I should forget about it.

The next day Autumns parents showed up at my door, it was kind of awkward. I saw that there was a book in there hand, a Bible is what it looked like actually. She handed it to me and said that Autumn wanted me to have it. At first I was too scared to look at it, afraid of memories approaching my thoughts. Finally, after weeks of waiting, I opened it. It looked so boring to read, but I looked at the front page and there was a note:

Dear Shelby,
I know how long and boring this book looks
but you really should read it
the reason, I’m giving you this book now is because you deserve to know the truth
don’t ask why but I know that your smart and you'll figure it out.
Please read this book, the closer you get to the end, the more clues you'll find, because I wrote along the pages and the further you read, the closer you'll get with God and the closer you'll get to finding out the truth, and don’t be scared.
Love always,
Autumn


This frightened Shelby a little bit, so many questions were going through her head, Did Autumn commit suicide? Does she really want me to read that book? Am I the only one who has seen this note? Too many questions and no answers. The first thing to do is call Autumns parents and ask them if they’d seen the letter. But wait, I thought to myself, what if they haven’t seen the letter and I’m cornered to tell them about it. In the letter it didn’t say to keep this to myself but I would like to keep it to myself, no one would believe me anyway.

So I started the investigating, which means, reading the Bible. I started with the first book, called Genesis, God knows how to pronounce that. Anyway I started reading and to what I thought would be boring turned out to be an interesting story about how the world was created, and to my surprise it actually made so much better sense then what those crazy evolutionists said that world was created. I mean the big bang, all of a sudden the world just appeared with humans on it, of course there had to be someone behind it. And that person is God.

So as I continued reading my investigation/Bible book, I began to become addicted to reading it, not eager to find something about Autumn but to find out more about what happened with God and how the world was created. Even though finding out more about Autumn was a plus. Finally I finished Genesis- Deuteronomy and found my first clue, right before the book Joshua, there was a folded piece of paper with a note that read:

Dear Shelby,
Hey good job, you got through the first 4 books of the bible, see there not boring are they?
Anyway so here’s your clue, Go to the campsite and look at the tree that was right outside our tent, you’ll find another something that will tell you some more stuff.
Love always,
Autumn


Why do I have to go back to that horrible place? I thought. All those bad memories would come right back to me of the police, the body and waking up in the morning with my best friend suddenly gone. But if she wanted me to and it gets me closer to the truth then I’ll do it.

So since the next day is a Saturday, I asked my older brother to drive me to campsite with no questions, and so he did. When we arrived, he waited in the car while I went over to the tree, it wasn’t hard to find, at last I found the tree, there was a short note on the trunk of the tree that stated:

Under my mattress


That was all that it stated, I said the words in my head 20 times, under my mattress, under my mattress, under my ah ha! There must be another clue under her mattress, I kept thinking to myself, how could she have planned all this out, she must have done it on purpose, but that’s not important right now. What’s important is getting to Autumns house and looking under her mattress. So once again by brother drove me, to her house this time.

So I got to her house and her parents of course let me in. I went upstairs and grabbed the mattress and lifted it up. Underneath was a diary of Autumns that she had wrote in for about a month now and the weirdest part was that there was an entry from yesterday by her, I was freaking out! Finally I calmed myself down enough to open the book. All the pages were empty except the one she had written last night, it read:

Dear Shelby,
You’ve been doing a great job with the bible, I see you are almost done, only 2 books left, Jude and Revelation. Good job, I see you have learned a lot about Christ, and not enough about me, so now it’s time you know the truth,
I didn’t know that I was going to die on that day, and me and freckles are always near you, watching over your every move, and making sure you don’t get hurt. Your guardian angels if you will. So turn around if you don’t believe me.
Love,
Autumn


Shelby nervously turned around and opened her mouth in the most shocking surprise of her life. She turned to see her best friend in a faded bluish color floating behind her. A little freaky don’t you think? So before Shelby could speak, Autumn said,” Don’t be afraid, its only me your best friend. Now since I have told you my secret, we can be best friends again. Only you’re the only one who can see or hear me, so don’t freak out.“ I replied,” As much as I should be screaming , I think that its great to have my best friend back.”

So Shelby and Autumn went on being best friends all of their life and even though Shelby was the only one who could see or hear her, it was great having a best friend. Until the Autumn of 2008 when Shelby was 78, she died in her sleep, peacefully and in no pain. Just as her best friend, Autumn had hoped. They have been through so much and had may memories in Autumn.