Chapter 1 (Full Story)

Fifteen miles in, our paths separated. Kaleb reached out his hand to shake mine. Smile spread across his tanned face, he used the other hand to readjust the tailored hiking pack on his shoulders. I passed my sleeping bag to the opposite hand holding my tent to shake his.

“Have fun, man.”

“Do my best, I suppose.”

“Don’t forget to radio in when you get set up.” The forest’s bright greenery enveloped Kaleb only moments down his path. My own trail evolved to a narrow, worn-out dirt width. My feet walked a narrow stride upon it, as though making their way down a tightrope. Either red, yellow, or blue plastic diamonds pinned to the trees along the trail guided hikers of all backgrounds. I needed only to follow the blue another four miles to reach the beginner’s campgrounds. When the hike had started, I quickly familiarized myself with how a mile strained the body when not traveling by car. Now fifteen miles in, feet blistered and the multiple packs I had brought bringing my muscles to a burning tension, the question of if four more miles were in me pulsed through my mind.

Crossing my path, a mile down, ran a ditch. A bridge constructed with spaced-out thin planks that had contracted considerable moss and rot acted at the crossing point. After walking a hundred feet or so up and down the ditch and finding no other crossing, I took my chance on the bridge. Had I considered the weight my bags added to my body, I might have taken multiple trips across. Instead, a brittle cracking shuddered below my feet, and I plummeted to the wet, sandy floor.

No injury, no gear lost, and no way to reach the top. Every attempt led to me slipping down the smooth embankment into the soppy dunes below. With no options other than left or right, I went right.

For two hours the ditch led me along its winding route, sometimes opening up to great expansive rusty clay walls, tripling in height. Occasionally, old brush piles barricaded the path, leaving a tight, snagging squeeze to the other side. On the last of these squeezes, the walls on either side began gradually sloping down. Emboldened with hopes of escape, I doubled my pace. Two boulders appeared before me, set on each side, blocking the path, the top just out of reach. Spying a small gap between the two, I wasted no time and pushed myself through. Beyond, the ditch and forest gave way to a field.

The Sycamores swished and creaked as wind rushed through their top branches. Their silver trunks formed a wall around the field, shaping an oval. Yarrow and fleabane spread a white dusting across the lush clover and onion grass. I released my burdens and slumped to the ground, clumps of sand peppering off my body. The sun overhead, being lost during my journey through the forest, now wrapped its warmth around my face. At the field’s opposing end, the trees parted. Another path winding through the woods, stretching ever towards the horizon before taking a right turn. A potential way out tomorrow morning, as my aching legs told me this place is as good as any to set up camp.

While it took me time to set up my tent, mostly fighting against the strong winds that attempted to turn my shelter into their kite, the world around me had grown dim, and fireflies began their dance among the branches above as dusk now settled over the area. Reaching into my backpack’s smallest pocket, I produced a metal LED flashlight and began searching the treeline.

All campsites required fire. All fire needed wood. As the seasons passed by, overconfident branches would reach towards the open area only to have the wind snap them off their trunks, plummeting to the ground to undergo nature’s weathering preparations to be burned. This is what I hunted for.

While searching this fuel source out, I discovered the other tent. Walking along the forest’s edge, my flashlight fell upon an oak branch’s gray skeletal frame protruding through the weeds. A branchlet, resembling a hand, extended towards me. My free hand locked fingers with it and I heaved myself backwards. Lifting it considerably off the ground, I heard the fabric underneath strain and tear. The branchlet I grasped snapped off the main body, sending me flat onto my back. After regaining my feet, I shone my light and gave the area a closer inspection. Pinned under the branch’s talons, tattered orange nylon reflected back at me. Reaching in, I took a firm grasp on the nylon and pulled it free with a jolting tear and snapping twigs. Turning my flashlight back to the newly uncovered ground, it caught a glint within the dead grass. Reading glasses with their left lens missing. Their owner’s campsite now nothing more than two shattered tent poles and the remaining fabric slivers they once held up.

After taking the frames and rolling up the tent, I continued down the field, calling out to the woods. Only a few yards further took me to the entrance I had spotted when first entering. The space between each side dwarfed me. The flashlight revealed another ditch running perpendicular to me a hundred feet in, with a colossal log laid across it, acting as a natural bridge. A heaviness entered my stomach, and as I called out once more, my own voice fell timid on the forest. Only the wind through leaves answered. Whoever camped here, they were long gone now.

Repeatedly glancing over my shoulder, I went back and seized the branch, dragging it to my campsite. Kaleb’s instructions, the night before, filled me with the confidence that all inexperienced people suffer from when creating fires. Doing it myself took no time in correcting that confidence, and when I had struck my second to last match, the walkie-talkie chirped within my backpack.

“Have you made it yet?”

“Yeah, I made it. Sorry, I got distracted by something. I’m setting up my fire now.” I pressed the lit match onto my tiny lint wad set within the twig tipi and eagerly waited. As dominoes tumbling, they each caught and burned.

“Distracted? Other campers show up or something?” As I slowly piled larger sticks onto the embers, I explained the ruined campsite I had come across. Kaleb told me to make sure I remembered where I found it and to report it when we got back to the trailhead. I picked this as the most opportune moment to catch him up to speed on my path’s deviation.

“What? Oh, Jesus. Why didn’t you radio me?” No need to inform him that the thought never occurred to me.

“Just relax, will you? I can walk myself back tomorrow.” The flames began to die down. Panicked, I thrust my head to the ground and bellowed oxygen upon the smoking sticks. When my lungs could take no more and the flames had dwindled to a smolder, a squall blasted through the camp, kicking them up triple the size. My campsite flickered with orange light.

“No. You wait there. I will come to you in the morning.” The time on my watch read eight pm. The bugs, wind, and daytime sweat rolled away with the cool night breeze. Taking out the glasses, I held them to the fire’s glow. Rusty patches formed on the wires that held the single filthy lens. How long since anyone else found their way here? While I grew my fire and went through my first time cooking hot dogs over smoke and flames, crickets began their songs among the lush grounds.

The chill had grown too much for me, eventually bringing me inside the tent. Nylon crinkled beneath my knees. Igniting my flashlight, I placed it between my teeth and searched my pack. Within its depths I pulled out my long-sleeve shirt. I turned off the small light and engulfed my body with the new attire.

The leaves on the forest floor to my left crunched under heavy steps. One after the other came the brittle stomping. My head halfway through the shirt’s collar, I listened, frozen in the motion. Through the trees they moved, two different sets, one further down than the other. The windows were zipped, leaving the dancing campfire shadows bouncing against the glowing tent walls as my only reference to the world outside. With each moment passing, the steps moved closer to the field.

I mentally listed through my gear, weighing anything to use as a weapon. Only my folding knife could have counted as such. However, making a hundred noises during the search for the knife among my belongings filled me with the dreadful idea that the newcomer approaching would gain full awareness to my presence.

The stomping upon flowers and weeds replaced the leaves’ crunchy disbursement. The speed at which it was closing the distance doubled. It would only be seconds before they were upon me. So, gripping only my flashlight with one hand, I stumbled through the door. The white beam revealed a mist hovering above the vegetation. Panning its clarity left to right across the expanse revealed the intruder. I let out a cry. Only a hundred feet away stood a figure. Its black nose and dopey face brought understanding to my imagination. When we had seen each other, both the doe and I took a step back. The terror on the deer’s face contrasted the intense relief washing through my previously rigid muscles. Finishing my search revealed three more further down the field; their eyes reflected a shimmering green back to me.

“Jesus Christ.” My laughter spurted forth. “Why did you guys have to freak me out like that, huh? What the hell are you even doing?” The look they gave to me implied that similar thoughts were directed towards me. I sat next to the fire again and began stoking it with one of the stray kindling sticks. A glance revealed that they continued to observe me. “Thought you guys were supposed to be skittish or something. Never seen a person before? Go on.” After a few more seconds, the furry troop’s judgment had been concluded, and they began their trek once again. I chuckled, leaving the four to their business. “Yeah, keep moving.”

A clacking noise struck my ears. Hooves on wood, a one-two rhythm. Clack, clack. Within the dark space between the trees came the echo down the field. Clack, clack. My hand tending the fire froze, and my head snapped to the left. I dropped the stick and picked up the flashlight again, but its beam dispersed before reaching the opening. Clack, clack. The crickets hushed their songs, and the lightning bugs ceased their illuminating dance. The four deer stood as statues, their heads cocked towards the noise.

“Another one of your friends?” They bounded away before I finished the sentence, vanishing into the trees beyond, leaving me alone. “Hey, where are you guys going?” Clack, clack. I turned back towards the opening and waited. My eyes unable to adjust to the dark beyond my flashlight’s reach, I failed to spy anything beyond the entrance, and nothing came out. “Damn animals.”

One AM. The illuminated watch screen went dark seconds after its revelation. Once the fire had grown too dim, I threw the remaining wood upon it, blasting embers through the night. As the stars made their march around the sky, the moon began to rise up over the forest. The once jet-black night, now paired with its pale contrast, gave the slightest view to the vague world beyond the flames. A cruel tease, pretending to relieve the night’s reign. The white disk mounted high over the surrounding trees. That was when my eyes drooped shut.

I had been slumped in a hazy sleep when the coyote’s yipping yanked me back to consciousness. Still sitting upright, the circulation in my crossed legs stopped, leaving them with no mobility. The fire had mostly died down to smoldering embers, only two logs producing timid flames that the night wind whipped back and forth. During the moments it took my mind to fully come to, the canine pack finished entering the field’s opposing side. Their territorial cries a manic frenzy as they each spied my campsite invading their domain.

My mind swirled with a feverish panic as I checked my watch once more. Two AM. The pack’s chanting escalated to a deafening degree. Grabbing one leg, I pulled it free and flung it out straight. A stinging pain shot through them both. The chatter stretched through the field’s entire width, taking over the night. The moonlight revealed low shadows scurrying about on the wood’s far edge. Although I ran my hands over the surrounding grass, the walkie-talkie remained lost to me.

With cold sweat running down my back, I pulled myself through the tent door, zipping it behind me. Through one mesh window I viewed my camp, and through the other, the field. Fumbling through the darkness, I prayed that my hands would discover the plastic radio. Between my searching hands sliding across the nylon and the pack’s communication, the hooves on the log struggled to reach my ears. When it rang out a second time, the coyotes went mute. Clack, clack!

I lifted my head to view through the window’s mesh to the moonlit field beyond. My heart pounded all the way to my throat as I sat motionless. The musky air within the tent stifled my senses, and my peripheral vision darkened all but the window. It hung in my view as a portrait with a distant foreign land painted within. Peaceful, still. Then something entered the painting. Step by step, it closed the space between us. Silent the footsteps came, drawing a graceful distinction between itself and the deer. Across the fire, it halted.

Shrouded behind darkness and smoke, it stood there. Deep, desperate breaths gurgled in the night. Only when the pillar of smoke found a gap did my view reveal it gazing back at me.

“What are you?” My voice exhaled pint-up breath. The smoke screen began to billow thicker as the wind picked up another flame. “What are you?” This time my voice had a sob to it, as my eyes burned with moisture.

“Come be with me.” An old voice labored to speak, each word taking its time to follow the previous.

“What do you want with me? What are you?”

“Are you rotting?” The question pulsed through my brain. My hands began to shake, and as they did, my right pinky tapped against a cold metal. During my mad scramble, I had kicked the flashlight through the tent door with me.

In time, the logs began to flicker out. Only the veil of moonlight and smoke remained. That I had never gone hiking at all. That this moment would end, and a new day would begin upon my waking. A three-fingered hand split the pillar of smoke and slammed down upon the embers, extinguishing them. The moments of silent darkness swallowed the world around me. My breath caught, and I listened as delicate steps crossed over the extinguished campfire. The sound of the tent’s nylon scratching in my ears.

The flashlight came on, and it glared against the window’s plastic mesh. Pitted within its swollen, wrinkled skull, two crazed eyes glare at me. Long, shriveled fingers had seized the mesh, ripping it apart. As the pulsing head pushed its way through, the walkie-talkie’s digital chirp rang out, mixing with my screams.

“Jacob. Hey, man, I just wanted to say goodnight. I’ll hike my way to you tomorrow. Sleep tight.”