Chapter 8 – Into the Deep Woods

The forest felt different when you walked into it knowing something was watching.
Dexter led the way down the narrow trail, Bill's leather bag slung over his shoulder, feeling the weight of ancient tools and older knowledge. Behind him came Isabel with her camera, then Martin clutching his folklore book like a talisman, and finally Jesse with his tablet and drone equipment.
None of them spoke. The woods demanded silence.
It was just past noon, the sun high but filtered through the dense canopy into a greenish twilight. Birds sang in the distance, but around them—in their immediate vicinity—everything was quiet. Too quiet.
"Animals know when a predator's near," Martin whispered, breaking the silence. "They go quiet. Stop moving."
"Thanks for that comforting observation," Jesse muttered.
"How far are we going?" Isabel asked, keeping her voice low.
Dexter consulted the map Bill had given him—hand-drawn, annotated with decades of observations. "There's a clearing about a mile in. Bill's father used it as a meeting point. Said the Shadow would come there sometimes, especially if you left the right... offerings."
"Offerings," Isabel repeated. "We're really doing this. We're really trying to communicate with a cryptid using rocks and dried herbs."
"You have a better idea?"
"Several. Most of them involve being literally anywhere else."
Despite the tension, Dexter smiled. "You didn't have to come."
"Yes, I did." Isabel met his eyes. "Someone needs to document this. And someone needs to make sure you don't do anything stupidly brave."
"I don't do stupidly brave things."
"You bought us a week by promising to establish communication with something that makes people lose time and causes psychological breakdowns. That's the definition of stupidly brave."
Before Dexter could respond, Jesse stopped abruptly. "Guys. The drone."
He was staring at his tablet, frowning. The drone hovered about thirty feet above them, but according to the GPS tracking, it was showing their position as... wrong. Not just slightly off, but fundamentally incorrect. The map displayed them as being nearly a mile from their actual location.
"That's not possible," Jesse said, tapping the screen. "GPS doesn't just fail like this. Not without interference."
"Electromagnetic interference?" Martin suggested. "Some animals can generate electromagnetic fields. Electric eels, sharks..."
"This isn't an eel," Isabel pointed out.
"But maybe the Shadow has similar capabilities. Some kind of biological electromagnetic pulse that disrupts technology." Martin was getting excited despite his fear. "That would explain why cameras often malfunction around cryptids. Why so much footage is corrupted or unclear."
"It would also explain the time loss," Dexter added quietly. "If it can affect electromagnetic fields, it might be able to affect neural activity. Our brains run on electrical impulses."
They all absorbed that disturbing thought.
"Should we turn back?" Jesse asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer.
"No," Dexter said. "But everyone stay close. If the technology's unreliable, we stay together. No one wanders off for any reason."
They continued deeper into the woods.
The trail narrowed, becoming less defined. This was old forest—trees that had stood for centuries, their trunks thick and gnarled. Undergrowth grew dense here, and the light took on an increasingly aquatic quality, as if they were descending into green water.
Dexter checked Bill's map again. They should be close.
A sound made them all freeze.
Humming. Low and resonant, coming from somewhere ahead. The same sound they'd heard days ago, but closer now. Clearer.
It wasn't random. There was pattern to it—rising and falling in rhythmic waves. Almost like... singing?
"Is that it?" Martin breathed.
"I don't know what else it would be," Dexter said.
They moved forward slowly, following the sound. The trail opened into a clearing—the one from Bill's map. It was perhaps forty feet across, ringed by ancient oaks. And in the center, arranged in careful patterns, were stones.
Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe. All placed deliberately, creating concentric circles that spiraled inward to a central point. And scattered among the stones were other objects: bones bleached white by sun and time, feathers, pieces of glass and metal, even what looked like old coins.
"It's beautiful," Isabel whispered, her camera already clicking.
It was beautiful. And deeply unsettling.
The humming stopped.
The forest went silent—that profound, absolute silence that meant every living thing was holding its breath.
"It knows we're here," Martin said quietly.
Dexter unslung Bill's bag and knelt at the edge of the clearing. His hands shook slightly as he pulled out the carved stones, the bundles of herbs, the obsidian mirror.
"What are you doing?" Jesse asked.
"Following the protocol." Dexter arranged the stones in a pattern he'd memorized from Bill's father's journal—a circle with three radiating lines. The choosing mark. Then he placed the herbs at the cardinal points and set the mirror in the center.
"This is how you signal peaceful intent. How you show you understand the language, even if you can't speak it fluently."
"And if it doesn't understand?" Isabel asked.
"Then we find out very quickly what happens to people who misuse its symbols."
Dexter stood and backed away from his arrangement. Following Bill's instructions, he moved to the edge of the clearing, knelt down, and placed his palm flat against the earth.
"Everyone do the same," he said. "Palm down. Don't look at the trees. Don't make eye contact if it appears. And whatever happens—don't run."
They all knelt, hands pressed to the ground, staring at the dirt and leaf litter.
And they waited.
Seconds stretched into minutes. Dexter's knees began to ache. A mosquito buzzed near his ear but he didn't move to swat it. Sweat trickled down his back despite the cool shade.
Then—movement.
It came from multiple directions at once. Shadows shifting at the edge of the clearing. Not one shape. Several.
Three, Dexter counted from his peripheral vision. All massive. All moving with that impossible silence.
His heart hammered against his ribs. Every instinct screamed at him to look up, to see what was approaching. But he kept his eyes down, palm pressed to earth, trying to project calm he absolutely did not feel.
One of the shadows entered the clearing.
Dexter could see it now—or at least, parts of it. Four legs, each ending in claws that left deep impressions in the soft earth. Fur so dark it seemed to absorb light. It moved around their group in a slow circle, and Dexter could hear it breathing—deep, resonant breaths that seemed to vibrate through the ground.
It approached his arrangement of stones.
There was a long moment where nothing happened. Then—deliberate as a chess move—one of the Shadow's massive paws reached out and adjusted a stone. Moving it perhaps three inches to the left.
It was responding.
Communicating.
Dexter's breath caught in his throat.
The Shadow moved another stone. Then another. Rearranging the pattern into something new. When it finished, it stepped back.
Dexter risked a glance up—just briefly, just enough to see what it had created.
The stones now formed a different symbol. Not one from Bill's journal. Something new. A circle, but with four radiating lines instead of three. And in the spaces between the lines, smaller stones arranged in clusters.
"What does it mean?" Martin whispered, barely audible.
Before anyone could answer, one of the other Shadows—smaller than the first, possibly younger—entered the clearing. It approached Martin, who went rigid with fear.
The creature lowered its massive head, sniffing at Martin's outstretched hand. Martin made a small sound that might have been terror or awe or both.
Then, impossibly, the Shadow's tongue—long and surprisingly delicate—touched Martin's palm.
Like a dog greeting a familiar person.
"Oh my God," Martin breathed. "Oh my God, it's—"
The creature pulled back and made a sound—not the howl they'd heard before, but something softer. Almost... playful?
The third Shadow approached Isabel. This one was the largest, clearly the alpha of the group. It circled her once, slowly, examining her from every angle. Isabel kept perfectly still, though Dexter could see her hands trembling.
The Shadow stopped in front of her and did something that would haunt Dexter's dreams for entirely different reasons than the previous encounters.
It lay down.
Just... settled onto the ground, massive body relaxing, and looked at Isabel with those too-intelligent eyes.
Submissive posture. Trust.
"Dexter," Isabel's voice was barely a whisper. "What do I do?"
"Don't move yet. Let it—"
The Shadow extended one enormous paw toward Isabel. Not threatening. Offering.
Like a handshake.
Moving slowly, hand shaking, Isabel reached out and touched the extended paw.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then Isabel gasped.
"I can feel it," she said, wonder and fear mixing in her voice. "It's... warm. The fur is so soft. And I can feel its heartbeat. It's so strong. Like thunder."
The Shadow—the massive, terrifying creature that had sent grown men running in fear—was letting Isabel pet it like an enormous dog.
Dexter's scientific mind was reeling. This wasn't predator behavior. This wasn't even typical animal behavior. This was something else entirely.
The first Shadow—the one that had rearranged the stones—approached Dexter. He kept his hand on the ground but allowed himself to look up, to meet those eyes that had haunted his thoughts since childhood.
Up close, he could see details he'd missed before. The eyes weren't just yellow-green. They had depth, complexity—rings of color like a human iris. And in their depths, he saw...
Recognition.
The Shadow knew him. Not just as another human, but as *him*. Specifically. Individually.
The creature lowered its head until its massive snout was inches from Dexter's face. Its breath was hot and smelled like forest earth and something else—something wild and ancient that had no name.
Then it did something Dexter would never be able to adequately explain.
It showed him.
Not with words. Not with images, exactly. But somehow, through contact or proximity or some sense humans didn't possess, the Shadow shared information.
Dexter saw—felt—understood:
The forest, vast and interconnected. Every tree, every animal, every insect part of a massive network. And the Shadows, three of them, as guardians. Watchers. Maintaining balance. They'd been here for generations—not just years but *generations*—longer than the town, longer than human memory.
They weren't monsters. They were caretakers.
And they were dying.
Not physically—not yet. But their territory was shrinking. The gas drilling, the development, the slow encroachment of humanity was cutting them off from the deep forest they needed. From the places where they denned, where they hunted, where they *belonged*.
They'd come closer to town not to threaten, but to warn. To show themselves. To make humans understand: *we are here. We have always been here. And if you destroy this forest, you destroy us.*
The connection broke.
Dexter gasped, stumbling backward. The Shadow stepped away, regarding him with what he could only interpret as sadness.
"Did you see that?" he asked the others. "Did you feel—"
"The forest," Isabel said, her hand still resting on the alpha's paw. "I saw the forest. All of it. Connected."
"I felt it too," Martin added, tears streaming down his face. "It's beautiful. It's so beautiful and we're destroying it."
"They're not dangerous," Jesse said, his usual skepticism completely gone. "They're not the threat. We are."
The Shadows began to withdraw, backing toward the tree line. The alpha paused, looking back at Isabel. It made a soft sound—almost like a purr—and then vanished into the undergrowth.
The younger one touched Martin's hand once more before disappearing.
And the first Shadow—the one that had communicated with Dexter—stopped at the edge of the clearing. It turned back and looked directly at him.
Then it made the harmonic howl they'd heard before. But this time, having experienced the connection, Dexter understood it wasn't a threat.
It was a name.
The Shadow was calling him by name. A name that had no sound, only meaning: *The One Who Sees.*
And then it was gone.
The four of them remained kneeling in the clearing, too stunned to move.
Finally, Martin broke the silence. "We have to stop the drilling. We have to protect them."
"No one will believe us," Jesse said. "We can't prove what just happened. No photos, no video—the electromagnetic interference wiped everything."
He was right. Dexter checked his phone. Dead. Isabel's camera—dead. Jesse's tablet—completely blank.
All evidence of their encounter, gone.
"Then we tell the truth without proof," Isabel said, standing on shaky legs. "We tell people what we experienced. Some will believe us. Some won't. But at least we'll have tried."
"The Trophy Trackers won't listen," Dexter said. "They'll still come. They'll still hunt."
"Then we stop them," Martin said with uncharacteristic firmness. "Whatever it takes."
As they gathered their equipment—all of it mysteriously functional again once they left the clearing—Dexter noticed something.
The stone arrangement the Shadow had created was still there. Four lines instead of three. Clusters of smaller stones between them.
He knelt and studied it, trying to understand.
Then it clicked.
Four lines. Four directions. And between them—clusters. Groups.
It wasn't just a symbol. It was a map.
The Shadow had shown them where the other dens were. Where the rest of the pack lived. Where they needed protection.
"Guys," Dexter said quietly. "I think they just trusted us with their greatest secret."
They all looked at the arrangement.
"We can't let them down," Isabel said.
"We won't," Dexter promised.
As they hiked back toward civilization, Dexter felt the weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders. They'd made contact. They'd communicated. They'd been chosen—all of them—as advocates for something that couldn't speak for itself.
One week. They had one week to find a way to protect the Shadows before the Trophy Trackers came with guns.
One week to save something irreplaceable.
No pressure.
---
They emerged from the woods as the sun was setting, exhausted and transformed. None of them would ever be quite the same after what they'd experienced.
Dr. Marsh was waiting at the parking lot, pacing anxiously. When she saw them, relief flooded her face.
"Thank God. You've been gone for seven hours. I was about to send a search party."
"Seven hours?" Jesse checked his watch. "But we were only... it felt like maybe two hours."
"The forgetting," Dexter said quietly. "It happened again. But this time, it wasn't defensive. It was part of the communication."
Dr. Marsh studied their faces. "You made contact."
"We did," Isabel confirmed.
"And?"
"And everything we thought we knew was wrong," Martin said. "They're not the threat. We are."
Dr. Marsh listened as they explained everything—the clearing, the stone arrangements, the contact, the vision of the interconnected forest. To her credit, she didn't interrupt or dismiss them, even when the story bordered on the impossible.
When they finished, she was quiet for a long moment.
"If what you're saying is true—if these creatures are some kind of keystone species maintaining the forest ecosystem—then the gas drilling would be catastrophic. Not just for them, but for the entire region."
"Can you stop it?" Dexter asked. "Officially, I mean. Through the Conservation Office?"
"Maybe. If I had evidence. But you said all your recordings were wiped?"
"All of them," Jesse confirmed.
"Then we have a problem. Without documentation, without proof, this is just a story. And stories don't stop gas companies from drilling."
"What about the stone arrangement?" Martin suggested. "The map the Shadow created. That's physical evidence."
"Of what? Rocks arranged in a pattern? Any lawyer would argue it's a natural formation or that we created it ourselves." Dr. Marsh shook her head. "We need something concrete. Something that proves beyond doubt that these creatures exist and that they're worth protecting."
"The dens," Dexter said suddenly. "The map shows where they den. If we could document those locations, show they're being used by an unknown species—"
"That could work," Dr. Marsh said slowly. "If I can prove there's an undocumented species using those areas, I can file for an emergency habitat protection order. It would at least delay the drilling while we conduct a proper survey."
"How long would the delay be?"
"Months. Maybe a year if we're lucky. Long enough to build a real case for permanent protection."
It wasn't a perfect solution. But it was something.
"We need to move fast," Isabel said. "Morrison and his people won't wait forever. And once word gets out about what we experienced today—"
"It won't," Dexter interrupted. "Not yet. We tell Dr. Marsh. We tell Bill. But otherwise, this stays between us until we have a plan. Agreed?"
Everyone nodded.
As they dispersed to their vehicles, Isabel pulled Dexter aside.
"Hey. That thing that happened in there. When the Shadow showed you the forest." She paused, choosing words carefully. "Did you see... us? The team? In the vision?"
Dexter had seen it. A brief flash—four humans, standing together at the edge of the woods, neither threatening nor threatened. Part of the ecosystem, if they chose to be.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I saw us."
"What do you think it means?"
"I think it means they're giving us a chance. Trusting us to be something better than what humans usually are."
Isabel smiled—tired but genuine. "No pressure, right?"
"Right."
She started to leave, then turned back. "Dexter? What you did today—leading us in there, taking that risk—that was either the bravest or the stupidest thing I've ever seen."
"You said that this morning."
"I know. I still haven't decided which it was." She paused. "But I'm glad you did it. I'm glad I was there."
"Me too."
After she drove away, Dexter stood alone in the darkening parking lot, looking at the forest that had become so much more than a place to search for cryptids.
It was a home. For creatures that had trusted him. That had called him by name.
*The One Who Sees.*
He wouldn't let them down.
Whatever it took.