by Rene Folsom
Since we lived in such a small town, the walk home never took me long, my lengthy stride able to close the distance of a few blocks within a matter of minutes. I hardly ever drove anymore. My poor Jeep looked sad and lonely sitting by itself in our cobblestone driveway. Some found it odd I still lived with my father, but in all honesty, the man needed me. Well, we needed each other, especially after Mom passed. So I didn’t care if others thought it was strange.
My brow furrowed in confusion as I passed his empty spot next to mine, worry clearly riddling my insides at the fact he wasn’t home yet. Over the past few years, he had stopped driving after dark, saying the road was so much harder to see in his old age. He was never afraid to admit he was getting older, especially when he often made fun of his rather eccentric and senile blunders.
Eccentric or not, the man would never stay out this late without at least touching base with me.
Unlocking the door, I set my book down on the table with a plop and flinched when my keys clanked on the wood next to it. Checking my phone’s screen again, I willed for there to be a missed call or some sort of message from him.
Nothing.
The time glared at me menacingly, as if it were laughing at my absurdity that I was so worried about someone who’d lived thirty years longer than myself. I wasn’t sure what time the larger bookstores closed, but that didn’t stop me from calling anyway, crossing my fingers someone would be there to answer.
Finally, on the fourth ring, someone answered. “Mount Ivy Bookstore, this is Claire speaking. How may I help you?”
“Hey, Claire, this is Beau Shapiro… Bill Shapiro’s son? My dad picked up a new order from you guys today, and I was just wondering what time he left.”
Silence met me on the other end, and I was beginning to worry our call had dropped. Just before I blurted out several curses, she spoke. “Beau, I don’t remember seeing your dad today. We’re just now closing up, but maybe my manager knows more. Just a sec.”
Claire was usually the one running the front desk. If she didn’t see Pop, then something was seriously wrong. I could hear my own rapid breathing as I listened to some muffled voices, unable to make out what was being said.
“Yeah, Beau. Your dad never came by for his order today. It’s still sitting here behind the counter. You sure he didn’t just get held up at his store?” Her voice seemed distant to me, though she sounded concerned. Everyone there knew my father, and the prospect of him missing didn’t settle well with her either, I could tell.
“Nah, I said goodbye to him just after breakfast. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll get back to you about the order,” I said, hanging up before she could respond. I didn’t need anyone fueling my already active imagination about the possibility that something terrible had happened.
My grip tightened on the hunk of metal still clutched in my hand as I pressed the tip of it to my forehead. Where the hell could he be?
Glancing around the small house, I stared at the empty recliner, the silence of the night causing my skin to crawl with uncertainty. The quiet was eerie, and I knew with every fiber of my being that he was in some sort of trouble. Call it intuition, or senseless paranoia, but the little voice in the back of my head howled with worry.
“Something’s not right,” I muttered, grabbing my keys and heading out of the door toward my Jeep, not even bothering to lock the house before revving the engine and speeding away.
The Search
The night was dark, the moon’s glow reflecting off the fog being the only illumination on the gloomy, winding mountain road as I headed toward the neighboring town. It was an optimal night for someone to get in a damn accident, and my heart couldn’t seem to calm down at the fact my father was out in this mess.
Squinting, I strained to see the darkness beyond the embankments, trying desperately not to miss any abnormalities or skid marks that would tell a story. I contemplated calling the local police, but knew they’d just write off my dad as being the crazy old book man who decided to stay out past his curfew and forgot to call. One of the town deputies was a guy I went to school with, and I knew from experience that he would give zero fucks about my pop. It didn’t help matters that he had a thing for Gabby back when she was following me around like a lost puppy. People tended to hold onto grudges like bad habits.
I made sure to take things slow, each turn a painful reminder that Pop probably wasn’t as careful. After about an hour of creeping around the curves of the mountain, I thought I spotted something and pulled off the shoulder. My headlights could barely cut through the fog, but as I inched closer, I could tell it was a Wagoneer. My heart leapt into my throat at the implication. There weren’t very many of those around these days.
“No. No, no, no!” I stammered, throwing my Jeep into park and swinging the door open without a care for what was around me. Nearly tripping over my own feet, I hopped to the pavement and ran to Pop’s car. His door was wide open, the keys still in the ignition, the engine having given out at some point. It must have run out of gas just sitting there on the side of the road.
My pulse hammered in my ears at the realization that something had happened to him. But what? The car was intact, yet he was nowhere to be found.
Frantically, I whipped my head around, searching the area for any sign of him.
Should I call out? If he’s hurt, will he hear me and respond?
A million and one scenarios played out in my head, all of them ending in a horrified fashion. I couldn’t think like that. I had read way too many horror novels to know that panicking was never a viable solution. Shaking my head, I cleared the bleak thoughts from my subconscious and continued to search for my dad.
Rounding the car to look at all the tires, thinking maybe he stopped because of a flat, I noticed something strange. Scratches—three neat claw marks—littered the hood of his car.
Seeming to loose all sense of self-preservation, I let my guard down and reached out to touch the scratched paint, the rigid feeling beneath my fingertips an odd sensation of both fear and wonder. The harshness of the grooves were hypnotizing to me, the feeling of my soft fingers feathering over their surface making me forget about the dangers that could be lurking in the shadows.
What could’ve caused such a pattern? It was almost as if the scratches were more of a warning than actual viciousness—as if the beast who caused them was cautioning their prey instead of gutting them. It seemed almost… tamed.
A shiver ran up my spine as I remembered that the prey was likely my father.
Glancing toward the forest, I immediately noticed a trampled path, the brush obviously disturbed by someone or something. Then, I noticed something else rather odd. There, at the dense tree line, was Pop’s red baseball hat. It was instantly recognizable. He always wore that hat whenever he drove out of town, a habit he couldn’t seem to break—or rather, didn’t want to break.
My limbs shook as I slowly approached the dense underbrush lining the thicket of trees. What was even more eerie was where the hat was placed. It wasn’t as if he’d dropped it in some sort of struggle, or threw it on the ground in a haste to get away. No. Instead, the hat was hung nice and neat on a tree limb sticking out a few inches from a rather robust tree trunk—as if placed on a coat rack—a vision of normalcy in this otherwise screwed-up scene.
Either he put it there for safekeeping, or it was a sign—a breadcrumb of sorts to let me know he had ventured into the forest.
That was it. Seeing that hat sealed my fate.
I had to go in after him.
Standing on the embankment, I stared into the forest, wondering what could’ve possessed my father to fly off his rocker and go traipsing around in the wilderness by himself. The night was unnervingly quiet—almost too quiet. With the moon casting harsh shadows throughout the thick woods, I thought for sure my dad must’ve lost his marbles to want to go in there unprotected.
A rustle of leaves out in the distance broke the silence and made me jump like a skittish kitten. Immed
iately thinking it could be Pop, I ran to my Jeep and snatched up the bag I kept in the back. I usually stashed a small keychain flashlight in the sack, among other unnecessary items, and I knew the light might come in handy in the dark, dense forest.
Running while rummaging through the bag, I followed the matted leaves—clearly the path my dad also took when he lost his ever-loving mind and decided to go for a random hike. I didn’t make it but a few feet past the tree line before I realized there was no damn flashlight in the sack. Frustrated, I swung the backpack over my shoulder in one swift move and pulled my cell from my pocket.
The small light from my flashlight app did little to alleviate the darkness surrounding me, but it was better than nothing, allowing me just enough illumination to watch where I was placing my clumsy feet.
There were a plethora of bells ringing in my head, warning me not to go into the darkness of the wood. But my father was in there, and he could be in danger. I ignored the cautionary voice screaming at me that this was a mistake and trudged on through the brush like the madman that I was.
The Beast
After it seemed like I had been following his trail for an eternity, things suddenly grew eerily quiet. I think that was what unnerved me the most while making my way through the forest, waving my phone around in front of me like some sort of torch. The only sounds that were distinguishable were those of my feet crushing the fallen leaves beneath my boots.
As a child, before my mother had passed, my family went on a few camping trips out in this very forest. We always managed to go a good distance away from civilization, but not so much that a two-hour walk wouldn’t bring us back onto some sort of trail. During one of those trips, my mother had taught me a few things about the survivalist lifestyle. She always told me about how my grandpa had been a wandering nomad—although my father would always interject by explaining that he was not actually a nomad, but a pot-smoking hippie, and in response, my mother would threaten to take away his book allowance—and as such had passed down his knowledge of surviving out in the wild.
One of the first rules she taught me was to pay attention to your surroundings. Now, when I examined the cluster of trees around me, I heard nothing. Nada. Zilch. Diddly-squat. And, according to what my mother taught me, that could only mean one thing.
Someone or something had scared off the animals of the forest.
No squirrels, no rabbits, no deer, not even any fucking bugs around to indicate some sense of normalcy. They were all scared off by something, and I didn’t intend to meet whatever it was that brought death to the night.
All I wanted was to find my father and get the hell out of dodge.
Continuing to push my way through the thicket, I squinted beyond the single beam of light provided by my phone. It was hard to really see anything, as the screen did a really poor job illuminating the way, but at least it allowed me to see where I was going, even if it was only a few feet in front of me. Without my phone, I’d probably be blind as a bat walking around out here.
I cursed when a stick broke under my shoe, nearly scaring me out of my clothes. After taking a moment to calm my erratic heartbeat, I lightened my dark thoughts by thinking about how most of the girls in town would be delighted to see me scared out of my clothing. An involuntary chuckle erupted from me at the thought, my laughter echoing through the darkness.
I was ready to begin pushing through the forest once again when I heard it. A faraway rustling, as if something large was rolling around in the bushes. I hesitated, listening as it grew louder, closer. My heart drummed in my ears, nearly drowning out the noise with its intensity.
Run, you moron! my brain shouted at me, but I couldn’t get my body to listen. Morbid curiosity held me captive, paralyzing me on the spot as I stared into the darkness, listening to the rustling as it grew louder.
As the crescendo of noise came within a few feet of me, the leaves in my immediate field of vision began to shimmer, and I finally got some sense of myself, bolting in the opposite direction.
Gripping the phone in my hand so tightly my knuckles turned white, I sprinted through the forest brush. Briars cut into my skin, the sharp points of protruding sticks clawing at my clothes as I booked it away from whatever it was that was chasing me. I could hear it closing in, gaining speed when it seemed to latch onto my trail. Pumping my legs, I pushed through the fire rising in my muscles and ran on.
“Shit, shit, shit!” were the only words I was able to mutter. Squinting through the darkness, I tried to navigate my way through the dense bodies of trees. I nearly slammed face-first into pillars of bark several times as I ran. Holding my phone out in front of me, I tried to illuminate the way, but unfortunately, I couldn’t hold it still enough for it to be of any use.
On a whim, I turned, attempting to catch a glimpse of what was chasing me. It was a foolish move, I knew, but my curiosity was too great. In that moment—the few seconds I just so happened to not be looking where I was going—my foot caught on a root sticking out of the ground and I went tumbling forward, planting my face into the damp dirt beneath me.
Landing hard, the air was knocked from my chest in a whoosh, my arms shooting out on instinct to stop my chin from slamming to the ground. Thank Christ, my reflexes were quick. Otherwise, I might’ve lost a few teeth, or—God forbid—bitten my tongue. As it was, I still managed to get a mouthful of soil, but quickly realized that was the least of my worries.
Dazed, I pushed myself off the ground and onto my hands and knees. Shaking my head, I stood and tried to salvage my composure. By the time I regained my senses, the rustling noise was already on top of me.
Spinning around, I felt the rush of adrenaline as danger approached—my need to fight or flight consuming me like a disease. In that moment, I decided that I wouldn’t go down like a coward. I’d fight for my life, even if it were futile. I wouldn’t go down like one of those characters that were killed at the beginning of a horror novel.
Balling my fists and raising them up to ground myself, I wasn’t prepared for what came crashing through the forest toward me.
It was my father.
He exploded through the thicket, his eyes wide with fright as sweat beaded on his wrinkly forehead. I was so shocked by his sudden appearance that I couldn’t move out of the way in time before he slammed into me, knocking us both to the ground.
“Dad!” I yelled as we fought to untangle ourselves. Thrashing about like a fish out of water, he was panicked beyond anything I had ever seen before. We finally managed to unravel from each other, my old man being uncharacteristically quicker than me to stand on his feet.
“Beau! What on earth are doing out here?” His breaths came out in quick, short bursts, on the verge of hyperventilation. Tinged with unadulterated fear, his voice shook as he spoke, his graying hair frazzled and his eyes wild. He cupped my cheeks as he spoke. The wedding ring that he refused to remove, even though my mother had passed years ago, dug into the side of my chin almost painfully.
“I came looking for you,” I said, forcing my voice to come out evenly and failing with style. I didn’t want to show how much he had scared me. I felt silly, having run from some fantasy monster that was only my father. What was I, a child?
“You shouldn’t have come out here!” he whispered harshly, turning and scanning the trees behind him.
I gave a confused frown. “Why not? You weren’t answering your phone, and I found your car on the side of the road,” I explained, fumbling with my words as I crooked my thumb in the direction I came from.
“I had to leave it,” Pop said. “It was going to get me.”
“It?” I furrowed my brow. “What are you talking—?”
“No time to explain!” he interrupted me with a sudden urgency, spinning back around to face me. “We have to move, now!”
Before I could protest, he took me by the hand and pulled me along as he sprinted away from whatever it was he was so afraid of, the sudden speed catching me off guard.
I couldn
’t get a single word out as we hauled ass through the forest, my dad obviously having straight up lost his mind. He jerked me along by the arm, dodging around the trees and jumping over fallen branches with surprisingly nimble movements. My father was unexpectedly spry for a man his age.
I tried a few times to pull us to a stop, wanting to demand some sort of explanation, but he refused to slow, tugging me along harder. It didn’t take me long to resign to fate and just continue following him through the woods.
We ran at least a mile before exhaustion started to kick in. My father was hit with it hard, his round body keeling over to vomit all over a bundle of leaves. I nearly joined him on the ground, but thankfully, I was quite a bit more in shape than I originally thought I was. Leaning against a tree for support, I tried to slow my pants, listening to the surrounding forest for any sign of this imaginary it.
“What the…?” I coughed, fighting to force out the words. “What the hell is going on?”
“Something…” Pop heaved, wiping his mouth before rolling onto his back, a good foot away from the sick-covered leaves. “Something was… chasing me…”
“Something?” Incredulousness stained my tone. “What are you talking about?”
“I nearly ran it over,” he explained, catching his second wind, but still not sitting up. “It just… jumped in front of me. I got out of my car to see what it was and… it lashed out at me. Scratched the hood of my car with its… claws… and snarled at me. I ran as fast as I could to get away, but it kept on my tail… I couldn’t escape it…”
“But what was it?” I asked, my breath finally under control. That was more than I could say for my heart as it continued to hammer away in my ribcage. “What was chasing you?”
“It was…” He paused, searching for the right word to use. “…a beast.”
I frowned, ready to press further, thinking maybe he saw a bear or something common, when a sudden noise caught my attention. Straining my ears to listen, I glanced around to try and pinpoint where the noise was coming from.
