by Tobias Wade
We ran as fast as we could.
The chittering grew louder, into a shrill scream. Don’t turn around, I thought, an intense itch flaring up my legs. Just focus on running. Focus. Focus—
Eeeeeeeee!
I turned around.
The insects—or whatever they were—had coalesced into a dark shape. Wriggling, writhing, twisting in the gray shadows of the forest. A shape with wobbly legs. A throbbing chest. A lumpy head.
A human shape.
Around us, the trees paled, as more of the things spilled out into the trail. “Just keep running,” I huffed. Just. Keep. Running. But the image of them crawling up my legs, under my shorts, and all over my body, didn’t budge.
“Are we almost there?” I shouted.
“I—I don’t know!”
The trail was now a shifting, rippling mess of black. And the shape… it was growing larger by the second.
But then I remembered.
“Wait, Jake! The bugspray!”
I reached into my backpack, pulled out the aerosol can—
And aimed at the ground.
Pzzzzzzssshhh!
Shrill squeals in response. The black sea parted, and we ran for our lives.
It felt like hours had passed when we were finally out of the woods, huffing and puffing in the dying sunlight. “What were those things?” I said, collapsing against the hood of the car. “Beetles? Or…”
Jake shook his head. “Let’s just get out of here.”
We dove into the car. I thrust the keys into ignition.
And through the windshield, in the shadows of the forest, I could just make out the figure. As we pulled out, it turned its head—watching us.
I mean, it didn’t really look like a person.
But pareidolia is a powerful thing.
The Forest: A Video Game
“Can we play a game?”
“Which one? Minecraft, or—”
“The one we got at the garage sale.”
Oh. That game. The one with the badly-drawn trees on the cover, that was hanging out in the FREE bin at the end of the sale.
But a boring game is better than one of Peter’s tantrums, so I popped the CD in.
And waited.
And waited, and waited, and waited.
Finally, the scene loaded—but it wasn’t pretty. We were standing in the middle of what appeared to be a forest. The trees, which were identical clones of each other, had leaves that stuck together in big, stiff clumps. A low-resolution dirt texture was mapped to the ground, and the render distance was terrible—beyond a few steps, it was all just black.
And then the webcam light went on.
Was this some kind of virtual reality game, where it was recording our movements, or something? Either way, I didn’t really want the camera recording us, and—
Suddenly, it blinked off.
I shrugged, and turned to Peter. “Where should we go first?”
“Right! Right!”
I jiggled the mouse, so we were facing right, and pressed W.
We walked through the virtual forest. But as the minutes went by, everything stayed the same. The same weird trees, the same dirt, even the same rocks—two small ones and a big one, flitting by every ten seconds. I was just starting to get bored, when the dirt fell away, and the world beyond was pitch black.
“Whoops! The game broke, buddy.”
“No, it didn’t!” he said, grabbing the laptop from me. He marched the character forward, and as the trees faded back into view, I realized we had just been standing on top of a really big hill.
“Hey, it’s like the woods behind our house. You know, when we go down the hill, and then there’s the stream and the boulder?”
“You mean the butt rock?”
“Peter, don’t call it that. That boulder has been there for hundreds of years; it’s a relic that reminds us of how time is fleeting, and—”
“But it looks like a butt.”
I groaned, and took the computer back.
I could only see a few steps ahead of me as I stumbled down the hill. But slowly, the trees started to thin a bit, and the ground began to level out.
And then I saw it.
A stream, snaking across my path.
And behind it—
The vague outline of something large and round.
I mashed down on the W key. The scene bounced as my character jogged toward. Peter was squealing with delight, but I wasn’t listening. Because I knew.
I stopped, and there it was: a large boulder, with a huge crack running down the middle.
The butt rock.
My heart started to pound. The mouse slipped under my fingertips.
“How’d it do that? So cool!” Peter said, grinning from ear to ear.
I circled around it, just to be sure. But it was identical to the boulder in our backyard, down to the very last pixelated lichen. I walked around it again, and again, until I was dizzy. It must be coincidence, right? There was no way—
“What’s that?” Peter asked.
“What’s what?” I said, trying to hide the quaver in my voice.
“That dark thing.”
“That’s the crack in the rock.”
“No, the thing sticking out of the crack.”
He was right; there was something sticking out of the crack, small and dark, near the forest floor. I walked closer to the boulder and panned the camera down.
Stubby things, stained dark red.
It couldn’t be, but they looked just like…
Toes.
Snap. I closed the laptop, and jumped out of my seat.
“No! I want to keep playing!” He clung to my arm. “Please?”
“This game isn’t appropriate—”
He started screaming. “You never let me play anything fun! Never ever ever!” He got up and stomped on the floor. “Let me play!”
“Peter, this isn’t—”
“Let me play!”
I slowly opened the laptop, and held up my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.” I grabbed the mouse, turned the character around, and started in the opposite direction. Back up the hill, back into the ugly, uniform forest.
Except, this time, it wasn’t so uniform.
The trees grew thin. The ground faded from dirt to grass. The rocks grew smaller and smaller.
And the distance wasn’t black anymore.
There was light, golden and bright, shining through the trees.
My heart sank. I pounded the W key, running closer, hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was…
A house came into view. A small colonial, tan with green shutters, with a fire pit on the patio, and a toy truck in the grass… All rendered into pixelated, blocky forms.
I crept towards the window. Slowly, shapes faded into view from behind the virtual glass. A person, seated at a table, next to a smaller figure—a little boy…
“Dad?” Peter’s eyes were no longer on the computer screen.
“Who’s that in the window?”
Bottomless Pit
“Are we there yet?”
My legs burned. My bites itched. Cory had promised an interesting hike, but so far, the most interesting thing I had seen was a woman wearing sunglasses in the shade. Oh, and a squirrel falling out of a tree. So I was about to abandon them—take my chances with the bears and the moose and whatever the hell else was out here—when Cory replied:
“We’re here.”
“Finally,” I groaned. “This better be good, because—”
My breath caught in my throat.
We were standing on the cusp of a huge pit. A thin fence circled it, covered with signs that read DANGER and NO TRESPASSING. Vegetation crept up to the edge and spilled over into the darkness, like some kind of grassy waterfall. And an unfortunate tree grew at the edge, its exposed roots stretching towards the bottom.
If there even was a bottom.
�
�What is it? A sinkhole?”
“Beats me,” he replied, pacing around the fence. “All I know is, locals call it the Pit of Endless Darkness.”
“Oooooh, so spooky,” Kat mocked.
“How deep does it go?” I asked.
“Who knows?” Kat shrugged. “And who cares?”
Cory got out his phone. “If we throw something in, I can time how long it takes to reach the bottom. And then, using kinematics, we can calculate—”
“You’re such a nerd, Cory,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“No, let’s do it,” I said, reaching into my pocket. I pulled out a water bottle, and chucked it. With a soft rush, it fell down into the pit.
Kat leaned against the fence, peering down into the darkness.
But she leaned a little too far.
Snap!
The fence gave way.
Kate tumbled forward—arms outstretched, face frozen in surprise.
And then she screamed.
And screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
Cory and I lunged forward. But it was too late—her scream was echoing up the pit, fading with every second.
And then silence.
No smack, no clunk, no thud. Just the chittering of the birds above, and the rush of the soft breeze.
“Kat!” I yelled, trembling.
“No,” Cory said, his voice cut with sobs. “No, no, no! Kat!”
I stumbled away from the fence and collapsed in the soft grass, sobbing. I pulled out my phone, started to dial 911; but I knew, deep down, there was no saving her.
But then I heard it.
A noise—
Shrill, high-pitched, reverberating through the trees about a dozen yards away.
Cory and I stared at each other.
And then we ran as fast as we could, the branches snapping beneath our feet. “Kat!” we yelled, as the sound grew louder. “Kat !”
There she was.
Lying on the ground, caked with dirt and dust, facing away from us.
As we approached, she tilted her head up towards the sky. “I’m okay!” she called up, her hands cupped around her mouth. “Cory, Jen, I’m okay! I’m at the bottom!”
“Kat?” Cory asked, stepping towards her carefully.
“Yes! I’m okay!” she yelled, her face still tilted towards the sky. Then she stretched her arms out, groping at the dirt. “Dammit, I can’t see a thing. So dark down here.”
“Kat—”
Wobbling, she pulled herself up.
Then she turned in our direction.
Cory stumbled back.
“No,” I choked out.
Her eyes—
They were completely gone.
The Lights in the Woods
Our trip to Vermont was not going as planned.
Instead of spending the night in a quaint little bed-and-breakfast, like I’d hoped, we were sleeping in the car. On a desolate road in the middle of East Jabib. On one of the coldest nights of the year.
“I just didn’t think—”
“That hotels would be booked solid on the Saturday after Christmas?” I snapped.
“Nicole, come on. This was supposed to be fun.”
No, you idiot. This was supposed to be a last-ditch attempt to save our marriage.
“Look, we’ll sleep here in the car, and in the morning we’ll get one of those mushroom omelets you like at the diner in town.” He leaned the seat back, hitting me squarely in the elbow. “Goodnight, Nicole. I love you.”
I mumbled a response. Then I lay across the backseat, pulled the covers over me, and stared out the window.
If I wasn’t so mad at him, I might’ve enjoyed it. We were parked on a narrow road, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest and the stars. In the distance, five amber lights glowed, all in a line—probably streetlights from the town.
No, wait—
There weren’t five.
There were six.
Huh, that’s odd. I could’ve sworn there were only five.
I shrugged, lay my head on the armrest, and closed my eyes.
***
I jolted awake.
The crick in my neck ached. The car was freezing cold. All was quiet, save for the sporadic hoots of an owl and Brandon’s snores.
Oh, sure, he was sleeping peacefully.
I glanced out the window. It was totally dark outside; the amber lights had been turned off. That’s weird. Usually streetlights stay on—don’t they? I thought. Or maybe sometimes they go off… oh, I don’t know. I reached for my water bottle, in the cup holder up front.
Huh?
Through the windshield, there they were—the seven amber lights, shining even more brightly than before.
I glanced back to my window. Pitch black. To the windshield. Lights on. Back and forth, over and over, but it was clear. The lights were on.
But then—
Why couldn’t I see them through my window?
I leaned in close. No—there was some light coming in, through the top and upper corners of the window. But the middle was still black—a dark silhouette, that looked kind of like…
A person?
No, there was no way.
But then I blinked—
And it moved.
I jumped back. “Brandon!”
He snorted, and mumbled “what?”
“There’s someone out there!”
“Probably just a raccoon…”
“No, Brandon, this is serious! Turn on the car!”
“Okay, okay, easy!” I heard the click of the keys, the rumble of the engine. The headlights blinked on, flashing the forest with white light. I pointed to the window. “Brandon, look, someone is—”
“I don’t see anything.”
I turned to the window, ready to shout him down—
Nobody was there.
I began to laugh—a nervous laugh of relief. “Oh, I can’t believe that. I actually thought someone was standing at the window, staring in. I must have been dreaming! Oh, what a…”
The car lurched forward.
“Uh, Brandon? What are you doing?”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, his voice shaking.
“What are you talking about?”
“Look at the window, Nicole!” he yelled.
There, in the middle of the window, was a patch of fog.
Not on the rest of the glass. Just in one, small, circular area.
Almost as if—
Someone had fogged it up with their breath.
“No, no, no…” Shaking, I climbed into the passenger seat.
We shot down the dark road. The shadows rolled across the trees, across the deep footprints in the snow. And the amber lights seemed brighter, closer—were we driving towards them? There were more of them, too… at least a dozen.
“Don’t worry,” Brandon said. “Whoever’s out there—I’ll protect you.”
The anger bubbled up. And suddenly, the reason I couldn’t stand him anymore—the reason our marriage was failing, that I had buried deep inside myself—shot out. “You’ll protect me? Like you protected me on 4th Avenue?”
“Are you still mad about that?”
“Of course I’m still mad about it. You ran, Brandon. There was a gun against my ribs—I thought I was going to die—and you. Ran. Away.”
“I was getting help.”
“And what if he shot me, huh? You would’ve just let me bleed out on the sidewalk, alone?” There were at least twenty of the lights now—some so bright, they looked as if they’d cross the forest’s threshold any second.
But if they were streetlamps…
How come I didn’t see any roads?
“But he didn’t shoot. And he wasn’t going to.” Brandon took a deep breath in through his nostrils. “You know, it was your fault for wearing one of those expensive Kate-whatever purses! That’s the whole reason he targete
d us!”
“Really, Brandon? You’re going to blame me for being mugged?! You were a coward, and you know it!”
“I wasn’t a coward, I was just being logical—”
The car screeched to a stop.
A branch lay straight across the road. Or—it was more like a small tree, that someone had ripped straight out of the ground.
My heart stopped. “They blocked us in?!”
Brandon jerked the steering wheel, and started to turn the car around—
No.
Two people had come out of the forest, and were standing behind the car. Each one was holding a pole, and at the top there was something orange, light, flickering—
“Are those… jack o’lanterns?” Brandon said.
To call them jack o’lanterns was an understatement. Atop the poles were fleshy orange things, carved with faces, but they were far scarier than any jack o’lanterns I had ever seen. One had the face of a man, contorted in pain, mouth wide open in a scream. The other was even worse: a grinning woman, with pointed teeth and flickering yellow eyes.
They weren’t streetlamps at all.
The two figures marched forward, towards the car. As I glanced at the forest, I saw more of the amber lights coming towards us, shining through the tangled trees. Several… dozens… no, many more than that. Some far away, just orange dots among the murky shadows; others right upon us, floating over the asphalt. And some dark figures, slithering through the underbrush, not holding a lantern of any sort.
“Just drive over it!”
“No. We’ll get a flat. Then we’ll really be stuck.” He unclicked his seatbelt. “I’m going out there.”
“Are you insane?!” I screamed. The low hum of a chant came through the windows, muffled and low. “There are dozens—maybe hundreds—”
“I got to prove to you I’m not a coward, though,” he said, with a sad smile.
“Brandon, no—”
Slam.
He stepped out into the darkness. As soon as he did, the figures froze. They seemed to stare at him, heads tilting towards him, though I couldn’t make out their faces in the dim light.
He grabbed the base of the branch, and tugged on it with all his might. It slid towards him, opening up a small spot of road.
That’s when something like a shiver rippled through the crowd. And then, all at once, they started racing towards him.
