Afflicted

by Susanne Valenti

  The light of my makeshift torch illuminated my path but blinded me to the depths of the shadows beyond it. I glanced around uneasily and flicked it off, worrying that it would serve as a beacon for anything else that roamed between the trees.

  I stood still as my eyes adjusted back to the darkness again and heard my friends approaching behind me.

  “I don't know how long I can keep walking,” Demi said loudly just before they caught up to me. “I'm still feeling unwell-“

  “You'll feel a lot worse if something hears you complaining and comes to eat you,” Rose replied before anyone else could say anything.

  “And we’ll all move slower if someone has to carry you,” Shilo added.

  Demi scowled at them but didn't reply. Lacey moved a little faster than the others to reach my side and we led the way down the path.

  “Have you seen or heard anything?” she whispered.

  “Just an owl,” I reassured her. “And I don't think it sounded angry.”

  “I hope not.” She took my hand and squeezed it tightly before releasing me again.

  We headed on, deeper and deeper into the thick trees. We didn't jog anymore but kept up as quick of a walking pace as we could manage.

  As the night grew darker, the temperature kept dropping. I huddled my shoulders low in my thin leather jacket and wished I'd listened to my mom when she'd told me to buy a warmer coat. Tiredness started to wear away at our resolve to keep moving and I stumbled more than once on the uneven trail.

  “We have to stop,” Reese called eventually.

  I turned back to frown at him and he inclined his head slightly towards Jason who looked half dead on his feet. Though I desperately wanted to get back to the safety of our house, I had to admit that a rest would be welcome.

  A huge oak tree forced a bend in the path just ahead of us and we stopped and sat in the patch of barren ground beneath it. I hadn't been hiking through the forest in a long time but from memory I thought we were still pretty far from the river. It would take us hours to get home.

  “This is the last of the food.” Lacey passed out the final paper bag full of cakes from the cafe and we all took something to eat.

  I sat with my back pressed to the huge tree and slowly ate my food. A sapling grew beside my resting place. Its highest leaf kept tickling my ear as a breeze made it sway back and forth.

  “Let’s rest for a few hours and move on. I can handle staying awake if any of you need to sleep,” Spencer offered.

  Lacey finished handing out the food and came to sit beside me, her side resting against mine. I welcomed the small amount of heat I gained from the contact and rested my head on her shoulder.

  “Why don't we build a fire?” Shilo suggested. “Animals will be frightened of it and we could definitely use the heat.”

  There were murmurs of agreement and a few people started gathering firewood. It didn't take long for them to stack it up and Shilo set to work lighting it. I watched in silence, too tired to feel guilty about not helping. It was more than a simple tiredness of the body; I felt like my mind was teetering on an edge. If I pushed too hard one way or another it could easily snap.

  A small spark became a flame which quickly built into a blaze. It was clear that Shilo knew what he was doing and I wriggled my feet as the heat started to warm my toes through my sneakers. Several of the others lay down around the fire but I preferred my spot against the tree.

  My back was sheltered from anything that could come up behind us while the fire protected me from the front. And sitting up left me able to keep an eye on the shadows between the surrounding trees just in case. As the fire grew and its warmth washed over me, the chill started to ease from my bones. I began to relax and even feel a little safe.

  I was sure I wouldn't be able to sleep but the dancing patterns in the flames were making my head spin. I closed my eyes to block it out, orange swirls staying imprinted beneath my eyelids until they slowly faded away.

  I listened to the crackle of the fire and the steady rise and fall of Lacey's breath and began to wonder if I did fall asleep, was there any chance that I might wake up safe in bed. Remembering it all as some twisted nightmare?

  “We should get going,” Reese said loudly somewhere near me.

  I recoiled from his voice, scrunching my eyes shut in a feeble attempt to hold on to my sleep. If I didn't open my eyes then I couldn't be sure that I was still in the forest. Except that I could feel the hard trunk of the oak tree pressing against my back.

  My neck was stiff where my head had hung forward and I rotated it slowly as I opened my eyes. I stretched my arms wide and my bracelet caught on the small sapling which blew back and forth above my head. I untangled myself and frowned at the sapling. I could have sworn it only came up to my ear before I'd gone to sleep.

  “Am I going mad?” Spencer asked from somewhere to my left. “Because I can't find the trail any more.”

  “It’s right in front of you,” I replied as I scrambled to my feet. I held a hand out to help Lacey up too and she smiled gratefully.

  “It's not,” Spencer objected.

  “It is,” I said with a sigh as I moved to point out the trail to him. “It curved right around this tree and carried on-“ I stopped talking as I raised my hand to point out the path. It wasn't where it should have been.

  I glanced left and right, trying to figure out what I'd missed but I couldn't see it anywhere. I retrieved my cellphone from my pocket once more and used it to illuminate the undergrowth. Everywhere I looked, small shrubs grew tall and wild, no sign of a trail between them anywhere. “I don't understand…”

  “The track we followed to get here is gone too!” Chloe shouted from the far side of the fire.

  I flinched at the loudness of her voice but hurried after Spencer to see if she was right.

  We had walked in a straight line which led right up to the oak tree and yet somehow, the path was gone. Reese leant down and pushed a few shrubs aside with a frown.

  “It's still here,” he said slowly. “The plants are just kinda hanging over it.”

  “Like they fell across it?” I asked.

  “More like they… grew.” Reese looked up at us with a frown, clearly understanding how crazy he sounded.

  “We can't have been here for more than three hours,” Jason said. “How could they have grown over the path that quickly?”

  “I'm just saying what I see - no argument from me that it doesn't sound insane,” Reese replied.

  Several of the others started to inspect the ground where the trail should have been and I headed back to the tree to see if the path onwards was still there somewhere.

  I followed the curve of the oak tree to where I felt like I remembered the trail heading and knelt down to push the foliage aside. Sure enough, the leaves of the plants either side of the path had somehow moved to cover it. I could still see the hard packed dirt which had been trampled down over so many years that it was impossible to miss. Across it though, there were a few tiny shoots appearing, starting their journey towards the sun.

  “What the hell is going on?” Spencer muttered. “How are we supposed to follow it now?”

  “Let's just get moving,” Demi said irritably. “If we don't manage to follow that trail then we're gunna end up stuck in these crappy woods until someone saves us.”

  “No one even knows we’re in here,” Shilo replied. “So I don't actually think anyone is going to be sending out a rescue party for us if we get lost.” I shuddered as the truth of his words settled over me. We had to get ourselves out of this.

  “Plants don't grow this fast,” Chloe objected. “There must be some other explanation. Are you sure they haven't just blown across the path in the wind?”

  “It doesn't matter. We just need to get out of here while the path is still there at all,” I said, siding with Demi for once. The mystery of the plants didn't matter at that second; we just needed to get the hell out of the forest.

  I illuminated my cellphone
again and shone it onto the ground where the path should have been. I could just about make out the faint trail where none of the bigger plants grew directly up. Stepping into the overgrown fauna I just hoped that I was right. Either way we needed to move and no one else seemed willing to chose a route. If it all went to hell, on my head be it.

  Hours ticked by steadily and our progress was laboriously slow. It was getting harder and harder to see where the path lay hidden beneath the shrubs. It seemed like the plants were growing larger right before our eyes. I didn't want to believe it was true but the further we went, the higher the trees seemed to tower above us.

  “It’s impossible,” Tara muttered behind me for the hundredth time. I was beginning to wonder if she'd suffered some kind of mental break. As far as I knew, no one had gotten any real sense out of her since Bryony had been killed.

  The air around us seemed to be growing colder the further we travelled. My breath rose in tiny clouds which swirled around me as I stomped through them.

  Creatures moved in the darkness beyond my cellphone light too. Some scurried and scampered by whilst others stared as we passed them. Their eyes illuminated as pinpricks of light in the shadows. I didn't dare raise my light to see them clearer. I only hoped that if we carried on by they'd let us be on our way. So far it appeared to be working.

  Jason and Demi seemed to have recovered after our rest at the oak tree. I was glad that they could keep up the pace; the idea of lingering within the trees for any longer than we had to didn't appeal to me.

  A strong wind kicked up around us, sending the plants swaying ferociously around our ankles. I paused, unable to make out the path anymore as the shrubs continued to shudder. The noise they made sounded too harsh. Almost like the clattering of a wooden wind chime that had been caught in a storm.

  As the wind gusted again, something caught the side of my knee and I flinched as pain lanced up my leg.

  I twisted my cellphone, aiming the light from it at my knee and finding a small tear in the leg of my pants. A thin line of blood oozed from a wound like a long paper cut beneath the material.

  “Ow!” Lacey gasped from somewhere behind me.

  “What was that?” Jason asked angrily.

  I turned and raised my cellphone above my head to look back at my friends. We were in a large clearing thick with shrubs which reached up over our ankles towards our knees. The starry sky peeked down at us from above, watching us with sparkling disdain.

  As the wind howled again, the shrubs rustled angrily and my light illuminated several brown shapes as they sped past us. Before I could see what they were, they disappeared between the leaves at our feet but it seemed like they'd jumped.

  “Something just bit me!” Demi screeched, pointing at her thigh where a small tear was cut into her pants matching mine.

  “What the-“ Spencer began but the wind kicked up again and more of the walnut-sized shapes zipped through the air, colliding with us. Jason and Chloe both flinched and inspected slices to their own clothes and skin.

  As the brown things appeared again, Spencer lunged forward, almost tripping over Reese as he had the same idea.

  “I've got it!” Reese exclaimed as he raised his cupped hands into the air triumphantly.

  “Let's see what it is,” I said as I hurried forward with the light.

  Everyone huddled around as Reese slowly let a gap form between his fingers.

  Sitting in the palm of his hand was a fat brown cricket. It's beady eyes glared up at us as its antenna twitched.

  “Look at its legs.” Jason pointed and I raised my eyebrows as I spotted what he'd seen.

  Along the insect’s powerful back legs were sharp, pointed spines that protruded outwards. As we all leant closer for a better look, the insect thrust out one if its spine-covered legs, striking Reese in the flesh of his palm. He swore and slapped his hands together violently, making a loud clapping sound.

  “Gross,” he swore as he flicked the squashed insect out of his hands and quickly wiped his palms on his pants.

  The clacking sound grew louder, seeming almost angry.

  I glanced around at the bushes nervously. It sounded like there were thousands of the spiky crickets hiding all around us. I just hoped they didn't mind Reese killing their friend.

  The clacking got louder still and the wind gusted through the clearing once more.

  All of a sudden the air was alive with the tiny creatures, flinging themselves in every direction.

  Tara let out a blood curdling scream and ran headlong into the trees.

  “Tara!” Chloe yelled as she sprinted after her.

  “Wait!” I shouted. “We’ll lose the trail!”

  But the crickets clacked louder still and the rest of my friends turned and ran too. Some followed Tara and Chloe while others ran the other way.

  I wrapped my arms over my head as I took off into the trees as well. The stinging cuts of the crickets kept finding my skin and I ran faster.

  I thought I could hear someone stampeding through the trees just ahead of me but I couldn't be sure.

  The insects swarmed around me, clacking angrily as their spines cut into my skin. I couldn't hold it back any more and I screamed. They were everywhere. I was running blind, surrounded by tiny legs and twitching antenna which battered my skin and caught in my hair.

  I almost dropped my cellphone as I sprinted away wildly, hoping to find safety somewhere among the trees ahead. I stumbled on a hidden tree root and fell crashing to the ground, tumbling over the lip of a bank and sliding down quickly.

  Before I could panic, I came skidding to a halt surrounded by dead leaves and darkness.

  The crickets were gone but so was my cellphone and my source of light. I lay panting in the darkness, hoping to hear one of my friends moving near by.

  At first there was nothing, just the sound of the wind moving through the trees. And then I heard someone calling my name.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Kaitlyn

  I scrambled upright and gazed up the short hill I'd fallen down. It was steep but the top of it wasn't too far away and I could make out a faint glow beyond the crest which I hoped was my cellphone.

  I rolled my shoulders to loosen the stiffness that had gathered in them during my fall and started to clamber up the hill. I was forced to use my hands to claw at the mud but after several slips and a very near fall, I managed to make it back up.

  My cellphone was illuminating the inside of a briar patch. The thick thorns created a tangled cage to encase it and I could see no way to retrieve it without tearing my skin. I looked around until I found a thick branch and used it to knock my phone free.

  It took several minutes, the thorns greedily clutching hold of their prize, but eventually I forced it out.

  I stood and lifted my cellphone high, shining the light between the trees that surrounded me. As I squinted into the shadows, the phone vibrated then died. The light vanished and I was plunged into darkness.

  “No,” I gasped, rapping the phone against my palm in a desperate plea for it to come back to life. Nothing happened.

  My stomach plummeted, leaving an ache of fear in its place which stretched its way through my limbs.

  I spun around, trying to remember which direction I'd come from. Nothing had registered on my mad dash through the trees and without any light to help me search for signs of my passage, I didn't know where to begin.

  I craned my neck back, hoping to spot the stars beyond the treetops but above me all was dark. I couldn't even tell if it was clouds or just the thick treetops which blocked my view. I’d never thought of myself as being afraid of the dark as a rule. But standing alone in the pitch black in the middle of the forest was about the most terrifying place I'd ever found myself.

  I think I would have been scared before the wolves and the cougar and everything else that had happened that day. But in the wake of it I could hardly bring myself to breathe. I didn't know if I should start calling out for my friends or preserv
e the relative safety offered by my silence.

  As I remained frozen to the spot, I thought I caught the sound of someone calling my name on the wind again.

  I didn't know if my mind was playing tricks on me, giving me what I wished was true.

  A closer sound pulled my attention back to my surroundings. A twig snapped somewhere behind me. Then another.

  I stilled, training my ears on the forest, listening to the soft sounds of something approaching.

  Indecision froze me. I didn't know if I should run or remain still, hoping that whatever approached would pass me by.

  A guttural growl sent a slither of ice shooting through my veins and a gasp escaped my lips as I fled. The pitch darkness enveloped everything, hiding trees and roots from my eyes. I stumbled more than once, my palms hitting the freezing earth before launching myself upright again.

  Twigs and leaves slapped at the skin on my face and brambles tangled against my clothes, resisting my passage through the trees. I didn't slow, ignoring the best efforts of the forest to stop me. I ran on, heart pounding as the cold air whipped at my skin and stung my eyes.

  Between the panting gasps of my breath, I was sure I could detect the sound of padded feet pursuing me.

  I pushed myself on faster, hoping against hope that I might find a way to outrun whatever was coming for me. My heart pounded a desperate rhythm against my ribs and my legs trembled beneath me. Though whether it was from exhaustion or terror I couldn't tell.

  A huge tree loomed ahead of me from the darkness and I clambered up the bank to its base. I scrambled behind it and pressed my back to the ancient trunk, willing my thrumming heart to slow so that I might hear the sounds of the creature approaching.

  I waited, a few seconds or half a lifetime, I couldn't be sure. But then the low growl sounded again beyond my hiding place. My heart froze in my chest as I my fist closed on the hilt of the steak knife which still occupied my pocked. I slid the blade free, praying I wouldn't have to use it.

  The growling finally came again but it was further away. I still didn't move, afraid that the slightest sound would draw the beast back to me.