21. Friday, November 3, 2023 #5
He stayed out on the back deck for a few minutes, hoping it was his mom he’d see next coming out of the trees, but there was only darkness. Back inside he found his dad, nana, and sister laughing about something. They all turned when he came back into the room.
“Polly tells us that you think there’s something scary in the woods,” his dad said. Quinn gave a half shrug in response. “There’s nothing out there that can hurt you, bud. I promise.”
“Whatever,” Quinn said. Hating the way everyone was looking at him.
“The sooner this family embraces those woods and sees them for the blessing they are, the happier we’ll all be,” his nana suddenly said with so much enthusiasm it reminded him of a pulpit preacher.
“Seriously, Quinn,” Polly chimed in. “I swear you have nothing to be afraid of.”
“I’m going to my room,” he said.
“But dinner’s ready,” his dad called after him.
“I’m not hungry,” he replied without turning back. When he got to his room he locked the door behind him.
He pulled out his phone to check for his mom’s location again, but it still said unavailable.
He tried calling her, but it went straight to voicemail.
Then he got out his computer and started deep-diving into human possession, demons in the woods, anything he could think of to try to figure out what the hell kept happening to his family members when they went into those woods.
Terrified that his mom would be next, and he’d be the only one left, he was starting to understand why Justine Gordon killed her own family.
He does his best to ignore the talking and laughing coming from the kitchen while his dad, nana, and sister eat dinner together, acting as though his mom wasn’t out there, alone in the dark.
He also tries to ignore the rumbling of his empty stomach and the smell of the food that his dad made.
He’s debating whether to sneak out the front door and go to his friend Jason’s when Panda starts barking at the window.
Quinn jumps up. It could be his mom. He unlocks his bedroom door and goes out to the kitchen with Panda right on his heels.
Nobody asks what he’s doing when he pulls on his shoes and opens the back door.
It’s colder now; he can see his breath. The rain has stopped, but it feels like it could snow at any moment.
“Mom?” he calls out at the edge of the woods. Panda barks in response and he snaps at her to be quiet.
“Quinn?” His mom’s voice reaches him from beyond the trees. “I’m hurt.”
“Where are you?” Quinn calls back.
“Not far from the path, but I’ve twisted my ankle and can’t walk anymore. I need your help.”
Quinn goes to step onto the path and Panda nips at the back of his leg. “Stop,” he says, swatting at her. She growls and bites down again, this time getting the bottom of his pant leg in her mouth.
“Quinn, hurry,” his mom calls out.
He smacks Panda on the nose, but she won’t let go, so he yanks hard to free his leg, hearing the rip of his pants. Before she has a chance to try again, Quinn bolts into the woods, pulling his phone out as he goes for the flashlight.
“Where are you?” he calls.
“Just up here,” she says.
He follows her voice and swings the light of his phone around in all directions. “I can’t see you.” There’s only silence in return. “Mom?”
A loud crack echoes all around him, sounding like a big branch breaking free from a tree.
Then everything goes quiet. Too quiet. There’s no wind, no birds, no dripping of rain onto the forest floor.
He can’t even hear Panda barking anymore.
Turning back the way he came, he sees nothing but trees.
The path has disappeared, and so has the opening that leads to his backyard. How did he get so turned around?
“Mom?”
The sound bounces back to him in an echo followed by thick, heavy silence.
“No, no, no,” he whimpers, tears in his eyes.
A solid, dreadful knowing that he’s made a big mistake fills his body.
He should never have come into the woods.
That was not his mom calling out to him.
He turns in frantic circles, looking for anything familiar, anything to help him find his way out.
He pulls his phone out, even though he already knows what he’s going to find—a black screen, no power, no way to get help.
Movement out of the corner of his eye causes him to look up.
Only a few feet away, a tall, shadowy figure grows right out of the bark of a thick-trunked tree.
Right beside it, another figure is revealed from the bark.
Quinn slowly backs away, afraid to take his eyes off the figures, afraid not to.
His heel connects with a tree root, and he stumbles back, falling into a pile of wet leaves.
When he looks up, the figures are only inches away from him.
He curls into a small ball on the forest floor, so that all he can feel is the chilled damp of the ground and all he can smell is wet earth and rotting leaves.
He calls for his mom between choked sobs until a bony hand on the back of his neck silences him.
The touch is ice-cold and yet it brings a calm over him that he’s never experienced before.
He hears a hissing whisper, not unlike the wind, and the world goes black.
Alice
Alice lay curled in the fetal position on the forest floor, her arms over her head, the damp of the ground soaking through her clothing to numb her skin.
Only after several minutes of no voices booming through her head or movement around her did she feel safe enough to uncurl.
Pushing herself off the ground, she sat on the log for a while longer, waiting for the trembling in her limbs, the thudding of her heart, and the gasping of her breath to subside.
Now she stumbles along the path as quickly as she can.
Having lost all sense of direction, she no longer knows if she’s heading toward home or away.
She doesn’t care. She just wants to get out of these woods.
Alice finds the deep quiet unnerving. There are no strange bird calls, no rustling in the brush, no whisper of wind through the trees.
It’s as though that thing that passed through her has scared everything in the woods silent.
She does her best not to think about the ancient, twisted face of it, the smell, the feel of it passing through her.
She stays focused entirely on the path ahead, which seems to widen as she goes.
The sudden ping of her phone is so loud in the quiet, so unexpected, that it stops her dead.
It pings several more times. She quickly pulls it out of her coat pocket.
Her phone is working again. There are several texts from Quinn from hours ago. Has it really been that long? It’s like time changes as soon as you step through those trees. She could have sworn she’d been in here an hour at most.
Can’t see your location. Call me.
Polly home. Come back.
Where R U? Polly is back.
Come home. Something is weird about Polly.