Journal entry: August 30th, 2031. My name is Dr. Gabrielle Antario, and there’s something going on that you all should know about. It all started in January of 2020, with the mysterious appearance of a tree in West Virginia, on the property of a man named Reginald Walker. At the […]
I Found a Tree in my Backyard: The Animate Forests Read More »
Ooo weee, come in, come in! I’m glad you’re here early; it’s shaping up to be a bad one out there. The wind has a bite even I can feel. We might have a blizzard on our hands in a few hours. Make yourself comfortable, I’ve had a fire going
The Settlements Continue Read More »
Below the peaks of the Catskill Mountains you will occasionally find an ancient and gnarled apple tree. Such a tree is a reliable landmark; signaling that an early American farmhouse sits, or once sat, nearby. Sometimes only a single shoot of the old tree remains, yet the ancient life persists
The sands of time are known for their love of stealing away the little things; they sift away memories of childhood best friends and the password to your old computer as they flow steadily towards the bottom of the hourglass of a human life. Soon such small things are buried
3:30 p.m., 1-September: One three-person party entered the Rio Grande National Forest in Hinsdale County, Colorado. They consisted of Trevor Nyson (37 years old) and Matilda Nyson (33 years old), a married couple, and Benny Nyson (8 years old), their only son. 5:31 p.m., 1-September: Trevor and Matilda, highly distraught,
Monster Hunting and Other Inadvisable Behavior Read More »
He turns the steering wheel in different directions, taking different roads when he needs to. He needs to go through the woods to get to his destination. He’s confused, but not about that. What confuses him is why his sister is being so silent as she sits in the backseat.
We were having another lockdown drill when I found out about Holly Reyes. I was in Social Studies, third period, when Principal Weston’s muffled voice spat at us from the ceiling. We all sighed and ducked under the long tables, limbs shoving aside plastic chairs as we army-crawled into tucked
I’m awoken by Rebecca’s sudden lurch upward. The whole bed’s shaking from it. My mind’s jumpstarted awake. Immediately, I’m feeling disorientated. Inactive for many hours, my brain now has to remind me where I am. The information floods in: I’m in my bedroom. In my house. It’s dark. I instinctively
A Loving Ruination Read More »
It was cold. Cold and dark. That’s all I could feel when I stared into the black abyss, that made up its eyes. There was a tingling sensation in my feet, that slowly rose up in my body like panic trapped inside of me. I felt changed. I don’t know
The Stars of Bigface Marsh Read More »
There’s an image that I keep pushed away in the back of my mind. Occasionally, it makes its way out and I can see that horrid face once more. My limbs go numb and I can feel my throat begin to tighten as every grotesque detail can be seen in
I’ve got calluses on my hands from burying my brother. If we’re rescued today, I’ll have to explain that to someone. Some search-and-rescue trooper, some forest ranger, will hold my palm to the light of a chopper window and want to know how I managed to rub the heel of my hand raw. I practice, sometimes. I practice what I’ll say to people when we get back home. Dr. Harmon, the department head, will need to know how I got Geoff and Lillian killed doing what was supposed to be straightforward field research. They were both his students, hand-picked for great things, led astray by the man who wrote his dissertation on the Russian Yeti, who taught a cryptozoology class disguised as a folklore survey. I got bumped off the tenure track for that. Harmon talked over me in meetings. Like I wasn’t there.
The Whistlers: Bill’s Account Read More »
The man on the trail is dead and will need to be moved. It is a more difficult task than I would have guessed, and nearly impossible for a 5’ 4” woman with no help and no gurney. I tried to drag him toward camp right after I found him this morning, but only succeeded in pivoting him and twisting his legs around each other horribly. Bodies look so wrong once they stop feeling pain. I never thought I would have so much experience with death, but I haven’t cried over the loss of someone since the lighthouse. This man shit his pants before he died, and moving him made the smell worse. It will bring the animals in. Still no sign of Ira or Bill.
The Whistlers: Ruth’s Account Read More »
I can’t stand to be back here. This tiny, rural town I grew up in, it makes my skin crawl to see everything around me. I’m well into middle-age now, but it’s like this town has been frozen in time since I was a teenager. And the older I get,
The Wolves of These Frozen Woods Read More »
I never wanted to go on that stupid hike in the first place. Yet there I was, allegedly enjoying nature and getting healthy exercise while hiking from “cabin to cabin” in the Norwegian mountains with the devil spawn otherwise known as my class. Woohoo, right? For a misanthropic misfit like myself, it was a nightmare. Within half an hour of walking on the uneven path over the heather, I was at the back of the group.
My mother always told me to stay away from Jamie Robert Mitchum. Maybe I should have listened to her. I guess I didn’t really understand why at the time. I guess children are more trusting. Sure, he was strange. Anybody could see that. Jamie was the type of kid to
The Unfortunate Life of Jamie Robert Mitchum Read More »
“Dad, you said you’d play catch with me!” I yelled as my father walked past me to his office, where he spent most of his days when he wasn’t at work. “I’m sorry, bud, I’ve gotta get these documents done for tomorrow’s big meeting. We’ll do it another day, okay?”
The Portal in the Woods Read More »
My friend and I have always known not to go into the woods around my house at night. I live in a really, really rural area. Like, the nearest house is about a mile away kind of rural. I love it; I grew up in suburban areas, so living somewhere so far
I’ve never really considered myself to be much of an explorer or even a particularly brave man, however that hasn’t seemed to stop me from getting in the predicament I’m in now. It was around 3 months ago that my girlfriend of 4 years left me for another man, and
There’s Something in the Fields Behind My Apartment Read More »
His voice echoes through my conscience over and over again. I remember his face was a sickly, yellow color. The corners of his mouth were veiled with blood; the sound of the air- pacemaker was just as I’d imagined it would sound. The oropharyngeal airway stuck out from the corner
I’d always been afraid of Scorpion River. Ever since I was eight, I’d gone with my aunt, uncle, and older cousin into the wilderness of southern Arizona where we’d spend two nights in their rickety, blue, camper. We weren’t alone. Around ten other families joined us for that December weekend.
One day in September of 1983 we decided to go on a patrol camping trip so that we’d get some prizes at the end of the year. Our scout troop owned a campsite up on top of a big, rocky hill. It was just our rotten luck that when we
My Last Camping Trip Read More »
Two years ago, a bunch of my friends and I went on a school-sponsored trip to Alaska set up by the Pursuit Institute. I was placed in a group with nine, no, ten other students, and two adult chaperones. Another group was also made up of similar numbers, and each
The Pursuit Institute Read More »
My father told me a story once. I’ll never forget it, for a few reasons. I think it’s the first story he ever told me as a child. It’s also the story of how my grandfather died. But honestly, that isn’t the reason. You hear stories on TV, or sometimes
There was a hunter in the woods, who, after a long day hunting, was in the middle of an immense forest. It was getting dark, and having lost his bearings, he decided to head in one direction until he was clear of the increasingly oppressive foliage. After what seemed like
The Portraits (a.k.a. The Cabin in the Woods) Read More »
