The Forest Read online

  Tricia was struck by déjà vu. This had happened before. Or maybe it was going to happen again, even though that thought didn’t make any sense. Still, she couldn’t shake the sudden familiarity. Not the good kind. This wasn’t coming home to Alex’s arms, or picking up Sammy at daycare. There was no sense of homecoming, only a return to some dread long suppressed.

  The crackling continued, but now the whispers –

  (Whisperers. I called them whisperers and so did Alex.)

  – renewed. Like the laugh, they were mostly echo. “Run… -un… -un… -un…”

  She didn’t run. Neither did Alex. Where would they run to? She didn’t want to go into the river again. But the thing that had caused the crackling sounds was ahead of them. They could turn to the right or left, continue on the same track they had been taking, or turn around and try to get out in the other direction. If the forest let them.

  Every way was a bad choice. A moment later, everything worsened as the fog that had been roiling among the trees now stopped moving, so completely that Tricia would have thought she was looking at the world’s weirdest mural if she couldn’t see some of the barely-glimpsed branches waving slightly in a breeze.

  She grabbed Alex’s arm so hard he winced. “What?” he whispered.

  “There’s a wind.”

  “So?” Then he realized what she was saying. “Why isn’t the fog moving? It has to move if there’s wind.” The last sentence pleaded more than stated a fact. Like he was asking her to reassure him it was true, and he couldn’t be seeing what he was seeing.

  As in so many other moments, she was in sync with Alex. Only this was a horrible moment for it, both of them knowing what they saw was impossible, but neither of them able to explain it away.

  The fog started moving again. This movement was no better than the stillness had been. The mist had been curling, rolling for the entire time they had been in the forest. It still was, only Tricia was pretty sure that every twist of vapor was now moving exactly opposite to what it had a moment ago. If what she had seen before was a still photo, this was a movie running backwards.

  “Yeah, I see it,” said Alex, answering the question she hadn’t even voiced.

  All stopped again. All but the whisper of the mad stream behind them, and the crack-crackle-crack of something coming toward them.

  The fog halted. It twisted into itself. Somewhere far away, light flared – like an explosion, but one that was utterly silent. No heat, no shockwave, just a blinding flash and then the light was gone and the fog separated and she saw…

  “Sam.”

  She didn’t know who said it this time: her, or Alex, or maybe even the whisperers in the trees. But she knew what she saw, and knew Alex was seeing the same thing because now it was his turn to grab her arm so hard she had to grit her teeth to keep from wincing. She didn’t want to blink. Didn’t want to look away from the boy she remembered, just as she remembered – in a bright, sudden flash, just as bright as whatever had lit up the fog – that this was how he had been dressed in the last moments they saw him. Jeans. White shirt, buttoned up to the chin. Red backpack. Blood smeared on his clothes, matting his hair.

  She blinked, and suddenly it wasn’t Sam at all. The person she and Alex were looking at had the same clothing she remembered Sam wearing. But jeans and button-up shirts weren’t exactly rare, were they? Backpacks would be normal, too – most hikers would bring something to carry water and food. Plus, now that Tricia looked closer, she could see that the backpack wasn’t the insane shade of red Sam’s bag had been. Red, yes, but more muted; darker: the color of blood fresh from an artery.

  Real blood was splashed on the shirt. But different patterns, Tricia was sure.

  And the most telling of all: the hair, though about the same color, wasn’t the shaggy, short haircut Sam had sported. It was long, down past the shoulders.

  This wasn’t Sam.

  “It’s a girl,” breathed Alex.

  The girl looked at them. She was so like Sam in that moment it made Tricia want to cry. But the girl’s head tilted as she saw them, and Tricia saw the features that were so much finer. Hair color, clothing, wearing a backpack. Looked to be a teen, just like Sam had been. But that was where the similarities ended.

  And had Tricia ever heard Sam scream?

  (Yes. He screamed so loud that day.)

  She thought so, and knew that if she had, it wasn’t the high-pitched, eardrum-piercing scream the girl now let out. She turned, and Tricia knew she was going to flee. She couldn’t let that happen. It was desperately important that she not let the girl go; that she stop her before the kid disappeared into the forest and the fog.

  “Stop!” Tricia shouted. At the same time, Alex shouted, “Wait!”

  The girl turned to them. Just a moment. A glimpse of a face that was chalky under the blood. “Run!” shouted the girl. She pointed at something beyond Tricia and Alex.

  They both turned.

  The creek still bubbled and burbled, and maybe that was why they didn’t hear the newcomer arrive. More likely, though, she and Alex had just been too focused on the lights, and on the newcomer who was not Sam.

  A man stood behind them. Middle-aged, she thought – maybe only ten or fifteen years older than she and Alex, not young, but not anywhere near the point of physical decline. But just as with Sam and the girl, the differences diverged sharply at that point. Neither she nor Alex had – she hoped – the wild, almost manic look this man sported. Neither of them were grungy, Alex had never worn a beard – he hated them intensely for some reason – and certainly neither of them held an axe.

  The man did, though. A double-bladed thing that she could have told came to a deadly edge even if it weren’t for the blood that stained most of it. The red ran rivulets down the metal, and some streamed down the angle of the wood handle, painting the man’s left hand with it.

  He saw them, and shrieked. No words, but Tricia could feel the hate, the rage, and something deeper and darker beneath them both. Madness, pure and incarnate.

  “RUN!” shouted the girl again as the man started splashing his way across the stream. The water hit the axe and cleaned the blood away, but Tricia could still see it. Even after she turned with Alex and the two of them ran after the nameless girl in the forest, she still saw the blood, and knew in her heart that more would join it. She or Alex or this girl – one or all of them was going to die. She felt it, the same way she had been gripped by déjà vu moments before, only more powerfully this time.

  No more splashes. The madman had made it across the stream. Either that or…

  She dared a glance back as she ran, surrendering for a moment to the irrational hope that the stream had grabbed the man. That it had pulled him in every way at once and then twisted and torn him apart the way it had done with the twigs.

  No such luck. He had crossed the stream just fine.

  Tricia turned forward again and saw the girl glancing back as well. She saw the man and started screaming.

  “We’ll be okay,” said Alex. “We’ll be okay.” The words bounced as he ran, jouncing out almost violently. The sound itself gave lie to the intent, and Tricia wondered if he had felt the same sense of impending doom that she had. If he felt – knew – that one or all of them would die.

  “We’ll be okay,” she answered.

  She had never lied to Alex before. The forest made that happen, too.

  Behind them, the madman grunted and puffed as he ran. Every few yards there would be a dull thunk, like he was slamming the axe into the trunks of some of the trees they passed. It chilled Tricia. Made her want to vomit as she wondered in spite of herself if that was what it would sound like if their pursuer buried his axe in flesh.

  Again. Remember the blood.

  Another solid ca-chunk sounded. At least the guy didn’t sound like he was catching up, though he didn’t sound like he was falling behind either.

  She and Alex were catching up to the girl, though. They ran after her, trailing a
shadow at first, then details – an elbow, streaming hair clumped with red – then the entirety of her body as she tried so hard to keep ahead of the threat. But she was a girl. She was young. She didn’t have the strength to get away.

  Alex reached her first. He looked back at Tricia and she saw the question in his eyes. She waved to him, gesturing for him to keep going and help her. He nodded, put on a burst of speed, and reached the girl. He reached out a hand. She shied away, then realized what he was doing. Her own hand reached out, locking with Alex’s, and he added his strength to hers. The girl was skipping along now, each step lengthened out an extra foot or two as Alex pulled her higher and farther than she could have gone alone.

  It slowed Alex. Not too much, but Tricia was able to draw even with them both. She took the girl’s other hand, which was already reaching for her. They ran in a chain, trailing single-file when the trees pressed close, side by side when the forest permitted it.

  She kept glancing back. He was there. Keeping to a pace exactly matched to their own. She looked at Alex. His face wore the blank expression he got sometimes, when total concentration on a problem pushed him to a place beyond the world.

  Ka-thunk. The axe bit deep into wood. Wind whispered, leaves rattling their dry-bone sound underfoot as small whirlwinds rose around them. The fog billowed and flashed, and Tricia wondered what it would bring this time. The whisperers had come with the fog and the lights, as had the strangeness of the stream, and then the girl and the madman who pursued them all.

  What now? What worse thing is the forest holding for us?

  A light flashed ahead. Tricia cringed away from it, realizing at once that they had no idea where they were going, and no idea where they were. The two most basic points necessary to get somewhere, and they had neither.

  She risked a look back.

  The madman was falling behind. His insane attacks on passing trees grew muted.

  Then he was gone.

  And then he was not gone, but ahead of them. A running form, rushing toward them, lit from behind by the flashes that kept blinding Tricia.

  She screamed. So did the girl. She tried to turn away, but couldn’t. She and the others were moving too fast now – everything was moving too fast, a freight train running at terminal velocity toward something unseen but deadly.

  The fog exploded outward as the madman punched through it like a bullet.

  Only…

  “Sheriff!” Alex shouted. “Help!”

  Not a madman after all. It was Sheriff Azakh.

  Tricia had never thought of herself as a guns kind of person, but now she felt nothing but relief at the fact that the sheriff had a gun in her hand. Sheriff Azakh brought the gun up, and for a moment Tricia thought she was going to shoot Alex. “Don’t!” she screamed.

  But the sheriff had no intention of shooting. No sooner did she raise the gun than she lowered it. “It’s you,” she said, the words barely more than a whisper.

  She was staring at the girl that Alex and Tricia were still pulling along. The sheriff’s mouth sagged in shock. Tricia looked at the girl automatically, and saw Alex doing the same. The girl showed no recognition of the sheriff. Her eyes were glassy and vacant. Whatever had happened to her before this moment, it had driven her deep inside herself.

  “There’s someone following us!” shouted Alex at last. “He –”

  Alex broke off as he turned. Tricia turned as well, a part of her marveling that she hadn’t already felt the bite of the axe at her back. A much larger part marveling at what she saw behind them:

  Nothing.

  “What was back there?” said Sheriff Azakh. Tricia turned back to the woman who still stared at the girl they had found in the woods.

  “A man,” said Alex. “He was holding –”

  “A knife?” said Azakh.

  “No,” said Tricia. “Axe.”

  The sheriff looked surprised at that – she actually looked away from the girl who had been the object of her attention. “Axe?” she said with a frown.

  At the same time, Alex said, “Knife?”

  Tricia looked back and forth between them. “What’s happening, Sheriff?”

  The sheriff sighed. “You may as well call me Julie, what with us being such good old friends and all.”

  The lights flashed, and the fog thickened again. Tricia tensed, knowing that nothing good was coming with the light show or the glowing fog that swelled around them.

  “We have to get out of here,” said the sheriff.

  Alex snorted. “Good luck with that.”

  The sheriff nodded as though this made perfect sense. “I know. But maybe, if it’s here…” She turned around, a slow circle that allowed her to take in the surroundings. “I think I know where we are,” she murmured. “I think… Come on.” She nearly barked the order, loud enough that Tricia and Alex both jumped a bit. “Sorry,” said Julie. “I’m a bit… surprised.”

  She stared at the girl again.

  Then the sheriff beckoned for them to follow her. She spared a last glance at the girl, then seemed to gather herself and get a bearing. She stared at one of the trees for a moment, and Tricia heard her murmur, “Maybe we can get above it. Maybe…”

  Then she was off, jogging quickly away. Alex and Tricia shared a look. He shrugged. They both looked at the girl. She appeared nearly catatonic, though her grip on Tricia’s hand had not loosened, and when she and Alex started forward the girl followed.

  They walked, moving quickly but no longer running – thank goodness; Tricia had been nearing a point where she would have had to stop or suffer a massive heart attack. And she realized, too, that they had had no food or water for a long time. Too long.

  How many times have we run tonight? How many miles, and how long is the night going to last?

  More importantly, will we last through it?

  Tricia looked at Alex and saw he was struggling, too. But he put on half a smile and gave her a thumbs up. Putting on a brave face, and she loved him for that, just as she saw his love for her when she mimicked the action.

  Something at the periphery of her vision drew her eye. It was, she realized, the tree Julie had stared at before starting away. She pointed at it.

  Alex kept jogging, drawing himself and the girl between them along behind Julie. But he turned to look at what Tricia was pointing at. When he saw it, he stopped. Only for a moment, and then he was jogging again.

  He looked at Tricia over the top of the head of the girl between them. His eyebrows raised.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing makes sense.”

  Alex gritted his teeth and jutted out his chin, indicating the cloudy form of the sheriff ahead of them.

  “She’s got some questions to answer.”

  Tricia agreed.

  She had wondered a bit what the sheriff saw, and how it allowed her to seem so sure of herself. It was just one more tree, wasn’t it? The same as all the rest of the trees around them.

  But now Tricia and Alex saw that the tree was different. It bore a distinguishing mark: a series of circles that turned in on themselves.

  The sheriff turned and gestured for them to hurry. “Come on,” she shouted.

  “We’re hurrying,” said Tricia. “We’ve been running all –”

  Ka-thunk.

  Axe on wood. Axe on flesh. The sound of both echoed all around. Tricia jerked at the noise and looked back.

  Thuk.

  The sound came again, louder now.

  Alex had heard it, too. So had Sheriff Azakh, and both of them oriented on the noise. Not behind Tricia and Alex, but ahead of them all and to the left.

  “He couldn’t have gotten so far ahead,” said Alex.

  “Unless we’ve been going in circles,” said Tricia. She thought it likely. The forest had them, the forest wouldn’t let them go. Tricia had never used mice or rats in her experiments – she focused on theory, not practical uses – but she knew that some of the experiments involved mazes. Us
ually they measured cognitive functions and learning, i.e., figuring out how fast the rodent could get through the maze.

  Occasionally, though, there were darker, crueler experiments. Stimulus-response measurements taken as the mouse was fed and then shocked. Electrical impulses monitored as the rat’s pleasure centers were stimulated, then monitored again as electrodes urged the creature’s brain to feel every possible pain at once.

  She wondered which kind of experiment they were part of now. Perhaps something or someone was measuring them, watching what happened when the subjects – her and Alex, the strange girl between them and now the sheriff – were put in a maze whose walls switched every few seconds. A place where the way out was glimpsed, or at least the sensation that the end was within reach was conveyed, followed by a shifting that turned them back again.

  Hypothesis: subjects, when given an impossible task, will continue trying to solve said task until death.

  Method: injecting subjects into a situation where test parameters change constantly, allowing subjects momentary sensations of control followed by shifting parameters that yank the frigging rug out from under them.

  Result: madness.

  Was Sheriff Julie Azakh another subject of this cruel experiment? Or was she one of the experimenters?

  Even as she asked herself the question, Tricia knew the answer. The sheriff wasn’t doing all this to them. Maybe no one was, because at its core this didn’t seem like an experiment. The scientific method wouldn’t preside over anything that was happening here. This was…

  Paranormal.

  Supernatural.

  Ahead of Tricia, Julie swerved around a particularly large tree, ducking to avoid a thick branch that jutted out of the trunk. Tricia and Alex followed suit.

  The girl between them did not duck, so deep into whatever hidey hole she had found in her subconscious that she didn’t even notice the branch that could have knocked her out at the speed they were now going. Tricia envied her for that. For her ability to withdraw into a place in her mind where no fog or light or forest existed.

  Ka-THUD.

  The noise of the axe blade biting deep came again, and with it the sound of something crashing through the trees high above them. It was a sound Tricia remembered abruptly. She had heard this before. She remembered…