Logan
Logan and Jenny hiked down the path at a quick pace. They chose to take the same path they traveled for the night hike. Shortly after they had begun their search, Jenny had stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. “Hey, look what I brought,” she said.
“What’s that?”
Jenny pulled her iPhone from her pocket. “Check it out.” She turned on her phone, touched the flashlight app, and immediately the glow of the screen lit the forest around them. She flashed the phone into the woods. Trees, branches, snowflakes, and the chasm of darkness suddenly became visible. “Now that we can see a little bit, it looks pretty creepy in there.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” said Logan. “But it might come in handy if we need to see something in the dark.”
“I haven’t used this at all since we’ve been here. The battery is completely full.”
The pair continued to walk at a brisk pace down the trail.
“Zach! Zach! You out here?” Logan called.
“Shush!” Jenny said. “Voices carry out here. They’ll hear us back at camp if we’re too loud.”
Logan nodded and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Zach. Zach,” he said.
There was no response. Only the chill of the wind and the soft crackle of snow under their feet as they walked. Logan pulled the water bottle from his coat pocket, popped the lid and took a swig. “You want some?” he asked Jenny.
Jenny took the bottle and drank. “We can’t drink too much right now. We may need it later.”
Logan nodded in agreement.
A moment of silence passed between them. Then Jenny spoke. “You never explained why Zach came out here by himself. Why did he think he could find Michael and Tristan without any help?”
Logan looked at Jenny. The light from her phone illuminated the freckles around her nose and her smooth, white teeth.
“If I tell you, you’ll laugh.”
“Try me.”
“Okay. You asked for it,” Logan said, a grin on his face. Logan told Jenny everything Zach had told him. The old truck Zach had seen. The strange smell. The haunting during KP duty. The strange figure in the woods. Miranda’s story. “I haven’t seen any of this stuff happen, but all I know is that I have never seen Zach act like this before. Since his brother went missing, he’s been pretty unpredictable, but nothing like this. Something is really bugging him.”
“You’re telling me there is some ghost out here and it’s after Zach?”
Logan shrugged. “Who knows? But Zach certainly thinks so and he seems determined to get to the bottom of it. We have to find him.”
“Then let’s find him.”
The two hiked through the falling snow, careful not to leave the safety of the trail. They walked closely together. Logan could feel Jenny’s shoulder brushing against his—he didn’t move away. They followed the light of Jenny’s phone until a rustling in the nearby woods suddenly interrupted the peace.
“What is that?” Logan asked.
“What? I didn’t hear anything.”
Just off to the right of the path, the snow crunched. Footsteps.
“Over there.” Logan pointed toward the birch trees on the right hand side of the path.
Jenny shined her phone in the direction of Logan’s finger. “I don’t see anything.”
“Just listen for a second.”
The sound was different now. Quicker and lighter. No more crunching snow. It sounded like animal claws scratching the bark.
“I hear it now,” Jenny said.
“Hand me the phone,” Logan said. Logan took the phone from Jenny and slowly crept toward the edge of the trail.
A scrambling of footsteps again. Quicker still and higher above Logan and Jenny’s heads. Logan pointed the phone toward the top of a tall, skinny birch.
“What is it?” asked Jenny.
“I don’t know. I don’t see anything.” Logan peered into the tree, searching for the sound’s source.
Jenny took a step away from the tree. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” she said.
“Wait. It might just be an animal or something.”
“Do we really want to find out?”
Logan turned back toward the trail.
Suddenly, something scurried down the tree past Logan and Jenny. Jenny gasped as it appeared from Logan’s backside.
A squirrel.
As the rodent crossed the trail, Jenny exhaled.
They both laughed.
“Let’s keep going,” said Logan.
Jenny walked on Logan’s left side. They giggled, thinking of the “squirrel ghost” as Logan had called it.
Suddenly, Jenny stopped laughing and grabbed Logan’s arm. “What’s that?” she asked.
Logan jumped.
“Geez, you scared the crap out of me,” Logan said light-heartedly. “Relax. It was just a squirrel. Let’s keep going.”
“No. Not the squirrel. What is that over there?” Jenny pointed back toward the forest.
Deep in the woods was a shape. A glowing figure.
Logan squinted to get a better look as he made his way off the trail. He couldn’t make out any facial features. All he could see was a light, orangey glow outlining the shape.
Logan expected the forest to be bright, illuminated by the figure’s radiance. But it wasn’t. The glow was isolated to the mysterious shape. There were no shadows cast on the branches. The light seemed to defy physics. All the vegetation was still trapped in darkness.
Jenny stood by Logan’s side. “What is it?” she asked. “Another animal?”
Logan lifted Jenny’s phone to light the woods. He hoped to get a better look at the mysterious sight. As he shined the light toward the figure, it disappeared. “It’s gone,” he said.
Jenny looked up at Logan. “Could that have been … ?”
Before she could finish her sentence, Logan grabbed her hand and pulled her back toward the trail. “Let’s keep going,” he said.
“You want to stay out here? Shouldn’t we head back to the camp? I’m scared, Logan.”
As Logan opened his mouth to respond, the light on Jenny’s phone vanished. “I thought you said the battery was full on this thing.”
“It was. It was totally full when I turned it on.”
Logan handed the phone to Jenny. She tried to turn it on again. Nothing. No power. No light. She shook it and then beat it on her palm. “This is weird.”
Logan took his eyes off the phone and turned toward the dark forest. “Yeah … this is weird. I think you might be right. Let’s head back toward camp. We can talk to the teachers and police and maybe they can help. Maybe they’ve already found them.”
Logan and Jenny turned around. But Logan’s feet were suddenly stuck. Stuck in a foot of snow. Jenny’s feet were too. Their path was gone. They had somehow been transported away from the trail. They stood in the middle of the forest, surrounded by darkness.
“Oh my God! Where are we?” cried Jenny.
Logan looked around, trying to find his way back to the trail, but he found nothing but dense forest. The trail was gone. He turned back toward Jenny.
“Logan, look,” she said, her voice quivering.
Directly in front of them, about ten feet away was the glowing figure. It had narrow, burning eyes. Its face was black, camouflaged by the surrounding darkness. Its legs seemed to disappear before they reached the ground, so it floated directly above the snow cover. Its arms stretched into the trees, blending into the branches. They seemed infinitely long.
Logan and Jenny were speechless, mesmerized by the specter in front of them. Then its ghostly arms emerged from the foliage of the pines. The handless appendages circled around Logan and Jenny, passing easily through the thick tree trunks. They formed a cage around the two.
Jenny screamed. “What do we do?” she called to Logan.
“Run!” Logan said.
But they couldn’t move. Their feet were stuck in the snow. Some force was weighing them down. They struggled for a moment as the arms closed around them.
Jenny’s face was full of terror. Her mouth was open and her eyes were wide, looking to Logan for safety. “What do we do?” she asked.
Logan stared deeply into the fiery eyes of the creature. This was the ghost that had been haunting Zach. Everything about his story had been true. Now this thing, this specter, was after him and Jenny.
Logan grabbed Jenny’s hand and held it in his own. With a stoic, emotionless voice, he said, “We’re trapped.”