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Bent in an unnatural position, Ben’s shoulder ached, trapped beneath Abby’s head as she peacefully slept. He fought hard not to react to the pain, for fear of waking her. Rain whispered lightly across the top of the tent. He kept thinking about the ring in his bag, waiting, waiting for the moment.
Though he didn’t have a history of being obsessive-compulsive, he couldn’t help but want to verify its safety at every chance. When he’d suggested this camping trip, he didn’t expect it to come with so much anxiety. They’d been together for five years. Surely she wouldn’t say no. But he hadn’t found the perfect moment yet, so the ring sat quietly in his jacket pocket, patiently awaiting its reveal.
Unable to find sleep, Ben slowly tried to free his arm from under her soft hair. She stirred at first, but not fully, and before long the pain of his wrenching shoulder gave way to the pins and needles of his waking arm. Moving as quietly as he could, he unzipped his sleeping bag, verified he still had the ring, then unfastened the tent door. He stepped out into the drizzle, but didn’t really notice the rain. As a longtime resident of Washington, it hardly even registered.
The fire had long since died. The water of Misty Lake shimmered with an almost celestial majesty. The usually verdant evergreens stood muted in the darkness. They hadn’t seen another camper in days. He felt so completely unplugged from the rest of the world, and loved it. Their cell phones were useless out here. It was just him and his girlfriend—soon to be fiancée, hopefully—and the beauty and splendor of the great outdoors. With everything going on in the world, part of him wanted to stay forever.
A ripple echoed out across the surface of the lake, drawing his curiosity. A fish perhaps, or a turtle. Nothing frightening swam in those waters. The only thing he feared out here were the bears, but he’d taken all the precautions. They’d sprayed everything down with what purported to be repellent, and they even hung their food in a bag up high enough that it would be a difficult prize for any animal to win. He’d been camping a lot, but never this deep in the woods. Never this isolated.
Fixated on the ripple, he jumped when he heard rustling nearby. He spun wildly, wishing he’d brought the flashlight. He saw nothing, but noticed that the supply bag wobbled back and forth. What could have caused that? Something from above, perhaps? He briefly wondered if a raccoon might be smart enough to untie the rope to get at the tasty morsels inside the bag, but he knew how to tie a good knot. Most humans couldn’t even undo it.
Suddenly, the rain felt smothering. His skin grew clammy and cold. Why hadn’t he put on his jacket? Though he couldn’t see or hear anything weird, something felt off.
His eyes widened, as the forest moved behind the bag, its whole darkness somehow shifting as one. His eyes tried to make sense of it, but could come up with nothing but that. A moving, shifting shadow of the forest. It grew larger, closer. Just when he thought he might be going crazy, he saw the shimmer of wet, black fur. A bear, then?
A splash from the lake drew his attention. The ripples were large, creating small wakes. Suddenly, the forest became alive with sound. Chittering to his left. Splashing in front of him. He twirled back to the shadow to find both it and the food bag gone. A frayed rope dangled from the branch above. He spun in a circle, terrified that the shadow—something that he quickly decided could not possibly be a bear—would attack him from another angle.
As he glanced towards the tent, he saw something much smaller digging at the ground. Long and lithe, perhaps furry, but he couldn’t quite tell. A smaller version of the creature in the shadows, perhaps? It nipped at the nylon walls of the shelter. Whatever this thing was, Ben had a healthy size advantage.
He stomped forward and hissed. It turned to look at him with beady black eyes, vacuous and empty, barely visible in the dim light. He made out fur, and a hulking form that he couldn’t believe. The thing twittered at him. Hardly a threatening sound, but still he felt a prickling sense of danger at the nape of his neck.
The shadow appeared again, or perhaps had been there since the beginning. It came forward, hulking over the smaller creature at the base of the tent. A second pair of eyes emerged from the darkness, this time deeper and blacker. And angrier. This thing bared sharp, yellowed teeth and exhaled fetid breath, tainted with the smell of rotting fish.
Not a bear. Bigger.
It looked almost as if it were made of plastic, slick and wet from the rain. He thought maybe he saw whiskers in the darkness but didn’t trust himself to make a positive identification.
Did bears have whiskers? He didn’t think so, but doubt made him wonder if maybe all mammals had them.
“Abby!”
No answer from inside the tent. He surged forward and grabbed her ankle through her sleeping bag.
“What the hell, Ben?”
The fog in her voice told him she’d registered nothing of the commotion outside.
“We gotta go!”
“What? Why?”
“Just, come on. Please!”
He backed away to catch a glimpse of the monstrosity again, but saw nothing. Both the little one and the big one had disappeared from the side of the tent. Great. Now Abby would never believe him. He turned cautiously in every direction until she emerged from the tent, dressed in only a t-shirt, sweatpants and his jacket.
“Something’s out here,” Ben said.
“No shit, Ben.” She’d never been very pleasant in the morning. “It’s the woods. There’s a lot of stuff out here.”
Sploosh!
The sound reverberated through the forest, echoing off the trees. Nothing in the lake should have been capable of making that deep of a splashing sound. He spun to see more ripples, emanating out towards the shore.
“Wait. Where’s the food?” Abby asked.
“It took it.”
“It? Like a bear?”
“No. Something else.”
“Ben. You’re scaring me. Make sense.”
Before he could answer, chaos erupted. The tent flattened. Abby spun and screamed. From the shadows above, the creature’s mouth opened wide and snapped forward, causing her to stumble backward. Ben caught her just in time. The water. The woods. This thing was everywhere at once. Everything in Ben told him to run. This was no animal. This was something else entirely.
Ben grabbed Abby’s hand and took off in a sprint. When she couldn’t keep up, he let go, regulating his speed to ensure she kept pace just behind him. As much as he wanted to enfold her, protect her, clutch her, they’d each run faster on their own.
They ran and ran, long after the sound of the creature disappeared into the woods. Abby and Ben had both competed in marathons. Both exercised regularly. They could run for a long time, and even longer when threatened. Still, they both began gulping for air.
Ben’s toe hooked on a tree root and he tumbled forward. And down. Way down. Unable to pull up in time, Abby fell in after him. Frantically, Ben surveyed the deep depression in the ground. Not quite a hole, but deep enough that he wasn’t sure they’d be able to escape. He scrambled up one side, lost his balance and slid back down. How could there be such a large hole in the middle of the woods?
Maybe this was good. Maybe this hole would keep them hidden and safe.
With no gear, though, Ben realized that, even if they did manage to climb out, they’d be inescapably lost.
“What was that thing?” Abby asked.
Ben turned from the muddy wall of the depression to look at her. “I don’t know.”
“It was so big. Not a bear.”
“No.”
Ben turned to Abby. Water dripped from her hair onto her face, which she quickly blinked away. Shivering, she slipped her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Well, his jacket really.
Wait. No!
“What’s this?” She pulled out the felt box and turned it over in her hand. Whatever adrenaline raced through Ben’s veins intensified. This was definitely not the right moment. He snatched it away from her before she could open it.
“Nothing.”
Something crashed in the forest behind them. They both turned.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
“Y-Yes.”
“Abby?”
She didn’t respond, just pressed her body against his. Something came for them. They could hear it, or maybe feel it, its sheer size quivering the earth under their feet.
Movement on the ground caught Ben’s eye. Little ones. Just like the one digging at the tent. Two or three or four. He couldn’t be sure. He could barely see more than the shadows.
They hadn’t stumbled into a hole at all. They’d fallen into a nest.
This was it. The last moment they’d have together. No way out of the hole. No way to defend themselves against this. Abby reached back and squeezed his hand.
The creature slammed through the trees into the clearing, bearing down into the hole with unbelievable speed, its mouth open, teeth glistening in what little moonlight made it through the canopy and the clouds.
He feared he’d never have another chance to ask.
“Abby, will you marry me?”
