The rapid pulsing lights of the Sheriff’s unit pierced the darkness, and distorted the shadows among the trees. I picked up my flashlight out of the gravel tire-track and forced myself to stand. In a pulse of light, I caught sight of Jess in the road between me and the car.
I took the first grinding step toward the car, and felt an ache run through every muscle in my body. Sheer force-of-will carried me forward until I was able to get used to the solid ground under my feet. The gravel was so heavily compacted that it could pass for asphalt. I felt vulnerable and exposed as I walked up the middle of the road. It felt like there was something stalking me in the shadows.
I swept my light across the tree-line on my right, wary of anything moving between the trees. I checked the road before me, and turned the light on the trees on my left. Whatever or whoever was out there wouldn’t matter if I could reach the car in one piece.
I brought my light back to the road, and found a mutilated animal strewn across the tire-grooves. The pointed nose and red fur hinted at a fox. The poor thing was a mess, and reeked of rot. I gave the road-kill a wide birth and heard the sounds of movement deep in the woods to my right.
Exhaust drifted through the glow of the headlights and faded into the surrounding mist. The closer I came to the Sheriff’s Department SUV, the more unsettled I was with the situation. If the car was running, then there had to be someone nearby. As I turned my light on the driver’s window, I expected some sort of reaction. The light reflected back at me without response and I slowed my pace.
“Officer?” I broke the stillness.
Only the thrum of the car’s engine filled the night. I heard something move through the forest. The lights were near-blinding with the frantic changes from searing red to empty void.
“Hello?”
I could feel the heat from the engine when I was only a few feet away. The coolant fan kicked on to startle me. I moved closer and tried to see inside the car again, only to find it empty. I shone the light through the windshield across the front seats, before moving to the side of the car and checking the back seats. No one.
There were no signs of violence, and not a hint of where, or why the deputy had disappeared. Through the window, I saw the communications electronics embedded in the dashboard. I lifted the door handle and found the catch.
The SUV was locked.
I thumped my hands on the driver’s window, and my breath fogged the glass before me. I was so close. I needed something to break the glass, and my pathetic little flashlight wasn’t going to cut it. There had to be something nearby. I’d settle for a moderately-sized rock. I scanned the ground in the immediate area for anything, without much success.
“Really?” I asked to no one in particular. There wasn’t even a rock nearby that was large enough to help, and didn’t qualify as a geological feature. I moved to the back of the SUV. Maybe the rear-wiper was through the glass and I could pry open the lift-gate.
“It’s here,” a voice whispered on the wind.
A chill ran through me. The sensation of being watched drew my attention back down the road. In the pulses of light, I saw something standing there in the road. It looked like an animal of some kind. The cold dropped away with the aches.
“I’m serious.” Jess leaned against me, and almost pushed me off of my seat on the log next to the campfire. I scowled at her.
“There’s no way,” Nick said from beyond the low flames. Veronica leaned forward and stared into the fire.
“I see…” Veronica paused. “…A squid and a tree and….”
“You’re joking.”
“Am not.” Veronica leaned back to glare at him. “Why don’t you try it then?”
“It’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not,” Jess interrupted. “It’s just like seeing shapes in the clouds or in an ink blot. It says more about you than anything else.”
“So it’s like a fire-blot test.” Nick stared at the campfire. “How’s it work?”
“That’s the cool thing.” Jess sat up. “The mind can’t process complete chaos so it starts to create order, you see patterns where there aren’t any.”
“Really?”
“You only see what your mind can handle.”
Her words reverberated through me, and brought back the cold, dark road. The pulsing lights revealed the animal a few meters closer now. It looked like a dog. The next pulses only showed an empty road. I glanced at the SUV. It wasn’t marked as a K-9 unit. In another pulse, the dog appeared closer in the road again. It felt wrong somehow.
Even though it was cloaked in shadow, it looked like it was dripping on the roadway. The silhouette distorted slightly, but its shadow conveyed something much larger. It moved oddly in the irregular flashing of the lights. A searing migraine made me stagger, and lean on the back of the car.
“Connor!” Jess called my attention to the trees. I looked back at the shadow-thing in the road. In a pulse it vanished again. I opened my mouth and spun to Jessica. “Run!” She sprinted into the forest, and I did my best to follow.
The compacted gravel gave way to foliage and soft earth once more. Branches scraped at my face as I charged after her fleeting image. I heard something moving behind me, stalking me through the darkness. The forest was more confining than before, with scrawny birch trees filling my flashlight beam at every turn. It was disorienting trying to rush through when a new sapling would randomly appear in the light every few strides.
I ducked under a large branch and spotted Jessica’s white dress disappear behind a large tree. The fog swirled in my light, and veiled the area before I reached it. I rounded the tree, and found a slight dip in the ground that sent me stumbling against another tree. Whatever it was stalking me sounded like it was getting closer. I forced myself forward, despite feeling like I was ready to collapse.
“Connor.” I heard her voice again, whispering to me on the wind, and drawing me to the left.
I wove a path through the trees, but it didn’t feel like I was making any progress. It was just more trees and more underbrush stretching out before me like an endless corridor. I slipped as the soil moved beneath me, and I staggered forward a few steps before I hit the ground.
The taste of wet earth entered my mouth as I tried to take a breath. I was well beyond exhaustion and the fatigue was beginning to catch up with me. I felt only cold and wet.
“Connor.”
Hearing her voice made me lift my head. Jessica was leaning against a tree with her arms crossed. I struggled to my hands and knees.
“You’re always so determined, so pig-headed.” She pushed off the tree and walked over to me. “Most of the time all you ever had to do, was just open your eyes and see.”
“See?” I asked, but she only nodded at the trees. I reluctantly looked away from her in the direction that she nodded. It was faint, but I could make out lights through the fog. When I looked back, Jessica was gone.
A sharp pain lanced through my head, and the world began to spin. The forest, the mist, even the winds felt like they were swirling around me. I could feel the thing move closer through darkness. It was the same feeling I had in the university library. I was the prey.
I struggled to my feet, but it was difficult to keep upright. The lights were hard to keep in focus, but they gave me a direction, and hopefully a reprieve from this madness. I staggered in the direction of where the lights settled most frequently. The trees never seemed to be where I thought they were when I tried to lean on them for support. The world just refused to stay put. I forced my way through the underbrush, and felt something grab my right foot. The sudden inability to move my leg made me fall on my face. An unnatural sound flowed on the wind.
I picked myself back up and tried to pursue the lights. They appeared to be closer, but it was difficult to tell. It felt like a madness as I staggered from one tree to the next with the world spinning. The lights steadied and the swirling darkness appeared to relent in their direction. A touch of warmth ran through me and Jess darted from behind a tree toward the lights ahead of me.
“Hurry.”
I followed her through some underbrush and down a slight embankment. She hopped across the dip but I lost my footing. I hit the ground hard. I coughed a couple of times, breathing in the cold, wet air. Something raced through the forest behind me, and the world felt like it was losing its hold.
“Hey.” The sounds of the rushing wind dulled, and I lifted my head to see Jess kneeling over me. I climbed to my hands and knees. She cupped my face in her hands, “You always make things so complicated for yourself.”
“I…” She interrupted me with a kiss.
“Sometimes you just need to take a leap of faith.” She caressed my cheek with a little smile. Something snapped in the woods behind me, snatching her attention.
“What is it?” I twisted to look behind me at the swirling mists. She stood and took a step toward the noise.
“Some things are not meant to be, they should never be.” She turned away from the sounds, and looked at me with concern. “You’re always dragging your feet.”
I strained to get my feet under me. Jess sprinted past me toward the lights, and the searing headache returned with the swirling darkness. I held my head, struggling against the pain that threatened to drop me.
“Jess…”
“Follow me!” She called back to me. Her voice carried a break in the pain and the mad storm around me. I used the reprieve it offered to charge forward in pursuit of her. The lights were rapidly approaching as Jess led me between the trees. I ducked under a low hanging branch, and Jess vanished. The pressure at my back from whatever was in the darkness seemed to lessen the closer I came to the lights.
I was able to slow my pace and the world didn’t begin to spin wildly out of control. The madness stalking me was still out there, but it was distant. I pushed through the underbrush when Jess appeared in front of me to startle me. I fell into the brush and felt the wet soil cling to my hands. It was only then that I realized why she had startled me.