Where Shadows Rest

The crisp autumn leaves, wet with dew, fell one by one from the oak and hawthorn trees, leaving a confetti of yellow, orange and brown leaves on the moist ground. Paul could feel the spirit of adventure in his bones, just calling him and his small band of friends to the wild woodlands behind his home.

Paul had always wanted to go explore the woods, but a part of him was afraid to. Little did he know, however, that on this cool autumn day, he would find out that there were other things besides getting lost to fear.

A small rowdy group of preteen boys gathered together in the front yard of Paul’s rustic home that was surrounded by woodlands as far as the eye could see. Each boy had their backpack filled with their survival equipment, snacks, and even some magazines to browse if they happened to have the opportunity. Paul’s parents were out, doing something in the closest town about twenty minutes away. They had no idea what Paul and his cronies were up to.

The sky was clear blue, the temperature in the mid sixties, and the sound of Jackson’s hound dog, Rusty, was comforting as it sat there eager to go on an adventure with them. Rusty drooled in anticipation, and the boys howled in excitement as they began up a trail that seemed to have been hidden beside Paul’s home for ages.

“Have you ever been up this trail before?” Devon asked Paul, squinting through his glasses with white tape holding the bridge together.

“I’ve only went up a little bit. I think this trail goes on for a while though,” Paul huffed as he climbed the now steep hill with some overgrowth over the trail.

“I wonder what we’ll find,” Everett mentioned as they neared the top of the hill, “I heard that these woods were haunted!”

Paul gulped nervously, looking around.

The trail at the top of the hill began to widen and appeared to be something used back in the day, as they would find wooden posts that followed the trail. Rusty stayed ahead of the boys, sniffing the ground and pointing his wet nose up now and then. The loud, wild call of an unknown animal echoed through the woods, sending chills up the boys’ backs.

“What is that?” Jackson asked, unfamiliar with the eerie sound.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a bird - the Pileated woodpecker - he’s as big as a crow, but if you ever see him, you’ll know it because he has a bright red cap on his head. He’s like the king of the woods,” Paul’s heart thrilled as he spoke about the majestic bird; he would hear it in the distance from in his home, and run to the windows hoping to catch a glimpse of it, but had never had the fortune, “I hope we get to see him while out here.”

Everett snickered, “Paul sounds like a bird nerd!”

Paul didn’t mind being teased about knowing so much regarding birds, in fact, he took great pride in it. His dad taught him the names of all the common birds that frequent these woods, and even helped him learn to identify difficult birds like warblers. The hardest part was just seeing the darn birds - always moving, always high up in the trees, those warblers were sure to give a crick in your neck.

As they made their way further up the trail, the woods seemed to darken with a veil of fog, and the boys came to what looked like a small clearing, the trail seemingly gone now, but possibly further up ahead where there appeared to be another opening to the woods.

The boys walked through the clearing, hearing the sound of rushing water from somewhere, and looked around trying to see where it came from. The sound of leaves in the surrounding woods crunched, as though something were out there. Before the boys knew what was happening, they heard the startling sound like of a deep grunt and snort, sudden staccato stomping, and then a rush from the woods towards them.

BARK BARK BARK! Rusty alarmed as a massive white-tail deer, an old buck, ran through the clearing and into the woods on the other side, nearly trampling a couple of the boys.

“Oh my god, that was close!” Everett gasped. His heart raced and his breath was shallow.

The boys looked at each other like a freight train just came out of the woods at them. When they managed to calm down from the scare, the boys tried to be more observant.

Paul wandered over to the right of the clearing, and Rusty tried to pull him back by the tail end of his jacket, but Paul pulled back then suddenly he slipped.

“Ah!” he yelped as he slid, his foot somehow sliding into a hole in the ground that was hidden by the fallen leaves and fog. The ground seemed to be sinking in here, and Paul frantically tried to grab onto the grass to pull himself up, afraid he might fall into the hole if it opened up anymore.

“Help me!” Paul called to his friends in panic, tasting metal on his tongue. He felt like a pig on a hot roast, sweating profusely. As each millisecond passed, it felt like forever to him, and his fingers began to feel numb.

Rusty stayed at the top of where the land seemed to be sinking in, and barked continuously as the other boys gathered to see that Paul was in a sinkhole of some kind.

“I think that’s where the water sound is coming from; it’s underground,” Everett realized.

“Who cares? Get me up from here!” Paul struggled to release his right foot from the hole. When he tried to tug, it felt like it was caught onto something. Then, suddenly he felt something else! A cold shock of dread went through all of his body as he sensed something grab his ankle tightly.

“Dude, are you okay? Your face is looking pale!” Devon hunched over, his hands on his knees, as he tried to see through the fog.

Devon pulled a rope out from his backpack and threw one end down to Paul, who was feeling queasy now, and waited for Paul to grab hold of the rope.

“On the count of three,” Devon said as the other boys stood behind holding onto the rope too, “One…two…”

Then all the boys pulled the rope together, and Paul somehow managed to break free from whatever it was that grabbed his ankle.

When Paul finally got pulled up enough to get safely to the top of the dip in the ground, he leaned over on his knees, and panted, his eyes bulging in shock, shivering as he took long, deep breaths.

“Guys, there’s something down there, I swear!” Paul gasped, pointing back to the hole.

“Yeah there’s a cave or something, that’s where the water sound is coming from.” Jackson said.

“No dude, I mean there is something down there and it grabbed my ankle!” Paul slowly got up to his feet, then wiped his forehead with his arm.

The other boys looked at Paul in denial at first, then fear, as they remembered the ghost story about a boy who had got lost in the woods and was never found. As legend had it, the boy was hunting for treasure, but never came back with his dog.

“What if the lost boy fell in that hole and died? What if the ghost is here?” Devon looked pale as he spoke the words in almost a hush, his breath visible in the cold air.

“What are we supposed to do? It’s not like we can just call the fire department to come up here, and even if we could, that ghost story is so old - the kid would obviously be dead and rotted by now - wasn’t that story from the 1800’s or something?” Everett clung to his backpack straps like he was ready to make a run back down the trail.

Paul stared at the ground, at his shoes and then at his right foot and ankle, suddenly noticing marks on his shoe and ankle like muddy fingers had grabbed him. He felt dizzy as he thought about what just happened, then felt immensely troubled.

“If we just leave, and pretend that this never happened - then what? But if we try to help the kid, the ghost, what might happen then?” Paul slowly looked up at his friends who all stared at him with a mix of shock and understanding.

“I mean, if I were some kid who got lost to a sinkhole, and my ghost was haunting the woods for centuries, I think I’d want someone to help release me so I could like finally rest in peace,” Devon said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, exactly. But shouldn’t a ghost be able to just fly out of the hole then?” Everett said with skepticism.

“He has a point,” Jackson said with a scoff.

“Maybe there’s a reason the ghost can’t get out on it’s own?” Paul pointed out. “I mean, you saw my foot was stuck; maybe the ghost is stuck too?”

“So then how the heck are we supposed to help it if it’s stuck?” Everett got loud. His face was red both from the cold and being upset.

Just as the boys were in the middle of their argument, a surge of hot air blew from the hole, sending the boys stumbling backwards. There was a mist from the steam that came out from the hole where the underground water was rushing.

“Do any of you have a mirror?” Paul asked around, his face cringing from the ringing in his ears. He was suffering from tinnitus due to his anxiety.

Jackson rummaged through a small pocket on his backpack and handed Paul a small mirror that looked as though he had stole it from his mom.

“Bring this to do your hair, Jackson?” Paul teased, mustering up a laugh to try to lighten the mood.

“I borrowed it from my mom just in case we needed to signal for help, okay?” Jackson blushed.

Paul searched the edge of the clearing for a long stick, then reached in his pocket for a few rubber bands, and secured the mirror to one end of the stick. He then tested whether he could manage to hold the stick over the hole without losing the mirror.

“What’s your plan, exactly?” Jackson asked, secretly thinking his mom would kill him if she ever found out that he took her mirror and then lost it to some ghost in a hole in the woods.

“I have a camera in my backpack, let’s hold the mirror over the hole and then I can zoom in on the camera to see if I see anything in the hole, or at least what it was my foot got caught on,” Paul suggested.

After a few minutes the boys did just as Paul had suggested. Everett and Jackson held the long, thick branch with the mirror attached, and carefully hovered it near the hole, but not directly over it, and angled the mirror towards the hole. Paul looked into the camera, zooming in with the lens, and tried to make out anything, but it was too dark in the hole.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” Paul said disappointed.

“Now what?” Jackson said as he and Everett put the branch down, pulling it back towards them so he could remove the mirror.

“We have rope, let’s just try to throw one end down and see what happens,” Paul said, not quite sure if he even would be able to make a difference.

The boys then got all the rope they had together, tied a couple together to make it longer, and then through one end towards the hole. It didn’t go in the hole, so they had to keep trying a few times before it finally went in.

When they finally got the rope in the hole, they began to let it down, until they thought they had let enough down. After a minute of anticipation, and then nothing, the boys looked at each other like this was pointless too. But, just as they were about to pull the rope back up, they felt a sudden tug on the rope from the other end.

“Did you feel that?” Devon said.

“Yeah, something just tugged on it.”

Rusty began to bark again, running back and forth from the top of the slope and all around the area where the ground gave in. What smelled almost like smoke seemed to fill the air around them. Rusty sniffed the air, trying to figure out where the scent came from. It was coming from the hole in the ground.

“It’s holding on, let’s try to pull it up,” Paul said, motioning with one hand, rallying up the others.

One by one, each boy pulled, surprised at the difficulty they were having at bringing the rope back up. They began to feel the rope pull them instead, and tried to pull harder on their end.

“Ah, my hands!” Everett said. His hands, all the boys’ hands, were getting rope burn, though not bad enough that they needed to seek medical attention.

Just as the boys thought they would not be able to get the kid’s ghost free, they made one last ditch effort in pulling with all their might, and felt the weight suddenly disappear, all of them falling on their butts in the moist ground, now covered in mud and leaf litter.

“Dude that was intense,” Jackson said, “But, where did it go? Does anyone see anything?”

All the boys looked around, confused. Rusty, however, was on point, barking into the air, jumping wildly.

In a moment, an eerie chill came over all the boys, and a haunting sound seemed to fill the air. It sounded like a high-pitched bark or scream-like yelps. The boys all became ghostly white, hearing the sound getting closer.

“What is that?” Paul quivered as he spoke.

“I don’t know but whatever it is, it’s coming fast!” Everett said.

Suddenly, the ghost of a dog came out from the woods, and then they boys noticed the ghost of the boy, dressed in old-fashioned garb, embracing it in the air. The boys just stared in disbelief and fear. The ghostly figure glanced at the boys with wide, sad eyes, then to Rusty, who had stopped barking and sat motionless.

Paul got up, and then realized the ghost boy was coming towards him and his friends. Though shivering with fear, Paul felt an odd calm come over him, then asked, “Are you… the boy from the stories?”

The ghost boy nodded, his expression pained but grateful. He never spoke a word, and indeed seemed unable to, but instead floated down to Paul and put a bony hand on his mouth, then motioned it out towards him. Paul recognized this as the sign for “Thank you,” and Paul responded with putting his index finger on his lip then moving it quickly outward away from himself, nodding, meaning “Sure.”

All Paul’s friends stood in awe, watching the interaction Paul was having with the ghost boy. Devon took his phone out and tried to take a video or picture, but when he looked at it later, he discovered that it looked like Paul was alone.

After Paul’s sign back to the ghost boy, the ghost put a hand in his pocket, then took out a folded up paper. Astonishingly, when he handed the paper to Paul, it was a tangible piece of paper! It was a very old, weathered, paper that had the stains and markings of water and dirt, barely intact with its tattered edges and tears in parts of the creases.

Paul opened up the paper, and made out what seemed to be a treasure map of some kind. He looked back at the ghost boy, who then signed “Careful” to him, with both hands crossed and index finger and middle finger spread out like a “K”, then moving his hands in a circular motion.

“Thanks?” Paul said, putting the paper in his pocket, then signing back “Thank you” to him.

The ghost boy pointed towards the hole then to the rope that lay limp and muddy on the ground, signaling one last request. Understanding washed over Paul, and he put a hand up as if under oath, then said, “We’ll help you. We’ll make sure no one else ends up like you.”

Seeming to sense their mix of fear and fascination, the ghost boy gave them one last look, a grateful, almost peaceful expression on his face, and then they both faded into the sky, the faint shimmer of their forms dissolving in the golden hour sunlight, leaving a sun dog in the sky, which was now clear, the fog lifted and dissipated.

For a long moment, none of them spoke. Finally, Devon broke the silence. “Do you think he’s, you know… at peace now?”

Paul nodded, still processing everything they had just witnessed. “I think so. I think he just needed to be found and rescued.”

The boys looked back at the hole, then roped off the area around the hole. Rusty, tail wagging, trotted up to Paul, as if to say their adventure had come to an end, then led the way back down the trail from which they came.

The boys stood silent, their hearts pounding, understanding that their adventure had been far more than a game. Paul finally spoke, his voice steady, “We’ll tell someone about the hole - and his story.”

With a mixture of relief, wonder, and the tiniest bit of pride, the boys began the walk back home. Rusty gave one last bark into the trees, and for a split second, the boys thought they heard a faint bark echo back from somewhere far away.