The Woods

“Michael?” My booted feet crunch over dry twigs and fallen leaves as I take short and deliberate steps, reluctant to leave the safe haven of our campsite. 

I need to stay put. Wait. That’s what the survival guides tell you to do when you’re lost. 

But I’m not the one that’s lost.

 I swallow, conscious of the panicked fluttering of my heart. You don’t know if he’s lost either, I remind myself. But why else would he be gone so long? He said he needed to take a leak ten minutes ago. Ten minutes with nothing but the oppressive silence of nature. There’s no internet out here. No distractions to keep me from envisioning the worst possible scenarios. 

I’m overreacting. He promised to stay close. He knows how I feel about being outdoors. Especially out here. He wouldn’t wander off. 

We listened to the same survival podcasts, watched the same Youtube videos; I with the intensity of a grad student on a time-crunch, him far more absent-mindedly as he scanned articles on the newest Steam game. 

“I’ve been in Boy Scouts,” he yawned, reclining further onto our shared kingsize bed after I complained about his inattentiveness. “I’m not an idiot.” 

The sun is dipping low over the horizon. It will be dark soon. We should be getting a fire started, huddling close against the encroaching cold. For comfort, I imagine my head tucked into the crook of his neck as the crickets chirp and firewood crackles. 

“See,” he murmurs in my daydream, “not so bad, huh?” 

But there is no fire. No crickets. There’s no sound at all except my footfalls on the forest floor. Shouldn’t there be squirrels chittering in the branches? Birds? Anything? My deja vu is nauseating. 

“Michael!” I shout, allowing anger to saturate my voice. 

Good. I can cope with anger. Anger makes me strong. My stride lengthens as I plunge deeper into the ancient foliage now fueled by righteous indignation. When I find him I’m going to rip him a new one. Is this supposed to be some sort of exercise? A perverse way of forcing me to be brave in the face of uncertainty? 

I don’t need to be tested. I need a partner that will—

CRACK! 

I freeze mid step, blood turning to ice. 

I move my foot, peering down at the object I just crushed underfoot. 

It’s a pair of thick framed glasses. The same kind Michael wears. 

I glance around frantically, looking for a trace of him. “Michael!” 

There is no one to answer my call. 

—————————————-

I was eight years old, walking through the woods with my teenage sister, Miranda. Our catch of the day dangled from iron chain fishing stringer. 

“Miranda,” dad’s voice called from behind us. We both turned, Miranda with a preformed scowl on her face. She and dad had argued earlier. I don’t remember why. Something about a boy, or a window left ajar in the early hours of the morning. 

“What?” Miranda demanded. 

“Miranda,” dad called again, this time from farther away. 

“What? What is is?” Miranda shouted. 

I cringed at her tone. Why did they have to bicker all the time? Why couldn’t they just enjoy the wide-open spaces and forget about stupid drama for once? 

“Miranda.” 

She swore, handing me the line of swaying catfish. “Take ‘em.” 

My face contorted in disgust at the wiggling, slimy catch but I obey anyway. 

She stomped off through the brush while I returned to the campsite with our fishes. Mom had a small cookfire going and was carefully prodding at with an iron poker. 

“Where’s sissy?” she asked when I was near enough to hear. 

“With dad,” I replied, lifting our modest catch for her to inspect. “We caught some!” 

A grin splits her warm face, leathery from the sun. “Atta girl, Steph. When daddy gets back he’ll cut them up and fry them for us.”

A scream. High-pitched, terrified. 

Mom rose as pale as death. “Get in the RV,” she choked. 

I dropped the fish squirming and writhing onto the ground, and pelted clumsily inside the safe comfort of our temporary home. I lifted the blinds and watched my mom as she darted towards the forest in a panic. 

She cried out both my sister and dad’s names, but no one answered. 

I squirmed from my vantage point, pulse racing. Each second stretched into eternity but I didn’t dare leave. 

Mom told me to stay put. I was the good girl. I did what I was told.

Or at least I did until I heard the wail. 

My stomach curdled, threatening to heave up the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we ate for lunch. The noise wasn’t human. It was too anguished. 

An animal in the throes of torture. 

I grabbed a flashlight and burst out of the RV, tripping half a dozen times on the uneven terrain in my flight. Another wail ripped through the forest, flushing the birds from their branches. 

Stumbling through the brush and trees that insulated the further reaches of the forest from the scene, I finally spotted my mother, kneeling in the dirt. Her face looked skyward and she moaned. I followed her gaze to the top of the tree line. 

A figure loomed above; a dark angel, arms spread open, feet dangling as it floated midair. 

It took ages for my brain to comprehend what I was seeing. The angel wore jeans stained with blood and a ripped plaid shirt, revealing an exposed rib cage. It was not floating above the trees as I had thought. It was suspended by the boughs. 

 Miranda.

Her head was gone. 

————————————————————

The shadows are lengthening. I’m running out of time to find Michael if he’s injured or lost, but I can’t get off my knees. My tears fall the the ruined remains of his glasses. Seventeen years of grief is pouring out of me at once. 

“Stephanie!”

I gasp, clutching Michael’s glasses tighter. The frame snaps even more under my grip.

“Michael?” I ask, throat raw from crying. 

“Stephanie!”

I choke on a laugh, or a sob. I don’t know which. 

“I’m here!” I cry. 

I push myself onto my feet. I don’t bother to brush away the mud and dirty leaves clinging to my jeans. “I’m coming!” 

I’m high with elation. Too ecstatic to feel stupid for my emotional outburst. I follow the source of his voice, but his face still does not come into relief. 

“Michael? Where are you? Can you just—?”

Plop! 

I shriek, recoiling from the tree nearest me. Something fell from the branches. I stare at it for a moment. It’s a boot. A man’s boot. I laugh. My husband. My stupid husband. Climbed up a tree to frighten me. 

“Have you seriously been in a tree this whole time?” I look up and my mouth falls open. 

Michael. 

Michael dangling from the branches, chest cavity exposed. His head is only just attached by a thin spinal column. 

I choke. 

I can’t feel my legs anymore. The crunch of leaves behind me is barely audible. The stink of rotten flesh coils up my neck to my nostrils. 

“Stephanie,” Michael’s voice says.