Douglas Firs

Carlos watched the evergreen forest through the waves of heat and squinted eyes as he trudged along the worn dirt trail. It was late summer and the sun was trying to fit in as much heat into the patch of land as it could, having procrastinated for most of the summer.

The trees stood tall and wide, Douglas firs, and did their best with emerald green pines and splayed limbs to hide Carlos from the sun's rays. The shade was a welcome relief that allowed the sweat building on his lanky frame to drip away cooler.

Carlos held out a hand against the vibrant green vegetation that reach around the height of his hip and crowded the edges of the trail. Soft leaves and grass brushed against his palm, a few plants dragging rougher, as if wanting to pull him back to properly shake his hand.

But Carlos was on a schedule, and had to be back at his post before noon. A worn fence made of dry and brittle wood waited for him to lean against while waiting for a guest of the resort to wander over and warily ask for a map for the hiking trails. The resort was fairly small, only able to account for fifty guests at once and twenty staff. Carlos hailed from the staff, specifically the small minority that worked with the forest's activities rather than the lake's. It was a summer gig, and for a college student, it was a fairly decent one. Housing, food, utilities (not counting a phone plan), were all accounted for. The only down side was the job, which on busy days was endless customer service.

Not that Carlos had many busy days. Most of the guests lingered by the lake, especially while the sun was cramming before winter. Even with his low interaction with the guests, Carlos didn't get much time to himself. His coworkers knew he didn't have much and would often send him to track down a docking rope or find a charger for a phone. The mornings and nights were always the few hours Carlos definitely had to himself.

Upon remembering that he didn't have long before he would be sent running across the resort all day, Carlos dropped his hand from the soft vegetation that swayed gently in the breeze.

He had to pat down his pockets until he found the right one, and puled out a square black box, bulky, with large white buttons on the top. The paint of the record, stop, pause, and play symbols had been worn away from years of use from someone else's hands before the hand held tape recorder ended up in the thrift store where Carlos had found it a few months ago.

He pressed the record button. "Personal log No. 78, first log of today, being around uh, eleven in the morning on September 3rd. Hiking the Cornmac trail today, I know, I'm getting wild."

Carlos glanced back over his shoulder, thick tree trunks and green revealing nothing. "I think an animal just stepped on a twig. Probably one of those fat racoons. Those babies eat good out of the dumpsters. They're gonna to be so ready for hibernating this winter."

He stops at the sound of a soft crash, dried leaf matter and faded bushes crackling under weight. "Pause Personal log no. 78," Carlos mumbled into the recorder before clicking it off and standing still.

He turned to face the noise, hoping that all the teasing from the older coworkers about Carlos running into a bear was just teasing and not a strangely veiled warning. He listened to the birds singing above him, the wind rustling the trees, and the sound of his own breathing. There was something there, he thought, just beyond the path and firmly in the dark shadows where the trees grew closer together and blocked out all the light.

Carlos leaned to the side, and there-!

A person was in the distance and brushing off their knees, and despite the fact he couldn't see much of them at all, Carlos was just glad to find it hadn't been a bear.

"Hey! Are you okay?" He called out.

The person froze, and Carlos thought they looked up at him, but they were so far away and there was so much brush and vegetation between them he couldn't quite be sure.

They straightened, and he could see their head as they slowly gave a clear nod. Yes.

"Oh-okay! Do you uh, need a map or anything? I've got loads for solo hikers."

A slow shake. No.

"Alright. Uh, have a nice hike!" Carlos shouted, and the figure began to back away from him.

Carlos stayed rooted there, even after the figure had disappeared into the forest. They weren't on a trail. The dense, if dry, green foliage was suffocating in the off trail, and getting turned around was as easy as turning in a circle.

He pressed the record button. "I think I just met someone crazy enough to go off trail in these woods. They must be really good with directions, since they didn't seem to need my help at all."

The walkie on his hip buzzed angrily before the crackly voice of one of his coworkers burst out to sheepishly ask him for a hand tying up the boats. Carlos again clicked off the recorder before he radioed back that he would, and gave the shadows one last searching look before jogging the rest of the way back to the resort.

The dock was made of the same wood as the fence that marked his usual haunt, dry and brittle wood, that Carlos gingerly stepped onto. The warm crystal sky above blazed down, and he swore he could feel his skin sizzling in the heat.

Jasmine turned at the sound of his footsteps. She was crouched next to a bobbing boat, a rope in her hands, and an apologetic smile on her face. She was nice, had a knack for true crime podcasts, and was absolutely terrible with knots.

"Hey, Carlos, do you mind showing me that knot again?"

Carlos obliged, kneeling down next to her and fumbling with the rope for a few minutes as he tried to remember how to do it himself.

"Hey, uh, you live near here, right Jas?"

"Yeah, I live in Tomac." Jasmine answered, before glancing back at Carlos' still expectant face. "It's the nearest town. Sorry, I forgot you're not from here."

He nodded. "So, do people hike up here from town? I think I saw someone in to forest earlier."

Jasmine's face scrunched up. "Uh, not really. The forest here is private property for the resort."

"Oh. I mean, they did seem pretty skittish. I guess I caught them." Carlos said as he gave a final tug to the rope, the knot firmly in place. Jasmine stood and Carlos obediently followed to the next wooden post and bobbing boat.

"It's pretty rare for people to trespass. Its a really long hike from here to town, and there are a bunch of weird stories. Before it was a resort, people would just go missing in here. Most would come back a few days later, but the rest never did."

"What a great thing to tell me, the guy who has to show people the hiking trails." Carlos deadpanned as Jasmine handed him another rope.

"Oh, you would have asked if I just left it as 'weird stories'. Don't lie." She said, knocking her shoulder into his.

"What did they say, though? The people who came back?" Carlos twisted the thick and rough rope material and twined it around the post.

Jasmine shrugged. "This was like in the 70's. They were probably just high. I think a lot of them said something about aliens, and time going weird. I heard one story that said they walked into another world and could only leave by walking backwards to get back into our original one. That one was at least original compared to the whole 'aliens abducted me and they shoved a-'"

"Alright, alright. Here." Carlos said, ushering her to the last post and handing her the rope. "You tie this one. You watched me do it a few times already."

Jasmine sighed, "You're no fun."

The rest of the afternoon was spent as usual: running to do errands for everyone else who couldn't manage to leave their spot as they looked after the guests. The days went by quickly, and the sun was lowering itself down into a sleepy sunset as Carlos walked down the trail that led to the staff's cabins.

"Personal log no. 78 continued. Talked to Jas earlier about the person in the woods. Apparently the forest around here is fucked up, which is great for me."

He found himself looked at the tall trees leaning over him on all sides as they gently swayed and the rustled as squirrels jumped from branch to branch high up in the canopy. Carlos' foot stubbed against the first step of his cabin. He steadied himself on the banister before dragging his attention away from the forest to focus on not knocking a tooth out on the porch of his cabin. It was a little log cabin, made of an oak wood painted over with a hideously bright white. They were cheaply made with thin walls that would kill someone in the winter and a mostly water-proof, slate grey roof.

"Anyways, it's my the end of the day. I'm gonna try to get to bed early, uh-"

The figure was back. It stayed at the edge of the forest, but it was much closer now than it had been this morning. Carlos froze on the white and creaking porch steps. It wasn't human. It was faintly see through, like it was just a shadow in the shape of a human. And it waved at Carlos.

"What?" He muttered to himself, staring with wide eyes at the figure just a few yards away from him.

The figure beckoned to Carlos, and began to walk backwards again until it disappeared from his sight entirely.

"Oh, fuck that."

Carlos kept his eyes on the shadows of the forest as his free hand searched for the key to his cabin from withing his pockets. He wasn't panicked. There was a perfectly logical explanation or this, featuring an elaborate prank form his coworkers.

The key obtained, and the lock yielding, Carlos walked calmly in and locked the door. Then he checked the locks on the windows in his cabin. His hands were shaking just a little. He didn't feel very tired anymore, but he still flung himself onto his bed with a dull thump.

He twisted his arm up, seeing his recorder still running. "Uh, so. There's a shadow man in the forest?" Carlos had to laugh at himself despite the creeping dread. The darkness of his room felt suffocating, like the shadows had form and were wrapped around him as tight as a burial shroud-

Carlos leaned over and clicked on his lamp before standing and flicking on the over head light.

"I didn't realize it wasn't a person earlier. I talked to it. And now it's at the edge of the forest nearest to my cabin and waving at me. Like a much scarier version of a will-o-wisp."

The sun had set, and the windows spilled out his precious light into the dark. He pulled the curtain at the front of the cabin closed, blocking off the other cabins from his view.

"Something just tapped against the window next to my bed." Carlos told the recorder, refusing to turn to look as he pulled the other curtain of the window that showed the white washed wall of his neighbor's cabin shut.

The last window, the one by his bed, over looked the forest. The tapping was a faint, clear sound. Like someone's nail knocking against glass. He didn't want to turn around. He wanted to keep staring at the thick polyester curtain of the window he just closed. Carlos took a deep breath and pulled up the recorder. He was almost out of recording time for this tape.

"I'll just close the last window. And- and I'll go to sleep. I have ear buds, if that tapping keeps going. End of personal log number 78."