A Noise in the Forest

Rosaire Labelle had never experienced such a sound. It pierced through her dreams of warmth and security. Crashing her back to the reality of her situation. For days, the news and weather agencies warned of the storm that was coming, but she remained unaware and unprepared. The wailing screech, such an unfamiliar and terrifying shriek. What could make such a noise?  

Alone, unarmed, and barely strong enough to sit straight, she unzipped the tent. Still wrapped in her sleeping bag, Rosaire peered from behind the corner of the door flap. She looked across the small clearing illuminated by an eerie moving glow, cast by a full moon hidden behind thick fog and gusts of dancing snow. There was no sign of what made the terrifying sound. It must be an injured animal, a victim of a brutal attack.  

Rosaire sat down, huddled inside of her sleeping bag stuffed with blankets. Shivering, she drew the string around her neck to seal in the heat. She silently froze in place for several minutes listening for any sign that the wild animal was nearby. Hopeful but unsure of whether the vicious carnivore had moved on, her focus drifted into the white noise of nature. She noticed the tentpoles creaking from the unexpected snow. She looked at how it made the center of the tent sag. Piles of her belongings were stacked in each corner. Luckily now they served as pillars that held up each wall. Dips in the canvas touched the top of her head. How much snow is above me? She could feel the heavy roof bounce above her as the winds raged and eased. 

Anxiety flooded her. She fidgeted inside of the weatherized blanket cocoon, unsure of whether she should stay put or make a run for it. Flashes of Rosaire's last time in town terrorized her. She went to a social worker for help but was blocked in a room and interrogated by a Police officer. The stares and fingers pointing, laughing and taunting as she hugged the roads and sidewalks. She tried to be invisible, but everyone she passed snapped their heads in disgust. Groups of people chattered and snickered in her direction. Mothers hid their children behind their waists while passing along the walkways. 

The wind whistled and abruptly brought her attention back to mother nature. She couldn’t remember a time she had felt this cold or been more afraid. The ghastly sound echoed in her head, and she mustered the courage to return to town. It would be better to face public humiliation than to freeze in the woods with a hungry beast. Her mind wandered to thoughts of her escape from the town. The council banned sleeping in public and everyone harassed anyone who looked unhoused. At this point, she was willing to turn herself in as “homeless” just to survive whatever was in these woods. Her conversation last spring with town officials haunted her as she pushed onward. 

“Miss Labelle, where do you live?” asked the old, scruffy, white-bearded Officer.  

Rosaire sat hunched over her lap. “Well, am I under arrest officer?” she asked under her breath. 

“Speak up.” Said the officer. 

“I live with friends and am not supposed to give out their address.” She blurted. 

“So, you are homeless, Miss Labelle. Is that what you’re telling me?”  

“No, I have a place to live.” 

“What’s the address?” the Officer pried. 

“I can’t give out that information.” 

“Sounds like you don’t have a home. We can’t let people without homes live here on the streets.” he continued. “See the town banned homeless folks like yourself from using our streets and abandoned buildings. They decided that you all damage and steal everyone’s stuff.” 

Rosaire looked at the name on the officer’s badge “Am I under arrest, Officer... Leon?” 

“No, not yet. But we heavily patrol all around the town and the outskirts. If you are living out there, we will find you. You simply cannot live outside in this town. This is your only warning! I know that you are homeless. You know how? Officer Leon paused and leaned in slowly... he lowered his voice, “Because you smell like shit and have all of that stuff with you.” He pointed at her grocery bags and garbage bags filled with her most precious belongings. 

“I have a place to stay. I’m not homeless. I was just walking to do laundry and grocery shopping down at the plaza.” Tears rolled down Rosaire’s cheeks.  

“Well, if you were homeless, I could help you with your laundry expenses and give you some food.” Chimed the social worker. “After all, that is what you originally came into my office for. Was it not?” 

Rosaire squirmed in her seat, panicked by the unexpected interrogation. “I came to ask for food and help finding a better place to live. I didn’t say that I had no place to stay.” 

“Oh, I see. Well, you can fill out our application for food and rental aid. We need your current address, phone number, and email address. You also will need to provide copies of your photo ID, bank statements, copies of utilities in your name, proof of your current residence, and proof of income.” explained the social worker. 

“I don’t have any of those things. What am I supposed to do?” Rosaire asked.  

Old Leon and the Social Worker laughed. “Well, if you weren’t homeless, you’d have those things, wouldn’t you?” snarked the officer.  

“So, there’s no help for me here... is there?”  

Officer Leon chuckled, “No girl. In this world the only help there is, is what we do for ourselves. People need to be held accountable for their own problems and actions. Besides, I know you’re lying. We will find you and place you in a camp downstate. I promise you that. You can make it easier on yourself and go now.” 

“Go now? I can leave?” she squirmed in her seat and gathered her bags around her legs. “I want to leave and go home, right now.” 

“Go now, meaning we can take you to the camp downstate, where the homeless are placed.” old Leon chuckled under his breath.  

“So, are you placing me under arrest?” Rosaire froze. 

“No. You are not under arrest. But if we find you sleeping outside, you will be. You’re free to go.” Leon stood and moved his chair from the doorway. Rosaire turned sideways to slip past the two of them, ashamed of the stench she would make them smell as she passed by. “I mean it girl. Nobody can live homeless in this town. I will find you. You need to go somewhere else. We’ll give you a ride.” Leon said again, this time with a different, softer tone in his voice.  

After Rosaire left, she walked several miles to set up her camp outside the city limits and out of sight of everyone. For months she built. She made a fire pit with rocks. She stacked piles of wood from the surrounding forest next to the tent. Rosaire made a toilet from a discarded five-gallon bucket, found near a little stream. She built a shower with a bunch of black contractor bags that heated the water in the sun. She made a rope from plastic shopping bags and tied the shower to a tree branch. She built a camp. No, she built a home! A home from nothing, but none of that mattered now. 

A freezing blast of air chilled Rosaire to the bone as she unzipped the sleeping bag. The frigid air penetrated through every layer of clothing draped upon her frail, rigid skeleton. The tent shook from gusts of wind. Hunched over and shaking, she struggled to squeeze her feet (hidden inside of a thick accumulation of socks) into oversized men’s boots. Her hands were lost within layers of mittens and socks, making the laces impossible to tie. Rosaire staggered to the tent’s opening, tripping over piles of her belongings. Her head bumped against the ceiling, and it bounced with great force, knocking her down to the ground. She slid down the cooking pile, pots and pans clanked, papers and wrappers crinkled.  

Worried, the woodland predator heard her struggle, she stuck her arm through the partial opening to unzip the door in a swift swooping motion. She glanced around for the last time, looking for any sign of what caused the terrifying noise before she trenched into the knee-deep, untouched snow. The wind blew small icy snowflakes, stinging her skin and eyes. She closed them and heard the tent door flapping while she repelled the wild flakes with her lashes. The gusts subsided and she tried to close the tent door, but her two pillowy hands could not grip the zipper. She pulled as far as her poor grasp allowed, but the zipper didn’t budge. Rosaire tried again but was startled by a loud crack and the snaps of tree branches, that came from behind a line of snow-burdened and bent birches.  

 A powerful gust of wind howled through the mountainside, leading a cloud of white snowflake soldiers to encircle her, bombing her face. She shielded her eyes with her arm and headed toward the clearing's edge. The snow army followed like hungry gnats in the summer, gnawing at her exposed skin. Knowing the area well, she navigated an inconspicuous path she used daily. The evergreen canopy blocked the glowing clouds from the snow-covered ground, and darkness surrounded her. She pushed forward, the edge of town was only half a mile away. With each step, her body grew colder. The fresh snow drifted, now up to her waist, and it was difficult to traverse. 

From what she could see, there were no signs of what made the haunting screams. Dread lingered in the hallowed pit of her empty stomach. It growled louder than the wind. Rosaire moved as quickly as her small body could carry the heavy snow-clad wardrobe. Her mouth was dry as sand. She licked her stinging lips, her tongue failed to soothe the rough, dry, windburn. She shoved a handful of snow into her mouth. It melted into smooth, sweet water that eased her immediate thirst and hunger pains but spread the icy coldness into her gut. 

She couldn’t remember such a cold night, especially this time of year. What was the time and temperature? As hard as she tried, she failed to pick up the pace. Her boots were heavy from compacted snow, growing with each step. Ahead was a narrow bend in the path, lined with trees and brambles that grew tightly together. Tonight, it was a ten-foot snowdrift with no way around. How on Earth do I get around that? A ghastly siren pierced the forest. The monstrous screech pierced her soul, she trembled. Wide-eyed, she spun slowly around. Her heart pounded and she grabbed her chest as if to hold in the sound. Snow-covered shrubs and branches surrounded her in every direction, including up. 

The wail was close, but where did it come from? Rosaire was trapped in this tightly bound path, without room to run. Having at least another quarter mile of thick forest to navigate, she tried her hardest to sprint through the lowest side of the towering drift. Her shoes, unrecognizable white boulders, now 50-pound ankle weight – such enormous burdens to heave through the blizzards’ remnants. Rosaire’s body jerked from side-to-side, but her feet barely moved. Her violent attempts to flee, freed her feet from the snowball shackles. The compressed snow was fused to several layers of socks, which also peeled from her feet. She picked up speed, but the cold was not to be outrun.  

The path's head trailed off from the forest to a clearing next to a small creek, where moose and deer are frequented. On the other side, there was a thin wall of brambles and shrubs, then the road. Rosaire trampled across the partially frozen stream and emerged onto the unplowed, untraveled road, soaked from feet to breasts. She gasped as she turned to walk towards the town. Standing less than 10 feet away was the silhouette of a figure in the road. It was another person. Did they hear the noise and come to investigate? Rosaire waved her arms as much as she could under her frozen clothes. The movements were barely noticeable but felt like they were above her head. As she inched closer to the figure, it became clear that it was a woman bundled up for the weather. She opened her mouth and tried to ask for help. The terrifying screech, the one she was trying to escape, was her only sound. The figure remained silent and still. The other woman’s face came into focus and froze Rosaire.  The stranger's eyes were black, yet the face was her own. Her eyes were locked with the two hollow black voids of the stranger’s familiar face. Rosaire’s body went limp, and her vision faded into blackness.  

Snow began to fall heavily and continued for the late November nor’easter. The storm lasted three days and produced over three feet of snow; some areas saw over six feet. Those areas didn’t get plowed. They were left unattended and saw more snow by the time the late spring thaw arrived. Rosaire Labelle was found by a local on an ATV, in late July. Old Leon was the responding officer and sat beside Miss Labelle until the other officers arrived. He looked at her, “I knew you were lying.” He shook his finger at her. “I told you, that you cannot live homeless in this town. You just can’t survive out here. Mother nature gets angry in the winter, she’s brutal, as you well know.” He continued his lecture to the dead corpse rotting next to the creek. “You really should’ve gone downstate like I said. It’s a hell of a lot warmer down there. You would’ve stood a chance.” He wiped away his tears before the other officers arrived, but to this day he still wonders why she and so many others refused his help and chose this as their ending.