This is a story I never planned to tell. Gold has a funny effect on people. The mere mention of it evokes instant excitement, let alone the sight of it. So, if I told you there was a chest full of gold laying on the floor of an abandoned cabin in the forest, you would want to know where, right? But there’s something else out there too. Something terrifying. And so I kept the story to myself. Then, last week, I read on a forum about a bare foot man who smelled of the earth and carried gold in his pockets. If he is still out there, people need to be warned.
I will not tell you exactly where this happened. All I can say is at the time I worked at a bait and tackle store up in the mountains. I had spent the best part of a year bouncing from place to place, struggling to get a foot hold anywhere. Then Andy McLeod hired me at his store. He was by some distance the best boss I’d had. And the work wasn’t difficult. A childhood spent fishing with my father meant I knew a thing or two about the gear. I finally had the feeling I might fit somewhere.
And then, on a cold fall day, he came into the store. I smelled him before I saw him and then heard a curt ‘Can I help you?’ from Andy. The smell filled the room and I struggled to put a finger on it. I settled on the smell of dirt, and not the pleasant smell of a freshly tilled field, but of must and decay.
I turned from the rack and there he was. Tattered shirt far too thin for the temperature. Trousers a size too small and frayed at the bottoms. And, the detail that I lingered on, barefoot. My first thought was that he was homeless, and my second was that I’d never seen a homeless person up here. The winters were too cold. Anyone in that kind of situation tended to migrate south like a bird in search of the sun.
The barefoot man placed a windbreaker he had lifted from the rack onto the counter. Andy pressed his hands down and shook his head. Andy was a kind-hearted man, but his kindness did not extend to giving free merchandise to the homeless. Especially items with price tags in the hundreds of dollars. Before Andy could say anything, the barefoot man lifted a closed fist from his pocket and let the contents spill onto the counter beside the windbreaker. It made a crackling sound on the polished timber. Andy took in a deep breath. Beside the windbreaker lay four gold nuggets, each about the size of a child’s tooth.
I moved to the counter and leaned in. I knew right away what they were, but they looked different to what I imagined. The yellow was a little dull and each piece was misshapen and rough. Instinct pushed my hand towards the treasure, but I stopped myself and shoved it back into my empty pocket.
Andy turned red and a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. He broke the silence by telling the barefoot man that he couldn’t accept it. The barefoot man’s eyes widened. He looked confused. He smoothed down his squall of jet-black hair. A smile revealed a set of stained teeth.
After a few beats of silence, the barefoot man said, “If it isn’t enough, I know where to get more.”
Andy roped in his two nephews, Shane and Albie, and together we followed the barefoot man into the woods. He had told us to call him Sam, which felt strange. It was too common a name for the uncommon nature of his arrival. I had expected something grander.
Keeping the secret had been harder than I thought. Gold has a strange effect on a person, you want to both squirrel it away and shout out to the world to come and take a look. But Andy swore us all to silence and we complied. We planned to follow Sam to where he found the gold and then we would decide what to do. Andy gifted him the windbreaker and threw in a pair of boots and socks.
The other effect of gold is the way it chases away rational thought. None of us thought to ask Sam how he found the gold. Or why a man with access to gold dressed so shabbily and smelled to high heaven, and can’t afford a pair of shoes. All we saw in our mind’s eye were handfuls of gold nuggets.
We were deep in the forest, far from any road or walking trail, before any of us questioned the man skipping up the slope at a speed that left us all panting. It was Albie, the younger of the nephews who spoke first. I had seen Shane and Albie around the store and around the town, and even though Shane was the oldest, he had a carefree and almost reckless temperament that stood at odds with his role of older brother. Albie, perhaps by necessity, exhibited a maturity beyond his late-teenage years.
Albie demanded Sam reveal where he was leading us.
Sam didn’t turn and said only that it wasn’t far.
Albie asked if we could take a breather. His Uncle Andy was red faced and struggling to keep up. Sam relented.
I crouched and propped against a tree and for the first time considered what we were doing. We had no idea who this person was or where we were going. My mouth was dry. We hadn’t brought enough water. It was already past midday and if we didn’t get there soon we would be coming back in the dark.
Sam bounced on his toes. It was either nervousness or impatience. He pushed a hand in his pocket and rattled the nuggets. Shane got to his feet and with that we were on our way again. It was as if Sam held out a carrot before our noses and like a pack of mules we sprang back into action.
We walked in single file and I let myself fall to the rear. Trees huddled around us on all sides. We were at least two hours walk from any known trail or landmark. My apprehension morphed into suspicion and a sudden fear struck. Without this man to show us the way, we may not find our way back out. Andy and his nephews were outdoor types, but how closely had they been paying attention to our route? Or were their minds fixed on the gold nuggets?
I paused and fished my pocket knife from my jacket and set to marking the trunk of a tree. If anything were to happen we would need markers to help us get back out. I cut two horizontal lines into the bark and cursed myself for only now having thought of it. I looked back down the mountain and saw only trees.
As I turned back up a shadow darted off to the right. It moved fast, it could have been a bird. But it had been bigger than a bird. I blinked hard. Maybe dehydration was kicking in. The sharp sound of a twig cracked in my ears. I hadn’t imagined that.
I couldn’t see any of the others. I called out to them one by one. No one answered. I took a hasty couple of steps in the direction I had last seen them. No one was there. Then the sound of shouting. Shane’s voice. And then Andy. I set off at a run.
I only made it half a dozen steps before I stopped dead in my tracks. Someone was running back down the mountain, dodging the trees like a running back. It was Albie, and there was something chasing him. It was a pale blur right up until it climbed on Albie’s back and brought him to the ground. Then a second one swung down from the trees and dropped a knee onto Albie’s neck. Almost human, but not quite. They were pale skinned with sporadic patches of red fur. A little smaller than Albie, but not by much and the difference could have been Albie’s thick coat. The second one opened its mouth wide, the skin of its cheeks stretching and turning almost translucent. Its teeth were all pointed like that of a shark. The jaws clamped shut around the back of Albie’s neck.
Albie spotted me and opened his mouth to say something or to scream. But before he could, his head twisted violently and the bones in his neck cracked. Albie’s attacker tore at the flesh of Albie’s neck until he ripped the head clean off. It held it up like a trophy, Albie’s eyes still open and full of terror.
The one who had tackled Albie set to work on the rest of him, pushing and pulling with unnatural strength until he ripped the arms from Albie’s torso. He peeled back the sleeves of Albie’s coat and sunk his teeth into the flesh and let out a deep groan. He was enjoying it.
I slipped behind a tree and hugged my knees to my chest. Should I run? Albie had run and it hadn’t done him any good. I stayed still and quiet.
And then shouting. Again it was Shane, but where the first burst of shouting had sounded angry, this one was full of fear. Albie’s attackers screeched and thumped the forest floor and retreated up the mountain towards the voice.
I dared to sneak a look and they were gone. I crept over to where Albie fell and all that remained was a thin strip of denim and a smudge of dark red on the forest floor. They hadn’t left a scrap behind.
Ahead the trees thinned into a clearing. Under the cold light of the fall sun, a troupe of wild human-like creatures pinned Shane and Andy to the forest floor. There must have been ten or a dozen of them. They growled and groaned and pushed at each other like school children fighting over a toy. Their mouths hinged like bear traps. Their muscular arms and powerful jaws were enough to snap arm and leg bones as if they were eating well-cooked chicken.
Shane wailed in abject terror as first his clothes, and then his skin, were mercilessly ripped apart. Andy’s face showed not fear, but forlorn resignation of what was to come.
Sam, the man who had led us up here, stood to the side, watching the performance passively.
A few of the creatures took a limb or a piece of torso and hustled into the trees beyond like lions returning to the pride with a gazelle held fast between their jaws.
Sam held out his hand and the biggest of the feral human creatures idled over and dropped three small nuggets of gold into Sam’s palm. Sam eyed them and held up his other hand with four fingers raised. The creature shook its head and held up three in return. Sam’s eyes narrowed. He scanned the clearing. He had led four up the mountain and had expected four nuggets as payment. Someone was missing. That someone was me.
I ran. I didn’t go back the way I had come. Instinct told me to avoid the place where Albie had fallen and so I skirted sideways running what I guessed to be west. I whimpered under my breath. My scurrying feet slapped hard against the ground. They couldn’t fail to hear me. They couldn’t fail to see me.
Up ahead a structure emerged from between the trees. A simple wooden cabin, old and overgrown with moss. Who had built this way up here? Right now it didn’t matter. If there was anywhere that could provide some semblance of safety, it was the cabin.
I reached the door and swung around and looked behind. Flashes of colour somewhere far off. I shouldered open the door and pressed it closed with my back. I stood there catching my breath. I smelled something rotten. A bead of cold sweat trickled down my temple. I listened for any sound from the forest. There was nothing.
The inside was a single space with a lone window on the far wall. Stark white shapes littered the floor. I half-jumped expecting them to be some sort of animal. But they didn’t move. My eyes darted around the floor and settled on a human skull, two black bulbous shadows where the eyes once had been. Bones. The floor was covered in bones. I am no expert, but to me they looked human. Rib cages and hips and the tibia and fibula of the lower leg.
I panicked. I wanted to scream. This was a house of death and soon I would join their ranks. I had to get out. I ran towards the window, but somewhere near the centre of the room I tripped and fell. The culprit was a wooden box. It blended in with the floor. The force pushed the box over on its side and cracked open the lid and the contents spilled out. They made the same rattle as when the barefoot man let the gold nuggets fall onto the counter in the bait and tackle store. I picked up a handful. They were heavy. It was gold. In all it could have been worth millions.
A double thud of feet hitting the floor sounded behind me. Sam had climbed in through the window. He came for me, the boots Andy gifted him knocking against the timber floorboards. Dumbly I tossed the gold nuggets at his feet. Sam turned his head to the box. He hesitated and then swept by me and buried his hand into gold. He hissed under his breath.
A clapping sound on the walls and then a high pitched squeal. They were here. I scrambled over to the door and wedged myself against it. I felt a weight push from the outside and I pushed back. More clapping and then a rush of footfalls around to the other side.
Sam grasped me by the arm and pulled. I resisted and broke free. He shot me a wicked smile. He said, “It’s your turn now.”
One of them appeared in the window, the big one who had placed the nuggets into Sam’s hand. He clambered into the cabin. He snorted and spat. His head was narrow at the top and broad at the base. His eyes were almost all white with little pinpricks of black in the centre. He parted his lips and revealed a set of razor sharp teeth.
Sam grabbed at me a second time and pointed to the creature to tell him that he’d captured me. I was the fourth that was promised.
I wished I had run when Albie went down. I wished I was back at the tree I had marked with my knife. I might have had a chance. My knife!
With my free hand I dug into my jacket and pulled out my pocket knife. I slashed at Sam and the blade caught his arm. I felt the edge slice into the wiry flesh and Sam let out a howl. He dropped the fist full of gold nuggets he had taken from the box and they clattered to the floor.
The big one who had given Sam the gold screeched. This was his stash. This wasn’t Sam’s to take. Two more had climbed in through the window. The lieutenants scrambled to sweep up the nuggets and put them back into the box. The big one moved slowly and deliberately towards Sam, who held up his palms and muttered something unintelligible.
Sensing my chance I cracked open the door and dragged myself out of the cabin. Another screech from inside and this time a scream from Sam. I scanned the forest. I couldn’t see any more of them. I ran.
I found the stain of blood from Albie and the marked tree beyond. From there I ran downhill at a sprint. My lungs burned and my legs turned to jelly and still I ran. It was approaching dusk before I stopped and doubled over. I had no idea where I was. And then the faint sound of a car. Headlights filtered through the trees. I found the road. I was a half-hour’s walk from the town.
The police came for me that night. Andy had told his wife he was going fishing with his nephews and that I was tagging along. In a split second decision I told them I had not gone on account of feeling sick. I had no idea why Andy and Shane and Albie weren’t back yet. I don’t know why I lied. I think in part I thought they wouldn’t believe me, and in part I didn’t want to tell them about the cabin and the box full of gold.
In the weeks that followed I fought a constant battle with myself. Something deep down pushed me to go back up there. If I was quiet enough maybe I could get to the cabin and grab the gold and high tail it out of there. I’d be a millionaire. But then I would see Andy’s look of resignation in the last moments of his life. If they saw me, those feral humans, I would not come home.
In the end I moved away, all the way across the country. I had to remove myself from any thoughts of going back up there.
I never told anyone. I figured the response would be a question as to the whereabouts of the cabin. I couldn’t be responsible for more death.
That was until I read a story online about a barefoot man with jet black hair and a long, hideous scar on his arm. He had gold with him, the poster said. I had always assumed they had killed him. But he must have convinced them, somehow, to spare his life. And he is still taking people up into the forest to their deaths.
So, if you ever encounter a man who calls himself Sam and who smells of the earth and carries gold nuggets in his pocket, don’t follow him into the forest.