We should have known better, both of us. My uncle, Marshall, was an experienced outdoorsman who knew the woods better than the animals who lived there. He was one of those mountain men tamed by the allure of town living that never forgot or missed an opportunity to return to the relative tranquility of the woods. By his own proclamation he was forged by it, raised in it, and shaped like “a log in the rut” because of it. I wasn’t a green foot either. From being dragged holler over hill over holler to hearing story after story from uncle Marshall, I knew my way around game trails, horse trails, trail trails, and all the tales traveling them freely. On top of that, I’d tried my hand at photography after graduating high school. When you photograph enough sunsets and retreat to your car after enough sundowns, for the sake of sanity you learn every creak, grunt, and rustle in the woods.
So again, we should have known better. I’d been away at university for several months and hadn’t seen Marshall on my sparse trips home. Which was a long call away from how we’d see each other fishing, hiking, or hunting at least once a week before I moved. As you can imagine, we both were anxious to break out our boots and get our hands dirty when I had an extended weekend at home. We’d hiked nearly every trail in every season at dusk and dawn within a generous radius of town except for one. It was a river trail by an old government research facility, long-shuttered, far back up a holler and a good way into the countryside. Marshall said the facility specialized in forest renewal and freshwater revitalization. Which is fancy talk for improving water quality and chopping trees down to watch them grow back. It wasn’t a popular trail by any means but its saving grace was a variety of trees, flowers, and wildlife you wouldn’t find as tightly packed anywhere else.
Unlike most trails, this one didn’t loop. It was roughly three miles from parking lot A, at the facility, to parking lot B, on a back road close to a trailer park where the trail ended. The plan was to take both our cars. I’d park mine at lot B, ride with Marshall to lot A, hike the trail, and drive him back. We were pretty quick hikers so we planned on starting in the early evening so we’d finish close to sundown. The sun would be casting golden rays over the valley as we drove home.
It was a good plan but neither of us are punctual people. Instead of early evening, we started down the trail just a few hours before sundown. Again, we should have known better. Neither of us were familiar with the area and had no idea what condition the trail was in. It didn’t help we’re also naturally curious people. The facility itself was unpresuming but a variety of fruit and nut trees were planted along the beginning of the path. By the time we finished identifying, debating, and re-identifying each tree and its fruit, the sun was casting long shadows behind us.
But we pressed on. The hike itself was… foreign? at first. The government marked off patches around the facility. Each patch was felled and replanted with different varieties of trees, shrubbery, and grass. Every hundred yards to the dot was a sharp transition into a different mini-biome. One moment trees reached to the sky and heaven was a canopy aglow with golden hour. A moment later branches were knocking our hats off and choking out the sun like smog. I couldn’t tell you how long these transitions lasted because darkness washed through the woods soon after.
Wilderness forays rarely caught us unprepared but that night we’d both forgotten our packs. Which meant we forgot our flashlights. Our phones were our only lantern in the dark. Which was surprisingly adequate for a long while. The trail exclusively ran beside the river. Its roar guided our way and drowned any anxiety growing in our stomachs.
Though soon the trail became ragged and obscure. Patches of it dipped into the water and eventually all left was a sharp, steep embankment populated by laurels and garbage. Nature threw the whole kitchen sink. Literally and figuratively. A flood earlier in the year must’ve eroded the trail and littered the woods with junk. At one point we climbed through the laurel stalks like a monkey gym, at another we waded through the water with our jeans rolled to our knees. We persevered for an hour, maybe more, before the trail became a trail again. We both were battered, muddied, and bloodied but our night was only beginning.
The path flattened and widened into a small road. ATV tracks indented the center. The hiking grew easier and we finally caught our breath. As we pressed on, our surroundings grew increasingly familiar. Not because we’d been there before but because anyone who’s spent enough time rambling through the woods would recognize access trails cut for fisherman. The roar of the river quietened to a babble. Its indomitable flow slowed. Well-worn game paths guarded by trees standing like toll booths dotted every few yards. Beer cans and chip bags replaced kitchen sinks and deflated basketballs.
I chirped “Nice to see something familiar huh?”
Marshall replied, “Not as nice as being back on solid ground.”
“Amen.”
Content, we turned our phones off to conserve battery and continued down the trail. We walked for roughly 15-20 minutes before encountering a sign nailed to a tree. Marshall stopped -
“What do you reckon the size limits are for the river?”
“All I know is it’s artificial lures only.”
He whipped his phone out to illuminate the sign. Instead of regulations, we were met with something much different.
“STAY OUT”
I’ve seen plenty of posted signs in my day but none so forward. I looked to Marshall to know how to react. He looked back at me.
“People can be dicks huh?”
“Sure can.”
“This whole trail is state property but… whatever it takes to hide your fishing hole, right?”
Which was true. Fishermen aren’t exactly known for sharing. Not around there. Luckily we weren’t there to fish. No harm no foul. We pushed on.
I’m not sure where we got lost. We took a wrong turn somewhere, somehow. The trail was flat and straight. The night was clear and the moon shone like a truck stop. One moment we were on that dirt road walking between tire tracks and the next we were staring into an open field. A dense fog settled through the woods and chilled my skin. Marshall’s phone died and mine couldn’t pierce the mist. With just a few feet of visibility, a gnawing nervousness ushered us along. Or ushered me along. Marshall was the teller of campfire stories. I grew up listening to them. Thorn bushes soon populated the open field and we returned to climbing, crawling, and bleeding. After 10 minutes or so they thinned enough to walk but our progress was slow.
The darkness felt like a void akin to a night sky without constellations. It was veiled and unpierceable. Somewhere in all that empty space, I heard a sound. It was something moving, creeping through the underbrush. As I said, I’m no stranger to woods at night. If the sound of something moving scared me, I’d retire from these adventures. Rather, it was the lack of sound that put my heart in my throat. If an animal stalks you, you’d never hear it. If you hear an animal, it’s letting you. Normally though, any animal moving around at night identifies itself. A deer snorts, a coyote howls, a rabbit thumps, an owl hoots; this animal made no noise. The racquet of it moving was the only sound echoing through the night. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I froze in place.
“You’re gonna let something walking around in the dark scare you? What do you think it’s bigfoot?”
“I’m not gonna stick around and find out.”
Irregardless of the thorns catching my jacket and scratching my skin, I shot like a gazelle through the rest of the field. I had more than enough time to catch my breath while Marshall caught up. What spooked me wasn’t just the sound but Marshall too. Normally he’d jump at any opportunity to tell me a ghost story and freak me out. He didn’t.
When he emerged through the thicket the sound wasn’t far behind him. It wasn’t quieter nor louder, closer nor farther. Happiness wasn’t my stranger when the field was behind us but the trail ahead wasn’t much better. It was ill-defined. A path barely noticeable cut through high grass beneath short trees. The sound stopped but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. We continued in silence for several minutes before spotting a light ahead.
“Thank God, I was starting to think you’d gotten us lost” Marshall joked.
“I thought we were lost.”
“No one has to know. We’ve been at McDonald’s this whole time, right?”
Before I could answer, our relief evaporated into the still air. Under the light wasn’t my car. It was a shed. A worn shed at that. The window was busted and it set askew. The light flickered and I paused.
“What do we do?”
“What do you mean? When you’re lost in the woods, you walk towards electricity. You learn that on the first day”
“Of what?”
“Being lost in the woods.”
Marshall joked but I’d heard enough “angry moonshiner shoots misplaced hiker” stories from his own mouth to be weary. Regardless of his demeanor, he still left me walking in front. As we inched closer, two more sheds emerged in the darkness along with a busted lawnmower, a dilapidated car, and a sign reading “YOU WERE WARNED” featuring the same scribbled handwriting as the sign before. It felt like we were someplace we shouldn’t be and I was afraid of what we’d see next. Still, I couldn’t contain my curiosity. The path led amongst the crumbling buildings and the flickering light illuminated their contents in short bursts. Through the windows fractured like spiderwebs were worlds out of place in the woods. The first shed contained junk, a busted toolbox here, a chest of drawers there. There were even toys like broken rocking horses and old dolls casting anthropomorphic shadows on the wall. It would have been creepy if it wasn’t so on the nose. The second shed was stranger. Instead of junk, it contained old clothing. Lots of it. It looked like a liquidation sale at Sears. But not the new Sears, the mail-in-order era Sears. All the clothes were dated. The only place they’d be at home is a 1950s fashion magazine. The third shed was the strangest. At first, I couldn’t make out its contents. The flickering light faded before it pierced the window. So I turned to my cell phone. When I first held it to the window all I saw was a glisten. As my eyes adjusted, I realized something metallic was the cause. Then I heard behind me -
“I haven’t seen a bed like that in 50 years.”
I jumped into tomorrow but realized it was an old-timey bed, complete with metal headboards and footboards. A mattress rested on top sans any blankets or toppings. As I stared in confusion, I noticed a shape behind the bed, on the far wall. It was a rectangle that shined as if it gave off light of its own.
It was a door. A door that shone because it was slightly open. I uneasily took several steps back as Marshall said -
“We probably need to get out of here before you trip and this whole place falls down.”
Which is all I needed to hear. We proceeded down the trail, away from the buildings when we heard it again. It was that noise and it was coming from the sheds. In the field, thorn brambles were an adequate medium for an animal to rustle. Here? The grass was soft. Whatever it was went out of its way to make a sound. I started speedwalking and Marshall did too. I think even he was unsettled. After a few minutes, we heard the gentle rumblings of the river again. Only in our reunification, I realized we’d lost it. An instant calm overtook me. I slowed down to gather myself. I listened intently to the darkness but it didn’t utter a peep. I took a deep breath and the fog felt refreshing like morning dew in the bottom of my lungs. We were in another open space but the water ran adjacent to us. Meaning the parking lot couldn’t be far off. The night felt big again, not suffocating. The weeds no longer tickled our ankles and we were walking on manicured grass. When I looked at Marshall, he looked relieved too.
“For a second there I thought we wandered onto the set of Deliverance 2.”
For the first time since sundown, I laughed.
As soon as I did the field came ablaze with light. On the far side, a house materialized in the darkness. First, the windows upstairs lit up. We could hear hushed sounds originating inside but couldn’t make out any words. Next, the windows downstairs lit up one by one, each getting closer to the front door. Silhouettes passed in front of them. We stood frozen in shock until that sound, that noise from the sheds, was behind us again. As soon as we started to move, clear as day, we heard from the house -
“Do you think it’s out?”
“I don’t know but I’m turning ‘em loose.”
I looked at Marshall and his eyes were big as the moon in the sky -
“Speedwalk but don’t run so we won’t look guilty.”
We took off across, what I realized was a yard. The mysterious noise faded and above it echoed the sound of an opening door. I looked back and observed three ill-defined shapes rushing off the porch and into the night. A few moments later a chorus of howls, growls, and barks permeated the air. Ahead we saw a streetlight but before we reached it the sound of a stampede pounded our ears. A trio of dogs emerged from the shadows, heads reared and teeth bared. On all fours, they towered higher than my waist and were at least twice my weight. In a different context, I could ride them like Abraham Lincoln rode a horse. Above their threats, I heard -
“OH SHIT, hold your hands up!”
My arms shot to the sky. They kept our pace with no trouble. They nipped our clothes and sniffed our bodies. The ever-closer street light defined their faces more clearly. Their eyes looked crazy. Their gaze wasn’t as pets looking upon people but as predators toying with prey. The nearer we grew to the street the more aggressive they became. Saliva fell from their mouths as they pushed each other out of the way, competing to get closest. Suddenly the smallest one stood on two legs and lunged at me. It didn’t bite me but it nearly knocked me over.
“Whatever you do, don’t fall over! I won’t be able to help you!”
The dogs took turns jumping into us like linebackers. My legs grew weaker with each attempt. My balance wavered. My heart was racing. Was I about to die because I got lost in the woods? That question hounded my mind as I heard that noise again. Although this time, it got louder. Whatever it was closed nearer. It breathed hard as it approached. I couldn’t bear to watch and closed my eyes. A deep, rolling growl like thunder culminated in a loud bark. I froze but nothing happened. When I opened my eyes I saw the ugliest, shaggiest dog I’d ever seen. It was all black. Somehow it was darker than the night. It ran circles around Marshall and me, growling at the other dogs and keeping them at bay. The black dog was smaller than the rest but was infinitely more fierce. Cutting through my confusion, I heard
“There’s a small bridge ahead. We have to jump the gate.”
The river cut perpendicular to the yard and separated it from the road. The gate was only chest high but we still needed a running start so the dogs didn’t bite our heels while we climbed. We both simultaneously shot into a sprint and the situation immediately escalated. The growling grew more ferocious and I felt something grab the back of my jacket, pulling it off. I jumped the gate with ease and turned to see Marshall struggling to make it across. I grabbed his shirt and hoisted with all my strength, pulling him over and tumbling us both hard to the ground. He screamed. I heard a crash beside us and looked over to see the black dog had cleared the gate too.
The gate left a gash on Marshall’s leg and ripped his pants. Blood dripped down the top links and sent the dogs into a frenzy. Two of them bit the gate itself and tried to eat through. The third and largest dog stood on its hind legs to lick the blood. After it realized it could, it started climbing the gate. A growl shook the entire bridge and rumbled through my bones as the black dog lunged forward and bit the other one hard on the shoulder. It yelped and fell backward; landing on another dog and tumbling off the bridge into the river. I clambered to the side and grabbed a tree branch. My first instinct was to extend a limb and pull it out of the river. Before I could, Marshall grabbed my shirt and yanked me away. He pointed to the house. The door was open and the lights inside backlit a silhouette holding a gun backlit.
“Us or it.”
The other dogs darted back towards their owner and we raced down the street. Our bodies were sore and our lungs were tired but we ran for several minutes without looking back. When the sound of chaos was well behind us we stopped to catch our breath. I looked to Marshall. He was looking up and down the road. He looked at me with a smile across his face -
“Do you think we ran the right direction?”
In a surprising turn of luck, we did. After a few more minutes of walking, we spotted my car under the midnight moon. That shaggy black dog stayed glued to our side the whole way. As we approached the parking lot, the dog turned and darted into the woods without giving us a chance to say goodbye. As soon as the keys were in the ignition, Marshall exhaled and said -
“Good luck getting people to believe this one.”
He laughed but mine was cut short. When I looked up from the wheel the shaggy dog looked back from the woods. It stared into my eyes. Its eyes were white as the moon in a picture. My blood ran cold. Before I could get Marshall’s attention, it was gone.
I drove Marshall back to his car and then went home. I showered and went to bed but didn’t sleep. Not only was I overcome with guilt and confusion and adrenaline, I heard howling all night.
All this happened last weekend. I’m back at university now. I still haven’t rested. I’m writing this from my dorm on a sleepless night, 127 miles from home. And you know why I can’t sleep? I hear howling outside my window.