My name is Thomas Braggs jr. I grew up in a small town in South Carolina near the Tennessee state line, it was nestled in mountains just off the main highway, it was your typical small town, a couple of gas stations, the local grocery store and post office. The closest major town was about a 45-minute drive off the mountains then about another 30 minutes to the highway, most of us moved away after high school but I stayed after graduation and continued to work in the family business.
“Braggs Towing and Recovery”
I’m the third generation of sons, my father Colton Braggs took over after my grandfather Thomas Braggs passed away and we’ve been running with the same integrity my grandfather set. Most of the time our calls would consist of teenagers riding through the mountains and ending up stuck, the occasional collision, etc. it was a pretty good gig that paid decent for this area considering most of everyone worked out of town.
I took over third shift after graduation, so my father didn’t have to work swing shifts, I was a night owl by nature, so I was happy to help. My night consisted of sitting around the shop waiting for a phone call which was highly monotonous on the night shift hours. My normal calls were outside the town since we were the closest towing company around, it was usually people from out of town that misjudged how far the next filling station was, a collision with a wild animal, etc., locally the calls were few and far in between. We were a quiet town, everyone knew one another so there was never really much excitement other than Riley brothers getting a little drunk and going on a nightly drive, just last week I had to impound their truck because they took out Old Man Kennedys fence in their inebriated state, I really don’t understand why nobody has pressed charges on them yet, entertainment I suppose.
I really enjoyed the calls that involved having some frightened teenager who took their dads 4x4 out in the mountains and ended up getting stuck or in some cases rolling it off the side of the ridge, it was always made for interesting conversation when by law I had to call the father and report it to him. Like I said it wasn’t a bad gig, all my childhood of going camping and hiking out there burned all the trails and landmarks in my mind like a brand. My grandfather and I would hike through the forest for several hours as he named off different types of vegetation and trees, flowers and berries, explaining to me what species of bird was singing the sweet morning melody, nothing around us but the sounds of the wilderness that Mother-Nature provided to us.
When I met my future fiancé Trisha Colman, we continued this tradition. Since we both had busy jobs the only time we could plan out these kind of camping trips was a few times year so we always traveled out of state to some of the more well-known national parks and forests. Trisha had moved down here
from Boston after medical school and was in the process of taking over for the towns local doctor since he was about to retire. She received a phone call this morning about father’s declining health, he had been going through courses of radiation for cancer, but they decided to quit since there wasn’t any progress and informed the family it was time to start planning arrangements.
She packed her bags and I drove out to the airport; I had felt awful for not being able to fly out there with her, but she understood, my father was up there in age and couldn’t pull the night calls like he could years ago. She opened the door, and I got her bags and helped her from the car. She grabbed me by the sleeve and reassured me.
“Everybody’s going to understand babe, don’t be so hard on yourself. I promise I’ll call you first thing when the plane arrives.”
I pulled her in close and gave my condolences to the family.
“Listen, promise me if anything at all changes to call me and I will be up there as fast as I can.”
I knew since she was an only child that it would be difficult, and I couldn’t handle the thought of her being up there by herself trying to cope with her father and being there for her mom. We said our farewells as I kissed her before she made her way through the turnstiles to departure, I sat outside watched plane take off and made my back home.
I sat at the office that night, the first few hours were mundane, I played basketball with paper balls, watched silly videos online, anything to fight off the sleep deprivation, then the phone rang.
“Braggs Towing and Recovery.”
There was a long pause on the other end followed by what sounded like sobbing.
“Is anyone there? Are you ok?”, I asked
A woman came on the other end of the line after what seemed like an eternity.
“Please help……. it’s circling around the car right now, it’s done….”, she proclaimed in a delirious state. I cut her off.
“Mam, first thing I need you do is calm down and give a location.”
“Forest Road 625, plea…….” The line went for quite for a few moments followed by static.
I eased out of my chair and grabbed the keys to the truck from the drawer of the desk, I went into the darkness and fired up the engine to let it warm up for a bit. I made my way back inside and put on my safety jacket, the forest roads can play tricks on eyes in the vastness of the night and cell reception is spotty. Now what made this odd wasn’t the fact of the call, hell, even the hysterical woman on the other didn’t faze me, it was normal for a couple of kids to get lost in woods and run out gas. The trees and foliage can even play tricks on the mind when your isolated long enough. I had never heard of Forest Road 625, that’s what made it odd.
“It must be new. “, I thought to myself, I hadn’t been through the forest in quite some time. It could have been a new trail developed or even an off trail leading up to a cell tower, there has a few put up in the last couple of years.
I climbed in the truck and made my way into the forest, winding through curves and down through mud holes, I switched on my off-road light bar taking care to read the markers and just up on right covered in a dark, black grime that read “ Forest Road 625 ” Driving up the was not the most pleasant of experiences, the trailhead was rutted out, rock formations at every turn and the trees, the tree stood as vertical silhouettes, dark, motionless. I could easily understand why the woman was frantic being up here all alone, as I said before, the isolation up here can drive someone to verge of manifesting some very horrible things.
After a moment of driving, I had approached a car on the trail.
“perfect”, I thought to myself, I put the truck in park and got out to examine the car. What astonished me wasn’t that the car had made it this far, It was that after a closer examination of things the car looked as if it had been up here for, well, years. The car was caked in a black grime sitting on top of rust, windows broken out, it looked as if something had tried tooth and nail to force its way in and I really didn’t want to know if it was successful or not. I was starting to become slightly irritated as I tried to comprehend if this was a sick joke being played on me by a couple of teenagers or if this was legit. That feeling worsened at I looked inside the car and there on the old torn tattered seats sat a mobile phone, screen busted and covered in blood and more of that black grime, still unlocked with my number staring at me from the recent calls.
I grabbed the phone and slowly made my way back to the truck and in my own personal anxiety attacks I had failed to hear the truck die. I got inside and to my dismay I had become a statistic, people break down out in the mountains and forests every day and I had just become one of them. In a mixture of my own stupidity and over confidence I had forgot to fill the truck up before I left and now, I was stuck up here with blood-soaked phone belonging to girl that I’m pretty sure is in danger at this point and my own truck now being inoperable, now I was the one becoming hysterical.
I grabbed my phone from the truck and wasn’t surprised to not see a signal, so I went behind the seat where I always kept some camping gear and grabbed a flare gun and a radio. I knew if I could contact a ranger in the area or even an emergency channel I could get some assistance up here, tell them about the phone call and get a search and rescue up here. I turned the radio on, switched through the channels, turned it off and back on again. Nothing. No radio frequency at all.
“Damnit.” I scoffed, I stuffed the radio in my pocket and put the flare gun in my pocket, I had figured that as much as I didn’t want too, I could still try and make my way up to top to get better vantage point. Judging by the tree line and elevation I was close.
I made my way up and walked for like seemed an eternity, the forest was strangely quite at this time, not even the sound an acorn falling from the tree, as I moved on, I began to see more of that black grime, this time it was on the base of the trees and as I progressed further it began to overtake the road. My boots stuck into the tar like substance making a sound as if I was walking through mud, it gave off a slight ammonia smell as I covered my nose.
“What the hell!? No, no this isn’t right! “I said as I stared at a massive landslide that had appeared to have taken out the way up, only something wasn’t right, it didn’t appear to be natural, logically it was impossible. We hadn’t had a rainfall in a few weeks and from signs of the trees that laid out upon the road it looked as if they were ripped out from the very earth itself. The other side of the trail was a ridge with a 90-degree slope, how far down I wasn’t quite sure, but I knew I wasn’t going to attempt it.
I began to make my back down the trailhead hoping to catch a frequency on the radio but to my dismay nothing, I walked past the truck and at this point decided to make my down the mountain in hopes of catch a radio frequency, cell phone signal, campers, anything. I was desperate at this point.
I didn’t make it far when I noticed that the road just ended. I walked to the edge and looked down and could see tops of trees at the bottom, it had to be at least 300ft down. This is where confidence faded and deep concern began to set in along with the anxiety, I had kept it locked away since things took a turn for the worse. Immediately I felt sick to my stomach, I had never been in a situation like this much less even imagined a dilemma that would even come close to this.
I made it back to the truck and prepared to wait it out until morning, I already knew this was going to be one of the worst nights of my life. I sat in the truck watching the silhouettes of trees dancing in the dark, mocking me almost. The wind made its way through the ridges, howling as the moonlight began to hide behind the clouds. The small blue LED of my charger illuminated the interior slightly as I kept checking my phone for signs of any kind of signal.
Another silhouette made its way in front of the truck, then back again. I paid no attention as my cell phone began to show a bar, just when I picked it up to make a call, I noticed the shadow was back in front again only this time, it wasn’t moving. I sat the phone down and began to stare trying to make out what exactly was in front of me.
I reached for the switch and turned the headlights on, as soon as the beam illuminated the surroundings, the truck rocked as something, or someone bashed the side of it taking great strides in going back into hiding. I began to look out the windows, this time I could hear it, it was moving in all directions, I quickly wrote it off as cougar out for a nightly hunt or even the possibility of a bear, bears where not uncommon in these parts, it made another thud into the back of the truck, I searched through my pack for a can of bear mace and in my frantic search I noticed everything had become quite.
I lied to myself, telling myself that whatever it was it got bored and went on its way, again I lied to myself, I told myself I was just overreacting and began to have a laugh as I picked up the phone once more and attempted to call my father as I let the seat back and closed my heavy eye lids to calm myself down, it didn’t last long after I opened my eyes, that’s when I saw it.
The sunroof of my truck covered in fog, slowly dissipating and reappearing in steady breathing motions, I could make a set of eyes. Not the eyes of an animal, eyes of an alluring radiant blue peering towards me almost inviting me to open the door to let it in. My head soon became foggy, I don’t if it was from sheer terror from the current moment or if it was something other worldly. We stayed locked in eye contact for what seemed like forever, it stared, not the same way a predator stares at its prey before it prepares itself to rip its throat out, it stared at me as if it was studying me. Watching my every move, it’s breathing almost in sync with my heartbeat. Then it slowly moved away from the sunroof leaving behind more of that black grime on the glass.
I took a moment trying to realize what the fuck just happened blended with questions of what in everything that is holy was that thing. I had forgotten about calling my father as I quickly looked down and saw that he was on the line. I pulled the phone up to answer the phone and the phone went flying out of my hand as a loud thud went sound metal binding coming from one side followed by the truck leaning over, I quickly grabbed the steering wheel and held on for my life as the creature continued its relentless barrage on my vehicle. My eyes widened as I looked over out the window, the creature wasn’t trying to flip the truck over, it was trying to push it off edge down into the ridge. Closer and closer the truck slowly slide to the side of the ridge until I felt the loud bang followed by the sound of the under carriage making contact with the surface, the bed of the truck was hanging off of the ridge at this point. I knew I had to think of something quick or I would soon be meeting the rocky surface that welcomed me at the bottom.
I pulled the flare gun from my pocket as the passenger side window shattered, a pair of long decomposing fingers gripped what was once the window as the remaining glass shards pierced through its skin, it excreted black grime from its palms as it slowly begin to pull itself up in an attempt to climb in, I gagged as the smell of ammonia once again filled my nostrils not long before those two pools of sapphire blue eye rose from in between the pair of hands, once again my head became foggy as we made locked into stare once again, I could feel it, staring deep into my soul as it looked into my mind gathering every thought, worry, memory. During my fear induced paralysis I had forgotten about holding the flare gun, I snapped into reality for a moment, raised the gun and fired a single flare into the abominations eye, it let out a horrible ear-piercing scream, as pebbles, branches and leaves assaulted me like a hurricane.
It fell back, I pulled myself from the wreckage of my truck to examine the corpse that laid before me. I took my knee with a heavy heart as my eyes lay upon a beautiful woman of strawberry blonde hair, laying in front of me deceased with the smoldering flare still protruding from her eye socket. I collapsed onto the ground, squeezing the dirt and pebbles into my palms forming a fist, I struck the ground a few times then my stomach began to release its contents. I knew that I had lost my mind at this point, I knew my own fear had manifested things that should not exist including the poor girl that I had just killed.
I pulled myself up from the ground and tried to regain what was left of my senses, at that time I had remembered the phone, I began looking for it in the truck taking extreme caution not add any weight to the driver side, I finally found it in the floorboard, covered in my own blood. My father still on the line begging me to respond, I put the phone to my ear.
“Dad……There’s something up here with me. “ I whispered, than I heard a disturbance behind me, I turned around and the body of the girl was gone, seemingly vanished into thin air, the only remains left behind was the flare and a pool of that black grime. I had walked up to the substance and dipped my finger in it trying to distinguish it, my heart fell into my stomach as I heard a familiar voice behind me, it was my father’s voice. I froze at this point, there was no way my father could have made it up there that fast, on top of that I was literally on the phone with him but it sounded just like him, the same tone of voice he would use when he was disappointed in me.
“Thomas….what, what the hell have you done? “, I heard him say, my back still to him sliding my fingers back and forth through the goo. “It was here, I mean she was here and now they’re both gone….am I losing my mind? “I said almost in the verge of a nervous breakdown. I felt his hand drape over my shoulder as he said. “It’s time to go. “
I grabbed his hand and felt that it was slightly cold, I moved my head down and looked at his hand, the same decomposing gray fingers now on my shoulder ever so lightly increasing its grip, the black grime now slowly trickling down my arm. I turned around and for the first time in my life I knew what the face of fear looked like.
The same sapphire blue eyes locked into mine again, the creature’s skin was a grayish color that appeared to have the same complexion of sandpaper, it’s face looked aged, like a cadaver half-way decomposed, strange symbols that appeared to be etched into its face, the jaw now mostly bone looked like that of an animal. Long, stringy white hair about waist length and body hair mostly white, its neck, ankles and wrist were decorated by what appeared to be bone fragments, some that looked like animals and others, well…. They appeared to be human. The creature was almost naked other than a crude loin cloth concealing its genitalia and then the creature moved its spiny fingers to my head like it was getting ready to crush my skull and then it spoke to me again. Not in my father’s voice but a voice I could not dare to even imitate. It was a low and faint almost like a moan but not quite but the words it spoke did not come from whatever horrible tongue the creature may have had but it spoke to me telepathically.
“For years even before your time on this planet even begun your people have come through and disrupted the very aspect of Mother-Nature herself, constantly killing every animal for your own indulgence, killing and defiling your own kin, forcing them from their lands.”
“Digging and cutting, tainting the very lands with your greed. Always killing…… no more. No more will such insolence be tolerated; the bells have toiled, and the bill must be paid. A bill in which the tribes of this land handed to your people, the debt must be paid, and it will be paid in blood. “
The creature let go of my head and instantly I collapsed to the ground. I woke up a few days later not in the forest but in the hospital about an hour outside of my hometown. The state patrol had apparently found me walking down the side of the road, naked, covered in blood and black grime in a completely unstable state. I have no memory of what happened after the incident up there, everything is foggy. The police came in for a statement and have deemed me insane, they claimed after a careful investigation that there was never any girl, I had not received any phones that night other than an outgoing call to my father.
My truck was apparently found right outside the entrance but was deemed a total loss from the damage, a toxicology report was run on me stating I was under the influence of mind-altering hallucinogens and the black grime was discovered to be some form of fungus that grew in the area that had been known to be ingested by local teenagers looking for a good time.
Since then, I’ve told them the same story what seems like a thousand times and the doctors believe that I’ve lost my mind, I found out today that Forest Road 625 didn’t exist, it’s never existed and that everything that happened was all in my head. My father came to see me yesterday, I could see the disappointment in his eyes as I know he thinks I’ve turned to drugs. My fiancé called earlier today. She’s staying in Boston since she doesn’t think I’m ready for a commitment and she’s broke off the wedding. I still dream about that night, that night up there in the mountains. I know if I could just get up there and show them, everyone that then maybe I wasn’t crazy after all.
A storm came through last, the rain trickled down the window as the lightning shimmered in the glass pane as it illuminated the mountains in the distance, every now and again as I laid there, I could make out those same horrible eyes looking in through the window. I tried to escape but was quickly apprehended by security. I can hear the nurses on the other side of the door gossiping about the psychiatrist who evaluated me today, talks of how I’m just bat shit crazy. I can hear tires of the wheelchair squeaking against the cheap linoleum floor of the ward, I can hear the muffled words of the doctors on the other side of door. I know they’re about to pump my veins full of more sedatives before they haul me off to the mental institution, but I know if I could just get up there and show them no matter what happens, they……they would believe me, they would have too. Those mountains are alive. Bidding its time. Waiting in its serene solitude for someone.
Someone…. else.
Perhaps you.