The ringing of my alarm woke me. I looked over at it and saw the time. Shit! I overslept, and I’m going to be late for work. I rushed out of bed, changed my clothes, put on my shoes, and ran into the bathroom. After brushing my hair and putting on makeup, I grabbed my keys and rushed to work. Once there, I got out and locked my car before entering. When I entered, my heart was still racing. I have got to get a better alarm. I clocked in and started work. Once my shift was over, I clocked out and drove home. When I got home, I went inside and locked the door behind me. I made some food and watched an episode of my favorite show before I went to bed. In the morning, I remembered it was my day off. After I got up, I made breakfast and watched some more episodes. When the first episode finished, I got a text from my mom saying:
“Your grandmother will have her family reunion next Friday. Will you be able to make it?”
“Yeah, I’ll be able to make it.”
“That’s good! She’ll be happy to hear it. I have to go now, honey. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Ok, bye mom love you.’”
“Love you too honey, bye.”
I put my phone back in my pocket and put on another episode. After watching a couple more, I turned off the tv and took a nap. I awoke a few hours later with a headache and felt exhausted. Getting up from the couch, I walked over and undid the curtain tie, and watched as the curtains fell covering the windows. I went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed aspirin. I took one and hoped my headache would go away. After placing the aspirin back in, I shut the cabinet and went to bed. The next morning, my alarm woke me up. I laid there for a few more seconds until I finally mustered up the strength to get out of bed and get ready for work.
A week has passed, and it’s Friday, so I have to get ready for the family reunion. I started packing my bags. I packed extra clothes and some snacks. After putting on makeup, I was ready to go. I grabbed my bags and loaded them into my car and started driving. My grandmother’s house was a few hours away, so I left early. Once I got there, I saw my aunt’s car, my mom’s car, and my cousin’s car all parked in the driveway. I got out of my car and walked inside. My mom was inside sitting on the couch watching tv with my grandmother.
“Hi mom, hi grandma,” I said.
My grandmother got up from the couch and rushed over to me. “I missed you, sweetheart. It feels like it’s been forever since the last time I saw you,” she said, hugging me.
“I missed you too, grandma,” I said, hugging her back.
“I have meatloaf in the oven and I’m making some rice and baked potatoes.”
“That sounds delicious, grandma.”
“Why don’t you go sit down next to your mom over there and I’ll call you both when it’s ready, ok?”
“Ok, grandma.”
After sitting we watched the tv for fifteen minutes before I heard my grandmother call out to us, “The food is ready.” My mom and I got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. The food was laid out on the table. My mom sat next to me, my cousin sat across the table from me, my aunt sat to the left of my cousin and my grandmother sat to the left of my mother and me. We all fixed our plates and started eating.
“The food was fantastic, grandma.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, sweety,” she said. After they all finished eating, we all helped my grandmother clean up. My mom and grandma handed the plates to my cousin and aunt, who washed them, and I dried and put them back. After a little, we were all finished with it. My grandmother brought my mother and aunt into the living room to watch a movie. As I was following them, my cousin stopped me and said,
“Hey, some of my friends are going to go hiking. Wanna come?”
“I don’t know if I feel up for hiking right now.”
“C’mon please, it’d be fun and we won’t stay for too long.”
“Fine,” I sighed, “I’ll go,”
“Yes!” he said “Ok, so we’ll be leaving for it on Friday and I’ll pick you up in my truck while my friend will pick the others up in his truck ok?”
“Ok,” I heard the movie play. “Well, I’m going to go watch the movie with them now,” I said, walking into the living room.
“Ok,” he said, “I forgot to tell you I’ll be picking you up around noon.”
“Alright,” I said before sitting on the couch next to my mother.
After the movie was over, I took a shower before I left for home. I grabbed my bags and hugged my mom and grandmother before leaving. On the drive home, I was exhausted and the pitch-black sky didn’t help either. I turned on my radio to help keep me awake. When I arrived home, I groggily dragged my bags into my apartment. After placing my bags next to the door, I locked it and went straight to bed.
A week later, it was time for the hiking trip. When I got up in the morning, I showered, started packing my bags, and put on my old hiking boots. After a few hours, I checked the time. It was eleven thirty-five. I put makeup on and grabbed my bags before making my way outside. After a little, he showed up in his truck and I saw two of his friends in the back seat. I put my bags in the bed and got in. Once my seatbelt was on, we took off.
“It’ll be a couple of hours before we get there. Let’s hope traffic is not that bad,” he said. Within an hour of driving, I noticed the surroundings started becoming more rural. After the second hour passed, we arrived. He pulled into a narrow path and put the truck in park. In front of us was another gray truck with four people around it. We got out of the truck and I grabbed my bags. My cousin walked over to the group.
“Thought you weren’t gonna come,” he said, chuckling
“Traffic was shit.”
“I bet. Who’s she? I’ve never seen her before.” he said, looking at me. “Oh, that’s my cousin. I asked her if she wanted to come with us.” the guy still stared at me with a look of distrust. “Alright then,” he said. “Let’s get going.” We all followed him down the narrow trail. He turned left and kept walking. After walking for what felt like another fifteen minutes, we reached a hill. When we reached the top of the hill I heard someone say “What’s that?” and another replied “It looks like a house.” my cousin gleefully said “Let’s check it out it might have something of value.” he looked back towards me and motioned me to keep up. I reluctantly followed them towards the house. With each passing second, I regretted coming.
Once we reached it, I noticed the door was ajar. One guy pushed it fully open. My cousin went in first with his flashlight and we all followed him in. There were plate shards everywhere and the dining table was in pieces and it smelled like something died in there. After we looked around for a while, one of the people with us said in a shaky voice, “Let’s get out of here.” I agreed, and my cousin looked annoyed as we left. It was getting pretty dark out. “We should probably start heading out now since it’s getting dark,” I said. “Alright,” one guy said. “I remember the way back.” he pulled out his flashlight and lead the way back down the hill. The guy leading up tripped and fell with a loud thud. “Shit! Fuck!” he said, holding his foot.
“Are you ok John?” my cousin said, helping him up. “Yeah, yeah, I think I twisted my ankle,” John said. “Brad, help me carry him.” He rushed over and help support him as we kept walking.
“It’s getting late. We should wait until the day.” My cousin and a few others agreed. One of the other women there reached into her backpack and pulled out two tents. We set them up and agreed that the men sleep in one tent while the women sleep in the other. I felt exhausted when I woke up. I exited the tent and saw no one out yet. A few seconds later, everyone was getting out of the tent. “Alright,” my cousin said, “Let’s pack up and get moving.” we took down the tents and she put them back into her backpack. John pointed to which way to go while my cousin and the other guy supported him. After walking for what felt like two hours, we made no progress.
“John, what the fuck? We’ve been walking this trail for miles. Are you sure this is the right one?”
“Yeah, I was fucking certain. This should be the way back towards the trucks.”
“The trail wasn’t this long when we entered.”
“This should be the trail. Now we should keep going before it’s dark.” John said. During the four hours we’ve been walking, we took six five-minute breaks.
We set up the tents again and waited to continue the next day. In the morning, we all came out of our tents except Brad. My cousin looked back into the tent and said, “Fuck, Brad’s missing.” one of the other women said, “Well shouldn’t we go looking for him?” my cousin turned to her and said,
“No, we can’t John’s injured and we have to get out of here. We only have two days of water left.”
“Ok, how about this?” John said. “We search for Brad and search for the way back to the trucks at the same time.”
“Fine,” my cousin said. I went over and helped him carry John. Before leaving, we left a sticky note on a log near the tents with an arrow pointing in the direction we were going. While continuing in the same direction for a couple of hours, we found the same house as before. “Oh, what the fuck?” My cousin said. “But that shouldn’t be possible. We went in one direction without turning.” John said. “We should rest there for a while and get back our energy,” I said. We entered and closed the door behind us. John’s flashlight lit up enough of the room. “Lilly, do you have any snacks left in your backpack?” John said. She reached in and pulled out seven protein bars and tossed them to us. I was so hungry that I devoured mine and, looking around, everyone did the same.
After resting for an hour, we got back to walking. The next morning, John and another woman from our group were missing too. “This makes little sense.” my cousin said, “I can know how Brad left but how could John? He couldn’t walk and she couldn’t have carried him herself.” After an hour of walking, there was a foul odor. It was just as bad as that house.
When we made our way toward it, I almost threw up. “Jesus holy fuck.” my cousin said. There in front of us was Brad’s corpse. His intestines were everywhere, and it looked like all life was drained from him. A knife was clenched in his left hand. “Mia, take it.” my cousin said to me. With every step toward the corpse, I had to fight the urge to vomit. When I grabbed the knife, I rushed back from it. I put the knife in between my belt. “If Brad’s like this, then the others are probably too.” My cousin said. I looked around “Where’s Lilly?” I said. Then we heard a sound like vomit. We rushed over to see Lilly on the kneeling ground and under her head was a pile of vomit. “We have to leave now, Lilly. Whatever did this is still probably here.” I helped her up, and we rushed through the forest. After running for thirty minutes, it started getting dark out. My heart raced as I knew what It meant. It would kill another one of us. A gust of wind came out of nowhere and hit us, causing me to fall. After getting up I turned around and shined my flashlight. Lilly wasn’t there. All that remained was her flashlight that was pointing at my feet.
My cousin grabbed my arm and said, “We have to go!” we continued running through the forest. My legs ached and my lungs felt like they were on fire, but I pressed on. I don’t know whether it was fear or the adrenaline that kept me going. After running for what felt like fifteen minutes, I fell to the ground. My heart was pounding as I tried to breathe. My cousin helped me up, and we continued going. While we were going down another hill, my cousin fell. He yelled out in pain. When I help him up, he collapsed again. “Here, take my keys for the truck,” he said, looking at me. His face filled with a mixture of fear and hope. I reluctantly put the keys into my pocket and reached out my arm to help him up. The gust of wind happened again and something launched my cousin backward. The scream he let out before disappearing into the dark was horrifying. It was a scream of pure terror. I got up from the ground and continued running forward. Tears filled my eyes as I ran. Tripping on a rock, I slammed to the ground with a thud. A horrible sharp pain shot through my left arm. I picked up the flashlight with my right arm and continued running.
As I ran, everything felt hopeless. Eventually, I’d end up like my cousin and the others dead in the dreaded forest. I stumbled down another hill and heard another gust of wind coming. I knew it was coming for me. As I kept running, I closed my eyes. I noticed the ground became hard and flat. Opening my eyes, I shined my flashlight down and saw I stood on a road. I collapsed in tears as my heart kept pounding. From the forest, an ear-piercing roar erupted. I covered my ears with my hands, but that didn’t help. It felt like hours, but it finally ended. I stumbled down the road. After what felt like an hour, I saw the trucks. When I got in the truck, I felt like I could finally breathe. After turning it on, I drove off.