“This is a bad idea.” I leaned my head against the rain-covered window and watched the dark trees blur past, my stomach twisted into an uncomfortable knot.
Carla rolled her mascara-ringed eyes at me from the passenger seat of the Civic. “You always say that, Hannah. Literally every time. And every time, it’s fine.”
Yeah right.
I frowned and counted off on my fingers all the times she’d been wrong. “What about that factory in Nashville? Or the docks in Charleston? Or the unfinished subway system under Cincinnati? I still have nightmares about that homeless guy chasing us.”
From the driver’s seat, Matt let slide a wry grin, even as he carefully maneuvered the low-bottomed car around yet another abandoned police barricade. “He was pretty nuts. But hey, it’s not going to be like last time, alright? This place is going to be legit, I can feel it.”
“Is that confidence, or weed talking?” Carla gave him a snide, sideways look, clearly trying to push his buttons.
“Both, baby.” Ever the gentle optimist, Matt returned a carefree wink, and Carla suppressed a smirk.
“If we get caught, and they test you, you’ll go to jail.” She picked at one polished fingernail, little chips of ebony paint flaking onto the dusty carpet.
“Nah.” Matt swerved back onto the gravel road and pushed down on the accelerator. “I’m cool when it comes to talking to the cops. You on the other hand . . .”
The words struck true, and Carla crossed her arms in faux annoyance, though I could tell they were teasing each other. Both Matt and Carla had been my friends since the eighth grade, and they’d always been polar opposites. With two blue-collar parents and five siblings, Matt was laid back, peaceful, and charismatic, the kind of guy who could make anyone smile. More than once, his charm had gotten us out of a tight jam when Matt talked himself into friendship with menacing street thugs, coked-out homeless people, and irate policemen alike.
Carla on the other hand was high-strung, the daughter of a wealthy lawyer, with a tough-love attitude, and a knack for trouble. She’d been suspended twice in school for stealing candy bars from the vending machines, and she didn’t even like chocolate. She did it just for the thrill, and to make her single mother furious. Between them, Carla and Matt argued about everything, politics, religion, social trends, and even flavors of ice cream. But there was one thing that brought them together, the same thing that bonded us all as friends, and had for close to six years now.
We loved investigating the paranormal.
Well, the word ‘paranormal’ stretched things a bit. It started with a little blog back when we had to do a group project for computer science class in junior high. Armed with a cheap digital camera, some flashlights, and a complete disregard for curfew, we dedicated ourselves to exploring every inch of our subdivision in Louisville. Carla was an unapologetic drama-queen, her acting perfect enough to convince even me at times. Matt had a way of walking, holding his head, and whispering that made him seem genuinely alarmed, which paired well with Carla’s fake terror. Together, they paraded in front of the camera, claiming to hear whispers in the storm drains, see faces in the trees at the park, and shadows moving in half-built housing developments. We got an A on that project, and slowly, our blog grew from kids playing around, to an internet sensation. Soon, we were exploring truly creepy areas, including run down sections of the city that made a haunted house look tame.
I of course, held the camera through it all. Terrible at acting, even worse at telling a convincing lie, I’d been the cause for more than one municipal fine because I’d admitted our true intentions to a security guard. But if I was good at anything, it was seeing things through the lens of filmmaking, and finding the best way to make the scene feel real. Since graduating high school the previous May, I’d thought about going to college for film studies, but my parents were both working-class, and I doubted working at a burger joint would be enough to foot the bill. Still, doing this kind of stuff let me to explore my creative, movie-producer side, and I always imagined I was some kind of documentary maker off on a grand adventure.
At least, I tried to, in between fearing for my life, legal record, and freedom every time the others got me into trouble. My parents didn’t like Matt and Carla, for reasons that weren’t all wrong, and I had to assure them over and over that I would be home in a week, in time for my twentieth birthday party that Dad had been preparing for all this month.
Man, I could go for one of those loaded chili dogs of his. I’m pretty sure he bought honey-mustard corn chips too. Ugh, why couldn’t we have just stayed in Kentucky?
Slouched in the back seat, I eyed a few raindrops that slid over the glass of Matt’s car. “Seriously though, a camping trip? People are just going to say we’re copying the Blair Witch Project.”
Matt reached for his jumbo-sized cherry slushie and took a long sip. “I hear ya girl, really I do, but I’ve got it all worked out. This place hasn’t been explored yet, not by anyone in the community. I checked three times. Not one grain of footage about the New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve. We’ll be the first ones, and that means we’re free to create whatever kind of content we want, ghosts, cryptids, anything. It’s a gold mine.”
Carla sat up, and pointed out her window, a happy smile painted on her lips in the thick black lipstick she so adored. “Oh, sweet, the moon is coming out, which means the rain should stop soon. Seriously, this is going to be awesome, we’re going to get tens of thousands of views just within the first hour. Besides, it’ll be fun for us to get out of the urban stuff for once. You know, try some nature-related scares.”
Yay. Lyme’s disease and tetanus.
I hugged the camera bag closer in my lap. “And if we get caught? You saw those military guys at that first crossing we tried. Every road around this place has been blocked, and there were helicopters at the county line. They already have our license plate number from this morning.”
Carla’s tan face darkened at that. “It’s a public road, they can’t charge us with anything serious. They’re not even National Guard. Besides, if some weekend warrior wants to take me to jail, he can talk to my mom. She’ll sue them into the ground.”
“We’ll be fine.” As usual, Matt interjected his low-key ambience, and flexed his neck back and forth to crack it. “Those guys were just doing their job. Besides, they looked tired, so they’re probably racked out in some barracks right now. If we run into anyone, it’ll be a different crew, so we’ll just play the dumb-kids angle.”
“You always defend them.” Carla narrowed her eyes at him, with more than a little venom to her voice. “Literally anyone with a uniform. They’re not all heroes, you know.”
“I’m a lover, not a fighter.” Unphased by Carla’s angst, Matt drummed the fingers of his free hand on the seat armrest. “That’s why I talk to the police, not you. Besides, my cousin’s a Marine. They’re not all jackboots, my little revolutionary.”
I couldn’t help but grin, and despite herself, Carla bit her lip at his name for her, red tingeing her sandy complexion. Matt and Carla had been unusually feisty with each other in the past three months, and when I’d almost walked in on them steaming up our hotel room in Lexington, my suspicions had been confirmed. Left or right, rich or poor, they had a thing for each other that no amount of arguing could break, and I thought it was cute, even if annoying at times.
Ah, the modern melting-pot. Emphasis on the pot.
“Should be another five minutes on this road before our turn.” Matt glanced at his cell phone in the center console. “At least, I think so. Man, service sucks out here.”
“They should put up better road signs.” Carla poked at her own phone screen in irritation. “And update Google maps. I mean seriously, every time I type in ‘Barron County’ all that comes up is freaking Wisconsin.”
A flash of jade green caught my eye from the side of the road, and I jabbed my finger at the window. “There! What’s that one say?”
Matt slowed the car to a stop beside the rusty, dented road sign.
It looked like no one had been out to replace the battered signpost in years, with tall grass growing up around it, and the letters faded so that I could barely read them in the dark. A long gravel road branched off from the one we were on and plunged into the gloom, straight as an arrow. I found that odd, as most of the secondary roadways we’d encountered after driving into southeastern Ohio had been anything but straight.
It’s so dark out. If it hadn’t been for that crummy sign, I never would have known the road was there.
Carla rubbed at a foggy patch on her window and squinted. “Tauerpin Road. Is that part of our route?”
“Nope.” With a sigh of disappointment, Matt eased off the brake pedal. “We’re looking for Bethesda Ridge Road. Good catch though, Hannah. Let’s keep going.”
I watched the night swallow up the little sign, it’s white surfaces backlight by the red of Matt’s taillights. For a split second, I almost thought I saw a figure step out of the darkness to stand beside the sign, tilting its head like a curious bird to watch us leave.
Come on, snap out of it. There will be plenty of time for creepy imagination stuff later.
We drove on for another few miles before finally turning onto the road Matt had found on an old map stashed in the corner of a public library. I hadn’t thought anything of it the first time he showed me, but Matt seemed to think it worth checking out, since the bizarre map of Ohio showed 89 counties instead of the 88 that everyone knew there were. The last county, Barron County, seemed to have been added in the early 1900s according to the numbers on the old, wrinkled paper, though there was no record of it anywhere to be found. Similarly, there was very little online about the New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve, but Carla came across a few different posts about it on some story-sharing site, which perked her interest. The stories seemed like total crap to me, but Matt and Carla ate them up, and so we’d planned a trip to the forgotten wastes of the Appalachian foothills to run around in the hot, humid forests, pretending to be scared by things that weren’t there.
“Made it.” Matt put the car into park, and cracked his knuckles in the way he did right before we got ready to do something borderline illegal. “Who’s ready to get some awesome footage?”
Carla grinned and glanced back my way. “I’m ready if Spielberg is.”
In her typical, rough-around-the-edges form of friendship, Carla had awarded me with the nickname ‘Spielberg’, as an indirect way of saying ‘even if you’re acting sucks, you’re great at aiming a camera’. While it sometimes felt more like a gift given in pity, no one else had ever given me any other nicknames, so I couldn’t exactly be upset about it.
“We’re all good back here.” I put on my bravest grin, which ended up being half the size I wanted it to be, but it did the trick.
Setting up camp didn’t take very long, and since the rain had stopped, we were able to find a mostly dry patch of ground just inside a stand of pines not far from the car. Matt found some broken glass in one spot that he claimed might have been an old camper window, but we couldn’t be sure. After the tents went up, our phones were turned off and dumped into a box in Matt’s car (for legal reasons, according to Carla) and most of our surplus gear was locked in the trunk. With that done, we convened by the roadside.
“Remember,” Matt handed a small LED headlamp to each of us. “Just cause there’s hardly anyone out here doesn’t mean we can get lazy. Red lights and low voices, that’s the name of the game.”
And pray some farmer with a twelve gauge doesn’t accidentally take our heads off while coyote hunting.
Keeping my droll thoughts to myself, I spritzed on some bug spray, and followed Matt and Carla down the quiet lane.
We walked down the long, dark stretch of gravel for a good fifteen minutes, until Matt decided we were far enough from our campsite so as not to draw unnecessary attention from anyone who might see us. Like saboteurs in an old war movie, we scampered into the rolling grass on the other side of the embankment and walked right past a yellow ‘Private Property; Not Trespassing’ sign along the way. Inky shadows cloaked everything like a heavy layer of soot, reminding me that we weren’t in Louisville anymore, with its bright streetlights, hard-paved streets, and security cameras. Wet knee-high grass clawed at my pant legs, and thorny scrub brush swatted at my sides. The scent of cool, fresh rain hung in the air, far better than the stench of the city, but I couldn’t enjoy it for the whiny cloud of gnats that howled in my ears. All I had on were a pair of slim-fit green cargo pants and a gray t-shirt, my hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, and it seemed my bug spray was less-than-effective.
Should have bought the stronger stuff. That’s what I get for cheaping out on—
“Hey.”
Matt’s voice startled me from my musings, and I looked up to see a tall chain-link fence with barbed wire across the top, a huge gaping whole torn into the wire right next to where he stood. Whatever came through had pushed the fence wire apart like it was made of rubber bands, and Matt could have driven his car into the gap without touching the sides.
“Check it out. We won’t even have to climb.” A mischievous twinkle came into Matt’s eye as the crimson beam of his headlamp swept over the destroyed wire. “Hannah, get the camera ready. This will make a great opening shot.”
The sight of the ruined fence sent a shiver down my spine. What could have made a hole that big? By all other accounts, the rest of the fence line looked well-kept, not super rusty or overgrown. For something to just punch clean through woven wire fencing, especially with a line of barbed wire at the top, meant an animal with insane amounts of strength.
Like what, a long-lost dinosaur? Seriously Hannah, this is Ohio, stop freaking out over every little thing. There’s a reason Matt and Carla don’t put you in front of the camera.
In an attempt to ignore the harsh criticisms of my thoughts, I pulled out the hefty camera that we’d purchased as a group, pushed the power button, and removed the lens caps. “You want infrared or . . .”
My eye caught a speck of color in the grass to my left, and I paused.
Tucked in between the tall blades of bluegrass, a single dirty white and gray sneaker lay discarded, its laces frayed. Scratches and gouges scored the rubber, and there were a few dark stains that almost looked black, as if the shoe had been spattered in tar. I hadn’t seen any footprints, though I wasn’t exactly an expert tracker, but the thought that someone might already be out here, and close by, poured ice over my blood.
“Guys, come look at this.”
The other two clustered around me, and Carla’s eyes lit up. “Nice one. A missing shoe, a mysterious ruined fence, this is perfect. I stand corrected, we’re going to clear 100,000 views in 24 hours, or I’ll wear pink lipstick for a week.”
Matt nudged the sneaker with the toe of his own shoe. “Don’t bets with girls involve them wearing less, not more?”
Carla made a pleased, demure smile.
Grateful that I had the camera to hide behind, I did my best not to sigh in jealousy.
Must be nice.
In spite of her gothic fashion tendencies, Carla was gorgeous, with jet-black hair, sensuous Hispanic facial features, and generous curves where it counted. She could fill out her clothes in ways that made the boys back in high school almost break their necks when she walked by, something that enraged the preppy girls who had resented her Edgar-Allen-Poe clothing tastes. By comparison, I wore simple cargo pants and t-shirts, my limbs skinny, and the rest of me barely any better. Even though my grandmother insisted that my ‘stuffing’ was just slow in coming, I had a suspicion that if one wasn’t curvy by 19, that wasn’t likely to change. I never admitted it around Carla or Matt, but these trips were starting to get more and more lonely, as I woke up night after night to them curled up in their motel bed, while I lay alone in mine. With graduation now almost two years in the past, I had yet to go on a single date, or even hold a boy’s hand, much less do whatever they did when they thought I was asleep. Being plain was hard but being alone . . . that sucked.
“I’m in favor of Julian.” I cut in, readying to press record on the camera. “You know, for the list of baby names. You want the first shot of the fence, or the shoe?”
“The gate.” Oblivious to my bitter sarcasm, Carla backed up the way we’d come, and gestured for us to follow. “We’ll walk up and rediscover the shoe. No night vision for now, it’ll be harder for the viewers to spot our tracks in the grass from before. Then we can focus on finding its owner should they still be among this world.”
Her deep, dramatic tone made Matt laugh, and we slogged back a few yards to begin our shoot. I held the camera at the ready and gave them a countdown on three fingers.
“Alright guys, we’re back!” Matt flashed a thumb’s up at the camera, as he and Carla went into their routine. “This time, we’ve traveled deep into the Appalachian wilderness to a remote wildlife reserve that some people think is part of a secret government coverup.”
Carla leaned on his shoulder with her hand, the two a comedic duo if there ever was one. “We have no idea what we’re walking into folks, so keep your fingers crossed. Remember, you’re seeing this just like we are, raw and unfiltered.”
As raw as a burned steak.
Behind the camera, I rolled my eyes at the last line, but trailed them back through the grass, and tried not to trip in the murky shadows. I always hated the fact that we bent the truth so much in our videos. Sure, they looked awesome when we were done, and as Matt pointed out, we were there to entertain people, but I still didn’t like selling the idea that none of it was orchestrated. Dishonesty never sat well with me, but I had to remind myself that I was a filmmaker, a storyteller, and this was part of the storytelling process.
We ‘rediscovered’ the gate, and both Matt and Carla played the part of two stunned kids, oohing and aahing over the gap, and pretended to be worried about what could have made such a large hole. Carla ‘found’ the sneaker, and even dared to pick it up, always the method actress.
“Who do you think this belongs to?” She whispered to Matt and held the filthy shoe up to the camera.
Matt went into his tense machismo stance, head cocked to one side, eyes probing the darkness like he was seriously concerned. “I don’t know. Maybe someone got stranded out here? Let’s see if we can—”
As if on cue, the low rumble of tires on gravel echoed from the road behind us, and we all dove for the grass, headlamps clicking off.
Brakes screeched their metallic staccato, and the unseen vehicle rolled to a stop fifty yards away on the road. I waited for them to move on, to throw some garbage out, but the truck stayed put. Why weren’t they leaving?
Bright white light stabbed at the misty darkness just overhead, and my lungs constricted.
A spotlight.
Chunk-chunk.
The heavy metal bolt on a weapon clanked back and forth, validating a dozen panicked theories in my mind. Now it made sense, the missing shoes, the lonely road, the soldiers.
My heart began to pound, the wet grass stuck to my face, and something skittered across my palm with eight spindly legs. Each shaky breath tasted of the rain and earth, and my ears rang with the nervous thumping of adrenaline.
We’d seen too much, come too far, broken one rule too many, and now they were going to hunt us down. Carla’s words rolled through my head in an eerie, mocking mantra at the thought of my blood spattered over the grass by a burst of gunfire, with no one to witness it save for the camera.
Raw and unfiltered.