There is nothing worse in this world than wet socks, I thought to myself as I settled in my tent for the evening. Usually these land surveys are quick and easy; in and out. With this particular area of Baxter state park I’m trying to reach, it requires about a three day hike on foot, there and back. It’s so rugged and remote that no roads are any where near the area, and it took about six hours to get from my jeep to the start of the trail.
I peeled my socks off and sunk down into the warmth of my sleeping bag. I can just dry them in the morning, I thought. Maybe I can find some dry wood somewhere for a fire, but I’m not holding out hope. It’s been raining nonstop for a week or so now; that odd time between seasons where the day light is getting noticeably shorter, and there is a cold bite to the air after the sun sets. Autumn is here, and she’s knocking on the door.
Luckily the rain was letting up, and by the time I closed my eyes it had stopped entirely. Visions of the past started dancing across my eyelids as the cusp of dreams came into view, but what is that sound I keep hearing in the distance, I half-wonder in a haze. It’s almost like a whimper, a soft weeping.
Is this me dreaming or is this something I’m really hearing?
Suddenly upon a hypnic jerk, I’m catapulted out of my head and back into the dark of the tent. “Jesus christ!” I shouted. That hasn’t happened to me in ages. I sat up trying to gather myself and then I hear it again. Way off in the midnight wild, somewhere out there in the dense wood, a baby crying.
A baby crying?
There is no way in hell that’s a baby. Im in the middle of the forest, miles and miles away from anyone. It has to be a large cat of some kind, maybe a bobcat? Reaching for my pack I hear it again, this time it sounds closer to my camp, and it’s definitively the sound of a crying human infant. My hands are trembling but I reach in my pack and pull out a flashlight. I need to see what this is, not only for my own safety but for the safety of this child.
Against everything inside me telling me to bolt out of the tent and run in the opposite direction, I slowly unzip the door and step out onto the soft mud. Without my light I cant see anything, the overcast sky isnt allowing me even a glimpse of the moon and her light. I sink into the earth with every step and begin creeping my way towards the noise.
Everywhere I point my light it seems the darkness just swallows it up like a drop in the ocean. I point my beam at a cluster of trees and there it comes into view: a jet black stag with the largest antlers I’ve ever seen, staring at me with a palpable malevolence. I gasped, and before I could do anything it stood straight up on its hind legs, as if to mimic my posture. Its jaw dropped open and then it started crying, just like a newborn baby.
Wait for pt 2.