Never There

It started with a crunch of leaves.

It always does. The girl with the long hair, wrapped warm against the coming winter, walking to clear her head, to get away from controlling parents or perhaps a disagreeable boyfriend, or simply on a long run in a new place; beautiful but unfamiliar. This girl is a stranger to her surroundings, unaware that she is about to be the start (and finish) of an arduous story with pleasant apprehension.

This girl was no stranger to the woods. In fact, she knew the path quite well. She had ventured into the beautiful surrounding brush in the past, but had removed enough ticks and spiders from her jeans that the wilderness was no longer so enticing. She was not a ranger, nor a farmer, nor a neighbor. She found the woods a nice place to be. It was quiet and slightly wild. One could theoretically get lost among the crisscross of trails but the old clay pit that ran along the edge of the forest provided good orientation for even the most hapless of wanderers. Besides, she knew where all the paths led by now.

She walked not to get away from the other world, but to inhabit this different one. The past two Halloweens, she had made a habit of walking through this forest, along the most gnarled and narrow paths, feeling like an excited child, as though about to catch some fairy or gnome hiding under a leaf, or behind a bush. As she spiraled into the heart of the wood, the excitement became so strong as to be unsettling.

She came to a clearing. It felt like the world’s biggest and coziest sitting parlor, with its thick carpet of dead leaves and moss and columns of bark supporting a beautiful leafy ceiling, a cool stillness permeating. Little bulbs of light peeked out of the ceiling and the rustling of the leaves remained close and pleasant but ultimately outside her insulated wilderness.

The crunch was not startling in itself. Others, particularly others who lived nearby, also loved to walk in these woods and she had run into fellow wanderers more than once. She looked around and saw nothing. Also not unusual. Humans were not the only ones that could make leaves crunch underneath them and the animals were quite adept at making themselves scarce after an unintended sound.

The crunch came again, louder this time. The girl noticed for the first time her visibility growing weaker, the darkening sky becoming more apparent.

She picked up her pace now, heart beating a little faster. She couldn’t see the path, but tried to orient herself in the direction of the clay pit. She would have preferred the nearby houses with their lighted windows and muted but amiable chatter coming from inside, but those would be harder to find in the dark.

Another crunch. Louder and to the left this time. Very close. Her walk became more brisk, feeling the trees close in, wanting to fall out the windows of the forest, the sandy shore of the claypit framed by the twisted, hill-bound trees. The woods no longer felt like a cozy old sitting room, but a condemned old house, with nighttime activities unsuitable for the living.

The trees were getting twistier. They grew like that near the sand at the edge of the forest, squirming up out of the darkness of the thick canopy of birch leaves. She must be close.

Her view expanded to reveal the shore of Brickyard Pond, the old clay pit. The brickyard for which the pit was named had long since burned down after a collision with a truck. She could faintly see the remains across the way.

She stood on the sand a minute and took a breath to calm herself, not allowing any thinking that might drive her into a panic. She turned to begin her walk along the shoreline back to her car.

There it was. The unmistakable sound of running. No, sprinting. Someone (she knew now) sprinting, leaves still underfoot. But they would make it to the sand soon, which would render their footsteps almost silent. It hadn’t taken her that long to reach the shore from the heart of the woods. She suddenly broke into full speed, booming out her thoughts in her mind to drown out the panic. Go steady. No mistakes.

She’d run this path before. She snaked easily along the shoreline, no longer hearing the sprinting, knowing silent footsteps were now on the sand, behind her she knew not how far.

As she broke through the edge of the woods, she could see her car in the distance and predicted the inevitable fumbling with keys. She slipped her hand into her pocket, unlocking the door just as she felt her feet crossed from soil onto pavement. Perfect.

Ten feet from safety, she heard a high voice behind her. “Wait! Hey lady, wait up!” A figure appears at the edge of the wood, stumbling out of what was clearly a full sprint.

She slowed upon seeing him, feeling a bit silly to have been running so hard. Just a scared child, she thought, probably lost. She paused. Something niggled at the back of her mind.

He doesn’t look scared.

He was very skinny, and there was something strange about the way he ran, staying in the air just a little too long after each step, as if supported by invisible wires. She took a step closer. Then she saw the gleam.

A violet iris, edged by black, so vibrant and piercing she couldn’t think why she hadn’t seen it from the wood. For the first time, she felt real terror. She froze.

And turned. Another figure with a woman’s height appeared before her, quickly pinning the girl against the side of her car with a strength that seemed almost lazy. She took a hold of the girl’s head and rotated, snapping her neck cleanly. She stood aside to let the body slump to the ground.

Sean liked to chase the hikers, especially at night, and usually he was good about not being seen. Usually. They hadn’t had too many lately, but this one had a habit of coming back. She had seemed harmless enough. But she didn’t take any chances anymore. Not since her uncle had come to the center of the wood and found their hollow. She still had the scars from the fire.

She sighed, thinking of the long night ahead of her. The car and the body would have to be moved, but night had only just fallen, and the roads were still busy. She used to sink them in the clay pit, or burn their bodies in the old brickyard (one of the ovens still worked) but it was better to simply remove the intruder and everything that they brought to a separate location, to have no connection to their wood, no matter how much Sean had loved to watch them burn.

She looked over at her son. She still felt unease when she watched him interact with the corpses. She had named him Sean, because it was an ordinary name, a comfortable name, but as he had grown, it had become more and more unsuitable. It didn’t match the vitality in him that was apparent even as a baby. He had grown into exactly what she had expected: a cunning, wiry boy with an inhuman bloodlust.

But that was to be expected. She broke their necks now, ever since she had caught Sean sticking his fingers in the open throat of one man whose blood drained a little more slowly than she had expected.

Sean had been given to her, and she had decided to accept it. They had fled the night she caught her mother putting him in the fireplace. Sean was most at home in the woods, and besides, he made people uncomfortable.

The girl would be found, like the others, slumped over in her car, miles away, boots cleaned of mud and leafy bits brushed from her hair. No connection to her wood or any wood. She hoisted the corpse on her back and motioned to Sean to follow. They sprinted back to their hollow to wait for quieter darkness. As she ran, she repeated to herself the one thing that kept her alive since she and Sean had escaped to the hollow.

Go steady. No mistakes.