BY BENJY CANNON
Copyright is held by the author.
1.
SHE WADES through a soupy air that weighs down the ancient birches around her. It is a good kind of struggle. One foot in front of the other. Mud on her shins. Sweat running down her back and into her shorts.
She is relieved to finally be out there. She lives for it all year long. Back bent, hunched over a keyboard, in a coffee shop, on her living room couch, trying to sit up straight in an ergonomic chair whose back looms over her neck. One perfect week. It gives her just what she needs to do it all again.
She’s been to other wildernesses, vaster, so majestic they make her feel like she’s seen the stars on a clear night for the first time all over again. But this place is precious to her. Its mountains may be stunted with crooked spines, its undergrowth of bristled ferns and speckled lichen indistinguishable in every direction, but it is so familiar, and so densely packed, and so very old.
She half jogs down the incline, boots squelching. It’s the fifth year she’s stayed in this house. Creekside Luxe Getaway! Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, no pets. She sometimes thinks about sleeping in a different bed each night but never does. She keeps to the room with the yellow wallpaper because she can hear water running in the nearby stream from the bed, even with the A/C blasting.
She also likes the diagram of a giant ground sloth skeleton, straight out of a grade school classroom, mounted bizarrely at the head of the bed. She loves to examine it before she goes to sleep, imaging that on tomorrow’s hike she’ll discover a lost colony of this glorious megafauna squirrelled away in a remote cave, evading extinction for tens of thousands of years.
She kicks her boots and socks off on the porch and opens the door. She’s scarfs down a protein bar, so she isn’t too hungry to think about what to eat for dinner. She pours herself a glass of wine. She chops garlic and ginger and basil. She thinks about what she will do tomorrow. She wonders whether her son and husband are having a nice a time at the beach. She sits down to dinner. She pours another glass of wine. She leafs through her map of the of trails and roads and mountains around Creekside Luxe Getaway!
When she first came out to these woods, Creekside Luxe Getaway! hadn’t been built yet. She stayed in one of the Park Service rentals, an old fire watch cabin close to White Sulphur Springs. It was almost as well secluded, but not as comfortable. Cheaper, but that doesn’t matter as much anymore.
She is a contractor, but she isn’t quite sure what she does for a living, nor does she mind. She writes lots of emails and attends zoom meetings and project management seminars. She receives a good paycheck because her firm has a lucrative government contract, their only client.
Her job is even less clear since lockdown. She’d wanted to spend more time then at Creekside Luxe Getaway! but it always seemed to be booked when her timing lined up. Quieter now. She is glad that everyone seems to be getting back to work.
She lies in bed and listens to the stream gurgle and the crickets sing. She’s excited about tomorrow. She’s walked every marked trail accessible by foot and even braved the backcountry twice. She thinks she’ll try something new. In the morning, she’s going to follow the creek as far as she can. It will be her last hike of the trip. She’ll be here for thirty-seven more hours.
The day dawns damp and bright. She stays in bed for a moment, eyes closed, smile wide, taking in the chirps and sloshes and calls. She admires how the early light illuminates the ground sloth’s impressive claw on the poster. She fries the leftovers from last night’s red curry with eggs. She eats on the porch with cup of black coffee. She dons her boots and her pack, emergency radio, GPS, two days provisions (just in case), and sets out.
Creekside Luxe Getaway! sits on a small bluff on the western bank of its namesake. The rise continues westward at leisurely grade, punctuated by serpentine rock formations that jut out awkwardly like barnacles on a muddy whale. The stream runs south for a few hundred yards, before turning southeast to follow the ridgeline’s curve, where it leaves the trail, which loops west towards the peak. She ties a yellow ribbon around a beech when she arrives at the creek’s curve, steps off the trail, and continues along the sand bank.
The morning passes in a pleasant haze of shimmers refracted through the water and the smell of damp earth filling her nostrils. A few hours in, she sits on a stony outcrop on the creek shore to eat her lunch. She will continue another hour and then turn back. She checks her GPS to make sure she knows where she is (5.64 miles from where she set out), ties another yellow ribbon to a pine tree, and stops.
One of the pine roots doesn’t look like a root at all.
She squats and runs her fingers over the not-a-root. There is mud caked all over. She scrapes it off with her fingernail. What’s underneath is spongier than wood or rock. It is arched, with its apex sticking out from the dirt. She digs around it, earth in her nails, knees soggy on the damp ground.
She carefully eases it from the soil. It is heavy and about the length of her forearm. It is pointed at one end, blunt and rounded at the other. She grins. A fossil. A claw? Could it be? It’s big enough, just the right shape to belong to a ground sloth. She just has the diagram to go on. Maybe there’s more, she gets down on her hands and knees, eyes on the ground. Another protrusion, a few feet away. She digs. She pulls. This one broken, harder to identify. She places it under the pine next to the claw.
She finds four more fragments. She thinks one looks something like a pelvis. Back on her hands and knees, she thinks she sees another. Goes to dig and feels a sharp pain under her fingernail. She yelps and sucks her index finger, scanning the dirt she’s turned over. Something glints orange in the setting sun. She picks it up, gingerly. An arrowhead. She stands up and turns towards her yellow-ribboned pine to leave it with the rest.
The tree and ribbon are not there.
She can’t have gone more than forty feet from the tree since she started digging.
She opens her GPS to check her location. The map has become difficult to read, blurry and indistinct. Some of the words and numbers are still legible. She squints. She is 8.32 miles from Creekside Luxe Getaway! Her heart skips a beat. She feels a slight chill as the canopy above passes into shadow.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
She doesn’t think she’s been digging more than half an hour. She doesn’t understand why she can’t see the stream anymore.
She has a headlamp and enough batteries to last for more than a night. She’s brought extra food and camping gear.
She just needs to get back to the creek. Once she finds the stream, she can follow it back to the house.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Close your eyes and listen. It’s all gone quiet now. You can hear the water screaming if you try.
She does. And she can. It’s close. She turns on her headlamp. She’s not sure how much of a difference it makes in the twilight.
She walks in the direction of the water. It sounds different, overdrawn, each splash lingering longer than it should. One foot in front of the other. She’s getting closer, and the water is getting louder. Booming and swirling. The shapes in her peripheral vision are bleeding together.
Her headlamp’s beam bounces between jagged trees and brush and leaves that reflect muted violets and blues, and when the water’s pounding has gotten so loud that she claps her hands over her ears, her light catches finally on what must be the creek, but it is something else, and the not-a-creek drinks in the beam and her until all the light goes out
2.
and he stumbles back in the sudden darkness, reeling, and trips on a root and falls flat on his ass.
His lantern shatters in the fall, its scattered oil gleams in the moonlight. He takes a deep breath and wills his heart to slow. He leans to his left and vomits on the ground.
He looks quickly around. The moon and stars illuminate the forest, their silver light dances on the creek. He doesn’t want to stop to ruminate about what he thinks he saw. He’s not certain he could even describe it if anyone asks. He has to get back to camp. Now that he’s found the creek it should be easy. He’s certain that he can’t have gone more than a few miles.
He collects his stick, and his pack filled with surveying and excavation equipment. He takes a long draw from his water skin and reattaches it to his belt. He sets out along the bank of the creek. Easy enough to follow under the clear sky. He fights his mind to stay focused, not to think about the light from his lantern leaking out of the world. Stay positive. If he can get back to camp, he’s going to be a rich man. Probably.
They sold him the land for next to nothing. He is a day’s ride from the nearest settlement, and much further from the nearest town. Much too remote for logging. There are much better sites for farming in the area. Nothing out here but families too extreme even for the fanatics in Shepardstown. But he’s found gold. Or gems. Or something. He knows it. He knew it the moment he first saw the jagged, scaly rocks jutting out of the mountainside above the bluff where he made camp.
Madness at that price, they practically paid him to take it.
And yet. He shakes his head. Madness.
The woods are alive with the chittering melody of cicadas and crickets and rustles of mice and squirrels darting in and out from dead trees and boulders. His footsteps crunch in last autumn’s underbrush. The Eastern sky turns navy and lilac. He rubs his eyes. They sting quite suddenly.
He blinks.
Touches his face. It is wet. He holds up his hands. A thick liquid clinging his palms. He squints, brings his fingers closer. It’s seeping slowly from his fingernails.
It must have been the glass from the lantern. Or something from his fall. He has bandages at camp. He tries to quicken his pace, but his legs feel leaden, as if clogged. One sleepless night shouldn’t cause this move trouble.
He is relieved to see the familiar bluff, his sleeping bag and supplies just where he left them, lit up in oranges and yellows from the rising sun. His clothes are soaked through with the dark leakage, not sure now where it’s coming from. He is so very tired. He kicks off his shoes, sodden with mud and the viscous excretions from his nails. He climbs into his sack, and as oily streams seep from his eyes and pool around him, he lays down his head,
3.
and is awakened by the other shaking his shoulder. He feels her press her finger to his lips.
“I just saw it, on the other side of the stream,” she whispers.
Quickly, quietly, he slips the quiver onto his back, arrows already in. He grabs his bow and turns slowly to face the far bank.
The massive creature lifts its head and beholds him, claws perched awkwardly by its chest, staring down its flattened snout. It turns, and thunders into the trees. He curses, and together they set off running down the bluff until they reach the creek, sloshing as they race through the water and onto the eastern bank. They can still hear it stomping and branches snapping in its wake. They’ll have it soon. They will be able to feed their families with it for months.
The creature never strays far from the creek bank. He misses one shot at it as it darts across the water, still fifty paces ahead of them. It is slow, yes, but crashes through the thick brush easily.
They stop to catch their breath. Though can’t see or hear it anymore, it must still be close.
“The kill must be getting tired too,” he says. “If we move quietly, we can take it while it rests.”
She nods and quietly draws her spear.
They creep as gently as they can through the ferns.
Just 20 paces and they see it, drinking from the creek. He draws, notches, and lets loose a shaft, hitting it square in the back. It shrieks, lurches forward into the creek, and tries to stand up straight, but she is already waiting, spear ready at its other flank. Its screams louder as she thrusts, its blood spraying into the creek and onto the foliage. It clumsily swings its claws at her, staggers, falls, and she kills it with a final stab to its neck.
He smiles for a heartbeat.
Then frowns.
The beast’s blood is spilling onto the ground through its bucked teeth and open jaw, but its screams haven’t stopped. They are still bouncing across the valley from tree to tree. She looks hurriedly around, trying to find their source, and then back at him. There are empty pits where her eyes used to be. Viscous, black fluid seeps from her sockets.
It’s his turn to scream.
It was the most grating noise I had ever heard, the first to ever rouse me from my aeonic sleep. He drops his bow and turns flailing to run back towards the creek, where I await him.
***
Benjy Cannon is a writer, worrier, and trade unionist. He loves weird fiction, weird people, and normal weather. He lives in Baltimore with his wife and their sweet dog, Ruby.