21 Apr Ecosystem

It was supposed to be a fun weekend in the woods. The four of us had rented a little house with a backyard that opened onto six thousand acres of forest, or something like that. Honestly, I hadn’t paid that much attention to the details. Amelia had said, “Do you want to go on a trip?” and I had said yes. It could have been swimming with sharks, rock climbing, or skydiving, and I would have said yes. She was always the planner. I was just the guy who went along with the plans.

It was us and another couple, Mateo and Allie. Allie and Amelia had known each other since middle school. They were both big into glamping, which, as far as I could tell, meant wilderness trips that also had hot tubs available at the end of the day. I’d always done the tent-camping, sleep-on-the-ground, cook-meals-unevenly-over-a-fire kind of thing, but since the first time Amelia had taken me glamping, I had to admit that it was a lot more comfortable. And the food was better.

I kind of wish we had been tent camping on this trip, though. It wouldn’t have made anything better, but it would have made it faster. Sometimes that’s the best you can hope for.

It started out perfectly well. The cabin was this great little place, rustic enough to be homey but modern enough to actually keep the air conditioning in and the bugs out. The main room had comfortable couches and huge windows looking out over the forest, which was as wild and inviting as promised. A large wooden deck wrapped around the side and back of the house, with stairs that led down to a path winding off into the forest.

“Says here that’s the private spur to the white loop trail,” said Mateo, reading from a small booklet he had picked up from the table. “Six miles, easy circle. Want to get a quick hike in before dinner?”

Allie put a finger to her chin in a mock thinking gesture. “We could—or we could just get in the hot tub.”

“We can do that after we get back!” protested Mateo. “We can sit in the hot tub after the sun sets. We can’t go hiking in the dark.”

“We can’t fix the hot tub in the dark, either,” said Allie.

“What makes you think it’s broken?”

“What makes you think it works?” she countered. “Plus, even if it’s perfect, it’s never easy figuring one of these things out the first time. They’re all different, they’re all finicky, and they’re all much more annoying to figure out in the dark.”

“We came here for the hiking, though, right?” Mateo looked to me and Amelia for help, but to no avail. Amelia was clearly siding with her longtime friend, and honestly, I thought Allie had made a solid point, too. Besides, we’d been in the car for hours to get here. I was feeling like a soak in the hot water would do me a lot more good than a sweaty walk over uneven ground.

Mateo saw the expressions on our faces and raised his hands in defeat. “Or we could make sure the hot tub works. You know, I was just thinking that we should probably check on that first thing on our hiking weekend. Clearly, the best way to kick it off.”

Allie gave him a kiss. “I accept your reluctant surrender. Petulance is a surprisingly good look on you. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Rugged good looks and lumberjack charm,” he told her as they disappeared out the back door to investigate the hot tub.

“Shall we go put on our suits?” Amelia asked me.

“Suits?” I said. “I was planning to just skinny dip. Who can see us way out here?”

“Allie and Mateo, for two. Go put your trunks on.”

“What if I didn’t bring any?”

“Then Mateo can have a hiking buddy after all, and Allie and I will enjoy the hot tub all by ourselves.”

“Enjoy it like how? I could set up a camera.”

“I will throw your phone in the water,” Amelia warned me.

“Destroying cell phones at the remote cabin in the woods? I’ve seen movies with that plot. They never end well,” I said.

It seemed very funny at the time.

The hot tub, much to Mateo’s annoyance, started with the push of a single button and rapidly heated to the perfect temperature. I ignored his grumbling and sank gratefully into the water. I was looking forward to the hiking as much as he was, but Allie was right: this was the way to kick off the weekend.

We stayed in the hot tub until well after the sun had set, drinking beers and arguing over what the sounds from the forest were. The hooting of the owls was clear enough, even for city people like us, but everything else was open to debate. Amelia insisted that the long, drawn-out creeee noise was from frogs, while I insisted it was crickets. There was a shuffling, grunting noise at one point that Mateo perked up at.

“Those are wild pigs,” he said.

“You sure it’s not a bear?” Allie asked uncertainly.

He shook his head. “Definitely pigs. They’re hunting. That means there are good mushrooms nearby.”

“Or at least there were, until feral pigs ate them,” I said.

“You’ll see!” said Mateo. “You ever have chicken of the woods? I bet we can find some tomorrow. It’s delicious.”

“If it’s still there tomorrow, doesn’t that mean that the pig rejected it?” Allie asked. “If a pig won’t eat it, I’m not going to, either. Especially because they probably tasted it first. I’m DEFINITELY not eating something a pig licked.”

“I will accept your apologies tomorrow when I cook the chicken of the woods I find, and you all agree it’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted,” said Mateo.

“That a pig licked,” said Amelia. We all laughed, even Mateo.

All of a sudden, there was a shriek from the woods. It was pitched higher than any human voice I’d ever heard, but it carried an unmistakable note of terror. We all looked at each other uncomfortably.

“Fox, maybe?” said Amelia. “They scream really weirdly sometimes.”

There was a short silence. We were all listening, but all there was to hear was the background noise of the forest. Nothing followed the scream.

“I think you’re really only supposed to stay in hot tubs for like twenty minutes anyway,” said Allie. We all wrapped up in towels and hurried inside. The night air was suddenly colder than it had been.

Indoors, sealed away from the outdoors in a well-lit room, the danger we’d all felt rapidly faded away. We were soon embroiled in drinking, card games, and arguments over music, until we finally staggered off to bed. Amelia and I were both pleasantly drunk, and we fell asleep wrapped in the blankets and each other’s arms, far from any thoughts of the forest and whatever we might have heard in it.

It was past ten o’clock when I woke up the next morning. Amelia was still asleep, but when I wandered out to the main room, I found Allie in the kitchen, clearly also having just woken up.

“Mateo still asleep?” I asked.

“No, he was gone when I woke up. I figured I’d find him out here, but I guess he must have gotten up early and gone for a walk.”

“Maybe went to go find that chicken of the woods,” I said. “Wanted to pull off the parts that the pigs had chewed on before the rest of us saw.”

“Whatever he finds, I’m sure we’ll hear all about it when he gets back!” Allie said. “First, we wouldn’t go walking with him yesterday, and then we all slept in today. Poor guy really wanted to get into the woods. If he finds anything cool, you know he’s going to rub it in our faces.”

We made coffee, poured cereal, and sat around to wait. Eventually Amelia woke up and joined us, so we kept chatting while she finished her breakfast as well.

By the time we’d finished the pot of coffee, it was noon, and there was still no sign of Mateo.

“I sent him a text like an hour ago,” said Allie. “I tried calling, and he’s not picking up.”

“He’s probably just got bad reception,” Amelia reassured her. “It’s the middle of the woods, after all.”

“But what if he’s hurt and he can’t call?”

“I’m sure he’s fine. Still, what did he mention yesterday, the white loop?” Amelia picked up the trail map from the table and looked at it. “Yeah, so it’s like six miles. You got up around ten, right? So it makes sense that he’d still be out there.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” said Allie. She turned her coffee cup around in her hands a few times. “Still. I’m gonna go look.”

“We’ll come with you,” said Amelia. I was already standing up to go get my socks and shoes.

We followed the path down from the back porch and into the forest. The trees here were huge, towering over us like massive sentinels from a forgotten land. The air smelled earthy and oddly sweet. I studied the dirt path for footprints or other signs of passage. I realized I had no idea what I was looking for.

“Mateo? Mateo!” Allie called. There was no response.

“I’ve still got signal here, at least,” said Amelia. She called Mateo’s number, but it went to voicemail.

After a few minutes, the path forked. A double-ended white arrow was painted on the tree in front of us.

“I guess we’re done with the spur,” Amelia said. “Which way do you want to go?”

“We should split up,” said Allie.

“Absolutely not.”

“We have to! Think about it. We don’t know which way he went. If he lost his phone or something and we go the same way he did, then he’ll get back here without us ever seeing him. And if he goes back to the house and stays there, maybe that’s fine, but if he comes out looking for us, we could end up going in circles after each other forever! Look, I’ll go this way, you two go that way, and we can just stay in contact by phone.”

“No,” I said. “You two go together, and I’ll go solo.”

“Is this some macho thing?” demanded Amelia.

“It’s physics,” I said. “I can lift Mateo by myself if I have to. Can either of you do that?”

Amelia frowned and narrowed her eyes at me. “Still sounds like a macho thing, but fine, that’s a valid point.”

“We’ll check in while we walk. Obviously, call if you find him, but otherwise we’ll check in every fifteen minutes or so. We should meet up in the middle in about an hour.”

“We could just stay on the phone.”

“We’ve got to keep our eyes and ears open in case he wandered off the path somewhere. It would suck to walk past him because we were distracted talking to each other.”

“Fine. Check-ins every five minutes, though. Text is fine, but I don’t want to have to sweep an entire quarter-mile looking for you, too,” said Amelia.

“Every five minutes, then. We’re probably going to find him before the first one, you know. He’s probably almost back by now.”

“Great, then let’s get going so he can laugh at us.”

We headed our separate ways. I looked back and caught Amelia looking back at me, too, so I gave her a thumbs up. It was bright and sunny in the forest, with dappled shadows and a pleasant breeze, and the path was clearly defined. There was no reason to be worried. Mateo had probably gone a little off-trail chasing his chicken of the woods, dropped his phone somewhere, and gotten hung up looking for it. He was fine, wherever he was. We just had to find him, and everything would be okay.

I wandered along, scanning the surrounding forest and calling Mateo’s name every so often. After the first five minutes, I texted Amelia:

Nothing yet. You?

Nothing, she wrote back.

I called Mateo’s phone, just in case I could hear it ringing somewhere nearby, but it went to voicemail again. I tried to remember if he’d had it on vibrate. I wasn’t sure, so it was probably still worth an occasional call.

I quickly fell into a pattern. Walk, scan, yell name, repeat. Every five minutes, text Amelia, then call Mateo. The walk was nice, and aside from the increasing worry about Mateo, I was enjoying myself. We’d gone far enough that one of our two groups should have found him.

When I dialed Mateo after the fifth check-in, I’d gotten so used to the pattern that I almost didn’t notice the faint sounds of music from the forest. It wasn’t until the message cut into his voicemail and the song stopped that I realized what I’d been hearing. I hung up and called again. There was no question about it: I could hear his ringtone somewhere off to my right.

I took a few cautious steps into the woods. “Mateo?”

There was no answer, but I was definitely moving toward the song. When it stopped, I hung up and called again. The ringtone played once more, a beacon bringing me in. “Hey man, you okay? I can hear your phone.”

Up ahead was a small clearing in the trees, just a mossy patch of ground in the sun. The ringtone sounded like it was coming from there, but the space was totally empty. There was nothing but a large oblong rock at one edge of the clearing, a milky, mottled stone about the size of my torso.

I walked closer, confused. The phone cut off, and I redialed Mateo’s number once more. The song started again. It was definitely coming from the rock. Had he lost his phone under it?

I knelt down and put my hand on the rock to roll it over. It was damp, sticky, and soft to the touch. I pulled my hand back in disgust, and part of what I had thought was a rock ripped away, stuck to my palm. It was a thick, leathery sack of some sort, and Mateo’s phone was inside.

That wasn’t all that was in there. There were bones, human bones. Fragments of his skull peered out at me, mixed in among femurs and knuckles and jumbled teeth. I saw pieces of his shoes, his Apple watch, and other remnants of Mateo. He had been stripped of everything digestible, and what was left had been crammed into this bag and dumped for me to find.

I stumbled backward, shaking my hand frantically to free it of the clinging material. I sprinted toward the path, running frantically through vines and trees, ignoring the branches whipping at my face. I hit the trail and began sprinting for home.

An instant later, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I screeched to a halt. Amelia and Allie! They were probably halfway through the trail by now, and would be heading back this way. I’d love to say that I turned back to save them from whatever they might be walking into, but the honest truth is that I didn’t want to be alone. I was willing to run past whatever might have gotten Mateo if it meant having someone to watch my back twenty minutes sooner.

I must have looked insane when I came tearing down the trail towards them. My eyes were wide, my hair was tangled with twigs, and I was bleeding from a small cut on my cheek that I hadn’t yet noticed.

“You’re okay! You’re okay!” I was shouting, which is admittedly not the least concerning intro. I slammed into Amelia and gave her a hug.

“What is it? What happened? You didn’t answer the last check-in!”

“It’s Mateo! I found him. I found something. I don’t know.”

“Is he okay?” Allie asked. “Where is he?”

“The woods. Something got him. Something—I don’t know. It’s bad.”

“Oh my God, Matty!” Allie started to cry. There were tears running down my cheeks, too, mixing with the blood. I wiped them away with the back of my hand, smearing dirt in their place.

“Is he hurt? Is he dead? What happened?” Amelia demanded.

“We need to get out of here,” I insisted. “We need to get back.”

“If he’s dead, we need to call the police!”

“He’s—he’s in a bag,” I said. “He’s all bones. He’s in a bag.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Something got him! It left the bones, the pieces. He’s gone.”

Amelia grabbed me by the shoulders. “You’re not making any sense.”

“I’m telling you what I saw.”

She looked at Allie, then back at me. “Show us.”

“No. No way.”

“What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know what I saw!”

“But we don’t. Show us. Is it far?”

I shook my head. “We’re almost there.”

“Okay. Take us. If you don’t, we’ll just go without you. It’s not that we don’t believe you. We just don’t understand.”

We went back and forth for a while, but the more Amelia spoke in that calm voice, the more I wondered about what I’d actually seen. She was right, after all. It didn’t make any sense. What would strip him down to his bones, and then bag them up? Nothing worked that way. Even serial killers wouldn’t do that. They’d bury the evidence. Maybe I really had seen something else, or misunderstood something. The only way to be sure was to go look.

All the while she was convincing me, the forest was pleasant, calm, and normal. It was hard to picture Mateo being dead at all when we were standing in such placid surroundings. I knew what I’d seen. I just wasn’t sure I was right anymore.

It took half an hour or more before she convinced me to go back. I led them back down the path cautiously, eyes scanning left and right in case anything was planning to jump out, but nothing did. It took much longer at my careful walk to get back to where I had been, but when I saw the marks in the dirt where I had burst onto the trail and then skidded to a halt, I knew I was in the right place.

“There. He’s over there in the woods,” I said. I took out my phone and dialed Mateo’s number again. We all listened as the song started.

“Matty!” shouted Allie, immediately pushing her way through the undergrowth. “Where are you?”

Amelia and I followed close behind.

“Look!” said Amelia, pointing to a nearby tree branch. “Is that his watch?”

It was, although I couldn’t understand what it was doing on a branch. I’d seen it stuffed into that terrible bag in the clearing up ahead. I knew I had.

“And his wallet!” said Allie, scooping something off the ground. “He must have been running from something.”

Up ahead, the cellphone’s song stopped. I redialed the number, and it began again, a cheery denial of the growing terror in my gut. Something was wrong. This wasn’t how things had been.

I could see the clearing now. The bag of bones was gone. Mateo’s cellphone glittered in the sunlight, metal and plastic clear against the moss.

Amelia started toward the phone. “It’s all in a line. Maybe he tore his pocket open? If we follow—”

She was cut off by an ear-piercing screech from Allie. I could only stare in shock as something swarmed down from the trees, a cluster of things the color of bark that moved in a shifting mass made primarily of stabbing nails and teeth. They swept down from the branches and grabbed her by the hair and head, piercing through her cheeks and dragging her up into the canopy.

Amelia lunged to grab Allie’s feet, but as she turned her back on the clearing, the ground moved. A great slab of earth whipped open and closed in an instant, and a monstrosity I could barely glimpse seized Amelia in a welter of bristling appendages. I heard her back snap and her skull smash as she was whipped into that underground lair. I knew she was dead before the ground ever settled over her.

I stood and stared, my eyes flickering between the empty clearing and the peaceful canopy of leaves overhead. I could hear a muffled rustling from below the ground. There was a soft liquid patter among the trees. It wasn’t until a drop of blood landed on my cheek that I finally snapped out of my frozen moment and once again ran.

I locked myself in the house when I got back and locked the bedroom door, too, as an extra barrier. I stayed there, huddled against the wall, until I fell asleep late that night. When I woke up the next day, still clothed, dirty, bloody, and alone, I tried to think of what to do, what the right thing would be.

I thought about going back. I thought about calling the police.

In the end, I showered, changed, and drove home, eyes on the trees around me the whole time.

I’ll report them as missing. I’ll say where we were, and that I looked for them, and that I did not find them. That’s all true.

What good would it be to send more people out there? Even if I told them exactly what I had seen, of the thing underground and the swarm in the trees, and even if they believed me completely, it wouldn’t be enough. Whatever those monsters were, the huge lurker and the swarm of tiny things, they were not the same. They were working together, each using the other to draw, distract, and devour prey. And if there are two of these horrific things—how many more might there be?