The Stairs in the Woods

Chapter 17-Now

I hate my fucking apartment.

The walls are too small and the floor is gross and it's just wrong. I hate it here. I hate it. I've got sound systems rigged up that have landed me a long list of complaints, which means I'll be kicked out if I keep this up. But goddamnit, god fucking damnit forest. Earbuds aren't enough anymore. I need to drown the sound off until it feels like my brains are about to leak through my ears because anything is better than having to hear it.

I can't lose this apartment, as much as I'd love to be rid of it. I still don't have another job. I can't go looking for a new place right now.

Alice. Alice. Alice. I'm going to find you, Alice. I'm looking so hard, see? I've got papers tacked up everywhere, so I never stop researching—Aja's decided I'm healthy enough, so she's stopped coming by, which means my space is truly mine again.

Unfortunately, that means she's also stopped bringing me food.

But it's fine. I'm fine on my own.

Except for that fucking sound. It's driving me crazy, I swear. What is it? Where's it coming from? Those days—three of them, the nurses told me—that I was lost in the woods... What happened to me? What did the forest leave in me that I can't get rid of?

I'm so tired.

And Alice. If I close my eyes, if I imagine, if I let myself listen to that damn scraping sound. Something about it, maybe the rhythm of it, or some tonal quality to the ringing of it, does remind me of Alice. There's probably nothing to that, though. Everything reminds me of Alice these days.

I'd like to think that my research is getting me somewhere. That's how it always works in horror movies, right? There's some professor, or expert, or hidden clue, and once you find that, the solution to the problem is obvious. That's how this should be. But all I find in anything I read is that this shit happens, and the best bet is just to steer clear of it. My Lola's words, all over again: the more you know about these things, the more they'll seek you out.

Alice looked. Alice ventured. We trusted those woods, and they fucked us over.

There's nothing online about how to get someone back. On the rare occasion any sign of them turns up, they wander back into the world on their own—like I did, I think—or they turn up dead. It's all preventative. There's no advice on what to do to get someone back.

From what I've read, and what I've learned as a park ranger, once someone's missing, they're usually missing forever.

But that's not good enough for me.

They stopped looking for her, not too long after she disappeared. Because she got lost in the woods. Because we all know most people don't usually come back. The local news articles and police records I've pulled are downright useless. Same thing: girl went missing right in from of stupid, incompetent girlfriend who somehow didn't notice a single fucking thing.

I sprawl out on my living room floor, right in front of the TV. Papers rustle beneath me as I run a hand through my hair and tug on it furiously out of frustration. I told myself I would wait until I had more information. That I could wait.

But I'm not going to find Alice in some mess of papers.

The closest I got to her was in those woods.

My hands curl info fists, balling up loose papers. It doesn't matter. They're useless. What the fuck am I doing here? Wasting time, clearly. I want to scream or cry or punch something or maybe all three. The first pangs of a headache hit me, and my eyes squeeze shut, tears already pricking at my eyes. I'm not getting her back like this. As I become more and more upset, the stone sounds pick up, blaring like a drone, shredding my thoughts to tatters, amplifying the headache, driving me insane insane insane.

I cant. I cant. I cant keep this up, and it's tearing me apart, but I can't stop. Alice vanished right in front of me. I can't just let her be gone.

And what do I have, besides this search? I force myself off the floor and scramble to my feet to grab something for the headache, but the moment I stand up, the floor tilts beneath me and I stumble. My vision blurs over. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Grinding teeth and shifting stones. I need her back.

I don't have anything else.

Lola's dead and I don't talk to my parents and Alice is fucking missing and I'm pretty sure I pushed Aja away and I don't have a job anymore, so what else do I have to do?

Pressure builds up inside my skull. I groan and lean forwards, hands braces against the arm of my couch. How do I make it stop? How do I get it out? I shove earbuds into my ears and set my playlist to shuffle—it's all metal, loud and angry, because I don't want to have to hear a goddamn thing anymore—and that helps a little bit, but not enough.

My heart thuds and adrenaline fills me up and oh gods, it hurts, and the woods took Alice and they did this to me and when I was younger, sure, I loved them, but now I want to burn them to the ground.

I draw in deep breaths, trying to keep my vision from clouding over.

It's like a kettle about to boil. The scraping rises to a shrill hissing, something evil and wicked and calling for me, and it builds and builds, and I want to scream but I can't, and I'm at the point where jamming a screwdriver into my forehead actually doesn't sound so bad if it'll make the pain go away.

And then the sound stops.

For a moment, for one blissful, perfect moment, everything is still.

And then the pain hits me again.

There's no scraping sound, this time. It's hellfire lashing through my body and skin crawling off of me and muscles unwinding and worst of all it seems pointed, and this time I do scream, something ragged and vile and feral that doesn't sound like it should've come from a human.

I need to leave. I need to get out of here but the woods will eat me up but I need to find Alice but I can't do this anymore and I—

In my pocket, temporarily interrupting my music, the phone rings.

My breaths are panting and desperate. A sheen of sweat covers my skin. I'm dizzy and in pain and barely present right now. But I manage to fish my phone out. My heart plummets when I see the caller ID.

Reluctantly, I accept the call.

"Hello?"