Stories of Appalachia

Rule #3 If the Cicadas Stop, You Don't

Hello again family. Of all the lessons my mountains have given me personally, only two have been in the broad daylight. When I was 22 my friends from college and I went camping along the stretch of the Appalachian Trail just outside Erwin, Tennessee- on the border of North Carolina. Fall semester had just begun a few weeks prior and we decided to go camp before the summer turned in for an early winter (an early winter it was, mid-September, and the night temps hung close to 40).  We of course broke rules one and two for that night. There were, however, nine of us on the trip, so we felt as though that negated the rule-breaking. We were wrong, and the mountains taught us a lesson that day. 

We traveled up in three groups that day: Me and Isaac to pick the campsite, Matthew and three others with the food, and James with the late-comers who had class late. The first two groups arrived without a problem. Isaac and I found a campsite for our tents and started a fire before the second group had even arrived. It was nearing 6:30 in the evening, the time the last group was set to arrive. Only, they didn't. Half an hour passed and we still had no word of them. As the sun marched ever onward to the ominous, almost pernicious, peaks of the mountains, we finally received a call from James. The road was impassible for his car, and they had left it at the bottom of the road, well over two miles of dirt and massive rocks that climbed 2500 feet in that distance. They wouldn't make it before dark, a death sentence in this stretch of Appalachia. 

The mistake, the very worst of the mistakes from that trip was their decision to hike their way to us along the Trail. It was shorter, yes, by almost 30 minutes. But for inexperienced hikers, and ones whose only source of light was their phone's flashlight, they would easily wander off trail. And when you wander off the trail, you don't return. We kept calling them, without worry at first, and when they still hadn't picked up after several attempts, worry began to creep in. We left several voicemails to James and his fellow late-comers, urging them to turn back and go to where they'd parked. As the cicadas began to harmonize in the trees, we split into three teams to find our friends: Matthew and Josh to take the Jeep back down to where they'd parked their car, to bring them up the mountain; Isaac, John, and I to head down the trail from our end to see if we could find them (we came better equipt for the night); and the remaining stayed behind to watch the campsite and see if somehow they made it to the top of the ridge. We had an hour before the sun set into the Tennessee River Valley to our left, but still moved as quick as we were able. 

John was the first to notice it. The feeling of being watched from behind the trees. If you recall, family, rule #9. We weren't alone. But, then again, no one is ever truly alone in the mountains. We took glances around us to find nothing, nothing at all. We turned a corner that was framed by thick magnolia leaves to see a tunnel of trees whose shadow only deepened with the rapidly approaching night. All three of us stopped dead in our tracks. Isaac began to call out for James and the others, to no answer. It was then that John spoke up, "Isaac hush."

Isaac continued to call out when John said more earnestly, "Isaac, hush."

I leaned forward hoping to hear what John wanted us to hear. But hear was the wrong word. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't place that the cicadas had stopped singing until the silence grew more deafening. We hadn't stood in the Silence longer than a few moments before my momma's voice carved its way into my conscious, "remember Zach, if the cicadas stop, you don't."

I grabbed Isaac and John's arms and yelled, "run! We need to run now!"

We tore back up the trail in the direction of the campsite as fast as we could. We didn't stop, and we didn't look back. The gaze of whatever was following us continued to beam its eyes on our backs, chasing us all the way back to the camp. We could swear at some points we could hear the patter of bare feet and the breaking of twigs and branches chasing closely behind. John swears he heard breathing in his ear and felt it on his neck. The sun had just touched the peaks when we collapsed into the campsite. A few moments later we were joined by Matthew's group who had brought the late-comers up the mountain. They'd received our frantic phone calls and turned back to Matthew. 

Our encounter with whatever was in the woods had left its mark, as it seemed to not leave us alone. It stalked about the campsite. We could hear its footsteps. What I won't forget is the whispers it spoke as it prowled the camp. They were barely audible and were without context or sense. What you could piece together was scriptures, all being misused:

"Eloi eloi lama sabachthani"