Rippled Woods

Chapter 2

Every morning, I'd wake up early, around 6am, for an early-morning run. The air would always be so fresh and smell of pine needles. My usual route always took me around the woods and back again. For some reason, I felt like taking a left into the old dirt path we used to go down every day. As I was walking on down the path, it started to rain. Putting my hoodie up, I continued along before starting to slip. Before my legs even knew it, my whole body was flat on the ground, on the rocky shore right alongside the creek. "That hurt," I whispered to myself under my breath. Sitting upright, I quickly brushed off the rocks as the rain turned heavier on me.

Trying to stand upright, my feet continued to slip. Somehow, without much of a good reason, something felt eerie to me, as though somebody was watching over me. Walking over, I scanned the trees around me and didn't notice anything unusual. The sky was overcast and it was generally a pretty miserable day to be outside. Feeling defeated by the weather, I started to walk back. After continuing back home, I found myself dressed for work and walking through the door at 9am, sharp.

Sitting at my desk, I started working, when that same eerie sense from before seemed to come over me. Ignoring it, my work day went by quickly, before I sat down with my lunch at my desk. Biting into my sandwich, my phone started to ring in my pocket. Pulling out my phone, I answered it with my mouth half-full. "Leonard speaking, hello!" I answered. "Hi, is now a good time to talk?" somebody asked me. "Sure, who is this and what's up?" I responded. "It's Barry, we need to talk. When are you free next?" he asked, "It'll only be about half an hour". Putting down my sandwich, I accepted his invite and met him at the lumber yard he worked at nearby. We talked about how Andrew had moved across the state to Quinault, along with the other occurrences with Arnold and Tyler. Getting back on-topic, he told me that there was something he was feeling about the woods lately, a 'funny feeling' as he described it. I told him that I had an eerie, similar feeling, that had been taking place all day.

"We've got to get back together and check out those woods again," he told me. Before I had time to think about it, Barry took out his phone and started calling people from our old group of friends, including Tyler, Tim and Jacob. Feeling uncomfortable, I tried to ask Barry something, to which he ignored me entirely. Making up some excuse, I found my way back to the office and continued working for the rest of the day. He tried to call me a few times, but I ignored the call and eventually muted him entirely. Returning home from work, he was waiting outside of my house, inviting me to meet the group again.

Honestly, that did not sound like something I was comfortable with at all. Explaining the weirdness of the situation to him, he did not understand and continued insisting that I come along. After threatening to call the police, he eventually left my property and I blocked his number. After watching the news and hearing about the Seabrook/ Pacific Beach Incident, something inside of me seemed to change. Feeling compelled, I unblocked Barry's number and called him, to which he didn't reply. I left a voice note, "Hey Barry, I'm sorry for the way I acted today. I hope we can meetup as a group again.

Thanks, Leonard". Fixing my pillow and rolling over, I fell asleep quickly and awoke early in the morning, to a loud banging at my door. Checking the clock, it was 5am as I stomped over to my front door. Opening the door, I was surprised to see my old friend, Andrew, waiting for me. His new-looking truck was filled with luggage, and clearly had passengers inside, of which I could identify all of them. Fifteen minutes passed as the group waited for me eagerly in my living room whilst I showered. Walking into my bedroom, Barry was busy doing things with my clothes, packing them into a bag for me. Feeling violated, I kicked him out of my room. After I had finished getting changed, we headed to the car. Altogether, our group consisted of Barry, Andrew, Tyler and myself.

Along the way, Tyler, who was sitting in the back with me, continued to tell me all sorts of rumours about Barry and Andrew; mostly about Andrew in particular. Paying no attention to his nonsense, I put my earphones in and enjoyed the scenery in the short car ride. There was a thick layer of fog forming along the mountain region, consuming the pine trees and leaving the water in a gray colour. The air was fairly cool that day as a light drizzle left the windscreen wipers running for the duration of the trip. After about two hours, I woke up and spotted a sign, which indicated the entrance to Lochaerie Resort. Confused, I asked Barry, "Why did we leave Woodard? Aren't we visting the treehouse?", to which Barry replied, "Oh? No, mate, Andrew's been camping around Quinault". Andrew joined in, "There's something I've got to show you guys in the area, that I think you'll really love".

Considering their behaviours lately, there really wasn't a good reason for me to actually go with them into the middle of nowhere. As we neared the lake, a sudden realisation came upon me; I didn't have any camping gear on me at all. When the car pulled in, I started to explain myself to Andrew, who promptly just handed me an A.L.I.C.E backpack. Unzipping it, the backpack was kitted out with everything I needed. Despite the strange bleach stains on the bag, I thanked Andrew. The rain had just started to let up as it was barely 8am. We started down a path through the pine woods. Tyler and Barry were lagging behind, whereas Andrew and I were up ahead. At a certain point in the walk, Andrew stopped firmly in place and raised his hand in the air, gesturing for us all to listen.

Standing in silence, we listened for a little while, before Andrew shook his head and moved onward, mumbling to himself, "I swear that was a tree knock". Moving forward, we eventually came to a clearing, where Andrew quickly started to unpack his tent. Trying to keep up, the rest of us tried, and failed, to put ours up in time. After a few minutes, I finally managed to pitch my tent correctly with all of the poles placed correctly. Taking a step back, a gust of wind picked up my tent and carried it a few feet away. Scurrying to catch it, it smacked into Tyler and seemingly gave him a huge fright. "Use your pegs!" Andrew yelled to me as I dragged it back. Looking around, the hill fog from earlier this morning seemed to be crawling in from the mountain tops.

A light drizzle hit us as I dug around through my tent bag, to finally find the bag of pegs I had been desperately looking for. Finally, my tent was setup with a nice, cosy rain cover. As the rain turned heavy, I helped Tyler to finally finish up his tent as Barry moved over towards Andrew's tent. After re-assembling Tyler's upside-down tent and feeling full of confidence, I left Tyler and walked over to Andrew's tent, where he and Barry were in the middle of talking Barry through some sort of ghost story, "Tim and I were at the lake, see? We'd been fishing every weekend for almost a year now," he started, "We saw this great, big bear on the side of the lake, and Tim, I mean, Tim just completely booked it, chasing after the thing!" he said, with much enthusiasm. "He leapt out of the boat, beyond the shoreline, and I never heard from him again," he continued, "He was a good kid, but man, he seemed to be on something that day, you know?". Confused, not having heard from Tim, in a few years, I asked Andrew, "What happened to him?". Andrew had a sad look in his eye, started to speak, but stuttered a bit before stopping. He waited a few seconds before starting to talk again, "The cops found him along a trail, mauled to death by the thing, four whole days after I last saw him".

Awestruck, the realisation as to why it was so important for us to meet up finally hit me. Andrew and Barry continued talking for a while, but I needed some time to myself, to think about my good friend for a while. I hung out in my tent for a while, browsing my phone and catching up on the Seabrook Incident.