The Liminal

1. Going Down

The wind hissed through the pines in quiet warning. Winter was coming, and with winter every holiday known to man. Christmas shopping. Frenzied parents raiding the toy aisles at my crappy retail job. It was, in fact, the worst time Jayden could have picked to ask me to join a new club with them. They're lucky we're such close friends; if anyone else had asked me to join a club that discussed cryptids I would have laughed in their face, even if the seasonal strain was a non-issue.

Cryptids aren't real. I have not changed my stance on this, but I have changed why I feel so strongly about it. Before cryptozoology was just an embarrassment to humanity's collective ability to think critically, a pseudoscience people turned to because life is sometimes so painfully boring they have to play pretend to get themselves out of a rut. Now I feel more like... like it's a distraction. Goat men and chupacabras and black dogs are stories that spring up out of little pieces of the puzzle people find, and like bad paleoartists they construct erroneous mythologies around the shadow they saw in the lake, or the sounds coming out of the woods. Voices that couldn't be human. And they're no wiser to what it actually is because they're not real scientists. But I was, and still am, and it's cost me.

The wind had sounded like a warning that afternoon, and I should have listened.

We met up in the larger and more remote of Nearly's two parks. Jayden and I were the last to join the rusted picnic table where the Cryptid Club's four other members were gathered. I introduced myself with a pained smile when greeted by Alastriona, the club's unofficial leader, and after a short discussion of what sorts of creatures we were most interested in tracking (during which I was silent) she gave us a quick rundown of safety precautions to take when walking in the woods. For someone with a tongue ring and a heavily gothic aesthetic, there was a suburban mom sound to her voice as she set down parameters: stay in pairs, stay on the path, watch out for bears even if there shouldn't be any, the usual. I think she said this was the club's first foray into the park, so we were just getting an idea of its layout. Then she sent us on our way.

"Alright, it's..." She checked her phone. "4:30 right now, and the sun sets at around 6. To be safe, everybody should start heading back here to meet up at 5:15. Be careful, and happy hunting! Sort of."

Someone whose name I hadn't caught snickered at this. "We're all grown-ups Al, you can stop with the helicopter parent impression."

If Al replied I didn't catch it. Jayden and I had already started on our way toward the nearest path.

Once we were a safe distance into the trees I offered them a conspiratorial smile. "Al wasn't clear on what the point of this club is. Are you guys trying to screw mothman, or...?"

Jaden sighed heavily as they turned toward me, brow pinched in under their knitted beret. "Come on Lisa. I know you think all of this is ridiculous, but could you not, maybe? At least until we get home?"

"I guess." I zipped up my jacket. Our footsteps were muffled by the pine needles, and for a few minutes the only noticeable sound was the wind.

"Why did you join these guys anyways? Don't tell me you think bigfoot and the whale-rockslide thing could possibly be real."

"The slide-rock bolter," Jayden corrected. My stomach twisted a little at their tone, and I said nothing. They sighed.

"I mean..." Jayden rubbed the back of their neck. "I like the idea of it, you know? It's fun to think that there might be creatures out there that we haven't discovered yet, so... yes, I guess I do."

I shrugged uncomfortably, my eyes on the path ahead of us. I have a hard time looking at people without feeling I'm challenging them, somehow. "I guess I can see how that could be fun."