The perfect hike?

As my wife, three kids, and I continue our regularly scheduled Saturday hike through the woods, I try to relax and enjoy the scenery and the company of my family. It is a beautiful, spring day outside and the forest looks amazing. I should be at ease and jovial. But I’m not calm and relaxed like normal. And the strange thing is I can’t figure out exactly why I’m not. Even though everything around me seems perfect, I just can’t shake the feeling that something is off. And I don’t know why.

As we continue down the trail, my kids laugh and joke with each other and with my wife. I smile and laugh along with them, but I’m not fully engaged in the conversation. In the back of my mind, I am running through all the possibilities trying to figure out what is wrong. But I just can’t figure it out. I’ve been down this path dozens of times over the years. I know this area very well. Everything appears normal, but deep down, something is just different. Wrong.

As I take stock of my environment to figure out what has me feeling this way, I try to do so secretly. My plan is to act normal and not let my family think anything bad is going on. After all, why worry them when it’s probably something minor. Or nothing at all besides my nerves. And by all accounts it's working. The best I can tell my family in none the wiser: too focused on their fun to notice the subtle shifts in my behavior.

As my eldest child tells a joke and the others begin to laugh, I fake a laugh. But in reality, I didn't even really hear the joke. My mind is too busy racing through dozens of possibilities as I take inventory of my surroundings to figure out why I feel on edge. I do so one sense at a time.

First, I focus on the smells around me. I don't smell fire or anything foul. No cooking smells, no diesel fumes, and no chemical smells. No, nothing unusual in the smell department.

Next, I begin to look around. But I try to do so in a way that makes it seem like I'm just taking in the sights. I really don't want to worry my family. Although they are too busy chatting to notice my paranoia anyway.

I scan the trail, but don't see any out of place footprints. No tire tracks, no oddly broken branches, no discarded items, nothing. I next turn my attention to the tree line, but don't see anything out of the ordinary there either. And I've been repeatedly checking behind me for the past ten minutes and haven't seen anyone. Ok, no one appears to be out here with us. Nothing looks out of the ordinary, time to move on to the next sense.

Next I strain my ears to listen for any strange noises, but I don’t hear any footsteps, which confirms to me that I'm right: no one is following us. I also don’t hear any sounds of fire, no other voices, no motor vehicles, no gunshots, nothing.

That just can't be. Nothing is out of the ordinary, yet I still feel off. Is it really just my nerves? I mean I didn't sleep the best last night, but am I really that tired?

Finally, I give up and resign myself to the fact that I must just be going crazy. Nothing is wrong. Then, just as I had convinced myself to let this go and focus on having a good time with my family, it happened.

As I suddenly hear something rustling in the tree line next to me, my eyes widen in horror as I finally realize what was off. For the past twenty or so minutes, I haven’t heard any animals…