The Thing in the Woods Loves Valentine's Day

The woods around Blackwood Ridge didn’t just look scary; they were actively trying to digest you.

I adjusted the tie of my tuxedo, feeling ridiculous. The silk felt too smooth against my neck, especially since the rest of my body was covered in mud and scratches. A bramble—one of those sentient, black-thorned vines that only grow in cursed soil—snapped at my ankle. I stomped on it with a heavy hiking boot, hearing it hiss as it retreated into the fog.

"Not tonight," I muttered, brushing a spider the size of a dinner plate off my shoulder. "I have a reservation."

I checked my watch. 11:45 PM. I was cutting it close.

This brings me to the genre of my life: pure, unadulterated Horror. I live in a town where the shadows have teeth, the birds scream like human children, and the fog smells like old copper. Most people leave. I stayed.

I stayed because of Elena.

Elena was the love of my life. She was also, currently, a Class-5 spectral entity haunting the clearing three miles past the Screaming Creek. In any other story, I would be the rugged survivor armed with a shotgun and holy water, marching in to banish the ghost.

But this isn't that story.

I reached into my backpack—not for a weapon, but for a bottle of 2018 Pinot Noir and two crystal glasses wrapped in bubble wrap.

The clearing opened up ahead. The temperature dropped twenty degrees instantly. The trees here were bleached white, looking like skeletal fingers clawing at the moon. A low, guttural growl echoed from the darkness behind me. Something with too many legs was hunting me.

I ignored it. I walked to the center of the clearing, where a large, flat stone sat like a sacrificial altar.

I spread out the red-and-white checkered picnic blanket.

"Happy Anniversary, darling," I said to the empty, freezing air.

The silence that followed was heavy, the kind that usually precedes a jump scare. The fog swirled violently, forming a funnel directly above the picnic blanket. The growling in the woods got louder. A shadow detached itself from the tree line—a hulking, jagged beast with glowing yellow eyes. It took a step toward me, drooling black sludge.

"Excuse me!" I snapped at the monster, pointing a breadstick at it. "Do you mind? We are trying to have a moment."

The beast paused, confused by the lack of screaming.

Then, the air shifted. The scent of ozone and rot vanished, replaced by the smell of vanilla and expensive shampoo. The fog coalesced into a figure.

Elena.

She looked exactly as she had on our wedding day, except she was translucent and glowing with a faint, blue bioluminescence. She floated an inch off the ground. Her eyes, usually dark brown, were now pools of endless starlight.

The monster in the bushes whimpered. Even demons know not to mess with a wife on her anniversary. The beast slunk back into the shadows.

"You're late," Elena said. Her voice didn't come from her mouth; it echoed directly inside my skull. It sounded like wind chimes.

"Traffic was murder," I said, pouring the wine. The liquid passed right through her glass, splashing onto the stone, but she mimed sipping it anyway. She smiled, and for a second, the haunted woods didn't look like a scene from a nightmare. They looked like a cathedral.

"You wore the tux," she noted, drifting closer. Her hand, cold as ice, brushed my cheek. It burned, but in a good way. Like frostbite and fever combined.

"I promised, didn't I? Till death do us part was always a bit of a dealbreaker for me. I prefer the extended warranty."

We sat there for an hour. I ate cheese and crackers; she consumed the ambient life force of the surrounding vegetation. We talked about everything. I told her about the leak in the roof; she told me about the void and the infinite whispering of the cosmos.

"It's lonely," she admitted, her spectral face flickering like a dying lightbulb. "The dark is so heavy, Jack. It pushes down on you."

"I know," I said, reaching out to hold her hand. My fingers went through hers, mist mingling with flesh. "That's why I brought you this."

I pulled a small, velvet box from my pocket.

Elena gasped—a sound like a vacuum seal breaking. "Jack, you didn't."

"I did. It's not diamond. It’s iron. Cold iron."

In horror lore, cold iron burns spirits. It repels them. It’s a weapon.

"It will hurt," she whispered.

"Only if you let go," I said.

I placed the iron ring on the stone. She placed her ghostly finger over it. She concentrated, her form flickering violently, the blue light turning to an angry violet. The woods shook. The trees screamed. The reality of the spirit world ground against the reality of the physical world.

With a sheer act of will, she solidified her finger just enough. She slipped the ring on.

It hissed. Smoke rose from her ectoplasm. She didn't flinch. The iron bound her, grounded her, kept the void from pulling her away completely.

"It burns," she said, smiling with tears of light running down her face. "It feels warm."

"Happy Anniversary, El."

The sun began to crest over the horizon, turning the terrifying grey sky into a soft, romantic pink. The monsters of the night scurried back into their holes.

Elena began to fade, the daylight washing her out. But the ring remained, hovering in the air for a second before dropping to the stone with a clink.

"Same time next year?" she whispered, her voice fading into the morning breeze.

I picked up the ring and kissed it. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

I packed up the picnic basket, stepped over a pile of unexplained bones, and hiked back home. The woods were still full of horrors, but I didn't care. I was whistling a love song.