A Walk in the Woods

I was so tired of sitting in the same couple of rooms in my house due to the Covid pandemic. When I was not working remote, I spent my time watching television or playing video games. I was all caught up watching the Cobra Kai series and had mastered my collection of Xbox games until my eyes hurt. I just needed to get away from the house, so when the weather looked warm enough, I took a day off of work for a three-day weekend, so I wouldn’t be staring at my laptop screen all day. I wanted to take a moment to get back to nature and take a hike for a few hours to get away from things as I had been so stressed lately.

A friend had told me that there are some nice secluded trails between the Pennsylvania and New York border. I researched a few trails on Google, but decided I would do this the old-fashioned way and drive to that general vicinity to see what I could discover on my own. I hopped in my car, turned on my “All-80’s Retro” playlist, and drove north about two hours away from my home. As the drive was headed into a rural area, I eventually saw a sign for a campsite ahead at the next exit and so I decided to get off the main highway.

When I got off the exit, I could turn either left or right, but there was not any signs indicating which way the campsite was, so I headed left. I could not really tell where I was, as my cell phone was not getting good reception and I couldn’t access the GPS navigation. I found myself on an old gravel road surrounded by woods. I continued ahead, hoping to run into the camp or some small business that I could stop at for directions. Eventually I came to a parking area if you would call it that. It was really an area of worn tire tracks in a clearing off the road. A small wooden sign off to the side of the parking area read Mystic Hollow Trail. I had no idea where I was but this is exactly what I wanted, a nice quiet walk in nature without too many people around.

A dense fog was slowly starting to lift as I started my journey and headed onto a worn trail that had a small uphill grade. It was eerily quiet, and trees lined the pathway for as far as the eye could see. About 800 yards after the parking lot, I watched a small squirrel cross my path and I came across an unusual tree. It had a hollow opening with something sitting inside it that caught my eye. A small grey bag was hidden in it. I looked around, as I had a feeling someone was watching me, but my curiosity was getting the best of me. I reached in and grabbed the bag clumsily and it slipped out of my hands to the ground. I walked over and kicked it gently to see what its contents may be and was met with a hard surface. I opened it up to see what it would contain and behold there was a large golden stone inside with strange markings carved on it. I was paranoid with my discovery and I looked over my shoulder a few times. I couldn't believe what I just picked up. I could tell this thing was very old and probably was going to be worth a lot of money. An image came to my mind of getting back thousands of dollars or more for this odd treasure from the right buyer.

I quickly slipped the bag in my pocket and moved along the trail trying to enjoy the walk but my mind kept going back to the contents. “Is this real?” I thought to myself. I kept thinking of things I could get in exchange for it. A much needed new car, or a luxury vacation to someplace tropical. My fingertips kept feeling the surface of it through my pocket. The strange markings felt like some kind of writing. My mind then started wandering on “what if” scenarios. “Did this belong to someone that recently placed it there? Was this meant for someone who is still here in the woods? Why would someone leave something so precious there? Is somebody watching me?”

I climbed the trail and turned a corner around a steep narrow pathway. I thought I heard a wild animal rapidly approaching which startled me. I awkwardly stumbled down a hillside and really hurt my leg on the way down. I couldn’t get up for at least 20 minutes. I settled there on some rocks that I painfully scraped my knee on when I landed. As I was trying to wait for the pain in my leg to subside, I kept feeling the inside of my jacket pocket to make sure my recent treasure was still there and did not fall out. I held onto it for a while before trying to stand back up. “Just great,” I thought to myself, I scraped my knee and I rolled my ankle. It hurt terrible but it was not broken, just painful to walk. I lost my bearings in the fall. I stumbled back up towards the direction I thought the trail was, but oddly I couldn’t find it.

I kept painfully limping around the woods, lost. The more I walked, the more confused I was getting. I kept thinking I was close to the trail but would just end up in more dense woods. The view looked the same in every direction. Hours passed and it was getting dark. I could hear sounds all around me, but could not see as daylight slipped away. I was not equipped for a night walk or to camp out. I occasionally used my cellphone flashlight but my battery percent was very low and had been steadily dropping.

With almost no visibility, I kept trying to move around but due to the hurt leg I kept tripping. When I almost impaled myself in the dark on a broken tree stump, I knew it was time to stop for the night. I leaned next to a tree and just sat down there to rest. I kept hearing noises rustle in the woods. Small critters running about I had hoped. I was getting worried, as I knew it was not uncommon for bears and coyotes in this area. At some point in the night, I dozed off then awoke when I heard some loud noises of nearby cracking sticks and I heard a whispering voice in my left ear clearly utter the words “Give back what you have taken from her!”

I let out a yell. My heart leaped in my chest and I jumped to my feet looking for whoever whispered to me but saw nothing, and just heard the eerie quiet of the woods. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night and kept looking around constantly. I was terribly frightened. When dawn started emerging, I got to my feet and painfully walked towards what I thought I was the sound of running water. I could never find the source of the sound but it led me to an old rustic cabin in the woods. I went cautiously over to it and knocked on the door and windows, hoping someone was around, but it looked quite deserted from what I could tell. There was no reply to my knocking so I tried the door, found it unlocked, and went inside.

Suddenly I heard voices outside getting closer to the cabin. At first I was relieved, as these people may be able to help me and get me back to my car, but I soon realized it would not look so good being found trespassing in their cabin so I quickly decided to hide in a closet. I heard several footsteps enter and the voices started up again. They were very angry in tone and I could hear the distinct voices of two men questioning another “Where did he put it?” I heard an agitated male voice say that he left it hidden in a tree and now it’s gone. The voices got more heated and I knew exactly what it was that they were looking for.

“You stole something very valuable!” a deep voice said. All I could think was I that I need to stay still, keep safe, and I had an overwhelming desire to keep this found treasure. Again my mind went to the money and I was not going to willingly hand it over to them. I wanted to leave but knew I couldn’t yet, especially with the hostility level escalating in the cabin. Then I heard a loud bang, followed by a painful groan. I gasped, as I knew it was a gunshot and I started visibly shaking. It was hard to breathe. The more I tried to stay still, the more my body convulsed. I felt trapped in the tiny closet. Another loud bang occurred and I knew the two men shot their companion who was trying to explain himself. Then the voices stopped. I gasped as footsteps echoed right outside the closet door, then I heard the front door open up and the footsteps leave.

I was on high alert and I opened the closet after about ten minutes of no sound. I emerged and saw nobody there, but I saw there was a small black book beside the front door that was not there when I first entered. I picked it up and opened it and across the first page was the handwritten words “Give back what you have taken from the witch!”

I dropped the book, opened the front door and carefully escaped from the cabin, making my way back deeper in the woods. All that was going through my mind was “I think someone was killed because of me!” It made me sick but I realized this is a secret I must take to the grave. I took something valuable and I must avoid these men at all costs. I knew if those guys caught up with me, I’d possibly have the same fate as their companion.

Another full day of migrating through the woods had passed, and I moved quietly but steadily and I was jumping at every noise I heard. Nothing in the woods looked familiar, yet it all looked the same. I kept trying to find the water but it never appeared. It was like nature was playing a cruel joke on me.

Day turned into night again and I was tired, hungry and most definitely thirsty. Again I slipped my hand in my pocket and my mind went to the money I’ll make with my found treasure during this awful experience. “I’ll need to treat myself to something good with this,” I thought to myself, but also quickly added a prayer “Please God, I’ll donate some of the money to a good cause, I swear it, if you can get me out of this alive!”

Once surrounded in complete darkness, I stopped in the woods and tried to fall asleep. I was once again awakened at night by a startling sound coming towards my direction. I shot up and despite the pain, quickly crouched behind a thorny bush as I saw three barely visible men dressed in what appeared to be tattered Civil War uniforms. I recognized that it was the same voices as the men from the cabin, and again the three of them were having the same argument word for word. Then I see the two men attack the third just as it happened earlier in the cabin. Then the man who was shot stands up, and they all slowly turn their heads. All three lock eyes with me, glaring with hate, and vanish. I started crying at this point, trying to make sense of things.

Three days later, and it had only got worse. “I’m going to die out here alone,” I thought to myself. I was just so confused that I could not find the trail and I could not make any sense of the haunting of the men and the whispering voice in the woods. “I don’t think my heart could take another night out here,” I said to myself. I looked at my leg and it had turned so dark from all of the cuts and bruising.

That afternoon I finally saw someone walking in the woods, I called out, but this person kept walking. I hobbled and ran as fast as I could with my injuries towards the walker’s path. When I finally got close, the body turned around to face me. However, there was no face, just a hollow cavity where there should have been a head. It took a step towards me with an outstretched arm.

I screamed and painfully ran away from the faceless being for several minutes and then to my surprise, I saw through a clearing the gravel road, worn tire tracks and my car down below! I couldn’t believe it, except my excitement quickly turned to anxiety as I realized I ripped a hole in my pocket where my car keys were tucked. I had no clue where they could be. I was so fixated on keeping the stone safe that I never thought to check on my keys. I just collapsed and rolled down a hillside feeling defeated. I landed at a moss-covered wall made out of stone at the bottom of a valley. There were skulls and bones neatly organized along it and one intact skeleton propped up in the center. It was like he was grinning at my miserable state of being. I saw a little black book similar to the one I saw in the cabin in his bony hand. I took it, opened it up and saw across the first page was a warning, “Give back what belongs to her!”

Small gatherings of stones were arranged in a circle located near the grinning skeleton. Strange carvings were on the stones similar to my golden rock. At this point, the money meant nothing to me, I only wanted to go home and see my family again, drink something and sleep in a warm bed. A flash of images appeared within my mind, as I saw that these skulls belonged to other travelers in these woods who also were tempted by the stone and they all met the same fate. Defeated, I reluctantly pulled out the sack with the gold piece in it, set it down by the stones, and walked away.

That’s when a young woman accompanied by two black wolves came out of the tree line by the wall and approached me. She was very translucent and looked like some kind of elf from The Lord of the Ring films, very pale and dressed in an ornate flowing robe. She had very piercing eyes and looked at me but did not speak. My eyes kept darting back between her and the wolves and I thought to myself “This is how it all ends!”

She knelt down and touched my ankle and a warm sensation flowed through it making the pain in my foot diminish. She picked up the sack and handed me another small one in exchange. I opened it and my car keys were inside. I turned to thank her, but she had vanished. A fast moving fog rolled in and then lifted revealing the trail I was desperately trying to find. I made my way as fast as I could to my car.

I unlocked the door and sat in my car for a moment, reflecting on what I just walked away from. I looked over to the woods and the sign of the trail was gone. No trace of it anywhere. I drove away thankful for being alive. I had a bottle of water I left in the console. It was warm from sitting in the car for days but it was so refreshing at the same time.

I quietly drove home and charged my phone while driving. I was almost in a trance like state, my mind void of any thoughts other than getting back safely. When I pulled in my driveway, I looked at a map application on my phone trying to see where I had traveled. The exit I had taken earlier didn’t even show up. I just got out of my car, went upstairs and took a long, hot shower. I then crawled in bed and fell asleep. I woke up hours later from my phone’s alarm and looked at the screen as I silenced the alarm. I was very confused, the date on the phone was the same day I was to have gone on my trip. I sat up in bed and saw a scratch off lottery ticket I forgot I had purchased the day before my road trip. I took a penny off my nightstand and saw the witch of the woods in my mind one last time as she smiled at me. To my surprise … I just won 20,000 dollars!