It's Been a Long, Long Time

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. I watch the cabin. I am in the forest. The westward facing structure stands alone on a tiny hill with nothing but a dirt path to the door and a fire pit to keep it company. Semidarkness paints the sky, bathing the red-roofed cabin with captivating magenta compliments. A burning candle is a sign of life. Something these woods have not seen for quite a long time.

The sun falls lower and lower behind me. The crimson rays creep over the horizon dragging the shadows of the forest as far as they’ll go. I’ve watched this cabin age like a corpse. The outside bleached bone white; mushrooms have sprouted from the weak wood boards. The grass is the most flammable shade of yellow on the color spectrum. This structure exists in such a delicately, disastrous state, that I’ve never seen any creature take up permanent residence. In fact, I know most give this land a wide berth when traveling anywhere near. All except these three rangers. Humans aren’t wont to let anything go to waste if any potential is left. I suppose it was only a matter of time before they returned to an old stomping ground.

Through the canopy leaves, I spy two park rangers step out on the front porch. The fading sunlight glints off the reflective metal stars on their chests. Besides height, details of their bodies are difficult to make out in this lighting. The taller ranger lightly nudges the round one, then gestures to the candle. The two chuckle and smile. A curious, comically devious scent fills the still air. It seems that some scheming plot has hatched. A sudden metallic thud locks the door into place with a quick flick of the wrist. After a few furious rattles of the knob, the rangers sneak over to the window staying clear of the opening by crouching beneath the sill. A murmur questions what’s happening, although the exact words are impossible to make out. The two slowly rise to pre-planned positions. The fat one blows out the candle followed swiftly by the tall one slamming the window closed so hard pane shatters. The nervous murmurs inside evolved into frightened shrill screams. The screams blare through the forest, horrified and high-pitched, but not in the same frequency of terror men can achieve. No, this trapped ranger is unmistakably female.

The rangers on the porch walk , or more accurately stumble, back to the front door, gasping for breath in between fits of uproarious laughter. From the deep vibrations resonating with every chortle, these two rangers appear to be male. A wild, clanging clamor from the ranger inside filled the woodlands, beating on the locked door with all their might while the rangers outside marinated the air with self congratulatory enjoyment.The fat ranger reached for the door handle after wiping salty tears from his face. The intent seemed to be to unlock the door, freeing the trapped ranger, but will never be known. Right as the laughter, the screaming, and the banging faded, the window on the front door was smashed by a deer antler.

This is the most action I’ve seen in the park for a long time. I don’t like it, but I don’t wish to make myself known just yet. The vibrations in the air are abrasive. They’re raising their voices… in anger. I’ll have to move in closer if I want to hear what they’re talking about. It’s been a while since I’ve stretched my legs.

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“Holy —shi— sheep-flocking… bitch!” Pauly cries out, trying, and ultimately failing to censor himself.

He stands rigid, making himself as small and protected as he can with just his arms. I sit on my knees, gripping the rotting railing with my head between the posts. I see Harry move in stop motion over to the deer antler lying in the stark yellow grass at the base of the stairs at the height of every hyperventilating heave.

‘Christ, rookie!” Harry erupts. He picks up the antler and brushes off the stuffing still attached. “It was only a harmless prank between coworkers. You didn’t have to start the tear down. We were going to let you out.”

“I’ll make sure to put that in my report, Harry,” I manage to cough up. My lungs are burning. My heart is beating in my goddamn throat. I just need a drink of water.

“Pauly,” I sputter out, “Could you get me my water bottle?”

“Water?!” Pauly exclaims. “Look at my uniform, Rizzo!”

Pauly stomps over to me. I manage to look up at him. He fiddles his fingers in and out of the thin slashes in his shirt and pants. “You want me to help you? You’re thirsty? You almost cut me to bits!”

Never missing an opportunity to clown on his coworkers, Harry chimes in, “That’s one way to lose weight.”

“Can it, Harry!” Pauly snaps. He crouches down to my level, snapping his fingers to get my attention. “Hey, Rizz,” he says with a steely glare. He lifts his badge to my face, “See that?” I nod, but before I can respond verbally, he claps his hands together. “ This here means that I am capital C certified as your superior on this here scouting outing!”

Pauly’s known to go off on authoritative rants like this.

“And as you’re superior, I’m going to get you knocked back an acorn counting, leaf sweeper for all the major infractions you just committed in the past five minutes! Damaging park property! Leaving a flame unattended! Most damning, assault on another park range—”

I couldn’t possibly take anymore of this, especially with my nerves this bad.

“Maybe as my superior,” I interject, “you should be more concerned with the physical and mental well being of your fellow rangers, Pauly! Save the tirade for the office when we’re filing paperwork on fucking ‘this here scouting outing’ anyway!”

I guess standing up for myself wasn’t the park ranger etiquette. Either that, or the profanity because Pauly was as red as hot iron, and he was about to strike.

“Rookie!” Pauly exploded, “Watch your G-D language, or, I swear, I’ll have black balled from ever working for the parks service ever—”

Pauly’s empty threat was cut short by a loud crack inside the cabin. He and I snap our heads over to the window. A booming crash and scream roars out of the cabin.

“Harry!” Pauly yells.

Pauly and I run over to the window. The near constant flow of dust flowing out of the cabin isn’t helping my already labored breathing. Through flailing arms and squinted eyes, I see Pauly sticking his head in through the window frame. His white-knuckled grip holds unwavering as if the shattered glass wasn’t stabbing deep into his hands.

The dust flow comes to a stop, so I step as close to the window as I can get, peeking over Pauly. “Harry!” I scream.

The trees in front of the cabin wildly sway, but I don’t feel any wind on my face. How can the trees move without any wind? I slowly turn. I don’t see any birds, any rodents, any life at all scurrying from treetop to treetop. I don’t hear anything but the woody shaking rattle of pine trees breaking the silence. My heart rate races. A dark anxiety shoots down my spine, locking my body in place. My lungs rapidly gulp in the stiff air, desperately circulating oxygen to my brain to convince my widening eyes that the visible signs of movement through the trees was a nervous hallucination.

“Pauly?” I barely squeak out. “Pauly, do you feel any wind?

I manage to turn my head to Pauly. He releases his stranglehold on the window frame. I can see just over his head after he backs up a few paces. He’s fixed on the window. He probably didn’t even hear what I asked. I could barely hear myself. The rattle of trees grows to a chittery-creaking roar. I’ve never heard trees groan like this. Could Pauly hear any of this? I can’t be alone in this terrified mindset.

“Pauly?” A tear escapes down my cheek. For a moment, I don’t hear anything at all. The trees move, but the sound is gone.

A hand shoots up into view of the window. Pauly shrieks, falling back into me. I fall through the railing. Turning in the air, the forest forest turns with me. My eyes catch sight of a tree rising up through the canopy. The needles extending from the branches are rigid, not at all like the quivering greenery of the woods it's passing through. Horribly mystified, I over turn, glimpsing the forest upside down. I want to scream when I see that the tree is growing out of, and holding aloft, a hideously bulbous, mossy brown… thing, but I can only gasp. This gasp lasts an eternity before the thing disappears from view. I crash flat on my back, releasing all the air I drew in in one single cough.

“Relax, guys,” Harry calls out, “It’s just me!”

“Harry, you— you,” Pauly stutters. “You freakin’ idiot, man! You ever heard of ‘I’m okay, guys’? Rizz? Rizzo? Where are you, rookie?”

Struggling to find my breath, I manage to answer, “I’m down here, Pauly. Just past… the splintered railing, sir.”

“Apologize for being an ass, Harry!” Pauly screams.

“Sorry, Pauly. Sorry, Riz…” Harry says sheepishly. “The entire floor gave out under my feet. I was just trying to grab your water, rookie.”

Harry and Pauly help me to my feet.

“You don’t get to call her rookie anymore,” Pauly snaps. “Just give her the water bottle.”

I can’t take my eyes off the forest while I take swigs of my water. I can’t even begin to comprehend what I just saw. The image is burned into my brain, and while my body is brought to a cooling sense of calm, my mind races for an explanation.

“Rizzo?” Pauly says to me.

I snap out of my trance. “Huh?”

Pauly sighs. “Oh jeez, I’m sorry for blowing up earlier. I flew off the handle, and it was entirely uncalled for. Harry and I played a stupid, cruel joke, and, if anything, you should be the one filing complaints against us when we get back to the office.”

“Oh, yeah,” I stammer, “I know you didn’t mean anything, Pauly. Apology accepted, though. You too, Harry. That’s very big of you two. I’m not going to say anything about it in the reports. I am sorry about the window though. I guess all that adrenaline gave me super strength. Ripped that deer a new one.”

“Adrenaline be damned,” Harry chimes in. “You could have done that to a real deer, Xena!” Harry turns to look at the cabin in all its dilapidated glory. “This place does need to be entirely rebuilt and redecorated, though. It’s like something out of a horror movie.”

“I’ll make sure to put us all on the demolition crew,” Pauly chuckles. “We’ve all done our fair bit of destruction today!”

“Hey, it looked like this when we got here!” Harry shouts.

Pauly and Harry share a laugh. For a second, a smile crosses my face. I’ve had such bad anxiety up until this moment, that I join in the laughter too. I can’t worry about massive moving trees and whatever made up massive mound is attached to it. I’ll just enjoy this moment of peace in an otherwise stressful workday. I must have been so anxious that I’ve been seeing things. That’s what I’d like to believe, but something about the quickly fading sunlight made that impossible to accept.

“Sun’s just about to call it a night, Pauly,” I say. “We should probably get back to the office.”

“Almost exactly what I was thinking, Rizzo,” Pauly says with his hands on his hips. “Harry, get the firewood from the truck. We'll camp here for the night.”

A chilling shudder runs through me. I turn to see Pauly smiling up at the stars. He looks down at me and shrugs.

“I said almost, Rizz,” he smiles. “Besides, it’s a nice clear night. Let’s bond as a unit.”

“Grab your wood, Harry,” Harry says as he walks away. “Bet you’ll want me to pitch a tent next, huh Pauly?”

Pauly shakes his head. He looks down at his hands and finally seems to have noticed the bloody mess he’s been leaving all over himself.

“Rizz,” Pauly says calmly.

“Yes?” I answer.

“Go grab the bedding from the truck,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, I can do that,” I manage to say. My thoughts were drifting back to the trees. Were they trees? How could they be anything but trees?

“Rizz?” Pauly asked.

“Sorry,” I answer. “I’m going now.” I could tell he was barely holding his happy exterior together with yogic breathing. I walk away from him to the truck.

“Grab the first aid, too!” Pauly shouts. “Please!”

“That’s a big can do, sir!” I feel the warm happy feelings fully melt away. In this lighting, or damn near lack of, really, the cabin really does look like something out of a horror movie. I can’t help but to think we’ll be the characters in the movie who the audience is screaming at to get the hell out.

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There is something supernaturally hypnotic about tamed fire. The park rangers work well into the starry night. Though I am closer, from this top down perspective the rangers seem even smaller than they did before. By scraping his flint with a knife, the tall ranger sends sparks onto a sizable pile of wood logs and chunks of the old cabin.

How can such a devastating force be summoned into existence by such primitive tools. Humans bend fire to their will with such ease. Long ago, I believe a fire of this size would have kept me at bay, but I’ve grown larger than fire could ever hope to burn. I could have been killed in my youth. I always felt the need to investigate teeny tiny embers. I would feed it until it became a problem, then suffocate it. The size of the blaze was a way for me to judge my growth. Fire has a brazen gluttony for any and everything that I outgrew long ago. I have developed a taste for the scorched, the seared, and the charred. The smell of blood doesn’t entice me unless it’s bubbling.

I have earned the right to make fire work for me through intense strife. These humans have never experienced the scorching desolation of the flame, and I have not eaten a fine cooked meal in almost a century. I will wait in the shadows, crouched at eye level with the rangers fire, waiting for the opportune moment to set the blaze free.Then they shall see… and I shall feast.

The rangers talk is dull and boring until the tale of a monstrous beast reverberates through the air. I have not heard my name uttered in a long time, and I don’t care to hear it from unworthy lips. I have never heard the story of my life told by humans, and I never will.

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“Pretty big fire we’ve built here, rangers,” Pauly proclaimed to break the uncomfortable silence.

The fire was quite large. So large, I was worried that the stone wall surrounding it might be two layers too short. We were effectively camping on a tinderbox. Dry grass, dry cabin, dry, dry air. The fire did provide a great deal of light, though. I thought the light would bring me a sense of security, but nothing is helping. I felt unnerved at the idea of not seeing what might have been, but remembering what… could have been, I fear glimpsing that thing again.

“Rizzo,” Harry calls out to me, “Why’ve you been so quiet over there?”

I have been laying on my back since the fire started burning. I’ve been trying to ground myself in reality. By looking up at the stars, I’ll know I’m on the ground. I’m on Earth, and on Earth there are things that are impossible. Whatever I might have seen is impossible on Earth, but why did it look so real?

“I’m just still reeling from all the scares today,” I say with an unconvincing laugh.

“Oh,” Harry says awkwardly.

Harry stretching ‘oh’ fills the silence. For a moment, I can focus on the monotonous tone of it, emptying my head of these wild thoughts. Then, a deep rumbling roars from the forest. I feel a cold sweat break out. My torso tightens, remembering the tense feelings from dusk. It’s harder to breathe almost as if the air is thicker. Could the air be thicker? I can’t keep my mind straight. I grab my head before it detaches from my body. If that’s a possibility. Is it a possibility? At this rate, I wouldn’t even mind if it did.

“Guys,” I can hardly hold back tears, “You hear that rumble, don’t you? The rumble, you two hear it?”

Pauly looks at me, then at Harry. Both of them look at me with an infuriating amount of concern.

“We hear it, Rizzo,” Pauly says. “It’s a falling tree.”

I wish he wouldn’t talk down to me like I’m a child. With every crack, and squeak, and chitter popping up every now and then through the roar, something sounds disturbingly far from a normal tree. What’s the difference? Where are the answers?

“Then where’s the crash, Pauly?” I blurt out although I thought it was in my head. The question was just left buzzing in my mind. “Where’s the crash? Where’s the crash, Pauly? Where’s the crash, Harry? If it’s a tree, where’s the crash? There would be a crash if it was a tree!”

It’s not right, the sound is all wrong. Every sound is warped! It’s mimicry, but coming from where? I jump to my feet and search the forest from what I can still believe to be the safety of the fire.

“It’s alright, Rizzo,” Harry says.

I don’t meet his gaze. I guess that made him think I didn’t hear him, but I did. I heard him, and I hear this incessant rumbling.

“What’re you searching around for?” Harry asks me.

God, I wish he’d just seen what I might have seen. What I did see! What I did see? Yeah! What I did see! Then he would be the one with this insatiable mental itch. Harry tries to place his hand on my shoulder, but I can’t handle this much stimulation right now. Everytime I throw his hands away from me, I’m pushed farther and farther into insanity, but acceptance seems to bring temporary relief.

“I’m looking for that— that thing in the woods, Harry!” I scan through the tree trunks for mimic trunks. “I saw the trees wildly swaying in the wind, but have you felt any wind at all? There hasn’t been a breeze all day! What made them move? Why were they chittering? What kind of tree makes a chittering sound like a bug? It was like if a cicada mimicked the sound of a tree falling? It was wrong! Why, Harry? Why did I see a tree rise up above the rest of them? Most distressing, most disturbing, why was it attached to some massive… thing? I don’t even know what it could possibly be! I have to see it! It’s hear, and it was making that rumbling! I know it! Where are you! Show yourself!

Pauly leaps in front of me. Apparently, I’ve gotten too close to the fire.

“Calm down!” Pauly exclaims. “Look at me, okay? The roaring has stopped. It was just a tree falling. It must have fallen into some soft underbrush. It’s been dry. A lot of trees must be dying. They all must have fallen softly. You’re getting yourself all worked up over nothing! Your nerves are bad! You’ve got some kind of cabin fever.”

“But,” tears well up in my eyes. Had I really driven myself crazy? “There was supposed to be a crash.” Tears stream from my wild eyes. I can’t get closure. “There was supposed to be a crash, right?”

“You said you saw something in the woods?” Harry asks. “A big creature of some kind?”

I nod and break down in Pauly’s arms.

“Okay,” Harry begins, “Well I have a story. You don’t work here as long as I have and not pick up some local folklore.”

“She clearly doesn’t need to hear anymore stories, Harry,” Pauly interjects. “She’s unanchored from reality.”

“But that’s just the thing, Pauly,” Harry says, “It’s just a story. A scary story, but a story nonetheless. Legend speaks of a monstrous beast known as—”

A massive bulbous, segmented beast springs forth from the trees. A hideous chittering screech pierces my ears. Then, I hear nothing. Upon inspection of my ears, I find blood pouring out of them. Dazed, I look upwards. The fire had been knocked out of the bonfire we’d created. The blaze quickly spread through the grass. The cabin had been completely engulfed in flame. All of the firelight illuminates the beast. Eight legs extend from its body, camouflaged to resemble the pine trees of the forest. One leg has completely impaled Harry. The upper half of his body roasted in the fire, still kicking with life. Pauly runs wildly around burning alive. I watch as he tries and fails to put out the fire that has completely engulfed his body.

I stumble to my feet. I have to get out of here. I never wanted to meet this beast. I wish I could go back minutes from now. I would trade the horrific sight of my friends dying before my eyes for unexplainable madness. I hurdle as best as I can through the rapidly spreading fire to get to the truck. The keys are still in the ignition, but the damn thing won’t start! I see the fire racing towards me. Every engine sputter brings me closer and closer to death.

With one last, desperate twist of the key, the truck springs to life. Just in time for the fire to fully engulf the entire vehicle. I scream as the heat becomes unbearable, but I can’t hear my own suffering. It would be pleasant if I couldn’t hear my pain. A leg the size of a tree trunk stabs through the roof of the truck. Another massive leg stabs through the roof. At the end of this leg, Harry’s charred body. Fully engulfed in fire, I can’t help but remember thinking back to the first time I met Harry. He said I was ‘smokin’ hot’. Guess we have that in common now.

I see the many pitch black eyes of the creature staring down at me. What is it waiting for? I can see the flames reflected back at me. If I had to use the last of my brain power to gauge how cooked I was, I would say I was well past well-done. The beast opens its mouth wide and slowly moves in for the kill. The last sight I see are the pincers rubbing the juice dripping fangs.

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At the end of their life, every creature meets their demise by the tools of Death. Only the apex have the strength to use their jaws.