Mimic

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The cabin was small. A single room with a crumbling chimney, an old, yellowed fridge, and a layer of dust coating it all. Sara checked the deadbolt on the cabin door again, assuring it was locked.

“The candle won’t last until morning,” she whispered to herself.

As the world outside grew darker with nightfall she pulled further and further away from the window, afraid of what might be lurking. Of what was lurking but could not be seen. How had the day gone so wrong?

The morning started with smiles, three bottles of beer, and a mission. Sara and her sister, Natalie, were going to hike their brother’s favorite trail in his memory. They’d summit the large peak, share a couple of beers, pour one out for their brother, and make their own sense of peace that authorities were never able to give them.

“Can you believe John climbed this mountain because he wanted to?” Natalie puffed in anger, leaning into a large pine. “For fun? Who does that?”

“He said he liked the challenge,” Sara gave a half smile.

“That’s something a crazy person would say,” Natalie shook her head, wiping the sweat from her brow. “Crazy people stay in the woods.”

It had been a year since he had disappeared. He had solo-hiked the mountain many times, but that time around he had wanted to camp overnight. To say he was an experienced outdoorsman was an understatement. The family liked to joke he was raised by wolves because he was so in tune with nature. So, when the morning he said he would be home came and went with no one hearing a word, the two sisters had raised the alarm with local law enforcement immediately.

Remains were never found. Sometimes, Sara wondered if the remains were ever even searched for.

“How much further?” her sister groaned.

“Just over the ridge,” Sara assured. She was growing out of breath herself and felt the burn in her shins. The pair had started their ascent sharing their favorite stories of their brother but had grown less and less talkative as the altitude climbed. John had always said the view at the top was breathtaking. Sara hadn’t figured he meant the trip up.

The two sisters continued the last stretch of the trip in silence. Around them the wilderness was a symphony. Birds calling to each other, squirrels rustling through the leaves of the forest floor, cicadas droning on with their buzzing screams.”It’s what I love about the woods,” John had said to them once. “With life all around you, you never feel truly alone.” A smile tugged at her lips at the memory. She hoped, whatever had become of her brother, that with the sounds of the forest he loved around him he did not feel alone in his last moments.

“Flat land!” Natalie cried as they crested the final heavy inclined steps of the trail. “Oh, happy days,” she threw herself into the clearing on her knees dramatically. “You got this out of me once, John,” she wagged her finger at the sky, “but I swear I’ll never be caught out here again.” Sara chuckled at her younger sister’s dramatics, her own hands on her knees as she took a moment to catch her breath.

The peak was stunning. The two sisters were in a small flat patch of wildflowers that bounced and waved lazily in the breeze. Ahead of them, over the cliff’s edge, was a glorious view of the greenery filled forest. It rose and fell with the curves of the old mountains and was blanketed in the warm glow of the late afternoon sun.

“Sara,” Natalie called in a singsong voice. She sat on a log in the midst of the flowers, patting the space next to her. Her other hand rummaged through her backpack, producing two brown bottles that she waggled at her sister. Sara sat without a word next to her, still gazing at the forest below them. “Earth to Sara,” Natalie laughed as she cracked the top off a beer and nudged it into Sara’s hand. “Can you hear me in there?”

“Sorry,” Sara took the bottle and shook her head. “I was just thinking about something John used to say.” Natalie crinkled her nose and raised a brow.

“What’s that?”

“That he never felt alone in the forest,” she took a shaky breath and closed her eyes, listening to the birdsong, the wind, the insects, the small animals. All the sounds didn’t change the isolation. She looked again to Natalie as she took a sip of her beer. “How don’t you feel alone in a place like this?” She gestured broadly to the edge of the cliff. “It’s so empty, so remote. He was alone. He was alone and if he hadn’t been-- he might be here with us.” Natalie ran her lower lip through her teeth, batting her eyes to keep the tears from falling.

“I think John viewed a lot of things differently,” she took a pause as her voice cracked. “And,” she continued steadier, “I think he liked to be up here alone to get away from his two nagging sisters,” she pushed her shoulder into Sara’s with a teary-eyed smile. Sara laughed through her own tears, leaning into Natalie’s shoulder. The two shared a moment of silence, admiring the way the sun was beginning to set over the far mountain.

“I miss him,” Sara said finally.

“I miss him too.”

“He would be really mad we took so long to hike up the peak,” Sara pointed towards the sun, “didn’t we say we’d be up here by noon?” Natalie rolled her eyes as she finished the last swig of her beer, reaching into her backpack for the third bottle. She held it up between the two of them with a grin.

“Well, he can enjoy an evening beer with his two very inexperienced, nagging, but loving sisters.” Sara returned her smile and popped off the top of the bottle.

“And he can enjoy watching us stumble back through the trail in the dark,” she added.

“To John,” Natalie raised the bottle high and began pouring it into the dirt.

“To John,” Sara confirmed softly. The liquid sloshed noisily against the dirt as it emptied from the bottle, cutting through the silence.

Silence.

Alarm snaked its way down Sara’s spine as she processed the quiet. All around them the constant chatter of the forest had ceased. She turned her head towards the trail that they came up. Despite the sun still setting, the towering pines cloaked the trail in almost complete darkness.

“Do you hear that?” she whispered to her sister.

“Hear what?” Natalie spoke in a normal tone, zipping up the empty bottles in her backpack. Sara grabbed harshly onto Natalie’s arm, giving her a stern look. Natalie glared at her sister. “Hey–”

“Shh!” Sara snapped. Her sister continued to glare but sat in silence. It was as if someone had unplugged a speaker. The hair on Sara’s neck stood as she watched the realization sink into her sister’s startled face.

“I don’t hear anything,” Natalie whispered. A branch snapping sounded from the trail behind them and the sisters jumped to their feet.

They stared down into the tree-covered darkness. The trail wasn’t even visible more than a few meters back. Another branch snapped from deep in the shadows. Sara’s heart hammered in her chest, her lungs refusing to take in oxygen. As the pair stood clutching each other, eyes straining to see movement in the dark, ears struggling to pick up any other sound, a terrible realization hit her. While something could be creeping through the inky black, unseen, the two of them stood in a sunset-lit meadow, exposed, with nowhere to turn but a cliff’s edge, or the dense undergrowth of the forest without a manicured trail. They couldn’t see what was coming, but it could certainly see them. She squeezed her sister’s arm as another branch, much closer, gave the tell-tale pop of being stepped on.

“Natalie?” A voice from the trail cut through the silence. A man’s voice. A familiar man’s voice.

“It can’t be,” Natalie whispered hoarsely.

“Natalie?” the voice called again.

“It can’t be,” Natalie repeated, louder this time, tears rolling down her face. Sara stared wide-eyed into the darkness that the voice called from. “John?” Natalie called back.

“Natalie?” the voice repeated.

Something was wrong. Sara gripped her sister’s arm, taking a slow step back from the trail. It was John’s voice, but it was very, very wrong. It lacked cadence. It lacked life. It sounded like a voice box from a talking doll, or, worse, the repetitive wail of a hunting call.

“John!” Natalie cried with delight, wringing her arm free of Sara’s grasp. “He’s alive!” she beamed at Sara, tears streaming down her face.

“It’s not John,” Sara rasped, trying to maintain composure.

“Saraaaaa,” the voice from the darkness sing-songed. “Natalie? Saraaaaa,” it repeated “Natalie? Natalie?”

Ice filled Sara’s veins. It spoke like a recording. The same inflections, the same tone. “We have to get out of here,” she whispered.

“What if he needs help?” Natalie spat. “That’s John, Sara!”

“It isn’t,” Sara hissed back, grabbing Natalie’ shoulders. “Listen to it. Really listen to it.” Natalie shoved her sister backwards and strode towards the trailhead. “Natalie!” Sara pleaded. Her sister glared back at her.

“John?” She called over her shoulder, maintaining eye contact with Sara. “Is that really you?”

Silence followed.

A few moments of absolute silence. Had they been imagining it? Exhaustion, grief, beer, and a shared hallucination?

“John?” Natalie called again, looking to the forest. Sara took a few steps towards her sister, shaking. The air felt thick with electricity. It felt like eyes were watching them from everywhere in the forest. They needed to leave. Then, through the silence, the worst sound imaginable.

“HELP,” something screamed in John’s voice. “HELP, HELP ME.” it echoed through the woods, blood curdling screams and bellows with words interspersed. “PLEASE, HELP, HELP ME. PLEASE. HELP.”

“John!” Natalie took off in a sprint into the darkness before Sara had a chance to react. Fear held her in place as the screaming continued, both the thing that sounded like John and Natalie calling out to it. They both echoed through the woods, coming from every direction, making Sara dizzy. Tears streamed steadily down her face, her hands covering her ears doing nothing to drown out the screams.

“John! John?” Sara heard only Natalie as the screams for help stopped all at once.

Again, that terrible, terrible silence.

Silence that lasted only seconds seemed to stretch on for minutes. When the screaming resumed, it was Natalie’s. A long, pained, guttural scream, followed by a rack of sobs. “Sara,” Natalie cried out through the darkness. “Run,” she sobbed. “Sara, run, please–” her scream stopped abruptly with a revolting, violent snapping sound.

Sara stared at the trail, shaking her head in disbelief. The glow of the sunset had begun to disappear and darkness crept in on the little meadow. From in the forest she heard something coming up the trail. It was big. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The undergrowth crunched under the weight of its footsteps. They picked up in pace, coming faster and faster up the hill until they were near sprinting. Sara could tell whatever it was, was almost to the top of the trail. Adrenaline finally outweighed her fear and she willed her feet to move. To do what Natalie had begged her to do. To run.

She veered away from the edge of the cliff and down the opposite side away from the trail, weaving through trees and leaping over underbrush. Her heart hammered as her legs struggled to keep up with the rapid decline of the slope, stumbling repeatedly and pushing herself back to her feet without pausing for a moment. Sharp undergrowth cut at her legs, her arms. She could tell she was bleeding but she didn't care. It didn't matter. None of it mattered because she could feel the presence of that thing hot on her heels, chasing her through the shadows.

A cabin came into view in the last bit of sunlight hanging on through the trees. She clamored up the porch and threw herself through the door, not bothering to look behind her as she slammed it shut. She locked the door quickly and ripped open the only drawer in the kitchen, searching for something to use as a weapon. The only contents were a box of matches.

So, she lit the candle in the window and she waited.

Her back against the door, her throat raw, her lungs on fire, she mourned not just her brother, but her sister as well. She pressed her hands into her eyes, wanting to go back to that morning. Wanting to suggest a dinner in John’s memory. Or a balloon release. A candlelit vigil. Not a stupid hike. Anything but a stupid hike. A sob broke free of her lips, her shoulders shaking. She wanted to believe none of this was true. That it was all a misunderstanding.

“Sara?” A voice spoke quietly from behind the door. “Can you hear me in there?” The voice was Natalie’s.

“Natalie?” she sniffed.

“Sara,” Natalie knocked once on the door. “I swear I’ll never be caught out here again.”

“Natalie,” Sara breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank god it’s you. What happened back there?” She pushed herself to her feet, turning to unlock the deadbolt.

“Crazy people stay in the woods,” Natalie answered. Sara’s hand froze on the lock.

“What did you say?”

“Crazy people stay in the woods,” Natalie repeated. But it wasn’t just the second time Sara had heard her sister say that phrase. It was the third. Her mind reeled back through their conversations that day, and she took a step away from the door. Every line was repeated. Taken from an earlier conversation. Mimicked.

“You’re not Natalie,” she whispered.

An awful chattering sound like wooden wind chimes came from the other side of the door so loudly it shook it in its hinges.

“Sara,” the voice said in Natalie’s tone. “Saraaaaa,” it then said in John’s.

“What are you?” Sara demanded. The thing behind the door made the chattering sound again, followed by a series of clicks. “What are you?” Sara demanded louder. The thing clicked a few more times, then spoke in a voice Sara didn’t recognize.

“I go by many names,” it said in the voice of an elderly woman. “None of them matter,” the chattering sound came again.

“You’re a monster,” Sara whispered. A sickening wheezing accompanied the clicking from behind the door. Was it… laughing?

“I’m not a monster,” it said, its voice that of a small child. “I’m lost. Would you open the door? Come outside.”

“Burn in hell.”

“Is that anyway to talk to a friend now?” An Australian accent spoke. “Open the door, mate. The stars are beautiful out here."

“You killed my sister.”

“And your brother,” it said in Natalie’s voice.

Sara’s stomach flipped. She sank to her knees on the cabin floor, the reality of her situation weighing her down. Her siblings were gone. She was alone in the wilderness with a monster behind the door that wanted her, too. “He was stupid enough to be caught out here after dark,” the thing continued. Its voice changed from word to word, as though it needed to string together the sentence from pre-existing ones, unable to speak of its own accord. “The locals in town warned him about me, told him not to go on his little camping trip, but he thought I was a myth.”

“They knew…?” The disregard law enforcement gave them made sense..

“They all know about me.” The thing clicked and wheezed again. “I’m their nightmare. Their mimic in the woods.” It made a sob in a child’s voice and shouted, “the boogeyman!”

“But John came up here all the time,” she insisted. “People come up here all the time. It’s one of the most recommended trails in the country.”

“I only come out in the darkness,” the thing answered, shifting between various voices with every word again. Sara shivered at the sheer number of voices the thing could imitate. How many people had it listened to? How many had it devoured?

“I heard you running up the trail,” Sara leaned against the door. “You sound big enough to rip this door right off its hinges.”

“I am,” it giggled in a little girl’s voice.

“Why don’t you?”

“I only come out in the darkness,” it repeated. Sara glanced at the candle in the window, its flame flickering just bright enough to cover the space of the tiny cabin.

“Then I’m safe in here.”

The thing burst into sound. It rattled, coughed, howled, spit, it’s clicking, wheezing, and shrieking filling the air with a rancorous fit of sound that was near deafening. It let a moment of silence hang between them before it spoke to Sara one last time.

She felt a tear roll over her cheek as her own voice spoke to her through the old cabin door.

“The candle won’t last until morning.”