Wildfire Season

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. That was the simple anonymous report that led one park ranger hiking out to the northernmost far corner of the land he was responsible for managing. One little candle in one little cabin might not sound like a good reason to hike alone at night, but that region was in the midst of wildfire season during an especially persistent drought so the rangers could take no chances when it came to violations of the campfire ban. Despite the drought the forest felt as alive as ever to the rangers keen eyes and ears, branches snapped ahead of him as he walked signaling startled animals fleeing his approach, crickets sang, to his right he could hear the drought weakened stream nevertheless continue to gurgle on carrying as much life giving water as it could muster down the mountain to try to nourish the valley below.

As the ranger got closer to the coordinates provided by the report, he could feel something change in the forest. He could no longer hear signs of life whether it be from an animal, insect, or stream. As he continued along he noticed the night seemed to grow darker, despite the drought the trees above him had grown thicker obscuring the moon and stars and all the trunks of the trees seemed to be marked with black streaks as if a brush fire had recently burned through the area despite there be no reports of such a fire in this sector to date. Moving forward he put his hand to one of the tree trunks in an attempt to brush some of the soot away and just underneath the top layer of soot there seemed to be letters carved into the tree. Turning up the intensity of his headlamp the ranger leaned in closer and began a renewed effort to brush away the soot but as soon as his hands made contact with the tree again he let out a gasp of pain and withdrew his hand as fast as he could. Touching the tree felt like he had stuck his hand directly into a roaring campfire despite the fact that the forest was pitch black with no visible fire in any direction. Was the heat his imagination? The tree was still not on fire, and he was only standing maybe 3 feet away from it, surely if it was on fire he’d still feel the heat from it in his position? Bizarrely he did not but his hand was starting to blister as if the flames had been as real as they felt.

The ranger made a mental note of the event as he applied burn gel and bandages from his first-aid kit, not sure what he would even tell anyone when asked how his hand was injured. He desperately wanted to know what was written underneath that soot, but not wanting to repeat his injury, he instead used some spare twine to tie a rock to a long stick and used that to scrape away some of the char and what he saw made him drop his stick and swear aloud. Scrawled into the tree in the exact spot that burned his hand were the words:

“GO BACK RANGER”.

For a brief moment he was too stunned to move, had it just been the words on the tree and the anonymous tip, he would have assumed it was just some kids horsing around, or perhaps more likely his ranger buddies playing some elaborate trick on him. He desperately wanted to believe that it was one of those, but how would either explain the invisible non-spreading fire that torched his hand? He begins to breathe heavily and sweat, more than willing to turn back when he hears a snap in the clearing just out of the tree line ahead of him. The ranger puts out his headlamp and stalks forward carefully to conceal the sounds of his footsteps to the best of his ability and comes to the edge of the clearing still concealed by the trees. Peering forward by the light of the moon no longer hidden by a thick canopy, the ranger observed what appeared to be the silhouette of a tall well built man wearing a raincoat standing motionless with his back to the ranger.

Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was the sight of another person that suddenly gave the ranger hope that there was a normal rational explanation to his burn, or perhaps the ordeal was starting to wear thin on the beleaguered ranger's psyche. Regardless of the cause the ranger relit his headlamp and began loudly walking towards the silhouette of a man calling out “Hey you! Are you the person who called about the fire in the cabin?” The figure as if made of stone completely ignored the ranger and remained in places unnervingly still. Still about 60 feet away from the figure, the ranger hesitated, slowing his forward pace consciously aware that the only means he had of defending himself was a can of bear spray he kept in a holster at his side. Changing tact, the ranger yelled to the man “Was that carving and your little space heater trick, your idea of a joke? You know you can get in a lot of trouble for dangerous pranks like that, especially during wildfire season”. Before the ranger could continue the figure, still motionless, let out a very low guttural sound rhythmically while its chest began to move in time with the sound. Despite the inhumane sounding quality the sound had, the ranger thought to himself “Is he laughing?” Abruptly the sound stopped and the figure returned to its statue-like stance, then just as the ranger was about to approach the figure again the figure suddenly began moving at an impossibly fast pace despite the fact that from the way it moved its legs it appeared to be talking a very slow walk.

Looking towards where the figure seemed to be heading, the ranger spotted what he’d been searching for all night, a single abandoned cabin with a single faint orange glow in the window. Now the ranger ran towards the figure trying to close the gap before he got to the cabin, drawing his bear spray he yelled at the figure “stop please, I just need to talk to you!”. To the rangers surprise the figure obliged and stopped still standing with his back towards the ranger. The figure spoke with a very deep voice and a melodic accident the ranger couldn’t place, “You have come too far, neither talking, nor your tools will help you now.” Before the ranger could respond the bulb on his headlamp began to flicker before going out completely plunging the ranger into near total darkness as the moon was behind a cloud. By the time the ranger was able to dig out a handheld flashlight from his pack and aim it where the figure had been, the figure had disappeared without making a sound. With no figure in sight the ranger reluctantly decided to go put the stupid candle out in the cabin and then head back to the ranger station and get some help to look for whoever that was out here first thing in the morning.

Coming up to the door of the cabin the ranger noticed some etching carved into the weather beaten exterior walls of the cabin. The ranger was no expert but they appeared to be carved by the same person who carved the message in the tree this time the notes read:

“Let it burn”

Stepping back and scanning the rest of the wall he could see that whoever did this repeated that same message over and over again until the entire front of the cabin including the rickety partially ajar door all gave the same message, like a kid made to draw lines on a chalkboard as punishment. Despite years on the job, the ranger had never seen or heard of anything like this, he was unnerved to the point where his hands were shaking as he pushed open the door to the cabin and made his way inside.

Looking around what he saw was a fairly nondescript cabin, the type a can be found in any managed campsite all over the country, there was an iron stove, a few sleeping cots, a fireplace, and a small table and chairs enough for 4 people. Sitting on the table was a small candle almost burned down to the end of the wick and the melted wax pooled on the table. Seeing the mundane nature of the cabin began to calm the shaken ranger. After the night he’d had, he was expecting to see a cabin filled with occult paraphernalia and symbols, or worse yet evidence of a murder perpetrated by some psychopath. What he instead found, was just as boring as the report led him to believe it would be, just a stray candle carelessly left on that if he had even been a few minutes slower in getting to, could’ve started a fire in the cabin that would have definitely spread to the forest around it. Almost laughing to himself the ranger bent down and blew the candle out and then licked his fingers and pinched the smoldering wick to ensure that the fire was out before he left.

The second his fingers extinguished the last of the fire the rangers ears were assaulted by the loudest sound he’d ever heard. The sound was akin to a standing atop a church bell tower as it was rung. Holding his hands to his ears desperately trying to keep the sound out, the ranger's head felt like it was spinning out of control and he began to lose consciousness and fell to the floor of the cabin with a thud. He awoke to the feeling of dust being sprinkled on his face and the air around him felt incredibly hot. When he tried to breathe the air burned and was thick with smoke which caused him to retch and cough uncontrollably. To his horror, the cabin around him was engulfed in flames. Pushing himself to his feet he threw himself through the broken door of the cabin and flopped onto the grass outside still coughing but feeling better now that wasn’t in an enclosed space anymore. Finally catching his breath he looked around at his surroundings and found that the entirety of the forest as far as he could see in every direction was ablaze. Realizing he left his backpack and walkie talkie in the burning cabin, the ranger began to make his way towards the treeline to try to escape the blaze and then try to find help from there. As he ran through the forest, dogging flaming tree limbs and brush he couldn’t help but notice he saw many animals calmly grazing, eating the vegetation that seemed charred beyond recognition or simply walking through grass and shrubs that were clearly engulfed in roaring flames. We he made it back to the wooded area where he had originally been burned earlier that night he saw the most welcome sight he could’ve possibly imagined. A group of about 5-10 forest fire service volunteers kitted out in firefighting gear. And while their gear appeared to be covered in soot and dirt as if they had been fighting the fire, the firefighters themselves seemed totally at ease as if on break, despite the raging inferno they were in the middle of. “Help!” The ranger screamed at the group of firefighters over and over again but to no avail, they seemed to be unable to hear him.

One firefighter turned to the others, and while his mouth moved and all the other firefighters nodded solemnly and began gathering up their gear and moving out, the ranger felt a sinking feeling in his stomach when he realized he couldn’t hear them speak either. Not knowing what else to do the ranger followed the group of firefighters despite them heading back towards the cabin he just came from. Just like the animals the firefighters walk through the woods and the clearing as if impervious to the flames and falling debris. When they got to the cabin, the lead firefighter said something into her walkie talkie and three of them went in. when they came back out they weren’t alone. In their hands they carried a human body that was wearing a rangers uniform and had a backpack on. But that can’t be right, the ranger was positive there was nobody living or otherwise in the cabin when he checked and he couldn’t have been knocked out for longer than a few minutes otherwise the smoke inhalation would have killed him. Playing that scenario a few times in his head made the realization all the more painful as he walked up to the body the firefighters brought out and recognized the badge number on the body's uniform as his own. Too stunned to speak or move, the ranger looked up and noticed someone new was in the clearing with the firefighters. It was the tall figure from earlier except this time it was facing the ranger and its face was visible by the glow of the fire.

The figure was a man with a horribly burned and scarred face staring intently at the ranger and the ranger's body on the ground. The scarred man turned towards the ranger and began running towards him. Not knowing what else he had to lose at this point the ranger stood his ground and met the charge of the scarred man. The man stopped in front of him and put his equally scarred hands to the sides of the ranger's face and pulled him closer, and said in the same melodic and deep voice “you should’ve heeded the warnings, you’re not the first or the last ranger to be taken by the forest.” Before the ranger could respond the scarred man blew smoke and ash into the ranger's face that made his skin erupt in agonizing heat until his skin began to resemble the scarred man's own. As the ranger began to change, the scarred man began to fade, turning to ash and crumbling away. As the ashes scattered in the wind, the ranger heard one last message from the scarred man, the last human words he’d ever hear “Now wait for the next one who you can condemn to walk the flames, until you do, you shall never know any rest”.