Look

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window…”

“Ah, not this one, again…” Michael moaned, “don’t you have anything new?”

“Oh, come on, Mike, just because you’ve heard it doesn’t mean everybody here has,” Denny returned as he held his gaze on the two small faces looking at him from across the fire, “neither of you have heard me tell this one, have you?”

“I have,” said Michael’s little sister, Marta.

“Same,” said their little brother, Alan.

“Dammit. Okay.” Denny broke his gaze as he dropped back onto the dead tree he and Michael were using as a bench. He dug his s’mores stick into the dirt for a few quiet moments as the fire hissed and crackled.

Suddenly, his face lit up and he looked back across at the two younger siblings with a grin.

“I’ve got one,” Denny said in a purposely foreboding tone.

The breathing shadows cast by the flames played across Denny’s face as he allowed his pregnant pause to add some drama to the moment.

“I was going to save this one for tomorrow,” he said. “But now that I think about it, it’s a whole lot better that you know about it before we get to The Crash.”

“What crash?” Alan asked.

“The Crash, dummy,” Denny smiled pulling himself up and leaning towards the flames.” It’s a notorious landmark for anyone who comes up here to rough it. About halfway through the second day’s hike, there’s an old single engine plane that went down into these mountains probably 30 years ago or so, maybe more…”

“Okay, ew, that’s creepy,” Marta interjected with a wince.

“…it’s right there along the trail, all kinds of trees and vines growing right through the thing. It…” Denny continued.

“Any skeletons?” Alan asked.

“No, no skeletons,” Denny shook his head. "They came in here and took the bodies out and brought them back down to civilization for a proper burial. But the plane was way too big and way too deep in the woods to be hauled out, so it had to stay. Now it’s just a morbid old waypoint that hikers like to tell stories about.”

“What kind of stories?” Marta asked.

“I’m getting there,” Denny shook his head, “stop interrupting me.”

“Alright, Den, don’t scare them shitless before bed,” Michael leaned on his big walking stick as he guided himself backwards onto the downed tree right next to Denny.“They’ve never been out here like this before. I don’t need to stay up all night babysitting.”

“Shut up, Mikey,” Marta snapped. “We’re teenagers, we’re not babies.”

“Yeah, I’m not scared of some poorly told ghost story,” Alan agreed.

Denny glared at Michael for a silent moment.

“Whatever, man...” Michael conceded, shaking his head, “...carry on.”

Denny smiled and looked back across the fire.

“So, the story goes that they pulled two bodies out of the plane. The pilot and a friend. But there were more than two people on board…” Denny held up two fingers in a peace sign and slowly raised one more, “…there was a third.”

He continued. “This third passenger on the plane was Glen Grady Pierce. That’s who they say it was at least. He was known to be old friends with the guys who bit it in the crash and they may have been trying to help him get away with the sick shit he did. This dude was a real psychopath who flipped out and killed his whole family by…”

“Den…” Michael punched Denny on the shoulder and made him pause.

“The deaths weren’t quick or painless, and they involved Satan. We’ll just say that. You can look it all up when we get back home,” Denny smiled, wide-eyed, as Michael punched him once again. “Or maybe you could just ask Pierce himself about it while you’re out here.”

“Huh?” Alan asked.

“Do the math, genius,” Denny shook his head. “They took two bodies down. There were three passengers.”

The night hummed and pulsed with the sounds of distant insects. An owl hooted.

“Pierce survived,” Denny relented. “Somehow he made it out of the crash. They say he pulled himself from the wreckage and stalked out into the darkness with just a hunting knife and an old lantern.”

“There’s no way. He’d be way too injured,” Alan scoffed, “and even if he wasn’t he’d die out here pretty quickly without any food or shelter, unless…”

“Unless he found some campers, cut them to pieces, and took all their shit?” Denny shrugged.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Alan interjected, “I was going to say unless he had some kind of advanced survival skills, then maybe he…”

“Will you just let me tell the story?” Denny cut him off, exasperated. “Please?”

Alan stopped what he was saying, “Go on…”

“Thank you. Okay, so this psycho Pierce went off into the night after the plane came down with just his knife and his lantern and found his way to some campsite with a bunch of young people. He killed them all, then he spent the night in their tent next to their dead bodies, and in the morning he took all their shit, and buried them somewhere out here. Then he did it again to another group of campers. Then another. Then another…

“Imagine what it must have been like for them. You think you’re alone out here, closer than ever to the dangers of nature, but at least far, far away from the dangers of society. Then one night after you’ve put the fire out and settled in, a lantern light wanders around the bend and into your campsite. You hear twigs snapping beneath boots. Heavy breathing. Someone’s out there…”

Denny stood up over the fire and held his s’mores stick above his head, “You lie there. Perfectly still. Trying to hold your breath so even that doesn’t make a sound. But you know that they know exactly where you are, and before you can recognize that your best bet is to either run for it or fight back, it’s too late…WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!”

Denny whipped the s’mores stick down against the ground over and over until it snapped and half of it flung off, nearly catching Alan in the face as he ducked out of the way.

“That went on for a long time out here. Lots of missing people up on this mountain, man. Look it up. I mean, why would Pierce try to go back to civilization when he was a wanted man? Maybe after a long enough time up here the heat would die down and he could make it out to Costa Rica on some sketchy boat or something. Live out his days in the sun. But that’s not how it worked out…

Alan and Marta were dead silent.

“Pierce tried the wrong dude one night. Some Vietnam vet all on his own. This dude was a real pro, he didn’t fuck around. You think he would sleep through some psycho with a hunting knife creeping into his camp? Hell no, he was ready and waiting with a handgun when that tent flap opened. BANG! BANG! BANG!”

Denny’s quick draw of the remaining end of his s’mores stick made Marta and Alan and even Michael jump back in their seats.

“He didn’t kill him, though. At least not right away. Pierce managed to run off into the night and the vet just let him. He knew he was done for. And the craziest thing is that the vet told the papers he got a good look at this dude’s face thanks to the lantern light and it was hardly even there. Just a mask of torn up scar tissue with lifeless eyes and a melting grimace plastered over an awful skull…"

“That is absolutely nuts…” Marta finally said.

“Still not done…” Denny stopped her.

“Pierce may have died, but he never left. That vet came down and reported the attack, but they never found a body. And not too long after that people started going missing again, right from their tents in the middle of the night. Some people who made it back to town reported seeing a light like a lantern’s coming through their campsite while they were laying there in their tents. Some heard footsteps. Some heard pained breathing.

“They say you’ll see the light of the lantern and if you don’t look away, it’ll get you all mesmerized or something and you’ll follow it out into the night. It’ll take you so deep and so far into the woods that you won’t know left from right. Then it’ll just disappear and you’re as good as dead…even if the ghost of Glen Grady Pierce doesn’t slice you up.”

Denny started to cut his own throat with the stub of his s’mores stick, but Michael yanked his arm away, “Alright, Den. You told the story. Let’s drop it. Time to start getting ready for bed.”

Alan and Marta were quiet a few moments longer before looking at each other with faces of surprised approval and pulling themselves off the ground to start getting ready for bed.

"That was actually a pretty good story, Denny,” Marta told him. “Total bullshit, of course, but still pretty good.”

“Why are you cursing?” Michael asked.

“Oh I didn’t make it up at all. No credit to me,” Denny told her. “That’s just the story people tell around here. It’s true, too, as far as I can tell. I know someone who disappeared up here. And I’ve seen the light…”

“All right, guys,” Michael cut him off. “Time for bed.”

The next day’s hike proved Denny’s story to be at least partially true. About halfway through, the group came upon the remains of a single engine plane trapped between some trees and a large steep rock. It’d been there so long that it was swallowed up in vines and greened over with moss, but you could still kind of make out the trajectory of the crash by the light breaking through the canopy behind the plane’s final resting place.

Alan and Marta were impressed by the sight of the manmade machine all mangled and twisted and being gobbled back up by nature. But they made sure to tell Denny that there was no way anybody could survive that sort of crash and that his scary story was just that.

They took a bunch of pictures, and Michael yelled at Alan for attempting to scale the rock to get a closer look, then they headed off, further up the mountain.

Later that night after everyone else had fallen asleep, a soft rain began pattering on the roof of the tent.

Alan lay there staring at the impossible blackness all around him. It was darker in the tent than he’d ever seen and it somehow made it difficult to get to sleep. He felt like he was looking backwards into his own head.

Then, somewhere far off he thought he heard twigs snapping through the sound of the falling rain. Something was moving around. It could have been any number of animals, but it sounded big, like maybe it could be a black bear.

Alan knew that they’d tied all their food and garbage up in a tree some way away from the campsite, so the chances of a bear coming across them had to be pretty low, but his heart still began to thrash around in his chest like a trapped cat.

He was thinking of waking Michael up when he saw a soft yellow light beaming through the wall of the tent. Alan’s body went cold and his eyes filled with tears of pure terror. He was too scared to move or make a sound or even breathe, and he couldn’t think of anything else to do but curl up inside of his sleeping bag until the sun came up.

The following morning he told everyone what he’d seen.

“I swear it was a bright yellow light, like a lantern. And I heard branches snapping and someone moving around out here.” His words came out fast and frantically and he could tell by the look on their faces that nobody else was feeling the true weight of the terror he’d experienced.

“Are you sure you weren’t just rattled by the story that Denny…” Michael shot a razor sharp glare at his friend who shot a lethargic eye roll back at him, “…told you the other night?”

“I’m telling you there was a light out here and someone shuffling around,” Alan assured them. “I’m not saying it was some ghost from Denny’s stupid story. I’m saying someone was out here.”

“Alright,” Michael told him, “well, the ground is a little wet and I don't see any prints, and nothing is missing or even moved around out here, so that’s good, I guess. But if there really was someone out here and they weren’t here to steal, that’s…freaky… ”

The observation slowly dawned on Marta, who began to look panicked, “Michael…”

Michael rubbed her shoulder and looked at her in the eye, “Do not freak out. If there were anybody up here we'd probably have come across them along the trail. Even so, we’ll be extra cautious tonight.”

They hiked to the top of the mountain that day and then began their way down the other side, finding a nice flat clearing to set up camp for the night. Michael and Denny made sure to pack all of their valuables away in the tent, and when it came time for bed they both made a point of keeping their hunting knives close.

The three boys dozed off fairly easily, but Marta did not. This time she was the one who felt trapped in the impossible darkness. She couldn’t get the fact that Alan had heard someone outside of the tent the night before out of her mind. It had made her realize just how vulnerable they all were up there in the dark mountains, and how far away they were from any kind of help.

It also dawned on her how many sounds could be found inside the ambient hum of nighttime silence. Creepy sounds. Threatening ones. She could hear footsteps, cleared throats, hushed whispers, pained moans, snarling creatures, crying children, angry muttering, mean-spirited laughter. It was all there, yet none of it was, at least that’s what she kept telling herself as she drifted closer and closer to a world of strange and anxious dreams.

The light came shining through the wall of the tent just as Marta had finally begun to doze off. It was bright enough that it filtered through her tightly closed eyelids and turned everything in her mind a burning red-orange, causing her to jump up. It was unmistakably some kind of flashlight or lantern.

Marta reached out and grabbed Michael’s sleeping bag and shook him as best as she could, but she was far away and didn’t have the leverage, and she didn’t dare speak. Michael wouldn’t wake.

A sound came from outside the tent that sounded like someone fussing with the zipper. Marta froze in place, the sound of her growing hyperventilation enveloping every inch of the tent. When the zipper finally started to peel downwards she let out an awful scream that woke up everyone in the tent and sent who-or-whatever it was outside running off into the night.

“What the fuck is going on?” Denny shouted, fumbling with his hunting knife.

Marta gasped for air and grabbed at her face.

“What happened, Marta?” Michael shouted.

“Someone was out there,” she cried. “Someone with a light. They tried to unzip the tent.”

Denny threw on his flashlight and hopped up to inspect the tent door.

“It’s unzipped,” he said.

“I guarantee I zipped it all the way up before bed,” Alan told him.

“Mike, stay here with them,” Denny commanded. “I’m going to find this piece of shit.”

“Denny, it’s not worth it,” Michael pleaded. “Just stay here with us. You have no idea where you’re going out there.”

Denny continued to pull his boots on as they all pleaded with him to stay. When he had them on and tied tight, he crawled back into the tent, grabbed Alan’s flashlight, turned it on, and leaned it on a rock facing towards the sky.

“Leave this out here,” he told them. “There’s no way I can’t find my way back with this as a beacon.”

With that he sheathed his hunting knife, grabbed his flashlight, and went off into the dark.

“He’s an idiot,” Alan said.

“He’s just looking out for us,” Michael told him. “But yeah, he’s an idiot…”

It was a long while of the three siblings waiting around in the dark, barely speaking, before the sound of rustling outside the tent accompanied by the soft glow of electric light made them all sit up out of a half-sleep.

“Denny?” Michael called out in an unnaturally husky voice.

There was no answer.

Michael grabbed hold of his hunting knife’s handle and began to unsheathe it.

“Denny, answer me now.” Michael’s voice quavered.

“Denny!” he shouted.

The tent began to unzip. Marta screamed. Alan screamed louder. Michael pulled out the knife and pointed it directly at the tent door with his eyes averted and totally closed.

“Come now,” Denny said. “They need our help.”

“Fuck Denny!” Michael shouted. “You couldn’t just announce your presence?”

“Come on,” Denny urged. “They need us.”

“Who the fuck is they?” Michael asked. “What are you even talking about?”

“The ones who come to the tent,” Denny told them. “They come for our help. We need to help them.”

“I’m not going anywhere, man. You’re out of your mind, Den.” Michael let out a near-laugh.

“They’re children, Mike,” Denny said with a pained crack in his voice. It seemed like he was crying. “They need our help.”

Michael sat in silence looking at his friend. He struggled to believe he was serious, but there was something so distressed about the sound of his voice. Something about it he’d never heard before in all his years of knowing him.

“How do we help them?”

“They need water,” Denny told them. “And first aid.”

They gathered their canteens and grabbed a first aid kit, and Denny led them into the night. They trekked through rough overgrown trails, following the limited glow of the lantern that Denny held out in front of them.

After what felt like an eternity, Denny finally stopped at the beginning of a sharp, rocky decline.

“They’re down here,” he told them. “Down at the bottom.”

“Denny, there’s nobody down there,” Alan told him. “It’s pitch black.”

"They don’t even have a light?” Marta asked. “Then what was the light Alan and I saw?”

“He gave me the light,” Denny said. “It’s right here. Follow me.”

Before anyone could ask another question, Denny began his way down the decline. The other three hesitated briefly, and then continued forward.

About halfway down, Michael began to start feeling even more uneasy than he already did. It was a sense of black dread that he could almost hear breathing in his ear. He looked down to see Denny standing at the base of the embankment, holding the lantern in front of him. It seemed as if he were talking to someone that couldn’t be seen.

Michael couldn’t wait until he’d reached the bottom. He had the urge to shout out. Make noise. Be heard.

“Are you okay down there?” he called out. “Are you hurt? Show yourselves.”

Denny turned back and the look of his face caught in the lantern’s glow almost made Michael lose his footing.

It was a look of pure and total hatred. A face he had no idea his best friend could even make.

“Shhh!” Denny hissed.

Michael was now utterly terrified, and yet he felt too compelled to figure out what was going on to turn back. His siblings both clung to his shirt as he made his way to even ground.

“Come,” Denny told them. “Look.”

“What in the fuck are we doing here right now, Den?” Michael asked. “What is going on?”

“Look.”

Michael, Marta, and Alan, slowly walked forward to where Denny stood. There was nobody there. They could see that now.

When they reached him they could make out a number of dark lumpy shapes scattered across the ground in front of him.

“Look,” Denny said again. He cast his lantern light out over the field in front of him. It was covered in bones that did not look like they belonged to any animal. They looked human. Suddenly, Michael could smell the sweet, hot scent of death.

Marta’s flashlight went out.

“What the fuck!” she screamed. “What in the fuck!”

Michael’s flashlight went out.

“Look,” Denny said.

There were tattered scraps of clothing hanging from the bones. Michael made out two skulls side by side that still had some flesh left.

Alan’s flashlight went out.

"Michael,” he shouted, “we need to go now.”

“Look,” Denny said and he turned a bit to his left to cast his lantern light on a dark patch of ground.

There lay Denny. His body all beaten and bloody. An arm and a leg bent in the wrong direction. His eyes wide open and his mouth caught forever in an awful agonizing scream.

“Look,” Denny said.

Denny turned to them, but it wasn't his face that they saw. It was a mask of torn up scar tissue with lifeless eyes and a melting grimace plastered over an awful skull. The dark mountains filled with the terrible sound of throat-tearing screams.

The lantern went out.