The woods

The trees swallowed the road an hour ago. Now there is only the crunch of gravel under tired giving way to the soft thud of dirt.

The GPS had blinked out, first the signal, the entire screen, leaving Dawn in a sudden, profound silence broken only by the hum of her own car’s engine and the playlist she’d put on for the drive to the new apartment.

The cheerful pop felt obscenely out of place here, where the pines stood so close together they wove a ceiling of near-perfect darkness.

A wrong turn. It had to be.

She’d been distracted, trying to find a specific shade of lipstick in her bag while the navigation chirped, and now she was here.

Wherever ’here’ was. The air coming through the cracked window smelled of damp earth and something else, something sweetly rotten. Like overripe fruit left in the sun for hours. 

The headlights cut a frail path forward, illuminating a narrow track flanked by ferns that glistened with a moisture that wasn’t dew.

Things moved in the periphery, just beyond the light. Not the scuttle of a rabbit, but slower, heavier shifts in the undergrowth. A branch scraped against the passenger side door with a sound like nails on a chalkboard.

Then, the engine coughed. A single, wet sputter. The dashboard lights flickered. The music stuttered into static, then silence.

The car rolled forward another ten feet on momentum lane before coming to a complete stop, the headlights dimming into an orange glow before they, too, died. 

Darkness. Absolute, suffocating darkness. The kind that pressed against the windows. Dawn’s own reflection, wide-eyed and pale, stared back at her from the glass. Beyond it, the forest waited. 

“Shit.” she cursed, fumbling for her phone.

The phone was slick in her sweaty palm. The screen glowed to life, a stark, blue-white rectangle in the overwhelming black. No service.

The battery icon, thankfully, showed a healthy charge. She turned on the flashlight, a weak, pathetic beam that barely pierces a few feet into the wall of trees, catching on gnarled roots and the glint of what might be eyes, low to the ground. 

From the darkness outside, a sound begins. A slow rhythmic squelch. Like something heavy and wet being dragged through the mud. It’s close. It’s getting closer.

Dawn scrambles over the center console, her knee catching painfully on the gear shift. The backseat is a mess of shopping bags and a half-eaten bag of Panda Express, still warm in the summer heat.

She curls into a tight ball on the floor, pulling a stray hoodie over her head, trying to make herself invisible. 

The squelching stops right outside the car. A long, low breath ghosts across the window, fogging the glass. The scent that filters through the slight crack in the window is overwhelming. The source of the cloying, floral sweetness.

A shape blocks what little light already exists. It’s tall, impossibly so, its head tilting as it seems to peer into the car.

A single, long-finger, pale and slick with something dark, presses against the driver’s side window. It doesn't tap or scratch. It just rests there, leaving a glistening, viscous smear.

The only sound is the frantic thud of Dawn’s own heart hammering against her ribs. The shape outside remains motionless, its hand a pale wet starfish against the glass. The smell is now so potent it coats the back of her throat.

Then, a low, wet slide. Like a tongue detaching from a mouth. The hand slides slowly down the window, leaving a trail of dark slime. The pressure of its presence recedes. The squelching sound begins again, moving away from the car, fading into the depths of the forest. 

For a full minute, Dawn stays frozen, the hoodie still pulled over her head. The air in the car begins to clear, the overwhelming scent gradually replaced by the mundane smells of the chinese food and her own fear.