“Leave me alone,” I begged. I needed a moment, just one minute to get my head on straight and pretend my fucking cervix wasn't sore. The bus still hadn’t come but I didn’t care. I was going to walk back. I couldn’t be near Caspian right now and I just wanted to be alone.
He grabbed on to me, flipping me around, forcing me against his chest, pressing my face against him. I felt him shivering as he held me and I wished from the bottom of my heart I could comfort him. I sagged into his hug, trying to see if I could let this go.
Then I realized my face was smashed against the tattoo of my likeness on his chest.
I jerked back, stepping away from him. He stood there with wide, open eyes. He looked lost and scared. It disturbed me to see such a strong, big man have that expression. All I had to do was hug him, do for him what he did for me and tell him it was okay.
But Caspian had secrets and they were beginning to terrify me.
“I’ll explain,” he said. We were standing at the start of the trail back to camp. His bandmates were grumpily sitting back in the gravel parking lot, finishing off the beers and bitching about the cameraman not being there. I didn't want to be around them either. I couldn’t tell what was going on between them and me.
“Please don’t,” I whispered to Caspian. I begged him with my eyes. I didn’t want to know anything. I wanted to find a way back to my peace of mind. Where things were possibly normal and not even more strange and frightening than I ever realized.
Caspian nodded, not looking offended at all that I didn’t want to hear.
“Of course,” he said. “Let’s walk back together. I won’t talk. I promise.” God, he was trying so hard to make it right and I wanted it to be. I shook my head and he looked to be struggling to think.
“I don’t want you out there alone. It’s starting to get dark,” he blurted.
“Then just wait a few freaking minutes to follow after me! I need space!” I snapped because he just wouldn’t let up. I needed to breathe and he was stifling me!
I stomped onto the trail, tugging on the flimsy dress I’d brought. The path was dimmer, the trees strangling the dying day’s light. I looked at my phone. It finally revealed it had spotty service and that it was eight—muchlater than I thought.
There was a text from my mom and I remembered the freaked out texts I’d sent her last night. Thinking about last night was not what I wanted to do while considering I might be in the forest alone at night again.
Mom: Are you okay?
My texts had finally been sent to her some time today. I shot off a quick text telling her raccoons were evil and I was fine but it didn’t send.
“Ugh,” I groaned, gripping my phone. It was taking much longer than I wanted to get back and every minute became filled with more anxiety as the woods grew darker. The trail didn’t stay in direct sight of the river. Instead, it slid through the trees, making it a less concise path than I’d expected. I kept waiting to come to the original place we’d stopped at with the inner tubes, but it wasn’t coming up. The trail kept snaking around trees, showing me brief flashes of the river.
Then, all of a sudden, I realized I couldn’t tell what was what anymore. That the shapes around me were indecipherable in the darkness and the sounds had slowly changed from the comforting chirp of birds to the haunting hoots of owls. I looked up. The tiny black bodies of bats were chaotically flying near the tops of the trees, the sky still a dim shade of blue that let me make them out.
“It’s okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. I’d be back soon and Caspian was somewhere behind me in case anything happened.
There were too many roots that I’d started tripping over so I relented using the flashlight on my phone. It only lit up a small area in front of me. Enough I wouldn’t catch my toes on knobby roots but didn’t let me see much more than that.
The sound of running water grew stronger and I sighed in relief when finally I made it to the original place we’d stopped. The river’s water appeared black in the night as it sloshed over submerged boulders.
I’d heard that people could get sucked underneath those boulders when the water was rough enough. They called them undercut rocks when water eroded away the bottom, creating a little pocket underneath. Combined with the rough pull of rapids, a person could get dragged under and never come back out, pummelled endlessly into the gap until they suffocated.
Sometimes the bodies never turned back up.
The first time I heard of them I thought it sounded like a horrible death—blinded, suffocated, and trapped in a small, foreign place that offered nothing but brutality.
The sound of branches cracking had me shifting my eyes off the trail.
“Caspian?” I called but there was no response. I started walking again but faster. My shoulders hunched and my head tipped forward as I watched my flashlight illuminate the trail only a few inches in front of me. I watched my shoes take one step in front of the other.
Another snap, closer…louder. The sound rattled up my spine and shivered up my neck, burying in my head—a pinprick of cold fear that couldn’t be removed.
“Caspian?” I called out, stopping and looking behind me. There was no one there. Goosebumps popped out all over my arms as I heard no response.
I took off running like an idiot in the night, flailing over roots and rocks. A moment later I paid the price, stumbling into something big and careening down, my palms smacking into hard-packed dirt and rocks. My splintered finger knocked a root and I screamed out, rolling on my side as I clutched the hand to my chest.
I had to breathe through my mouth and wait for the intense pain to subside. There was something big in the path that my legs were still draped over. My palms and knees burned—they likely got skinned—but other than that I was fine.
I fumbled around for my phone. A noise of movement came from the forest as I searched it out frantically, my heart rate going fast.
