A low, weak growl vibrates in Ripley’s chest. She’s gone whale-eyed, and her hair is up all the way down her back.
I look back to the tree.
The discoloration has separated into four distinct fingers. The hand falls from the bark and vanishes behind the trunk.
Icy fear snakes through my veins and freezes me in place. I’m a rabbit that’s caught sight of a predator. I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t think a single thought other than,Don’t let it see you. And then just like a rabbit, I bolt.
Ripley is limp as a bag of bricks when I scoop her up. I hold her to my chest with one arm under her ribs, the other under her butt, and run. Branches whip my cheeks and sweat stings my eyes. A log nearly sends us down when I trip on it.
The sound of someone crashing through the woods follows us. Don’t look; just keep running—if what I’m doing can be called running. I should have grabbed the sheriff’s gun from the holster, but my hands are full and Ripley’s so heavy that my feet drag more and more, and then they’re right behind me, and I canfeelthem reaching for the back of my shirt, and—
We break through the trees onto the shoulder of a dirt-and-gravel road.
Scattered gravel slides under my boot. I flail and land in a lunge, one knee slamming onto rocks. I squeeze my eyes shut, fully expecting whatever’s pursuing us to smash into my back.
A beat. Another. After a third, I stand, then turn slowly. I don’t know what I’m expecting. What I find is nothing but trees anddozensof crosshair chimes hanging from branches and nailed to their trunks.
I can’t look away. It feels like I just trespassed throughsomeone’s yard and hopped the fence just in time to escape the guard dog trapped inside.
Shivers run through my body like I’ve got a fever. Everything aches. I think both me and my dog are high or poisoned, or both. The idea of sitting down and not moving for a while is becoming more and more appealing by the second.
And then one of the trees shifts.
Except it’s not a tree at all. A figure taller than any person I’ve ever seen looms between two close-set trunks. It’s mostly hidden by sucker branches and cast in shadow by the canopy. Dappled sunlight falls on an emaciated hand dangling by its sharp, bony knee.
There’s a pit in my stomach. I have an overwhelming sense of déjà vu that I know the figure like I’d know a bloody tooth pulled from my own mouth. The hum that began when I looked into the box gets louder. It feels like someone’s holding a tuning fork to the base of my skull.
Ripley weighs so much, but I think if I set her down I could go to it and—
Only once gravel shifts under my foot do I notice I’ve taken a step forward.
I tighten my arms around Ripley despite shaking from the strain. I could go to it and dowhat? Abandon my dog? Leave her by the side of the road so I can touch whatever weird fucking thing is staring at me from between the trees? No.
Something is wrong. It feels like there’s something in me that shouldn’t be there.
There’s an odor. A scent so thick I’m swimming in it. Something is—
burning, burning, my skin is
burning. Something is on—
fire where it touches
But there’s no smoke. No—
screaming and screaming and screa—
I’m so focused on the tree line and the smell and theburningthat I don’t notice the car speeding around the curve until it’s far, far too late.
Terri:You see it?
Naomi:It looks like… Have you seenThe Blair Witch Project? This isBlair Witchshit.
Terri:That’s what I thought too! For the listeners: if you zoom in on the trees on the right side behind Jamie, it looks like three brownish circles hanging from the branches. You can zoom in on some of the other trees and find similar circles, but the ones behind Jamie are the clearest. Okay, next picture. This one really got me. So, the camera is focused on a green tree frog on the side of a tree. The background is partially out of focus. If you look to the left… you see behind that tree?
Naomi:No. No. Oh, I really don’t like this.
Terri:It is out of focus so you can’t 100 percent make it out, but it looks like there’s someone crouched close to the ground. It’s kind of blurry like they were trying to hide, but weren’t quick enough. A few redditors say it’s just a light flare or dust in the camera lens—
