The Earth Sighed and Was Content
By
Carson Fredriksen
The rope coiled around my wrists before it tightened. If it wasn’t for the cold barrel of steel pressed into the back of my head, I would’ve voiced my complaints.
“Now then,” the muffled voice behind me said without a shred of compassion, “walk or else we’ll drag your body into the woods.”
I let out the longest sigh of my life, and possibly the last one of my life, as I made my way into the depths of the forest. The gang made sure their van was parked in a spot that couldn’t be seen from the highway and it had been well over an hour since I last saw a car drive by.
“So tell us Roger,” a different muffled voice said, “how’s it feel knowing that we’re gonna fuck you over just as bad as you fucked us over.”
When you’re desperate for money you do all kinds of desperate things. Some try to sell off their entire video game collection; others try to leach off some rich relatives. I invested my entire life savings to some loan sharks.
I didn’t think anything bad would happen to me. Bad things happen to other people, sure, but they certainly wouldn’t happen to me. I had a new business I was ready to open. I had good connections within the business world. All I had to do was go above and beyond with my business savvy and I could pay it all off before they had to resort to violence.
What I didn’t know was that the business wouldn’t take off. My clients were too busy keeping their prices in check with inflation to help me stay afloat. And before long, the hikes in property taxes and interest rates had taken their toll on poor little me.
I used to think that bankruptcy was the worst thing I could face. Walking into the woods with five other guys, who would undoubtedly by the only ones to walk back out, turned out to be even worse.
The sharp cry of a magpie drew me back to the present even though I wished it hadn’t.
Out of the corner of my left eye I caught a small figure hiding slightly behind a particular pine. I rolled my eyes towards the tree but I only caught the person’s arm disappearing behind the large trunk. Along with what looked to be wolf ears on top of their head.
“Don’t bother trying to look for help,” one of the thugs harshly whispered into my ear. “We scouted this whole area and we know exactly when the cops drive by.”
By now, the sun was only a barely visible dot in the sky amongst the various pines and spruces. Aside from the cries of a few birds and a suspiciously large amount of branches cracking in the distance, it was as quiet as a cemetery at midnight.
“A perfect place to commit a murder.” The thought came and went. It brought me no comfort but it did seem to instantly chill my bones.
“Alright I think this is far enough. Now turn around.”
I finally dropped my arms, now realizing that I could’ve had them down by my sides this whole time, and turned to face my captors.
The man I had initially met about the money was the only one not wearing a mask. Much like in our first meeting, I noticed he wore a red velvet suit that looked like it hadn’t been bought in a store but was handmade stitch by stitch.
The other four men in his entourage were dressed in ragged hoodies, ripped jeans and a disturbing assortment of animal masks. This poor excuse for a petting zoo included a fox, a deer, a bunny and a horse. The empty black eyeholes stared me down, no doubt each of them were feeling a sense of pride at taking a human life. Or perhaps they would forget all about me by the time the smoke had cleared the barrel.
A guttural groan suddenly echoed throughout the woods. I wished I could describe what it sounded like but it didn’t sound as if it could be replicated by human or animal vocals. This sound was something completely alien to me.
All of the animals tilted their heads and looked towards their boss, as if expecting him to clearly explain what the sound was. He dismissively waved his hand and locked his steely eyes with my widened ones.
“I don’t suppose you somehow have the money right now do you?” he asked in a polite manner, as if he were asking his wife if she needed anything from the store.
My eyes looked to the dirt below, hoping a magical tree with dollar bills for leaves would sprout out of the ground.
“N-No,” I muttered instead. “B-B-But if you let me go I swear I won’t tell anyone about you. I promise I’ll have the money by next week! Just please don’t kill–”
“Let’s just kill this jack-off already man,” the bunny said, his head looking around the forest frantically. “This place is giving me the creeps.”
The man in the red tuxedo shrugged, as he pulled out the silencer and was just about to twist it on when a sudden crack came from behind me. The gang jumped a good foot as they each pulled out their guns, scanning the area frantically.
“Thought you said no one would be here Neil,” the deer said.
“Don’t say my fucking name!” Neil snapped though his eyes seemed to be bulging even further now.
I looked behind the men and witnessed the figure walk out from behind a large pine. Its attire seemed to be a strange mix between a robe and a gown that reached only to its knees and was the darkest shade of brown I had ever seen. A wolf mask covered its face but even from far away there seemed to be something off about it.
Whereas the gang’s masks looked fresh off the rack at a costume shop, this one looked to be hand-made, as if it were crafted using papier-mâché and allowed to dry in the sun. The eyes were pure black as well, only they seemed to have been painted on.
The figure suddenly outstretched its arm, raised an index finger and placed it to its etched lips. I slowly nodded, even though I didn’t see any weapons on it.
Out of the Earth, several tree roots began to rise before they fused together into a mess that resembled a haphazard bird’s nest. Before long the trees started to slide together until they completely blocked off all possible entrances to where we were.
I allowed myself to break free of my petrified prison and spun around in all directions. We were trapped in a circle, with that hellish groaning now even louder than before. I looked back towards where I had seen the wolf, but the figure was nowhere to be found.
The ground below my feet began to shift. I looked down and witnessed the soil moving in multiple directions, as if Bugs Bunny were travelling beneath us in a drunken stupor.
One of the men screamed. I turned just in time to see the fox being sucked into the dirt as if it were quicksand. The deer succeeded in grabbing the fox’s hand, but also ended up being sucked into the Earth face first. After their sneakers were out of view, the ground smoothed out as if it had never moved in the first place.
The bunny fired in all directions before he ran the opposite way. He only made it halfway before the trunk of one of the trees split open like a flower opening its petals. Armies of moss wrapped around his head and sucked him into the tree.
I could only hear the faintest trace of his screams before the tree sealed itself with a peculiar looking red sap.
I witnessed the horse bang on the tree repeatedly, trying to open it somehow. With how much he kicked and punched at it he should’ve made a dent before thick creeping vines fell from the thick brush overhead. The vines took hold of his arms and stretched them apart before they did the same thing with his legs.
A curiously foul smelling green sap began to ooze out of every inch of the pore of the vines. The man’s muffled screams spewed out from his mask as the green substance began to coat every square inch of his body. Before long, the sap had hardened into a crystallized green cocoon. It honestly looked quite beautiful, in a macabre sort of way.
I only had a brief moment to look at it before the vines threw the bright green piece against a nearby tree. The piece shattered upon impact. A thousand green shards flew across the clearing. I looked in vain for anything that had once resembled the man in the horse mask but the shards were pure green through and through.
By now, Neil locked eyes with me, as if believing I had something to do with this, before he put his silencer in his pocket and raised the barrel in the direction of my skull.
The branch wrapped around Neil’s throat so suddenly that the man didn’t even have time to blink. The gun dropped by his side as his hands flew to this throat. As he struggled in vain to free his throat he locked eyes with me again. For the first time since that fateful meeting, when I asked him for the money, a desperate look of fear was in his eyes.
The branches pulled back in the direction of the forest. I saw a patch of woods open, allowing Neil’s body to travel deeper into the woods. I could hear the faintest sounds of a guttural scream before the groaning finally died down, leaving only the occasional sounds of a bird chirping and the heartbeat in my ears.
When I felt a delicate hand touch my shoulder, I didn’t hesitate to scream. I only stopped when that same hand clamped around my mouth.
“Stay quiet,” the soft, female voice spoke directly into my ear as I nodded rapidly.
A curiously rough hand sliced through the rope around my wrists. When I felt my wrists become free, I instinctively rubbed the sore, tender flesh and turned to thank my saviour.
The tree branch morphed into the shape of a human hand. A bulbous piece of bark jutted out from the side and pointed it towards the sky. Seeing the thumbs up, I returned the gesture, hoping that I wouldn’t anger it enough to warrant a horrific demise.
I turned to my left and saw the lone wolf that had been standing behind the tree. Her arms lay flat at her side. I almost thought she could’ve been a statue if not for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. I wondered if she could see where I was until she approached me so fast I let out a short shriek.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the lone wolf said in a sombre tone while gently placing a hand on my shoulder.
“It...wasn’t exactly my idea to come here,” I replied, rubbing the back of my neck. “Who are you anyway?”
The black eyes of the wolf stared through my soul for what felt like an eternity before they tilted down towards the ground.
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied flatly before she raised her head again and mashed her cold, rough nose into mine. A curious scent of sage and wood smoke filled my nostrils for the briefest of moments before she pulled away.
“I-I just want to know who to thank for saving me that’s all,” I replied. I’ve always been afraid of acting rude and selfish in front of others. Even to someone who could control the Earth around me, and had just met, I felt this practice come into play.
“We’ll see what the others have to say though,” the lone wolf replied before she turned abruptly and began walking into the woods.
The trees and roots parted, as if there was always a clear path there. I watched her slim frame disappear into the brush. I barely had any time to catch my breath before I heard more roots beginning to dislodge and a number of different wolves walking out of the forest.
My eyes scanned frantically around me. I couldn’t get a distinct number but it seemed there were over a hundred different people wearing wolf masks. All of their eyes were painted black, and the material seemed to be that same rough papier-mâché look, but each one still looked unique in its execution.
Some of the snouts were slimmer, some had their lips curled into a permanent snarl and others appeared to have red paint around their mouths. Somewhere in the core of my mind I had the sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t red paint.
Like before, they all stood in place at the edge of the clearing, staring me down as actual wolves would to a wounded rabbit. Eventually, one of them stepped forward. His mask was much like the others but a curious series of carvings seemed to have been etched in multiple places. The colors of the mask were a curious shade of black, white and grey. He could’ve easily blended with the rest of his pack if it weren’t for the fact that he towered over the others and his eyes glowed in a striking hue of red, as if two large rubies were planted in the sockets.
“P-Please...sir...mister wolf,” I stammered, just wanting to escape this surreal nightmare in one piece. Suddenly the idea of dealing with sky rocketing inflation and interests rates seemed like a cakewalk compared to being ripped apart by the woods.
The head wolf held a hand up, probably to silence me, which I did, before his eyes stared down at the soil. The ground beneath his feet, which I now noticed were completely bare and caked in dirt, began to wobble and stretch.
“Do you think we can let him go?” The head wolf asked as the shifting ground began to slither towards me like a large serpent.
I knew I could freely move my feet, but I felt as if they had sprouted roots and were sinking deeper into the ground. The lump of dirt stopped directly in front of me, then began to rise in the shape of a spiral.
The dirt circled around my head, as if it were a dog determining if I was a friend or foe. Eventually, it sunk back towards the ground and moved its way back to the large man in the wolf mask.
“You seem to pose no threat,” he said, “thus...you can leave. As long as you don’t tell anyone about what you’ve seen.”
I felt all the air release out of my lungs as I tried to look the chief in the eyes.
“D-Do you think anyone’s gonna believe all this?”
The chief looked back at his followers. All of the wolves stood stock still, as if they were more of an oil painting than people in the kind of masks a group of kindergarteners would make.
“True,” he finally replied after a while, “but for every non-believer of a tale, there will always be someone desperate enough to find out. We simply can’t risk it is all.”
The leader of pack suddenly raised an arm behind him. My eyes followed from his hand to the row of trees and roots suddenly dislodging and moving aside. The main highway, where my former captors had driven for several hours after they had tossed me into the back of their van, was visible.
“Go now,” the large wolf spoke as he fixated his red eyes onto mine, “and never speak of what you’ve seen. The land does not like those who do not respect it or are unfit to be amongst the living.”
I tried to swallow the large lump in my throat. When that was unsuccessful, I started walking towards the highway. I could feel all of the packs’ painted eyes locking onto my back. I almost expected their hands to seize my shoulders and drag me back into their world.
When I felt the one hand grab my shoulder, I tried to let out a scream but the rough hand covering my mouth stopped it.
The female wolf from before slowly lowered her hand before she leaned forward and pressed her cold, rough fake nose against my very real, oily one.
“Please take care Roger,” she spoke. I almost thought I could hear a tremble in her voice. “You’re a good person. I almost wish you could join us but...”
She moved her head back and eyed the chief. The man remained motionless, yet I would’ve bet all of my former life savings that a lot was going in his mind.
I turned and began walking towards the highway. When I felt my flat sneakers touch the pavement, I finally mustered the courage to look behind me.
The forest was dense, barely any of the setting sun could set forth. But I could see none of the clan that lived in the woods.
Instinctively, I felt my feet begin to move. I had no idea where I was going. All I knew was that I wanted to reach a civilization where I knew how things worked. Out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed the Earth move up and down, as if it were practicing a form of deep breathing, before it lay still.
With the wind at my back I thought I could hear a guttural kind of sighing.
Carson is a neurodivergent writer from Calgary, Alberta who often enjoys rummaging through his dark, albeit unique imagination, to enhance his everyday life. His debut horror novel ‘Beyond the Deep’ was recently published by Baynam Books Press. His previous short stories have appeared in such online publications as Flash Phantoms, Sometimes Hilarious Horror, CommuterLit, and Howling Wolf Press. He can also be found at: https://www.carsonfredriksen.com/
By
Carson Fredriksen
The rope coiled around my wrists before it tightened. If it wasn’t for the cold barrel of steel pressed into the back of my head, I would’ve voiced my complaints.
“Now then,” the muffled voice behind me said without a shred of compassion, “walk or else we’ll drag your body into the woods.”
I let out the longest sigh of my life, and possibly the last one of my life, as I made my way into the depths of the forest. The gang made sure their van was parked in a spot that couldn’t be seen from the highway and it had been well over an hour since I last saw a car drive by.
“So tell us Roger,” a different muffled voice said, “how’s it feel knowing that we’re gonna fuck you over just as bad as you fucked us over.”
When you’re desperate for money you do all kinds of desperate things. Some try to sell off their entire video game collection; others try to leach off some rich relatives. I invested my entire life savings to some loan sharks.
I didn’t think anything bad would happen to me. Bad things happen to other people, sure, but they certainly wouldn’t happen to me. I had a new business I was ready to open. I had good connections within the business world. All I had to do was go above and beyond with my business savvy and I could pay it all off before they had to resort to violence.
What I didn’t know was that the business wouldn’t take off. My clients were too busy keeping their prices in check with inflation to help me stay afloat. And before long, the hikes in property taxes and interest rates had taken their toll on poor little me.
I used to think that bankruptcy was the worst thing I could face. Walking into the woods with five other guys, who would undoubtedly by the only ones to walk back out, turned out to be even worse.
The sharp cry of a magpie drew me back to the present even though I wished it hadn’t.
Out of the corner of my left eye I caught a small figure hiding slightly behind a particular pine. I rolled my eyes towards the tree but I only caught the person’s arm disappearing behind the large trunk. Along with what looked to be wolf ears on top of their head.
“Don’t bother trying to look for help,” one of the thugs harshly whispered into my ear. “We scouted this whole area and we know exactly when the cops drive by.”
By now, the sun was only a barely visible dot in the sky amongst the various pines and spruces. Aside from the cries of a few birds and a suspiciously large amount of branches cracking in the distance, it was as quiet as a cemetery at midnight.
“A perfect place to commit a murder.” The thought came and went. It brought me no comfort but it did seem to instantly chill my bones.
“Alright I think this is far enough. Now turn around.”
I finally dropped my arms, now realizing that I could’ve had them down by my sides this whole time, and turned to face my captors.
The man I had initially met about the money was the only one not wearing a mask. Much like in our first meeting, I noticed he wore a red velvet suit that looked like it hadn’t been bought in a store but was handmade stitch by stitch.
The other four men in his entourage were dressed in ragged hoodies, ripped jeans and a disturbing assortment of animal masks. This poor excuse for a petting zoo included a fox, a deer, a bunny and a horse. The empty black eyeholes stared me down, no doubt each of them were feeling a sense of pride at taking a human life. Or perhaps they would forget all about me by the time the smoke had cleared the barrel.
A guttural groan suddenly echoed throughout the woods. I wished I could describe what it sounded like but it didn’t sound as if it could be replicated by human or animal vocals. This sound was something completely alien to me.
All of the animals tilted their heads and looked towards their boss, as if expecting him to clearly explain what the sound was. He dismissively waved his hand and locked his steely eyes with my widened ones.
“I don’t suppose you somehow have the money right now do you?” he asked in a polite manner, as if he were asking his wife if she needed anything from the store.
My eyes looked to the dirt below, hoping a magical tree with dollar bills for leaves would sprout out of the ground.
“N-No,” I muttered instead. “B-B-But if you let me go I swear I won’t tell anyone about you. I promise I’ll have the money by next week! Just please don’t kill–”
“Let’s just kill this jack-off already man,” the bunny said, his head looking around the forest frantically. “This place is giving me the creeps.”
The man in the red tuxedo shrugged, as he pulled out the silencer and was just about to twist it on when a sudden crack came from behind me. The gang jumped a good foot as they each pulled out their guns, scanning the area frantically.
“Thought you said no one would be here Neil,” the deer said.
“Don’t say my fucking name!” Neil snapped though his eyes seemed to be bulging even further now.
I looked behind the men and witnessed the figure walk out from behind a large pine. Its attire seemed to be a strange mix between a robe and a gown that reached only to its knees and was the darkest shade of brown I had ever seen. A wolf mask covered its face but even from far away there seemed to be something off about it.
Whereas the gang’s masks looked fresh off the rack at a costume shop, this one looked to be hand-made, as if it were crafted using papier-mâché and allowed to dry in the sun. The eyes were pure black as well, only they seemed to have been painted on.
The figure suddenly outstretched its arm, raised an index finger and placed it to its etched lips. I slowly nodded, even though I didn’t see any weapons on it.
Out of the Earth, several tree roots began to rise before they fused together into a mess that resembled a haphazard bird’s nest. Before long the trees started to slide together until they completely blocked off all possible entrances to where we were.
I allowed myself to break free of my petrified prison and spun around in all directions. We were trapped in a circle, with that hellish groaning now even louder than before. I looked back towards where I had seen the wolf, but the figure was nowhere to be found.
The ground below my feet began to shift. I looked down and witnessed the soil moving in multiple directions, as if Bugs Bunny were travelling beneath us in a drunken stupor.
One of the men screamed. I turned just in time to see the fox being sucked into the dirt as if it were quicksand. The deer succeeded in grabbing the fox’s hand, but also ended up being sucked into the Earth face first. After their sneakers were out of view, the ground smoothed out as if it had never moved in the first place.
The bunny fired in all directions before he ran the opposite way. He only made it halfway before the trunk of one of the trees split open like a flower opening its petals. Armies of moss wrapped around his head and sucked him into the tree.
I could only hear the faintest trace of his screams before the tree sealed itself with a peculiar looking red sap.
I witnessed the horse bang on the tree repeatedly, trying to open it somehow. With how much he kicked and punched at it he should’ve made a dent before thick creeping vines fell from the thick brush overhead. The vines took hold of his arms and stretched them apart before they did the same thing with his legs.
A curiously foul smelling green sap began to ooze out of every inch of the pore of the vines. The man’s muffled screams spewed out from his mask as the green substance began to coat every square inch of his body. Before long, the sap had hardened into a crystallized green cocoon. It honestly looked quite beautiful, in a macabre sort of way.
I only had a brief moment to look at it before the vines threw the bright green piece against a nearby tree. The piece shattered upon impact. A thousand green shards flew across the clearing. I looked in vain for anything that had once resembled the man in the horse mask but the shards were pure green through and through.
By now, Neil locked eyes with me, as if believing I had something to do with this, before he put his silencer in his pocket and raised the barrel in the direction of my skull.
The branch wrapped around Neil’s throat so suddenly that the man didn’t even have time to blink. The gun dropped by his side as his hands flew to this throat. As he struggled in vain to free his throat he locked eyes with me again. For the first time since that fateful meeting, when I asked him for the money, a desperate look of fear was in his eyes.
The branches pulled back in the direction of the forest. I saw a patch of woods open, allowing Neil’s body to travel deeper into the woods. I could hear the faintest sounds of a guttural scream before the groaning finally died down, leaving only the occasional sounds of a bird chirping and the heartbeat in my ears.
When I felt a delicate hand touch my shoulder, I didn’t hesitate to scream. I only stopped when that same hand clamped around my mouth.
“Stay quiet,” the soft, female voice spoke directly into my ear as I nodded rapidly.
A curiously rough hand sliced through the rope around my wrists. When I felt my wrists become free, I instinctively rubbed the sore, tender flesh and turned to thank my saviour.
The tree branch morphed into the shape of a human hand. A bulbous piece of bark jutted out from the side and pointed it towards the sky. Seeing the thumbs up, I returned the gesture, hoping that I wouldn’t anger it enough to warrant a horrific demise.
I turned to my left and saw the lone wolf that had been standing behind the tree. Her arms lay flat at her side. I almost thought she could’ve been a statue if not for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. I wondered if she could see where I was until she approached me so fast I let out a short shriek.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the lone wolf said in a sombre tone while gently placing a hand on my shoulder.
“It...wasn’t exactly my idea to come here,” I replied, rubbing the back of my neck. “Who are you anyway?”
The black eyes of the wolf stared through my soul for what felt like an eternity before they tilted down towards the ground.
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied flatly before she raised her head again and mashed her cold, rough nose into mine. A curious scent of sage and wood smoke filled my nostrils for the briefest of moments before she pulled away.
“I-I just want to know who to thank for saving me that’s all,” I replied. I’ve always been afraid of acting rude and selfish in front of others. Even to someone who could control the Earth around me, and had just met, I felt this practice come into play.
“We’ll see what the others have to say though,” the lone wolf replied before she turned abruptly and began walking into the woods.
The trees and roots parted, as if there was always a clear path there. I watched her slim frame disappear into the brush. I barely had any time to catch my breath before I heard more roots beginning to dislodge and a number of different wolves walking out of the forest.
My eyes scanned frantically around me. I couldn’t get a distinct number but it seemed there were over a hundred different people wearing wolf masks. All of their eyes were painted black, and the material seemed to be that same rough papier-mâché look, but each one still looked unique in its execution.
Some of the snouts were slimmer, some had their lips curled into a permanent snarl and others appeared to have red paint around their mouths. Somewhere in the core of my mind I had the sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t red paint.
Like before, they all stood in place at the edge of the clearing, staring me down as actual wolves would to a wounded rabbit. Eventually, one of them stepped forward. His mask was much like the others but a curious series of carvings seemed to have been etched in multiple places. The colors of the mask were a curious shade of black, white and grey. He could’ve easily blended with the rest of his pack if it weren’t for the fact that he towered over the others and his eyes glowed in a striking hue of red, as if two large rubies were planted in the sockets.
“P-Please...sir...mister wolf,” I stammered, just wanting to escape this surreal nightmare in one piece. Suddenly the idea of dealing with sky rocketing inflation and interests rates seemed like a cakewalk compared to being ripped apart by the woods.
The head wolf held a hand up, probably to silence me, which I did, before his eyes stared down at the soil. The ground beneath his feet, which I now noticed were completely bare and caked in dirt, began to wobble and stretch.
“Do you think we can let him go?” The head wolf asked as the shifting ground began to slither towards me like a large serpent.
I knew I could freely move my feet, but I felt as if they had sprouted roots and were sinking deeper into the ground. The lump of dirt stopped directly in front of me, then began to rise in the shape of a spiral.
The dirt circled around my head, as if it were a dog determining if I was a friend or foe. Eventually, it sunk back towards the ground and moved its way back to the large man in the wolf mask.
“You seem to pose no threat,” he said, “thus...you can leave. As long as you don’t tell anyone about what you’ve seen.”
I felt all the air release out of my lungs as I tried to look the chief in the eyes.
“D-Do you think anyone’s gonna believe all this?”
The chief looked back at his followers. All of the wolves stood stock still, as if they were more of an oil painting than people in the kind of masks a group of kindergarteners would make.
“True,” he finally replied after a while, “but for every non-believer of a tale, there will always be someone desperate enough to find out. We simply can’t risk it is all.”
The leader of pack suddenly raised an arm behind him. My eyes followed from his hand to the row of trees and roots suddenly dislodging and moving aside. The main highway, where my former captors had driven for several hours after they had tossed me into the back of their van, was visible.
“Go now,” the large wolf spoke as he fixated his red eyes onto mine, “and never speak of what you’ve seen. The land does not like those who do not respect it or are unfit to be amongst the living.”
I tried to swallow the large lump in my throat. When that was unsuccessful, I started walking towards the highway. I could feel all of the packs’ painted eyes locking onto my back. I almost expected their hands to seize my shoulders and drag me back into their world.
When I felt the one hand grab my shoulder, I tried to let out a scream but the rough hand covering my mouth stopped it.
The female wolf from before slowly lowered her hand before she leaned forward and pressed her cold, rough fake nose against my very real, oily one.
“Please take care Roger,” she spoke. I almost thought I could hear a tremble in her voice. “You’re a good person. I almost wish you could join us but...”
She moved her head back and eyed the chief. The man remained motionless, yet I would’ve bet all of my former life savings that a lot was going in his mind.
I turned and began walking towards the highway. When I felt my flat sneakers touch the pavement, I finally mustered the courage to look behind me.
The forest was dense, barely any of the setting sun could set forth. But I could see none of the clan that lived in the woods.
Instinctively, I felt my feet begin to move. I had no idea where I was going. All I knew was that I wanted to reach a civilization where I knew how things worked. Out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed the Earth move up and down, as if it were practicing a form of deep breathing, before it lay still.
With the wind at my back I thought I could hear a guttural kind of sighing.
Carson is a neurodivergent writer from Calgary, Alberta who often enjoys rummaging through his dark, albeit unique imagination, to enhance his everyday life. His debut horror novel ‘Beyond the Deep’ was recently published by Baynam Books Press. His previous short stories have appeared in such online publications as Flash Phantoms, Sometimes Hilarious Horror, CommuterLit, and Howling Wolf Press. He can also be found at: https://www.carsonfredriksen.com/
