Something lurks deep within the woods of British Columbia.
My father used to warn me about it.
My older siblings brushed off his warnings as jokes, ghost stories he told to scare us kids into not going off alone on our summer camping trips. They’d tell me he was teasing, but he wasn’t that kind of man. He’d crack jokes and show us horror movies that were maybe a bit too old for us, but he generally wasn’t the type to purposefully scare us for no reason. Sometimes he didn’t even want to scare us when there was a reason.
I was eight years old, on my sixth camping trip, when he knelt down to my height and gently grabbed my shoulders. He wasn’t that tall, but his 5'8" frame would still tower over me. He’d kneel down to my height whenever he wanted to make sure I was taking him seriously.
“Be careful when you leave your tent late at night,” he would say, the look on his face stern, yet filled with emotion.
“If you have to leave the campsite after dark, bring your flashlight. The light irritates them. Never go alone if you can help it. They’re less likely to attack when you’re in a group. Don’t speak a word or they might follow the sound of your voice. And whatever you do, walk. Don’t run. Otherwise, they’ll know you’re afraid. These things feed off fear. Don’t give it to them.”
“What are they?” I remember asking.
“You’ll sleep better if you don’t know.” He’d say.
“If it’s so bad to run into… them… why do we go camping at all?” I questioned.
He looked at me like it was obvious.
“They have to know they can’t beat me.”
I didn’t get it at the time.
When my siblings camped with us, I would wake my oldest sister up and make her walk with me to the outhouse set up for campers, which was typically about two hundred feet from our tent. It obviously frustrated her, but she never sent me off on my own.
After my siblings graduated from high school, and left for greener pastures, it was just my dad and me out there each summer, pitching a tent and roughing it for a week. The first time I had to trek to the outhouse on my own, I was quiet as mouse and walked at a snail’s pace, flashlight darting every which way. I came back to my dad sitting next to my tent, Swiss army knife in hand.
“Wake me up next time,” was all he said.
I did.
But nothing I’d ever experienced camping with him didn’t have a reasonable explanation. The feeling someone was watching me when I was reading? My sister might tell me it was just an owl. Glowing orbs in the distance? My brother would suggest it was a wolf’s eyes, reflecting the moonlight. The distinctive crisp crunch of fir cones behind me? I’d sneak a peek to my right and glance an animal’s hoof scuttering by. I started to believe my dad was joking, and the biggest danger skulking through the woods was a grizzly bear.
It wasn’t.
In the summer of 2022, I graduated university. My boyfriend, Tyler, got the bright idea for us to go camping to celebrate. Having not been camping in almost five years, I was reluctant until Tyler said he’d asked his friends to come too. There ended up being six of us; me, Tyler, Iain and Oliver, and their girlfriends, Kat, whom I’d never met before, and Marie, a sweet woman I once had a calculus class with, who had epilepsy.
Tyler wouldn’t tell us exactly where we were going, just that it was somewhere ‘off the beaten path’ which didn’t fill me with confidence. When he finally parked his pick-up truck, an uneasy feeling rumbled in my stomach. He ignored the look on my face as he pushed his second set of car keys in my hands, my condition for going on the trip (he was always losing them).
“You didn’t book a camp site?” I asked Tyler, as he tossed my bag out of his trunk. “Like, around other people?”
“I told you it was off the beaten path,” Tyler poked. “Who wants to camp around a bunch of people anyways.”
“People who care about safety?” I muttered, before realizing. “Hey, where are we supposed to go to the bathroom?”
“In the bushes,” Iain shouted over, “like the caveman.”
“Well, the theory is most of them would’ve at least dug pits.” Kat pointed out.
“Well,” Tyler said, handing me a stick, “you princesses are free to dig a pit if you want.”
Later that evening, after we got our tents set up, the six of us had sat in a circle, twisting puffy marshmallows over a bright campfire.
“You know,” I started, “it’s spookier out here then I remember. I think it’s because,” I glared at Tyler, “someone took us in further than they should’ve.”
“If you’re too scared,” Oliver shrugged, “you can leave, but I might make a move on your man while you’re gone!” He leaned over and pretended to kiss Tyler, who shrugged him off with mild annoyance.
“I’ve just been thinking,” I hesitated, “about the stories my dad used to tell me about the kinds of things that lurk in the woods late at night.”
“What kind of stories?” Marie asked, breaking a bar of dark chocolate up into small pieces.
I thought for a moment, remembering. “There were rules,” an owl hooting in the distance tinged my words with this sense of dread, “if you had to leave the campsite after dark, you had to bring a flashlight. And you couldn’t go out alone. He’d say to be really quiet, and he’d tell me to make sure I walked through the forest at night, never ran. He said there’s things out there,” I paused as the fire crackled loudly, “things you don’t wanna know about, who’d know if you broke the rules.”
Tyler, Iain and Oliver laughed, but Kat and Marie looked stuck in thought.
“Hate to break it you to kid,” Iain said, slapping a hand around my shoulder, “but your dad was just trying to make sure you didn’t wander too far into the woods late at night and wind up the next kid on a milk bottle.”
He wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t thought before myself, but the guys not even pretending to take me seriously spoiled my mood.
I barely slept the first night. I just stared at the soft vibrations of wind beating across my tent. The second night wasn’t better. I tossed and turned, unable to tune out the pitter-patter of footsteps racing through the forest.
On the third night, Iain broke his ankle playing frisbee with the guys. Marie, unable to drive due to her epilepsy, asked Tyler if he could take them to the hospital.
“We should all go,” I insisted. “We can pack up quickly.”
“No,” Tyler shook his head. “It’ll be dark in an hour, we don’t have time. The three of you stay here and I’ll come back in the morning to pick you up.”
“Let’s take him tomorrow instead,” I suggested.
“He’ll whine all night if we leave him,” Tyler rolled his eyes, “and none of us will get any sleep.”
“Tyler,” I said, keeping my voice low so the others couldn’t hear, “I don’t like this. I have a bad feeling about being out here tonight.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen just like nothing has happened,” he said, annoyance creeping into his tone, “and anyway, didn’t you used to go camping all the time? You probably know more than me! It’s just one night. And there’s three of you, it’s not like you’ll be alone.”
“Not being alone is what I’m afraid of,” I sighed.
“We need more firewood,” Oliver declared after the three of them had limped off. “I’ll go find some.”
“I’ll come!” Kat said earnestly.
“Come on, guys,” I threw up my hands, “it’s going to be dark soon. Stay here.”
Oliver pointed at the dwindling sun, dotted on both sides with beautiful orange speckles. “We got lots of time.”
“Then I’ll come too,” I huffed.
“Someone’s gonna watch all the stuff, kid,” Oliver winked.
“Really, you’re going to leave me here alone?” I asked.
“We’ll be quick,” Oliver assured me. “Twenty, hmm 30 minutes tops.”
Being alone in the deep woods is unnerving during the day. At night, it’s indescribably terrifying. I was sitting in my tent, pretending to read a magazine, kicking myself for not just leaving like I wanted. The sun was creeping further and further behind the trees, the edges of the sky were itching to darken.
When I saw the full moon fading into focus, I started to panic. I had to go look for Kat and Oliver.
I threw on a jacket and started walking in the direction in which I saw them scamper off. My flashlight was swinging left to right, scanning for silhouettes. I walked until I heard the sounds of screams.
My chest tightened as I saw Kat sprinting toward me. I quickly realized she was covered in thick, dripping blood.
“I-it’s not mine,” Kat stammered as I looked her over. “There’s something out here, we gotta run!”
“Kat,” I said, “you gotta calm down,” even though I was feeling just like her on the inside.
“Calm down?” She roared. “No, we have to go – now!”
My dad’s warnings washed over me.
Don’t run.
Walk.
Otherwise, they’ll know you’re afraid.
“Kat,” I tried to keep my voice steady, “what we’re gonna do is walk slowly back to camp without a word, and –.”
“Are you crazy?” Kat yelled. I grabbed her arm and motioned for her to keep her voice down.
She twisted out of my grip, causing me to drop my flashlight. “I’m getting out of here,” she ran into the darkness before I could stop her.
I moved to go after her when I heard it.
Crunch. Crunch.
The ground behind me shook with heavy footsteps. Somehow, I instinctively knew it wasn’t any wildlife I’d met before.
I closed my eyes, afraid to look back.
Crunch. Crunch.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. I picked my flashlight off the ground, tilted it forward, turned around and gasped.
There was nothing right behind me, but hundreds of glowing eyes were staring at me from every direction. I wanted to run after Kat, but then –
Don’t run.
Walk.
Otherwise, they’ll know you’re afraid.
I couldn’t cry out to her; we’d spoken too long already –
Don’t speak a word or they might follow the sound of your voice.
I kept my flashlight pointed in the direction of my campsite. I winced as the further forward I squinted, the more glowing eyes became illuminated.
I took one slow step forward.
Crunch. Crunch.
That time, the sound wasn’t moving toward me, if anything it retreated slightly further into the woods.
I took one quick step forward.
CRUNCH.
I held my breath as the eyes moved closer to me, the crunching of fir cones getting nearer.
I took two steps forward, slow like the first one.
Nothing.
I squared my shoulders, and jumped forward.
SNAP.
A tree branch somewhere behind me broke, something launched off it with such intense speed.
I didn’t move another step. Neither did they.
I took a slow step forward, and another, walking coolly, with no sense of urgency.
I couldn’t hear a single sound. Nothing backing off me and nothing getting closer.
I didn’t dare shine my flashlight into the trees, too afraid of what more I might glisten.
I felt watched the entire way back to my campsite. But as long as I wasn’t talking, and I wasn’t running, it was like for some reason, they wouldn’t get me.
I caught sight of my tent in the corner of my right eye and tilted my flashlight like a spotlight on it.
I shouldn’t have done what I did next. But I guess I wanted to prove something.
They have to know they can’t beat me.
I turned my flashlight off and walked the remaining fifty steps to my tent with only the stars twinkling in the sky to light the way.
Laboured breaths heaved behind me those last steps, maybe three or four strides behind, but they were keeping pace with me. Moving when I moved. Stopping when I stopped. It sent chills through my whole body. They crunched on fir cones and sticks the whole way, not trying to hide that they were there. They wanted me to hear them.
In one motion without turning around, I hopped in my tent and zipped it up. Something stopped right outside. It leaned up against my tent. Just the one. I didn’t know where the others went.
The tent was opaque. Despite that, I knew that thing was staring into my soul.
I stared back.
Somehow, I don’t know how or when, I fell asleep that night.
As soon as bits of peach began to peak out from behind the clouds, I jolted awake, my body remembering there was danger. I didn’t bother to pack up. I grabbed my bag with my right hand and started hiking back.
I walked for half an hour before I came across the sight of a person slumped against a large rock.
When I got within 20 feet, I could tell it was Iain.
I crouched beside him, scared to ask about the others. I barely heard him whisper. “Couldn’t run.”
He nodded towards his ankle, which was mangled and mattered with purpling bruises. “The story,” he slurred. “I – don’t run. I couldn’t run.”
I bit my lip. I couldn’t help myself. “What did they look like? Did you see?”
He shook his head before lifting it to look me in the eye. “You’ll sleep better if you don’t know.”
Unable to say anything more, I shifted my bag to my left shoulder, and lifted him up carefully, throwing him over my right. Without looking behind us, we ambled our way out of the deep woods.
The police investigated and found four bodies the next day. I won’t say what state they were found in, just in case there are children reading this, but what they found immediately erased any suspicion that Iain or I could’ve had something to do with it, one of the officers saying:
“Not in my forty years on this force have I seen a human do anything remotely like that.”
There is something out there in those woods.
I don’t know exactly what it is, and I’m glad I don’t.
If you’re going camping this summer, heed this, please.
If you’re in the woods late at night, walking back to your campsite, bring your flashlight. Don’t go alone. Don’t speak a word. And whatever you do – walk. Don’t run.
Otherwise, they’ll know you’re afraid.
- Hayley Morrin, Port Coquitlam
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