Don't Follow

The crackle of the campfire is the only thing that I can hear. There is no rustle of leaves, no snapping of twigs. There isn't even the occasional hoot of an owl in the dense forest. Which itself isn't alarming. What's alarming is that there should be the snapping of twigs and the occasional rustling of leaves, because every so often I see a flicker of yellow eyes staring back at me from the darkness.

I prod my campfire, and those yellow eyes vanish again. Meryl was supposed to be back with the firewood moments ago, but I don't hear her footsteps either. Those yellow eyes wink back to life, reminding me of the flickering lights at the gas station we stopped at twenty miles ago off Route 6. A little run-down place in the middle of nowhere, clearly just there for those on a weekend getaway who need to fill up their gas cans. The place was staffed by a young woman with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, who had looked me up and down and promptly declared that I was wearing the wrong thing.

Meryl took in my outfit – the loose cotton t-shirt and blue jeans, no jewelry except my watch and the green string friendship bracelet on my wrist—  as she slapped a pack of Twizzlers on the counter. "What’s wrong with jeans when you’re out in the woods?" she said at the same moment I said, "How would you know what our plans are?"

The girl took a long drink from the bent straw in her soda can before answering, her voice punctuated by the buzz of the flickering overhead lights. “The only people that ever stop here are up in Allegheny searching for bigfoot or something.”

"We're not looking for bigfoot," I said at the same time that Meryl said, " Isn't bigfoot found more West?"

The checkout girl rang up the Twizzlers and shrugged. “I wouldn't know because no one's ever come back to tell me if they found him. Besides it's the spirits – haints and mimics—you have to watch out for.”

Meryl blinked. “That’s the South.”

“It’s the Appalachians,” the girl replied.

"We'll keep that in mind," I told the girl, grabbing the pack of Twizzlers and flinching at the loud chime as we pushed back through the glass door.

“If you hear your name, don't follow,” the girl calls after us.

The door shut.

The fire snaps. And Meryl isn’t back. It had been her idea to come out all this way. And I'd agreed, not because I like camping, but because I care about her sister who went missing over a week ago from this exact campsite. Or at least, one nearby according to the GPS on her phone that has since died.

We’d been little more than strangers a week ago, acquaintances at best. We’d met once or twice at small friend gatherings on campus, hosted by my far more sociable roommate, Meryl’s sister, Celeste. Celeste, who had decided a trip to the Appalachian Mountains was just what she needed in order to finish her thesis. “How Local Appalachian Folklore Influenced the Local Fauna – Unethical Tourism and Ecological Impacts of Cryptid Hunters.”

Meryl had warned her to never hike without her revolver. I’d warned her to never hike alone. Celeste had warned me to stop being overbearing. As her roommate, also finishing my thesis, I’d thought it was concern and perhaps a bit of worry that’d she’d become increasingly frantic about the impending deadline with her advisor.

So frantic she’d take off alone to the woods on the third of these camping trips to prove that the local wildlife and ecology in the mountains was suffering at a proportional rate to every supposed “cryptid” sighting that brought in scores of fanatics and hunters.

“Quinn,” she’d scolded, “this is important.”

“At least wait until next week, so that I can come along on this one, or Meryl.” Meryl had accompanied her on the first- to West Virginia, in an area known for its “mothman” sightings. Meryl had vowed to never go on another trip, whether it was because of the relentless rain they’d experienced, per Celeste, or the unnerving wails at night, per Meryl.

Neither was a believer in such things. Nor was I. But I was a big believer in serial killers with axes.

I prod the fire again, the amber glow glinting across the surface of my watch. It stopped telling the time hours ago. Dying about the same time we’d left the jeep, trudging up the terrain with our packs, sleeping bags, and grocery bags containing water (pre-packed by me) and Twizzlers (last-minute decision by Meryl after determining that we may indeed be up here overnight).

It was supposed to be a simple four-hour drive, collect Celeste, and return to our too-small apartment. But when we’d arrived, in part due to never-ending construction traffic and due to my perpetually small bladder, the sun had already set past the treetops, bathing everything in a dusky mask.

I stand, peering into the darkness and fiddling with the string bracelet Celeste had made for me two years ago. Green as the trees. The moon is a faint orb in the sky, partially hidden by clouds, doing nothing to illuminate the forest. The campfire I’d started an hour ago is already dwindling. I’d never claimed to be particularly skilled in the outdoors, something I’d made abundantly clear when Meryl had shown up at my door, worry creased in the lines on her face, and asked me to come along on this rescue mission.

The camp is dull and lifeless, our tent a sorry excuse for sleeping arrangements. The roof is sagging due to a bent pole at the top, and the zipper gets caught about halfway up the door. I’d pilfered it from the storage closet in the apartment, along with a sleeping bag that, Celeste claimed, had been slightly chewed by the mothman himself. I suspected the holes were in fact chewed by real moths, but never said as much to Celeste.

The yellow eyes blink out of existence as I step around the fire. A raccoon, maybe, or a fox, waiting to snatch up the half-eaten bag of Twizzlers on the stump I’d dragged next to the fire. The fire that had started dying only ten minutes after I’d scrounged enough sticks to light it. And fifteen minutes after that, Meryl had decided to go look for proper firewood.

Which means that, despite the lack of the time on my watch, I know that Meryl has been gone for far too long.

“Go away,” I snap at the eyes that peer at me, this time from off to the right. It’s circling, whatever it is.

Leaves crackle beneath my boots as I return to the tent to grab the other flashlight, the one Meryl had left behind. Its cheap yellow plastic creaks as I push the switch. The light is dim and also yellow, and I turn it on the relentless yellow eyes just beyond our camp.

They vanish. Along with whatever the eyes were attached to. Easily a fox.

Squaring my shoulders, I set off past the tent, shining the light at my feet but looking straight ahead.

“Meryl,” I call, my voice too loud in the utter silence of the forest. I’ve never been much for the outdoors, but I know that forests are loud with singing frogs and cackling birds and buzzing insects that sound like buzzing fluorescent lighting at dilapidated gas stations.

There’s none of that. And there’s no response from Meryl.

I glance behind me, at the glowing embers of the fire at the campsite. The last thing I want to do is get lost in the woods with a dying flashlight and a dead campfire.

“Meryl, we don’t need any more wood,” I lie. I’d rather just lay in the tent and resume the search tomorrow. We’d followed the last reported GPS signal of Celeste’s phone to this spot, or very near it, and found nothing but a circle of rocks and ash and a discarded, chewed up pen that said Lehigh University.

Anyone could have come up here from our university, I suppose. But I doubt many would bring a pen and paper to take notes, and fewer still would chew the pen to the point of the pen being barely recognizable as a pen.

A twig snaps somewhere nearby, and I jump, the flashlight tumbling from my clammy grip and hitting the dirt at my feet.

“Meryl?” and the name is more a question than a greeting, because I still don’t see her, and she still doesn’t call back.

But the yellow eyes are back. And the Twizzlers are back at camp.

I can feel my own heart against my ribcage. A phenomenon I’m unexperienced with, and I remind myself that it’s only the woods, and in the daylight, all I’ll see are trees and shrubs and weeds. But in the darkness, all I see are the yellow eyes. Waiting for something.

“Go away,” I tell them once more, but they don’t listen this time.

“Cordelia!” Meryl’s voice is a beacon. Cold relief floods my limbs as I pick up the flashlight and swing it into the darkness.

“Over here!” I cry, my voice catching a little. I take a few more steps into the woods and away from the camp, my flashlight brightening the nearest trees. I wait a moment, longer, expecting Meryl to come out between the two oaks before me, where I was sure I’d heard her voice.

“Cordelia,” she calls again, and I practically whimper with relief, crashing through the underbrush.

“Where are you?” I call out, my voice far too loud.

She doesn’t respond, and for a moment I think maybe I wandered away from her, maybe sounds travel differently in a forest. Maybe there’s a surface where echoes throw off the direction of noise.

I conjure a million different explanations for the simple reason I can’t trace the sound of my own name before my blood freezes in my veins.

I never told Meryl my first name.