The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast - Waiting for 12 - Trees

Episode Date: December 2, 2018

We're in-between Seasons 11 and 12 so we have a woody story to hand to you. "The Trees Are Not What They Seem"† written by Jared Roberts and performed by Mick Wingert & Elie Hirschman & Mike DelGaudio & Peter Lewis & Dan Zappulla & Matthew Bradford & Jesse Cornett & Kyle Akers & Atticus Jackson & David Ault & Nichole Goodnight & Erin Lillis & Jeff Clement & Alexis Bristowe. Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to order Season Pass 12   Click here to learn more about Jared Roberts   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptation produced by: Phil Michalski "Waiting for 12" illustration courtesy of Krista Neubert & Mark Pelham Audio program ©2018 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This audio program presents horror, which is frightening and disturbing. You let us into your mind at your own. The sunlight fades to darkness. The frightful tales creep into your mind. It's time to give it to because tonight there will be. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us.

Currently in between seasons 11 and 12, with one week to go until our season 12 premiere on December 9th. And we have brand new season pass 12s fresh out of the oven and ready for pre-orders now. Head to our website at the no sleeppodcast.com and follow the link to the season pass page. But it would be a weak thing to let you go seven days without a story, so we have a tale we would like to hand to you. In it, we travel to the northern part of my home province, Ontario, Canada, where we join a group of foresters in their logging camp. But in this tale from author Jared Roberts, the loggers soon realize that the trees, the forest, and the men themselves are becoming less and less normal and more and more bizarre. Performing this tale are Mick Wingert, Ellie Hirschman, Mike Delgado, Peter Lewis,

Dan Zepula, Matthew Bradford, Jesse Cornett, Kyle Akers, Atticus Jackson, David Alt, Nicole Goodnight, Aaron Lillis, Jeff Clement, and Alexis Bristow. And so, pay attention to this tale, especially if you find yourself in a forest where the trees are not what they seem. I remember how it started. Jonathan the Weevil was pounding on my cabin door during nap hours again, and I yelled at him like a lion with gum disease. Damn it, Weevil, get your own damn milk. Oh, come on, Greaves. I don't want to walk to the compound. I yelled back something about shoving an axe handle up his ass,

and then we argued about the milk for so long I knew I'd never get back to sleep. So I opened the door. When I did, Doc Bamberg came running in behind him. What's up, Doc? Something weird. You boys better come quick. I was hoping, given Doc's urgency and the like, Weevil might have forgotten about my milk. Nope.

He grabbed it, and then we followed after Doc. There's no cereal where we are going, boys. We followed him way back to where we'd been cutting that morning. The whole camp was gathered around a tree, a big old fur, like it was the baby Jesus. You guys find an old hustler in there? You didn't do this, did you? The foreman was looking to both me,

and weevil. We stepped through the group to look at what atrocity could have befallen this fur. It was the strangest thing I'd ever seen. Rotten chunks of the trunk had fallen away and inside this inner flesh that had molded and twisted itself to look exactly like the foreman.

Lines of runny sap smeared the contorted wood face, giving the impression he was being digested by the tree. It could have been a ticking bomb for the sense of pure dune. doom it instilled in us. You didn't do it. Boss, it doesn't look carved, you know? It's like it just grew this way.

There's no way. It just happens to look like me? Look at the rings. This part of the tree is at least 50 years old. It doesn't look like you. You look like it. I saw the small shutter go through all the men. I felt it too.

The foreman himself put what we felt into words. like it's been waiting for me. I reached out to touch the face because I was curious what it felt like. I just wanted to know. The others seemed to be holding their breath as my hand drew closer. Weevil froze with my milk jug

halfway to his face. Before I could touch it, Doc grabbed my wrist. Don't. Doc, it's just a tree. Does it look like just a tree? I shook my wrist free and touched it harder than I. wanted to. It was soft, spongy, like touching an eyeball. I thought I felt it writhe under my touch

and quickly snapped my hand away. Did you all see that? I gripped my hand. Old handy Andy Mickelson was the first to answer. See what? Did you see it move? Okay, okay, enough. Someone cut this damned thing down and pulp the fucker. The rest of use, let's get back and have a drink. And if I find out, one of you idiots did this. Those drinks are coming out of your salary. We were just a bunch of seasonal workers making an honest living. Camp Tangay is an almost 200-year-old lumberjack camp in the Northern Ontario wilderness. It was deep in the wilderness when it was first built, and if possible, it's even deeper now.

Civilization seems to move away from it. Yet every year on May 21st, the mysterious owners trucked some poor group of assholes, amateur, and professional woodsman into the camp. Barring emergencies, they don't get us out of the camp until September 1st. That year, those assholes were us. There were ten of us, counting the foreman. After leaving the tree, all except Mickelson came back to the compound. That's what we call the main building where all the food, booze, and recreational activities are. Mickelson went back to take down the tree, which I'd already started calling the Furman. The foreman didn't think it was too funny. Too soon, I guess.

Anyway, Mickelson's a cool guy. Quiet, hardworking, volunteers for tasks nobody else wants to do. In his spare time, he carves hands from wood. We've all modeled for him. Perfect wooden replicas of our hands. He says hands are the most beautiful thing that God ever made. I think it's titties, but we're different, men. True to his word, the foreman led us all into the whiskey.

He'd never let us drink midday before. Must have really rattled him. Joking aside, I was rattled too. That thing in the woods, that thing wasn't natural. I could feel it in my bones. Being near it was like being in space. Like, where's gravity? Except, it was even more fundamental than gravity.

You know, when they find the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese, it always looks like it could just as easily be a cat or a pile of laundry? This was a perfect sculpture of the foreman's face. It had crow's feet. Yep, trees are remarkable things. Old Grits said suddenly, slamming down his shot glass. Seen him to all kinds. Fella left his bike chain to a small tree.

Forgot about it for a few years. Came back to find it half inside the tree trunk and three feet off the ground. And when I was a boy, we had this sycamore growing in the backyard. My pop hated that thing, but hated the idea of cutting it even more. My cat Jasper would hide in that tree all day. One day, Jasper disappeared. Years later, when an ice storm toppled the mighty bastard, I helped Pop cut it into next year's firewood.

We come to one point in the wood where there was a space, like a bubble in the fibers, and outfall the little bones and a collar. For lack of a better term, fellas, that sycamore ate my Jasper. So you'd think it could just be a coincidence? All I'm saying is trees are remarkable things. Maybe that tree back there took a look at your face one year and said to itself, Not bad. Think I'll grow one myself.

Even after our second shot, that sobered us. Wait a minute. Holy shit! Once I had everyone's attention, I let this bombshell drop. How do we know you're the real foreman and not the tree? Graves, have you ever heard of a man choking to death on his own testicles? Just then, a throat-bursting scream resounded from the woods. Nobody had any concrete image of what could have happened, I'm sure, but we all had been feeling it. What if that thing did something to Mickelson?

What if there's something else in the woods? Maybe that's why we, strong and hearty men, couldn't move for so long. Couldn't even finish our drinks. After recovering our senses, we took running. We only got halfway there when we met Mickelson on his way back, covered in blood and chunks of something. I'll never forget it as long as I live. He was walking like a zombie with his chainsaw dragging behind him.

A lumberjack never drags his chainsaw. He didn't appear injured, not physically, but his eyes were blank, like he'd seen something he couldn't process and couldn't unsee. Mickelson, what the hell happened? What were you screaming for? He kept walking past the foreman silently until we stopped him. Being touched seemed to wake him up. It wasn't me. What wasn't? Screaming. It wasn't me. This isn't my blood. We looked behind him into the woods. Complete silence.

Not even a bird sang. A cold wind swept over us from the north, and the air smelled harsh, metallic. Mickelson's shuffling resumed. No. No way. It was the tree. That miserable thing screamed as I cut it down.

I only heard screams like that once before. Some went back with him to the compound. Me, the foreman, Doc, and Mahoney, went to check on the tree. Mickelson had cut the thing to pieces. Thick red goop covered the whole area. There was a chainsaw-shaped hole right through the face. How can it bleed?

You ever see invasion of the body snatchers? The others looked at me, but didn't respond. Oh, yes, it was in their heads, too. Well, it ain't blood. You'd smell it by now. He bent down and tasted the red goop. Just your typical fur sap, probably some fungus turned it red. Mickelson's been edgy lately.

Haven't you noticed? Nobody? And he's the only one who could carve this. We've all seen his carvings. Do we have any reason to believe he wasn't the one screaming? If there's anything more mysterious than trees, friends, it's the human mind. I remembered the spongy feel of the tree's face, the feeling in my gut. Nobody carved that thing.

I was about to say so when we heard screams again, this time from the direction of the compound. We ran all the way back to the compound to find the men huddled around Nicholson. He was sitting on the floor in the circle of men, looking at the stumps where his hands used to be, watching the blood just pumping out and screaming, screaming, screaming. The side of his stumps and the scent of his blood made me woozy. I sat back and heard some exchanges distantly. How'd this happen? He just suddenly did it to himself.

Doc, do something. We have to stop the bleeding. Jesus Christ, I thought he loved hands. Shut the fuck up, Greaves. Get the morphine from my cabin. Come on, man. Hey, did you ever give me back my milk? But put his hands on ice.

Someone has to drive him to the hospital. That's the only truck. We should all get out of here. Are you kidding? We got a job to do here. There's weird shit going on here, boss. Nah, it all adds up. Just what Doc was saying. Mickelson's got issues. He carved the tree, freaked out over the red sap. Cut off his own hands.

He needs serious help. I wasn't sure he really believed that. I figured he just wanted to calm everyone down. If there's a rational explanation, there's security in that. Taylor arrived back with the morphine and other medical supplies. Just in case. Doc grabbed the morphine only. Soon after, the scream stopped.

We're all dead. He looked at me as he was losing consciousness. Where did you come from? The bleeding's under control. He needs an emergency room now. That was a tall order. It takes the truck hours to get out, and that's assuming it doesn't get stuck anywhere.

If he wakes up, make him drink water and give him another shot. With the hands in an ice chest, Taylor was off with handy Andy Mickelson in our only truck. We were left mopping up blood. Nobody slept well that night. I thought it was more than just what happened. I didn't understand what yet. The foreman decided the best way for us to deal would be naturally hard work. and short a man, he said we better get used to it.

By noon, we wondered if we weren't short two men. I knew Taylor wouldn't come back, that rotten pissant. That was Gritz. He'd been coming back to camp for years almost as long as the foreman. Taylor, on the other hand, was practically just out of diapers. They didn't get along. Then Gritz didn't much like anybody other than me and the foreman. Mahoney joined the argument.

or Mikkelson did to him what he did to that tree. Without hands? Being so far in the woods, so far from normal human settlements, the air was different, the soil was different. The sky, both day and night, was different. It's not easy to put into words, and I'm no poet. It's just pure. That morning, the day after Mikkelson lost his hands,

the air smelled normal. It smelled like the ordinary, affairs of human misery, politics, lies, selfishness, violence. It's not the industries or the cars polluting the world around us. It's our own twisted hearts. You like that? I tried for poetry. I'm serious, though.

The air lost something. We all sensed it, and we were different for it. Grits addressed the foreman. Dennis, someone's got to go looking. It's our only truck. The foreman nodded. Greaves, you're coming. These trucks were repurposed just for carrying workers and heavy loads deep in the woods.

Nobody was getting up here in their Subaru. Even ATVs were pretty useless that far out. We depended on them. You know why I brought you, Greaves? We'd been walking for a half hour or so. I smell real nice? You're a wise ass, but you're aware. You see what's going on.

You should probably be in college or something. Bought that t-shirt already, bud. I wasn't smart enough for college. Barely made it out of high school. Forestry's been in my family for years. Oh, God, I thought. A hike through bearshit vistas, and I got to listen to this guy's life's story.

I'm aware for one reason only. I've just been here so goddamn long. I know every inch of this place. Every tree we cut I've seen years ago. I know how much they've grown or withered. I know if we leave a clump of sawdust, where to find it again a year or two later. You're not going fern gully on me, are you? Oh, if you'd quit being a wise ass for two minutes, you might learn something, Greaves.

What I'm getting at is this forest changed yesterday. I don't understand how or why. It just did. It's like seeing a woman without her makeup for the first time. It's neither good nor bad. It's just another side of real life. It sure isn't what you paid for, am I right? We walked in silence for a good while after that.

Can't say I blame him. I knew what he was getting at, and I didn't want to talk about it. So I kept smarting off. What was there to say, really? What about that tree yesterday? Well, what about it? You remember that tree? No, it wasn't there before.

He said it so matter-of-factly, and with such confidence, I didn't doubt him for a second. So the question was, where did it come from? That was about the point I noticed the truck's tracks stopped. Not like they turned off the road or like the truck went back. They just stopped. The soil was no different from one spot to the next. It's like the truck had just floated away. How do you explain that, Gritz?

Check off road. You take left. I'll go right. Gritz was always a practical one. It certainly didn't look like a truck had been through the foliage. I doubt they could have gotten through the thick brush if they tried. Then I thought I saw someone up ahead, some movement in the shadows. Grits was already out of sight, so I started into the foliage.

Mickelson? Taylor? I was about 50 feet in when the feeling of being watched struck me still. I couldn't see or hear anybody. Just that feeling. Mickelson? Then a blur of movement to my right and a low animal groan that made my hair stand on in. The movement seemed to disappear into a gnarled tree oozing sap.

I knew Mickelson's favorite song was Africa, so I sang, As sure as Kilimanjaro rises, Serengetty, I seek to cure what's deep inside. He didn't bless the reins. Okay, Mickelson, this is a pretty creepy prank and gotta hand it to you. Get it? Hand?

because you just... The feeling changed, the more I yapped. I didn't just feel I was being watched anymore. I felt I was being hunted. Trees' branches were rocking gently in the wind with a whirring, almost machine-like sound. Thing is, there was no wind that day. I saw movement again, this time from my left.

I stopped running my mouth and started running my legs back the way I came. As I ran, I heard that groan close to me. almost beside me. At any moment, I expected to be grabbed. I could both feel hot breaths and something whispered like, MIRT. Then I saw the road just a little ahead, and with that, the feeling faded. I collapsed on the road, looking back, expecting a maniac or a bear, but it was just the woods. When I finally caught my breath, I stood up, dusted myself off, and saw grits. He'd been sitting in the middle of the road slumped forward all that time.

It didn't even look like he was breathing. I was almost immobilized by the pit in my stomach. That old bastard was one of the good ones, I thought. Who would do this? I knew I couldn't carry his body back. I was low on water, so I went to take his canteen before heading back. Then I felt a powerful vice clamp down on my wrist. What are you doing, Greaves?

I thought you were dead, so I was stealing your water. Funny. Someone was in there with me. I don't know who it was, but I don't think it was Taylor or Nicholson. Probably a bear. Let's head back. I had no arguments against the heading back part.

I hadn't noticed it until we started heading back. But the farther we were from the camp, the darker it seemed to be, the thinner the air. I also noticed Grit's pace was quite a bit faster on the return. Why are we walking so fast? You want a lollygag here? You felt it too? Don't hold out on me.

Bears. Smart ones. We don't have any pick-a-knick baskets, grits. Oh, fuck off. So ended our conversation for most of the way back. Fifteen minutes or so from the camp, we stopped. Or maybe froze is the word. Along the road was the cooler we'd used for Mickelson's hands. That wasn't there before.

Oh, God. Grit started, but didn't finish his question. We walked up to it. It smelled like a trap. We exchanged looks and nodded. It had to be opened. Squatting down, we lifted the lid slightly. Then we let the lid slam shut.

There were hands all right. Something struck me as odd. I opened the cooler up again. A little more this time. I reached in and touched one of the hands. I was right. I fished it out and held it up for Grits to see. The hand was made of wood.

It was one of Mickelson's carvings. Grits, do you by any chance know what the fuck is going on? It has to be Mickelson, doesn't it? I thought about it while we continued back to camp with the cooler. Mickleson, missing his hands and suffering massive blood loss, somehow off-roads the truck so bad we can't find the mofo, incapacitates Taylor in some fashion, grabs the cooler filled with ice water,

solely by applying pressure with his fresh stumps, empties his actual hands and replaces them with his carved wooden hands that he was apparently hiding on his person. Does that sound plausible? Then who else? The foreman asked after hearing me out. Taylor's the only one not accounted for,

but I don't think he's smart enough for any of this. For a brief moment, I had the strangest impression of not knowing who Taylor was. I forgot any such person worked at the camp. Must be the shock from the previous day, I figured. No, no, he's not. There's something else. I've been feeling it for a while.

I just chalked it up to craving Chinese food. Foreman sat back on his chair leaning, so his little desk fan blew wisps of his thin gray hair over his forehead and turned off his radio. It was just the three of us in his office. The others were doing their actual jobs. I envied them. I think we need to keep this to ourselves.

They're panicky as it is. I could hear the sounds of the saws. The sound of business as usual was comforting. All right, you two get back to work. Don't mention the cooler, the hands, the tracks. They can wonder about the truck all they want. The guys didn't wonder too much. They figured Taylor freaked out and decided he wasn't coming back.

They'd already pushed the creepy tree into the back. of their minds. It didn't fit in their worldview. Me? I was eyeing every tree suspiciously. So I worked harder, hard enough that when I got into my cabin that evening, I felt right to sleep. It would have been a great sleep. Except I woke up, a certain someone had been whispering in my ear. It's going to take a lot to drag me away from you. I sat up and felt someone standing over me. I reached for the machete. I kept next to my bed, ready to swing, when I realized who it was. Damn it, Weevil! Just take what you want and let me sleep.

He didn't say anything. Weevil wasn't the deep-brooding type, so I knew something was up. I lit my lantern and saw he was shaking, holding an axe over me. You all right, buddy? It's really you? The one and only. Grieves. He lowered his axe. How can that be? You were on my roof. He sat back on the bed next to me, getting close to my ear.

I pushed his face away. Why are you whispering? And why were you singing Africa? Africa. Never mind. Listen, I was having trouble sleeping, but I was trying hard. So I was laying there not moving. Like, how you can trick your body into falling asleep by pretending to be asleep, you know?

It's so quiet out, you can hear everything. I hear something coming out of the woods near my cabin. Could be a bear, I think. But animals don't move like this. Animals are slow, careful. This came out of the woods and went straight from my cabin. It's like it had a purpose. I'm scared, man.

Too scared to do anything. So I keep pretending I'm asleep. I don't hear anything for a while. I just feel something or someone there. You know that feeling? I'm starting to think it was all in my head after all when I hear something again. It was waiting for me to stir. I'm sure of it, but I played asleep good.

I hope it's leaving, and then I hear a sound on the roof. I know it's up there waiting. The more I stay there, the more scared I get. Too scared to stay still. So I jump out of bed and run as fast as I can out the door to come get you. When I'm running, I take a look back so I'm not being just. chased. The moon's bright enough. I see someone standing up there. It's you. I'm already at your cabin, so I go in. And there's someone in your bed. Whoever was up there looked just like you, man.

Weevil, if you haven't guessed, isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. He's more of a spoon, really. He couldn't make this up, not consciously. I found myself listening for sounds outside. I even suggested we go look together. And frankly, I preferred to look in the light of day. I gave the poor bastard a sleeping bag and let him take a spot on the floor. But the light extinguished, both of us trying our best to sleep. He asked me how I got here. I asked him what he meant.

I don't remember meeting you. It's like you were just here one day and I was swiping your milk. I was too tired to think about it at the time. It sounded like semi-coherent babbling. At the same time, it weirded me out because at that moment, I couldn't remember any different. Everyone has their reasons

for coming to a place like the compound. There are easier ways to make money and do less violence to trees. You come here to run away or find something. I mean soul-searching, not buried treasure. Doc, for instance, took overpopulation to heart and started hating everyone, especially breeders.

And this one Alexander Davenport character, I haven't said anything about him yet because he's kind of boring. Rich kid had to get out from his parents' collective thumb, find himself, become a real man. Okay, you can wake up now. Told you he was boring. Me? Life hadn't gone how I'd expected,

but I'd give it a reboot. What was happening was not quite the reboot I was looking for. It wasn't only me and Weevil. Others were experiencing strange events that night. Mahoney asked me if I'd seen any kids around the camp. I told him no way, no kids could be here. He said the night before he'd heard a noise in his kitchen area. He looked around with his flashlight and didn't see anything.

Thinking a mouse might be in his food, he'd checked his cupboards. When he opened one, he said a kid was curled up in there. He was so startled he wasn't afraid to admit he shrieked. The kid jumped out and ran past him. He was relieved the kid was gone. He searched every inch of the cabin to make sure. We didn't get a wink asleep after that. Because he knew that kid from somewhere, from his childhood.

It was the kid who was abducted from the playground. It wasn't a dream, Greaves. I never remember my dreams. Alexander overheard us talking and told us he'd been noticing a new crack in one of the boards in the corner of his room a few nights ago. That didn't surprise him much. but he found himself drawn to looking at it, because it was there. Over the next few nights, he noticed it was growing larger, just a little bit, but enough. And never when he was watching.

When he looked inside, it was too deep to be in the wood. He said he could feel it knew he was watching. We asked him what he meant by that. There's someone in there. It's watching me. From the inside. Others were less forthcoming, saying only that they knew someone was coming in their cabin or someone was outside their cabin at night. With that, a blanket of mistrust descended upon the camp.

We kept to ourselves and kept our eyes peeled while we worked. We stopped assembling in the morning like we used to. Sleep was getting harder to come by. So one morning, I decided to pack my shit. By my figuring, I'd already walked about 1% of the road with grits. I just had to do that again. And then 99 more times on harsher terrain with that hunted by a mountain lion feel.

No sweat. With my supplies together, I decided I'd give the foreman a courtesy farewell in the form of a manly handshake. Just kidding. I tried to slip into the compound for some supplies and get out unnoticed. To my surprise, everyone was already there.

Now this keeps getting crazier. I followed him into the main part of the compound, where the others stood in a row of. rough circle around Alexander. This guy was so boring, I hadn't even given him an amusing nickname. I couldn't imagine why he was the center of attention. What's going on? Something's wrong with him.

We were refusing to work because of what's been happening, and Peter Vibber was getting really into it with the foreman. Then Alex started saying weird things. Peter Vibber's this guy who yells about everything, and this stupid vein pops out on his stupid forehead. I used to call him constipated Pete. He didn't like me. As soon as I stepped into view, Alex seemed to become fixated on me.

He watched my every move. When I looked back, I saw this thing in his eyes that told me all I needed to know. Something that scared the crap out of me. I remember this one incident from a long time ago when I worked as a picker in an orchard. I was reaching for an apple that looked fine to me when the guy next to me grabbed my sleeve, telling me I didn't want that one. I looked carefully at the apple, expecting maybe fungus or something. Then I saw there wasn't any apple left.

Wasps had burrowed into the apple through a tiny hole, hollowed it out completely, leaving only the skin, which they now filled. A paper lantern full of wasps. That's what I saw in Alex's eyes. They looked like normal eyes, but the substance was gone. And whatever was left wasn't good. Hey, Alex, write any good poems lately? I'm not Alexander.

I noticed the others were looking at me expectantly, like I'd know what to do. You sure look like him. That's because I'm Mal Alexander. Oh, yeah? Yes. The Mal is for evil. I'm just like Alexander, except evil. In any other context, that juvenile wordplay, if you can even call it that, would have been embarrassing at the worst.

Not that day. That day it was creepy. He's been talking like this all morning. He must have had a psychotic break. I've been wondering who's been leaving pictures in my cabin each night. All pictures of a young woman. The foreman gasped at that point. I thought that was a strange reaction.

But more important things were on my mind. I looked at Alex sitting so calmly, watching us talk about him. He looked fascinated. The way a shark is fascinated by a wounded seal pup. What exactly makes you evil? I guess I first realized I was evil when I made Mickelson cut off his hands with my mind.

It was so easy. I just thought it, and it was. A pretty handsy skill, huh? The others looked from him to me nervously. They were believing it. Enough to be afraid. That's not something. joke about.

You're one to talk, Frere. You do anything else, Lamex? I'm going to start calling you Lamex. It's short for lame Alexander. Classic Greaves. I've done a little of this, a little of that. You don't remember me, but I remember you, the flashing lights, so scared.

Did you carve that godforsaken tree? Apparently, it was still bothering him. Nobody had mentioned it since. I never did find out what Alex was talking about. You could say it carved me. He's crazy. Hey, Dennis. No one called the foreman Dennis except Gritz.

Come here. I'll tell you and you alone why that tree was there. The foreman was going in before we knew it. It happened so quick. The foreman leaning in, Alex out of his seat, an axe head swinging. Not on a handle, just held in his hand. Gritz pulled the foreman just. Just in time, so it only sliced him above the eye.

The axe had dropped with a thud. Tie him up, Doc. Two stitches will do it. Alex chuckled while Mahoney and Gritz tied him up. Get your paws off of me, you dirty ape. Hey, can I file a grievance? Get it? I hope you have more stitches, Doc, because my sides are splitting.

He seemed to take that personally. At least it shut him up. Gritz took the liberty of gagging him with a cloth napkin for good measure. Alex still watched me from the corner he was tied up in. Watched me pacing. Watched me looking out the window. I couldn't believe it was the same person. I didn't know much about psychotic breaks,

but this definitely wasn't the boring Alex Davenport. You think he's responsible for all that's been going on? I didn't care about most of their opinions. Only Doc and Gritz ever said anything worth a damn. He seemed as horrified. as anyone when Mickelson cut off his hands. Well, what else is there? Someone's been drugging our water?

That could be it. Drugs. If he's schizophrenic, missing his medicine could be disastrous. He'd be normal one minute. Bad shit the next. Please, easy on the technical jargon. Okay, I say we check his medicine cabinet. Then we get out of this pisshole.

Looks like you were already on your way out. Yeah, so? Just shows I have some sense left. The foreman sat down with a long, weary sigh. The radio as though sighing with him hissed as he lowered himself on the bench. I know, fellas. Almost 20 years coming here, and this is the first anything like this has ever happened. And to be on my watch. Look, I take it personally. Your safety is my priority. Where else will I find lunatics willing to come up here? That's why we can't leave. The radio hissed, crackled again.

He shifted. I glanced over at Alex. His eyes slid it with amusement. We got to go out there and try. At least try to find Mickelson and Taylor. Because Graves and Gritz here both swear on their mother's graves, the truck never made it out of these woods. The tracks just stopped.

Grits only grunted. I wanted to argue to explain that professionals should look for them, and we just needed to get out. But hearing the phrase, mother's graves rattled me. I couldn't remember if my mother was dead or alive. Transient amnesia due to stress, I figured. When Doc arrived back, he was shaking his head.

The medicine cabinet was filled with nothing but laxatives. Of every kind, he'd never seen so many. Speaking of cleanse, the cabin was soaked in bleach. You could eat off any surface, and when you did, you'd get sick from the bleach. Something ain't right with that boy. He stuffed a note in my hand and then told me to read it. It was a poem written by Alex.

He found it sticking out of the fireplace. I read it. It reached out from the cracks, the end of the world. Wouldn't empty be best where electrons swirled? When the four lines were done, we all looked to Alex in the room with us. He was shaking his head. I didn't know, nor did I care why. What are the odds of Mickelson or Taylor being alive out there?

Out there. Assuming they never made it out. Mickelson? None. He needed medical attention immediately. If he didn't bleed out, a massive infection would have done it. Taylor didn't strike me as a skilled survivalist, so he'd be in serious trouble by now.

if indeed even alive. You hear that? We need to get out and send for help. There's nothing we can do for them. At last, they were listening to Sents. The only two not pleased were the foreman and Malekander. I'd never distrusted the foreman until then. But it wasn't his camp.

He had his orders. Why was it so important to keep us there? I just about had everyone ready for Exodus, when the compound radio sputtered with bursts of static. And sometimes, between the static, what sounded like agony, what is it? It didn't sound like the voice was cutting through the interference. It sounded like the static itself was trying to imitate a voice.

It was weak, almost ghostly, and distorted by static. Yet we all knew. It was Mickelson. So why was it the voice of a loss of a loss? peer would make us more afraid than worried. He's alive. The foreman grabbed the transmitter. We'll find you, man. Just tell us where you are.

His voice was more distant and haunting than ever. Holding our breaths so we could hear the faint words, the room was unnaturally still. This wasn't right. Foreman, ask him, where'd he find a radio? The foreman did as I asked. He's a ghost. That ain't Mickelson.

Where are you? We waited, but we never heard that thing again. What else could it be if it's not Mickelson? Since I couldn't answer that question nor anyone else, the plan remain unchanged. We were going to make a sweep for Taylor and Mickelson. We drew straws to see who would stay behind to guard Alex. We've won. Suckers, I got the easy job.

As we left, I looked back at the point. poor sap. Everyone thought he was an idiot, but I liked the little vermin. I remembered how, for no particular reason, I was thinking I'd never see him again. Anyway, we split up, each picking a section of woods and a roll of twine. Why did I even go? I guess I felt I should do my part, if there was a chance Taylor or Mickelson survived somehow. Once I'd been walking for some time. The sound started, a sound like the earth was groaning around me. When I stopped to listen, I couldn't hear it. Despite being midsummer, the air felt cold and damp. A smell like burning trash hung around the trees. Alarms were going off in my head. I had to get out of there. I turned to

follow my twine out. The end of the twine hung at my feet. This memory popped into my mind. just then. This time, when I was a stupid kid with my stupid kid friends, there was this creepy old shed in a neighbor's yard. We avoided the hell out of that thing. It was like the local haunted house. We were just scared of it without any evidence. One day, we dared Marty to go inside. He went in, giving us a grin before he disappeared into the dark. We never saw him again. There was an investigation, a big deal for the little town. The neighbor was just a little bit. old lady. She was cleared fast. That first night with the police lights and the chaos of nosy neighbors when no one was looking and with the red and blue flashing on her face,

that old lady gave me the most evil smirk. I tried telling me adults, but no one would listen. That was when I learned evil existed. The catch is, that never happened to me. I have no other memories with those stupid kid friends. No idea who Marty is. I grew up in an apartment. There were no sheds. That was the first time I'd ever remembered that memory. So is it a memory at all? Where the fuck did it come from? And why at that moment? Some mild panic was setting in. My only consolation was seven other men were crawling around these woods somewhere. That didn't stop me from running in the direction I thought my twenty-one. should have been. I ran until I tripped and bashed my jaw against a root. I looked back to see what I'd

tripped over and cursed myself for being a clutz. If I'd been telling myself things couldn't get stranger, now I'd kicked myself. What I'd tripped over was a metal valve of some sort. With its rust, it was practically indistinguishable from the forest floor. This part of the forest had never been touched. There was no plumbing, no need of bomb shelters. I couldn't even imagine what this was. I tried turning it and pulling it, but it wouldn't budge. So I tied my twine around it and walked, looking for anyone else. I was searching for hours when I came across a moss-covered clearing.

I stopped, feeling this resistance to entering it. I sent someone there, but I couldn't see anyone, not hissing like a cat, but like pancake batter in the pan, or an old radio. As the hiss crackled and popped, I thought I saw the foreman standing there, but it was just foliage. I was leaving when I looked back,

and now the hissing had stopped, and the foreman was in the clearing, looking straight up. What's going on? Did you see her? I looked dazed. I told him I hadn't. Then he looked at me,

like he wanted to kill me. Not everyone likes me, but I've never been looked at like that before. I'm not sure what would have happened if we hadn't heard the scream. He lost all interest in me and ran toward it. I followed after. The scream had been loud enough to call most of us. I arrived just as Gritz did. Mahoney, Doc, and Peter Vibber were looking at a body slumped against a tree.

His face was the most horrible thing I'd ever seen. His face had been carved out of his skull, leaving an empty half-head like a kicked-in jack-a-lantern buzzing with flies. Is it Mickelson, do you think? No, he has hands, just no face. It has to be Taylor. We were just standing around this thing, almost unable to move. A lot of weird events had transpired,

but this was the moment we knew our lives were at risk, that someone was killing us. There's something inside. He knelt and reached into the hollow. Mahoney pulled away to vomit into some ferns. Doc drew his hand back with a tooth-sized white object between his thumb and forefinger. I figured it was a tooth. Doc wiped it off and declared...

It's a pearl. A goddamn pearl. Don't be crazy. It's a tooth. A pearl? What does that even mean? Nothing good. It's not a pearl.

Why do that? It's a pearl, all right. From a necklace, we should go. The foreman sounded himself again. In the shock, I'd nearly forgotten about what had just happened in the clearing. Here's the thing. We wash our clothes together, so we tend to label our clothing, underwear especially.

We were all convinced it was Taylor, but it didn't look like him. Really? Doc, check the underwear. He knew exactly. exactly what I meant. He asked for someone to hold the body, but there were no volunteers, so it fell over while he tugged the underwear band up. He let it snap back. Let's get the hell out of this place. Well? Go!

That man never shouted as long as I'd known him. He took the lead. After getting farther from the body, he said. The name on the band is Alex. No way. Who did we leave in the compound then? We need to get back now. Weirce. Weirce into the compound in time to see Weevil on the floor convulsing, white foam bubbling from his mouth. Malix was nowhere to be found. Doc opened Weevil's mouth to give him something to bite on. When he did, a white pearl rolled out and across the floor toward us, like his soul escaping his body or something.

As it came to a complete stop at the foreman's feet, Weevil stopped breathing. His days of borrowing milk and waking me up in the middle of the night we're over. I'm leaving tomorrow. The rest of you can do what you want. Oh, and lock your cabins tight. Something's still out there. That night was a long one. I figured after all we'd been through, I'd pass out when I got to bed.

Instead, every sound was amplified. I heard snapping twigs, possible footsteps, animal sounds that didn't sound quite right, like they'd been processed. I knew I was psyching my... myself out. So I made a conscious effort to blank my mind. I was nearly drifting off when I heard footsteps for real this time. And then, in a spot-on Donald Duck impression, I jumped up, the shock jolting my body rigid, my eyes watering with fear. It was so out of context and deranged. Maybe it was a dream, I thought. But I still couldn't will myself to move.

It took a while before I could lay my head back on my pillow and stare into the dark above me, gripping my hunting knife. I was wide awake when I heard it this time. Same Donald Duck voice. So close, it was like he was crouching by the corner of my front door. I spent the rest of the night imagining what would have happened if I'd opened the door or even gone out the window. And who that could have been?

Nobody in the camp would have any reason. I didn't move a muscle until the gray light of day hit. Then I got up, stiff and tired, but not murdered. I'd call that a win. When I got out of my cabin, I found the crew assembled and ready to leave with me. The foreman made some last-ditch efforts to try to keep us working. We weren't listening. The sooner we got started, the sooner we'd be home.

Nothing on God's green earth would keep us there another day, I thought. Did anyone else hear anything strange last night? We were still waiting for Vibber. There was an uncomfortable silence while we waited for each other to speak. Doc broke the silence. I thought I heard music. I was nearly asleep. Then I could hear Johnny Cash clear as he was playing live.

So you all heard it, too? I shook my head. Something else? Well, I know what I heard, fellas. What song was it? I bleed alone. Never heard of it. Gritz was shaking his head. Neither had I, but I heard it last night.

With a shiver, our feeling that something wasn't right with this place was renewed. As if we'd been transported to another reality. A much worse one. We made the decision, as a group, to check on Vibber. I saw him walking around his cabin. Maybe he's on the can. You know, all constipated Pete, eh? Mahoney needed to learn how to pick his time for humor because no one was in the mood.

Hey, who's that? We were headed towards Vibber's cabin already when he asked again. Who is that? We all looked to see where he pointed. Someone was standing at the distant edge of the camp. Without knowing anything about this person, I felt the sense of foreboding.

I remember how the sun gleamed off his eyes for just a moment like a flash. That he was blurry, almost not. not quite there. There was no distinguishing his features. We just saw the short-sleeve red shirt and khaki shorts. We'd never wear khaki shorts out here. The bugs would eat us alive. In 17 years here, nobody's ever been to the camp who I didn't truck in. But this wasn't anyone I'd ever seen before. I would have remembered. It could be Mikkelson or Taylor. He waved a hand. The person didn't wave back. No movement at all.

Why would he just stand over there like that? It's spooky. What if it's Malix? Oh, for heaven's sake. Gritz started marching toward the figure at a brisk pace. I followed behind him. The others watched. Once we'd half the distance between us and him,

it was clear it was neither Taylor nor Mickelson nor Alex. It was just some young guy. His hair was black and slicked close to his scalp, and he had thick black-framed glasses. He certainly didn't belong at our camp. We didn't have an accounts receivable department. The closer we got, the more details came into focus. Trickle of blood from his left nostril.

The vacancy in his stare soars around his mouth. Grits, stop. He looked back at me like I just hit him. What is it? Look at that guy. This doesn't make sense. How do he even get back here? He looked to the man who stayed still.

His stare no more or less dead than before. So we talked to him and find out. Practical as ever. I didn't think it was a good idea. I tried to say so. But he was already walking again. When we were 20 feet or so away, Gritz called out to the man. He smirked and ran into the woods with a surprising agility.

Even Gritz looked a little spooked now. He paused for a moment, considering pursuit. Fuck it. He turned back. Where the guy had been standing, a photograph was left. Gritz didn't even want to look at it. I did. Took in every detail.

It was a black and white photo of a woman in profile with a long face and a pearl necklace. On the back, someone wrote in ballpoint, You're in grave pearl. Gritz turned to face me so suddenly I thought he was going to take a swing. I probably had it coming for something. Not a word of this to the others. I've been thinking.

Incredible. Dennis talks when he drinks. Takes a lot of drink, but he does. A few times he told me stories about the owners of this place. You know, he's never met them. Not once. All radio and mail. That's it.

This was the only time I'd ever seen Gritz truly troubled, maybe even scared. Hell, it's the most he's spoken since I've met him. One time when he's not getting the response he wants, he decides he's going to the return address on the mail to talk to them in person, takes him to a little shithole in southern Ontario called Pembroke. He gets to the address, or where he thinks it must be. Only thing there is an old warehouse. Windows all busted out, doors boarded up, and there's graffiti over one side that says, bad place. Just bad place. He thought it was funny at first and was going to check it out,

but he gets a feeling. Feels like he's sure if he goes in there, he'll die. Even the smell of the place was like burning hair. Reminds him at the time his little sister caught fire. Well, he backs away. As he's leaving, he thinks he hears a groan from inside. A pack of wild dogs come running from behind. They go way around the building.

They're scared of it, too, he thinks. He decides the graffiti has it right, and he gets out of there. There are places like that, Greaves. Places that hate the living. We're lucky if we never find one. I didn't even see the clouds cover the sun. It just sort of happened as the wind took up and the air grew cold. So he asks around, and the locals tell us.

nobody's used that building for as long as they can remember. Damn thing is left over from the tail end of the fur trade. He asks them if it's haunted. They tell him there's a place not even a ghost would go. Oh, that hits home all right. He's ready to go, but one kid that's been following him around, now that they're alone, comes up to him. Tells him he remembers some men in suits going into the place.

Fancy suits, too. He thought they came from the university, but he didn't know. He didn't see them leave. Never saw them again, in fact. Do you believe all that? I'm saying it, ain't I? I believe it now, at any rate. We started walking back.

The others have been standing off, as if in another world, watching our conference and waiting for Vibber. From the corner of my eye, I think I see movement in Mickelson's cabin. Something else. Dennis goes to the post office to ask. They tell him to look at the postmark. Well, he's missed it. It's the date.

The letter was mailed 60 years ago. It's either a really good forgery or he got old mail. It happens, they tell him. Except all the owner's mail is postmarked that way. It's in order, too. If someone's forge in it, they're goddamn committed. He tries to tell me more. that they order him to do strange things by radio,

but I wouldn't hear another word of it. I come here to do a job, you know? I guess so. Speaking of that, where does this lumber go? Are they really distributing and selling it? What are we really doing here, Gritz? Earn and our keep. He took off back to the others.

I was getting too philosophical for old Gritz. As Grits walked away, I saw it again. movement through Mickelson's window, a flitter of shadows that seemed to retreat when I looked. I shouted after grits. He paused and kept going. Somehow, Mickelson's cabin looked darker and older than all the others. Like where that cabin sat, night had already fallen. I'm not sure why he'd be in there, but on the off chance it was Vibber, I knocked. When there was no answer, I let myself in. Hello? No answer.

Pedy? The cabin had an odor. I might have never placed it if it hadn't been for Grits' story. Burning hair. I still remember how much that freaked me out and how I couldn't hear anything from outside when I walked in. Like I was on another planet. My first step, I felt something hard and rubbery underfoot.

I thought it was a mouse and jumped back. It was a hand. One of Mickelson's wooden hands, I realized. When my eyes adjusted, I saw them scattered everywhere, on the table, counter, window sill. Beneath the hand I'd stepped on, someone had carved something into the floor. I was reaching down to move the hand when out of the corner of my eye I saw movement again. When I looked, still only hands. I quickly brushed the hand at my feet away.

It may have been in my head, but it felt very... fleshy. The carving beneath read, Why life? I saw more movement in my peripheral again. One of the hands had an appearance of gripping, and in its grip was a partial necklace of pearls. But I knew for a fact Mikkelson never carved hands in grip poses. I backed out slamming the door behind me. The sounds and sense of reality resumed as the air hit my nostrils. How much did we really know about Mikkelson, I wondered. Could it have been him all along?

I looked around to find everyone was gone. I went into the compound looking for them. They weren't there. Surely they didn't leave without me. Then I saw the other standing outside Vibber's cabin. Vibber's dead. Doc says he's been dead all night. He gripped my shoulders.

Who did I see in there, Greece? I don't know, buddy. I think it looked at me. Firewood had been arraigned. in a circle around Vibber's body. He'd been gutted, and a chunk of firewood had been placed in the cavity. Stars were carved around his eyes.

It made him look surprised. Doc was holding up another damn pearl when I got in. What the fuck is this? Then I saw the foreman standing there, and justified or not, I blamed him. If he didn't keep finding ways to keep us there, we would have been gone already. So I swung,

and that sucker punch caught him. him hard in the jaw. I felt pretty good about it until I passed out. The last thing I saw as consciousness slipped away was the text written over the walls in Vibber's blood. It read, bad place. I woke up on a cabin floor, my head throbbing, my whole body sore. Haven't felt like that since my last pub crawl. That at least was fun. I rolled over and saw the why life scratching in the floor. They put me in Mickelson's cabin? I leapt up with a burst of fear-borne energy and scanned the room for hands. I was so busy looking for hands that I didn't see him sitting there.

He saw me, though. The strange guy with the glasses had been in the cabin with me all along, sitting in a chair on the corner of the room. He was looking right at me. His eyes were still blank. Beyond blank. It was like he was deep in his happy place, except it wasn't happy.

As soon as we made eye contact, a line of blood trickled from his left nostril. I felt an overwhelming impulse to get far away from this person, that I was convinced running would be a bad idea. Where is everybody? I took steps back to the door. I opened it and glanced outside.

He didn't move. Did they leave without me? Just like the bastards, huh? See, we have a lot in common. He didn't reply. I hung out of the door for a second to get some fresh air. When I turned back, he had gotten up and was standing beside the table. His eyes fixed on some spot up of my head.

I didn't even hear him move. The drop of blood fell from his lip under his thumb. He muttered slowly, softly, from a thousand miles away, from the not happy place. I backed away slowly, and I'm taking my eyes off him for a second. As I closed the door behind me, he said in that same way, It's too late. I stood watching to make sure he wasn't following me out. I felt I was drowning after I'd exited the cabin into the once pure air.

Cold tundra wind blew from the north, and the trees whispered all around. But it wasn't fresh air. It felt close, stifling, like a crawl space. I walked the perimeter. looking into each cabin and calling out, always keeping an eye on Mickelson's. I was also looking for signs of foul play. Nothing. It all looked pristine. Even Vibber's cabin had been cleaned up.

They really had left without me. How long was I out? I went to the foreman's office last. I saw the door had been left open and blood was smeared around the handle. I pushed it the rest of the way expecting the worst. Inside, furniture had been upset and paper strewn. Spots of blood spattered the walls. Something bad had happened here.

But no one and no body was inside. I locked the door just in case. I don't know Jack about operating radios, except cruising to some FM light. But I figured the foreman's radio was my best bet. I tried calling for help like they do in the movies. And all I got for my trouble was noise. I don't know if anyone was even alive at this point.

I wasn't sure what my plan was. I righted a chair and plopped down. I had to think. It didn't matter who was doing this anymore. Just how to get away. While I pondered, I saw newspaper clipping on the foreman's desk. I'd actually been spinning it around without paying attention. It was dated July 2002.

It was about a girl who went missing in the area. I recognized the girl from the photograph I'd found. She was even wearing the same necklace. It pearls. I don't have the clipping, but it went something like, Workers at the camp denied knowing Turner. It is extremely rare for anyone other than employees to be at the camp, worker said. She just showed up here one day, Dennis Calhoun told us.

It's like she was in a trance. We tried to help her. She growled and ran into the woods. Her mother says Turner was prone to sleepwalking, which Turner attributed to the passing of Hale Bop, but investigators say it's unlikely she sleepwalked from Calgary where her home is. She was not on any medication. Teams are still searching the woods around the...

What does one girl's disappearance years ago have to do with Weevil or Mickelson? The connection was enough for the foreman or someone to pull out this clipping. He's the only one who was around then. It has to be him, I thought. Out of nowhere, the radio blurted. I almost jumped out of the chair. Hello? It sounded strange.

Like it wasn't really coming from the radio. Like it was close and light years away at once. I need help. We all do. At Camp Tangay, I can give directions. We know where you are. Nobody should. I got left behind. Are you close?

You'll need a... I'm in the foreman's office. He sounded so certain I looked around. But I was alone. Who put you there? I didn't answer him. You think put you there. It is not as it seems.

You're in terrible danger. You didn't exist last time we checked. Now this guy was making me panicky. Truth is, he was scaring the shit out of me, and I didn't understand why. Of all the things I'd experienced, this was like walking over my grave. Listen, I know you're still there. My name is Chrysanthemum Benedict. We only have a small window of time left.

I've devoted my life to calculating the deterioration. It starts right there where you are. You have to believe me. Dude, I don't know what you're talking about. There's not much left anymore. You couldn't imagine it. The sunsets have all died. The spotlight keeps us and it's slipping.

Something has to have happened. You need... He cut out abruptly with a burst of radio noise and Toto's Africa played softly. Gonna take some time to do the things we know. Africa was all I could get. So I listened to it play. It played over and over.

I finally turned it off when I heard a knock. Grease. I didn't register the voice, but that's because there was a limited range of people I accepted as possibly being there. Grease, it's Taylor. It sounded like Taylor. A part of me didn't believe it could be him.

And how do you know it? It was me inside. But I was ready to take risks. I opened the door, and there he was. Like nothing had happened. I think it was the same shirt he was wearing when he left. Jesus, you're okay. Where's Mickelson?

He's in good hands. No pun intended. Did you see the others on the drive-in? Where's the truck? I couldn't see it anywhere. There's no way he walked. He wasn't even wearing any shoes. That was odd in itself.

No, nobody else. Come on, let's get to the truck. It's over there. I didn't even think about stopping for my stuff. I just wanted to get out. So I followed. I was exhilarated. Holy shit.

You have no idea how glad I am you're here because things weren't looking too good. Where have you been, anyway? I had to get the truck fixed. I radioed the foreman. Didn't he mention it? That sounded about right. I'd come to accept that the foreman had secrets

out the wazoo. Through here. He stepped into the woods. You didn't park the truck in the middle of the woods. It's a shortcut. Trust me. He seemed to know exactly where he was going. Navigating his way through the dense, evergreen branches, first one way then another.

It occurred to me that he may have lost his mind. Who were you talking to before I arrived? Toto. I said it because I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure if I was talking to anyone, or why he assumed I was talking to anyone, or what business of his it was. Don't listen to anything they told you, okay? We're almost there. How are his feet enduring this beating, I wondered.

The floor of the woods was practically all roots and needles. His feet looked strangely tough. I thought they were just dirty before. I tried to look more closely, but he wouldn't stand still for a second. Your feet all right? Don't worry. They're not mine. I remembered then.

A time Weevil and I were taking a walk out of camp for leisure. He was saying something like... Well, the machine broke and it's messing all this stuff up. You see? That's why the woods ain't right. The trees ain't right. Nothing's right. He threw a pair of wooden hands into a cooler and dragged it to the road.

He said he was making a point. I found myself wondering. exactly when that even happened. Why hadn't I remembered it before? When would Weevold try to make a point at all? He lived for Hustler and Slim Jims. It didn't make sense. Then something else. You ever remember seeing someone you just met recently years ago? I had this sensation that I'd met Taylor when I was a kid, except he looked the same. He used to come into my bedroom when I was trying to sleep. He brought a lawn chair with him. He'd set it up just inside my closet, peek around the door, and watch me sleep. And he warned me, if you call for your mom, I'll just turn

into a pair of shoes. Taylor, in the present, announced, here we are. He'd taken me to some clearing where a fat, misshapen fur dominated the area's life support. Its surface was bulbous, like it was ready to explode with sap. Have we? Met before? He pointed to the tree. Trucks in there. It'll take you home.

I looked down at his feet again, now that he'd stopped moving and saw what I'd been expecting all along. I hoped his weird wooden feet couldn't run, because I took off as fast as possible in the deep woods. I don't know where I was going. The branches were beating me up along the way. I just kept hoping to find.

find somewhere secure. I stopped for a moment when I noticed one of the pieces of twine we'd used in our search had been left. That at least narrowed my possible directions down to two. I picked a direction and followed until it abruptly stopped. The edge of the woods was no more in sight than before. Out of breath and defeated, I sat down on the moss. Almost immediately I heard screaming. I jumped up, looked around my feet. It sounded like it was coming from the moss. Then I saw the twine was being pulled away. Before I could do anything about it, more screams, coming from all around. I stumbled backward and tripped over something, falling against a stump.

Picking myself up, I was face to face with that stump. A malformed human face. Somewhere in that gnarled, rotting wood material, I saw the face of the woman from the photograph, the girl named Turner. I saw its stump lips moving. bubbles of sap growing and bursting around the aperture. I thought it said, help. I didn't want to know.

I saw what I tripped over then. It was the metal valve in the ground. I tried to turn it again. To my surprise, this time, it turned with relative ease, and the hatch popped open. A ladder led down into the darkness. I had a small pocket flashlight with me. I pointed the light down, but I couldn't see the floor.

It didn't feel right. I would have taken my chances with the trees, except I heard footsteps coming my way, woody, thudding footsteps. I slipped onto the ladder and closed the hatch behind me. I felt like I was climbing down for 15 or 20 minutes. The air smelled strange, metallic at the bottom. I scanned with my light and saw that there was only one way to go.

So I followed it. The deeper I went, the louder this whirring noise became. I couldn't imagine how someone was able to build this whole thing underground, way in the middle of nowhere, under a forest, no less. It didn't make any sense. But I remembered when we found Alex's body. Doc found that note inside his skull cavity. I didn't know what it meant then. It's to you, dreams.

It says it wants you. Too, too. It's the darkest dark there ever was. Just keep going forward, Marty. That's what I felt around Taylor, the shed. Like they were made of the same haunted old wood. I kept going forward. I came to a door that also had to be opened with a metal valve. Again, it turned without a problem. I stepped inside a control room, I guess you'd call it. In the center of the room was a spinning cylinder with a light built into it, like a tiny lighthouse, but the whole thing spins. Around it, several translucent screens glowed and dimmed.

I couldn't see any computers attached to them. When I touched one, it lit up displaying some images in one corner, showed footage of a barren wasteland, petrified husks of trees. All that moved were shadows, seemingly waiting at the edges of the light. I remembered Chrysanthem telling me on a walk earlier. We built the machine for good, the end of hunger and disease. It's like it was too good for this world, so they both broke.

The spotlight is all that's left. So what do you want from me? I think you were projected as a last attempt to figure it all out, where the deterioration begins. What did you find out? Projected. All I know is the owners are about. to something out here, and it ain't impeccably cut lumber. That's it. They're trying to find its place so they can destroy it.

Who are they? We climbed on top of Weevil's cabin as we spoke. You know about Hegel? He thought the universe is God remembering who he is. They, they would be God's dementia. They're not of the universe. Are the spaces where the universe fails, where it all forgets to be? I know I've never met this Chrysanthemum character. I didn't even know what he looked like. And I didn't know Jack about Hegel. Either I was unhinged, or something about this place was messing with my mind, creating memories.

I started to doubt any of this was real and wondered which of my memories I could trust, if any. How do you know? I heard the hatch opening and hard. steps down the metal rungs. Someone called out. Greaves, dude, let's get out of here. It sounded like grits, except odd, almost metallic. And grits would never say, dude. I closed the door to the control room, tighten the valve as best I could, and went back to the

consoles. I was hoping to find something of value there, but it was meaningless. I thought about the strange radio message. as we received the compound. At one point, Mickelson said, Prasanthum says you have to activate the grab trend, and it should stabilize. He rattled off some instructions.

At least that's how I remembered it then. And something else, I was walking past that shed, and I was telling my first girlfriend, Deirdrie Spinner, good old D-Cup Deirdre. Her I remember for real, I think, about Marty.

and that we really needed to keep our distance. That's where they come from. The light doesn't reach in there. No. Hey, you know, this is the only way we can reach you, and we've used all we got. So don't fuck up. All these memories that seemed to materialize in my mind

were connected somehow. It made some strange sense. I didn't have time to figure it out just to act. So I tried following the instructions to activate the Gravtran. The light stopped spinning, after a few steps. Around the same time, I heard pounding on the door. Can I borrow your mill? I almost stopped, but I knew Weevil was dead. I kept going, fumbling over the fancy touch screen.

It was like nothing I'd seen before. You have to open this door. That voice I did not recognize, and it was not a woman's voice. It sent shivers down my spine. It was the voice of the wheel as it crushes the squirrel. It was the voice that smelled of burning hair and wet asphalt. The valve started to turn. I hastily went through the last of the instructions. The cylinder folded in on itself like a crumpled soda can. Then again, and again, until I was just gone.

I don't know if it was supposed to do that or if I just fuck things up even more. The whirring stopped and the lights were beginning to dim. I looked back and saw the door open. Then from nowhere, blinding white light, followed by suffocating darkness. That's not a metaphor. I couldn't breathe. Like something was packed over my face.

I squirmed and clawed at the thick darkness. I felt it tearing and crumbling in my hands. I felt air blow over my fingers at last and frantically dug my face free. My eyes stung. I coughed and sputtered dirt onto the moss. I was in front of the girl's stout. But it was just a stump now. The valve was gone.

I got lucky after stumbling around for a few minutes and found another one of the twines. From there, I found my way back to the camp. I went to my cabin to get my stuff and get out. Nothing was there. They'd stripped it. The compound was empty, too. Fortunately, the water pump still work, and I found some old bottles. With these meager supplies, I set out by the main road.

I reached civilization by noon the next day. I was an awful shape when the ranger found me. I babbled about what happened and asked about the others. She seemed to be ignoring me. After pressing her a few times, she told me the camp had been abandoned for years. Nobody works there. No lumber's come from that camp in decades. The owner's just some little old lady in Pembroke.

She gave me a meal and arranged a ride for me to get home. I made my case to the RCMP that we were indeed at the camp and working. I told them the more believable of the incidents. They promised to look into it. It didn't take them long to decide that the camp had not been occupied and asked me if I had a history of drug use. Not that I knew of, I told them. So I started searching for the guys from the camp myself.

It's not like they only vanished from the camp. I couldn't find any record of their lives. No Facebook or Pinterest, whatever that is, or mugshots. Maybe it was a cover-up. Maybe they'd been placed in witness protection and sworn to secrecy. Maybe I had been slipped drugs and imagined the whole thing. One day, my searching finally paid off. I found a T. Mahoney living in Calgary.

And I had a feeling about it. I took the next Greyhound. It seems like a long drive on a whim, right? It is. But there was no phone number. I kept expecting a confused Tucker Mahoney to answer the door, wondering who this beardy creep is. Instead, Thomas Mahoney answered the door.

The Thomas Titslip Mahoney himself. Mahoney, you're okay. Who are you? Come on. What'd they do to you? They wipe your brain like men in black? Grieves. I used to call you Titslip Mahoney.

because you slipped on butter and landed on your right move? I don't know you, and I don't think I want to. I pleaded with him to wait a moment and asked him if he had remembered working at the camp. He told me I must have him confused with someone else and wished me well. He looked genuinely sorry for me. I believed him.

I didn't understand it, but I believed him. I accepted then that I wouldn't find the others. They were gone. and if they weren't gone, they were still gone. It's not quite the end, though. I happened to be driving relatively near the Pembroke area one summer day and figured I'd take a side trip, chat with the alleged owner of the camp. It felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzle.

Someone else had to be up there with me. Someone brought me there, like Chrysanthemim asked, Who put you there? Nobody in town knew anything about the abandonment. and factory from Grit's story, or about the Tangay camp for that matter. I might have given up all hope. I was driving aimlessly, or I thought I was, when I drove through a neighborhood that, though I'd never been through Pembroke in my life, felt familiar.

One house in particular caught my attention. You know why? Because behind it was a decaying old shed. The same shed where a kid named Marty might have disappeared at one time. Darkness seemed to reach out from the gaps in its panels. Even the grass had died around it. I got out for a closer look. I didn't get very far when the old lady came out of her house.

Can I help you? I think I remember this shed. How old is it? Old! Built out of lumber cut from my own land up north. Won't find wood like that anywhere else. The birds screeched somewhere in the distance And the flies were getting worse

You want to see inside She was smirking I thought two things One was Marty The other was the instructions Chrysanthemum gave me I'd been thinking about them for a long time But never more than then

I kept thinking Grieves you got one of the steps wrong What would that mean What if you're not? I did it wrong. If it was real, I mean. You know what? I'm gonna pass. I walked away. I don't remember you. I didn't turn around to look at her when she said it. Kept on to my mercury and drove off. I didn't need to see the smirk again to know it was still there. I switched back and forth from obsessing to preferring not to think about it. As I'm telling you this, I'm obsessing. I've come to some

conclusions. I don't think I'm in some alternate dimension, or to you, from one. I think something in those woods, whatever that machine was, rewrote chunks of reality, at least my reality, and maybe continues to do so. Maybe I did something horribly wrong. On the other hand, all that machine or anything need do is rewrite my memories. What other reality is there? Could I distinguish? for sure between a fabricated and a real memory? What if the memories I thought were fabricated were modified to feel that way? What if I'd been given memories of memories that never occurred? What if none of what I saw happened? Or very little of it? And my thoughts have been manipulated in some experiment. Would it be possible to know? Pretty deep thoughts for a lumberjack,

huh? When you're in it this deep, deep's the only kind of thoughts you've got. I still find myself compelled to discover more. I research what I can. The history of that place, newspapers carrying Marty's disappearance, anything I can find. I haven't found anything of value yet. Maybe someday. Until then, my story, whether trip, dream, or reality is all I've got. If it means what I'm I think it means. If I'm right, reality is much more fragile than we could imagine. All we can do is watch our memories closely and try to find the truth and the lies and follow those that thin twine to freedom. If run out of tape, it's time to press eject and end the show. We thank you for letting us perform for you. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full length.

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