What's in the Wood

Halloween is just around the corner. When I write horror stories, they tend to veer into psychological horror territory, but this one is a monster story. Hope you enjoy it!

~~~

My eyes flutter open, staring in confusion at the black night outside the window of the chopper. My last memory was spinning through a bright cerulean sky, trying desperately to arrest the fall. I’ve been out for hours.

I glance over to where my navigator Eric should be but he’s not there. Shifting awkwardly, I remove my safety harness. Then I see the note on his seat.

…If you wake up, Andy and Carol are… gone. STAY WHERE YOU ARE. I’m going for help.

I find my headset. As I try to put it on I feel the bandage and the blood drying on the side of my face. Despite the persistent ringing in my ears, I try to hail Eric. There is nothing. No static. No fuzz. Just silence. I pound on the wall separating the cockpit from the medical bay. What does he mean, they’re gone?  The quiet is suffocating. I test the cockpit door but it's jammed.

Stay where you are.

I put my face to the glass, hands cupped around my eyes to block even a shred of moonglow, and gaze into the darkness.

***

Time passes slowly.

I can’t help thinking this is my fault. I’m the pilot. But things happened in a blur. One minute, we were searching for a missing camper, off on his own personal Walden, and in the next, a high-pitched tone was screaming through our headsets and every electrical component in the bird went dead. With no power to the tail rotor, the chopper began to spin. I don’t recall the impact.

I try to understand what happened. It was like an Electro-Magnetic Pulse. That’s advanced technology. Who would deploy tech like that against an inland rescue team? It makes no sense, but I can think of no other explanation. Maybe it was a solar flare. Maybe.

***

A rhythmic thump begins along the belly of the aircraft. It is a shocking intrusion into the artificial quiet of this tomb-like cabin. It pauses and resumes.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The frame vibrates beneath the seat as the thumping accelerates. Scrambling across the instruments to the other side of the cockpit, I test that door, but it too is jammed. As I turn back to the pilot side, I see a glowing substance spreading across the window. Its luminescence casts a dim light in the cabin.

Thump!  I feel the impact of something against the door I am leaning on. I turn to the glass and in that faint glow, I see a gaping mouth with a flat tongue containing thousands of diamond-sharp teeth. I scramble backward into the pilot seat as the slug-like creature slides up the window towards the top of the aircraft, a glowing trail of slime in its wake.

Frantically, I look around for a weapon. Anything remotely useful is in the medical bay, behind the back wall of the cockpit.  But the creatures seem to have no interest in coming into the cabin. 

The thumping is more irregular now. It’s impossible to know how many of them there are.

Breathe.

It seems like hours but is probably no more than 20 minutes before quiet descends.

***

The moon emerges through the trees, tracking westward across the sky. The white substance on the windows glows brightly under its light.

Stay where you are.

Like hell.

I push against the plexiglass window, then stand on the center console, hands against the windshield, and kick the side window repeatedly until there is an opening large enough to climb through.

The sulfurous air attacks my eyes and nose, causing me to tear up. I tear a piece of my shirt off and wrap it around my face. Grabbing the frame to hoist myself out, I cry out in shock. The slime covering the chopper burns like acid.

I turn my jacket backward, pushing my arms through the sleeves. Using them as a barrier to my hands, I climb down from the cockpit.

There are glowing pools of slime encircling the chopper and leading deeper into the woods. I follow the moon west instead, hoping to get to the river.

I’ve gone a hundred yards when I see it. A head with no eyes. A body with no flesh. His copper-colored hair gives him away. Eric. I push down my screams as I pass evidence of other victims. The glimmer of a watch, a backpack, a fishing pole. A doll. Scattered bones and shimmering pink-white pools of acid.

I run from the macabre treasure horde until I can’t breathe. Then I walk. We’d noticed ruts in the dirt as we searched but attributed it to animals dragging their prey. We didn’t realize we were the prey.

***

The first rays of dawn wash over me as I make it to the water’s edge. I grab a handful of leaves and toss them onto the surface. When they don’t dissolve, I breathe a sigh of relief and plunge my face into the cold water of the rushing river.

I never hear them coming.

As I turn to continue my journey, I freeze. They are like a writhing mass of maggots, but nearly the size of men. I stumble backward, into the river.

They move to the water’s edge but no further, their razor-covered tongues slipping in and out.

“Ha!  Bastards!” I yell, realizing they will not enter the river. I wade in deeper, walking downstream. They move in tandem along the bank, their bodies undulating and glistening in the early sunlight.

Humans are, at our core, binary. A thing is true, or a thing is not true. But two things can be true at the same time. It starts as a low whine, and then that piercing tone that I heard the day before. My body vibrates as if electricity is running through my blood.

The water is safe. The water is not safe.

With one last glance at their milky bodies, I open my mouth and let the current take me.