Along the Treeline: There's Something Out in Timberdark #1

Our car’s engine made a sputtering noise. It was only for a second and I felt my heart nearly jolt out of my chest. The car was fine after the moment of panic. We were still moving steadily down the road. I knew that there would be a turnoff soon and that a dirt road would bless our tires and send the car shaking down a bumpy path. It was early morning. The sun hadn’t even peaked over the distant mountain range yet. Todd was half asleep in the passenger seat and I bit slightly down on my cigarette, savoring the smoky taste. The sputtering noise did not make me feel at ease. I’d spent too much money on this old piece of junk but at least it could still get me where I needed to go. The driver’s side door would creak when you’d open it. It seemed to not close all the way. The back windows would not roll down properly. If you rolled them down they weren’t going back up. There was rust—a lot of it. And to top it all off, the windshield had a good crack in it. I wasn’t sure where that came from. What I didn’t need was for the car to take a shit on us as we were out here, driving in the early morning with no one around, on the edge of Timberdark Forest. Nobody comes out this way. People tend to avoid Timberdark at all costs. I’ve heard stories—pretty bad stories—of people going into the forest and they would never come out. There were plenty of rumors and the local authorities made it clear that the woods were off-limits, nearly illegal to journey into. Todd and I had to be here though, even though this was the last place we wanted to be. That morning, I didn’t want to be driving my junker car down this stretch of road. I didn’t want to haul a drowsy Todd along for the ride. I knew that he had been drinking the night before. I could smell the beer on him. As if he had way too much and spilled some all over his clothes. He looked like he’d slept in his clothes without bothering to change out of the beer-soaked hoodie he was wearing. He didn’t brush his hair but even I couldn’t talk. I didn’t brush mine either. Instead I decided to shave all of my hair off, leaving my beard to be the only hair on my head. I found a large patch of hair missing from the back of my head so I decided to start fresh. When I picked up Todd from his apartment, he saw my newly shaved head and smirked—only for a moment before getting into the car and dozing off. I almost didn’t recognize myself.

I hit a bump in the road, causing Todd to lurch awake. He grumbled and looked around as if he had forgotten I had picked him up that morning.

“We’re still driving?” Todd coughed.

I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

Todd looked past me through the driver’s side window and looked at the trees in the distance. There was a buffer of tall grass several yards long between the woods and the road.

“Is that it over there?” he asked.

“That’s Timberdark,” I said.

He scoffed. “It doesn’t look like much. Looks like any other ordinary woods.”

My grip tightened around the steering wheel. “We’re almost there. I’m just keeping an eye out for the dirt road.”

“We’re driving in there?” Todd asked. I could sense a little worry in his voice. He opened the glove compartment and fished out a pack of cigarettes. He took one out of the pack and fumbled with the car lighter, which seemed to be the only part of the car that always worked without a hitch.

“We have to drive in,” I replied, “That’s the only way.”

Todd got his cigarette lit and threw the pack back into the glove compartment. He took a drag and blew the smoke out of his nose while touching the stubble on his face.

“I should’ve shaved like you did,” he laughed.

I didn’t reply to him. We stayed quiet in the car while he smoked his cigarette and I finished mine.

I looked out to the treeline, wondering where the dirt road was supposed to start. It felt like we were driving around in a big circle around Timberdark. The morning sun was starting to peek over the mountain range on the right-hand side of us. The thick foliage of the woods was on our left. I took a deep breath in, taking in all the cigarette smoke into my lungs. While coughing, I rolled the window down to get some fresh air. The air felt clean. Much cleaner than the air in the city. Fresher than any air I was used to. But there was also a slight smell. Something almost familiar but I couldn’t place my finger on it. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from my piece of shit car or if it was being blown in from the trees. It was on the tip of my tongue but I couldn’t think clearly. I didn’t know what it was and I dropped it shortly after.

Todd yawned. “Do you think it’s gonna rain, Zig?” He reclined in his seat.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “The weather didn’t call for rain.”

Todd chuckled. “That would make it harder to dig, that’s for fucking sure.”

I glanced into the rearview mirror and stared at the two shovels in the back seat. My grip around the steering wheel tightened more.

“She really did a number on you, didn’t she?” Todd laughed.

“The bitch pulled out my fucking hair,” I grumbled.

Todd slapped his knee while laughing and coughing. He rolled down his window and flicked his cigarette butt from the car. “You sure this is the best way?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered. “No one comes out here. They don’t even send search teams out here anymore.”

“So we’ll be all good then!” Todd said cheerily.

We had been driving for a while and I started to realize just how big Timberdark actually was. It wasn’t a small forest. For some reason, in my head, I had always pictured it small. Not tiny, but small enough to where it was contained by a wired fence perhaps. There was no fence. Just the eerie treeline. It dawned on me that the forest was probably closer to the size of a national forest. Huge. Unsearchable. It was perfect.

I was beginning to get impatient and I knew that if I was feeling that way, Todd was definitely ready to throw himself from his seat. We hadn’t passed any sort of dirt road. It was all just trees. The sun had finally come up over the mountains. We had to go now or we’d run out of time. I didn’t want to risk another car driving by. I began to slow down and the car made that sputtering noise again. The old car was fine. I pulled over on the side of the road and stared out at the woods.

“We’re going to have to get out here,” I said as I looked over to Todd. I could tell he wasn’t happy.

“I thought we were gonna drive in,” he said. “You want us to drag her there?”

“There’s no fucking dirt road to drive in,” I said, “and we gotta get this shit done before someone comes along.”

“I thought no one comes out here,” Todd replied.

I glared at him. “There’s always a chance someone could drive by, Todd.”

He shrugged his shoulders. I sighed as I twisted the key in the ignition, bringing the car to a halt.

“Come fucking help me,” I said as I threw my door open. The creak of the metal made us both cringe.

“Okay, okay. Fuck,” Todd muttered. He rolled out of the car and I followed. I held my keys tightly in my fist.

The both of us made our way to the rear of the car. I stared at the trunk while holding my breath. Todd rubbed his hands together. I cracked my neck from side to side and rolled my shoulders back. Then I took my key to unlock the trunk. I didn’t want to look at what was inside of the trunk but I knew it couldn’t be kept there. I unlocked the trunk and slowly lifted it open. A terrible smell hit both of us in the face and Todd gagged. I stepped back for a moment and bent down. I placed my hands firmly on my upper thighs and tried to breathe in the fresh air. I promised myself I wouldn’t throw up. I stared at the paved road while trying to steady my breathing, hoping that my stomach would settle. Todd continued to groan and gag.

“Zig, what the fuck, man!” he coughed. “She’s already rotting.”

“No shit!” I shot back at him. “It’s been a few fucking days! Of course she’s rotting!” I began to sweat and felt my skin sticking to my clothes. I felt a little dizzy.

Todd calmed down a bit but was still groaning with disgust. I stepped back over to the trunk and swallowed hard while I looked inside. There she was, wrapped up tightly in a thick blanket, one that she had made herself with upcycled squares of fabric. I had spun duct tape around it to keep everything tucked away—except for the smell, that couldn’t be hidden.

“She really must’ve pissed you off,” Todd said while shaking his head.

“Eh,” I replied, “she didn’t really put up a fight this time.”

We both stood there in silence in front of the open trunk. I never thought I’d be out here attempting to dispose of my wife’s corpse with the help of my best friend from high school, but here we were.

“Could you grab the shovels?” I asked.

Todd went around to the right back passenger’s side to retrieve the shovels. I could hear him rummaging as I continued to stare at the duct tape wrapped blanket. After a few seconds, he stopped rummaging.

“Uh, Zig?” he shouted as he stood with his upper body halfway in the car.

“What?” I replied while stepping to the side of the car to have him in my view. I could see him staring through the car window and pointing toward the treeline.

“What the fuck is that?” he said in a loud whisper.

I walked back around the car and looked out at the treeline where Todd was pointing. I felt him scramble behind me while panting.

At first I didn’t see anything but then my eyes focused on something large posted at the edge of the trees and their shadows were around whatever was there. I squinted my eyes.

Before I could fully process what I was looking at, the massive form slinked back into the forest, vanishing from our sight. Todd ran around from behind the car, slamming the back passenger door in the process, and ran to the edge of the road. He leaned forward instead of taking another step into the grass and hunched his shoulders while he was scanning for whatever was there. I tried squinting again, hoping to see a hint of something between the branches and tree trunks. I saw nothing. Todd grunted and whipped around to look at me.

“What the hell was that?” he asked as he swung his arm back to point. “Did you see it?”

I shook my head.

“How could you’ve not seen it?” he yelled. He rushed closer to me. I could smell his cigarette breath after an exasperated exhale.

“I-I saw something,” I said, “but I didn’t get a good look at it.” I had realized that I had put my hands up in front of me, warning Todd to calm down.

“We gotta get the fuck out of here,” Todd said as he walked around me. He used both of his hands to slam the trunk of the car shut.

“Woah, we can’t leave yet!” I jumped forward and planted my hand firmly on his shoulder, hoping that he wouldn’t back out of this now. I had enough trouble convincing him to help me. I couldn’t have him call everything off when we had already driven out to Timberdark.

Todd scoffed. “What do you mean? We don’t have to do this here.” He motioned to the trunk containing my wife’s blanketed remains.

I swallowed hard and rushed my fingers over my scalp. “What did you think was out there?” I asked as calmly as I could.

Todd stammered and rambled before he could get a sentence out. “I-I don’t fucking know. It was huge. Had fur I think. Tall—really tall! Just—huge!”

“Bear?” I asked.

“No! No, it couldn’t have been a bear,” Todd’s voice trailed off a bit. “I mean—bear? I mean—don’t they stand up sometimes?”

I nodded. “Yeah, maybe it was just a bear. Maybe it was scratching its back on one of the trees and we spooked it.”

Todd nodded along with me, realizing the idea of it being a bear made perfect sense. “Okay. Yeah. Maybe it was just a bear. I don’t have my glasses either—so, yeah.”

I gestured to the trunk. “You think we can get this out of the way now?”

Todd looked past me at the treeline while fidgeting restlessly. “Here still? What if it’s still out there? I ain’t running, man. Fuck that.”

I dropped my arms down and rolled my shoulders back. My jaw clenched for a moment. “Well what do you want us to do? Huh?”

He pointed at the car. “Let’s just drive around a little more. Maybe we’ll find a better spot.”

I sighed. “Okay, fine.”

The both of us climbed back into the car, shutting each door slightly out of sync with each other. I turned the key in the ignition, causing the familiar sputtering sound before we took off down the road. My hands were firmly on the steering wheel and my shoulders were so stiff I felt like a statue—a strange statue at the wheel, cruising down a stretch of road that circled a place no sane person would go near, and with a dead body in the trunk of the car.

Todd reached for the glove compartment. I assumed he was going to grab another cigarette but before he could open the compartment door, he pulled back his hand.

“I think I wanna quit,” Todd said. “Been trying for years.”

“It’s rough,” I replied. He nodded and sighed while rubbing the back of his neck.

I adjusted my fingers on the steering wheel and pressed down slightly on the gas pedal. The road felt endless. The forest felt endless. There still wasn’t a dirt road we could turn down. I was beginning to grow impatient. I thought that we’d be done by now but we hadn’t even found a good enough spot to pull over. I thought that by now we would have filled in whatever hole we dug in Timberdark. I couldn’t help but sigh. Her smile entered my mind. Her face always looked soft. Her nails were always painted a pale pink. I loved the way she would put up her hair. Her hair would always be up in a meticulously styled messy bun. I pictured the rings on her finger—the ones I had given her—a white gold ring with a garnet stone along with a plain white gold one. They matched. She would say that they matched her eyes. I would laugh because her eyes were blue. I pictured her face again. I pictured the color draining from her. I could see her smile disappear and be replaced with a scowl. I could see the wrinkles on her forehead and her furrowed brows. I could see the tears puddle in the corners of her eyes as she tried to pry my grip from her neck. I remembered the pressure in my palms.

I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye but at first I didn’t turn my head. My eyes were glued to the road in front of us but then I noticed it again in my peripheral vision. This dark figure in the corner of my eye wasn’t going away. I turned my head and was stunned. Out along the treeline was something large—huge—running on two heavy-looking legs. It was no normal animal—not any kind of bear. There was a man. It had the body of a man but the head of a furious-looking bison. It had dark fur and sharp-looking horns and it was running along the treeline, matching our speed. We were going about forty miles per hour. I couldn’t speak. My instincts kicked in and I sped up—fifty, fifty-five, sixty. My steady breath wavered and Todd jolted when he turned his head in my direction. He gasped.

“Zig, that’s it! What the fuck is that?! Zig?” he shouted. I couldn’t respond. I pushed my foot down on the gas pedal and the car jolted forward—sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight. I wanted to keep my eyes on the road but I couldn’t help but turn my head to look at the thing that was chasing us. It was keeping up with us! This massive creature was sprinting through the grass. It was coming right for the car. Todd continued screaming.

“Zig! Fucking drive!” he wailed. Todd turned his body sideways in his seat to keep an eye on the man with the bison head. He had one arm around the back of the seat and had the other arm on the car’s dashboard. “He’s gonna fucking kill us!”

I tried to floor it but the old shitty car wouldn’t go any faster—seventy, seventy-five, done, no more. I grunted and smacked my hands on the steering wheel. “Come on! Come on! You piece of shit!” The car wouldn’t increase in speed. I looked out the window for the man with the bison head and he was running at full speed right next to us. He had made his way from the treeline, through the grass, and onto the road. The sound of the car struggling and the sound of Todd screaming filled my ears. I wanted to wake up! I was hoping that all of this was a horrible fucking nightmare and that I would just wake up! But I was already awake. I knew this. The bison man was right behind us; he was still running, not looking tired at all. We heard a horrific bellow come from the creature’s mouth and then we felt the car wrench back and Todd and I were plunged forward. Within seconds, I heard the heavy shattering of glass at the same time my face slammed into the steering wheel. Then there was nothing.

…

I could barely open my blackened eyes and I could feel the deep bruising on my battered face. I couldn’t move my neck at first. Was it broken? The steady sound of something being dragged filled the air around me. It  sounded like something metal being pulled through sticks. That’s when I realized that I was still in the car and strapped in by the seat belt. My body ached. I felt blood gushing from my nose and I could feel it spewing down my throat. My face was still resting on the steering wheel. I placed my hands on the wheel and pushed myself up, bending my cracking neck toward the passenger’s seat. I was in the car and I could tell it was moving through the forest—through Timberdark. Branches brushed up against the windows and scratched the sides of the vehicle. “Todd—” I managed to mutter, but I instantly shut up when I saw the state Todd was in. He had crashed head first through the windshield. His body was limp. His blood was all over the glass and on the dashboard. His face was unrecognizable and his skull was smashed in. I felt the air leave my lungs and I was afraid to breathe in again. I looked around frantically and realized that the car was being dragged from the back bumper. I undid my seatbelt and in agony I turned to look out the back window. I saw the muscular and hairless back of the man with the bison head. He was pulling the car with one arm while clearing his path with the other. I froze. Did he know that I was alive? I hoped that he thought I was dead like Todd. For a few more moments, all I could hear was the sound of branches and sticks and rocks scraping against the car along with the sound of the bison man exhaling and grunting loudly. Then the car met the ground with a dreadful thud. The bison man bellowed and my heart fell to my stomach. There was no way out of this. He walked to the driver’s side of the car and bent down, grabbing the underside of the vehicle. In one swift motion, he hoisted the car into the air above his horned head and began shaking it in the air. My body roughly pressed against the driver’s side door and I began to hear that damned creaking. The door fell open, sending me to the ground with a harsh thud.

My face was in the dirt while the bison man stood over me. I turned my head up and at the tip of my nose rested small pink flowers that were part of a larger shrub. I counted the five petals on each flower as I could hear the creature grunting and tossing the car—and the set of two human remains—away from us. The car crashed into a few trees and rolled until it landed back on its deflated wheels. Todd’s body had flung from the windshield and back into the passenger’s seat. The trunk burst open. “Gina!” I cried. I didn’t know why I called out to her, allowing her name to escape through my broken teeth. She wouldn’t have been able to save me; not like she would even try to save me, anyway. I suddenly felt large hands grab me by the shoulders. I couldn’t lift my head, my chin was pointed toward the sky. All I could see were trees. The bison man hoisted me up in the air, much like the way he did with the car. My head fell forward and through my swelling eyes I saw his face up close. He had a large nose that exhaled hot air into my face. His eyes were dark and small. His fur was dark brown and his horns were decorated with blood stains. His muscular torso was unclothed while below the waist he was draped with scraps of leather that seemed crudely stitched together. He wore a necklace with a glass vial. It was amber in color and was tied around his neck with a thin strip of leather. My eyes locked onto the vial as he continued to breathe on me. His grip around my upper arms tightened and tightened. His nails dug through my clothes and into my skin. I grunted. His grip grew tighter. The pressure climbed and the bones in my arms began to break. They cracked loudly and all I could do was scream. I closed my eyes and screamed as my bones were being crushed. While he still had me hoisted in the air, he shuffled his hands down to my forearms and spread my limbs away from my body. My torso and legs dangled and then his grip crushed the rest of the bones in my arms while I continued to scream. The bison man grunted and dropped me to the ground. The air was knocked from my lungs when a large rock sticking out of the earth hit me in the back. He moved his foot, placing it above one of my knees, and then stepped down slow and hard. There was only pain and nothing else. There was only aching, throbbing, sharp, hellish pain all over. I saw red. My vision blurred. My screams echoed through the trees. The bison man stood above me and the last thing I heard was a deep, enraged bellow coming from the creature that dragged me into Timberdark.