The forest at night always scared me. Growing up in the middle of the woods in Canada, the darkness and the deep forests that it surrounds have been cemented as some of the scariest things I've ever experienced.
I guess to start, I should explain some things first.
There's an urban legend about the forests around my area, more of a cautionary tale, though.
They say people who go into the woods at night are swallowed whole, and never seen again, like they never existed. Taken by something, by the forest itself or by something unnatural. I always took it as a metaphor, just something to tell kids so they don't go running off and getting lost. I never did have any interest in going into the woods at night, though, until recently.
It was around late June, right after my brother's birthday, and around the time it started really warming up for the summer. I stayed up late a lot, like any teenager, drawing and playing video games. My little brother, Joseph, would try and fail to beat me at my favourite fighting games all night. We'd stay up laughing, eating snacks and drinking way too many energy drinks. Then we'd crash and go to sleep before the sun came up, only to wake up and do it again the next day.
Now and then, when I would go upstairs to the kitchen. Searching for potato chips or Dr Pepper, I would find the front door wide open to the warm, summer air, and the infinite inky black of the night. This wasn't unusual, though; it just meant someone let Daisy out to pee and forgot to close the door, and sometimes the door doesn't even close right and could be pushed open by the wind. I would always just go and close the door, sometimes though, I would wait a moment to stare out into the darkness. On some nights, when the moon was extra bright, I could see the forest across the driveway and up the hill. The ever-expansive mess of pines and birches seemed more like a sea of dark, jagged waves under the short-lived moonlight before it was stolen away by the murky clouds.
On this night in particular, Joseph had already given up and gone to bed, and I was looking for a snack before following his example. As I stood looking out into the dark, I felt a strange pull from the forest, the moon lit up the sky, and I felt myself draw nearer to the woods. Then suddenly, like being broken out of a trance, I find myself across the driveway, about to ascend the small hill towards the forest path behind my house. Daisy circled my legs, mouth open, with her tongue hanging out, asking to play.
What I did next is something I regret to this day. I never should have put on my beat-up Converse, I never should have even touched the old head lamp I used for early morning fishing trips with dad, I never should have reopened the front door, and I definitely never should have taken a single step into that forest.
I was followed closely by Daisy, our black lab, a decently sized dog, old enough though to grow white hairs around her chin, like a wise old man. I felt safer with her by my side. I knew if she was beside me, she could sense anything in the dark before I could see it in the light of my headlamp.
We followed the trail for maybe ten minutes before I started to notice parts of the forest I'd never seen before. Massive, moss-covered rocks were scattered along the sides of the path as it wound around trees that curved around each other like snakes, or branches tangled like a rat's tail around others. I could hear an owl not far from us, not unusual, but still scary.
I began to wonder if I should turn back. It had been about an hour; if my mom woke up and found I wasn't home, she would probably be out in the minivan on the street looking for me. As that thought circled in my mind while I trampled fallen twigs and stepped over strangely woven roots, Daisy barked off into the distance. I didn't see anything down the trail with my light, but before I could think, Daisy bolted off into the darkness. Like a shadow, she blends right in. I quickly ran up the path to catch up. I think I knew by now that it was time to go back, but I needed to get Daisy first. The owl continued as I marched through the dark.
After rushing through the tight path, no longer recognisable, guarded on either side by an ocean of wood, I heard a low whimper. Only moments later, Daisy entered the reach of my light. She stood with her head low, backing away slowly from the darkness. Now I was scared.
I whispered Daisy's name to let her know I'm with her. Before her and I both started a sprint back down the path, stumbling over wild roots and ducking under even wilder branches. I thought whatever Daisy saw must have been a black bear, or maybe even a moose, though thinking back on it, I probably would have heard something if it were an animal like that.
I went to sleep back at my house, still curious about what Daisy saw. After waking up, my curiosity took over. My parents were still at work, and my brother was asleep, so alone, I took Daisy back up in the woods.
I followed the trail until the trees became too dense to walk through. Only a few minutes in, I could have sworn I went further than this just last night.
I decided to turn back and return that night. I don't know why, but the draw of the dark forest only grew as I continued to think about it. Like a magnet, I felt pulled to it, and my mind rarely wavered from the thought of it.
Once again, just after nightfall, I equipped myself with my headlamp and a pocket knife, just in case. I set Daisy on a leash so she wouldn't run off again and set out up the hill. This time, I could hear the owl even before crossing the threshold into the woods.
Daisy and I marched for what felt like hours. I had started my trek around 10, and I checked my phone for the time regularly. After walking for some time, Daisy stopped on the side of the path to pee. Looking around, I found myself surrounded by trees, each identical to every other, each with not a single branch as far or as high as I could see. The thought of turning back crossed my mind before checking my phone; the lockscreen read "2:47 AM."
Daisy's growl pulled me from my phone. I looked down at her by my side, low and baring her teeth, barking and growling to something I could not see. I look ahead onto the trail before me, right at the end, before it turned left, was a rock pile, covered entirely by moss, no more than maybe three feet tall. I leaned closer so my light could reach farther. What it caught was what, for a moment, seemed to be another, smaller rock atop the pile, it would have if it had not turned and stared back at me, with two large, pale eyes, shining back at me, reflecting the light from my headlamp. It seemed like the head of a man, pale-skinned, hairless, with moss grown over its scalp. It rose slowly, revealing below it a pair of pale, moss-covered shoulders.
Daisy turned to run almost immediately, as I had. Keeping up with a dog in a full sprint is hard; keeping up with a dog in a full sprint while trying to dial a phone number is nearly impossible. I typed out the first four digits of my brother's number, as I knew he'd be the only one awake, before the leash wrapped around my wrist came loose, and I fell right onto my face. The last thing I saw was a gnarly, overgrown, tangled root stuck out from the soil.
I woke up to hear birds, to feel the warm air and to see the sun coming over the trees in the distance. I felt both a brutal headache and the wet, slobbery tongue of a dog. I opened my eyes again to find Daisy standing over me, like she had been waiting for me. I stood up to find myself standing only a few meters from the entrance of the forest, where I'd heard the owl before. My headache halted any deep thought about what had happened. I walked back down the hill and straight to the shower. My parents were still asleep, and I didn't want to tell them about what I've been doing; they have enough to worry about already. I went to sleep almost immediately after showering.
I woke from a nightmare about the forest shortly before nightfall, the sun still shot through my window and into my eyes before it ducked below the horizon. I lay in bed for a while before the silence in my room was broken by a knock on my door.
"Just a minute!" I got dressed as fast as I could, putting on the same clothes I wore yesterday. I opened the door to see my brother, who was 13, with short brown hair on his head, brown eyes like mine. He looked up at me, though he barely had to anymore.
"Tryna play some Street Fighter?" He asked.
"How about we get some food first?" We rushed upstairs, trying to stay quiet. The sun was now gone, and its light soon would be too. We gathered some small snacks and drinks before heading back to my room and right to the PlayStation.
We played for a good while, maybe a couple of hours, before I began to feel the draw from the forest; it pulled at me, I wanted to go back, I had to go further, just a little further.
"Have you ever gone up in the woods after dark?" I asked Joseph.
"Uh… No, have you?" He responded quickly.
"Yeah, I've been going up there the last few nights… It's weird up there." I told him as he shoved a Dorito in his mouth.
"Did you see something… Sc-scary?" He mocked me with a mouthful of food.
"I think I saw someone up there last night," I said, matter-of-factly.
"In the dark?" He questioned, "Up behind the house?"
"Yeah, now saying it, I probably was just seeing things," I admitted before losing to my little brother for the first time in weeks.
"Maybe we should go up tonight." Said Joseph after a short celebration.
"Do you really want to?"
After a short few more rounds, we were upstairs in the kitchen. I equipped myself with my usual gear, headlamp and pocket knife. I dug out an old flashlight from the junk drawer by the sink for Joseph, then leashed Daisy before exiting the house around midnight.
We ascended the hill and quickly found ourselves in the forest, surrounded by nothing but the same trees for hundreds of miles in any direction. We soon made our way past the mossy rocks along the winding path, past the trees like snakes, and past the branches like rats. The owls seemed louder this night, but the rest of the forest was dead silent.
We walked for hours, we talked about video games, and we talked about what I saw, Joseph joked. We came up to the mound of mossy stones where I'd seen the eyes peeking over at me, though this time, Daisy seemed calm.
"That's where I saw it, right there." I pointed through the light toward the pile of rocks.
"Right here?" Joseph asked, stepping up closer to the rocks. He climbed over them and knelt behind them. He turned off his light and mimicked what I had told him about the man I saw, looking over to me as my light reached him. Though his laughter quickly turned to a surprised gasp and a yelp as he fell out of view. I heard a thud as I rushed toward him. I climbed the small mound as his flashlight went back on. I could see he'd fallen into a massive ditch. Too high and steep to climb back up, though the other side was not nearly as steep.
"Oh shit, are you okay?" I asked, worried.
"Yeah, not hurt." He shone his flashlight back and forth. We both knew that I couldn't pull him up, and if I went down to help, the ditch was too deep to boost him up.
Daisy didn't hesitate, leaping down beside Joseph, taking my leash with her. I followed the trail for an hour both ways, Joseph and Daisy below. In both directions, the ditch only got deeper, and the trees became too dense to go any further. I decided to go back and get help. I tossed Joseph my pocket knife just in case, and we even traded lights. I took the beat-up flashlight while he had my headlamp. I didn't want his light to go out, not out here.
It tore me apart inside to leave my little brother alone here, hours deep into the forest, alone, at night. At least he has Daisy, I told myself as I sprinted faster than I ever had in my life back to the house. It still took an hour and a half, and by the time I returned, the sun had begun to rise.
I woke up my mother and told her what happened, a smack on the head and hours of scouring the forest in tears later, a search party was finally sent. I was asked to guide two officers to the spot where I had left him. I got lost over and over, the trail ended too early, the forest became too dense and… I couldn't remember the way.
I cried into my hands while the officers escorted me back to my home. I knew I had to go back out that night. I stayed up in my room, hoping, praying even. I grabbed a hose from the garden and wrapped it around my shoulder. I needed something to pull him out. I trusted he would have stayed where I left him.
Just as the moon became visible in the sky and darkness overtook the forest, I set out. I sprinted up the hill, determined to find him. As I approached the entrance to the forest, I heard a familiar sound, the panting of a dog. Daisy rushed out of the woods and ran in circles around me. I pet her and noticed that she was still wearing the leash on her collar, but also that the leash had been severed, too clean to have been ripped, but Joseph never would have cut the leash.
Daisy and I rushed through the familiar forest path, past the mossy stones, past the strange trees and twigs lining the forest floor, and all the way to the mound of mossy rocks. I climbed atop them, right to where I left Joseph only the previous night, but now where the ditch had been before was just more forest, a normal forest, actually, trees with branches, trees that grew straight.
I wept for hours while Daisy and I searched, and we stayed out until at least noon. I finally left the forest after walking back down the trail for only a few minutes.
I have been searching now for a week, Joseph, the pocket knife, the headlamp, even the ditch haven't turned up anywhere, and I fear they never will, but I will not stop looking. I left him there. I have to find him.
This is all to say, please, do not go into the woods at night, it might swallow you whole.