How this started

I stared, frozen in shock for a moment, as Stan darted off into the woods. He didn't wait for me to respond after yelling to run before he took off into the thick trees. I wondered if he had gotten a better look at whatever that thing in front of was - if that was what had caused him to dash off so quickly. I didn’t have much time to think about it as my senses came back to me and I raced after him. Any concern over what we should be doing had flown from my mind along with any fears of falling - all I was focused on was catching up with Stan and figuring out what the hell had just happened.

My tender ankle, combined with a shorter stride, meant that I couldn’t run nearly as fast as Stan, though. Within a few moments, I found myself alone in the dark trees. I forced myself to continue onward, realizing I was screaming Stan’s name at some point.

It hit me all at once how incredibly stupid this was. We’d just run from the trail, the one source of some protection and safety we had. We didn’t have a map, we didn’t have actual flashlights, we didn’t even have jackets. And now, of course, there wasn’t even a “we”, I realized, slowing to a stop and gasping for breath.

“Stan!” I shouted between gasps, my hands on my knees. The silence of the forest answered me.

Had it always been this quiet? I wondered. I could have sworn the woods were alive with crickets and other nocturnal creatures earlier. Now, the darkness surrounding me felt almost alive, like it was some sentient force muffling any sound that tried to reach my ears. Taking another breath, I straightened up, shining my flashlight around for any sign of Stan. There wasn’t any. He probably hadn’t even realized I’d fallen behind.

I was at a loss for what to do next. I realized I was no longer sure which direction we’d come from - the trees looked the same no matter where I looked.

“Fuck,” I whispered. I looked around again, hoping for something that would help. I wasn’t even sure what. And then I heard the scream. It sliced through the silence like a knife. I knew who it belonged to immediately. Stan.

“Stan!” I shrieked, taking off in the direction it seemed like the scream had come from. A second scream sounded. It was filled with terror. I didn’t think I’d ever heard Stan sound afraid like that.

“Stan! Where are you?” I shouted.

“Stay back-” His cry was cut off, instead turning into a strangled, choking sound. I had to be close. I swung my light around, trying to catch any sign of movement or color in the darkness. A flash of beige caught my attention. It didn’t seem to match the surrounding trees - it had a scaly, almost shiny appearance. And then it was gone. I ran in the direction of it anyways, only to find a space between two trees where it had been. Everything after that was a blur. They say trauma does that - makes you forget details. Sometimes, whole events.

I wasn’t sure how long I stumbled around out there, still shouting for Stan. From time to time, I would hear something rustling in the bushes. Every time my blood would run cold. I’d change direction, trying to silently move away from the noise and hoping against all hope that whatever was out there didn’t find me.

It started to rain at some point. It plastered my hair to my face and soaked the thin long-sleeved t-shirt I was wearing. After what felt like both hours and mere minutes, I saw a light appear in the trees in front of me. Then the voices reached my ears. Faint, at first, and then loud enough to make out the words.

“Well, I hope you’re feeling better.”

“I’m fine, I think I just ate something that didn’t agree with me.”

A few moments later, I stumbled out of the trees, practically into the gravel parking lot. There were two people standing in the parking lot, in the headlights of a truck with a park service logo. I shielded my eyes. I heard surprised, then relieved murmurs as they noticed me. After that, I remember someone catching me as I collapsed, repeating that there was something out there. I’m fairly sure I wasn’t making much sense at that point. One of the rangers - the blond one we’d met before, ironically enough - hurriedly gave me a blanket, ushering me into the warmth of the truck while the other radioed the situation in. Apparently, they’d gotten a report of an abandoned car in the parking lot, and had come out to investigate, I’d learn later. I’d gotten lucky and stumbled out of the treeline just before they left.

Sitting in the warm truck, feeling began to return to both my body and mind.

“Stan is still out there,” I said, my voice weak from a mixture of exhaustion and fear. “You have to go find him.”

“This Stan was hiking with you?” the other ranger asked. I nodded.

“We got separated. I heard him screaming. I think-there’s something out there. It got him,” I collapsed into sobs at that point.

“Alright, it’s going to be alright. You’re safe now,” the darker-haired ranger said. “I’m Ranger Tom Thornton, this is Ranger Alex Lindorm. What was your name?”

“Michelle,” I said, trying to take a steadying breath. “Michelle Harrington.”

“And you were hiking with someone named Stan?” Tom asked.

‘My boyfriend,” I said. “Uh, Stanley Daniels. We headed out late, and it got dark so fast and-I should have told him we needed to go back and then there was something out there.”

Alex gave me a sympathetic smile, nodding as if to encourage me to keep going.

“We heard it, first. And then it-this thing landed in front of the trail. I don’t-it was too dark to see what it was, and Stan started running, and I tried to follow him, but he was just gone. Until I heard him screaming. Oh god-the screams. They were awful. You guys have to go find him. You have to find whatever that thing was. It was following me. Oh my god.” I collapsed into sobs.

The rangers exchanged glances, and I realized how insane I must sound, rambling about a vague something in the forest that had stalked me and attacked my boyfriend. To their credit, neither of them outwardly expressed their doubt of my story. When I finished speaking, Tom nodded.

“Okay. We’re going to get a search party together for your boyfriend. How about you come back to the station with us, EMTs can check you out, and we can figure out what we’re going to do next,” Tom said. I gave a small nod through the tears that were still flowing. I just wanted to be away from that forest as soon as I could be. The drive back to the ranger station felt surreal, the trees spilling past the car window in a haze. I winced as my arm bumped into the truck’s door while climbing out upon arriving.

“You okay?” Alex asked. I nodded quickly.

“Did you hurt your arm out there?”

“No, it’s from-something else,” I said quietly. I shifted, pulling my sleeve further over the dark bruise on my upper arm.

“Okay,” he said, for a moment looking like he wanted to question me further on that. I prayed he wouldn’t. For the first time that day, it seemed like my prayers were answered. We headed inside, and by the time I was done answering a further barrage of questions and being checked out by the EMTs, the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. The rangers had coordinated a search party in surprisingly little time - by the time the sun was fully up, they had already headed out there.

A ranger named Crystal Everts was kind enough to keep me company for most of the sleepless morning that ensued. I found myself endlessly grateful for that company. I had never really thought about the after in these sort of situations before. It seemed like stories always ended with being rescued, the aftermath left to the footnotes. Now that I was experiencing it, I was glad it at least included a mug of coffee, even if it was instant coffee.

“Do you think they’ll find him?” I asked between sips. Crystal gave me a soft smile, but I saw doubt flickering in her eyes.

“They’ll do everything they can. We have some of the best search and rescue rangers in the country,” she said.

I was silent for a moment. When I spoke again, it took me a moment to even realize I was doing so.

“It got him.”

“What you thought you saw out there?” Crystal asked.

“I didn’t think I saw it. I mean, I don’t even know what I saw. But I know there was something out there,” I said. “I sound crazy, don’t I?” I said after a minute. Crystal shook her head.

“You sound like you went through something very difficult. Sometimes, in those situations, our mind can play tricks on us,’ she said.

“That just seems like a polite way of saying I sound crazy,” I said. I glanced past her to a photo on her desk. It contained a group of smiling people. I recognized three of them. The other three were unfamiliar - a tall man with a cowboy hat, a blonde woman wearing a bright orange tank top, and a redhead with a medusa tattoo snaking around her upper arm.

“Those are the two rangers who found me. Are you friends?” I attempted to change the subject, nodding to the figures I recognized in the photo. Thankfully, it seemed to work. Crystal glanced back at it.

“Alex and Tom? Yeah. They’re good guys,” she said.

“Who are the others?” Truthfully, I didn’t really care who the other people in the photo were, but talking about something random felt preferable to thinking about the present. Crystal seemed to pick up on that.

“Well, the blonde woman, that’s Lauren, she’s a tour guide. The bearded guy, he’s a ranger too, his name’s John. And the redhead, she worked here as a biologist-” Before she could finish, a man I didn’t recognize appeared in the doorway.

“We found something,” he said.

“Stan?” I asked.

He shook his head. “A phone and a backpack. We think there's human blood on it. In the area you were found. We think it might be his - do you think you’d be able to confirm.”

“Yeah, yeah, I can do that,” I said. He glanced over at Crystal. There was something unreadable in his eyes - I couldn't even begin to decipher what it was. They took me to see the cellphone. It sat neatly in an evidence bag, a sight that seemed in stark contrast to the rusty brown that covered the now cracked screen. I felt my blood run cold. The bag was in much the same condition. I recognized it as Stan's immediately. It was the one he'd taken with us hiking that day. Now, one of the straps was torn, and the same red that covered the phone speckled the backpack. I felt my breath catch in my throat as I looked at it, somehow knowing that was all they would find of Stan.

"I told you it got him," I said, my voice cracking in fear and barely above a whisper. Crystal looked at me sympathetically.

"Well, it does seem like something happened," she said. "But for all we know, he could have just fallen and hurt himself. We might still find him."

I glanced back at the bag, doubt filling my mind, and gave an unsteady nod. I didn't have enough energy left to try to convince anyone of a story that sounded crazy even to me.

After I confirmed that the phone and backpack was indeed his, Alex and Crystal took me back over to my campsite. I had called my parents - I hadn’t spoken to them in ages, so I can only imagine how it felt to receive a call like this out of the blue. Despite that, they were relieved. Both to hear from me and to hear that I was okay. They’d insisted on flying out the next day, to bring me back to our home.

Home.

That was a word that hadn’t had a meaning to me for a while. Stan and I’s apartment had never really felt like a home if I was being honest.

They weren’t the only ones feeling relieved, though guilt coursed through me as soon as I realized this. Stan was most likely dead - and I was feeling relieved?

How fucked up of a person are you? God, he was right. I am a psycho, I thought bitterly as we drove back to the campground. The two rangers had volunteered - on their day off, at that, to help me pack up the camp and drive me to a nearby hotel that my parents had booked. They insisted it was nothing, but as I stepped out of the truck and looked at the empty tent, that ‘nothing’ felt like it meant the world. It didn’t take long to pack things up, not with three people - and two with enough experience for at least a dozen. I wondered what I was supposed to do with Stan’s things. Crystal left towards the end to use the restroom.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked quietly as she walked away.

“Yeah, I mean, I’ll be fine. Stan is the one-”

“No, I mean, are you okay?” Alex glanced towards my shoulder, the one with the bruise.

Fuck.

“It wasn’t what you think,” I said, looking down and pulling my cardigan tighter around myself. “I don’t want to put you on the spot. But someone close to me was in…a not-so-great relationship once, and they used to say the same thing. So, if it was what you think I think, I just wanted to say you’re not alone. And things get better.”

I felt tears pricking my eyes, the little composure I had left breaking down. “Thanks,” I said quietly. Once Crystal returned, we finished loading my bag into the truck and headed to the hotel. It was a weird feeling leaving the park in such a different way than I had entered. When we got to the hotel, I checked in, and Crystal and Alex were nice enough to help me unload my things. Once I had brought the last bag in, I took a deep breath. There were countless things to do tomorrow. Talk to the police about Stan’s disappearance.

Figure out what I was supposed to do with Penelope - I figured I had always wanted a dog of my own. Meet my parents. Say thank you to the old man that had mentioned he’d seen two people headed up on the trail late - it had turned out the guy I’d thought was a creep had been the reason the rangers were at the parking lot when I finally found my way from the treeline.

Despite that, I guessed I would have trouble sleeping that night. My mind was alive with racing thoughts, pieces and snippets of the past 24 hours slowly forming into some sort of picture. It wasn’t until Crystal and Alex were headed out that I was handed - literally - the piece of that picture that made it come together.

“Thank you both. I really appreciate it,” I said, standing at the door of the hotel room.

“Of course. We’re sorry about your boyfriend. We still haven’t given up hope of finding him,” Crystal said. I didn’t correct her to say that I had. I wasn’t sure how I felt so certain, but I knew whatever was out there had made sure he wouldn’t be coming back.

“We’ll do everything we can,” Alex said. He paused. “Oh, I almost forgot. I picked this up at the campsite earlier, thought it might be yours.”

He pulled a map from his jacket pocket, handing it to me. I froze upon seeing it. It wasn’t just any map. It was the map. The one Stan had sworn he’d put in his backpack. The one I’d seen him put in his backpack. The one we’d been unable to find that evening.

“You found this at the campsite?” I asked, slowly taking the map from him. He nodded.

“Where exactly?”

He gave me a quizzical look, as if he wasn’t sure why it mattered. “In the tent, by Stan’s stuff.”

I had packed up Stan’s stuff. And not only was I sure the map was in his backpack when we left for the hike, I was sure I would have seen it with his stuff. That wasn’t possible. But what it implied seemed even less possible.

I hesitated. I thought back to Stan and I’s first in-person date. It had been during the height of the pandemic, so it was hard to meet up at first. When we finally did, we went to the zoo. He was so charming, so kind that day. I wished he had stayed that way. I thought of the countless arguments. The way I watched myself turn into someone I didn’t recognize. The way he had hurt me. The nights I had spent crying. I took a deep breath.

“You know, I think you were right. What you said about trauma making people see things,” I said to Crystal. “I’m not sure what happened after Stan and I were separated. I’m not sure I actually even heard him yelling.”

I looked over at Alex. “I hope your friend is doing better, by the way.”

“She is now. And I think you will be, eventually, too.”

I gave a small nod. Maybe.

“Well, thank you again. For everything,” I said after a moment.

“Have a good night,” he said. I closed the door, feeling like I was also opening one to another chance at life - to healing. To freedom. I wouldn’t have thought it started with an empty hotel room, but I guess life always has a way of twisting around itself, like a winding serpent.

It's been years since Stan went missing now. As I guessed, he was never found, and eventually the search died down, relegating his disappearance to an occasional footnote in stories about tragic things that happened in the park. There's some speculation it might have been a bear attack. Nothing else was ever found to confirm one way or another, though. Penelope is sitting on my lap as I write this - we both have an apartment in my home city now. I haven't been back to the park. Not out of fear, though. It just feels like a chapter that's closed, you know?

Maybe snakes aren't so bad.