Estimated reading time — 16 minutes

I was pedaling as hard as I could, the tires thumping on each new slab of wood on the railway track. The railway was a clear cut through the woods, separating a once thriving forest into two distinct parts. Though summer break had only started a week ago, we already found a new place to race, and for the first time, I was winning. I heard the gravel behind me shifting from the movement of their tires. Looking back, I saw George and Cooper racing behind me, quickly gaining. Ahead stood the finish line, only 50 more feet. I quickened my pace. But it wasn’t fast enough. Cooper was gaining quickly and George wasn’t far behind him. Seconds before I passed the line, Cooper veered from behind me and overtook, leaving me in second place.
After we all finished, we set our bikes down exhausted and sat against the hill that leads into the uncharted forest. We passed a water bottle between us, each taking enormous gulps then telling the other they were taking too much. Sitting there and staring at the trees, listening to the birds and crickets chirp, was peaceful. Then, something changed. I started to hear a faint noise from behind us. It was…music.

I looked at George and Cooper who were discussing the new Batman comic and asked, “Do you guys hear that?”

“Huh? What?” they responded in confused unison.

“Wait. Shh.”

We sat there in silence, waiting for it to start back up again. And it did. Clearly, under the sound of the birds and crickets, you could hear a faint harmonic noise.

“Just… shh” I whispered

“What are you talking about?” Cooper said giggling.

“Yeah… that’s not funny” George muttered, squinting into the treeline.
“George, are you scared?” Cooper asked, starting to crack up.

“No. I’m not.” He said sitting back down, “Just my Dad was telling me about that side of the woods… and how we shouldn’t go over there.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell us that?” I jumped in, still whispered unlike the other two.

“I forgot, okay? I would’ve said something.” He said almost ashamed.
“What, did someone get sucked out of the sky by a UFO?” Cooper asked, rolling his eyes and waving his arms in the air like a kid at a campfire telling a scary story.

“All he said was it wasn’t safe, and he knew someone that got really hurt over there.” George continued.
“Let’s go check it out!” Cooper said standing up.

“No!” George and I said in a hush.

“Why not?” Cooper said like a kid who was just told he couldn’t get a toy.

“Because!” I said standing up and grabbing my bike. After I hopped on, George grabbed his next and we looked at Cooper.

“Are you coming or are you gonna go in there alone?” I asked, knowing Cooper would cave.

“Fine. You two are a bunch of babies, you know that right?” he said, giving up and hopping on his bike ahead of us.

As we pedaled off the way we came, the music started up again. Still, no one seemed to hear it. They kept going, the rhythmic thumps of the wheels lining up eerily with the tune from the wood. I tried to follow, but as I kept listening, the harder it got to move away. I was like a fish fighting to escape the line.

The music was beautiful. A serenade plucked from a guitar, or maybe a harp. It passed through the woods and snaked along the dirt to get to my ears, to let me hear its delightful melody. I could listen to it for hours. It creeped into my ears, down the canal and into my brain. It danced there for hours and I –

“Hey. Hey. Eric. ERIC!” I looked back towards the railway, Cooper was next to me clapping in my face. I snapped to look back at Cooper, no longer on my bike but standing rigid on the rails, facing the mystery forest.

“What the hell man?” he said, looking at me as if I were crazy, “You’re starting to creep me out now. Quit whatever you’re doing, it’s not funny.” He said getting back onto his bike.

“Yeah… sorry, I just thought I saw something,” I hesitantly responded, hopping back onto my abandoned bike. Cooper – although the quickest – no longer led the group, instead, he was riding behind me like I had to be on watch.

Once we left the woods and got back onto the road, we split up and went back to our houses. We planned to meet back up tomorrow by the tracks again. When I parked my bike in the garage it was around 3:13 pm and neither my mom nor dad were home, both still at work. This was the best part about summer in my eyes. During the school year when I came home, they would both be here fighting already. Typically I would just go to my room, tiptoeing through their argument. But now the house was quiet. Mine for hours.

I opened the door that led into the kitchen from the garage, the creaking of the heavy metal echoing through the empty house. I undid my muddy shoes, I’ve had that argument too many times to know not to track mud throughout the house.

I crashed onto the couch and turned on the channel with Pokemon on it. They were running a marathon that week since kids were going to be free from school. After about ten minutes, my eyes grew heavy, and I drifted off.
I woke up in darkness. The only light emitted from the room was the TV, running static. In the glow of the flickering black and white I saw my Dad, sleeping on his La-Z-Boy with some empty cans next to him snoring. Him and mom hadn’t been sleeping in their room together for a while, so I usually find him here.

I got up, trying not to disturb the tower of cans he had made by the arm rest of the chair, and tiptoed into my room. I shut the door as slowly and quietly as I could, the click of the latch made me flinch; I didn’t want to wake him.
I changed into pajamas in the darkness of my room, only being partially lit by the glow of the moon through the window. I threw the muddy clothes into the pile in the corner of my room, “I’ll deal with it tomorrow” I thought and climbed into bed. I laid there for a bit, thinking about what had happened out at the tracks today. What even happened? As I was recounting the strange experience, I heard something.

The music was playing again.

This time muffled, much quieter.

The soft notes coiled around my body like a lasso, tugging me towards the window. Before my thoughts could object, I was looking out to the treeline – just beyond was the railway – and past that, the music.

My arms reached for the window, I’m not sure why but I couldn’t stop them. The window hadn’t been used in months and it resisted. My body used more and more strength, until it finally gave, launching the frame up as cracked paint fell to the floor. An ear-piercing screech echoed throughout the house.

But it was soon drowned out by the music.

The notes drifted into my ears, sinking deep into my brain. Each breath pulled in new notes, until I felt weightless, as if the room no longer existed and only the music remained. It was alive, coiling around me, tugging me toward the open window as if it had hands of its own.

“ERIC!”

The shout ripped through me, yanking me out of the haze. I stumbled backward, gasping as the cold night air hit my face. My dad loomed above, eyes wide, hands grabbing my shoulders.

“Wha…” I mumbled, out of breath and dazed like I had just woken from a deep sleep.

“Were you trying to get through the window?” he asked, concern sinking into the cracks in his face.

“I… I don’t know.” I said, confused and suddenly parched. I could feel my lips were cracked and my mouth was arid.
He walked over to the window and shut it, locking the latch from the top. “Listen, just… get to bed” he mumbled then stumbled out of the room.

I sat there dumbfounded at what had commenced. I crawled back into bed and felt a sudden weight of sleep on my eyes.

The music put me to sleep that night.

I was wandering through the cold darkness of the woods, barefoot. I had crossed the tracks into the mystery of the forest. The wildlife was bustling past the rails. Deer trotted to my sides and I heard birds chirping in harmony. But past that I had heard a noise, something was calling – and I was responding. I parted branches with my hands and twigs broke under my feet. I stopped at a tree that stood out from the rest, its trunk had been squeezed in, like something grabbed it with extreme force and scarred it for the rest of time. The thought of what could possibly do that chilled me but I continued on. My voice cracked as I called out for whatever was out there,
“Hello? Where are you?”

Another noise distant in the woods echoed in response, it was an amalgamation of sounds, crying out through the wilderness. It pulled me deeper into the thicket. I found myself at the edge of a clearing – in the center of which a lone tree stood. I stood there with animals by my side, none daring to pass the brush line. The cry once again snaked its way to my ears – this time it was clearly from the glade.
I took a step into the clearing, and everything went quiet.

The busy woods had been shut out and a single dark tree loomed over me and I felt it drag me closer. One step. Then two. The fusion of sound had only gotten louder with each lunge, until it was almost deafening. I was standing at the base of the tree when the sounds abruptly stopped. A wet drop hit my head. I froze, eyes darting upward into the dark canopy, and then, I woke up.

My throat burned with each swallow, like something tugging on my vocal cords as it clawed its way down into my stomach. I got out of bed, still dazed from the dream I had and shuffled to the kitchen. The sun illuminated the room, the only sound reverberating though the house was the hum of the fridge. I reached for glass in the top cupboard, filled it with water, and drank greedily, feeling it quench the dryness from my throat. I was a little too hasty however, and spilt some water onto the floor.

Grabbing a rag from the bottom drawer, I got down to clean up the droplets. As I finished up I noticed something on the legs of my pajamas.
They were ripped and streaked with dried mud.

I didn’t remember doing that. My stomach twisted as I stared at the mud-streaked fabric. I stood and walked away, trying not to think about it.

I quickly changed, hiding the ruined pants in the clothing pile and checked the clock: 1pm. I had overslept, I was supposed to meet George and Cooper in 30 minutes! My heart jumped, both from the time and the leftover music dancing around in the corners of my head, but I shook it off and grabbed my bike and pedaled to the rails.
When I arrived, they were sitting on wood ties flicking gravel at each other.
“Looks like the ghoul in the woods didn’t scare you off!” Cooper said jokingly as he stood up to fistbump me.

“Damnit” George said in frustration, “I owe Cooper 5 bucks” he chuckled, kicking his boots into gravel.
“It’s ok George, I’ll let it slide this time.”

“Alright what are we doing today?” I asked as Cooper usually came up with the best ideas, “I don’t really want to race again, this track blows.”

“I think we should build a fort in the woods.” Cooper said “It’ll protect you from the monsters” he said nudging me.

“Sure.” I responded, not really happy that I was becoming the ghost kid.
We biked to the finish line from yesterday. Cooper crouched on his bike, eyes darting over the land like a general plotting his kingdom, looking for the best spot for our soon-to-be grand castle.

“What about right there?” he said pointing to the tree line of the forbidden forest. George was the first to protest.

“What? Remember yesterday? I told you my Dad said I couldn’t go over there!”

“Yeah I don’t know if it’s a great idea man” I added, trying to find another reason than the haunting feeling radiating from that side of the trees.
“Listen. This is going to be the best fort ever. If we build it before anything spooky comes, we’ll be protected by the castle walls!” Cooper said ecstatically “Plus, we’ve explored the rest. This is the only new part!” he added. Cooper’s confidence was contagious, and I could see doubt creeping into George’s face.

“Ok… but we can’t go too deep.” he muttered

“YES!” he jumped in the air and pumped his fists. “Ok Eric, come on. Even George is going! We’re gonna need you on defense if your ghost comes to get us!” he added, prodding my new least favorite joke.

I sighed, defeated. “Okay,” I said, shoving my doubts down.

Cooper cheered and started up the hill that sequestrated us from the unknown. When George and I scaled the hill, we saw Cooper crafting his blueprints in the dirt with a stick.
“Ok, look,” he said, waving us over, “Here is the living room, here’s the bathroom…” he continued pointing out all the rooms he planned to construct this afternoon. “Alright, let’s go get the materials!” he concluded, sounding like a passionate project manager. Then we set off, picking up as many sticks as we could without leaving the view of the railroad.

We tied some sticks together to resemble a wall then leaned it against the trees, after a couple more we finally completed the first room. This wasn’t the great accomplishment it appeared to be, the room took so many twigs that we couldn’t find any sizable ones to construct the next one. Looking around the treeline proved fruitless and after a couple minutes of searching, Cooper was the first one to dive head first into the forest.

“Hey! Where are you going?” George called from the safety of the wall.

“I’m going to get more sticks!” he called, mimicking George by peeking his head from behind a tree far into the forest.

“We said we were gonna stay by the treeline” I added, trying not to set new grounds for another joke from Cooper.
Cooper disappeared behind a wall of trees for a minute.

“Cooper. Cooper! COOPER!” we called.
He didn’t respond.

I ran a few steps toward the dark line of trees, heart thumping.

“Cooper, where are you?” I shouted, and tried to get another step but George grabbed my arm.

“Don’t go without me” he whispered, and we walked together, venturing deeper into the woods.

I could feel George trembling, but I pretended not to notice. We marched further into the unknown.

“AH!” Cooper jumped out from behind the tree with a huge stick held above his head. “See? I told you there were great sticks out here,” he said, tossing the log onto the dirt between us.

“What the hell man?” I said

“You guys are too tense! A true knight must face fear to claim his castle!” He waved his stick like a sword, then crouched to scoop up more twigs and branches. I couldn’t help but laugh at the character he was playing, and reluctantly I followed. George stayed by my side as we grabbed sticks and carried them towards the growing fort. Eventually, we found ourselves far beyond the view of the railway, and surprisingly, the fear has dissipated.

“Woah, guys come look at this” Cooper said from in front of us. He was staring at a tree with some serious damage, it looked squished, the trunk was sunken in a coil pattern snaking down the way of the tree. Something about it bugged me but I wasn’t sure what it was.

“I wonder what happened” George asked, looking up and down the battle wounded tree.

“Maybe it’s just starving? ” Cooper asked, cracking a smile at his own stupid joke.

Then the music started.

Instantly I lost control, feeling the strumming yank my body around to face deeper into the woods.

“Hey Eric, you good?” Cooper said, his smile fading being replaced by a confused frown. I felt my feet being pulled forward until I stopped at a thick stick laying on the ground. My hips bent over and latched ahold of it, all on beat with the ever growing tune running through my thoughts. The stick didn’t feel as fresh as the other sticks, it felt squishy, but not rotten. “Yes knight! Grab that stick!” Cooper called out from behind.

I tried to pull the stick, but it tugged back.

I lurched to the ground, heart hammering, and then it surged forward, dragging me into the woods. Branches whipped my face, roots clawed at my feet, and the music seemed to laugh.

“Hey, Eric! What the hell is going on?” Cooper yelled behind me. I could hear him running behind me calling out to me. “Hey this isn’t funny! Quit it! Come on, Stop!” he screamed behind me, quickly gaining. I could only blurt out one word: “HELP!”

Cooper grabbed my leg and pulled me back towards freedom, right as he touched my calf, the music ceased and the stick stopped moving.

I was in control again.

I released the lumpy stick, and expected the stick to continue shooting through the woods dragging leaves and dirt with it. Instead, it laid there, still. Inviting me to try again.
“What… What was that? What just happened?” Cooper asked, his voice shaking.

“I… I don’t… I don’t know” I responded, crawling backwards to escape the trap laying inconspicuously in the leaves.
“Let’s go back to the fort” George added, already starting to run back towards safety. We joined him. The sun had started to go down, casting rays of orange onto the canopy of trees that laid overtop of us. We ran for a long time, it seemed we had gone much further than we thought. But soon, we started to see the fort. When we approached, we found something strange. The walls had been neatly stacked on top of each other.

“George, did you do this?” Cooper asked, his confident facade was quickly fading and panic quickly replaced it.

“No” George’s wide eyes darted between Cooper and I, trying to gauge if one of us were joking.

Then the walls shifted.

The neat stack toppled over, and accompanying it was a deafening silence.

Before I could think I found myself already on my bike with George and Cooper, all three of us starting to bike down the rails. The only thing we heard was the constant thumping of our tires against the rails. But something was off.

The trees to our right were shaking behind us, and it was getting closer.
“GO! GO! GO!” Cooper called from behind us, as the trees shook next to him.

The branches weren’t swaying from the wind. They were snapping.

Bending. Folding out of the way as something moved through them, keeping pace with us just inside the tree line.

I didn’t dare look for too long, each time I did I felt my hands loosen from my handlebars.

Then the music started again.

Louder.

It rose and fell in time with our tires on the wooden ties. Perfect in rhythm. As if it had learned the sound.

“Don’t look!” George screamed
I hadn’t realized I was turning my head.

The shaking grew faster. Closer. Trees whipping past in a blur to our right as we pedaled harder than we ever had before.

And then –

It stopped.

Instantly.

The trees went still as we passed the last tie and hit gravel. We kept petaling for another 50 feet, none of us daring to slow down. When we finally looked back, the forest stood quiet, almost rigid.

I don’t even think we said goodbye that day or planned to meet up again. Too afraid we split back up and started back home.

The orange light of the setting sun lit the sidewalks of my neighborhood, guiding me back home.

When I opened the door, I expected to see my Mom and Dad, yet the house was empty. It was disquieting, they should be home by now. The golden rays casted through the window and onto the floor of the kitchen but they were quickly setting. The stove clock read “7:30”, too late for Pokemon, but maybe something else good was on.
I switched through the channels on the TV and passed through a static channel playing an all too familiar song. It was the song from the woods. When the song ended, the man over the TV said, “That was ‘Orfeo ed Euridice’ by Cristoph Gluck. Thank you again for tuning into 87.7, Classical Hits.” I switched the TV off, I hated when the TV would pick up radio stations.

I sat there in silence for a bit, running the melody through my mind. The song from the woods was much more whimsical than the radio rendition.

The way the harp resonated its notes, and how they shifted as they moved through the twigs and the leaves and how it reverberated through the roots and dirt to only my ears – the sole listener. Nothing that a piano could compete with.

When I finally got up from the couch, the house had changed. The sun had gone down completely, leaving the rooms to be only lit by the white glow of the moon. I wandered to the kitchen to get the time, “9:00”.

That couldn’t be right.

Before I could find another clock, goosebumps rose on the back of my neck, then my back, arms, legs, my whole body was littered by them.

The music was back.

Even with the windows shut, I could hear it as clear as when I was in the woods.

I was at the window. Looking out towards the treeline, the wind blew the branches and shook loose leaves, sending them flying.

I was at the door. My hand turned the knob.

I was outside. The door behind me left open, my body had no intention of coming back.

I was at the treeline. Breathing in the air from the forest it seemed fresher in there, or maybe it was the air bringing more of that joyful music into my body.

I was at the tracks. Looking up into the mystery that laid beyond that treeline.
The music enchanted me, further I went.

I was at the strangled tree. It looked at me as if it were trying to say something.

I was at the tree line of a clearing. A perfect circle, and in the middle, a lone dark tree. It loomed over the whole forest, beckoning me. The music bellowed from its branches, far into the thick dark pine.

I passed into the glade. The rustling that had once permeated throughout the woods ceased and I was left with the only sound I ever wanted to hear.
The sweet plucking of the strings coming from the pine.

I swayed to the tree, feeling like an automaton dancing to the tune the great clock was chiming.

I reached the base of the plant, feeling the heavy shade of the canopy blocking out the entire glow of the moon. I sat against the trunk and shut my eyes, letting the music take me. In my mind I saw the entire forest, animals living in harmony with one another. The music took me to my home, I saw my parents laughing and enjoying each other’s company. It even took me to George and Cooper’s houses, where I saw them playing N64 and reading comics.

I felt a drop of water hit my hair.

I opened my eyes, the music continued, but it no longer held me.
A new sound under the melody crept into my ears. From behind, on the trunk, I heard a quiet stretching – like a rope that was about to snap. It resonated through the trunk and I felt it creak and shift on my back.

The music stopped.

An object dropped from the pine, hitting the ground with a light tink. Right between my legs there was a tin whistle, stuck vertical in the dirt.

“What?” I muttered.

Another drop hit my head.

I looked up.

Sneaking out of the dark pine, was a pale, almost translucent, elongated face. Its neck snaked, creaking as it stretched to get closer to me. The face appeared almost… infantile. It peered down at me, eyes wide and glossy, locked on me, studying.

My throat tightened. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing escaped.

Another drop, this time landing in my mouth.

I saw the drop of drool leave its maw but I couldn’t move, I was frozen.
I felt a tightening in my leg. I took my eyes off the beast for one second and saw, wrapping around my leg, was a thin, pale arm. It coiled around my shin and up to my calf, its fingers much too small and pudgy for its hands. I turned my head back to the face but it was now inches away. Its hot breath gusting into my face, and it turned its head curiously.

A sharp pain erupted from my calf.

I looked down and saw its pudgy index finger lodged into my muscle. It drew back the middle finger and pressed it down, breaking through the layer of skin easily, nestling its phalanges into my body.

I screamed in pain. The thing responded with a soft moan.

It drove another finger in and started moving its appendages, feeling and scraping my tissue, bones and nerves.
Finally, my leg gave out and I toppled to the floor, resulting in another coo from the beast.

I felt around the grass for anything.
My fingers found the only object in the grove.

The tin whistle.

I picked it up and drove it into the creature’s huge unblinking eye. It whined an infant’s cry at the pain and released some tension on my leg.

I kept pushing. Its marble eye gushing around the whistle, flowing through the finger holes and trekking onto my hand. An amalgamation of crying bellowed out of its mouth, some childlike, some mature and released the tension on my leg.

I stood on my good leg, hobbling towards the grove line, to the sound of anything but music.

From behind I heard another choir of cries, this time from the branches of the lone tree. Each limb had a voice, crying out to me as I continued towards the exit.

I took one step over the tree line, back into the forest, and the cries ceased.

Never to be heard again.

Credit: C. M. Blackwood

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