“Let’s just go!” Josh pressed, as he turned back toward the direction from which we had come and began paddling desperately.
“Just one more…”
Lowering my arm directly at the woods in front of me, another red ball of fire was launched from my paper cannon. It traveled straight ahead until it collided with a tree, briefly exploding the light in a much greater diameter.
Still nothing.
I dropped the firework in the water and watched as one more struggling fireball burst free, only to die quickly, drowned by the water. Doubt had already started to sink into my mind as we began paddling in the direction of my house. Suddenly, a loud and unconcealed rustling in the woods restored my certainty. The breaking of branches and the trampling of fallen leaves overpowered the sound of our splashing.
It was running in the same direction we were pointed.
“C’mon, man! Paddle!” Josh commanded.
We were thrashing frantically in an effort to increase our speed. Reflexively, we began trying to kick our legs, which were dangling over the side of the raft, though not touching the water. In our panic, we jostled the raft too violently, and I felt one of the ropes under my chest loosen.
“Josh, be careful!”
But it was too late. Our raft was breaking. I tried to pull the rope taut, but I wasn’t strong enough, and Josh began drifting away. I reached for his hand, but not quickly enough. We each held onto a separate piece of Styrofoam, but we knew individual pieces wouldn’t suffice from when we had first built the raft. We bobbed and rocked as our legs dangled beneath us in the cold water.
“Josh! Quick!” I yelled as I pointed at the water right next to him.
He scrambled, but it was too cold to move quickly, and we both watched as the map floated away.
“W-wha-a-at do we d-do now?” Josh chattered.
It was cold. We needed to get out of the water. Swimming directly back wasn’t an option, and we couldn’t go back into our woods — there were greater problems than the congestion of trees now. I turned my eyes to the other side of the tributary and the woods that bordered it. We had never even thought of going into those trees before — we just didn’t consider them part of our woods. They would have to be now, though.
“This w-w-ay.” I began kicking my stiff legs in the water, and Josh followed. We propelled ourselves to the opposite shore.
The woods were just as thick on this side of the tributary, but we had no real choice. We abandoned what remained of our raft and clawed our way out of the water and into the alien woods as the sun took its final bow somewhere on the western horizon.
Taking care with each step, we marched through the trees and stayed close enough to the water so we could see where we needed to cross when we got there. Our breath steamed in the cool air, and every now and then, a violent shiver would quake through my still-soaked body. We were taking care not to make too much noise, but apparently so was the source of the voice that had greeted us earlier, because our footsteps were the only sounds.
Suddenly, the sound of a cracking branch echoed somewhere in the distance. Josh and I stopped and held each other’s gaze. Too afraid to talk, Josh mouthed the words, “What do we do?” I shook my head and brought my finger to my mouth, telling him to keep quiet while we listened. Every part of me was screaming to run, except for the one that was too scared to do anything at all, and so we just stood there.
There was another cracking limb. I held my breath.
It was answered by the sound of dead leaves being crushed. I looked at Josh and could barely see his tears through my own.
crunch
…
snap
…
crunch
snap
snapsnapcrunchsnapcrunch
No. He’s running! I thought I had said this aloud, but I suppose I actually hadn’t, because Josh yelled to me as I ran furiously away from the stampeding sound behind us.
We were running fast, but not fast enough; the sound was getting closer. We leapt over decaying trees and tore through thorn bushes. The sound was just behind us now. There was no way we could outrun it — it would overtake us any second. I wanted to look back, but I forced myself to stare ahead. “Josh, the woods!” I yelled. Just ahead, the trees were tangled in a gnarled mass that would be too thick to run through. Should we dive into the water? Could we charge through the dense woods in front of us? Josh didn’t say anything. He seemed at as much of a loss as I was. In a flash, Josh grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a large oak tree. We stood there like statues.
The sound stopped.
Steam billowed out of our mouths and into the frosty air as we tried to catch our breaths. I covered my mouth with my hand to conceal the blasts of visible air, and I motioned to Josh to do the same. There was a rustling behind us. I leaned my back against the tree to steady my shaking legs so my feet wouldn’t audibly grind the leaves under them. We tried to be as quiet as possible.
We waited, shivering against the tree and sensitive to the sound of every movement behind us. Perhaps it was too dark for our pursuer to see where we had hidden. Perhaps if we quietly stood there for long enough, it would be over.
beepbeep!… beepbeep!… beepbeep!
My watch!
The last alarm for the day was sounding. I smashed my fingers on the buttons, but the cold had numbed my hands, and fear had clouded my mind. I couldn’t remember how to stop it. Hundreds of times… I had silenced that alarm hundreds of times, but there I stood fumbling and trembling, unable to end its high-pitched death knell.
“Stop it!” Josh pleaded.
“I’m trying…” I whimpered.
The rustling behind us began to move. It was getting closer now. I tore at my wrist and yanked at the plastic clasp and rubber band until it finally came off. With a whipping of my arm, the watch landed and sunk into the water.
But it was too late; the crunching and snapping was right next to us now. We had nowhere to run anymore. I closed my eyes tightly, squeezing tears out of them, which rolled down my face. Defeated and terrified, I collapsed at the base of the tree and wrapped my arms around my knees, pressing them to my chest. A figure appeared in my peripheral — emerging from its hiding spot on the side of the same tree that we had hoped would conceal us. I turned my head so my eyes could take it in.
It was a deer.
I stared at it in disbelief, and it stared back at me in what might have been confusion or curiosity. It was the closest I had even been to a deer before — or since, for that matter. Even in the poor light of the pale moon, I could see the texture of its fur and the moisture on its nose.
“Get out of here!” Josh snarled in a tantrum, apathetically throwing a small stick at the creature. It bounded off into the woods; we could still hear it long after it had disappeared from sight.
We trod through the woods, moving as the dead might move. Exhausted by both fear and the winter air, we didn’t speak another word until we had arrived at the point from which we had departed; only now we were on the opposite side of the water. The tributary was narrower here, but neither of us wanted to get back into the water to cross. Josh asked me what I thought we should do, but I didn’t respond. I thought that if we continued through the woods along the water, we would get to the lake, and we could just circle around it. But that would take far too long. I didn’t have my watch anymore, so I didn’t even know what time it was; for all I knew my mother could be home already. There was no time.