"The Runner":
I headed out for my training run that July morning in 1984, the air crisp and sharp against my lungs as I followed the familiar trails near Big Sky, Montana. The early light filtered through tall pines, turning the forest floor into a mosaic of gold and shadow. As a biathlete, endurance was everything, so I pushed harder that day—deeper into the woods, beyond where I usually turned back. The narrow game trail I followed was overgrown, winding between thick stands of spruce where deer often passed. The ground was uneven and slick with pine needles, but I liked the challenge, the way every step tested balance and strength.
After about an hour, I slowed to catch my breath. That’s when I heard it—a sharp crack of a branch somewhere behind me. I froze, listening. Probably a deer, I told myself, or maybe an elk. But then came another snap, heavier this time. Deliberate. Too steady to be an animal.
A prickle crept up my neck. I turned halfway, squinting through the trees. Before I could call out, two men stepped from the shadows of the pines. One was older, mid-fifties, his beard scruffy and his eyes hidden under the brim of a sweat-stained cap. His clothes were worn, patched in places. The other was younger—late teens, maybe twenty—nervous but trying to look tough. Both carried rifles.
“Morning,” the older one said, voice rough but eerily calm. “We’ve been watching you run these trails. You’re strong. We like that.”
I stopped cold. “I’m just training,” I said carefully. “Do you need help with something?”
The younger one shifted, glancing toward the older man. “No, ma’am,” he said softly. “We’re here for you.”
My pulse spiked. They stood between me and the trail, blocking my way out. The older man raised his rifle slightly—not aiming it, but enough to send a message. “Come with us quiet-like,” he said. “We don’t want trouble.”
I glanced over my shoulder, weighing my chances. The brush was thick; I’d never make it far before one of them fired. “Please,” I said, keeping my voice even. “People are expecting me back soon.”
The older man shook his head. “Not anymore. You’re coming with us. My boy here needs a good woman. You’ll do fine.”
The words hit me like ice. “That’s not how this works,” I said. “You can’t just take someone.”
He chuckled, low and humorless. “Out here, we make our own rules. Been that way a long time. Now walk.”
They herded me off the trail, rifles steady, pushing deeper into the wilderness. The pines thickened, swallowing sunlight. We climbed for what felt like miles. My calves burned, but I forced myself to memorize the route—a twisted oak, a jagged rock outcrop, a downed log covered in moss. If I got a chance to escape, I’d need every detail.
After a while, I asked, “Why me?” trying to keep them talking, to learn anything useful.
The older man—John, as I later learned—didn’t slow. “You’ve been out here before. We’ve seen you. You’re strong, fit, smart. My boy deserves that. He’s a good kid.”
The younger one nodded. “Yeah. Alex,” John said, correcting himself quickly, “needs someone who can keep up. We’ll build a life up here—away from all that garbage down there.”
My stomach turned. “People will look for me,” I said. “I work at the ranch nearby. They’ll notice.”
John shrugged. “Let them look. These woods swallow secrets. Been hiding here for years.”
Their camp appeared suddenly, tucked deep in a hollow surrounded by thick pines. A lean-to made from tarps and branches stood beside a smoldering fire pit. Animal hides hung drying between trees. Everything looked scavenged—old lanterns, tools, scraps of stolen gear. It reeked of smoke, sweat, and something feral.
John pointed to a tree. “Sit.”
Before I could move, Alex produced a length of chain. He wrapped it around my ankle, fastening it to the trunk with a heavy padlock. The cold metal bit into my skin. “Don’t make this harder,” he murmured. “We’ll treat you right.”
“This is wrong,” I said quietly. “You have to let me go.”
John crouched by the fire, poking the coals with a stick. “Wrong? The world’s wrong. Out there, people lie, cheat, steal. Up here, we’re free. You’ll learn to see it our way.”
As the day dragged on, they talked—mostly John. He told stories about hunting illegally, stealing supplies, and living off the land. Alex listened more than he spoke, though when he did, it was about loneliness. About wanting a family. I nodded occasionally, pretending interest while my eyes stayed busy scanning the ground, the trees, the chain. Looking for anything that could give me a chance.
“You hungry?” Alex asked later, offering a strip of dried meat.
I shook my head. “Not really. Tell me about this life—why you chose it.”
John grinned. “Started when Alex was a boy. Left the cities behind. No rules. No taxes. No noise. Just peace. But every man needs a woman to build something real. That’s where you come in.”
My hands trembled, though I kept them still. I thought of my teammates, my family, everyone who’d start looking once I didn’t come back. I tried appealing to Alex’s humanity. “You’re young. You could still have a normal life. This doesn’t have to be it.”
He frowned. “Dad says the world’s poisoned. He knows best.”
Night fell slow and cold. The firelight flickered across their faces, turning them into shifting silhouettes. They ate quietly, and I sat chained to the tree, pretending calm while my heart hammered. Sleep came in flashes—restless, shallow, always listening for a chance. Every rustle in the brush sounded like rescue… or danger.
At dawn, I heard voices in the distance. Faint but real. Searchers. My chest filled with sudden, painful hope.
“Quiet,” John hissed, grabbing his rifle. “Don’t say a word.”
The voices drew closer—men calling my name. I saw movement between the trees. Two figures appeared—Alan and Jim, friends from the ranch.
“Run!” I screamed before I could stop myself. “They have guns!”
John snarled. “Shut her up!”
Alex raised a pistol. For one second, our eyes met. He hesitated—but then he pulled the trigger.
The impact knocked me back against the tree. Fire tore through my chest. I gasped, choking on blood, the world shrinking to sound and pain.
Gunfire exploded. John fired again—Alan dropped instantly, hit in the face. Jim bolted, vanishing into the forest.
John knelt beside me, checked the wound. “She’s done,” he muttered. “Let’s move.”
They vanished into the trees.
I lay there, the dirt beneath me turning dark and wet. My breaths came ragged, shallow. I pressed a trembling hand against the wound, trying to slow the bleeding. The world tilted and dimmed, but I clung to one thought: Breathe steady. Stay alive. Training had drilled it into me—control your breath, even when your body screams.
Time lost meaning. The sun climbed, shadows shifted. Then—voices again. Closer this time.
“She’s here!” someone shouted. “She’s alive!”
Hands lifted me carefully. I caught fragments of words—“hold pressure,” “collapsed lung,” “hang on.”
The hike out was agony. Every step jarred the wound. At the hospital, the doctors told me the bullet had missed my heart by inches. My right lung had collapsed. Surgery saved me, though it took months before I could run again.
John and Alex were caught—Alex first, not far from the camp. John lasted longer, living like a ghost in the backcountry before they cornered him. I testified at both trials, standing before them, my voice steady as I told the story.
Years later, I went back to competing. Became a veterinarian in Bozeman. Built a quiet life. But the woods never felt the same again. I still run the trails sometimes—but never alone, and always with that hum of tension in my chest.
The mountains are beautiful, but they have a darker silence too—the kind that hides people who think the wilderness belongs to them.
And I learned the hard way: it doesn’t.
"Unseen":
I had been looking forward to this getaway with my best friend, Lisa, for weeks. Life in the city had been relentless—traffic, deadlines, and the hum of constant noise. The thought of a quiet stretch of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania felt like breathing again. Lisa and I had always bonded over hiking, and she’d suggested this route—a lesser-known section thick with forests, where the trails were more whisper than path. She was always the adventurous one, drawn to places that felt untouched, raw. “Let’s follow some of the old game trails,” she’d said with that eager glint in her eye. “Find a spot nobody’s been to in years.”
I agreed. At the time, it sounded perfect.
We left before sunrise, the road still wrapped in fog as we drove north. By the time we reached the small gravel parking lot near the edge of the state forest, the morning light had broken through, filtering gold through the canopy. The air smelled of pine and damp soil. We hoisted our packs, checked the map, and started down the main trail.
Soon, Lisa spotted what looked like a narrow animal path branching off into thicker trees—faint, overgrown, almost invisible if you didn’t know to look. The grass was flattened, the earth pressed by hooves and paws. “This one,” she said, and smiled.
The forest swallowed us quickly. The path wound through groves of tall pines and heavy underbrush, sunlight flickering through like shifting water. Birds called overhead. It felt like we’d stepped into another world, one that moved at its own pace. Lisa walked ahead, humming softly, pointing out interesting stones or the shape of a tree scarred by lightning.
After a couple of hours, we came upon a small clearing near a quiet stream, its surface rippling like glass. It seemed peaceful—almost too peaceful. We dropped our packs, stretched, and decided this would be home for the night.
Lisa went to fill our bottles while I started unpacking the tent. When she returned, her expression was different—tighter somehow. “I ran into someone,” she said.
My hands paused mid-motion. “Someone? Out here?”
“Yeah. Back near that old restroom area we passed. He asked me if I had a cigarette.” She tried to sound casual, but her voice wavered. “He had this… look. Scruffy beard, tall, wearing a camo jacket, rifle slung over his shoulder. He just stared for a little too long.”
The woods seemed to hold their breath. I forced a laugh. “Maybe just a hunter?”
“Maybe,” she said. But she didn’t sound convinced.
We decided to move farther from the main trail—deeper in, where it felt safer somehow. We packed up again and followed another faint game path uphill, the trees thickening until the sunlight dimmed. Branches scraped our arms, and the ground grew uneven. We stopped at a flat rock to check our map, spreading it out between us. That’s when the underbrush shifted.
He stepped out. The same man.
“Afternoon,” he said. His voice was low and flat, like a note that didn’t belong in the melody of the woods. The rifle hung casually at his side, but there was a stillness to him that made my stomach knot.
Lisa straightened. “We’re fine,” she said. “Just checking directions.”
He nodded, slowly, his eyes moving from her face to our packs. “Not many people hike this deep. You should be careful out here. Lots of wild animals.”
The way he said “wild animals” made my skin crawl.
“Thanks for the tip,” I said, folding the map, trying to keep my tone light.
He didn’t move. He just watched us for a moment longer—too long—then turned and slipped back into the trees.
We didn’t speak for several minutes after that, just kept walking until we found another spot, farther uphill, hidden by ferns and fallen logs. It seemed safe, secluded. We pitched the tent, built a small fire, and cooked a simple meal of pasta and vegetables. Slowly, the tension eased.
By the time the sun dipped low, the forest had become a symphony of cicadas and wind. Lisa laughed again, telling stories about work, her voice mingling with the crackle of the fire. I started to believe we’d overreacted—that maybe he really was just a hunter passing through.
Later, inside the tent, we changed into comfortable clothes and lay close, talking quietly. The forest outside pulsed with night sounds. When we kissed, it was soft and slow, the kind of warmth that made the rest of the world fade. For a moment, everything felt safe again.
Then came the sound.
A single, sharp crack.
My body jerked before my brain could register it. A hot, blinding pain tore through my arm. Another shot—then another. The tent erupted in chaos, fabric ripping, gunfire deafening. I screamed, tasting blood and dirt. Lisa clutched her side, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Anna! What’s happening?”
I didn’t need to see him to know. It was him. The man from the trail.
Bullets shredded the nylon around us, each one tearing through the air with terrifying precision. One grazed my cheek, another struck my neck. I crawled, screaming her name, but Lisa’s body went still beside me, her chest rising only once more before it didn’t.
Then silence.
I don’t remember deciding to move—just the desperate instinct to survive. I crawled out of the torn tent, dragging my bleeding arm. The world tilted, the trees spinning. The forest, once beautiful, was now a labyrinth of black shapes and shadows.
The gunfire stopped. Maybe he thought we were both dead. Maybe he was watching.
I staggered down the trail, every step agony, my breath ragged and wet. The darkness was total, broken only by faint starlight filtering through the canopy. Branches whipped my face, roots caught my boots, and more than once I fell hard, the taste of iron in my mouth. I bit back sobs, terrified of making noise.
It felt endless—hours or minutes, I couldn’t tell. I just kept moving, every heartbeat echoing the memory of that rifle.
Finally, I saw light—headlights cutting through the trees. I stumbled toward the road and collapsed as a car skidded to a stop.
“Oh my God,” the driver said, an older man with wide eyes. “You’ve been shot—stay with me!”
He wrapped his jacket around me, his voice trembling as he called for help. I remember the flashing lights, the blur of paramedics, the metallic smell of blood.
At the station, they listened to my story, bandaged my wounds, and sent officers into the woods. When they returned, their faces said everything before their words did.
“Your friend didn’t make it,” one of them said softly.
I turned away. I didn’t want to believe him.
They found the man days later, hiding in an abandoned cabin not far from where it happened. He’d been living out there for months—angry, paranoid, lost. He confessed, though I never cared to know why. There’s no reason that makes sense of what he did.
Years have passed, but I still dream of that forest. The whisper of the wind through the trees. The smell of pine and gunpowder. The sound of Lisa’s voice, fading into the dark.
The woods are supposed to be a place of peace—a place to breathe. But every time I close my eyes, I’m back there again, running through the night, the echo of gunfire chasing me through the silence.
"Ten Minutes":
I always loved the quiet of the Alaskan backcountry—the way it swallowed every trace of noise until all that was left was wind, river, and breath. Living in Anchorage, working a desk job that drained the color out of my days, those weekend escapes were what kept me sane. Out there, under the endless sky, I could breathe again.
That Saturday morning, I drove east toward the Knik River, the truck’s tires kicking up dust along a forgotten gravel road. I parked near an old game trail I’d followed once before—one that wound through thick spruce and birch where moose and caribou roamed. The air was sharp with the smell of pine and thawing earth. I slung on my backpack—water, a map, a small knife, and a flare—and stepped into the stillness.
The trail felt alive. My boots sank slightly into mossy ground, the soft earth pocked with fresh tracks—moose, maybe wolf. A magpie called in the distance. I followed the narrow path for nearly an hour, the trees closing in tighter as I went. The forest had that muffled hush, the kind that makes you feel both safe and watched at the same time.
I stopped to sip water when I heard it—a twig snapping somewhere behind me. The sound was quick, crisp. I turned, scanning the green shadows between tree trunks. Nothing. Just the whisper of leaves.
I shook it off and kept walking. But the feeling stuck—an awareness, like the woods themselves were holding their breath. Another snap. Closer. My pulse began to thud in my ears.
“Hello?” I called out. My voice sounded small in the vast silence. No reply.
I started moving faster, my hand brushing the handle of my knife though I knew it wouldn’t help much. That’s when someone stepped out from the trees.
He was tall, lean, wearing faded camo that blended with the forest. A rifle rested across his shoulder. His face was weathered, eyes pale and sharp like ice.
“You lost?” he asked, voice flat and calm.
I forced a smile, trying not to show the tremor in my hands. “No, just hiking. This trail loops back toward the river, right?”
He nodded slowly, studying me like a hunter sizing up a deer. “It does. But it’s easy to get turned around out here. Name’s Bob. I live nearby. You should be careful. Animals aren’t the only things in these woods.”
Something about the way he said it made my skin prickle. We talked briefly. He said he was checking traps. Asked where I was from, if I’d come alone. His questions started feeling too personal—too deliberate. When he asked if anyone was expecting me home soon, I lied, said my roommate knew exactly where I was.
He smiled then, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I can show you a shortcut back. Quicker, safer way.”
I hesitated. Every instinct whispered no. But he looked confident, local. The kind of man who knew these woods by scent.
“Alright,” I said.
We walked side by side, the air thick with silence. The trail thinned, overgrown with ferns. I kept glancing at him from the corner of my eye. “You been out here long?” I asked.
“Years,” he said. “I know every inch. Hunt a lot. There’s nothing like it—chasing something through the trees. Makes you feel alive.”
Something in his tone chilled me. Before I could respond, he swung his rifle around—aimed directly at my chest.
“Don’t move,” he said quietly. “Hands up.”
My mind blanked. “What—what are you doing?”
“Walk,” he ordered, motioning with the gun. “Now.”
I obeyed, trembling. He yanked a rope from his pack, tied my wrists so tight the fibers burned into my skin. “Please,” I begged. “You don’t have to do this.”
He laughed, a low sound that froze my stomach. “They all say that.”
We walked for what felt like hours, deep into nowhere. When the trees finally opened up, there it was—a small, weathered cabin swallowed by brush. The windows were boarded, smoke stains up the walls. He pushed me inside. The air reeked of mildew and something metallic, like old blood.
He chained my ankle to a post in the corner. “Sit,” he ordered. I sank down, trembling.
“Why are you doing this?”
He sat opposite me, cleaning his rifle with methodical precision. “Because I can. Out here, nobody hears a thing. Nobody finds you unless I want them to.”
His voice was so calm, so casual, that it made my heart ache with horror. He talked about other people he’d taken—how he’d fly them out, let them run. “Gotta make it fair,” he said, smiling faintly. “Otherwise, what’s the fun?”
When he left the room, I tugged at the chain until my ankle bled. It didn’t budge. Hours crawled by. When he returned, he handed me a sandwich and a bottle of water, almost gently. “You’ll need your strength,” he said.
That night, I barely slept, shivering on the floor. Around dawn, he crouched beside me and whispered, “We’re going for a ride.”
He drove me to a small airstrip—a rough patch of dirt near the tree line where a bush plane sat waiting. He cuffed my hands, shoved me into the back seat, and took off. The engine roared as the ground fell away, the world below shrinking into endless wilderness. Rivers coiled through untouched forest; there wasn’t a single road in sight.
He landed on a remote lake—perfectly still, ringed with thick trees. When he pulled me out, he uncuffed my wrists but kept the rifle aimed steady.
“Strip,” he said.
I froze. “No.”
The gun went off, a deafening crack. Dirt sprayed my feet.
“Do it,” he hissed.
Tears blurred my eyes as I stripped. The cold air bit into my skin.
“Now run. That trail there.” He pointed into the woods. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
I bolted, barefoot, bleeding from the first step. Branches tore at my skin, whipping across my face. My breath came ragged and loud in the quiet forest. After a minute, I couldn’t hear anything but the drum of my own heart. Then—his voice behind me, faint but growing.
“Time’s up!”
A shot cracked through the trees, splintering bark inches from my head. I ducked and kept running, my feet raw and shredded.
“Keep running!” he yelled, laughing. “Makes it more fun!”
I veered off the game trail, diving into thicker brush. Every sound felt magnified—the pounding of his boots, the echo of gunfire, my gasping breath. I hid behind a fallen log, pressing myself into the damp earth, trying not to cry.
He passed close—so close I could see the mud on his boots. He stopped, listening. Then moved on.
When his footsteps faded, I crawled away in the opposite direction, heading downhill. I didn’t know where I was going—just that downhill usually meant water, and water sometimes meant life.
Hours blurred into each other. The sun dipped low, then disappeared. I found a stream, drank until my stomach cramped, then followed it. My body felt like it wasn’t mine anymore—just pain and instinct.
When darkness fell, I wedged myself into a thicket and waited. At one point, I saw the beam of his flashlight cutting through the trees, swinging side to side. “Where are you?” he shouted, voice raw and furious.
I stayed silent. Even my heartbeat felt too loud.
When morning came, I could barely move. But I kept going, following the stream until it widened. Then, faintly—I heard it. A distant hum.
A road.
I stumbled toward it, every step agony. The trees broke open onto gravel. A pickup truck was coming down the road. I waved my arms, collapsed to my knees.
“Hey! Miss!” the driver yelled, jumping out. “You okay?”
I could barely speak. “Help… he’s out there…”
He wrapped me in a blanket, radioed for police. When they arrived, I told them everything—the cabin, the plane, the way he hunted.
Turns out, he wasn’t just some trapper. He’d done this before—more than once. They found shallow graves, jewelry, and maps marked with red X’s all across the valley.
I was the only one who’d ever escaped.
I survived—but survival doesn’t mean it ends. Every time I hear a branch snap in the woods, every time I catch that smell of cold pine and dirt, I’m back there. Running barefoot through the trees.
The Alaskan wild still calls to me sometimes. But I don’t answer anymore. Because I know now—some monsters don’t live in the darkness of the forest.
They walk in it.
"The Stranger":
I’d been counting down the days to that trip. After weeks of long shifts—Alex under car hoods at the mechanic shop and me stacking freight in the warehouse—we were desperate for a break. We picked a stretch near Brushy Mountain, deep in the Virginia backcountry, a quiet place known for its trout fishing and solitude. That was what we wanted most: peace, no noise, no crowds, no deadlines.
By the time we reached the end of the gravel road, the forest had swallowed every trace of civilization. The air smelled of pine sap and damp earth, and the sound of our tires on loose rock echoed against the hills. The last flicker of cell signal disappeared, and I remember Alex grinning. “Guess it’s just us now,” he said.
We parked the truck by a faded trail marker, the paint chipped and moss-covered. A faint game path snaked off through the brush, no more than two feet wide, lined with deer prints and tangled ferns. “This should take us straight to the creek,” Alex said, hoisting his pack.
The hike was quiet—just the rhythmic creak of our packs and the soft rustle of leaves underfoot. Sunlight broke through the canopy in narrow shafts, lighting up clouds of dust and pollen. The deeper we went, the thicker it grew, until the forest seemed to close around us.
When we finally reached Dismal Creek, the woods opened just enough for a small clearing. An old wooden shelter slouched nearby, its roof half-caved, moss creeping up the posts. “Perfect,” I said, dropping my pack. Alex nodded, already unpacking the tent poles.
We fished until dusk. The water was cold and clear, cutting between smooth stones. The trout bit eagerly, and before long, we had enough for dinner. As night settled, the forest filled with the low hum of crickets and the distant rush of the creek. We grilled two fish over a crackling fire, their skins blistering in the heat, the smell rich and savory.
We sat on fallen logs, laughing, trading old stories. “Remember that road trip to the coast?” Alex said, poking the fire with a stick. “Car died halfway, and we had to push it five miles.”
I snorted. “Yeah, and you swore at it the whole way.”
That’s when we heard a voice—steady, close.
“Evening.”
A man stepped out from the tree line, a dog padding beside him. The mutt looked thin, ribs showing through its coat. The man carried a fishing pole and wore faded jeans and a brown jacket worn soft at the elbows.
“Hey there,” Alex said, friendly as always. “You out fishing too?”
The man nodded, stepping closer into the firelight. “Name’s Randy. Been at it all day, didn’t catch a thing. Mind if I sit for a bit?”
He had that easy, country calm about him, but something in his eyes didn’t match the tone—restless, darting. Still, we were guests in his woods, so I said, “Sure. Grab a log. You hungry?”
He accepted a plate of fish and sat across from us. For a while, he talked about local rivers and football games, swapping stories like any backcountry stranger might. But as he spoke, there was a stiffness to it—like he was reciting lines rather than living them.
“You boys from the city?” he asked at one point.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just trying to escape for a few days.”
He nodded slowly. “Good idea. Lot of bad things happen to folks out here, though. Gotta know the land.”
He smiled when he said it, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Before long, the fire burned low. He mentioned his trailer—“just a mile that way”—and told us we should stop by. “Got some old tackle gear you might like,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the woods.
Alex shot me a quick look. “Appreciate it, man, but we’re calling it a night. Early start tomorrow.”
Randy’s dog whined, and he reached down, scratching its ears. “Alright then,” he said softly. “You boys sleep easy.”
When he disappeared into the dark, the forest seemed to go still again. No insects. No wind. Just the faint rush of the creek.
Inside my tent, I couldn’t shake the unease. Something about him felt… wrong. I told myself it was paranoia. People out here were just different—quiet, rough around the edges. I was half-asleep when I heard it: the crunch of footsteps on dry leaves.
Then a whisper.
“Come here, boy.”
Randy’s voice.
I froze. My heart hammered in my chest. The dog padded close enough that I could hear its claws click on rock. Then—
Bang.
The sound shattered the night. A gunshot—close. Followed by another.
“Alex!” I shouted, fumbling for the zipper. I burst out into the cold air, smoke from the dying fire hanging low like fog. Alex’s tent had collapsed on one side. A figure stood over it—Randy, his arm extended, pistol gleaming in the firelight. His face was blank, expressionless, like someone flipping a switch inside him.
I dove behind a tree as another shot tore through the air, splinters flying past my face.
“Run!” Alex’s voice was raw, breaking. I turned and saw him stumble to his feet, blood streaking his face. Randy swung the gun toward him and fired again. The crack echoed through the trees.
Pain flared hot across my back. Another bullet grazed my neck, and I felt warm blood spill down my shirt. I clamped a hand over the wound, choking back a scream. The woods spun, but instinct took over—I ran.
Branches lashed my face, roots snagged my boots, but I didn’t stop. Behind me, I heard another gunshot, then a scuffle—grunts, a shout, silence.
My lungs burned, each breath sharp as glass. I broke out onto the dirt road, the world tilting with every step. Then—headlights. Alex’s Jeep barreled toward me, gravel flying.
He was alive.
I waved frantically, and the Jeep screeched to a stop. “Get in!” he yelled. His face was a bloody mess, jaw swollen, one eye nearly shut. I threw myself into the passenger seat just as another gunshot cracked behind us.
Alex floored it. The tires spun, spitting dirt, and we tore down the winding road, the forest flashing by in streaks of black and gray. “Don’t stop,” I gasped, pressing my neck wound.
“Wasn’t planning to,” he muttered, his voice hoarse with pain.
The road twisted through steep drops and blind corners. Once, we nearly skidded off into the ravine, rocks tumbling into darkness, but Alex steadied the wheel with both bloodied hands.
After what felt like forever, porch lights appeared through the trees—civilization, small and miraculous. We pulled into the first driveway we saw, stumbling out of the Jeep. I pounded on the door, leaving red smears on the wood.
“Help! We’ve been shot!”
A man opened the door, eyes wide, phone already in hand. His wife rushed to grab blankets. Alex leaned against the railing, breathing shallowly, blood soaking his shirt.
When the paramedics came, everything blurred—sirens, bright lights, hands pressing gauze to wounds. The last thing I remember before passing out was the helicopter blades slicing through the night air.
We both survived. Barely. I’d lost nearly half my blood. The bullet missed my artery by an inch. Alex took one to the shoulder and another across his ribs.
Later, detectives told us the man wasn’t Randy at all—his real name was Randall Lee Smith, a convicted killer who had murdered two hikers near the same creek decades earlier. He’d been released years ago and had drifted back into the woods he knew too well.
He crashed our truck trying to escape the police and died from his injuries.
Sometimes, I think about that night—the quiet forest, the easy laughter, the stranger stepping from the dark. I still hear the echo of that first gunshot in my dreams.
I don’t go deep into the woods anymore. Not alone. Not ever.
Because sometimes, what you think is wilderness solitude… is just someone else’s hunting ground.