November 24, 1635 (NEW!!!!!)
When I was a boy, my father and mother took me to the ocean. We spent the day with our feet buried in pale sand as an endless barrage of waves lapped at the shore. It was the first time I ever saw a crab or learned, for that matter, what its claws were for. The first time I had ever felt the slime of seaweed or tasted the salt of the ocean on my lips. I remember finding a number of shells on the beach, washed ashore from the infinite depths, among them one that shone both blue and red when tilted in the sunlight.
I’ve lost it now, like so many other childhood curios. But I remember even then being intrigued by the ocean and what other secrets it may hold. It was not a minute after my feet landed on the dock of this place that I set off along the rocky shore. I had been on the sea for more time than I wanted to remember yet its majesty in the evening sun wasn’t lost on me. I let my eyes soak in the sight of Boston, of the new world, and the Atlantic.
I found more shells that day, and over the course of the next year used some spare fishing line to string them into a chime. It hangs now beneath the roof just outside my window. When there is a breeze I can see the strands of shell dance and dangle into one another, their muted song crying out to the great blue mother from which they were pilfered.
They hang silent at present. Silent and still, with those strands of shell bearing an eerie resemblance to the fingers of a hand fallen lifeless. By the time I removed the snake from Mildred’s arm, her entire body, hung limp except for the occasional spasm of what I hoped wasn’t pain. A purple palor invaded her lips and her eyelashes took to fluttering softly as her breath became labored.
Gripping the writhing creature just beneath its jaw, I worked it wriggling body until it was straight and gripped its rattling end as firmly as I dared. Then, with eyes locked onto the hissing maw, I turned, shifting my hold to the hand holding the tail, and let the front swing down. Using the momentum, I spun it as hard as I could into the face of the boulder. It took two hits before I heard the skull crack, and two more before the body grew loose. I threw the mutilated carcass away toward the trees before returning to Mildred, wiping my hands on my pantlegs.
The leaves overhead continued their hushed wail, and for a moment I felt myself back on the beach. It was uncanny how similar the brushing foliage resembled the endless rasping roar of the surf. But no. I couldn’t let myself succumb to fancy. It took a great deal of effort, but I forced my consciousness into the present.
Not knowing what exactly I was doing, I removed by belt with haste and secured it tightly around her arm. I knew it might be too late to stop the venom completely, but out in the middle of that forsaken forest, I didn’t see how stemming the flow coursing through her body could hurt. My spirits were bolstered when the spasms slowed but she did not recover. Her breathing was shallow, and I feared she may never wake if I did not act quickly.
But do what? I had no experience or study in tinctures and potions. Even if I did, this fauna was all so exotic and strange. For all I knew the surrounding plants could help as much as harm. The best I could hope for was a nearby homestead or village with the skill to treat such a wound. Short of that, I felt too sure that Mildred would meet her end.
I had to select which of our supplies I could reasonably carry and which were too cumbersome with the additional load of carrying her in my arms. I tried not to think on how many breaks I would need in my search for help and instead set my jaw for the task ahead. We had only traveled a short time, but she may be my only hope for remaining sane so far away from the shyest glimpse of civilization. Echoing my fears came the encroaching heartbeat of the wood itself, pounding out a rhythmic pulse that I felt rather than heard. Picking up Mildred as gingerly as I could manage and with two sacks slung across my back, I set off.
The hike was treacherous. I nearly dropped her a dozen times, and twice as many I had to stop to rest. Still, I moved with a compulsion that bordered on madness. My footsteps were not my own, and were my brain not still in charge of my legs, I fear those two extensions would have led me into the abyss itself. But I paced myself and traveled what I believed to have been a few leagues by the time the sun set in the west.
There is something the reader may not understand about the forest of the New England country that I should explain. Within those colossal sentinels hides an ancient, raw force. It is nothing that can be quantified or measured, only felt in the deepest part of the mind; the same where lies the instinct to run. In Boston, with people bustling to and fro, it’s hardly noticeable. But as I have tried to present before, the further from that small foundation of humanity I was led (and I do believe I was led), the more I could feel the forest inside of me. No, not inside of me. It was outside of me, trying to get within.
As night fell, I felt it stronger than ever before, stronger than when I found myself within the clutches of the Chief. And if my assumptions were correct that the force originated away from the safe borders of Boston, that meant I was heading in the wrong direction.
I tried to think of where I had gone wrong while barely managing not to trip over downed trees and roots by the dim light of the stars above. It was possible that I had taken a turn from the constellation during one of my breaks, but I couldn’t remember doing so if that were the case. All I could understand was the increasingly unresponsive body that was growing heavier than lead in my arms.
Then I heard the snap of a branch breaking in two a distance behind me. I spun around, managing to keep my grip as I peered into the inky shadow that had consumed the forest in the previous hour. Not even the starlight could break through the canopy above at any kind of distance. No matter how hard I tried, I could only make out a few trees, their branches reaching with a blind quality I could empathize with. After a few long moments, I turned and continued.
Another two snaps. This time in my haste to see what was behind me I dropped Meredith, or at least her lower half. Again, though, I could see nothing. Images of a bear, wolves, or any other number of monstrosities slunk through my imagination as I stared into the dark. I heard no sounds, though, for all the time I watched, but I knew we weren’t alone. Something was out there, watching and waiting for my back to be turned.
Though my mind swam with possibilities of what could be lying in wait out beyond my vision, I was not in a position to fight whatever it was. I was battered and worn from the search and hindered by my companion. My mind flashed to her rifle, though she hadn’t used it since the river incident. Not that I could shoot it even if I wanted to.
Reaching down, I regathered Mildred in my arms, warily staring into the darkness, hoping for a reprieve from the madness that had consumed me now for so long. I walked backwards, one shuffling footstep at a time. Leaves and brush rasped beneath my boots and each step seemed to echo a resounding cry of humanity’s presence in such an unholy place. But though my own untrained steps made a ruckus, I heard nothing from the way I had come. It appeared that it may just have been my imagination, a falling branch, or that if it was a creature, it had spirited itself away.
I laughed despite myself. Despite my dying partner in my arms. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t contain myself. Something about it made me want it more and the absurdity of it all overwhelmed me. I laughed and crept, trying through teary eyes to watch for any sign of something I wouldn’t have been able to see anyways.
And as though hearing my own laughter, a call broke forth through the silence of the wood. It spoke of rot and decay, of spiked tooth and mandible, clattering a screeching cry that could peel skin from bone and set loose even the sturdiest of constitutions. It was a sound so foreign to anything I had heard before, and so loud. The entire forest seemed to produce the mindless screech until nothing existed but it and me. And I was running.
I don’t know why I ran. Something about the scream terrified me in a way I’ve never known since. Even now, lingering in a half-existence and dependent on salves and pastes to keep my health, I feared that moment more than any lingering shade of death before or since. But I did run. And as I ran, I heard more cracks and pops of sticks and twigs, shouts of warning that something was following me and not far behind.
I felt as bushes and branches grabbed at my arms and legs as I moved, trying to keep from tangling around roots and vines. Twice I almost ran fully into ancient trees wider than any man, but each time managed to miss.
It came as more of a surprise than it should have when my forehead met a low hanging branch thick as my arm, sending me sprawling feet first and slamming my head into the forest floor. Something warm and wet crept along the back of my head, and as I stared up into the filtered night sky, I tried to pretend that I didn’t still hear those footsteps whisper along as they approached where I lay. That I couldn’t smell the fetid rot that clung to the figure that began to darken my already bleak vision. But more than anything, I pretended that when I awoke from this terribleness, that I would be back in Boston, in a warm bed belonging to a small room in the midst of civilization.
But as I drifted out of consciousness, even these childlike wishes weren’t enough to keep my skin from feeling what I imagined were hard, cold, bones wrap themselves around my neck. My world became truly dark then, and I dreamt of terrible things, not knowing that my waking nightmare was yet to begin.
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