SHORT STORIES VOL 1 INCLUDING: ROMANCE, COMEDY, DRAMA, SCI-FI, HORROR & MORE

Chapter 6: The Stone

Katie got out of her car and took a deep breath. She had parked in the lot at the trailhead and was looking forward to spending a large part of her spring break hiking and camping on this trail. Katie had grown up in the city and had never been much of an outdoors person until her freshman year of college. Her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend had taken her hiking on this trail for the first time. From that moment on, she was hooked.

Katie walked to the trunk of her car as she looked down the trail. While she took her backpack and gear out, she could not shake the feeling that, somehow, something was different. She shook her head as if to clear it from her mind as she went about gathering her things to begin her week in the woods.

After a final check of her food and other supplies, she strapped her one-person tent and sleeping bag to her pack and hefted it onto her back. She fastened the strap around her waist, clicked the chest strap closed, and took another deep breath as she closed the trunk of her car and started down the trail.

Katie could not shake the uneasy feeling that had begun almost as soon as she stepped out of her car. The atmosphere had a heaviness, as if a physical weight was on her, making every step she took more labored than it should have been.

Katie was barely out of sight of her car when she felt she needed to rest. She sat on a log beside the trail, wondering why she was so tired. Katie had been a state champion swimmer in high school and ran every day. She still swam at least two to three times a week. It wasn’t like she was out of shape, and it confused her as to why she would already be fatigued.

While she sat, she began to notice there was no noise. There was not a bird, frog, or insect making a single sound. The silence made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Something felt very wrong. Katie thought about turning around and returning to her car, but she had been planning this for months and did not want to miss out on the adventure. She shook her head and silently scolded herself for being paranoid.

Katie stood, taking a deep breath and letting it out before she continued down the trail. After hiking about a quarter of a mile down the trail, Katie began to hear the sound of birds. They were off in the distance and sounded upset, but at least she was hearing them. As Katie continued deeper into the forest, she began to hear more of the sounds she expected in a forest. She even had a squirrel scold her and throw an acorn at her as she walked under its tree.

Katie kept going for a few hours until she reached a stream. She had waded in it many times and looked forward to doing it now. Katie slipped off her backpack and dropped it on the gravel bank. She slipped off her hiking boots and socks before gingerly stepping into the cold spring water.

Katie waded, splashing in the stream. It made her want to dive in and swim, but the water and the weather were far too chilly for that. She would return in the late summer before the next school year, which would be the perfect time for swimming.

She looked down into the water near her feet and saw something glimmering in the sunlight. She reached in and pulled out a small, flat, perfectly oval stone that was a lighter color than any other rocks in the area. Katie ran her fingers across it and could feel lines and grooves.

Katie looked at it as she walked out of the stream and onto the bank. She could almost make out a pattern on its surface. She scooped some sand into her hand and rubbed it onto the stone in her hand. As she cleaned it, a clear design began to show. It looked like some kind of rune engraved into the surface.

Katie studied the rock in her hands. She turned it over and repeated the process on the other side, finding more engravings. The two sides were different, yet had the same style and look. Weathering within each line showed it was either old or someone had put much work into the piece.

Katie’s major was anthropology, but she had never seen anything quite like it. It had characteristics from many different cultures. The one thing she did know was that nothing like that should be in a stream in this forest.

Katie stuck the rock in her pocket before quickly drying her feet and putting her boots back on. She considered canceling her trip and contacting one of her professors about the stone she had found. Katie pulled it out of her pocket and looked at it in her hand. It would not matter if she waited until after her week in the forest. The rock had been there for a long time. A little longer of being unknown to the rest of the world would not matter.

She tucked the rock into a small pocket in her backpack. Katie made sure the zipper was closed before she hefted the pack back on and continued her hike. The further she walked, the more noise the forest was making. She found that comforting for some reason.

As the sun sank lower, she began to look for a good place to pitch her tent for the night. She did not need much room for the shelter. She did, however, want to find a spot clear enough for her to start a small fire and have a hot meal. She rounded a bend and saw just what she was looking for.

It was a small clearing ringed by trees. The ground was level and soft, with almost no vegetation. Katie made fast work of setting things up. The tent popped open and was ready in only a couple of minutes. She made a stone circle, started the fire, and put her dinner on to simmer over the open flame.

Katie shivered as she watched the fire dance. That same uneasy feeling she had earlier was coming back. She could see the valley below her, and a thick fog drifted in the windless night. That added to the feeling that everything around her sounded muffled.

The sharp snap of a twig made Katie jump. She whirled around, startling the deer that had walked up behind her. She sighed and laughed nervously, thinking about how silly she was for being so jumpy. She was a city girl. There were far more things to be frightened of in the city than in the forest she was in.

While her dinner was cooking and she watched the sunset, her mind kept drifting back to the stone and its carved runes. She reached into her backpack and pulled the rock out to study it further. She sat gazing at it, turning it over and over in her hands as the sun set around her.

The stone was a smooth, flat oval. The color was a light tan that reminded Katie of old parchment. As she ran her fingers over it, she could feel more lines on its surface than she had noticed before. She needed to find something to make the etchings stand out more.

Katie carefully worked a small charred stick out of the fire. She poured a tiny bit of water on it to make sure it was cool before she began to rub the burned end on the rock in her hand. The charcoal embedded into each fine line and crevice, showing her every detail. Katie tried to wrap her head around what she was seeing. The runes on the stone were so detailed. They were like nothing she had seen before. The implications of finding it where she had were phenomenal.

A rustling in the leaves on the far side of the clearing broke her concentration. Katie looked up to see the fog edging into the area where she was camping. Thin tendrils slowly snaked along the ground toward her. It gave her an ominous, disquieting feeling that sank to her core.

Katie stuck the rock in her pants pocket. She carefully took the pot containing her dinner from the fire. The thick stew was boiling. She wished she had a way to cool the food so she could quickly eat her meal. The feeling she had made her want to pack up, hike out of the forest, and leave that night. Even if she didn’t eat, she would have to wait for that pot to cool before she could pack it away.

The deafening silence around her struck Katie. All the night sounds that had been there minutes earlier were gone. It was as if the fog dampened all sound around it.

Katie couldn’t take it anymore. The forest where she had found comfort so many times now felt threatening in a way she had never felt before. She hurriedly began to pack her things. She didn’t bother to pack the cooking pot or eat. Granola bars on the trail back to her car would have to do.

Katie was strapping the tent and sleeping bag to her backpack when the fog reached where she was kneeling. She felt a cold dampness as the fog wrapped around her ankle. She could have sworn she felt a pressure around her leg where it touched her but brushed it off as paranoia induced by the situation.

Katie pulled a handful of granola and protein bars from her backpack and stuffed them in her cargo pockets. She moved a bottle of water to a pouch she could reach without removing her backpack before taking out one of her flashlights. Katie made a final check of her pants pockets to make sure her car keys and the stone were there. She hefted the pack onto her back and began the trek out of the forest. She knew it would be after midnight by the time she made it out, but it would be worth it.

-

Katie had been hiking in the darkness for over an hour when she saw the fog in a valley ahead of her, shimmering in the beam of her flashlight. That sight filled her with dread that she could not explain. She had hiked in fog before. It could be disorienting at times, but there was nothing that could hurt her. As long as she stayed on the trail, she would be fine. That also meant she would walk through the dense cloud bank before her.

Katie slowed her pace as she neared. She had been looking for a side path or even a game trail as she walked. She wanted to find something, anything that would lead her around and not through the fog. She could see nothing that would help her.

She stopped when she reached the edge of the fog. It was swirling and undulating as her light showed on it. She had never seen anything like it, and it filled her with anxiety. Katie braced herself before stepping into the fog. She kept her light on the ground, carefully following the trail.

Katie couldn’t shake the oppressive feeling inside the fog. It was hard to breathe, like breathing through a wet cloth. She could almost feel the fog wrapping around her, invading her pockets and pack as if searching for something. She began to jog up the hill out of the valley to escape the fog.

Katie broke out of the fog and continued to race up the trail to the top of the hill. She was panting, trying to catch her breath, when she finally stopped at the top. After a moment, Katie turned to look back at the fog. In the beam of her flashlight, she could see it moving and dancing. She knew it was irrational, but she felt like it was following her.

Katie turned off her flashlight as she continued to catch her breath. She took a drink from her water bottle before blindly taking one of the bars from her pocket and taking a bite. Katie stood at the top of the hill as she ate, watching the fog in the light of the full moon. It shimmered and danced in the moonlight, unlike anything she had seen before.

Movement at the foot of the hill caught her attention. Her blood ran cold when she saw the fog snaking upward along the trail toward her. The mist was not behaving as fog should. It should drift in the wind or follow the valley. It should not be following a trail uphill.

Katie flipped on her light and began running down the trail toward her car. Running the trail at night was dangerous, but deep inside, she knew the fog was the real danger. She had to get away from it.

-

Katie felt as though she had been running for hours. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps. She had to stop and rest. When she reached the top of the next hill, she dropped to the ground and leaned against a large tree. She shined her light all around as she drank from her water bottle and tried to slow her breathing. She felt a wave of relief when she saw no fog. There were still no sounds in the forest, but she dismissed that as being the result of the noise she made while running and scaring the wildlife.

After several minutes, Katie pulled herself to her feet and began walking again. The urgency she had felt earlier was gone. Katie was still uncomfortable and uneasy but no longer felt as afraid as she had. She tried to understand why she felt that type of fear from the fog.

Walking along the trail began to relax her. The only sound was her rhythmic footsteps. The full moon only dimly illuminated the forest. That let her focus on what was within her flashlight beam on the trail. Katie found herself in a meditative state, letting her mind wander back to the stone in her pocket.

The calm state did not last. When Katie rounded a bend in the trail, she saw the fog bank before her. She could feel her heart begin to pound as she stopped dead in her tracks. The fog went as far as she could see into the woods on both sides of the path. There was no way to get around it. Katie knew she was getting close to the parking lot at the trailhead. The only thing she had to do was get past this fog and go about another quarter of a mile.

“Stop being silly. It’s only fog,” Katie muttered to herself.

Katie stood in the dark with her light shining into the fog on the trail ahead of her. She began psyching herself up in the same way she had always done before she swam at a meet. All Katie had to do was run as fast as she could through the fog, and it would be over. There was nothing to be scared of, and she knew it. It was fog, that was all.

Katie took a deep breath and bolted into the fog. When she hit it, it felt thick. It was harder to move than it should have been. There should have been no substance to it other than feeling wet. The fog was all wrong.

Katie could feel a pressure forming around her as she continued to force her way forward. Every step she was taking was a struggle. She felt as if she were suffocating as she tried to pull air into her lungs. The pressure began to squeeze her to the point of pain. Katie felt her joints start popping as she struggled to move without success.

Katie let out a shallow gasp as she felt her feet lift off the ground. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. She felt something touch her ankle. It wiggled up her leg until it reached her pocket. She could feel something reaching into her pocket and looking for something. Tears streamed down Katie’s face as she squinted her eyes closed. She was terrified that she would never leave the forest. She felt the thing move out of her pocket.

Katie hit the ground with a thud, gasping for air and unable to move. She was dizzy and disoriented in the dark as she opened her eyes and looked around. The fog was gone. There was no trace that it had ever been there.

Katie sat up and began to sweep her flashlight around the area. The night was clear. In the distance, she could see the faint glimmer of the lights in the parking lot. She staggered to her feet and began to fight her way to the end of the trail. Her body ached, and it hurt to breathe.

When Katie reached the lot and saw her car, she began to laugh from the relief and pure exhaustion she felt. She quickly threw her gear into the backseat, got in, and started the car. Katie was worried about falling asleep while driving home, but she was far more afraid to stay there any longer. She resigned herself to driving as far away as she could before stopping.

-

Katie picked up the clothes she had worn when she had gone into the forest. When she had gotten home, she had peeled them off, and they had been lying on her bedroom floor for the past two days. Katie was finally getting around to washing them. She began taking everything out of her pants pockets when she realized something was missing. The stone with the runes was gone.

Katie began shaking as she dropped to the floor. The rock was what triggered the fog. The fog had wanted the stone back and had taken it from her.

The first time she went hiking, Katie was told never to take anything from the forest and never leave anything behind. It was not until now that she understood how important that warning had been.