October, 2015

  Brad Davidson stared up at the moon, pretending to admire the brilliantly white crescent of rock hovering over him in a vast, black sky, and maybe even exude the airs of a man pondering the mysteries of the universe. In reality, he was trying really hard not to stare at his friends making out in the shadowy corners of the forest lookout.

  Brad, along with fourteen other students from Humboldt State University, most of them sophomores, had come to the Mather Lookout in the woods northeast of Arcata to celebrate a mid-semester break. Big tests had come and gone, cheap beer had been purchased by one student’s older brother, and the entire group had caravanned to the woods to get away for a night, mostly because a few of the girls considered it romantic. Brad thought it was romantic, too. It would have been even more romantic if he’d had someone to share it with.

  Six different couples had spread out to various corners of the overlook, to spaces behind or on the far side of trees, giving at least the appearance of modesty. Of course, spreading out only made it so that at least one couple was in in his field of vision no matter where he looked. Some were even brazen in their PDA, or in their current lack of clothes. College kids weren’t particularly discerning.

  He forced down a sip of cheap beer. He needed a girlfriend. He’d spent his entire freshman year without a hint of a serious relationship, and the first two months of his sophomore year hadn’t been any more promising. A couple first dates that didn’t pan out, and a quick make-out session with an almost terminally drunk girl were the only things on his social resume. Meanwhile, most of his friends were hooking up at least every other weekend.

  Brad stood up from the damp log he’d been sitting on and wandered over to the ledge. He leaned over, peering down at the rocks about twenty feet below, before his fear of heights forced him to back up a few steps. A fall probably wouldn’t kill him but the big rocks at the bottom could split his skull open. Some of the guys had taken turns dancing on the edge, wind-milling their arms as if a gust of wind might knock them over, waving their bodies back and forth in a grand show. The girls had shouted at them to get down and stop being stupid, and after that the couples had locked hands, and then lips, and Brad, Andre, and Jeff had been the odd men out. Andre and Jeff were ridiculously nerdy and spent too much time talking about video games and anime to ever pick up girls. What was Brad’s excuse?

  He tossed his beer can over the edge and watched it bounce off the rocks and roll down the sloped ground until he couldn’t see it anymore. He hated beer, anyway. He looked out across the expanse of trees and hills, all leading to the Pacific Ocean in the distance, which he could only make out thanks to the reflection of moonlight on the dark surface.

  He glanced to his right, where his roommate Shea tongue-wrestled with Andrea, a girl way too pretty for either of them. He shook his head and walked down the path leading back into the woods.

  “Brad?” Andre called out after him. He and Jeff had been sitting at the other end of the log, openly gaping at the others while whispering some argument about various console specs. “Where you going?”

  “I want to look around,” he said, not looking back. He made it only a dozen paces before hearing two sets of footsteps rushing to catch up. He turned to see Jeff and Andre walking the path behind him.

  “Are you following me?”

  “No,” Jeff said wryly, adjusting his glasses. He wore a Lucky Loggers t-shirt, the mascot of their school, and frayed, well-worn cargo shorts. “We just happen to be walking in the exact same direction. The fact that you’re doing it a few seconds ahead of us doesn’t mean we’re following you.”

  “Exactly,” Andre chimed in. He was short and skinny, maybe five and half feet tall in boots. “And there’s only like two paths out here anyway, so there’s a fifty-fifty chance we’d be stuck with you.”

  Brad rolled his eyes. “You guys must love this.”

  Jeff narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why?”

  “Wandering around out here in the woods, surrounded by people very close to getting naked. It’s almost like cosplaying a Game of Thrones episode. All you’re missing is swords, armor, a dragon, and someone trying to kill you.”

  “Har har har,” Andre said. “This place is nothing like Westeros. It’s way too rainy for that.”

  “Seriously?” Jeff said. “This is exactly like the Riverlands. Also, this is the kind of hill Riverrun would be on.”

  “Are you kidding me? Riverrun wasn’t on a hill. It was by a river. It’s right there in the name. Also, you wouldn’t put a fort on this side of a hill. You’d put it on the other side, where you can see approaching armies. All you can see here is the water.”

  “You can get attacked from either side of a hill, doofus.”

  “Yeah, but all the other kingdoms would be on the other side, where there’s more land. That’s where your enemies would be. So that’s where you need your forts. Duh.”

  Brad tried not to groan. He’d meant his remark as a silly insult, not a trigger for a nerd conversation that could go on for hours.

  “What if your enemies are raiders, like the Ironborn?” Jeff asked. “They’d come from the sea and attack your villages and ports. Duh.” He scrunched his face to get the most effect out of his insult.

  Andre just rolled his eyes. “Then you fortify them. But you still put your main castle in the most defensible position.”

  “Or, you could put your castle here and build lookout towers on the other side.”

  “No, you’d put a watchtower here to watch the ocean for pirates or raiding ships, so you could get word to the port city below, and then put your castle at the top of the hill. That would make the most sense because you could see both ways.”

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  Jeff’s eyes lit up. “And you could see dragons coming from up there. You can put ballistas on the walls to defend against them.”

  “See? You must think of all the possibilities, padawan. Armies could come at you from all directions, and the smart ones will look for weak spots. Just like I know your weak spot is Skittles. If I were fighting a war with you, I’d poison all the Skittles.”

  “All the Skittles?” Jeff asked in a deadpan voice. “In the whole world?”

  “Yes,” Andre said. “Every. Single. One.”

  Brad did everything he could to drown out the two idiots, but nothing worked. Their inane conversation still seeped into his brain. He’d been better off sulking back on that stupid damp log because at least there they’d been whispering.

  “I’d like to see you try and infiltrate Skittles headquarters,” Jeff said. “They probably have different colored ninjas defending their factory. One dressed in each different color. Those dudes will make you taste a rainbow, for sure.”

  “Skittle ninjas? Seriously?”

  Jeff beamed. “That was a good idea, huh? We should do that for Halloween. We still have a couple weeks to get ninja costumes and get em dyed different colors.”

  “I am not being a purple ninja for Halloween.”

  “Be a red ninja. Wait! Be THE Red Ninja!”

  “Dude, Red Ninja’s a girl.”

  Brad sighed. He suspected these two knew exactly how annoying they were and just didn’t care. He scanned the forest ahead for any way out. He’d roll through poison ivy just to get away.

  “Yeah, and she’s hot.”

  “Wait. You want me to be a hot girl ninja for Halloween? Is that what your fantasy of me is? Imagining me as a girl with num-chuks?”

  “No,” Jeff said. “It’s you wearing a mask so I don’t have to see that pathetic beard you’re trying to grow.”

  Opening or not, Brad decided to make a break for it. He veered off the path through a thick cluster of branches. His boots crunched through dead leaves and wood as he fought through the foliage blocking him from freedom.

  Jeff and Andre stopped on the path. “Umm, why are you going that way?” Andre asked.

  Brad pushed a few thin branches out of the way, pushing deeper into the woods. “I want to check out this part of the forest.”

  “Out there?” Jeff said.

  “In the dark?” Andre asked.

  Brad shrugged, which at this point Jeff and Andre probably couldn’t see.

  “Why not?” He trudged through the brush, fairly confident that the two super nerds wouldn’t follow him. After a dozen or so steps, their voices trailed off. He exhaled in relief. He’d rather be alone right now than listen to them argue over dragons and ninjas.

  The darkness was suffocating, so he pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight, lighting up the dense forest around him. He’d chosen his escape route poorly. He couldn’t see any good path out of the brush. Oh well. There was no way in hell he was turning back, so he pushed onward, ignoring the sudden unease that tingled at his periphery.

  He slogged through twisted branches and vines, and after a couple of minutes he grew worried about what the foliage was doing to his new jeans. He decided avoiding Jeff and Andre wasn’t important enough to ruin his limited wardrobe, and made a sharp turn to the left, which he hoped would pull him out of this jungle and back onto the path. He listened for their voices, mentally calculating how far he’d wandered away.

  Fortunately, the brush thinned out, and a minute later opened up into a small clearing where he could take a step unimpeded by nature. He stopped and shook some twigs from his pant legs then bent over to wipe away some wet grass and leaves. He ran his phone light across his clothes, checking for rips or tears. None of it was worse for wear. That was a good sign. He’d spent almost $80 on these jeans.

  He flashed the light around the clearing, looking for a sensible path forward, but the light died out about ten feet in every direction. Shrugging, he kept walking, almost tripping over some rocks. He caught himself and turned the flashlight on the ground to see a pile of smooth, white rocks, each one roughly fist-sized. He was about to leave them behind when he realized the pile wasn’t random. They were put together in a very deliberate way. A ring of small stones encircled a ring of bigger stones. The bigger stones were packed together in two tight lines, with more stones stacked on top, like a row of pyramids. In the center of the inner ring was a wooden statue of a distorted figure. It looked like it had been made by a child. Had someone done this as a joke?

  That’s when he noticed the markings on the ground. He shone the light across the dirt and grass, seeing white, chalky lines arrayed out from the outer ring. At first glance it looked like concentric circles. But then he found an intersecting line. He followed it all the way to the edge of the clearing. A flick of the phone found two more.

  It was more than circles and lines, though. There were variations in the lines that made the entire thing look like an ancient symbol of some kind. He backed away from the statue, suddenly grasping how big this little project really was.

  He heard a crunch in the distance. He flinched, and stifled a yelp that would have been truly embarrassing.

  “Jeff?” he asked the darkness. Of the two, Jeff was more likely to do something dumb like sneak up on him in the dark. He heard no response. The entire forest seemed to have gone silent. “Andre?”

  He shined the flashlight on the trees surrounding him, the light failing to penetrate the edges of the clearing. Something flickered directly in front of him. He froze. Despite the warnings from his gut, his brain, and his sense of self-preservation he instinctively leaned forward to get a better look. It took him a second before he realized two eyes stared back, reflecting the light from his phone. Brad kept still, immediately regretting every decision he’d made in his life that led to this exact moment. A low growl emanated from the spot, and Brad desperately tried to remember how to work his legs.

  The growl was replaced by a screech and Brad leapt across the clearing like a frightened cat, dropping his phone on the ground. He grabbed it, fumbling with it before tripping over that same pile of rocks that had stymied him only a moment ago. He fell on his backside, then twisted around and scurried backward while shining his phone in the direction of the sound. He expected to see a large bird, or maybe some animal he didn’t know of that sounded like a giant, pissed off crow. He saw movement at the other edge of the clearing, and his eyes widened at the sight of something vastly different than what he’d expected.

  A ghostly apparition, hovering in the air.

  It looked like a child, a young girl wearing a frayed nightgown from a hundred years ago. Her long hair floated about her oval-shaped head, and her eyes were… not there. Two black holes bored into him as the apparition drifted closer.

  He froze. Something in his mind told him to run, but his legs weren’t responding to normal commands. Fear bubbled up from his gut like an egg and pickle smoothie.

  The spectre’s mouth twisted into a scowl, and an arm rose, a spindly finger pointed right at him.

  “You…” the voice was raw, high-pitched, “die.”

  “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod…” He vomited up words just as the urge to run finally reached his legs. Brad spun on his heels and ran back the way he came. He stumbled through the forest with his arms around his head, protecting his eyes from the branches and leaves.

  “Ghost!” he shouted. He wanted the whole world to hear him so he yelled it again. “GHOST!”

  He reached the path and sprinted back toward the overlook where the others would be. He chanced a quick look over his shoulder. He saw a faint shimmering in the woods behind him. It was coming for him. He could feel it in his bones. He ran as fast as he could, his muscles propelled by terror.

  “Ghost!” he panted, his breaths coming in ragged spurts now. “It’s chasing me!”

  He screamed as he reached the ledge, and in his panic, he forgot to slow down. His legs failed him as he skidded across the gravel, and his momentum carried him right over the edge. He crashed into the ground below, his vision flashing white, and then… nothing.