Chapter 2: Chapter 2. The woods / What lies beneath

The narrow trailhead that had called to me loomed ahead, dark and green and leading to god knows where. We got to it and stopped. I could feel sweat running down my neck and back. And it wasn't from the heat. Did we really want to go in? 

But I had to know. I had to try and find out for myself.

I took a breath, heard Charlie hyperventilating behind me, and took a step into the woods. 

I waited, one foot in the woods and one still on the grass. Nothing came roaring out to eat me. That was a good sign. 

Or whatever monster was waiting in there just wanted to make sure we were deeper in and there were no witnesses. So I guess there was only one way to find out.

“Let’s just do it,” I said, glancing back. Charlie was breathing so hard he was panting.

I took off before I could think too much more about it and chicken out, walking through the woods, pushing myself forward, not allowing myself to look back. 

“Come on, Charlie,” I called as I walked. After a few moments, I heard him coming behind me, crashing through the dead leaves like an elephant. I’m not sure how long we walked. I pushed tree branches and vines out of my way, forcing my feet to keep moving, then finally, I stopped. 

Charlie was behind me, and we were deep in the woods now. I couldn’t see the parking lot where we’d left Charlie’s car or the river or even hear the kids yelling and shouting and having fun anymore. We were deep in the woods now. 

“What do we do now?” Charlie asked. 

I had no idea.

But I needed to keep my confidence up so Charlie would keep his up. “Let’s see… If they came this way, surely they were heading home.” I looked back the way we had come. Town was straight ahead. 

“Let’s just keep going straight,” I said. The woods weren’t that deep. If we kept going, we’d have to eventually come out the other side. “And keep your eyes peeled for…” For what? I had no idea what we were looking for. 

This had seemed like a good idea at the time, but how were we supposed to find something, anything, that the police and tons of volunteers missed?

This was stupid. 

But we were in it, and we had to keep going. They were just woods. Right? 

We kept walking, and Charlie caught up and walked beside me. “What are we looking for,” he said. 

I shrugged. “It’s like the perfect porn,” I said. “You don’t know what it is, but you just know it when you see it.”

Charlie scoffed. “You’re always thinking about porn. Always thinking with your little brain.” 

“And yet, my little brain is bigger than your real brain.”

Charlie ignored that and said, “All those people searched the woods and didn’t see anything, and we will?” 

“Just shut up and keep looking,” I said. He had a point. But what had happened? How did four teenagers go into some woods and just vanish? I wasn’t going to give up until I knew. Or it got dark. Whichever came first.

We walked for a while, making jokes and insulting each other. We always kept it personal, nothing was off limits, but we never went to your-momma jokes since both of our mothers were an emotional hot mess. There was a line, and we didn’t cross it. 

The woods got thicker, the leaves overhead so close and numerous that I couldn’t see the sky at some points. 

“Man, it’s getting dark in here,” Charlie said, almost as if reading my mind. 

It was. It wasn’t just the shadows of the trees. It was like someone had dimmed the whole world, and our eyes couldn’t adjust to it. 

“Jack, let’s turn back,” Charlie said nervously. I was right there with him. “It’s…” He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. It was scary in here. We both knew it. But that was just our minds playing tricks on us. We’d been psyched out about these woods since we could walk, and our brothers had gone missing here, so we were automatically on edge. But that was it. I refused to believe there was something in here that would hurt us. 

“Let’s just push through,” I said. “We’ve got to be more than halfway through.”  We weren’t likely to find anything in here, but I wanted to make it through, to beat these woods once and for all.

“Let’s hurry then,” Charlie whispered. He didn’t have to add he wanted to break out in a run and never stop till we got out because I felt the same way. 

We walked fast but didn’t run, forcing ourselves to look for clues, or I was trying to, but mostly I was watching out for spiders and snakes and a masked killer wearing the dry old skin of four teenage youths. 

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I was a small clearing. Not much, just a space where the trees opened up, and the sunlight shone down on the brown leaves that were crunching beneath our feet. 

In the middle of it was a small stone wall. 

I would have been just as surprised to see a naked woman standing there. The wall just looked like it didn’t belong.    

It was made of stone bricks that were covered in moss, the grey of the bricks peeking through the thick green of the moss here and there. 

“What is that,” I said and turned towards it. 

Charlie stopped in his tracks. “Jack. Let’s just go.”  His voice was shaky. 

I didn’t stop. The wall was so incongruous, so out of place in these deep woods. No one had ever lived in these woods. No one had ever even cut the trees. So how did a wall get here? 

I walked towards it. I had an overwhelming need to take a closer look. Had the four teens been here before they vanished? No police or volunteer searchers had ever mentioned seeing anything in these woods. 

As I got closer, I could see something resting against it. It was a gray lump with moss starting to grow over it too. I could see orange on it as well. 

When I got to the wall, I kicked the lump with my shoe. It was soft, not a rock. 

I bent down to get a better look. 

Charlie was closer behind me now but still standing back from the small circle of light that the wall was in. “Don’t touch anything, Jack.”  He looked around nervously. “This feels all wrong.” 

He was right, but I ignored him and poked my finger at the lump. 

It felt like…

I grabbed it and pulled. The gray mound came reluctantly from the moss that covered it, having been there so long that it was almost part of the ground now. 

I held it up. There were two straps and some zippers.

“This is a bag,” I said. “A backpack.”

I heard Charlie gasp. 

“This is…” I said but couldn’t finish. 

Was it? Was this what I thought it was? What if it was? 

I urgently and desperately fought with the zippers on the bag. I pulled so hard that I heard the fabric of the bag rip, but I didn’t care. I needed to see what was inside. 

In the backpack’s pocket were some gym shorts, a t-shirt, a notebook, and a calculus book. A high school calculus book. The same book we used in my high school calculus class. I dropped the bag and opened the book’s cover. 

There were seven names printed there, each one an owner of the book for one school year. 

My brother’s name was the seventh and last name on the list. 

My stomach clenched, and I felt an electric shock run through my body like I’d stuck my fingers in a light socket. My fingers went numb. I didn’t know I’d even dropped the book until Charlie was next to me, holding it now, staring at the name, white as a ghost.

“This was your brothers,” he stammered. 

“And his bag,” I managed to say. I remembered it now, gray and orange. My parents had described that bag thousands of times. And here it was. 

“His bag?” Charlie said. “They were here.” 

I couldn’t tell if that was a question or a statement. 

“What do we do?” I asked. I looked at Charlie. If I looked half as terrified as he did, then I looked bad. He looked like he was on the verge of crying and running away and never stopping until his legs fell off. I didn’t blame him. But they were here. They had been here.

I looked around. The wall was maybe knee-high. I walked around it and gasped. 

On the other side, there was a set of stone stairs leading down into the ground. 

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“What the fuck!” 

Charlie came around and looked at the steps as well. He repeated my thoughts on a mysterious set of stone steps leading into the ground. 

“What the fuck,” he said. 

We stood staring at it for a while, unsure what to do.    

Then Charlie said, “We gotta tell someone.”  I again couldn’t tell if that was a question or a declaration since Charlie’s voice was cracking. “All these years and this has been right here,” he added.

All these years I thought. How did everyone miss it? The police had covered these woods thoroughly. Obviously, the stairs and the bag had been here the whole time since everything was covered in five years of moss and dirt.

And why did my brother leave his bag here? Did they go down the stairs? Of course, they did. What teenage boy wouldn’t want to explore a set of mysterious stone steps? I mean, obviously, it led to a treasure of some sort. Where else could a set of stone steps lead besides copious amounts of gold?

They’d gone down those steps and been killed by a booby trap. It was as simple as that.

I looked down but couldn’t see anything other than darkness. Was he down there? My stomach knotted again, and I had to overcome the urge to puke.

“They went down there,” I said. “I just know it.”  I stepped down to the first step, and Charlie grabbed my arm. 

He didn’t want to say it, and I didn’t want him to say it.

It was like Charlie could tell what I was thinking. “No, Jack. We’ve got to go. We can tell someone we have proof, and they can send people, the police and shit.” 

I couldn’t leave. “What if they’re down there?” I said. 

Charlie shook his head so hard I thought he’d shake his teeth loose. “You said it yourself, it’s been five years. They’re dead! Let’s just go get someone.”  He’d progressed into whining by the time he finished. 

 I had an overwhelming urge that I couldn’t explain to go down there and find them. I had to. 

“I want to see what’s down there,” I said. 

If Charlie had been my size or bigger, I know he would have tackled me and beat me to a pulp. “You can’t. You have no idea what’s down there. You don’t have a flashlight, or supplies, or anything.” 

I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned on the flash. “I have this.” 

Charlie looked scared. “Come on, man. Let’s just go. I don’t want to go down there. What if they are down there? Do you really want to find your brother’s dead body?”

“I have to,” is all I said. “I have to see.”

I stepped down one more step. 

Charlie grabbed me. “Don’t go, Jack.”

He looked scared. Truly scared. 

“I have to know, Charlie. I have to.”  I did have to know. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I left and never found out what happened to my brother and his friends. 

“But…” I said. “You don’t have to go. In fact, you need to stay. Wait for me. And if I call out or something, or if I’m not back in an hour, run and get help.” 

Charlie looked horrified at the idea. “We need to tell your parents, man. We need to tell the cops!” 

“Let me just look around, and then we’ll tell them. We need to make sure there’s something to tell them. They can’t deal with any more false hope.” 

That was partly true. I didn’t want my parents to get their hopes up, and I didn’t want them to be freaking out about an empty set of stairs and worrying about finding my brother’s body. They couldn’t take it. So I would find out, and then, if there was anything there, whatever was there, I’d let them know. 

Charlie didn’t look like he was on board with this plan, but I knew he’d hold off enough to at least let me have a look around. 

“Just one hour. Let me have a look first.” 

Charlie sighed loudly. “I don’t know if I can find my way out of here if you don’t come back.” 

I pointed in the direction I thought my neighborhood was. But, in truth, I didn’t think it mattered. The woods might have been mysterious, but they were small. If Charlie traveled in any direction, he’d get out. 

“Go that way. Break off some branches as you go. Then follow that back and get me out of here.”  I looked down into the darkness, then grinned at him. “It’s gonna be fine.” 

Charlie knew this was a bad idea, but he’d been letting me lead our little partnership for so long he didn’t know how to win an argument with me.  

“Just… damn it be careful,” he said. He sat down with his back to the little wall and pulled out his phone. “One hour! And for the record, this is a bad fucking idea.” 

I gave him a thumbs up. “One hour.” 

I stared down into the darkness of the stairwell. It was dark and cold looking. I hoped I wasn’t going to find the bodies of four dead teenagers. More importantly, I hoped I wouldn’t become a dead teenager myself.

Charlie was right. This was a bad fucking idea. 

But I had to know.

I pointed my phone’s flashlight down into the darkness and was rewarded with nothing but more stairs. I could see about twenty or thirty of them. I headed down. 

In for a penny now, I thought. 

After about ten minutes of going down the stairs, I came to a small landing. I shined my flashlight all around before stepping onto it. I tested it with my toe first, waiting for some poisoned arrows or a big boulder to fly out and kill me. Nothing happened. 

Okay. That was good. I shined my light all around and saw a tunnel heading out of the landing. Had they gone that way? If they came this way at all, they must have gone that way. There was no other way to go. 

I checked the time on my phone. Roughly fifteen minutes had passed. I had another fifteen to go before I’d have to turn back. I knew that the second one hour had passed, Charlie would be out of there and on his way to tell my parents and the police. So I had to hurry and explore as much as I could before I had to turn around 

In fact, I knew I should have turned back then. Hell, I never should have come down here, to begin with. And following this passage was completely crazy. What if it caved in and I was crushed to death or filled up with water, and I drowned? Had they even gone through the tunnel? 

I knew I should have turned around, gone back up, and gotten out of there with Charlie. Then we could tell someone, and they could search it properly and safely. That’s what I needed to do. 

I started down the passageway. I kept chanting, please don’t cave in, over and over. 

Is this what they had done, the four friends? Is this how they had died? I kept expecting to come across some deep chasm they’d fallen into or some blockage where the tunnel had caved in on them.

I couldn’t explain it, but I knew they’d come this way, and I knew they weren’t still in here. I just knew my brother wasn’t in here, and he wasn’t dead. I just knew it. 

I walked on for what seemed like a long time, following the twists and turns of the dark corridor, getting even more nervous when I couldn’t see the light from the opening of the well anymore. This wasn’t fun. This was pretty stupid. What had I been thinking? 

I turned my flashlight off and was plunged into complete darkness. I kept my back towards the way I had come so I wouldn’t get turned around and lose my bearings on which way was which. 

Then I decided I’d had enough. It was time to get real and go back. Charlie would probably be about to head towards my house, and I’d have to run to catch up to him. We could tell the police and my parents. They could decide what to do next. 

I shut my eyes. I’m sorry, Lucas. I hope they find you. 

I opened my eyes, and down the corridor, very faintly, I could see light. Had that been there before? Had my eyes adjusted to the dark with the flashlight off so much that now I could see it where I couldn’t see it before? 

I knew or was pretty certain the way I had come in was behind me. I hadn’t turned around. So that light had to be an opening. A different opening. A way out. Had my brother and his friends gone that way? Where were they now? I had to know. 

I pushed on through the tunnel, the smell of earth and decay all around me. I just wanted out of here. But I also wanted to know too. 

As I got closer to the opening, I could start to see green. There was something there, land out there. Was it the river? It had to be. The tunnel had gone a good ways, but not miles and miles. I was going to come out at the river, but what then? If they’d come out at the river, where were they now? 

As the opening got bigger, I saw hills and fields and a bright blue river cutting through the land like a ribbon. It was beautiful. And different. This didn’t look like any section of the river that ran through our town that I’d ever seen. 

I got to the end of the tunnel and stepped out onto the grass. It smelled wonderful, like fresh-cut hay in a field. What was this place? It was greener and lusher than anything I’d seen around our town. 

But it had to be the river. Just further away than where I’d started. That was all. I’d have to walk up river to town. Or I could just go back to the woods and the staircase. That would be the easiest thing. Turn around, go back through the tunnel and meet Charlie at the stairs. Then we could see where this came out and search more. That’s what I would do.

I turned around to go back down the tunnel, but the tunnel was gone.

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