The Forest

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  They turned around and started back the way they had come.

  Downstream. Keep the stream on the left. We’ll get out of here.

  Soon they returned to the spot where they started. Tricia saw the rock she had clung to and then lain on to “save” herself from the rapids that had never existed anywhere but her own panic-duped mind. She clung to it again, this time mentally. It was a tangible thing, a piece of evidence that showed this was all real. Reproduction of a result was proof of its veracity. They had walked, and there was the rock. Now they would keep walking in their current direction. Downstream, to the road, and out of this place.

  They walked. The stream at their left. The current sliding ahead of them. Alex kept looking down as though to verify they hadn’t somehow wandered across the stream again. She would have laughed anywhere else, to see him doubting the obvious like that. Alex loved and revered science as much as she did, but he’d always been willing to follow rabbit holes that she deemed irrational. Sometimes he found truth at the bottom of them, but the fact remained he was much more prone to inspiration than she. If science had art to it, then she was a paint-by-numbers person, and Alex was more willing to be a Picasso: able to see not only what was there, but to imagine what it would be if the rules weren’t followed.

  She mocked him – lovingly – for that. Made fun of his need to follow flights of fancy, like he was the hero of one of the science fiction or fantasy books he loved.

  But she would not mock him in the forest. He could look down all he wanted, and she would, too. Keep the water at their left, follow it downstream and –

  This time it was Tricia who stopped. This time it was she who said, “Impossible.” This time it was Alex who made a sound similar to the one she had made a moment before: a sound of surprise, doing its best to cloak terror.

  “We must have turned around again,” said Alex.

  She shook her head. “We didn’t,” she said. “You know we didn’t.” Then she contradicted herself: “But we must have. We must have crossed over, and turned around so that walking with the stream on our left meant we were going upstream again.”

  It sounded ridiculous when she said it aloud. How could that have happened without them noticing it? And now Alex was playing devil’s advocate, switching sides just as she had: “But we didn’t. You know we didn’t.”

  They were echoing each other. The words were repeated, but warped a bit each time. And that made sense, given what they were seeing.

  They turned around. That was what you did when you were going the wrong way: you turned around. Now the stream was on their right side, and now it was flowing the direction they wanted it to flow. They walked again, and Tricia tried to convince herself that they had just started out wrong, or gotten turned around, or any of a million other possibilities that made more sense than a stream whose current shifted directions over and over again.

  The stream behaved now. Tricia allowed herself to relax as the water ran before them, moving faster than she and Alex walked, as though the water itself was also excited to get out of this place.

  She looked at the stream. On her right side. Water flowing ahead.

  She looked at the forest. The mist flashed.

  She looked at the stream. Right side. Water flowing the wrong way.

  “We didn’t turn around. We didn’t.”

  She wasn’t sure if she said it, or Alex did. The forest was stripping away reality, and maybe it would strip away the differences between them until they were just one person.

  It is just one person. Just me, moaning in a straitjacket in a padded cell and wondering when someone is going to change my diaper.

  “We didn’t turn around,” said Alex. “Not this time.”

  Tricia gave a small laugh, the giggle of someone asking for a drink while drowning. “Then we must have gotten it wrong again. We started out right the first time. We just have to turn around and…”

  She didn’t know what to say after that. She turned around –

  (Stream on the left, dear girl, just like you have to get it right this time, or you’ll be left behind, so get it right until the people in white come with your meds.)

  – and started walking. The stream was on her left. She was following the current.

  She took two steps. Alex let his hand, fingers still intertwined with hers, let his arm extend as she took those steps. But he didn’t follow, forcing her to either stop or let go. She didn’t want to do either.

  “Come on,” she said. “We know what we have to –”

  “It’ll just change again,” he said dully.

  “No, it won’t.” She jerked his hand with each word, as though trying to physically shock him into agreeing with her.

  “It will.”

  Maddening, his insistence on the impossible. He was following a rabbit hole again, that was it and that was all. Things had seemed to stop making sense, but that was just an effect of their exhaustion and fear. They were going in the correct direction –

  (Stream on our left, which is the right way to follow it downstream.)

  – and there was no room for denial. They weren’t in a lab this time, where he could follow flights of inspiration/fancy with nothing worse than a wasted day resulting. They were in the forest, in the most dangerous place she had ever been. They had to cling to truth, to the real.

  They had to follow the stream out of here.

  Tricia looked around, trying to find some way to convince Alex. She saw a patch of dying rushes near the stream and plucked some of the dried leaves. They had sharp edges that cut her palm. Not deep enough to bleed, but deep enough to sting. She didn’t care. She was getting out of this place, and science, as always, would show the way.

  She tossed the bits of plant into the stream. Or tried to – the sun-dried leaves were so light that the slight breeze here just tossed them back at her. No matter. She plucked a few more dessicated leaves, unclenched her hand from Alex’s, and waded out a few feet into the stream.

  “Don’t!” Alex shouted. He looked like he might say more, but then his jaw clenched and she knew he was trying to maintain his own fragile grip on sanity.

  She put the leaves in the stream, shaking her hand a bit so the ones that stuck to her palm as soon as they got wet would let go and do what she wanted them to.

  In the instant she let go, she was suddenly afraid. What if it didn’t work?

  But it did work. “We follow the leaves,” she said. “They’ll be easy to follow visually, and we can trail them right out of this rotten place.”

  She didn’t add, And that’ll prove that the stream’s current isn’t switching. We keep it on our left, and get right out of here.

  She waded back out of the stream, backing toward Alex so she could keep the leaves in sight. They were moving fairly quickly, so by the time she rejoined Alex, she and Alex had to hurry to follow them before they slid into the mist and disappeared.

  She and Alex slid in mud, tripped over roots and bushes, but neither suggested they slow. For her at least, the dead leaves had become her last grasp at reality. At things that truly were, instead of things that lied; things that merely appeared to be.

  Even so, the leaves started drawing away from them.

  Fine, she decided. She’d just grab some more. She’d toss them into the stream (still at her left!), then they’d follow those leaves and it would be impossible to get lost because they would never lose sight of the thing that would lead them out of here.

  The leaves sped up suddenly, caught by a swifter current and on the verge of disappearing from sight. Tricia felt panic clawing at her and leaned down so she could find more leaves and toss them in before the first batch were lost to sight. No way to get lost if she followed a guide at every second, right?

  She scrabbled quickly at the ground nearby. She found a few rocks. Too heavy. She grabbed some leaves that were so old they fell apart as she touched them.

  The remains of the rushes were almost gone from sight.

&
nbsp; She started to panic. She knew it was stupid, they were fine now. The stream was on their left, and they’d been following it long enough she was confident they wouldn’t get turned around again.

  But still, part of her screamed, what if they weren’t fine? What if they lost sight of sticks and leaves that floated along the stream and showed them the way and somehow got turned around again and it would be that much harder to figure out what was happening if that happened and the world would seem that much darker and stranger and she would have that much more pain as she fell into the rabbit hole herself and lost herself just like Alice just like –

  A nonstop mental monologue of panic cut off as her fingers found a small pile of sticks. Barely more than twigs, really, but big enough to follow. She tossed them the instant before the rush leaves that had been her and Alex’s original guide disappeared from view.

  Beside her, Alex breathed a sigh of audible relief. He’d been thinking along the same lines as her. “We’re fine,” he murmured, walking again as the sticks began to move in the same direction as the others had – which meant they could follow the stream on their left, to find the right way out. “We’re fine.”

  She and Alex followed the floating sticks. The mist curled around them, like it wanted to hold them fast. She forced a smile to her face, and forced rational thought to her mind.

  The mist is just vapor. Nothing to it, just like there’s nothing to the forest. Just bad memories and worse not-memories that hide in those black holes. Trauma explains it all, but even pain that causes lost memories can’t stop the power of science. Water flows one way – high to low. We follow it, and we’re fine.

  They kept following the sticks she had tossed in. The current was slower here so they didn’t have to walk very fast to keep up with their improvised compass of sorts. She even had time to stop and find some more sticks, anticipating that the current might speed up at some point, and not wanting to relive that moment of panic as she worried about losing sight of the thing upon which she had hung her hope of returning to normality.

  “I’m not built for this anymore,” said Alex.

  “What?” she asked.

  “All this walking and running.” He chuckled – a bit forced-sounding, true, but she could hear relief in his voice.

  A bit of dead plant and we’re fine and dandy again. Because Science!

  “Me either,” she agreed.

  “But really, nothing has happened. We’re just out for a stroll that turned out to be longer than expected,” he said.

  “Nice night for it,” she said. “What with the moon being so… whatever it is.”

  She meant it as a joke. It came out as a reminder of how little they could see. Nothing above, nothing to the sides. Just water and mist and branches clasped in a death-grip above their heads.

  They followed the sticks. The bits of wood had slowed still further, twisting and turning lazily. Tricia wanted to run ahead of them, but forced herself not to. She was not going to give this place any chance to fool her. She would follow the sticks, which followed the current, which followed its course to the reservoir.

  The sticks slowed more. More.

  More.

  And they stopped.

  Alex sighed, not in relief this time but exasperation. “I thought we’d be back at the road by now.”

  “No,” she said, searching for a way to explain his concern away. “We’re just following the sticks, and the current’s moving slowly.”

  “Isn’t time supposed to fly when you’re having fun?” he said dryly.

  “Like I said: the current’s moving slowly.”

  Alex laughed again. It sounded a bit more forced this time. “Should we just start walking ahead of the sticks? Keep the stream at our left and all good?”

  She didn’t answer. He didn’t repeat the question, and she was relieved that he didn’t. She didn’t want to move ahead of the sticks that had led them so well to this point.

  They watched the sticks, which floated a few more inches – it took forever! – and then halted and began turning in place. They must have been caught in one of those minute whirlpools that were invisible to the eye but brought small things to a momentary halt.

  They’ll start moving again. We just have to be patient.

  The sticks spun, lazily, mockingly.

  They spun.

  Then they stopped.

  Then they started moving again. A concrete direction. The wrong direction. Tricia moaned as she followed them as they floated back to her, then past her. She turned to face them as the current dragged them away.

  If she followed them now, she would have the stream on her right.

  Tricia moaned.

  “How are they doing that?” Alex all but shouted. Something like rage rippled his features. He made strange, animal sounds as he bent over and ripped a knot of weeds out of the ground. The plants came up, trailing roots that curled like dirty intestines. Alex stomped down/upstream, the water at his left as the twigs in the stream disappeared into the mist behind him and Tricia.

  “Where are you going?” she shouted. Terror wrapped a cold hand around her own intestines and squeezed. “Where are you –”

  “To get to where the current is stronger. Past whatever weird made the other sticks…” He didn’t finish, just tossed the handful of leaves and roots into the stream.

  They floated the wrong way, too. They were heavier, and should have been able to escape whatever small eddy had made the individual leaves Tricia tossed in act so strangely. But they went the same way. Downstream would be on her right.

  Something broke inside her as she watched the weeds float past, and Tricia found herself in the stream, no memory of running into the water. It was deeper here – up to her knees – and the weeds disappeared behind her as she splashed to the center of the stream.

  The current was strong. And even though it had dragged the weeds away behind her, she felt it pushing her forward.

  Somehow, the current was flowing one way at one point, and a few yards farther was moving the other way. Tricia knew that waterways could change course over time, but that time was measured in terms of miles and eons or, at the very fastest, if humans intervened by digging canals or putting in dams, in terms of miles and years.

  Waterways did not and could not shift directions in the course of yards and moments.

  Splashing. She looked ahead of her and saw Alex doing what she had just done: running into the stream. He leaned over, thrusting both his arms into the water up to his elbows. He looked at her, and she could see the question in his eyes: Which way is the water going?

  She pointed toward him. “The water’s going that way.”

  His hand slowly lifted. He pointed at her. “That way,” he said.

  She closed her eyes. Something could explain this. Something had to.

  She started moving toward Alex.

  “Start walking toward me,” she said. “There’s got to be a sinkhole or something between us. Something causing it.”

  And what caused it before, Trishy-baby? Any answer to that little mind-bender?

  Shut up. There’s a rational explanation.

  Alex started toward her. The sound of his movement carried easily and well, and she wondered what else might be hearing them. She hadn’t heard anything in the trees or mist since Alex and she ran from the whispers.

  There weren’t any whispers. Just wind.

  It was words.

  No. It wasn’t. Couldn’t be.

  Still, no sense taking chances. She quieted her splashes as best she could, moving slowly but steadily toward Alex as he moved slowly but steadily in her direction.

  When he was ten feet away, Tricia whisper-shouted, “Still going the same direction?”

  “Current’s pushing me toward you,” he answered in the same tone. “What about where you are?”

  They were eight feet away now.

  “It’s pushing me toward you,” she answered. Six feet.

  “So it has to
be something between us.” five feet.

  “Yeah. Has to be.”

  The current swept against her. Pushing Tricia toward her husband. Four feet.

  Alex stared at her, obviously waiting for her to tell him she could feel a change. She stared back, just as obviously waiting for him to say something.

  The current pushed her toward Alex.

  He kept walking toward her.

  “Which way?” she whispered. Two feet.

  “Toward you,” he answered hoarsely. He took another step. “Toward you,” he repeated. One foot away. She could reach out and squeeze his shoulder.

  She stepped forward again. She stood beside Alex now. Both faced in opposite directions. The current pushed against the backs of her calves. She took another step forward. She had passed Alex. He was still looking straight ahead, which meant he was looking away from her.

  Another step. Two feet past him. Three. Four. Five.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Which way?” she said quietly.

  Alex slowly raised his hand. It was visibly trembling. He pointed… straight ahead of him. The opposite direction of the current she still felt, and which had led her to and right past him.

  Her world spun again. Science was supposed to help this. It was supposed to provide answers, or at least the sense that answers were out there, somewhere.

  But science had, apparently, left the area.

  Tricia could think of no way to fool herself. A sinkhole draining the water to an underground river was a poor enough explanation for a current going in one way in the stream, while going the opposite way a few dozen feet later. But if that were the case, she and Alex would have seen something to indicate the drainage. A hole or –

  Or be honest. A hole big enough to explain the shift in the current’s direction on a stream this size would be easily visible, and likely would have knocked us off our feet and sucked us down into it before Alex and I ever got close to each other.

  And even if that had been a possibility, she knew of nothing – no physical force at all – that would explain how she could stand right beside her husband, each facing opposite directions, and they could both feel currents pushing the backs of their legs. Like they were standing on opposite sides of some invisible forcefield that separated what appeared to be a single body of water into two parallel lanes with the water being driven in opposite directions on each side.