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“Howdy, internet-”
“You realise you can’t actually upload this, right?”
“Oh my god, Alan, stop ruining all my fun. This was your idea, anyway.”
“Uh, yeah, to go searching for a rare cryptid, not to vlog the experience.”
The camera angle dropped to a pair of battered yellow Converse with embroidered dolphins and muddied Vans which were somewhat soggy from sliding into a puddle twenty minutes earlier. Given this incident had occurred in the parking lot, it didn’t bode well for Alan’s fate in the forest, but on the plus side Gordon’s determination to film everything meant his inevitable death would be caught on camera and dying at the claws of an ulchni was a cool way to go out.
“Stop trying to make me look like an idiot on camera,” Gordon hissed, elbowing Alan for good measure. A fat raindrop splattered across the lens and he rubbed it away with the edge of his sleeve. Beyond the forest canopy, the sky was heavy with charcoal clouds and a faint chill was seeping through his hoodie.
Alan sent him a deadpan stare. “I don’t need to try – you’re already doing a perfectly good job of it yourself.”
“I hope you get eaten.”
“Same back at ya.”
Gordon let out a dramatic sigh and lofted the camera back up. “Are you going to give our audience some background info, or…?”
“Oh, right.” Alan ducked under a low-hanging branch and nearly slid into another puddle, windmilling his arms frantically to recover from the experience. Clearly he’d spent too much time in zero-gee lately and gravity was about to make him her bitch. “Okay. So.”
“Good start.”
“Literally shut up, no one likes you, Gords.”
“Rude.”
Alan flipped him off. “Anyway, as I was saying… We’re here, in the middle of freaking nowhere, because we have a rare day off together and I thought it would be funny to go searching for a cryptid. Now, there are the classics, such as Mothman…”
“-Who is my personal favourite, just in case anyone was wondering.”
“They were not, but thanks for that fun fact. Obviously there’s sasquatches too, more commonly known as Big Foot-”
Gordon sniggered. “Also goes by the name of Virgil Tracy.”
Alan tried and failed to hold back a laugh. “If you ever upload this, you’re gonna have to edit that bit out because Virg will murder you.”
He came to a sharp halt so suddenly that Gordon nearly crashed into him. The forest stood still, feigning innocence, but, as he turned in a wide circle, every tree seemed to conceal a threat. Strange shadows slipped in-and-out of view. Icy raindrops slithered beneath his shirt and struck ice into his bones.
Gordon tightened his grip on the camera, directing it towards the innocuous heap of rocks Alan was staring at. “What? Did you see something? Narrate your experience for the audience.”
Alan hesitated. “Uh…” He wiped the rain from his face and summoned a smile. “Nah, just a big bunch of nothing. I think my eyes are playing tricks on me. It’s already getting dark, did we mention that?”
“I don’t think we did.”
“Okay, well – it’s getting dark, because I think we have a better chance of seeing an ulchni at night and Gordon thought it would look cooler on camera.”
“It does.” Gordon socked him lightly on the shoulder. “Dude, c’mon, there’s nothing here. Let’s keep going. Also, what happened to the history lesson? You got as far as sasquatches and mothman.”
Alan shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket – the leather one with the NASA patches sown onto it which he’d deliberately chosen after Gordon had revealed his plan to film their experience so on the off-chance that someone such as, uh, Brandon Berringer, watched it, then at least he’d look cool – and tried to recall his hastily scribbled notes on the folklore surrounding the supposed 'ulchni'. The notes had been a pointless endeavour given he’d left them in the cupholder in the car by accident, but he could still sort of remember the details.
He took a deep breath. The temperature seemed to have plummeted in the last ten minutes and the chill ached in his chest. He curled his hands into fists in his pockets and subconsciously took a step closer to Gordon, who pretended to search the undergrowth for any clues to cover up his concerned glance.
“An ulchni,” Alan began cautiously, as if speaking the name aloud could summon the creature in question, “is a malevolent spirit. They’re often said to invoke feelings of uncontrollable greed, sudden overwhelming panic and an urge to murder.”
“I always feel an urge to murder when you’re around.”
Alan stared into the camera. “This is what I have to put up with on a daily basis. People are like, oh, Gordon seems so nice and funny and I’m here to tell you the truth – he sucks, and his jokes aren’t even that good.”
“Ouch.”
“Did I hurt your feelings?”
“Very much so. I might never recover. Just gonna perish, right here in this forest. My soul will get consumed by an ulchni and you’ll have to explain what happened to Scott.”
“Or, alternatively, I could feign ignorance and your death could remain a mystery for the rest of time, which would be a lot cooler.”
Gordon flipped the camera to his own face. “For anyone watching who doesn’t have siblings – this is the kinda shit you have to put up with – being dragged into their insane schemes, insulted, oh, and threatened with murder.”
Alan patted him on the back. “You love me. I’m your favourite younger brother.”
Gordon stared at him incredulously. “Alan… you’re my only younger brother.”
“Exactly, so I must be your favourite.”
“And also my least favourite by default.”
“Minor details.” Alan flapped a hand at him. “Anyway, back to the history lesson.” He tried not to examine the passing shadows too closely. “Ulchnis are described as giant humanoid figures. Some reports claim they have massive wings - not feathered, but kinda leathery? Like a pterodactyl, I guess - but other witnesses say it has antlers instead, so... Apparently if one is close by, there’ll be a horrible smell – I saw an interview where it was compared to rotting flesh – and the temperature will suddenly drop.”
There was a small pause.
“Like right now?” Gordon asked, aiming for casual but landing closer to unsettled.
“Uh…” Alan gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah. But night’s falling, so the temperature’s gonna drop naturally… I dunno if we should be worried. If we smell rotten flesh, then we should be scared.” He caught the camera instinctively as Gordon shoved it into his hands. “Thanks?”
“Just hold it for a second while I get my phone. I’m gonna Wikipedia this bitch.”
“Don’t call the ulchni a bitch, what if it hears you?”
“Then it’ll eat me first and you can run away.”
Alan winced. “I mean… that’s kinda sweet, actually, but also maybe try not to get eaten?”
“I once called a ghost a bitch.”
“What? When? Context, dude.”
“Years ago. Ooh, here we go.” Gordon scrolled through the page. The light cast from the screen was pale and, surrounded by the encroaching darkness, he appeared ghostly. “Ew, listen to this: the ulchni looked like a skeletal lizard with the head of a man… twelve feet tall... it gave off a strange odour of decay… victim was torn apart as if by a rapid animal…”
Alan held out the camera so that he could capture them both on screen. “Apparently some ulchnis are able to communicate, so they taunt their prey. They hunt for fun, so no matter how much they kill, they're always looking for a new victim.”
“Creepy,” Gordon muttered distractedly, sliding his phone into his pocket. He stole the camera back and switched on the flashlight. “How are these things created in the first place?”
Alan jolted as something crunched, only to discover it was a twig beneath his own heel. He forced himself to take a deep breath, focussing on the vivid yellow of Gordon’s shoes to distract his mind from the whispering woods. The forest held a sense of presence which was only growing more oppressive as the night crept on.
“There are a lot of different theories. A popular idea is that an ulchni is created when a person gets lost and dies in the woods, so over time their spirit gets corrupted.”
This time it was Gordon who froze. Alan slammed into his back, slipping on wet leaf mulch before he could catch his balance. The camera angle lurched sideways with the impact and, for a brief second, so quick that it was questionable as to whether there had been anything there at all, the footage caught a strange, skeletal shape slip between the bones of a decaying tree.
The rain had picked up to a steady rush, white noise drowning out the unfamiliar slithers and clicks and growls of the forest. Darkness slunk out of the trees, dripping from the sky and rising from the ground as if it were a conscious being, threatening to drag them under.
Alan kept within the circle thrown by the flashlight, but the bright glare stained his vision. He glimpsed movement where there was nothing but shadows. He swore he could sense eyes boring into his back. There was an otherworldly atmosphere, infecting everything with fear so that he couldn’t trust his own judgement. He tore his gaze away from the treeline, only the unease stamped across Gordon’s face was somehow more unnerving than the shadows. He silently wished his brother would make another dumb joke or sarcastic quip, but the silence prevailed and he couldn’t repress a shudder.
“For the record,” Gordon remarked quietly, “I wasn’t convinced by the ulchni stories.” He faltered, tightening his grip on the camera as if it were a lifeline. “But I have no idea what the hell I just saw.”
Alan swallowed. “So, um… are you talking it up for the camera right now, or is this, like, for real?”
The flashlight died as if on cue. It was as if the bulb had shattered. There was no fading glow, just light one moment and darkness the next. Suffocating darkness. Heavy, like a physical weight on his chest, and he grabbed Gordon’s wrist instinctively, uncaring as to whether it made him seem like a little kid.
“Oh, shit.” Gordon whacked the flashlight against a nearby tree. “Come on, don’t do this.”
“Gordon?”
“I swear to God I put new batteries in this thing before we left. It shouldn’t have died.”
Thick cloud concealed any moonlight. They were too far out from civilisation to spy the lights of a town or city. It was the sort of darkness Alan would expect to find at the base of the Mariana Trench or in a deep cave system. He couldn’t see anything, not even his own hands in front of his face.
He backed up a pace and smacked into something tall with a series of curved indents as if he were leaning against the ribcage of a long-dead dinosaur. Tree, he thought frantically, trying to convince his own anxiety before his heartrate could skyrocket any further, only it moved. Only ever-so-slightly, as if the ‘tree’ had taken a breath, but it was enough for him to feel a slight pressure constrict over his shoulders to leave scratches even through his jacket.
Most people’s panic responses involved fight versus flight. Oh no, not his. His involved freezing like a deer in headlights, because apparently he was an absolute idiot like that. He tried to speak, only his voice had run off somewhere so all that came out was a strangled sound.
“Alan?” Gordon’s voice rose, slightly panicked. “Alan, where’d you go?”
The camera was discarded on the ground. Alan could spy the green recording light blinking steadily like an eye. He focussed on it and tried not to let his imagination run wild. It was just a tree behind him, twigs pressing through his jacket, the icy chill was due to the fact they were in North America in October, and the nauseating stench of rot was some decaying animal amid the undergrowth. He inhaled sharply and then, before he could talk himself out of it, made a wild lunge for the camera.
The camera had automatically adjusted to night vision. Alan caught it and used his own momentum to roll back onto his feet in a skilled motion which even Kayo would have been proud of. He glimpsed a staggered, inhuman motion through the viewfinder – easily eleven feet tall if not more – and launched into a run instinctively, relying on his other senses to find Gordon amid the dark. He closed a fist on the hood of his brother’s sweatshirt and hauled him upright, locking a hand around Gordon’s wrist. Whatever was in the forest with them took chase and it was big, each step sending vibrations through the ground as if it were triggering microquakes.
“What is that thing?”
“What thing?” Gordon shouted back. “I didn’t see anything.”
“It was literally a fucking ulchni!”
“I didn’t see it!”
“You saw it before!
“Why are we running?”
“Because it’s chasing us!”
“I can’t hear anything.” Gordon yanked him to a halt. “Seriously,” he gasped out, planting his hands on Alan’s shoulders to keep him from bolting again. “Do you hear it still? Because I don’t.”
“So, what? I imagined the entire thing?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. I thought I saw… We’ll watch the footage back later, okay? But right now we need to figure out where we are because we are so far off the main trail and I don’t have a phone signal.”
“Crap.”
“Crap is an understatement.” Gordon exhaled in a rush. “Are you okay?”
“Sort of.” Alan scuffed his shoes in the dead leaves. “Not really,” he admitted, voice rough with the fear that was still sending shivers down his spine. “I don’t know what just happened, but it was super creepy and I just want to get outta here.”
“We will.” It was rare for Gordon to step into the role of protective big brother, but he was more than capable of it, such as right now, when the confidence in his voice left no room for argument and Alan couldn’t help but relax a little. “It might take us a couple of hours, but we’ll be out of here by, say, midnight, at the very latest.” He reached out, fumbling in the dark until he could drag Alan into a fierce hug. “You are okay, though, right? Not hurt or anything?”
“Just a bit freaked out, but not hurt.”
“Ready to get out of this creepy forest?”
“Abso-freaking-lutely.”
“Hell yeah, that’s the spirit.”
“Do not mention spirits right now! This place is probably haunted!”
‘Before we start our official investigation into the mysterious ulchni, let’s take a look at some of the evidence our viewers have sent in… Now this clip was taken by a personal friend of ours, so thanks Gordon. Let’s take a look… Huh. That is certainly… What do you think?’
‘Well, Buddy, I’m not sure what I’m looking at. The footage is too blurry to be sure, but I’d say that’s an ulchni.’
‘Viewers, what do you think? Is this a genuine recording of an ulchni? There’s only one way to find out… let’s track one down ourselves. Are you ready, Ellie? It’s time to go… Into the Unknown.’