Chapter Text
“—Shocking news for the national park. Another victim, twenty-one-year-old Penn State student Ryan Sheppard, discovered on the property—”
You dig into your food, tuning out the broadcast as you scarf down your lunch and prepare for work. You rinse your bowl, toss it into the dishwasher, and move into the bedroom to change out of your pajamas and into your uniform. You pull up your cargo pants and pull on a green collared shirt with the Erie National Park logo embroidered on the pocket. After deodorant, you pull on your hiking boots, grab your jacket and bag, and leave towards your car.
She’s a beat-up old thing, but she gets you to and from work without too much trouble. It’s a short, red, rust-damaged Honda Civic. Your car’s engine is strong, and it, other than the external imperfections and duct-taped-on mirror, has treated you well, and you’ve never felt the need to trade up.
(Nor the want, being a park ranger hardly gives you enough money to keep your head above the water, but you love it, and working an office job sounds worse than pulling all your toenails out at once with rusty pliers.)
The car sputters to life, rumbling beneath you in her comfortable and familiar way. You look down at the radio—the clock reads 14:37—you’ll be on time for the start of your shift. The drive isn’t exciting, and you’d take your boring drive over a three-hour drive to the office any day. Your job is so easy, too, a simple routine you follow every day—go in during the afternoon, hike the trails before closing, watch for lost folks and garbage, and close up the park. It’s easy, so easy that your job is almost dull. You walk into the break room, your lunch in your non-dominant hand, and stumble into a meeting.
“Oh. Hey guys.” You hesitate, creeping over to put your food in the fridge. Usually, the break room was empty, and Leslie, your superior in the standard uniform with her beat-up clipboard, was marching back and forth like a drill sergeant.
In the kindest way possible, you hope she retires. She’s been working here for so long and managing everything that she deserves some R-and-R. Leslie is the backbone of the team, and one would have to pry her position from her cold, dead hands (even then, it would still be a fight), but she should consider passing the job to someone else.
You plop down in one of the three empty chairs. Two of your coworkers transferred to another park (quite suddenly, too, no two-week notice or anything). It’s not good, especially considering they were the only other people working your shift.
“Alright, we can wrap up this meeting with a quick problem,” Leslie begins again, waving quietly to you. “Guests have been reporting stolen items more than usual, lots of jackets, gloves, boots, ooh—food, too,” Leslie jots something down on her clipboard, “To be honest, I think people are just misplacing things and blaming it on the wildlife, but if you see anything, just radio me, and I’ll come to help you sort it out.”
You nod. People leave things where they shouldn’t be all the time—you can't count the number of times families wake up with ransacked coolers because they leave them outside unprotected.
Leslie sighs, “And—look—there have been more than a few teens sneaking off into the woods before we close. Please, I don’t want another 24-hour challenge incident on our record. Keep an eye out for them. I mean it.”
Everyone affirms, whether with a nod or a “Yes, Leslie.”
The team filters out of the break room, and one of your coworkers (with wild, dark hair and stickers nearly smothering the Molly on her nametag) bounds to your side like a deer.
“You think it’s a bear?” She asks. She’s practically bouncing off the walls despite Park Ranger being the least thrilling job on the planet.
You shrug. You don’t carry the same energy that Molly does. She is just a wee sixteen-year-old at your side working her first big girl job, and any excitement at this middle-of-nowhere park is a godsend for her.
“Well, it could be a bear. But, I mean, a bear wouldn’t be stealing men’s jackets or boots.” she suggests, “Maybe not a bear, or maybe it’s those kids again… Remember the kids from a few weeks ago?”
Oh. Oh, of course, you remember those kids. Three of them, two girls and some in-between kid, all seventeen and seniors at the local high school (local being the closest high school, which was thirty miles away) that Leslie caught trying to stay overnight for some silly internet challenge. One of them, the in-between kid with the flattest hair you’ve seen in a while, brought an Ouija board because of some weird internet gossip about your park. It was strange—super, duper weird—because the couple (apparently, maybe? You aren’t sure) ditched the third girl to make out under an abandoned deck. Leslie only caught them because the third (a taller, more heavyset girl with colored hair) was terrified of some tall, slender man who scared her on the internet.
“God, don’t remind me.” You finally say. You still remember the three of them yelling at each other, Leslie dragging them out by the collars of their shirts like scruffed cats after they got caught (because one of the girls was a crybaby, their words, not yours).
Leaving the break room and finally feeling the sun this morning, Molly waves you goodbye and starts jogging down her favorite trail. She’s got energy for miles; if she were older and wiser, she could compete with Leslie.
Speaking of, Leslie pats your shoulder. Her gray hair shimmers in the sun, and she, with wrinkles showcasing her long and fulfilling life, smiles down at you.
“Afternoon, kiddo. You doing alright?”
You nod, more focused on the heavy workload you have in front of you.
Leslie pats your back like a coach would to her favorite player, “I know Josh and Ryan quitting hasn’t been easy on you.” Her voice is too solemn for a work transfer, “I’ll be working tonight, too, if that eases you.”
You perk up, half with relief and half because working with Leslie is the best. It’s comforting to have a superior like her around when people start getting wild in the woods; she’s good at grabbing people by the scruff and dragging them out, kicking and hollering.
“You can take care of the Southern Reach, yeah? You’re a big kid—you can handle it.”
You’re more than just a kid, but between her being near retirement age while you are fresh out of college—you are a kid in her eyes. You nod, already unhooking your heavy flashlight from its carabiner.
“That’s the ticket. I’ll take Northern. We’ll meet back up here for closing.”
“No, no, I’ll handle closing.” You persuade, “Come on, Leslie, I can handle closing a big gate. Just handle Northern and go home.”
She debates it, rolling the idea around in her mind before conceding. “Alright, kiddo. Just this once, though.”
At first, with the sun just touching the horizon, your checks go well, and you clean up a few empty beer cans along the southernmost trails. Your trash bag is light, which is a plus. You don’t need to pull your flashlight out until past seven in the evening when the moon peeks out behind you. You find an empty can of soup (chicken-noodle but with star-shaped pasta instead of noodles). The top looks messily cut, as if with a knife, which isn’t at all uncommon.
Except, well, this can has a pull tab disregarded by the previous user. You turn over the can in your palm, examining the shredded metal and paper label, and toss it into the bag with the rest of the trash.
Further, closer to the center of the trails, there is another disemboweled can. You pick up one, the lid is also ripped off, the pull-tab forgotten about, yet this soup can has more than half of it ripped off into a swirly shape, almost like someone was desperate for something to eat. It’s Campbell’s, not Grandma’s cooking.
There’s another can further into the woods, more shredded than the last, with a deep dent in the center; the can was clean, too clean, which is both weird and disgusting. Dogs shouldn’t eat this stuff concentrated—too much sodium.
Another one; there is a streaky, black substance marbling with some soup still sitting at the bottom of the can; another, and more of that black slime. You carefully pick up each one and add it to the bag. The next can has more of that substance—almost too much. The smell is putrid. It burns inside your nose, and you get a whiff of formaldehyde or something that reeks of death.
You keep traveling into the woods, finding more debris and litter, an old chewed-through sleeve, a jacket, and a glove smattered with that syrup-y oil. There’s something wet beneath your palm, and thank the stars you chose to bring your gloves this morning. It’s red, with a black slime marbled in it. It’s sticky between your fingers, and it smells awful. You follow the trail of red and black with your flashlight.
The source is the mangled carcass of a hiker wearing a high-vis vest. You suck in a breath and reach for your walkie-talkie. It’s sickening, and you can’t stop looking at the body as you radio for your superior.
“Leslie? Leslie, you there?” You plead, hands shaking and mind racing. Of all the people you want to pick up, it’s her. She’s been working here since before you were born—maybe she’s found a mutilated person in her time working the trails.
The silence stretches for an eternity until you hear a familiar voice on the other end.
“Hey, I’m here. What’s going on?” She asks.
“Uhm, I don’t know,” You make the mistake of looking at it, at the remnants of a man, at the carcass before you. “I don’t even know what could do something like this.” God, it makes you sick, but you can’t look away.
“Come on, talk to me,” She barks, her voice firm with years of seniority, “What are you seeing? Talk.”
You swallow. “Some hiker got attacked. They’re not responsive,” You mutter into your little plastic lifeline. “I’m off Trapper’s—I don’t know—Christ, I’m going to be sick.”
“...Okay,” Leslie replies quickly, “Are you safe?”
You don’t know the answer to that question. You swallow a lump in your throat as you look frantically for movement in the dark woods. Leslie says something, but you can’t hear it over the sound of your heart hammering away in your ears. You see movement between the trees, the primal part of your brain attempting to identify any immediate danger. Everything is spinning, it reeks of death, and Leslie’s voice is staticky because of the shitty speakers.
“Answer me! Come on, kiddo, where are you?” She shouted, her voice laced with harsh static.
Your flashlight flickers, and you hope whoever ordered these flashlights has something horrible happen to them. Something rustles in the bush. The only thing you have to protect yourself is a bag of loose garbage and your shitty flashlight. Leslie is shouting so loud you can only hear half of her words. Whatever emerges from that bush will eat you alive—you’re sure of it.
The stench of death gets heavier as a figure crawls out from beneath the foliage, wearing a dark hoodie and a blue mask. There’s blood and guts caked under their fingernails, and they look filthy and smell worse. They lock eyes with you and try to stand, stumbling and letting out a near-inhuman cry. You hold your heavy flashlight like a baton—all it’s useful for, considering the lightbulb works when it wants to—as the masked stranger lets out a wheezy breath and crawls towards you.
You grip the flashlight so hard your hands are shaking, taking careful steps back to maintain some distance between both of you. Their approach doesn’t stop. They reach and grab at your leg and pull you to the ground. Your head is spinning as it collides with the damp earth, and you feel two hands digging into your abdomen, sharp nails scratching and attempting to burrow into your stomach. You shout as their ice-cold hands scrape across your body, their claws raking across tender flesh.
You thrash and try to push them away, but they hold you down with one hand and remove their mask with the other.
You always said you’d know what to do if you were in a slasher flick. You always called the protagonists stupid for freezing up in front of certain death, never thinking about what it felt like, knowing you were probably going to die. You look them in the eye—more so what’s left of them, staring into two tar-filled sockets where their eyes would be—and unable to do anything.
You lay back, each breath barely making it in and out of your lungs. They stop, hands still pressed firmly against you. They crane their neck, probably just as surprised as you for simply giving up. They tug your shirt back down, pressing a palm over it and smoothing the fabric with their palm.
It reignites something in you because before either of you can register what’s happening, they’re squealing in pain as you hit them upside the head with your flashlight. You scramble away, pulling yourself to your feet and running blindly to the main trail.
You don’t stop, even after the demonic cries die out under the sound of the beginning storm. You push and push yourself until you nearly collide with Leslie.
“Stars—! Kid, where the hell were you? What the hell happened to you?”
She shines the light across your face, then brushes a leaf from your coat. It’s hard to think about speaking; Leslie knows you’re trying.
“Hey, it’s okay. Come on, I’ll drive you home, kiddo.”
“But the—”
“Don’t worry about it,” She says as softly as she can, “You’ve done all you can do. Anything about you that I should be worried about?”
You pat your abdomen, a few lines of brown blood staining the front. You shake your head, and Leslie holds off on grilling you for details.
✷𓃞 ✷
She drives you home in her big pickup truck (she even went through a drive-thru and got you something to eat on the way home). She pats your back as you dig through the bottom of the bag for scraps.
“Don’t think about coming back tomorrow—Partly because you’ve been through hell tonight—but also because there’s going to be an investigation. Look—take it easy, maybe go see your doctor, don’t come back until at least next Tuesday.”
Leslie pulls over to the side of your street and pulls out a box of cigarettes. “I mean it, take it easy. You do enough work while you’re on the clock; don’t worry about anything—I have people that can cover your shift if you need more time off.”
You nod, gathering your things and walking towards your house, digging your keys from your jacket to escape the rainy weather. You shut the door behind you, and Leslie walks towards her truck, a thin line of smoke trailing behind her.
You open the door, and a warm puff of air welcomes you home. It’s quiet and dark, leaving you on edge from tonight’s incident. Instead of relaxing—like Leslie practically ordered you to—you drop your bag at the front door and book it to your computer. It hums to life, and you punch in your password and open your web browser. Surprisingly, being attacked by a person-shaped thing did not perturb your furious web-searching.
Creature in the woods near me
Masked creature, person that tried to eat me?
Blue man— you hastily hit backspace as Blue Man Group auto-fills in your search bar.
You keep trying outrageous combinations of words, eventually finding a near-defunct blog with a picture of the freaky humanoid that almost killed you.
EYELESS JACK. Well, the name fits. At least you’ve finally got a name for that face. You read through this article, which recounts this woman—a hiker-slash-rock-climber, to be more specific—coming into contact with a human-ish guy. They had a few photos of deep claw wounds that scarred over pale on her dark skin. You jot down the name, continuing to dig into the incident recounted by this woman.
You pause and close all your curtains and turn off all the lights (and you get yourself a drink to keep yourself awake). Sinking into your chair again, you continue the deep dive into this Eyeless Jack fellow, feeling like a detective from some once-popular show that wasn’t that good. You keep searching—jotting down leads for your search—until the sun is peeking over the horizon, and you can hardly keep your eyes open. Eyeless Jack has been around for longer than you first believed—they’ve probably been terrorizing after-dark visitors of your park for years, right under your nose.
Are there more missing-person cases? Did any of your coworkers who quit unexpectedly actually have a reason? God, this journey to the weirdest parts of the internet has left you with more questions than answers.
You look down at the big sticky-note pad you used for notes. It looks like you fell off the deep end with your feverish scrawling, smeared ink, and lots of quick notes about disembowelment, kidney removal, and even cult activity. You think this may need another night of internet excavation to answer those (and inevitably, come up with more, even crazier, questions). Based on a few accounts of unwanted kidney removal in their sleep, you think about getting something to eat—
—and staying as far from your bed as possible.
✷𓃞 ✷
You can’t even eat breakfast without being tempted by your thirst for knowledge; it’s unbearable. You don’t even want to think of spending more than a few days at home. Hopefully, the police hurry up and finish so you can start your investigation.
You quickly rinse and dry your empty dish, filling a glass of water and flopping onto the couch. Surfing channels and finding something mindlessly entertaining will probably take your mind off things.
The news is boring—talking about the recent storm off the southern coast—and some cooking show. A history documentary—about someone you don’t care for—a jewelry channel, another news channel, and a kids’ show.
(Tempting, but no.)
The local news, though not mindless, is entertaining. There’s an over-top camera view of the park. Dozens of police cruisers and K-9 units are parked—and you can see your car, your old, rusty girl in the lot—Cops are infesting every corner of your TV, some moving into the woods toward Trapper’s, others lingering to talk in the view of the helicopter. It cuts to a news anchor recapping the incident from last night. They think it’s a bear attack. Leslie says it was a bear attack. Your coworkers say it was a bear attack, and Wildlife Removal will deal with it.
They don’t know anything—Jack tore into that hiker like a wild animal—and left the poor guy’s insides all over the forest floor.
You don’t stop watching the news until they start talking about the weather, where you only half-listen. There’s going to be a storm tonight. The teams at your job are probably going to try to recover the body and bring it to the morgue before it starts raining.
You turn off the TV after that. You examine your abdomen, five short lines across your belly where their claws made contact. You decide to go to the bathroom to clean and dress them.
“Better to be safe than sorry.” You tell yourself.
After a few cotton balls soaked in alcohol and big bandaids later, everything is clean enough and about as well-dressed as you can, considering your supplies.
There’s not much to do at home, and trying to take your mind off things with your usual hobbies isn’t working. You even try scrolling mindlessly online, but you can’t stop thinking about last night.
Why did they stop—and so suddenly?
You lift your shirt and brush your thumb over the bandaids on your belly, the skin still too hot and tender. Maybe you were just lucky, stupidly lucky. You pick up your home phone and dial Leslie’s number. She at least deserves a warning about what’s out there.
“...What are you doing?”
“Leslie,” there’s some strain in your tone, “Hey, Leslie. How are things?”
“You’re calling about work? You’re supposed to be on vacation.”
Yes. Yes, you are.
“I know, but—Look, it’s about last night. I know you specifically told me not to do any digging, but—”
“Kid,” She cuts you off. You can picture her frustration as she probably rubs at her temples, “Tell me you did not do that.”
Yes. Yes, you did.
She sighs dramatically. “You work too hard—even when I order you to stop thinking about work, you do it anyway.”
“Look, it wasn’t an animal. It was a guy.”
“...What.”
You pull the phone from your ear. You probably do sound crazy. And you will continue to sound crazy when you talk about what you found online from defunct blogs from 1999. No matter how you try to spin it—every time you start talking—you can not come up with the words to explain that the scary internet creature is real. Leslie will not believe you, and who the hell would?
“...Nevermind. I have to go. I have, uhh, laundry in the dryer.” You mutter.
“Well, feel better, and stop going on the internet—you’ll scare yourself out of your skin with stuff people make up for fun,” Leslie sighs, then her voice goes soft, “I mean it. Take care of yourself. We’re thinking of you, kiddo. Oh, and Molly says hi.”
You swallow a lump in your throat. “...Well, let Molly know I said ‘Hi’ back.”
“Will do. Okay, see you next week.”
You hang up.
✷𓃞 ✷
It’s damp. The fallen leaves are starting to rot and turn mushy under their boots. Jack tears through another can with their claws and downs a mixture of soup and soaked-through chicken. They drink, grinding the sinewy chicken and too-soft between their teeth, swallowing harshly and curling up at the taste. Police swarming the woods like ants to fruit has been awful; Jack is tired. Everything burns, they’re tired of running, and they’re still so hungry.
Other foods are necessary to Jack’s diet—they can’t live off meat. They need carbs and stuff—but if Jack has to spend more time seeing faces, they will start digging for their kidneys. They collapse underneath a fallen tree, curling up like a woodlouse. If the police find them, Jack just hopes it’s quick.
They can hear men shouting somewhere nearby with their big, angry dogs.
Jack falls asleep there, eventually, and they don’t know what time it is when they wake up, just that it’s dark out again, and it’s so quiet.
They survive off stolen clothing and soup cans between stays at the manor. Though their vision is gone, Jack still lives with psychosis (one would figure getting their eyes melted with hot tar would prevent visual hallucinations). Eating human flesh, though a taboo solution to their symptoms, allowed Jack to clear their mind and function.
Jack sunk deeper under the heavy log when they heard footsteps and a whining dog.
“I know, boy.” A man says, coughing as the air smells of cigarettes.
Jack’s nose burns at the smell. The dog sniffs at the earth and knocks aside a pile of leaves with its nose, whining and howling. The officer kicks aside the leaves and sighs.
“...Alright,” He says, the metal bits of the dog’s vest clicking together as the dog grows restless, thrashing against it.
The man hunches down, the sound of a plastic bag crinkling in his palm, muttering something to the canine.
“Atta-boy. Come on, Chester, it’s damn creepy out here.” With the tug of the leash, the officer and his canine retreat out of the woods.
When the two are out of earshot, Jack squeezes out from under the log and feels around in the dirt, sniffing the air and only smelling wet earth. Their chest tugs in a sickened sort of way, and they sink back into their hiding place and curl up into a ball. The rain picks up again. Wind howls and thunder crackles in the sky, rattling the earth.
Their new jacket, which they snatched off an unsuspecting hiker, was Jack’s only protection from hypothermia stealing the heat from their digits. Jack breathes into their palms, hot air flowing across their stiff fingers (which Jack promptly stuffed into their underarms to warm them up).
The wind doesn't hesitate to rob Jack’s already-deprived body of what little it has. Jack can’t stop thinking about how hungry they are—and how they see faces melting in their periphery whenever their mind wanders. They pick at the raw edges of their sockets in a measly attempt to soothe. It doesn't work. Nothing works anymore, even when Jack can consume human meat. After only a few hours, Jack’s skin is already itching with the need to keep consuming, to keep eating, to stave off their psychosis by any means necessary. They tug—and tug, and tug, and tug until they’re shaking—at their raw skin, where hardened pitch meets seared flesh and patchy brows. It’s unbearably cold, it’s so fucking cold, and going back to that hellish manor sounds like paradise right about now.
But that’s not an option.
✷𓃞 ✷
Tuesday finally comes around, and you can return to work.
You pack two lunches today. Your bag is just leftovers in a takeaway container (dinner from yesterday), and the other is a sandwich with a few slices of Swiss cheese and meat (far more meat than you’ve ever used at once). It’s got other things on it; you aren't going to give some hungry person—who’s probably been living alone in the wilderness for who knows how long—a boring sandwich. Too bad if they don’t like mayo (Well, you hope they like mayo, lest they rip you in two for the offense of a condiment on real-people food).
You fill your water bottle, grab your keys, and head out the door.
Leslie’s truck is humming outside. Your car is still in the lot at work. You were not in any condition to drive after, and Leslie would not have let that happen. She moves her bags as you climb into the passenger seat. You set down your things on the floor, trying to conceal the second lunch you made.
“...Glad to have you back, got everything?” Leslie asks.
You nod, jingling your keys.
She flicks her turn signal to the left and drives onto the road, turning right onto the main road.
The car is quiet, except for the radio playing old 80s hits, thick with the tension that you almost died the last time you went to work.
“You can work wherever you want today. Molly’s willing to work with your plans. I can imagine not wanting to do trail walks after, well, you know what.”
“I’ll be okay,” You say, ”I’ll do trails today. Not a problem.”
Leslie grips the steering wheel tight. “You’re sure? After you know what, I figured you would want to quit,” She turns left, “I wouldn’t blame you.”
“No. I’m a little shaken up, but I’m okay.” You say, looking out the window.
Leslie makes some noise like she knows you’re lying. Your brush with death should have turned you off from any outdoorsy work, but here you are, making lunches for the thing that tried to rip you open like an orange. Maybe your too-empathetic and hopeful parts hope this sandwich helps them out. Everything you read about them was far from pleasant—Some of it didn’t seem real.
“A mixture of blood and hot tar poured into the eye sockets.” You recall.
This stuff about Eyeless Jack you read felt like fiction, but what you saw that night was real. God, it sends shivers down your spine, makes you feel ill—you don’t know what you would do if put in that scenario (blinded, abandoned, and left to die in the woods with an insatiable hunger for human flesh? Jack has been active for years, all alone, you think, you’re not sure how you would last even half as long).
“...Did they find anything?”
Leslie sighs. “No. But it’s an animal, so it’ll return next time it’s hungry. We’ve got more people on watch. Hopefully, we can get Wilderness Removal or Animal Control on it, maybe kill it if we have to.”
You hope not. Leave the critter that keeps eating people alone; they should just leave a plate of food out.
“Maybe don’t try to hunt down the wild critter-person like an animal.” You think. The rest of the ride is silent. You pull up to the park and see Molly chatting with a guest. She spots you looking out the window and waves, delighted to see you again.
“I wanted to give you this in case anyone tries giving you trouble.”
She passes you a black cylinder that’s roughly four inches tall. The button on top and the spray nozzle tells you it’s pepper spray.
“...Thanks, Leslie.”
“Anytime.”
You pull on your coat and leave your lunch in the fridge, taking the other out. Then, you jog over to your car and abandon the pepper spray in the cup holder; you hope that this choice won’t get you killed tonight, but you need to start on a good foot.
Your day-to-day rhythm comes back to you. You warmed yourself up on the more populated trails, picking up cans and directing folks about. It’s sparse, only seeing small groups unfazed by the recent killings (perhaps through ignorance or a belief that death is beneath them). The dread is heavier when you walk an empty trail that’s usually lively with people, even during the day, when dangers lurking in the bushes are more visible. As the sun creeps across the sky—and lower towards the horizon—fewer and fewer people choose to risk hiking after dark, lest they get disemboweled like the last guy who tried.
By 19:00, it’s empty. There’s nobody around other than you. But you know they’re still out there, listening to your every movement (and every breath and every hitch).
You scan the edge of the woods where they’re probably hiding, carefully stepping over the foliage while you intentionally stray from the carefully manicured path.
The trails are well-kept. The landscaping crew works diligently and takes pride in their work, keeping them free of debris and roots that would make the footpath a challenging terrain. Beyond the edges of the dirt roads, however, the forest is wild; vines writhe and twist along the floor, every plant fighting for sunlight in the undergrowth, with bigger-than-your-head leaves and trees wearing thick coats of creeping ivy. You witness the cycles of life and death within this delicate ecosystem—young trees climb higher and higher, growing larger and larger; insects feast upon the trees, rely on the trees, live and die by the trees; the trees, after centuries of life, die and rot; the lichen and insects feast on the rotting wood and refresh the cycle anew.
It makes you feel small and insignificant, as the world around you lives and dies without even noticing your existence. It’s like being surrounded by other people’s ideas in a museum, thousands of other people, forgotten by time, remembered by their art, or their shoes, or their stories through other people’s mouths.
Your boot slips on slick earth before you can continue your mental spiral about your insignificance as one among billions. Your boots squeal against pulpy mud and you nearly slip down into a strange recess; the earth is slick with that same slime, though it is more grainy and pus-like in texture. You follow the streaks in the muddy ground, where it slips underneath a large, rotten log.
You shine your light underneath, spotting a shivering, cobalt-blue mask underneath layers of jackets and stolen fabrics.
Maybe they’re sleeping, and waking them up (though with the promise of real people food) may upset them enough to maul you like a bear and eat you for lunch instead.
They shift and wiggle into the recess they carved out for themselves, hearing some shuffling outside of their burrowing. They suck in a deep breath through their nose, and the smell of human sears the insides of their lungs like smoke. They hunch a little bit, curling into a more upward sitting position, sniffing the air, inhaling once, twice, then a third time until they have that scent burned into their hindbrain. They can’t stop drooling, salivating at the thought of finally feeling okay again, having something to cut through the smoky, blurry feeling. They hear shuffling, their prey slinking back as they curl forward. They can’t suppress the growl that rumbles in their throat, teeth licked behind the mask. They don’t move like a person in preparation for a chase. Jack slips out of their nook, their body curled forward and arms hanging limp.
Jack reaches up and peels the mask like a second skin, revealing tar-filled sockets that bore down at your scent.
Jack lurches forward like they’re on a leash, sinking their claws into your arm and digging in, etching out five deep grooves, each weeping a stream of blood that makes Jack’s mind run wild. Without thinking entirely, Jack pulls your arm forward and sinks their teeth into your bicep, leaning their body weight against you, knocking you both to the floor. There’s kicking and screaming, high-pitched whining as Jack’s teeth tear through skin and sinew, coating your arm in blood and spit.
You cry out, trying to pull their steel trap of a jaw out of your arm—managing to loosen their upper jaw, and by shoving them away with the heel of your palm, you manage to rip out their lower jaw, too.
They shiver, licking their teeth over and over again. Feral, animalistic delight rattles their whole body; they’re giddy at the taste of your blood, but they hold some restraint at the sound of their name.
Your breathing is frantic, and your heart is hammering in your throat. Jack’s breathing slows, and they quit licking their teeth. You’re not sure where to start. You hold your breath as Jack’s tar-filled sockets bore down into yours. Their breathing is heavy, and there’s saliva dribbling down their chin. You squeeze your arm, your skin clammy with blood and sweat, while Jack stays still above you.
Your mouth is nailed and twisted shut like you’re at the morgue. Jack doesn’t finch as they, strangely again, don’t tear you to shreds like the last guy. You sigh, which comes out as an exasperated laugh, your chest squirming like a bucket of mealworms as Jack’s warm, blood-soaked breath enters your nose. Their hair is long and matted, greasy and cool-brown in color; their skin is a deep gray like the living dead, bulked up by layers of stolen sweaters and pants to keep warm.
“I, uhh…” You start, “I brought you a sandwich if you want it. I didn't know what you liked, so I just put a little bit of ever—”
Jack’s knee presses into your ribcage as they climb over you, feeling around on the ground for your bag. A wheeze rattles from your throat, and they dump your belongings onto the forest floor unceremoniously, sniffing the contents like a tracker hound.
They pinch the bag between their claws, disemboweling the brown paper bag, the contents hitting the floor with a wet thud.
You watch them eat, tearing through plastic and paper with their teeth, eating with no sensibility nor dignity. The sandwich is shoved into their mouth and swallowed in about fifteen seconds, and a crushed bag of potato chips you forgot at the bottom of your bag perishes, too. They crack open the plastic container full of your dinner and hesitate, neck craned in your direction. It takes a few moments to find them, but Jack finds the metal utensils you packed for yourself, showing the container to you.
“Oh, well, yeah. That’s mine. My dinner, I mean. You can have it if you want.”
They shake their head in a fit.
They push it in your direction, a flatly affective expression on the remainder of their face, but their body language pushes your cold leftovers on you with a lot of force. You gingerly take the container from their claws, crack it open, and eat. Jack listens attentively to you, sockets trained on you, on the sound of metal utensils clinking against your mouth, the sound of you swallowing your meal. Their hands squirm and play with the dirt and leaves, excited to share a meal of leftovers with somebody they nearly killed twice. Your arm is throbbing as you carefully feed yourself, your jacket’s sleeve shredded. Hopefully, your emergency fund can cover a trip to the hospital for however many stitches you’ll need, as well as the antibiotics you’ll be taking (or paying for amputation if this gets infected, but you try not to think about that as this demonic forest creature is enraptured by you eating supper with them). You scrape the bottom of the container, not missing a single morsel.
They move their hand under their chin, and you recognize what Jack is doing. You took a few classes in uni, so you pick up on the ASL as soon as their hand collides with the other in a neat thank you.
“Oh! You’re welcome,” You say, “Was it good? I was worried if you liked mayo or not.”
They grin. It’s small, subtle, and hard to do with the tar seared to their skin, but there’s a quiet peek of teeth as they chuckle at being understood. They like mayo.
You laugh, too, exhausted and relieved. After so many restless nights worrying about getting your organs surgically removed in your sleep, you’re looking forward to a restful night after the day you’ve had. At the hospital, because your arm is looking pretty ugly.
“Look, I think I have to go.”
They tense up.
“I won’t tell anyone about you, I promise,” You sigh, trying not to look down at your bloody limb, “They’re still looking for you, though, so be careful. If you need food, I can try to sneak you some from Lost & Found.”
Jack pats at their pocket, pulling out an old, beat-up phone. They pass it to you, and you type out your number and put it into a contact.
“I’ll, hopefully, see you soon?”
They shrug. It’s probably for the best that they don’t make any promises. Jack walks into the treeline, eventually disappearing from view.