The Canyon

Author’s Note:

This is the second Cosmic Horror short that I wrote, inspired by a trip to Fern Canyon on the Pacific Coast.

The words are slipping through my mind like sand through a leaky sieve. I can’t seem to hold them anymore. A few images, sounds, words — fears, terrors, elations — still cling to me. Most fall away, like so much dead flesh sloughing off.

Tom and I went for a day hike on the redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest, not far from Crescent City. We stayed at a small hotel just off the freeway the night before and would continue up the coast to Canada, stopping to hike the coast. A lazy attempt at the Pacific Coast Trail, as Tom called it.

The elegant trunks of the trees vanished into a gray-green roof of branches and mist, like red pillars holding up a feast hall for giants. The floor was carpeted with a soft bed of pine needles that stifled footsteps and ate sound. Ferns uncurled toward the hazy sun, like primordial hands reaching heavenward. And on every surface, tufts of slick, green moss. 

It often rained in the redwoods, a soft pattering sort of rain, and it was drizzling lazily when we started along the trail. It wound up through the trunks and screens of fern, sometimes skirting a fallen giant as if it was just sleeping and soon would resume its sentinel-like watch. It felt to me like walking through a church where monks sat in silent prayer. The space demanded a kind of silent reverence.

 The forest opened into a meadow, a gap in the boundless temple of the wood. Two elk stood across the meadow at the distant edge of the trees, their antlers lifted proudly. They eyed us warily as we passed back into the shadows of the forest, and one let out a strangled cry that echoed over the short grass and sent a shiver up my spine. 

We continued down the trail, Tom confident that he knew the way. He had been here before and was acting as my guide. He’d point out various mushrooms along the trail and rattle off their taxonomy and rate them on a scale of deadly to yummy.

I would tell a sardonic joke and he would laugh and wrinkle his nose and crinkle up his eyes so that it was like his whole face was seized with laughter. His face now is hard to recall apart from that. I can’t quite remember the color of his hair or even what color his eyes were. But the smile remains.

The trail wound on — up and on. It climbed further into the forest, toward the ridge of forested mountains that broke into cliffs that plunged into the sea. The sun began its slow descent down and I could tell Tom was troubled. 

He stopped pointing out interesting sights or commenting on how things had changed. I asked him a few times if we were on the wrong trail but he said that this was it. It was a loop, after all. We could just follow it and we’d eventually return to the parking lot.

The sun vanished behind the trees and the forest fell into darkness. The frogs and crickets began to sing, and with our flashlights, we poked our way forward. 

We were lost. Tom hadn’t admitted it, but I knew it. We had only brought enough food and water for a short hike, the rest of our supplies were back at the hotel. 

The trail cut right through the downed titanic body of one of the redwoods, and its circumference easily engulfed the both of us. 

“We should stop here and wait until morning,” I said. 

“It’s just a little further,” said Tom, “Trust me. We just need to go a little further and then the trail will curve back to the beach. We’re nearly there.”

I took off my backpack and sat down.  

“C’mon,” said Tom, “It’ll be an adventure.”

He smiled and I stood, grumbling.

The house in the forest was small, and a cheery light shone out of the window. Its twisted form strange and squat, in a disturbing contrast with the stately trees that surrounded it, as if it had been dropped here and forgotten.

The rain had started again, this time harder. Distantly I could hear the clap of thunder. The forest floor became muddy and we huddled before the door, shivering and cold. Tom was sneezing, and he kept rubbing his temples in pain.

The door opened, and an old woman stood in the doorway. She was hunched over as if the weight of her years pressed down on her, and she wore a large black raincoat that swallowed her. Her hair was long and white and wound into a braid. 

One gnarled hand clutched the door frame, the nails an inch or more long. Her head bobbed slightly as she glared at us with one yellowing eye, the other hidden behind her hair. She licked her lips.

“Come in, darlings. Come in out of the cold and rain.”

She gripped my arm and with surprising strength pulled me inside the house. She advised us to duck as we passed through the threshold. A fire crackled merrily in the front room. She hurried us into a sagging couch and vanished into another room. She came back with thick musty blankets and we huddled close to the fire for warmth. 

“Warm soup,” muttered the woman. “Must get you warm inside and out.”

She tottered into the kitchen and soon the house was filled with the mouth-watering smell of a hearty broth. 

“Did you see that? In the woods?” asked Tom, as we clutched out soup bowls. 

“See what?” I said as I blew on my spoon. Chunks of some kind of meat bobbed in the bowl. I was too hungry to wonder at what they were.

Tom shivered. “I don’t know what it was — maybe just a tree or a bear or something. It was big. I saw it just before we spotted this place.”

I shrugged. “Could have been a bush.”

Tom nodded but I could tell he was still focused on whatever he had seen. 

“At least we were lucky and found this place,” I said. “She probably knows a way back to the campground we can take in the morning.”

The woman returned to fill our bowls again and when we had finished, lead us to a small room. There was a bed and a cot, each covered in knit wool blankets. We thanked her and she left a lantern for us and closed the door. 

Tom shivered through the night. I could hear him tossing about, whimpering. The next day he lay in bed pale and cold. I brought the cot over to the fire and laid him in it. The rain let up a little, but it was obvious that Tom was too weak to try to walk back. 

The woman put me to work chopping wood. Around noon, the rain started again. Tom had fallen asleep and I sat with him, tending to the fire. His face looked so calm now, so pale. I noticed for the first time how delicate his eyes were, how beautiful the curve of his lips. They too were white.

I asked the woman if we could stay one more night. The storm had returned in full strength and a terrible howling wind had picked up, whistling through the trees, battering the house. 

The woman nodded and smiled her gummy smile. 

I slept that night on the floor beside Tom. My dreams were full of twisting images, faces melting into one another, reforming and melting like bubbles in a boiling pot. Each face stared at me, mouth agape as if trying to say something — to warn me. 

I was awoken by the sound of the door creaking open. The angle in which I lay faced the door and I could see a tall figure standing in the doorway. The woman stood before it, leaning on the door for support.

I froze. 

The figure shifted as if indicating something in the house. The woman whispered in her strange lilted voice. “That one is almost ready. Half-cooked, yes… Can’t you take another? They seem such sweet boys… Yes, yes. They’ll both be ready.”

The dark figure shifted and I could no longer make out its silhouette. The woman closed the door and shuffled to her room. 

I let myself breathe small, shallow breaths. 

We had to leave. 

The morning brought more rain. Tom’s condition grew worse. He couldn’t stop shivering, but I was determined to leave. 

I gathered only what I needed, car keys, my long-dead phone, and a water bottle and forced Tom to stand. He swayed a bit, his eyes closed. His face was gaunt, almost death-like. Beads of sweat gathered across his pale face.

He gripped me tightly as he shivered. He felt lighter as if he had shivered off all his excess weight and was now just bones held together by skin. 

The old woman tried to stop me as we began to leave. She shuffled toward us, shrieking, “No! Stay! Stay!”

I kicked at her. She fell against the couch and tumbled to the floor. I thought I had killed her briefly until she started to howl and spit like an angry cat.

“You’ve ruined it!” she yelled over and over, her yellow eyes darting to the shadows that clung to the corner of the room. One hand pulled at her braid nervously. “You’ve ruined everything!”

Tom was light enough I could cradle him his my arms after we crossed the threshold out of the house. I looked down at him. He was so small in my arms. I had once imagined carrying him like this on our wedding night. Now — 

It’s getting harder to remember what exactly happened next. I ran into the woods as the rain pelted me with heavy, cold globs. I found the path and rushed down it. A thick fog had rolled in and I could hardly see more than eight feet in front of me. 

Somehow I never lost the path. 

We entered the meadow where we had seen the elk and the fog lifted. The rain stopped. The clouds hung low and dark, their surface boiling angrily. 

In the center of the meadow stood the tall, dark figure. 

It was not a man — It was not even human. I can’t even describe how it looked. Its appearance seems to slip away whenever my mind tries to touch it, like an echo of a memory. Whatever it was is now a void in my memory, a hole through which my mind seems to be slipping.

I can only remember how it made me feel. It was as if I was staring at something ancient, far older than humanity. I was an ant realizing how big the shoe that threatens to crush them is. 

Primal terror seized me. My heart pounded in my ears. My mouth turned bone dry. My whole body vibrated with anticipation. 

Tom moved in my arms. He opened his eyes and they were the same yellow as the old woman. He looked at the figure and began to mutter, “No… not yet… please… not yet.”

The figure stood in the center of the path. It raised what I took to be a hand and beckoned me forward. My foot lifted and stepped by itself. I couldn’t seem to move them on my own. They walked me forward until I stood before the figure. 

It stooped down — stooped because it was as tall as a redwood — and reached out for Tom, its hand twisted, gnarled and as black as charred wood. 

A weight seemed to lift from me and I sprang backward, clutching Tom tightly to my chest. The figure started and tried to grab me but I slipped around it and ran down the path. Tom’s mutterings became greater. 

“Must go back,” he said, “Must go back!”

Tom started to writhe in my arms and I almost dropped him. We had not yet cleared the meadow and I could feel the figure approach. It didn’t make a sound, but a wave of terror proceeded it like a water bunching up before the prow of a boat. 

Tom kicked himself free of my arms and we tumbled to the ground together. The figure was upon us and one hand wrapped around Tom’s leg and began to pull him back. 

Tom looked at me, tears in his eyes. 

“Go!” he said, and the figure enveloped him. It bubbled around the place where Tom had once been, black and glistening like oil. I scrambled to my feet and ran, not looking back. 

I slid over slick patches of wet pine needles, ducked low branches, and scrapped up against trees as the path twisted down toward the beach. 

I didn’t stop for any reason. I didn’t look behind me. I ran. Tom’s eyes burned into me, chased me all the way to the car. I had lost my phone and the water bottle in the mad dash from the woods.

I didn’t stop until I was in the car. I did not look back to the woods as I drove through the curtains of rain. The drive from the forest back to Crescent City is a blur, a time absent from my mind. I suddenly sat in the hotel parking lot. 

I turned on every light in the hotel room. The darkness was intolerable. I went to the closet for a change of clothes, as mine were still soaked through. Tom’s clothes were gone. All of the ones I had left were still there. I rang the front desk and they told me that nobody had been in the room. It occurred to me that I ought to tell someone Tom is missing but when I said that Tom was gone they said that I had arrived alone and booked the room for one. 

I hung up the phone and began to write. 

I can feel Tom slowly fade away. His name I only remember because I have it written here. But his face? His smile? How he made me feel? All gone.

All except his eyes, filled with tears, begging me to run.