Adventure Gone Wrong
by Amber Averay
Check out Amber’s Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/TheEnchantmentSeries
Packs hiked onto their backs, the two girls stood together at the head of the Sleeper Track and gazed at the gradually ascending hiking trail with anticipation. Trekking through the Solitaire State Forest had been something they’d talked of doing in high school, and they decided a few days ago it was time to just do it. No more excuses, no more ‘when we have time’. Now.
So here they were, buzzing with excitement and filled with anticipation. Amelia had fought hard for the Death Trail, but Genevieve argued that they needed to try the Sleeper first: ‘If we manage that one, then we can hit the Grim Reaper.’
‘Seriously, you don’t want to push yourself straight up?’
Genevieve gave her friend a look. ‘I don’t want to die on the first track we do! Save that for the second, or even third one. First trail, we go easy…ish. OK?’
Amelia agreed, feigning heavy reluctance, but secretly she was relieved her friend had stuck to her guns. She’d heard of hikers who’d had heart attacks on the Death Trail, one who had actually died from an asthma attack – and if she remembered correctly, one case in which a man simply vanished! It was believed he’d fallen somewhere, though no trace of him had been found more than a year later. And while the search had lasted weeks, not a speck of blood, a shred of clothing, a shoe – not a single thing had been found to tell of the poor man’s fate.
Such stories only made the State Forest – and the Death Trail in particular – more popular than ever, and for a while people from all over the state, all over the country, descended upon Solitaire to experience their newsworthy hiking tracks. It didn’t matter that hundreds of people a year survived the trail; all that anybody cared about was trekking over the track that had killed some, and caused another to magically disappear.
Amelia was secretly relieved Gen hadn’t wanted to try that trail first. She was still spooked by the stories, but some part of her felt the need for bravado, as if to prove to everybody that she didn’t care about tales of the dead haunting the Grim Reaper.
As the day moved on the temperature rose, and the girls stopped regularly to have some water and liberally reapply sunscreen. They paused for lunch, giggling at their burning muscles and halfheartedly complaining at their pitiful lack of fitness. The Sleeper trail was a slowly ascending hike, and it was harder than they’d anticipated!
‘Good thing we brought extra water,’ Gen joked, taking a swig of lukewarm liquid.
Amelia sighed. ‘If there isn’t a stand with fresh cold water at the end, manned by gorgeous men wearing next to nothing, I’ll be seriously pissed off.’
‘Right? That would be an awesome reward for actually starting – and finishing – Sleeper.’
They huffed a laugh again, Amelia looking upward, Gen looking back. When the silence had drawn out to an unnatural length Amelia glanced at her friend and saw she was tense, eyes squinting down the track. ‘What’s wrong?’
Gen didn’t answer immediately, gaze searching the trail and forest flanking it. ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head, seeming almost confused, lips pursed and forehead creased. ‘I’m either hallucinating or need more water.’
‘Or you’re crazy,’ Amelia offered helpfully.
Gen snorted, though the smile didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Can you see anything?’
Amelia’s eyes wandered over the descending path and probed the trees and brush lining it. Shaking her head, she turned to her friend and nudged her, shoulder-to-shoulder. ‘Maybe talk of the sexy men at the finish have done something to you.’ She dramatically fanned herself with her hand. ‘God knows it’s doing something to me!’
Gen’s lips twisted, though didn’t really manage a smile, and she cast another glance behind her before the two resumed their hike. Their cheerful voices, breathless with exertion, mingled with twittering birdsong and chirruping beetles and they soon forgot Gen’s foolish paranoia.
‘Lordy, I can’t believe how unfit I am!’ puffed Amelia, signalling her need to rest. ‘I thought I was in great shape, but holy hell do I suck so bad!’ There was no response, and she snapped her fingers impatiently. ‘Gen – hello? I thought you’d have jumped at the chance to tell me you’ve always known I’m fat and lazy!’
Genevieve murmured distractedly, ‘Yeah…probably.’ Staring down the track again.
‘Oh my God, what is it now? Is Big Bird stalking us? Maybe Darth Vader wallows in the shadows and waits to spring out at us with that rasping sexy voice? Oh, I know, I know! Henry Cavill is captivated by our sweaty beauty and is following us to the finish line so he can battle those sexy guys for our affections?’ She laughed, rolling her eyes when Gen failed to react. ‘Come on, what is bothering you? You seeing things again?’
Another hesitation. ‘Hearing things, actually.’ She held up a hand to halt whatever her friend was about to say. ‘Listen. I thought I heard my name.’
‘Uh, yeah. I said it. Remember?’
Genevieve didn’t answer, head cocked and eyes slanted. ‘I thought I heard a man’s voice saying “Genevieve”.’
‘Could have been someone down the track, talking to a girl with the same name.’
She shook her head, gaze troubled. ‘It wasn’t… I mean, it sounded close. As if he whispered my name from somewhere nearby.’
Silence washed over the girls, not even the sound of birds or bugs or wind in the leaves to stir the air. Amelia shuddered. ‘OK, you’re kind of freaking me out. Let’s just…keep moving.’ She tugged on her friend’s arm, drawing a distracted Gen along with her, but nothing she said or did could shake Genevieve’s pensiveness or distraction. It seemed she was listening for ‘other’ noises – footsteps crackling over dry ground, someone else’s breath whispering at the edge of her hearing, a voice teasing its owner’s presence with barely audible words. It bugged Amelia that Gen’s suspicions were sucking the fun from their adventure.
‘OK, here we go – sweaty selfie!’ she chirped, pulling Genevieve close and beaming as she posed for her phone camera.
‘My hair must look like a helmet plastered to my head with sweat,’ said Gen wryly, waiting for Amelia to finish snapping.
‘Alrighty, let’s check this out. How damn hot do we look here?’ Amelia smirked at her little joke, bringing the picture up on the screen and bursting into laughter. They were ruddy-cheeked, skin glistening with perspiration, hair indeed slick with sweat – though while Amelia beamed an almost too-wide grin, Genevieve looked preoccupied, barely the ghost of a smile crossing her lips.
‘Hey!’ Suddenly Gen leaned closer to the phone and pointed with a shaking finger. ‘What’s that? There, what’s that?’
Amelia enlarged the image with her fingertips, zooming in to where her friend gestured, and her skin prickled. What is that? She took a screenshot of the enlarged image, and then zoomed in again. Her hand began to shake, and Gen gasped, pressing fingers to her mouth. Both girls spun round to look behind them, but nothing – and nobody – was there.
‘Amie, that’s a man there, isn’t it? Tell me that’s just a hallucination!’
‘There’s nobody on the trail behind us now.’
‘He could be level with us, or ahead of us, and we’d not know!’
‘Who is he? Do you recognise him?’
‘If I did don’t you think I’d have said something?’
‘OK, look, chill – we know he’s there, and so we can be extra careful now, right? We’ll be – we’ll be more aware, and we’ll keep our ears open and our eyes on stalks and we’ll just… Screw it, I’m calling the park rangers.’ She was shaking so much it took Amelia several attempts at dialling the number, but there was no signal this deep in Solitaire. She hissed a frustrated sigh and snapped at her phone to behave.
‘Try Emergency!’ exhorted Gen, eyes darting everywhere, never settling. The shadows were growing longer, darkness crawling over the trail behind and before them. Many places for someone to hide.
Nodding, Amelia tried to dial Emergency and screeched her frustration when the call failed to connect. ‘Try your phone!’
‘I am!’ Gen snapped back. ‘Stupid bloody forest, there’s no signal! Why can’t they put towers or something in here so that it’s like being near civilisation? God damn!’ She made to throw her phone, stopping herself in time and squeezing it in her hand. ‘Look, let’s just… What? Do we keep walking up? Do we go downhill and go back to the start? Do we wait here for…for…’
‘I am not waiting here,’ Amelia said forcefully. ‘Let’s just…we’ll start downhill and make for the… Or are we closer to the end? We’ve been here a long time. Maybe we’re near the end of the trail?’
‘Don’t ask me! Let’s just – let’s just keep going up. We’ve got to be nearly there, right?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know!’
Mocking laughter whispered all around them, and a foul stench filled their nostrils. Amelia gagged, Gen’s face going white. ‘Move!’
The girls resumed the climb, desperate to hurry and yet their poor muscles screamed with pain and exhaustion and slowed them down.
Tears pricked at Amelia’s eyes, streamed down Gen’s face. They both kept trying to dial Emergency and the park rangers, though not once did the calls connect.
When darkness fell across Solitaire State Forest so did an unnatural silence, an eerie stillness.
Sinister.
Deadly.
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