At the head of a trail, two cars came to a stop in a parking lot. The lot was more of a dirt opening in a forest that was fed by a road that itself was a trail wide enough for cars. The cars were surrounded for in a slightly dense covering of trees that stretched for miles in every direction, each ones leaves turning vibrant shades of red, orange and yellow. The landscape under the trees was rolling hills that gradually climbed higher and higher until the trees changed to pine and were covered in an early snow before stopping altogether, leaving the tops of distant mountains covered in barren rock and snow. The occupants of the two cars pulled themselves out and met at the head of the trail, hugging and chatting excitedly. None of them were over the age of twenty-five, currently in the prime of youth and vibrant. After a minute of talking, they began to head back to the cars and pull hiking packs, gun bags, and coats from the backs. Clad in their gear and rifles over their shoulders, the five met back at the head of the trail and checked their packs for supplies and tents. Finding everything to be there, the five friends marched single file into the forest, leaving their cars behind. None of the five thought for a moment that they’d never seen their cars and homes again. They had no reason to think that this trip would be any different from any other hunting trip they’d gone on before, but this trip would lead them on the greatest adventure of their lives.
“Oy, Marcus!” shouted a feminine voice from the middle of the line.
The man from the front replied in a sarcastic tone, not bothering to look behind him “What is it Taylor? Forget your sleeping bag again?”
The woman rolled her eyes, unseen by her friend. “No, I was going to ask if you’d remembered the damn matches this time. I don’t want to suffer through another trip where we have to start a fire with sticks.” The man at the front groaned theatrically.
“I KNEW I’d forgotten something important!” He looked back at his friends, focusing on the redhead in the middle of the pack. “Of course I did, and might I remind you that Encyclopedia Brown and Ranger Rachael can both start a fire with a glance if they want to.” He tilted his head towards the two behind the red head, a woman who was lost in the beauty of forest around them to hear the conversation and the man at the rear of the line who was equally lost in his headphones, his hands in his pockets and looking around with a calm, slightly bored look on his face. Noticing Marcus’s movement, he pulled out an ear bud as he said “What was that Marcus?” His voice was flat and monotone.
“Just wondering what you’re listening to Thomas.” Marcus lied with a smirk.
“Ah, just finishing up The Histories before I start The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Thomas responded, maintaining his bored expression.
“Of course you are.” said a fourth voice. Belonging to a woman with long auburn hair that spilled out of her wool cap and glasses, the voice was rather sweet, sounding like a mother who was faking belief in her child’s imagination, minus the obvious condescending tone. The girl who had been enamored with the scenery had emerged from her obliviousness to hear the exchange and she looked ahead towards Marcus before asking “Are you honestly surprised? He’s always reading or listening to audio books.”
“No, but one can always hope he’s actually using his IPod for its actual purpose. You know, music.” Marcus responded in a nonchalant manner. Thomas, his oldest friend, was always buried in books, wherever he was, whether it was a restaurant, a bowling alley, a bar and even a baseball game once. The man was a veritable library of information, seeming to remember everything he read or heard, a trait that had earned him various nicknames, the oldest one, given to him by Marcus himself at the age of 8, was Encyclopedia Brown.
“Well who needs their IPod for music when Megan here has her fiddle with her?” Taylor asked sarcastically.
The fifth member of the group, a tall woman with long, curly brown hair that reached the down to the middle of her back, walking between Marcus and Taylor, laughed inwardly at her friends, missing the fiddle comment. The group had more or less formed in college, with Marcus and Thomas being the only two to have known each other before hand. Taylor and Rachael had been dorm mates, while she had quite literally ran into Thomas while jogging on campus. Thomas had been walking a reading, a skill he’d perfected, using his peripheral vision to steer himself clear of obstacles, but she’d been moving to fast for him to notice. A voice interrupted her memories.
“Whacha thinking about Megan?” inquired Taylor. Looking behind her, Megan looked at her friend with a funny face.
“What makes you think I wasn’t just laughing at you guys?”
Taylor smiled at her friend before saying “Because when you’re quiet and others are talking, you’re always thinking about something off the wall.”
Megan snorted, a part of her laugh she regretted, motioning to wards Rachael as she answered “I was just thinking about Thomas.”
Rachael’s cheeks flushed at the comment as the rest of the group, minus Thomas who was still lost in his IPod, laughed. It was well known amongst the group that Rachael liked Thomas. Thomas himself was completely oblivious to the fact, treating Rachael like everyone else, something that drove her crazy.
The group walked in silence for a while, covering a large amount of ground in a relatively short amount of time, stopping to rest only a few times. Except for the steps of the group, the forest was silent as a graveyard, the birds having flown south, the deer staying aloof and the remaining animals beginning to hibernate if they hadn’t already.
After hiking for most of the day, Taylor noticed that the sun had grown uncomfortably close to the horizon. Checking her phone, she was surprised to find the sun setting so early. “Hey Marcus, it’s only 6:30 and the suns setting. Seems a little early for that doesn’t it.”
“We’re in the foothills, so the sun won’t actually set for another hour or so, but now that you mention it, we should probably set up camp for the night. We’ll make it too the lake tomorrow.” With that, Marcus pulled off to the side of trail, where the trees happened to be spaced far apart enough to allow tents to be erected comfortably. The rest of the group followed, Thomas finally removing his ear buds as he did. Two three-person tents were quickly built with their entrances facing the trail while two smaller two man tents were set up in between, facing the other tents. The group unloaded their personal effects, put the food they weren’t going to eat up in tree, and their sleeping bags in the larger tents. The packs and gun carriers were placed in the smaller tents. Thomas started a fire and it was soon roaring away. As the group settled around the fire after eating a dinner of protein bars and sandwiches, Megan broke out her fiddle and played a slow, calm melody that echoed across the forest. She played for a while, before stopping to allow conversation to take over as the night’s entertainment.
“Beautiful as always Meg.” Marcus had always loved the fiddle, but he’d never had the patience or talent to learn it himself.
“Thank you Marcus, if you ever want to learn, just ask.” Megan’s voice was slightly sarcastic, fully knowing her friends lack of patience with instruments. The comment earned a few snickers from the others, even Thomas who’d put down the book he’d been reading while Megan played.
Feigning hurt, Marcus clutched his chest as he responded with mirth “I give you a sincere complement and you use my short comings against me! You wound me madam!” The rest of the group laughed a little harder. Marcus had always been theatrical, even though his physique suggested he’d be more suited for sports. Standing at 6’1”, Marcus had a barrel chest and thick arms, owing to genetics and his practice of going to the gym every weekend. His so called attacker on the other hand was slender, standing at only 5’10” and was much more nimble looking. Megan wasn’t one to actively exercise, but chose the healthier option in life in regards to food, travel, and free time. She loved to go rock climbing, kayaking, and swimming. She considered none of it exercise because she didn’t hate it.
“You’re always so sensitive Marcus. You have skin as thick as paper.” Taylor continued the joke by lightly punching Marcus in the shoulder. Marcus fell on his side and theatrically rolled in ‘pain’, yelling. Taylor’s hair was a vibrant red, displaying her Irish heritage for all to see, but stopped at her neck unlike her Megan’s. She was the same height as Megan, but her build wasn’t as toned. She was fit, but her muscles weren’t as defined. Looking to her left, Taylor laughed a little harder at Rachael’s look of pretend shock, her hands covering her mouth.
Before she could comment though, Thomas shouted “Hit again! Go for the gut!”
His voice, sounding absolutely sincere and eager, caused Taylor to fall over in laughter. Thomas had jabbed the air in front of him as he shouted, and the image of the bookworm trying to be violent had simply been too much for her. Thomas was 5’9”, lanky and had wired full moon glasses over his eyes. He was in no way the type of person who could take on some one of Marcus’s stature. Marcus had gotten up, and staring Thomas dead in the eye, asked with sincerity “What have I ever done to you?”
Maintaining eye contact, Thomas responded flatly. “Remember the time in 7th grade when you told your sister that I had been flirting with her? She gave me a black eye in the middle of lunch. Or that time you set my phone to go off every five minutes the night before finals? You also super glued my butt to a car door, which happened to belong to the college dean. And then there was the time…”
“Alright, I get it.” Marcus cut him off before any of his harmful or rather nasty pranks came to light. “No need to go any further. But you’re just too easy to prank! I mean, who leaves their phone unlocked in front of me?” Marcus looked around the group and got nods of agreement. Thomas slouched and harrumphed. This caused Rachael to giggle. Rachael was the shortest of the group, standing at 5’ 7”. She kept her auburn hair in a pony tail, never letting it down. But her size did not put her in the same position as Thomas. Her father was a former Marine and had taught her hand to hand combat in middle school and she was arguably the best shot of the group. She didn’t look or sound it, but Rachael could take down a professional wrestler if she wanted to. The conversation continued for a few more minutes before everyone started to yawn.
“Well, we should head in. We’ve got another long day of hiking before we get to the hunting camp.” With that, Marcus began to pour a canteen on the fire as the others headed to their tents. Marcus reminded himself to sleep lightly in case Thomas tried anything, which he rarely did. Once the fire was out, he retreated to the warmth of his sleeping bag.
The next morning was rushed. Thomas hadn’t bothered starting a fire, and instead had pulled the food out of the tree and, checking to see it was all there, divided it into five piles, one for each pack. The others grabbed a few energy bars before stowing the food and tents in their packs. Once the camp was cleaned and packed, they filed back onto the trail in the same order as last time. It was colder than the previous day, allowing the group to see their breath as they walked. Their faces rosy as some of the leaves, they marched on, each one lost in their own world.
Marcus was reflecting on how he’d done the previous semester at college, wondering if he’d be able improve his uncomfortably low grades. It had been his dream to become an architect since the age of 10, when his parents had taken him to the Guggenheim in New York. The interior design had enamored him the moment he looked up.
Megan was thinking about her little brother back home. He was only 6 and beginning to ask difficult questions about their parents. Namely why he had to live at Uncle Roberts, why Mommy visited only from the internet, and why she always cried when he asked if daddy was with her. The very thought of those questions brought tears to her eyes. She subtly wiped them away as she tried to focus on something else.
Taylor was busy going over her classes for the upcoming year. A freak snow storm in upper New York had caused Syracuse University to delay opening for another week, meaning she’d have to work hard on making sure she stayed afloat with the extra work her professors were going to give them.
Rachael was daydreaming about her family’s cabin in Maine, where she’d spent many a happy summer swimming, camping and hiking with her parents and three brothers. She was particularly fond of the memory where she, at the age of 10, had beaten all of her brothers in arm wrestling. Aw, what a beautiful day she thought.
Thomas, on the other hand, was spacing out as he listened to his IPod, correcting the various mistakes the authors of his audio books had made. He always found it funny when such reputable authors, the same ones who wrote a few his textbooks, made rather obvious and simple mistakes. He was laughing on the inside when he ran into Rachael.
“What gives? Is there something wrong?” Thomas asked as he removed his ear buds.
“Look around dip wad, and tell me if something’s fucking wrong.” Marcus said flatly from the front.
Taking Marcus’ advice, Thomas was struck dumb for the first time in his life. They were in the middle of a grassy field. Looking behind him, Thomas saw none of the trees that had previously surrounded them. They were completely engulfed by a sea of wheat grass, a pale green that moved in waves due to the wind. There was wind now, there hadn’t been any before, just like how there’d been goddamn trees everywhere. Looking at the group, Thomas saw similar looks of shock and terror. Nobody moved, nobody blinked, nobody seemed to breathe for minutes on end.
“Where on God’s green Earth are we and what the hell just happened?”