January 3, 2045
“Hello?” Tim stepped out of his green electric truck, emblazoned with the Yellowstone National Park logo. The fog hung heavy over the large pond, obscuring the setting summer sun that cast an eerie glow through the oddly thick mist. The drive had taken longer than expected, and the silence that the forest took up was unnerving for many, but not Tim. Tim had just gotten back from service about three years ago and needed a change in scenery. For the first two years it was fine, quiet, mostly just helping old ladies around the park with menial tasks like broken appliances and small injuries from people entering the main attraction section of the park. Only just recently did things start turning for the worse, but nothing worse than anything he hadn’t seen before.
A recent earthquake had left an enormous crack on the left side of the park, scaring many of the elderly who had lived there for years on end. Nothing had ever happened like this before, and rumors swirled of a strange anomaly emerging from its depths. They almost sounded like something a child could have made up, but even the most truthful occupants told of this “creature” in extreme detail.
One account came from Mrs. Johnson, a resident who claimed to have seen something with an elongated neck, two sirens for a head, and skinny, skeletal limbs. Despite the lack of photographic evidence, the rumors hadn’t subsided yet, and the park was on edge. Tim had thought the rumors would persist for no longer than a week, but that hadn’t been the case.
He walked around his truck until he was facing his tailgate, opening it slowly making sure to not damage company property, and taking out his field observation bag. Tim set it down on the back of the truck and unzipped it, revealing many useful tools, a radio, a camera and a few miscellaneous measuring instruments. Taking out the radio and zipping back up the bag, he grabbed it and carried it to the forest line.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting sound echoed through the forest. Ringing invaded Tim’s eardrums. He reached up and tuned his hearing aid till it stopped. Although he was only 38, he had suffered an almost fatal blow from a nearby grenade during his time in service. Sadly, that same grenade took out one of his closest friends, sacrificing himself for everyone else around him. Tim looked up to see a truck passing by him pulling a trailer giving support to a tall tower, and on top were two sirens. It was a new invention, invented by his other friend Tony, and it was a device designed to not startle people and signal that the park was closed or in the process of being closed. Tim stared at the now passing by machine till it slowly disappeared into the fog, with only its bright hazard lights visible. Nothing about the sound it made was either soothing or calming. It actually put Tim on edge, but not by much. Once he got back to the cabin he’d bring it up to Tony, but for now, he had a job to do.
“I’m at the forest line.” Tim’s voice shook as he spoke into his handheld radio, trying to make contact with either Tony or any of the other rangers on duty. The screen read the time, 12:52. The sudden tremble in his voice was unexpected, he felt no fear of this mission, so he brushed it off as it being chilly. But all he heard from his radio was static, punctuated by faint, garbled voices. Then, a high-pitched scream pierced through that gargled layer, sending a chill down Tim’s spine. He quickly turned off the radio and the scream abruptly silenced.
Whatever the hell that is, I ain’t listening to it, dumb kids using that frequency more and more these days, Tim thought. They had multiple instances of kids pranking rangers around the park with false instructions and weird noises. Now with little to no instructions, Tim would just have to search by himself, searching for the missing people as instructed in Tony’s email. He had the feeling that something was lurking in the mist, watching him.
The scratches…he had a slow thought cross his mind, a week before, he had visited the sight of the crack, and there were concave indents on the side of the crack, and with the feeling of being watched, only added to the auxiliary feeling that maybe there was something out here, out here… with him.
He suddenly noticed a tall, ominous shadow passing over him. His heart raced as he reached for his taser, but with the fog covering everything, he couldn’t see any distinct shape. He had been followed, and the silence of the forest only heightened his fears. Fears that drove him to do something he had rarely done before: run.
Running as fast as he could, even if there wasn’t something actively chasing him, he had to get out of this forest. Tim stopped in his tracks, his heavy boots digging into the soil. He came across a faint dark silhouette, and as he got closer, it was seemingly an abandoned and hidden cabin. There weren’t any documented cabins in this part of the park. He glided up the stairs and then touched the doorknob, but stopped. Although the musty smell of disuse hung in the air from the inside, there was another more distinct smell, one of rotting and filth, something organic. Tim’s first thought was the smell of Bear, hot garbage, but this was stronger, more… dead.
He opened the door to find furniture that was covered in a thick layer of dust. Except for one, the bed in a rather weird place. Placed in the middle of the living room, it looked cozy, and warm to Tim. And despite the unease from only moments ago, Tim couldn’t resist the comforting look of the bed, and he gravitated onto it, and before he had a single thought of what he had done, he had fallen asleep.
Drifting off to sleep, Tim was plagued by vivid dreams, another thing as rare to him as running. He wandered through this dream forest that he found himself in, and came upon an old man sitting between two trees. Tim rushed to his side, hoping that it wasn’t a person he had known. He checked for a pulse. To his horror, the man had none, and he was cold. He hung his head down, but picked it back up to see the head lifted, looking into his eyes. He saw a glimpse of his own future: shriveled and lifeless.
Suddenly, the corpse slithered away, and a figure appeared from above. The trees the corpse had been between had actually been legs, its head with sirens to the sides that emitted a shrill, off-sounding wail, and his perspective turned red and warped till it went black.
Tim woke with a start, lying on the ground in complete darkness. With nothing in sight and panicked, he had to run in a random direction and finally emerge from the forest, the bright sunlight blinding him. Disoriented and confused, he jumped into his truck and sped away, glancing at the clock as he drove. It read 12:53, but Tim didn’t have time to dwell on it. He was just glad to be out of the nightmare and back in the real world.
To be continued…
