Issue 2, August 1991
As summer winds down and temperatures cool back down to reasonable, I feel the need to remind everyone, especially the younger generations, to stay out of the forest at night. When going to the forest in the daytime, never go alone. These are, of course, tips for traversing any forest. There are bears and wolves. Steep cliffs and sudden drop offs. The fall rain can make the rivers wild and dangerous to swim. But our forest is different.
Every one of us has grown up listening to the stories of the forest. Our parents used it to get us to behave. Our grandparents swore it was true. Even now, we tell our own children, don’t go into the forest alone, and don’t wander it at night. The stories we have all been told are, of course, that children who wander the forest alone will be taken by the Forest Man.
I don’t know when stories of the Forest Man start. My mother told me and her mother told her. Kids today don’t seem as scared of our stories as previous generations were. I’ve noticed more and more kids traversing the trails alone, or daring each other to spend the night alone in the forest.
I get it. I was like them once. As a kid, I believed the stories and stayed away. As a teen, I thought they were just trying to scare me. Until I saw him.
I was sixteen, on a hike with friends, when we got into a fight. Annoyed, I hiked ahead. I had taken this trail dozens of times and knew it like the back of my hand. There was no way I could get lost. I just needed to cool off. It was a couple of hours before I realized I didn’t know where I was.
The trail was a loop, and I should have been back before the sun set. As the sky grew pink and I couldn’t see a single trail marker, I realized I had messed up. I tried to find anything I could use to guide me back to the trailhead. The trail started heading north and a main road cut through the forest. I knew if I headed south, I would at least hit the road.
I had my dad’s boy scouts compass and followed it south. I was nervous. The sun was setting fast. It was late October, and between the frosty nights and the hungry bears, I knew I wasn’t safe. My stomach grumbled. It was supposed to be a quick day hike, and I had already eaten the snacks I had brought.
A branch snapped behind me. Startled, I jumped, dropping the compass. I picked it up, brushed it off, thankful it wasn’t broken. Then I heard another branch snap, closer this time. I looked behind me and there he was. He was taller than any of the men I knew from town. Something just felt off about him.
I yelled out to him, asked him if he needed help. I didn’t want him to know that I was lost. A voice in the back of my head told me it was important to pretend I knew where I was going. He stayed where he was. Still as a statue, not making a sound. It was dark. The sun had nearly finished setting.
Scurrying in the leaves to my left distracted me. When I looked back, he was gone. I convinced myself I had been seeing things. It was dark and shadows can play strange games. I kept moving. I needed to get out of the forest before it got too cold. A few minutes later, a twig broke behind me. I didn’t turn around.
Every few steps, I could hear something behind me. A rustling of leaves when there was no wind, a twig breaking. Then I heard my name. The voice was low, just barely audible above the crickets. Still, I didn’t turn around. I knew then that the stories were true, and that if I turned around, I was dead.
I kept walking. A steady pace so he wouldn’t know I was scared. But I was terrified. My heart beat in my chest, so loud I was sure he could hear it. The sounds remained a few feet behind me. I was sure he could have caught up to me in an instant. He was playing with me. He wanted me to run, to scream, to cry. I refused to do any of it. I just kept walking.
I was exhausted. A four-hour hike had turned into eight. My feet hurt, I was hungry. I just wanted to be home. I was convinced I would not make it home. That I would not make it out of the woods.
I was just about to give up when the trees cleared and I was standing on the gravel parking lot of the village diner. Suddenly, I was flooded with all the emotions I had been pushing down. Fear of what had been following me. Anger at myself for not being careful. Confusion at how I had gone so far off course. Tears streamed down my face. I sprinted to the diner’s front door. When I looked back from the safety of the diner, a tall, barely visible man stood at the edge of the forest.
I called my mom from the diner phone and ate a cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake while I waited. My friends and I made up the next day. I didn’t tell them, or anyone else, about my encounter with the Forest Man. I never went back into those woods alone again.
A few weeks later, a girl a couple years older than me went missing in the forest. She had been hiking with her boyfriend when they got in a fight and she stormed off. The police tried to blame the boyfriend, but there wasn’t enough evidence. Over a decade later, her body still hasn’t been found.
So please, if you want to spend the fall season hiking, enjoying the cool weather before winter sets in and the skiing season starts, don’t go into the forest alone. And seek shelter before dark.
Alicia Coast 