Gary

Gary stumbled along through the dark forest, ignoring the shouts that seemed to have faded behind him. He had to get away from them. A voice screamed in his ears he had to get away; that he never wanted to go back to where he’d come from.

Pushed on he continued, not knowing or caring where he went, or where he might end up. He just had to run. The lights were coming and there was no way he was going to let them catch him again, He couldn’t be pulled back into that world.

He ran straight into a low hanging branch. Stunned, he fell back onto the moss and fern covered forest floor, left to stare up at the darkness, the trees looming over him, the stars above them. The hands reaching for him.

“No,” he yelled, waving them away, scrambling back up to his feet, starting to run again.

He ran, tripped, stumbled face first into the ground, scrambled up again to his feet and continued on. He didn’t know where he was going until he found what he had been running headlong towards, shocked as the rusty metal loomed up, the silver patches glinting in the moonlight, at least what small part of it could glint through the vines, moss and rust that that covered it.

It was still here? He had thought it was part of the dream, the fantasy.

A camper. The camper. Safety. He felt along it’s cold surface to the door, pulled the rusty latch hard. The door stubbornly stayed stuck. He pulled again and again, But the damn thing wouldn’t open.

“Jumping freaking Jesus!!” he swore, banged his fist on the door until it started throbbing in agony.

Gary sighed, leaned his shoulder against the metal, slowly collapsed down the door until he was sitting on the forest floor. The lights were coming, and there was nothing he could do about it. There was no escape. No safe place. He might as well give up and let it take him, as it had before. Pull him into that world of wonder and horror.

The beams of light touched the camper above him. There were two of them, shining white through the underbrush and low tree limbs. Then a third joined in.

“There he is!” a female voice exclaimed. “I told you this was the right direction.”

“Thank God,” a male voice replied. “I thought we’d never find him in this bush.”

“Really,” another male voice, calmer, said. “It took us what? Ten minutes. Did you think he'd get far in the dark without a flashlight.”

The three people stood above him. Gary looked up. Not the lights, just his co-workers. Nora, Frank and Benny. If this was their team building exercise it was the shittiest one ever.

Nora bent down to give him a look over. Their eyes met, then for a moment she looked away, appeared to be flicking away a mosquito, then looked back into his eyes, the reflected light of her flashlight dim. He breathed in the dank, chlorophyll and earth flavored forest air greedily.

He felt her hand press into his shoulder. She smiled at him.

“You gave us quite the fright, Gary,” Nora said. “It not a good idea to run through the forest at night, especially without a flashlight. There are bears out here you know, big ones, with teeth and claws.”