Southern Fried Weirdness

by Cheryl McCreary

In the fading light, the soaked bark trail gave under Stacey’s pounding feet. The steady drizzle caused a chill to shoot up her spine, despite the exertion of running. It'd been pouring much of the afternoon, but she needed time alone to think about the job offer in New York. Her career needed it, her bank account needed it, and truly she couldn't say, 'no.'  The rain had slackened come five-o-clock, and she'd drove straight from work.  

However, the parking lot of the state park where she ran had been empty. None of the occasional runners, bikers or hikers she usually passed, even during the Virginia summer heat, could be seen.

She labored on. She thought about a massive, sprawling forest of concrete and steel crowding in on her. Little fenced in church gardens and spindly weeds in concrete cracks were all the green she remembered of her trip to New York city. She sighed at the fresh air in her lungs, the lush, bright green all around. The rhythm of her stride and quiet of nature took her mind away from the rain and chill and growing darkness. Until, a washout in the trail jolted her from her reverie and caused her to pull to a stop.

Somewhere the trail had narrowed, much more than any of the path she’d traveled before.  Though to be truthful, Stacey had yet to run the entire five-mile length. Perhaps she had gone farther than she'd intended? She tiptoed around the outskirts of the washout. Her left shoe half slid into the muddy water in the process. Then she was back on her way, making sure to pay closer attention and catch the next half-mile marker.

The marker never came, even after her lungs burned and she knew she'd traveled over a half mile. Sucking in air, Stacey braced her hands on her knees and tried to make sense of the dimming surroundings. She must have taken a side trail, one of many that wove a labyrinth through the park. The ocean would be a few miles to the northeast. This was just a five-minute drive from civilization, she wasn't in the middle of nowhere.

‘One doesn't lose oneself in a state park in Virginia Beach,’ Stacey told herself. 

The best thing to do when lost on a trail was turn around, so that's exactly what she did.  And boy had she zoned out while running. This wasn't like any of the park she'd seen before.  Swamp bordered both sides of the narrow, muddy trail. The forest, with its greenery in full force from the spring rain, crowded the trail. The setting sunlight reflected off the water's black surface and Stacey shuttered at the thought of what muck existed beneath the dark plane.

The trail wove deeper into the swamp. Murky streamlets began to replace the mud of the trail. Stacey slipped while jumping over one, and her feet landed within the ooze of decayed plants. This wasn't the way back. This couldn't be the way back. 

Then a low moan broke through the falling night. Stacey panicked, and covered her mouth to muffle a squeal. ‘Only the wind, the trees, some animal off in the swamp,’ she told herself.  ‘Don't be a silly girl, scared of things that go bump in the night.’

She'd paused on the trail. Back or forward? She was all turned around now, no clue which way led back to the trail center and her parked car. She had no compass or map, no cell phone, only her ID and keys tucked away in a pocket on her running shorts. She chose to keep going the same direction, though the trail looked narrower. If she were wrong, she could always turn back around.  

At least the rain had slackened, Stacey noticed, though she shivered at the cool breeze blowing through the forest. The trail had become a stream now, black mud oozing through her shoes, around her toes. She tried not to think about what creatures were in that mud.  Instead, she hugged her arms tight around her. Her shoulders brushed the branches of cypress, oak and birch and her breath fogged in the chill air.

Then the moan came again, closer. Stacey couldn't help but jump, though she was proud she hadn't squealed this time. The foliage ahead rustled, and she swore she say a figure standing there. She almost called out to them, thankful to find another soul, maybe a park ranger even. But, the figure rocked in a rolling sea-wave motion, like one might see in the mentally ill, and this time there was no doubt the soft moan came through the figure's thick, black lips.

Stacey's eyes bulged and her pulse quickened. She stood motionless, nails digging into her upper arms, her feet rooted into the ooze below. 

"Stay where you are, I've got mace," Stacey called, amazed how steady her voice sounded in the lie.

"Humh?" The figure cocked his head, and stood there rocking and staring back. His eyes, as dark as the black water of the swamp, reflected like mirrors in the fading light.

"I'm just going to go back the way I came," Stacey said. "And you go back yours." Finally she got her feet moving, splashing up mud and muck as she stumbled backward.

"There is no back for you to go, only forward." Though deep, to her surprise the figure's voice was crisp and clear. He paused stark still in his rocking, lifted an arm out straight and beckoned her closer in an awkward manner, like someone without full use of their movements.

Stacey shook her head and kept easing backward. "I don't think so."

The cypress stumps on both sides of the trail rose out of the swamp and mutated into ambling forms similar to the man before her. She blinked and hoped it was all a trick of the light or her exhaustion from running. But the figures were clearly there, advancing on her location in shuffling steps through the murky water.

She turned and bolted, only to run head first into one of the creatures. It grabbed her shirt with one knobby fist and pulled her back to the center of their tightening cluster. Stacey screamed and tried to twist herself free, but more arms reached out to still her.

The first man staggered to where the others held her. The flesh of their darkened faces sloughed off the protruding bones. Eyes dark and unseeing, mouths partly open, they rocked in that maddeningly rolling motion, a sea of them around her. Their raspy breaths echoed in the silence. The stomach retching odor of things long forgotten pressed inward.

"Such a lovely addition," the deep voice of the first man said. His crooked mouth gave a half-toothed grin. The others nodded, grunting and moaning their agreement. Stacey wanted to scream, to pass out, to fight, but she’d passed the ability to do any of that. Instead she shivered in the foul, humid air.

The swamp beings encircled her, hands and arms as slimy as the mud she could still feel between her toes. They carted her off, pushing her deeper into the swamp, the black water up to her knees, cool and slippery. The bog peoples' movements stiffened as they mutated back into the disfigured forms of cypress stumps. The water was at Stacey's waist now, her feet slogging through ankle deep muck, the life of the swamp twining around her legs, tickling.  Her movements felt encompassed, wooden.

"I'm not going with you," Stacey said, asked, she wasn't sure.

"Yes. Home we go, you with us," the man whispered into her ear, his voice now tinny-sounding, his shoulders and arms bent at crippling angles.

Stacey wanted to tell him no, wanted to say wherever they were going would never be home. But worries about the job offer, about towered buildings of steel drifted away. Her physical body pulled in on itself, stiffened into a wooden figure like the others surrounding her. But, inside she felt free, unleashed. She could become a part of nature itself, tied to something bigger, something that would lay untouched by sprawling concrete.

With effort the man reached out a gnarled hand to her own hinged to her chest. "Come, Stacey.” His deep voice drew out the syllables into a moan that reached into her soul.  “Come." A breathy moan that rippled over the dull black water. Stacey gripped as tight as her leathery knuckles could, and took the last step into the non-reflective black water. 

About the author:

Cheryl McCreary is a scientist by training who works as a science educator. She's lived in assorted locales and currently resides in South Carolina with her husband. Her work has appeared in the Ruins Extraterrestrial Anthology, Fictitious Force and Alienskin among others.

© 2008, Cheryl McCreary