THE SLEEPING CLUB- Alone in the Demon Woods

As Nina guided the car into the woods branches scraped across the windows and the overgrown center of the neglected road whispered against the car’s undersides. It vaguely reminded me of a car wash, and I said as much to Raymond who had closed his eyes and was whispering softly to himself as if he was praying. He either didn’t hear me or was ignoring me. “Creepy,” I thought to myself. Approximately two-hundred yards inside the woods the car came to a stop before a fallen tree that blocked the road in an unambiguous way.

“I ain’t going any further,” said Nina, “not on foot anyway.”

Raymond, stopped praying, and opened his eyes to look at his wife, who shifted the car into reverse as if to put an exclamation point on her statement.

“Hey, we had a deal here!” I said feebly from the back seat.

Raymond looked at me and then back at his wife.

“We ain’t going any further, Raymond,” she repeated.

“We ain’t going any further,” said Raymond to me, “You’re almost there anyway, and I can’t leave Nina alone here in the car. Not in the demon woods.”

“Alright,” I said with a resigned sigh, “how do I get there?”

“It’s real easy. You just walk another couple hundred yards down the road until you come to an abandoned house on your left. Behind the house there’s a trail. Just follow the trail for a ways and it’ll take you right up to the old Indian Cave. You should make it before the sun goes down if you walk fast.”

I got out of the car, and shouldered my pack. Neither Raymond nor Nina got out of the car. In fact, no sooner had I exited the car than Nina began backing her way down the road and out of the woods. There were no farewells, no “good lucks,” not even so much as a friendly wave.

I was alone in the Demon Woods.