Our bikes whirred with satisfaction as we soared across the cracked and malformed tar, like flightless birds gliding through our domain. The road was ill-maintained, filled with potholes and invisible bumps that we knew with intense familiarity. The sun beat down on us, casting long shadows over the blackened tar and into the weed-ridden ditches.
I was at the front, a chubby and cherubic boy of 8 with messy black hair and a few teeth still conspicuously missing. I rode my bike the way a squire wields a sword; with great vim and little skill, each scab and cut another token of battle. It was a time before I knew how to wear any pants other than sweat pants, and so I did, pedaling confidently up Crooker Hill in my stained and frayed gray sweats.
Not far behind me were my two cousins, Bethany and Lily. Bethany, the elder and definitively more ‘girly’ of the two sisters, rode a pink Huffy, while Lily, the younger ‘tomboy’ of the two, rode a nameless blue hand-me-down bike of no particular brand. Despite their differences, they both bore the same long blonde hair, tucked away under their helmets.
Crooker Hill was not so easily mounted, and by the time we reached the peak, we had to take a moment of respite, laying our bikes gently down by the side of the road and surveying the land. It was the peak of Summer and we had the best vantage point around to take in the majesty of green that unfolded over the landscape. Off in the horizon, rolling hills of trees stretched onward infinitely, with idyllic white windmills towering over them at the geography’s furthest point.
I often wondered what lay in these forests. They seemed to go on forever, and I had only ever explored the smallest patches adjacent to my home. I was curious, but also filled with a certain, at the time, inexplicable anxiety. It was as if a whole world- a secret, unknown world- existed just beyond my doorstep, underneath the forest’s shroud. How easy it would be to get lost in there, I remember thinking. How easy it would be to become forever a denizen of that shrouded city.
Even as a boy of 8, I understood these macabre thoughts were best kept to myself. People already thought I was weird enough as it was- I liked computers and writing while everyone else was attracted to more natural pursuits, like hunting and fishing. Explaining to them my vaguely-defined forest-related anxieties would be the final nail in a long line of nails in my social coffin.
“Ethan!” Bethany waved her hand in front of my face. “You’re just staring off into the woods again. You’re being weird again. You’re being Ethan again.” She was already astride her bike, readying to conquer the hill.
“Oh, yeah, sorry!” I scrambled to grab my bike and lined up with the two at the very tiippity-top of the hill. It was steep- really steep. I’d crashed here more than a few times, much to the delight of my cousins. The pavement was littered with chalk drawings we’d etched over the summer, some serving as immortal testaments to these mishaps. The ditches lining the side of the hill were steeped with weeds and bushes and thorny patches, each with their own Ethan-shaped indents.
“Try not to crash this time!” Lily giggled. She was a few years younger than me, but I never felt older than her. She could watch scary movies and be completely unphased while I would cry and have nightmares for months or years, a fact she often reminded me of.
I was still steeling myself for the descent as they barrelled downward, accelerating rapidly. Against every instinct, I forced myself to follow, my stomach filled with butterflies and regret. My periphery was a blur of verdant green as I whizzed down the hill, only disappearing when I couldn’t bear to keep my eyes open any longer, eminently aware of my imminent misfortune. There was always a particular wobble, I had noted to myself- a telltale wobble that signified my demise, a wobble so particularly similar to the one I felt at that moment, rattling through my body and greeting each bone like a familiar friend.
The moments before the crash were always worse than the crash itself- it’s the anticipation that kills you, I think I recalled someone saying, and I was anticipating the worst. With each passing moment the bike veered into a more and more curious trajectory, and my face and body scrunched unto itself like a collapsing star. I had stopped pedalling years ago, with only momentum keeping me going.
My eyes were closed, but I didn’t need eyes to feel it- the ditch. My bike heaved and rocked as I careened in and out of the dip. Somehow, momentum pushed me further onward, past the ditch and into the forest proper. With each branch that slapped my face I knew I breached further into woods. Despite all our time on Crooker Hill and all my experiences with its features, this was new- we had never ventured into this part of the forest before.
The warmth of the sun at my back quickly dissipated, kept at bay by the dense canopy of growth overhead. I heard my cousins calling for me, but I could barely hear them over the sound of my own internal unrelenting terror. If anticipation really could kill you, I’d have died at least 6 times over.
I came, finally, to a hard stop, tumbling head over heels across the handlebars and into the unknown. As much as I’d wanted the ride to end, any appreciation I may have felt was swiftly replaced by a wave of pain across my entire body and the sensation of blood running down my face,
It was only then I dared to open my eyes, and I wish I hadn’t.
I couldn’t tell if red was the natural color of the brambles or if it was because they were doused in my blood. My eye layed inches from a pointed thorn, taking in every grisly detail as it dripped greedily and hungrily with my blood. It was a dense patch of crimson with unknowable folds of brambles coiling inward. In my dazed state it looked as if it was shifting and slithering, lapping up my blood.
It bore no resemblance to any plant I’d ever seen. The forests I knew were seas of green- this cluster of red appeared entirely alien, unearthly. I was immediately struck with a sense of biblical dread, the sort I’d been instilled with from years of service at a Pentacostal church. It seemed as if a small tract of Hell had sprung forth from below, glinting with a wicked and sinister energy.
I hastily crawled backwards, putting distance between me and the dreadful patch. Redness occluded my vision as blood streamed down my face and the bramble planted itself at the forefront of my mind. My cousins called out for me once more, but I barely heard them.
I lay there for a time, breathing heavily, leaning against the wreckage of my bike, twisted and mauled, straddling the fallen body of a large oak. It was then, I noticed, the crimson bramble wasn’t the only grim fixture of this thicket- rot surrounded me. The trees bore blackened blisters across their brittle brown bark and their bone-like branches were spun betwixt each other like spiderwebs. They stood still and silent, like somber spectres of the forest. A tangled layer of leaves and filth lay at the forest floor.
I wanted to cry, but I was too scared. I desperately clutched at my bike, each breath becoming more erratic. Consecutive chills cascaded down my spine and across my body. It was only thorns and trees and leaves, but it felt like I had stumbled into another world, a bleak and blighted realm.
The trees bore blackened blisters across their brittle brown bark and their bone-like branches were spun betwixt each other like spiderwebs. They stood still and silent, like somber spectres of the forest.
I tried my hardest to look away from the crimson bramble, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to look at them but I couldn’t bear to let them out of my sight, fearful at what it might do. I tried to rationalize, to tell myself there was nothing to fear, this was only natural, but it didn’t feel at all natural.
I closed my eyes for a moment, to prove to myself that nothing bad would happen to me. The distant crunching of leaves as my cousins advanced towards my position seemed as if a soft and sinister choking cackle and I felt myself grow cold. My eyes bolted open, expecting the bramble to have grown a maw with which to devour me, but it sat where it was.
I wiped my brow with my clammy hand. I looked at it and it was slick with blood. It ran down my hand, marking a vivid trail across my forearm, coursing to my elbow before tentatively dripping down onto the forest floor, dribbling from one dead leaf to the next before disappearing from sight completely, consigned to feeding whatever might exist below the thick layer of surface rot.
“ETHAN!”
“Ethan where are you!?”
“Ethan! Are you okay!?”
The calls grew closer, but I hadn’t the voice to answer them. Tears and blood formed running, dripping veins across my face, leaking off the tip of my nose and my chin. I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t stop myself. I tried not to whimper the way I typically did when I cried.
My cousin’s didn’t seem to acknowledge or even care at all about the bramble or the trees or the rot. I knew that if they weren’t struck with the immediate terror I had felt, the grotesque sense of loss and despair and distress that had overcome me, that I could never explain it to them. It was something meant for me and me alone, a harrowing burden for me to bear on sleepless nights to come.
“It really hurt.”, I bleated between whimpers on our journey back. “That’s why I’m crying.”
Epilogue
My dad was a religious man. He had spoken to me before about stories of demons and ghosts, sinister acts the Devil had enacted in our world. I thought about trying to tell him about what happened, that something unhallowed and deeply wretched grew in the darkest parts of the wood, and that I was terrified I had inadvertently entered some pact with it. But he wouldn’t understand; I knew he wouldn’t.
Years passed. Lots of things changed in my small rural town; most of the kids moved away- my mom told me their parents couldn’t find jobs around here anymore. The lush forests of my childhood looked more and more brown and dead, remaining only as spindly dregs of what they once were. The one general store we had in town closed down and the kindly old man who ran it, who would give me free lollipops, died. The general store was all we’d had; no post office or gas station or anything at all. The derelict store still sits there now- ‘General Store’ painted in large faded letters over a backdrop of yellow, weathered and worn from age. Holes dotted the windows and if you were to peer through them you’d see a few desolate aisles, bereft of anything but spiderwebs and rat nests.
The only other structure we had was the Pentacostal church I grew up attending. I don’t know when it happened exactly, but at some point, people just stopped showing up. Maybe there just weren’t enough people in the town to begin with. The church began to fall into disrepair; the white paint became chipped and cracked, the bell no longer rang on Sundays, and services were attended by 3-4 people, until service stopped altogether.
As I grew older, I grew less and less religious, less superstitious. To attempt placate my fears, I did research into what kind plant it was and how it functioned, but it did little to ease me. Logic wouldn’t wash away the lurking sense of dread nestled in my stomach.
Despite this, I decided to revisit the bramble. But I was entirely unprepared for what I saw: It had grown. The isolated patch had grown into a giant and wild plot of thorns, coiling up around the trunks of the rotted trees that had once encircled it. It had the exact hue of blood and its threads twisted throughout the thicket. I couldn’t manage to stay for long.
It didn’t take long for things to get worse.
My dog, Hershey, an English Springer-Spaniel, grew old and decrepit and had to be put down. We didn’t have enough money to take him to the veterinarian, so my dad had to take him out to the field to shoot him. It was the only time I saw him cry.
After a number of embittered years, my parents got divorced. There was some solace in the screaming bouts being replaced by cold, half-hearted bickering, but it was faint.
The elementary school I graduated from had to be shut down because there were no more children around. Sometimes when I drive past I’ll stop and spend some time on the playground, sitting on rickety chain bridge and enjoying a moment of wistfulness.
The father of a girl I’d gone to that very school with murdered someone up on Tar Ridge. He walked into his house with a shotgun and murdered him. I don’t know if they ever figured out why- I didn’t keep up with it.
I haven’t gone back to the bramble since that day. I’ll be completely honest with you: I’m too scared. But I imagine it often. I imagine a thick bed of thorns coating the ground, scratching and clawing up the ancient oaks, embedded in the bark, as much a part of the oak as the tree itself, reaching and stretching its unfettered tendrils up into the sky, hungering for the heavens.
