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Night was creeping ever closer. In these late summer months, when the daylight hours were no longer as long, it was already too dark to write outside. I was indoors, leaning over my journal, when the harsh light of the overhead lamp flared violently and popped with a shower of sparks.
The other lights died instantly and the hideout was bathed in darkness. Outside in the small encampment, there were exclamations and shouts.
But this was not first time something like this had happened. This close to the heart of the forest, the electricity was prone to act a bit strangely. Still, my heart now loudly thudded in my ears.
This fucking wood…
Hands shaking, I reached across the table, fumbling in the dark until I felt the cold and reassuringly heavy weight of a military flashlight. A simple click and light flooded the room.
Tomorrow the team would be heading home, and there is nothing I could want more, as monotonous as leave was, in a dirty old flat, overlooking dozens of factories, on the edge of the city. This was the sixth time I had been out on an excursion like this, each time I forgot how awful it was. Perhaps it was my mind’s fucked up way of protecting me…
A moment later, the power returned and the lights came on once more. Outside I could hear laughter and clapping from the camp. How could they find anything fucking funny in a cursed place like this?!
The light directly over the table remained dead, the bulb would have to be replaced, and as this sector’s only electrician and handyman I already knew there weren’t any more to spare.
We were to be the last team out here. Tomorrow morning the last of the equipment was to be packed up and removed, and anything that could be spared would be left behind. The tunnels were closer to collapse now than ever before, so the job was urgent. After that, who knows what they planned to do with the woods, everything so far had resulted in failure. The wild men, the savages, had begun to turn up with increasing frequency in all sectors bordering sector 0, trying to find their way in, though no one quite knew what drew them. As contradictory as it might have sounded, our team within sector 0, closest to that mysterious force, the heart of the infection in the woods, was also the safest. The savages wanted to get here, but none had for several years now.
I propped up the tail end of the flashlight on the edge of my metal dinner plate, and resumed writing.
The team here was small now, just 10 people, it had been much larger in the past but that was before the funding for these expeditions had begun to be cut back when it became increasingly clear that there was nothing economically beneficial to be gained here, and no way to help the locals.
So much work over the years for nothing.
And all the while, all these years, the people who had lived in these woods before succumbed to sickness and insanity, and died, and no one was doing a thing to stop it. It was a never ending quarantine, necessary to contain and prevent the spread of the disease. They had been left to die.
Just one more night in this living hell, then I would be able to leave.
Tomorrow I am going home.
I hear footsteps outside, and two voices getting louder. I grunted in annoyance as I recognised the two loud rowdy voices as they approached the kitchen.
It was the two Zielinski brothers.
Hurriedly I finished the sentence I were writing and snapped the journal shut, quickly stowing it away within my coat.
It was of course Maciek, who lurched his way into the kitchen first, followed closely by Marek who was laughing loudly at some unheard joke. They are both still dressed in their hazard suits, helmets held beneath their arms, having just returned from the root pits.
“I thought we’d find you skulking in here,” Maciek exclaimed loudly on seeing me. “Having an early supper are we? Turns out you’ve got work to do.”
“At this time?” I got to my feet but I was not in the mood to be pushed around, even by someone like Maciek. “In the dark?! But we’re leaving tomorrow.”
Marek smiled at me as he passed, proudly placing a large glass jar upon the table. Seeing that it contained a biological specimen of some kind, some sort of growth upon a stick, I eyed it with disgust.
Fear of disease and contamination existed in the minds of everyone that worked within the woods here, even when we were all heavily dosed up on anti-mycotics. This medication made everyone who took it feel queasy and sick to their stomach. Marek had told me I would get used to it eventually. Maciek, the bastard, had only laughed at me.
“Some of the equipment got fried in that surge just now,” Maciek replied bluntly, then grinned unpleasantly. “Don’t you worry, you and the others have me and Marek to keep a good eye on you. No need to fear the dark.”
“I’m sure it won’t take long,” Marek spoke up. “You can join us for a drink then.”
I was already leaving, and done for the night. The sooner I could get this over, the sooner I could get back. Maciek playfully cuffed Marek across the back of his head as I left.
My hazard suit was carefully hung up in the lean-to outside, I took it down and put it on, hesitating a moment with my helmet - the longer I could put off that stuffy claustrophobic deafness and stink of the fungicides on the inside of the helmet, the better. I looked back through the broken wall leading to the kitchen, expecting Maciek to follow after me. He and Marek had been assigned to accompany the scientist team today, and by extension me as I would be now heading to join them. But seeing just Marek and Maciek joking between themselves as they opened their rations, I realised that the bastard had just decided he had done enough work for this evening. Hm, perhaps this was a good thing.
I grabbed my tool box from its place behind the sandbags, and left the hideout.
The scientists, the two that remained, Gustau and Alons, stood out eerily against the dark forest like a pair of strange grey ghosts in the oncoming gloom of night. Flood lights lit up all the working region around the root pits and surrounding the hideout, but it only made the shadows of the forest that much darker.
As I got closer I was careful to step around the edge of the root pit, a huge gash in the ground, normal earth split and rent apart, which revealed beneath the soil was a seemingly endless abyss of intertwined roots. Intertwined with the roots were several metal cables and electrodes, all running up towards a terminal hub which the two scientists were gathered around.
The two waved me over when they spotted me. Unable to communicate aloud with their helmets on, they could only gesture and sign.
I stepped upon an overgrown root peeking out of the ground, it was softer than any wood should be and my heavy boot sank right through it.
The younger and tallest of the two, Gustau approached me first, he slowly drew both hands together and then clapped them abruptly, gesturing towards the air, while Alons more simply pointed towards the terminal monitor and drew a line in the air with one glove, quickly imitating a sharp peak in the middle of it.
The electrical surge that had temporarily knocked the power out at the hideout had been what fried the equipment. I already got that.
Gustau seemed to want to say more, but could do little other than gesture excitedly at the monitor terminal.
Not wasting any time, I gave him a thumbs up, and set to work. I disconnected the power from the terminal and began to unscrew the cover. Gustau helpfully offered to take my flashlight so that I could more easily see the open terminal case. It was a fiddly job, especially with hands encompassed by thick gloves like these.
Alons climbed back into the pit, to adjust one of the cables there while the terminal was off.
This would take some time.
With just the sound of my own breathing in my ears, and the beating of my heart, I allowed my mind to wander as I worked, trying to distance myself from the forest.
This always proved nearly impossible.
No one was any closer to understanding the infection that from when it had started years ago. The people here could not be helped, and it was too dangerous to risk rescuing any when the nature of the disease was still not understood. To keep the excursions funded, the officials had tried to think of economic benefits that could be gained for the entire country.
Speculative talks of regenerative crops that could grow overnight had to be forgotten when it was found that the regenerative properties of the forest only lasted as long as the “growth” remained connected to the extensive network of roots leading from the heart of the wood; and more importantly, it had proved impossible to be able to get the replicas to be just right, the fluid often could not distinguish between organic and inorganic material – for example, when introduced to an apple upon a metal plate, the fluid was just as likely to replicate the plate as the apple, but more often than not it would replicate a twisted fusion so that both apple and plate were replicated as one. Consumption of the apple (or the strangely soft plate) replica had proven to have alarming hallucinogenic effects often accompanied by violent outbursts, which when combined with the fruit’s pale, distorted appearance, made them completely unfit for the public sector.
Another suggestion had been to use the wood as a power source. Electrodes and metal cables had been pushed deep amongst the bundles of roots that run below the ground here, huge pits had been carved out from the ground to monitor the twisting heaving network below. It was seemingly once again a dead-end though, the process of energy conversion was not efficient, our team was the skeleton crew cleaning up the last of the work we were obligated to do before we packed up for good and headed home. Urgent work they called it, most would call it suicide. If the tunnels collapsed, there was no going home.
But we were going home, we would be evacuating tomorrow.
The first thing I was going to do when I got home was sleep. And maybe a home cooked meal wouldn’t go a miss, military rations couldn’t quite compare. Szarlotta would be missing me, and Szurek too.
My thoughts were interrupted as I found I could not longer see the wires that needed replacing, the flashlight no longer being focused on the terminal.
I turned to look at Gustau questioningly, and it was only then I noticed the look of terror upon his face.
The wavering light of flashlight now shone upon the edge forest, where the floodlights did not reach. There were shapes in the gloom, hunched and stumbling, they moved between the tightly packed trees and amongst the tree stumps.
It couldn’t be…
The forest which had seemed so dead until now, all savages here had all been shot and cleared out by excursions years ago! Yet now I could see not just a few but perhaps dozens if not hundreds of dark shapes moving amongst the trees.
Gustau begins to frantically gesture with the flashlight to attract the attention of Alons who was still working unaware in the root pit below. When he doesn’t respond, Gustau throws the flashlight at him, barely missing him.
Suddenly Gustau yanks on my sleeve, pulling me after him hard enough to make me stumble. He lets go of me when I don’t run with him, and flees.
Alons was now struggling to get out of the pit, but his heavy rubber boots kept slipping and sliding on the soft network of roots. I fall upon my knees, dropping my tool box and reaching out to him urgently.
I looked up again.
The savages were not slow in their approach, some were running, hands almost touching the ground, they were like animals. They were already much closer than I had thought they were, I swear I could see their cracked yellow teeth glistening below the floodlights.
I was petrified.
Alons was still stuck at the bottom of the pit, in his panic he could not find a proper foothold.
Tomorrow I was to be going home…
I fled.
I did not want to die, I wanted to go home! I AM GOING HOME!
Gustau didn’t head for the hideout, he runs towards the tunnels, a long distance away. In his heavy cumbersome hazard suit it is unlikely he will ever get there before the savages do.
I instead ran towards the hideout, I already knew I will never outrun the savages encumbered by my suit as I was, I wasn’t armed but the rest of the team was.
Maciek was already outside when I arrive, I see him at the exact same moment the savages grab me. I had never even realised they were so close behind me. Even in the struggle I see Maciek’s face turn sheet white as he sees just how many of them there are, then he runs back inside and I lose sight of him as I am struck to the ground.
I am knocked, kicked, thrown and hit.
I can barely see a thing, as I am repeatedly struck from every direction. The thick hazard suit and helmet offer me some protection from the worst of the fierce beating the savages gave me. I didn't go down without a fight, I kicked and struck out at them with all of my strength, I had knocked down more than one.
"Ratatatatatatatat!"
Even muffled through my helmet I heard the sharp rattle of an assault rifle.
I caught a brief glimpse of Marek facing down the swarm, before the clip ran out, and he was swept beneath dozens of fists, mud, rocks and sticks. I couldn’t see the other soldiers.
I didn't know where Maciek had gone, I pled with every deity I have ever heard of that he would return, and then I wondered if that is what Alons’ last thoughts had been when he had seen me flee.
As I began to black out, bruised and with the taste of blood on my tongue, I was aware of the savages lifting me up, they were binding me with rope.
They were tying me to a tree.
...
When I was next had thoughts, I was happy, I was warm, I was safe, I was home. I never want to leave this place, I will stay here for eternity. Szarlotta is home, I hope she will join me soon. What time was it? Szarlotta is cooking mushrooms, the scent fills my nose, the scent pungent and sickening in its intensity.
Szarlotta always hated mushrooms…
Ice fills my veins and my eyes open wide.
I am nearly blinded by the sunlight, any sleepiness vanishes in that instant of sudden sharp pain. My tinted helmet visor would have normally offered me some protection, but now I sees that most of the glass of the viewfinder is gone. I try to turn my head but to my confusion I can't, not by much anyway, my helmet moves with my head, but it is heavy, it hurts, and I can't understand why.
And then I noticed the rootlets growing through my broken visor.
I cannot move my legs, I cannot move my arms, I am bound!
Panic threatens to overcome me as I try to desperately understand what is going on.
Dread fills me as I spot Alons bound close by on another tree, he is completely motionless and already overgrown with thin roots. I look down with great effort and see that the same roots have begun to bind me too, they completely encase my legs, some have already begun to merge with my hazard suit and boots, they look melted, and I cannot move them.
Some of these rootlets converge on one another to form thick bundles, they run like cables. I follow one them with my eyes and feel shock and relief flood through me as I spot another figure in a hazard suit laying upon the ground just a few feet away from me, bound to that very root. The ground around him is ashy grey, almost as if burnt, but he is otherwise free of the growth that encompasses me. I know it must be one of the camp who has have broken free of the tree, even if he lies motionless now I can see his sides heaving gently with breath.
He is alive!
With this new source of hope, I struggled more fiercely with my bonds, ignoring the exhaustion and weakness I felt from all the bruising and torment of the night before, and thanking all that is good in the world when I found that the roots that have melded with hazard suit have not yet reached my skin.
I begin to feel lightheaded, almost giddy, dazed, and I know I’m in a bad way. I might still die before I ever broke free, and become absorbed into the forest.
Focusing on what needs to be done, I fight to wriggle my right arm free. It hurts. My glove falls off and my arm feels crushed beneath the tightly bound rope, but after a few minutes I am able to work my arm up and out of the bonds. Now with more room to manoeuvre, I free my left arm more easily. My arms hang heavily at my sides as I try to recover my breath again.
The rootlets that grow through my cracked visor are still there, I swear they are growing before my eyes.
With both hands free, I take hold on my helmet and pull upwards. It resists as my head is pulled up with it.
It holds, pulling on my skin like elastic, and I know then that the rootlet must have already fused to my face.
The tree has already begun to absorb me…
Panicking, I pull harder, ignoring the searing pain it causes, and finally the helmet detaches, coming free with disgusting ease, it thuds to the ground a few feet away, and the scent of blood and mushrooms fill my senses. I feel freezing, even as warm blood floods my mouth. I feel like I’m going to be sick, as I gag and sputter through now permanently bared teeth, as fresh blood trails down the front of my hazard suit and over the ropes and roots binding me.
I don’t know how much time passes. Minutes, perhaps hours?
The figure in the hazard suit has begun to stir, he rolls upon his stomach and shakily pushes himself so that he rests on his knees. With a fierce determination, he grips the roots that are merged to the front of his hazard suit, and rips them off. Instantly his back bows and he curls forward in agony as the thick scent of mushrooms fills the air, the snapped roots oozing a clear translucent fluid.
I try to shout to the figure, but only hoarse breath rushes out from between my teeth.
I try again and still nothing. The shock in my own body is still too much for me to feel the pain or understand the extent of my own injuries.
Ripping off my left glove with my right hand, I thumps it desperately against the trunk of the tree. The man doesn’t look up, and I knows why, he is still wearing his hazard suit helmet and cannot hear a thing. Wrenching my right arm back, I throws the glove with all the strength I can manage, it softly thuds against the back of his helmet.
At last the man looks up.
The blood running down my face has begun to pool in my eyes, I try to blink and rub it away as the man moves to stand before me. I cannot see his face, all I can see is the faint reflection of my own face on his visor. I think it is Gustau, but I know just as equally it might be Maciek if he had managed to get his hazard suit on in time, or maybe one of the soldiers. It can’t be Marek, I already know that much… I think it is Gustau, he is about the same height as me.
Gustau stares at me for a few moments, then begins to reach towards my torn face.
Weak, impatient and afraid, I thumps both fists against the trunk of the tree.
This snaps Gustau out of his trance.
Hastily he works to try to unbind me, and I feel more grateful than ever before in my life. After a moment Gustau pauses and heads over to look at Alons’ corpse. He stares at him for some time, then carefully begins to search his pockets, he withdraws a pocket knife and returns to me, he begins to saw away at the roots binding me, it is slow progress, but eventually the bloodied ropes come free. I would have fallen face down if not for still being half encased in roots.
Gustau tries to cut these roots as well, but no sooner does he try then the clear substance rises to form new roots. It is fortunate it’s only my clothes that remain bound to the tree, and not my own skin, but it won’t remain that way for long if I do not get free soon.
I try to pull myself upwards, but I am weak now, thankfully Gustau sees this and helps me up, cutting away cloth that has become merged with the trunk and rootlets, leaving the lower half of my hazard suit has to be abandoned completely, fully merged with the tree as it was.
I slump to the ground as soon as I am free, I don’t try to sit up again.
Gustau pats me upon the shoulder and leaves.
I watch as Gustau ambles away. I briefly think of trying to crawl after him. For some time I feel hopeless as I find myself alone, the sky spinning above me, the forest humming. My face and throat are burning, I don’t want to know how bad the injuries are.
He is not gone long, he returns with worn sun-bleached clothes and helps me shakily get into them. I discarded the tattered remains of my hazard suit.
Gustau looks at me intently when I’m finished, then gently binds a scarf around the lower half of my raw face, to staunch the worst of the bleeding as I lean against him for support. I shakily took the end of the scarf and wiped the blood out of my eyes. It is then I notice the fourth tree, to which a man is still bound, a man whose blank wide eyes and pale bloodied face lies motionless against the glass of his viewfinder.
It is Gustau.
I look back at the man who I had thought was Gustau with confusion. I squint at him trying to figure out who out of the company of ten was he.
All I can see is my reflection in his visor, but it’s not a reflection.
It’s my face!
I would scream but my voice is nothing but a hoarse rasp.
How?!
I had to be dreaming, hallucinating, perhaps this is a nightmare?!
Perhaps I am still bound to the tree?
I run.
Today I am going home.
...
Somehow, I make it beyond the swamps, my legs are burning and every breath is sharp piercing agony, still I carry on running, and running until my legs seize up. I stagger across a stream, at least I think that is what it was, my vision is getting fuzzy, my ears are ringing.
Everything goes white.
…
My next waking moments are of weakness and pain. I awaken upon a dusty hard wooden floor. My nose is filled with the pungent scent of rot and blood.
I’m not alone.
There is a man crouched beside me, he is balding, a pair of glasses sit upon his grubby gaunt face, his breath reeks of alcohol, and beside him is a worn old medical bag.
A doctor, perhaps? He is helping me?
I don’t trust this fucker!
The doctor injects me with something, it stabilises my rapid feverish pulse but worsens my vision. I see splashes of red where there is nothing, the shadows in the dark room seem to move on their own. The lower half of my raw face is doused with something that stings like fire, a harsh alcoholic taste slips between my gritted teeth.
I feel my strength returning, not by much. My head rolls from side to side as I fight to stay upright, but I am now aware of my surroundings. I am in a small room, now bound to a chair.
Bound?!
The doctor is in front of me, I have enough strength now to raise my head to look him in the eye, I see a savage desperate gleam in them. He was not one of us.
Even then, the demands and savage beating I receive still surprised me.
Repeatedly he shows me a key, a key that is familiar to me. He calls it the key to the way home.
The way home…
The doctor wants to know the way home.
I am bound and voiceless, even if I wanted, there was no way I could tell him what he wanted.
He is insane.
He strikes me hard enough to knock the chair over and leaves, shutting the door as he goes.
Lying on the floor now, still bound to the chair, I begin to drift close to unconsciousness once more, but I can hear voices outside. The doctor is not alone.
The new voice is deeper and scratchy, almost like a growl.
“What have you got there, doc?” the newcomer asks. “Something shiny?”
“What are you doing here?!” the doctor sounds afraid, then he laughs hysterically and there was a series of rapid metallic clinks; a keyring being shaken. “Freedom! A key to freedom! I caught one of those outsider rats! Almost dead, not far from here, and abandoned!”
There is a series of heavy footsteps, and the door creaks open once more.
I can see the newcomer standing in the doorway looking down at me, they are tall and their face is obscured by a hood. Other than that I couldn’t see any more of them, but I knew it wasn’t one of us.
“He looks like death,” the newcomer laughs. “Smells like it too!”
“He’s alive! And he will get me home!”
The newcomer grunts non-committedly then laughs again, it sounds almost like a bark.
“Why are you here?” the doctor demands, though his voice shakes. “You know I don’t take patients anymore, I haven’t taken them for years. For all the good it did…”
The newcomer growls.
“Look, what do you want? I have nothing for you!” the doctor shouts shakily.
“A happy series coincidence brought me here, doc,” the newcomer announced. “I was out enjoying a nice walk in the forest, when the most curious sight I see. Half the village walking through the forest, carrying torches and pitchforks.”
“What?”
“They looked like they were headed this way,” the newcomer said. “And I don’t think they’re planning a picnic, dear doctor. Imagine that? So ungrateful, after all that you’ve accomplished for them,” And I would have sworn that the newcomer sounded amused by this.
The doctor is silent.
“I would say you have maybe 20 minutes before they get here,” the newcomer giggled. “I would spend it wisely.” And I hear the newcomer’s heavy footfalls fading away.
Moments later, the doctor begins to barricade the door, sealing me in.
…
The rest of the night passes like a nightmare, the next day I cannot remember exactly what happened. I managed to break free of my bonds, but the doctor is now nowhere to be found. And there was a man there who I didn't recognise, he attacked me, we fought, and that man died. Then the house was broken into. I have a vague memory of there being many beings, they are hideous, they bite, claw and shove at me, all monsters.
Somehow, I end up in the forest outside. It is dark, I am alone, I don't understand what is happening anymore. I am seeing things that aren't there, or I think I am, but I can't tell anymore.
At this point I don’t understand how I am alive anymore. Perhaps this is all a nightmare.
The injection from the doctor, it had to be that! The fucker had poisoned me!!!
I want to go home!
And the key to way home is now gone!
Then out of the gloom, a figure emerges. They seem familiar. They firmly take me hand and help me to me feet. They wrap their arm around my shoulders and I gladly let them lead me away.
...
My mind feels like it's fracturing, like broken glass. Sometimes I cannot remember what I did the day before.
But I feel an undying determination, somewhere in these woods is the road to the way home.
I recognise him as the man who rescued me from the doctor's house when I next see him, standing before me, eye to eye. Yet his face somehow seems more familiar than just that, it's like the face of someone I had known much longer.
The man opens the sack he carries upon his back, and the scent of mushrooms fills the air, he wishes to trade with me, he wishes to help me.
So I show him a picture of the "road home", but the man only looks confused, then concerned.
He is the only one I meet over the next two weeks that repeatedly advises me against seeking out that road. More insistently each time he asks me not to go, but I ignore him. I want to go home and I cannot understand why the man wants me to stay. He must be insane, why does he not want to go home as well? Does he want to stay in the forest forever?!
The man calls me brother, he gifts me things and treats me with kindness, a kindness that is not returned. There is something unsettling about him, it is a relief when he leaves each morning after his daily visit. It makes me uncomfortable to even look at him. I want to get away from him.
I only have one goal in mind, nothing else mattered.
“Do not open the door.” the man held me firmly by the shoulder today, more desperate that ever, and raises his paper-white arm so that I could see what he had written, the scent of mushrooms is almost overwhelming. "Let's stick together!"
He never takes off that helmet of his, I can see why now. It is fused to his skin, it is part of him.
I shrug his hand off of my shoulder and hold up the supplies I wish to trade.
When I got that key back from the doctor, when I got through that tunnel and reached the swamp on the other side, I left that strange man behind.
I am going home.
...
One morning, I find the body of a beheaded man lying in the mud outside of my hideout, not far from the tunnel exit. He is dressed in standard military gear, except for a hazard suit helmet that is fused to his skin.
All he has on him is a key and a journal.
Shouldn’t there have also been a sack? I wonder, but then shake my head in confusion. I had never seen this man before, how could I know what he would be carrying?
The key is just like mine, but twisted and strangely lightweight. The surface of the journal is bubbled and the writing is illegible. Like poorly made copies. Like the key of the Snail, like the ring of the Wolfman, like the man in the tunnel…
The word “Liar” is scrawled across his viewfinder of the helmet.
Something deeply disturbs me seeing him lying there.
I left the man where I found him.
I am going home, and that's all that matters.
There are three strangers standing in the front of the table saw when I return to the hideout. They look at me in silence, then the tallest of them approaches me, and lifts a sack in his arms. He opens it and the scent of mushrooms fills the air. Thieves, the word floats through my mind, but I can’t remember why.
It doesn’t matter.
I am going home.