When I fell into the pit, it seemed forever before I hit the bottom. The earth there was muddy and soft on the surface, but an inch down the hard clay wasn’t so forgiving. I’d pitched forward as I’d fallen, making my right knee the first thing to hit and flare with pain—I rolled over onto my back and clutched it instinctively even as I realized that my left wrist and shoulder were aching and my right wrist was worse—sprained at least and maybe broken.
My breath had been knocked from me, only coming back in short, painful gasps as I looked around. I was down in a hole. No, not just a hole. It was a pit, an intentionally dug pit that had something laid over it. I remembered my foot hitting it as I ran, giving way before I could take the step back.
Eyes watering, I looked up at the circle of daylight above me, a small patch of blue sky almost completely obscured by a canopy of green. The forest was dense here. That was what I’d loved about it since I started hiking the area last fall—that feeling of natural beauty and solitude that was more serene than lonely, making me feel more a part of something than apart from everything.
But then…I’d heard something, hadn’t I?
Something walking in the woods nearby, still out of sight, but growing closer. My first thought had been a deer, but the longer it went on, it didn’t sound right. I’d been with my father hunting enough growing up to know the soft, tentative rustling noises deer tend to make unless running scared, and I’d heard no gunshots in the hour I’d been out there. This sound was louder, less graceful and more constant, as though something was noisily barreling through the trees and brush, maybe at quite a distance.
I had the panicked thought of a bear, but pushed it from my mind. Possible, sure, but really unlikely. Who knew? Maybe it was a running deer, or one of a dozen other animals that could make tons of noise in an empty forest when they had a mind to. Or maybe I wasn’t the only hiker out there—I’d never been sure who even owned the property, just that it was part of a thousand-acre tract of woodland that backed up to a nearby state park. In the six months I’d been coming out, I’d never seen a sign of hunters, hikers, or anything else, but that didn’t make it..
I caught a glimpse of moving shadow off to my right.
What was that? Was it a person?
Slowing down, I watched the area where I thought I’d seen motion. A moment later, the figure passed from behind a tree and I stifled a scream.
It was a person, but not a hiker or hunter. They were wearing a long poncho or cloak, hooded and black and trailing behind them as they picked up speed again. That was strange enough—there hadn’t been any rain all day and it was unseasonably warm. But then I saw their face, or where their face would have been. It was hard to say at a distance while they ran, but I thought they were wearing a dark mask. Maybe a gas mask.
Heart pounding, I crouched down where I was. They were running closer, but at an off-angle that would probably see them intersect my trail half a mile back. It could be that they hadn’t seen me at all, and whoever it was, whatever they were doing, I was keen to keep it that way. Watching from between the branches of a bush, I caught glimpses of the figure as it ran forward with a lurching, wavering pace made all the more unnerving by the unbroken dark silhouette of the coverings it wore. I couldn’t even make out arms, and only the barest hint of legs between the length of the poncho and the obstacles between us. Just a billowing black shape, plunging through the woods like a specter chasing some unseen prey.
Unless that unseen prey was me.
I was assuming it hadn’t seen me, but how did I know that? Did I really want to wait for it to get closer in the hopes it would pass on by, or was I better off easing on down the path while it was far enough away to likely miss any subtle movement at a distance? Stomach in knots, I chose the latter, easing forward in a crouch. Up ahead, maybe a hundred yards or more, there was a thick knot of fir trees. If I could get past them, put their bulk between us, I’d have a better chance of moving forward without them ever seeing me. I moved another few feet and then paused to check the position of the specter. Was it still flailing along on the same trajectory, or had it chosen another path?
Oh God.
It had stopped. And it was looking right at me.
Suddenly it started running again, its jerking gait faster and more desperate as it came directly toward me. I thought I could almost hear excited groans from behind the mask, and I heard myself let out a moan as I stood up and began to run.
I’m in good shape, but I’d already been hiking for two hours and this was a part of the forest I’d never been in before. My need for speed had to be balanced with care that I didn’t trip on a root or lose my sense of direction. Glancing back again, I saw that the dark figure had made it to my path and was gaining on me. Giving a panicked grunt, I pushed myself harder to widen the gap between us.
When I hit the stand of firs, I veered to the right, hoping the change in direction would throw it off. The woods were denser and darker in that direction, and it would only take a few yards for me to be hard to spot at a distance. When I looked back, I saw no sign of the other, but that meant little on its own, as the trees obscured my vision too. I needed to rely on sound more now, while making less noise myself.
It was hard to make myself slow down, but I eased to a brisk trot and then a softer, more gentle walk. The way forward was shadowy except for occasional patches of sunlight, but I thought I still had a rough idea of which way I was headed. For now, my main concern was any signs of being pursued—glimpses of flailing darkness or the crashing thud of the specter running close behind.
I did hear some noises, but at first they didn’t seem to be getting closer, and as I moved on, I could tell they were growing more faint. Turning back to look again, I saw no sign of movement behind me. Good. I was probably four miles from the edge of the state park, and another two from my car. If I picked up my pace, I could get there in an hour.
My steps crunched louder as I began to jog forward, but I took care to be as quiet as possible and the extra speed seemed worth the slight increase in noise. Probably five minutes passed before I heard a loud crack from somewhere behind me. Likely just a branch falling, but I still picked up my pace, my pulse quickening from more than the exertion.
That was when my foot hit ground that wasn’t ground and I found myself tumbling through the dark.
Reaching a wall of the pit, I dug my fingers into the dirt there as I tried to stand. I could manage, but putting any weight on my right leg sent a shock of pain up my spine that took my breath away. Not that it mattered. The walls were made of that same hard clay and ran up fifteen feet all around, and I pictured the pit as being an oval from above. Glancing around, my gaze caught on something near where I’d landed. A brown tarp lay nearby amid a clutter of branches and leaves. That had been what had covered the hole. This wasn’t just a random pit, it was a trap.
Who would do this, and why? Was it intended for something in particular? It had to be, right? Otherwise, what was the point of digging a trap out in the middle of nowhere? What were the odds a random person would fall into it? Maybe it wasn’t even for people though. People dug pits to trap animals, didn’t they? Even big things that could climb, like tigers.
But there were no tigers out here. Coyotes and deer, maybe a bear or a bobcat. Just normal wood critters and me and…
A shadow fell over me as I looked up with a gasp. The hooded specter stood at the edge of the pit, looking down at me. It was a gas mask after all, and behind it, I could hear frenzied squeals. It shuffled excitedly for a moment and then hurled itself forward into the pit, landing on its side with a thump just a few feet away.
I was screaming then, but as I watched the thing writhe and squirm in the mud, I felt a growing sense of confusion as well. Why would it just throw itself down here with me? The fall had looked like it hurt, and I still saw no signs of its arms from underneath the muddy black poncho it was wearing. As it was, it was just crawling its way to the far wall where it slowly sat itself up with a labored grunt.
Still, I couldn’t trust anything here. Wincing at my wrist, I dug into my pocket for my phone as I kept my eyes on the lump of shadow against the far wall. Glancing down, I felt my stomach lurch. The screen was broken, and punching the power button did nothing at all.
I looked back over at the specter. It wasn’t moving. It just sat watching me and…was it crying?
Heart in my throat, I edged forward. “Hello? What is this? What the fuck is going on?”
Just more sobbing, the hood swaying gently as it shook its head.
I was terrified of touching it, but I was out of other options. Maybe they were hurt enough to not fight me, and if they had a phone or something, I could at least try to call for help. I held my dead phone in my throbbing right hand as I reached out to pull up the mask.
It was a girl, a crying girl of maybe twenty, eyes red and wild as she looked at me pleadingly, her nostrils flaring as she sucked in panicked breaths. She had no other options either.
Her mouth had been glued shut.
I sucked in a breath. “What…what the fu…” I noticed a seam down the front of the poncho secured by clasp buttons down to the waist. Hand shaking, I tugged at the buttons until the top few came free.
The girl’s arms had been tied behind her under the poncho, and judging from the odd angle of the left one, it seemed badly broken either from the fall or something before. A large dog collar, one of those shock collars with electrodes, was tight against her neck. And taped across her chest was a green note written in black ink:
There is only one parachute.
Behind me I heard the sound of an approaching motor and felt a thrill of hope as I looked up toward the opening. Maybe it was a park ranger? Or even a hunter that had heard us? Either way, I wasn’t going to risk them riding by without stopping, so I started to scream and yell at the top of my lungs as I stared into the light. The engine noise grew closer and closer as my voice began to grow hoarse, and I had a moment of relief as I heard the engine shut off just above the pit.
“Hello? We’re trapped down here! Please help us!”
There was no response, and I was about to yell again when I saw a large white hose creep over the edge of the hole. Maybe they were going to use the hose as a rope to get us out? But then the hose stopped, and a clear liquid began trickling and then pouring from it, splashing the ground as it came on faster and faster. The smell from it was in my nostrils almost immediately, and as a pool began to form and it splashed further and further, a drop hit my shoe and began to sizzle.
Oh God. It was acid. Someone was pouring fucking acid down here.
My shoe was still hissing as another drop hit my pants leg, eating through my jeans to touch liquid fire to my calf. Screaming, I pulled my pants leg up, only to get another drop on my arm. I let out a screech of pain as the skin there began blistering immediately.
I could hardly think, and not just because of the burning and the terror. The fumes were building as the pool widened, and I could feel my lungs tightening as I sucked in the chemicals with each gasping breath.
“Please! Don’t do this, please!”
There was no answer, and the stream from the hose grew stronger. It would reach us within a couple of minutes. The girl was squealing again behind me, but for the moment my attention was at new motion at the top of the hole. A small metal ladder of steel cords and bar rungs had been rolled over the edge next to the hose. As I watched in dismay, the hose was lifted and sat atop the ladder, the acid splashing the rungs as it poured out into the pit.
Turning back to the girl, I heard the engine start again and drive away. There was no one coming to help us. We were going to die down here. Horribly and painfully, with the only way out just another version of that same burning death. I looked down at the green note again and swallowed.
There is only one parachute.
Meeting her eyes, I began to cry myself. I reached forward slowly to retrieve the gas mask from where it lay in the poncho’s hood, feeling my throat burn as I whispered to her.
“I’m so sorry.”
I’d like to say I was gentle as I took off the poncho, but I was scared and there was no time and she had figured out enough to try and resist. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know I was grabbing her broken arm too hard when she started to squirm.
The pool was to us by the time I’d buttoned up the poncho. Running around the edge, I made sure to look down before reaching the hungry stream coming from the hose. I half-expected the poncho not to matter—a last cruel trick from whoever was behind all of this. But no, it seemed to be holding, and while I could hear the bottom of my shoes popping and feel needle-sharp pricks of pain as acid splashed onto the uncovered part of my legs, the poncho seemed to resist it well enough. My body protested as I gripped the first rung through the skin of my covering, but my desperate fear and adrenaline were louder. I made it to the top quickly, stripping off the poncho and mask as I looked around, followed by my shoes and jeans as they continued to burn.
There was no one else up there, and when I looked back down in the pit, the girl had stopped moving. Maybe the fumes had finally gotten to her. Maybe she wouldn’t wake up again at the end.
It was dark by the time I made it back to the park’s lot and used the emergency call phone. Twenty minutes later I was in an ambulance, and two hours after that, a bemused detective was asking me questions as I fought off the haze of pain meds as best I could. I told him what I knew, which was little. They seemed skeptical, but they couldn’t deny my injuries, and they promised to check everything out.
That was two months ago. When I call, they say they canvassed the woods, but given the acreage and the vagueness of my directions, they haven’t had any luck finding any “tiger pits” filled with acid. Then yesterday, another detective assigned to the case called me, and I got her to admit they had found over two dozen filled in holes in the general vicinity—no signs of bodies or acid, just deep holes that had been recently filled in. It was then that she asked the question I’d been dreading since I ran away from the tiger pit into the dark.
“Why didn’t you stop the acid?”
“What?”
“Well, you said you saw no one when you got to the top, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you claim there was a trailer up there with a giant plastic tank on it. This was what held the acid that was running through the hose into the hole, right?”
“Um, yeah. Right.”
“So why didn’t you stop the acid once you were up top? Might could have still saved that girl. You said it was just barely to her at that point.”
“I…there was no shut-off valve. I, um, I looked, and there was no shut-off valve.”
A pause, and then, “Okay, but why not just move the hose? Even if you couldn’t stop the acid, you could have kept it from pouring down on that poor girl, right?”
I swallowed. “Um, I guess. I…I was in shock, okay? I was in a lot of pain.”
Her voice was harder now. “No doubt. I saw pictures from you at the hospital. You were fucked up. But not so fucked up you couldn’t travel miles to a phone in the dark. Not so fucked up that you couldn’t move a hose a couple of feet, if what you’re telling us is the truth.”
I was crying now. “I…it is the truth. All of it. But I was scared, all right? What if they were still watching? They’d said one parachute. Only one of us could leave. What if I made them mad and they came back…came back for me?”
I could hear the disgust in her voice. “I see. Well, my partner doesn’t believe you too much, if I’m being honest. The land is actually state land technically—someone died without any kin some years ago and no one has tried to buy it since. And no real reason to think some nut has been sneaking out there and booby-trapping the place either. We’ve had dogs and rangers out there with us twice, but aside from the loose dirt in spots, which the corpse dogs have checked without hitting by the way, there’s nothing to support your story other than your word and a few chemical burns.”
Trembling, I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Still, I like to think I have a good instinct. Better than his, anyway. And I think I believe you, though it’d be better for both of us if it wasn’t true.”
“W-what do you mean?”
“Well, just think about it. What are the odds that you would be in some isolated wood where some deranged killer was tormenting that poor girl? Based on what you described, and assuming for the moment that the holes we found were related, it sounds like this killer had released this girl, bound and unable to speak, in this mask and poncho get-up to what? Run around in the woods for awhile? Why? And what was stopping her from just running off like you did?”
I pushed out a shaky breath. “I don’t know. Maybe the collar? Maybe it shocked her if she left a certain range. Kept her in an area until she fell into a pit.”
“Hmm. Maybe. But then the pit wasn’t just meant for her, was it?”
“What?”
“Well, you said there was a note on her. ‘Only one can leave’ or something, right?”
“There is only one parachute.”
“Right. Yeah, right. So that message was intended for someone that found the girl and opened the poncho, right?”
“I guess.”
“But how would they know there’d be another person?”
I felt myself growing irritated, my shame and anger and fear all welling back up like they’d been in the days after I’d escaped the trap. “How the fuck should I know?”
“Well, and I’m just thinking out loud here, but what if it wasn’t random luck that you were the one that fell into that pit?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if this wasn’t about the girl in the poncho. It was all about you. Maybe they’d been following you. Watching you, studying your habits. Planning a way of getting you where they wanted.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they do that?”
“Why would they tie up a girl, slap a gas mask and poncho on her, and then toss her down into a pit only to then fill it with acid? Or do you still think she jumped in herself?”
“I…no, I think someone shoved her in probably.”
“Well, if we’re going to believe all of that from you, why do we need to assume they have any rational reason for any of this at all? Maybe they’re just some psycho sadist that wants to hurt people.”
I could feel myself growing clammy with sweat as I looked out the window at the street below. “Um, yeah. Maybe.” I was going to try and end the call, but she was talking again.
“And so maybe this sadist is really after you. Maybe they’ve been slowly influencing your life in small ways for months, waiting to see if you’d notice. If you’d see the dark thread that had entered the fabric of your life. If you’d finally see them.”
“Detective, I need to be going. Thank you for the up…”
“And maybe the collar wasn’t a fence. It was a bit in the mouth, steering a little pony this way and that when needed. Or maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t even the girl under the poncho that was chasing you the entire time. Maybe it was the monster that put you down in that pit and helped you burn that poor girl up while she tried to scream.”
“I…this is…I’m sorry, but what did you say your name was again? I’m going to have to speak to your supervisor.”
“I said my name was Brown. Or Browning. Or Blake. I don’t remember.”
“Who are you?”
“It doesn’t really matter who I am, does it? You’re asking the wrong question.”
“I…what’s the right question?”
“Where am I?”
“I…you crazy fuck, I’m calling the cops.”
“If you do, they won’t find you when they get here.”
“What…what do you want?”
She gave a light laugh. “Nothing much. Just answer one more question.”
“I…okay, what?”
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