"Juliet, send in my eleven thirty."
"Yes, Doctor Winter."
Pamella Winters sat back, tapping her pen on her steno pad as Mrs. Janet Welch came through the door. She glanced around fearfully, looking at the small office as if expecting to see medieval torture devices. So many came into her office expecting to see alchemic devices or sci-fi equipment, but Doctor Winter was a woman of science.
She supposed, however, that when you saw a place called Doctor Winter's Forgetfulness Clinic, you had certain expectations beyond a board-certified therapist in a cloudy gray pantsuit.
Doctor Winter had seven, one for each day of the week, and Johan kept them pressed for her so they would look nice when she needed them.
Johan was dear, and Pamella was lucky to have her.
"So, Mrs. Welch," Doctor Winter began.
"Please, call me Janet. Everyone just calls me Janet."
"Very well. Janet, what brings you into my clinic today?"
"Well," Janet said, biting her lip as she seemed to rethink ever coming here, "something happened last week, something I'd really like to forget."
Doctor Winter smiled, "Well, that's why I'm here. Why don't you tell me about it?"
Janet shuddered, looking around as if she thought something might be waiting to get her. She was clearly a runner, her arms and what she could see of her legs looking tan and toned. She was wearing capri pants and a lovely blue sweater, her hair in a ponytail that seemed very comfortable to her. Her face, however, seemed anything but comfortable. Janet had clearly encountered something, and whatever it had been, it had rattled her badly.
"Wait, don't you need to put me under or something? Hypnotize me? Put me into a receptive state?"
Pamella smiled, "I certainly can if you'd like, but I don't have to. Can I offer you some tea? It's a special blend I make myself. It puts people at ease so they can tell me their problems."
"I don't really," Janet began, but seemed to think better of it as she nodded, "on second thought, yes, I'd love some."
Doctor Winter got up and poured the tea from an ordinary-looking pot on a hot plate. As she brought the cup, Janet looked into the smoke before blowing on the liquid and taking a sip. She made an appreciative noise as she took another, the liquid steamy but not quite as hot as she had believed. She sat on the edge of the couch with her legs drawn up, looking like a child who was afraid to tell her parents she's pregnant.
Doctor Winter invited her to begin, and Janet told her of her strange experience in the woods.
* * * * *
Janet stood upright from her stretch, filling her lungs with the crisp evening air.
She loved these early evening runs, the sun setting over her shoulder. As she began to jog through the parking lot, heading for the forest trail, she popped her earbuds in and hit play on her Running Playlist. Her sneakers sent up puffs of dust as she went from concrete to dirt, and Janet could hear the quiet evening conversations of birds and other small animals. They took to their heels when they saw her jogging toward them, and Janet saw a fat rabbit take off as it disappeared into the underbrush. She couldn't help but grin her Colgate whites at its cottontail.
"That's right," she thought as the rabbit ran, "make way for the apex predator."
Janet jogged around the small pond and shivered a little as she saw the steam rise from the water. It was cold this evening, and the surface of the water looked glassy as she watched the fish dart about their simple lives. Did they know there was a world above their translucent home? They must, she thought since too many of them likely got their reminder at the end of a hook that there were dangers up above. She rounded the corner of the pond and headed into the woods that made up the bulk of her run.
She stopped suddenly, though, looking around as she jogged in place. She had felt something, something she had never felt here before. She had run here for years, almost every day since moving to the area, and had never felt anything like this. Something had noticed her that was higher on the food chain than she was, something that saw her as meal.
Janet shrugged it off as she took to the trails. There was nothing bigger than a deer out in these woods, the only exception being the black bears that sometimes moved out here. They were mostly cowards, choosing to run rather than attack people, but Janet had never seen one up close. More than likely, Janet was just feeling a little tense after the posters she had seen on the way in, and she pushed herself on as she took to the trails.
Most people were on edge after the man had disappeared near here, but that had been a hiker. He had gone missing on the trails several miles from here, and there was no proof that he wasn't alive. The state park hiking trails linked up with the Appalachian trail in several places. Who was to say that he hadn't decided to simply extend his hike for several weeks? The fact that he'd told his wife that he was going out for a day hike seemed to refute this, but Janet put it out of her mind as the trees leaned crookedly over the path.
The trails were miles from here, and Janet didn't feel like she was in any danger running on a public jogging path.
As her jogging tunes kept her company, Brittany and Katie Perry pushing her on, Janet felt the woods pull close around her as she ran. She didn't feel uncomfortable under the watchful eyes of the trees. Quite the opposite, the trees were like arms that longed to hug, and Janet felt at ease the deeper onto the trail she went. She had forgotten all about the weird feeling she'd felt before. Now she was back in her element, her strong legs taking her forward as her earbuds pumped her ears with the invigorating sound of her favorite exercise tunes.
It began as a tickle on the back of her neck, the feeling something akin to a sunburn, and Janet found herself turning to look at the woods as the trees whipped past. It made her uncomfortable, and Janet put her hand out to run at the spot on the back of her neck more than once. She had thought, at first, that it might be a mosquito or a fly, but she never found anything as her fingers explored the space. She found her hand returning there again and again as she ran, and it made the crawly feeling in her stomach feel worse over time. She had tried to shove discomfort down, but it became harder and harder to justify the deeper she went.
Janet reminded herself that the trail was only three miles and that she was roughly a mile in.
As long as she kept moving, she had little doubt that she could outdistance anything that might be following her.
The path took her over a little bridge, and Janet stopped to look down at the water below as she covertly hit the pause button on her phone. The water was moving fast today, the little river sweeping the last of the fall leaves down with the current, but Janet let her eyes dart right and left as she swept the peripherals of her vision. She didn't dare remove her earbuds, wanting the illusion of being unable to hear what was chasing. Something crunched in the woods to her left, and Janet had to stop herself from looking over at it fretfully. Was it a deer? A squirrel? Maybe someone stalking her, getting ready to leap out and grab her?
She couldn't see anything in that direction, but when something rustled the leaves from the other side of the path, the side she had yet to go running down, Janet let her fear get the better of her. She swung her head in that direction, seeing a monster amongst the late autumn leaves for half a heartbeat, only to realize it was just a crow who had landed amongst them to root for breakfast. She laughed a little, feeling stupid as she realized she had let her paranoia get the better of her. The crow looked up curiously, startled by her laughter, and that made Janet laugh all the harder.
Then, something broke behind her, and she turned in a panic as her laugh died on her lips.
She slipped on the wet boards, the moss making them slick, and as she fell onto her bottom, she saw something hunkered in the woods. It was dark, blending in with the afternoon shadows as the sun set, and in her fear, she imagined some great beast on all fours. Its eyeless face was lost behind a black halo, its hands like scrabbling claws, and as she slipped on the slick boards, she could see it crawling towards her over the dead leaves and skeletal limbs that littered the forest floor.
Janet slid backward off the bridge, her feet finally finding purchase as she took off. She ran flat out, her terror high as she put as much distance between herself and whatever it had been as she could. Her rational mind tried to assert that it was probably just a dog, a small bear, but she was having none of it. She came to a fork, one way taking her towards the hiking trails and the other continuing on the running trail, and she took the right that would keep her on this trail. She was a mile in, but she couldn't turn around. Whatever it was had been in that direction, and Janet knew that if she wanted to make it out she needed to run away from it.
She had run almost half a mile in a panic before her lungs started to have trouble pulling in the cold air, and she doubled over on the trail.
As she tried to keep from bringing up her lunch, she looked at the suddenly claustrophobic trees that gathered around the path. No longer did they seem in a hugging mood. As the sun set behind them, the shadows creating angels where there had been none before, Janet could see the knobby fingers of skeletal hands. They were trying to grab her, to hold her down so the beast could get her, and as Janet tried to remember how to make her lungs work again, she heard the sound she had been dreading and spun in place.
The sound of limb cracking sent an icicle through her heart, and she stumbled a few steps before realizing she could see what had made the sound.
A deer had stepped out onto the path, clearly feeling safer than her in the waning afternoon. It had a magnificent rack of antlers, the points glistening wetly as it looked at her distrustfully. To this thing, Janet was the predator, and Janet took a few steps back as she gave the buck his space. She wondered if this was what she had seen earlier? Maybe she had startled it as she ran like a crazy person through the woods. Maybe it had just been trying to crop a little grass when she had startled it.
It ran suddenly, Janet watching it go, and that was when she saw it.
It had been no deer, after all.
Just a man in blue jeans and a black hoodie.
The hoodie covered his face, leaving his features a murky guess at best. His jeans were stained with mud and dirt and looked like they might stand up on their own if he took them off. He wore cheap tennis shoes that looked ready to fall apart, and they were muddy and stained up too much to tell their original color.
He had noticed her noticing him, and when his hand came out of the front pocket, it was holding a large hunting knife.
Janet suddenly remembered how to run, suddenly remembered how to pull air into her lungs, and screamed as she pelted off into the woods. She was lost to reason; she had no sense of where she was going. She only knew that wherever it was, it was away from the man with the knife. She ran into the woods, the trees grabbing at her as their knobbly branches scratched her arms and face. They tried to grab her clothes, but the expensive jogging gear was tight against her skin, and their clutching limbs slid off her. She kept looking behind her, trying to see if the man was following her, but in the early twilight and she couldn't see much. The sun would be down in about twenty minutes, and then she would be at the mercy of the woods by night. She had run the path a thousand times, thought she had known these woods so well, but now she was hopelessly lost, running for her life.
She chanced a look behind her and turned back in time to feel the root grab her foot.
She fell against the tree, knocking the wind out of herself as she went down amidst the dirt and leaves.
Her frantic feet churned up the hard ground, rolling her over and giving her a great view of the man as he stalked in, knife at the ready.
"Please," she wheezed out, her breath still gone, "please," she tried again, but she couldn't make anything come out.
Too winded to even beg for her life, how pathetic she must seem.
So much for being an apex predator.
The real predator had found her as she went about her day and now meant to gobble her up.
She could see the bottom of his mouth as a wide smile grew from it. He was stalking in, the knife still held down and at his side, and as she wiggled left to try and juke around him, he jumped to match her. It was all a game to him, an enjoyable distraction, but now it was over. Now, he meant to have his prize, whatever that might be.
As he loomed over her, pulling the knife back for a stab, Janet closed her eyes and prayed that he would just kill her and not decide to stretch out her terror.
They stood there for what felt like an eternity, Janet wanting him to get on with it when he sighed in ecstasy.
She felt something patter across her face, warm and thick but cooling quickly as it dappled her cheeks and eyelids.
She felt sick, her fears realized, but when she opened her eyes to peek, her left eye was covered by a film of red.
The man stood over her, his hoody now sporting three long rips in the chest as something pushed its way out. He had bled on her, his grin fading as he gasped out the last of his life. The knife fell from his limp fingers, sticking in the ground blade first, and as his legs tried to give way, he was pulled backward by something much larger.
The sun was setting behind the thing as it crouched amongst the trees, and Janet had to put a shaky hand up to see the creature. It looked like a toad, a massive toad with granite green skin, perched on its bottom as it drew the man towards it. It towered amongst the trees, fifteen or sixteen feet high, its arms long and spindly, its fingers tipped with cruel claws. It brought the man back to look him in the eye, smiling as it saw the fear it had wanted. The man was seizing, shaking as the blood dripped down those long claws, and when the creature leaned forward, Janet could see its mouth was full of similar jagged teeth. The crunch when it bit the man's arm off was accentuated by his wheezy scream as he shook violently. It ate his other arm, grinning as the blood ran and the hooded man cried out pitifully. Janet could only watch as the legs came off next, the creature finally ending the man's sobbing as it slid the dribbling torso into its mouth and crunched with relish.
It was licking its fingers when it finally noticed Janet, and its smile was no less frightful as its piss-yellow eyes fastened onto her.
"Don't worry," it said, its voice like angry bees caught in a jar, "I have no intention of eating you."
It slithered in, its body elongating as it drew very close to Janet. She could tell now that it had been hunching before, its body much bigger than she had thought, and the knowledge did little to quell her fear. Its face came right up until it blocked out the sun, those horrible eyes almost hypnotizing her as they stared right through her. Janet felt her bladder let go, her running pants holding the liquid in as they had held her sweat so many times before. She thought it would lie, thought it would eat her anyway, but instead, it just whispered to her in that hissy little voice, telling her what she had known all along, but never wanted to hear.
"I only eat predator, only desire the taste of those who have taken lives and reveled in their end. You, my dear, are no killer. Hop back to your warren, little rabbit. A true hunter moves amongst these woods."
Janet closed her eyes, the tears and snot running down her face in rivulets, and when she opened them again, she was alone.
* * * * *
"After that, I got up and managed to find the path before it got too dark. I expecting that thing to get me at any minute, but instead, I made it back to my car. I drove home and sat in the car till my husband came to ask if I was okay. I couldn't tell him about the creature or the man. I just told him something had spooked me in the woods. I've dreamed about that creature every night, though." she said, the tears falling into her cup as she looked into her reflection, "I haven't run since; something I love that helps me deal with stress like this, and I don't know if I ever will again."
Doctor Winter nodded, "You had a very traumatic experience, but," and when she said the word, she saw Janet tense as if someone's hand tightened a piano wire in her spine, "I think anyone would be a little rattled if they were the victim of a bear attack."
"A bear attack?" Janet said, almost dreamily.
"Yes, just as you told me. You were running and came upon a mother bear and her cubs. Black bears don't usually hurt people, but she was just protecting her babies. She chased you away, and you ran, scared out of your mind, as anyone would be. You ran all the way back to your car, and then you drove home. Your mind has made quite a lot of it, but if you're careful, you probably won't find yourself the target of a mother bear again."
Janet's face was slack, her mind reeling as it mulled over this new information.
Doctor Winter wrinkled her nose as Janet's mouth opened, and the tea spilled into the cup again.
This was her least favorite part of the exercise, but it was necessary.
"That's right. It was just a bear and her cubs. Poor old thing, I never even stopped to think of it like that. Thank you, Doctor Winter. I feel much better now."
Doctor Winter smiled, "That's the idea, my dear. I help my clients put things into perspective. I help them forget their fear and remember that nothing was really as bad as they remember."
Janet got up, handing Doctor Winter her cup. She looked a thousand times calmer than she had when she'd come in. This was the woman who'd gone running in the woods, Winter saw. This was the woman whose worldview had been shaken by her encounter with something far older and far darker than a mother bear and her whelps. Janet had seen something few people walked away from, and she was lucky to be alive.
She would never know how lucky she was, but that was the idea.
Doctor Winter waited for the door to snick closed before taking the cup to sink, where she kept her small green fish net. This part was delicate, and she didn't want to lose it. Reaching into the cabinet over the sink, she took out a mason jar and set it in the drain before beginning.
You only lost a few of them down the sink before you got smart about it.
Tipping the cup over the net, Doctor Winter poured out the tea as she strained the liquid, looking for the memory. The cup was heavier than it had been full, and Winter just knew there would be something juicy at the bottom. It joggled as she tipped the cup over, and a large, white, rubbery thing fell into the net with a wet slap. It was a little smaller than a fist, the center glowing a little as it winked like a firefly. Winter tipped it into the jar, pouring some tea on top of it before she put the lid on, lifting it up to have a look.
It was like ice as it floated at the midpoint, and if Doctor Winter looked closely, she could see the horrific face of the creature as it got in Janet's face and delivered its terrible proclamation.
Doctor Winter smiled as she put the jar in the cupboard, several other colorful balls of semi-liquid winking in the dark space.
---
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