Where skin sleeps

I stared off into the endless winding road. It seemed to go on forever. Luckily, the ice was thin and harder to slide on, which calmed my nerves a little. Tall trees lined the road, making it look like we were making no progress and just going in circles. But from the GPS, I could tell we were getting closer to the lodge. “2 and a half hours until you reach your destination,” the robotic voice read out.

From the windshield, I finally saw a new sight: a tree halfway down, the top touching the ground while the base of the tree was still rooted into the soil. The tree next to it was close enough for it to be the perfect spot for a hammock, if it weren’t so cold.

“We’re getting closer,” I said, briefly looking over to the passenger side. Laura was halfway asleep, probably couldn’t even hear me, so I left her alone. The quietness is bound to be the death of me, that or the icy roads when the sun fully goes down.

An hour passes, the day growing darker. My heart was heavy, knowing if anything happens I’d be fully responsible. The driving is fully up to me because Laura doesn’t even have her permit. I could tell the ice was getting thicker the further we go down the winding road. I felt an uneasy feeling in my stomach, the kind where you know something bad is going to happen.

My grip tightened on the wheel, my knuckles sweaty and red. Laura lets out a cough. My breath hitches at the unexpected noise. My eyes rush to look over. She is wiping her face, glancing out the window then at me.

“God, you scared me,” I say, looking back at the road.

“Are we almost there?” she asks, looking at the small GPS built into the dash.

“Almost,” I respond, easing my grip on the wheel.

A light mist slowly covers the ground, swallowing the trunks of trees that surround the car. Condensation builds up on the windshield, small drips of water trailing along the frame of glass. The headlights of the car seem to barely be doing anything against the rising fog. My worry grows fast.

“Harp, do you wanna pull over or something?” Laura asks, looking at me with a face full of concern.

“You look very nervous,” she follows up, looking out the windshield at the fog.

“No, no, I’m fine,” I reply, obviously lying. I was not fine at all.

“Okay,” she says, not buying what I said.

I didn’t notice how tense I was. I was practically hunched over the wheel trying to see. While peering off into the endless white fog, I could see something in the road: tall and lanky. I slammed my foot on the brakes, but the ice made the car slide. It wouldn’t stop. The thing in the road only got closer. I quickly turned the wheel, hoping to swerve past it.

It all happened so fast, and all I could do was watch it unfold.

I woke up, coming in and out of consciousness. I could feel tiny shards of glass laid across my lap. It was so dark. I called out for Laura. I don’t even know if she answered because all I could hear was ringing. I couldn’t even hear my own voice.

When I finally was conscious enough to drag myself out of my seat belt, I realized my door wouldn’t open. I crawled through the shattered window and hollered again for Laura, tripping and crawling to the passenger side of the car.

The ice was cold on my stomach, but I almost couldn’t feel it. I could see nothing. All I could do was feel. I felt for my phone in my pocket.

Shit—I put it in my bag in the back seat.

I just lay there, feeling defeat, the cold breeze hitting the trail of tears on my face.

“Harp?” I heard a muffled voice.

I looked up.

“Laura, are you okay?” my voice trembling.

“I can’t get my seatbelt off,” she said. I followed the noise of her struggling, the sliding noise of her seatbelt being my only guide. Feeling around the car, I found her door handle and opened it, throwing my hands around trying to feel for her.

I hear a click along with a sigh of relief.

“I got it,” she said, her hand grabbing mine. Gosh, her hands were cold.

“We need to get the bags from the back seat,” I say, frantically searching for them.

“Ow,” she yelps, pulling her hand back. My eyes have adjusted somewhat to the dark, but not enough to see what happened.

“Something cut me,” she says.

“Probably the glass from the window,” I respond, still looking for the bags.

“No… it’s a phone,” she reaches out in front of her again, grabbing it carefully.

“How can you tell?” I ask. All I could see were her pale arms bringing the object closer.

“It won’t turn on, the screen is shattered,” she exclaims. I could hear her clicking the button.

I put my head down. “What do we do, Laura?” My salty tears burn a scratch on my cheek.

“We’re gonna have to find some sort of shelter,” she begins searching for the bags. I do the same.

Eventually, I can feel the soft fabric of my duffel.

“I found one,” a sigh of relief exits my mouth.

With all the force in my body, I pull the bag out of the car and onto my lap. Laura crawls out not long after with a small blue backpack around her arm. I pull her arms, helping her off the wet ground. I hug her so tightly, her breath hitching from the lack of space between us.

“Do we wait in the car until daylight?” I ask, our faces close enough to feel the hot breath leaving my mouth.

“I think we should look around for better shelter, maybe a cave or look for civilization,” she says, standing up quickly. She is swaying a bit like she had just left a bar.

“I don’t think anyone lives out here. We’d see lights,” I respond, standing up next to her, holding her arm to support each other.

“It won’t hurt to look…” she says, glancing up at the sky, the stars being the only light for miles.

“But it could… what about frostbite or hypothermia?? Come on, Laura, that’s crazy.” The snow was still falling around us, every snowflake sending shivers down my spine.

“Look, is that a cave up there?” she points up into the dark forest.

“I think those are just rocks, Laura…” I could see what she was talking about, but to me it looked like big boulders.

“No, no, that’s a cave. Look at the opening between the rocks,” she glances back at me then back towards the forest.

I stay quiet, looking into the woods.

“Why don’t we at least just check?” she says, pulling my arm.

I grab my duffel and follow her, looking back at the wreckage of my car. The snow was deep. My feet made large holes with every step I made. Part of me doubted Laura. What if we get there and it’s just a pile of rocks? But I still followed, hoping she was right.

“I’m sorry for getting you into this, Laura. It’s my fault we’re in this mess,” I say, tears forming in my eyes again.

“You didn’t cause the ice, or that animal to be in the road, Harp,” she says, holding my hand tighter.

“So you saw that thing too?? What was it?” I respond. I forgot about the creature completely until now. My mind races back to that moment of it standing in the road. That was no animal.

“It was probably a deer. They cause so many accidents,” she replies.

I know that wasn’t a deer. It was almost human-like. Just thinking of it makes me paranoid of what could be in these woods.

The crunching of the snow is loud. With every step I take, it seems to get louder. We are approaching the mouth of the cave. She was right—it is a cave… a feeling of hope washes over me. We could survive this.

“I told you!!” Laura says, ducking her head to enter.

“Wait, we don’t know what could be in there,” I say, tugging her back.

“It’s fine, Harp. We won’t go far in it,” she says, looking at me with reassurance.

We are far enough in it to be protected from the wind and falling snow. I immediately sit down, feeling exhausted. The adrenaline has almost completely worn off and I can feel the scratches on my body.

“Wait, do you have a lighter in your duffel?” she asks.

I unzip the bag, rummaging through it, feeling for a lighter. My heart almost stops when I find one.

“My dad’s Zippo,” I pull it out, the metal frame cold in my hands. I never once used the Zippo because it was given to me when my dad died, running my finger over his engraved name.

“Oh thank God,” she exclaims.

“Now we just need something to burn,” I say, opening the Zippo for little light.

I pull out my notebook from my bag. It’s where I wrote everything, but in the moment, survival is on my mind. I rip pages out and hold them up to the flickering flame, placing them on the ground.

“We need something else,” Laura says, searching before the fire dies out.

There are leaves and sticks in the cave from fall, I assume. They are protected from the snow. I add them to the dying fire. The leaves catch fire fast.

I search through my duffel for anything else to burn. I have extra clothes I packed.

“Should I burn some of my clothes?” I ask, taking out a pair of sweatpants.

“Yes!” she replies, throwing sticks onto the fire.

I ball the sweatpants up and throw them onto the flame, raising my hands over the warm fire. It is growing rapidly, lighting up the entrance of the cave.

I dump everything in my bag onto the ground looking for anything useful. I have more clothes and sweatshirts.

“Here,” I toss some over to Laura to use to keep warm.

“Wait, where’s your backpack?” I ask, searching around for it.

“What backpack?” she responds, putting the sweatshirts over her legs.

“The blue one?? The one you were carrying,” I feel crazy.

“I couldn’t find it. It’s still in the car,” she says, putting her hands over the fire too.

“What? You had it with you when we were walking up here.” Was I hallucinating all of that?

“No, I didn’t.”

I go quiet, thinking back to me pulling her out of the car. The backpack was around her arm. No way I made that up.

She was still shaking from the shock of the crash. Maybe I was too… but I couldn’t tell.

The fire crackles as it slowly burns the wood. The ember is so pretty.

I try to get my mind off the pain that is slowly creeping up on me, breaking more twigs and throwing them into the fire.

I sit back against the cave wall and rest my eyes. My head is throbbing to the point where my vision is blurry. I close my eyes and imagine myself at the beach, the sun lingering on my skin, my feet in the warm sand.

Suddenly the image turns blurry. The clouds cover the sun. A shiver goes down my spine.

At the ocean, there is a man, his face distorted as he walks closer to me. His body morphs into some unidentifiable creature, and suddenly the cawing of seagulls turns into screams nearby.

I can’t get up. As much as I tug on my legs, they won’t budge. The skin on my legs becomes ice cold. I don’t realize my breath is hitched as the thing gets closer. My eyes startle open.

The fire is almost burned. I must have fallen asleep.

I slide my hands across the cold cave ground looking for sticks to add as the light is being swallowed by darkness. I reach into my bag and throw a sweater onto the dying fire, blowing at the ember to make it ignite. I let out a sigh of relief when the sweater catches fire. I break some more twigs and throw them into the flame.

I lean back against the cave wall again, my eyes panning over to Laura.

Where is she?

I get up so fast I become dizzy and almost fall.

“LAURA,” I call out into the silent forest.

Dread creeps up my back. She wouldn’t just leave like that, not in this weather.

I step out of the cave. The fog pools around my feet like smoke.

“Laura?” My voice is quieter than before. My own voice makes me look over my shoulder in fear.

The wind whistles through the trees and under the low whistle I begin to hear a soft hum, slightly off key.

“Laura? What the fuck.”

It is her humming—I know it. Some relief hits me knowing she is okay. I follow the low hum, pushing through the limbs of trees, and I see her. Her back is turned to me.

“Jesus, Laura…”

She doesn’t face me. Snowflakes fall into her hair. I reach out my arm to touch her shoulder. Her neck turns toward me with a slight smile on her lips.

“Why didn’t you answer me?” I say, my arms back over my chest.

“Y-you fell asleep,” she says, her lips barely moving.

“Aren’t you cold?” I ask, motioning for her to come back to the cave.

She hesitates, but follows me anyway.

“You scared the hell out of me,” I say as we make our way through the trees.

“I didn’t mean to,” she answers, her voice flat, almost hollow.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes.” Her answer comes too quickly. An uneasy feeling washes over me.

“Okay…” I respond, following the low light back to the cave.

We both sit down near the fire. She sits across from me, staring into the cave. My eyes linger on her. I have to make sure she doesn’t wander off again. Her eyes are eerily wide, like she has seen something.

“Are you cold?” I say. The skin around her lips is a light shade of blue.

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes do not leave the dark pit of the cave.

I throw more sticks onto the fire, as many as I can. Just in case I fall asleep again.

I hold my numb hands above the fire, thinking Laura would too, but she sits fixated on the darkness of the cave.

“Why don’t you warm up?” I say, trying to start a conversation.

She turns her head toward me, not the fire, but toward me. I can hear her bones shifting in her neck as she turns.

“No thank you, Harper,” she says. For the first time ever, she calls me Harper. She never calls me Harper.

I am beginning to be afraid of her. Something is off. Her eyes look like endless voids with no emotion, her pupils dilated as they scan the cave.

My eyelids feel heavy and my skin is cold to the touch. My blinks become longer, and before I know it, I fall back asleep.

Even through my thick injured head, I can feel Laura’s presence like sleep paralysis. I can sense her eyes lingering on me.

I am awoken near dawn. The stars are harder to see as the sun slowly rises. A small sliver of hope washes over me like the falling fog.

My eyes wander from the opening of the cave to the fire. Shivers jolt me fully awake like a morning coffee mixed with frostbite.

The fire has completely died down. I do not even bother to light it back up. With the sun rising, I hope cars will come through and notice the accident. For all I know, it could have already been discovered.

Laura has completely slipped my mind. She is gone. The clothes I threw on her to keep her warm are laying on the cold stone floor.

I check around, getting up from the ground. As I look outside at the trees to find her, a noise startles me—clawing.

I let out a subtle gasp. The way the cave echoes makes it sound like it is coming from all around me. I stare into the void of the cave.

“Laura?” I say in almost a whisper.

Louder, I repeat myself. “Laura.”

No response.

As I step closer to the darkness, I hear a voice—hopefully Laura’s voice.

“High beams,” it whispers.

“Bright bright bright,” it chants.

“Laura?” I ask once again.

I can hear the sound of bones cracking, like whatever it is is turning to face me, snapping its neck in the process.

I step back. The morning sunrise gleams into the dark cave. Not entirely, but enough to see Laura’s face.

Something is wrong. Her face looks normal, but there is something uncanny about it, like it is not her but something wearing her skin.

My eyes widen as I stare into her soulless face, like I am observing a horror art piece. Her skin sags around her jaw like she aged overnight. She is staring my way, but not at me—behind me.

While staring at her, she begins to approach, turning into a full sprint toward me.

I cannot help but close my eyes in the moment.

She darts—not toward me—but past me, into the trees. Not the way back to the road, but deeper into the forest like some animal.

In that moment, I stand there. I do not know what to do. I am not following that thing, but a large part of me fears what it did to Laura. I have to think logically. Maybe the crash messed with her head, I think.

I step out of the cave, grabbing my bag. The snow crunches under my feet. Instead of chasing after her, I make my way back to the car. Maybe I can signal for help.

Following the footprints in the snow leading up to the cave, I realize there is only one path of footprints—mine.

There is no trace of Laura’s steps. I turn to look for any evidence of her footprints. There is none.

I think maybe the snow covered them up, but mine would have been covered too.

My head spins. I am supposed to be at a getaway with my best friend. Now I just want to be home, safe.

I can see the tire tracks in the snow, leading up to the totaled car. I feel the dark circles under my eyes like I just crawled out of hell. I guess my hell is surviving a crash with my best friend, and said friend turns into some animal.

Laura’s blue backpack is hanging out the open passenger door, along with clothes. The shirt Laura was wearing… the one she still has on.

I get closer to the clothing. My brain refused to process what it is. It looks like pale fabric, too smooth… too still.

Then I see it… her face… her hollow, eyeless face staring back at me.

There is zero blood and no bones in her body. She looks like wax melted from a candle.

My knees hit the snow, numbing them on impact. I am staring at what is left of Laura, a pile of literal skin. My brain cannot accept it. It looks like her, but if she was pressed empty. The shape is there, but hollow. Her mouth is stuck open and her nose deflated.

I cannot breathe. My mouth begins to water and my lips quiver. Before I know it, I am throwing up, my empty stomach becoming even more empty.

In that moment, I realize I spent the whole night in a cave with something that was not Laura. Something that was wearing her skin.

Somehow, over my cries, I can hear the rumble of a truck approaching.

I stand up fast, my eyes wandering back to the passenger seat, making me gag. I run out into the road, waving my arms.

Around the winding road, I see the small blue truck driving slowly toward me.

“Help!” I call out, my voice weakened.

The truck completely stops in front of me. I immediately rush to the passenger side, hopping in the truck on instinct.

“My friend is dead,” I say. The words coming out of my mouth hit me. Laura is dead.

The man looks at me, not saying a word. I hear the soft click of the door locking. A smile creeps on his face, making wrinkles in his skin.

He looks at me just like she did. There are twitches in his face, like something under his skin is moving.

In that moment, I realize I am alone—the only person in these woods.