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Lori Loud was not a happy camper.

See that’s what we call something of a double-entendre, because not only was Lori one of those delightful young ladies that took personal offence to practically everything under the sun depending on her personal mood, she also wasn’t exactly the outdoorsy sort.

Nature, who needs it? It was icky, it was grody, and there were bugs and snakes and all sorts of nasty things and worst of all there was hardly any reception! Nope, as far as she was concerned her and Mother Nature were not on speaking terms.

So, when Mom and Pops had proposed a little familial camping excursion to just get away from it all for a few days you can imagine her excitement. It went about as well as can expected, the ‘rents were resolute in their little perceived bonding experience and weren’t about to back down.

“It’ll be good for you,” her mom had said, in that faux-sweet mom voice she always used when what she really meant was, ‘We’re doing this, end of discussion.’

“Your mother’s right sweetheart,” her father had chimed in. “It’s good to get out for a few days, just leave all this technology behind and spend some quality time with family!”

Uh, newsflash Dad, pretty sure people have been trying to spend literally all of history getting away from the woods, that’s why we invented houses and cellphones, duh! Also, quality time, really? Like we don’t see enough of each other crammed into one house? There’s eleven of them, every day is practically a Hallmark Channel special on learning a valuable life lesson or some other bullcrap.

The whole thing was stupid as far as she was concerned, but apparently her opinion didn’t mean much around here because a few days later they all crammed into the ole Rustbucket and rattled on down the highway for a good four hours before making their way to some kind of super fancy brand new campsite.

At least they weren’t going back to their usual place at Scratchy Bottom Campgrounds. Turns out a whole clan of crazy homeless people were living in the caves and raiding campsites, so they had to shut it down and get the National Guard involved, it was this whole big thing apparently.

Yeah, suddenly all those wild stories Lincoln told about scary hill people hiding in the trees watching him pee in the woods weren’t so funny anymore.

Needless to say, that was the last straw for Rita and Lynn Sr., and after that whole fiasco the kids entertained the notion that maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t have to be put through the downright tortuous experience of camping ever again!

Alas! It was not to be…

By the time Rustbucket had actually made it to the campsite it was well into the afternoon which meant the family had to scramble to get their campsite in order for the night. You’d think after years’ worth of camping they’d have gotten it down to pat by now, but Lori had long since accepted that the only time this family surprised you was when everything went right for a change.

The twins were no help, Lisa kept rattling off bear attack statistics, Leni – somehow?! – fell into a stream, Luan wouldn’t shut up, Luna wrapped herself up in a tent trying to set it up, Lincoln and Lucy ran off to go look for friggin’ Bigfoot, Dad set himself on fire, and about a hundred other things that could’ve gone wrong did and, like always, the Loud’s still somehow managed to reign in the inherent chaos that followed them around just enough so that everything turned out just fine in the end; which just pissed her off even worse because now she had nothing to even complain about!

Taking in a deep breath through her nose Lori held it for a moment, then let it all out in one long airy groan.

Truly, to be her was to suffer.

That first night was, admittedly, not that bad. They’d managed to get a nice fire going, and they all sat around it laughing and telling stories and just enjoying the heat and satisfaction of being together. And in that moment Lori might’ve thought that this was nice, and that maybe there really was something to this whole camping thing after all, and she wondered why exactly she was so against this in the first place.

She was reminded the next morning when she woke up stiff, cold, and grumpy from sleeping on the ground. She noted with particular disdain how Leni had hogged the quilt they’d brought from home all to herself and gave her sister a good kick for her troubles before crawling out of the tent to the smell of bacon and eggs and the sounds of squabbling siblings, per usual.

From that point on things had progressed the way they usually did for the Louds, with no small amount of anarchy, accidents, and maybe just a smidgen of occasional violence to liven things up. Like when Mom found out Lana had been stuffing snakes into her sleeping bag, or when Dad left those sausages out and raccoons attacked them one night, or Lucy’s scary stories around the campfire keeping everyone up the next night, or how about when Leni fell in the stream… again!

Oh yes, there may have been a change in venue, but it was shaping up to be a usual Loud camping trip alright, and like usual the worst offender was, you guessed it, none other than that little twerp Lincoln!

Now, no doubt some folks out there who thought they knew Lincoln would be aghast at such a notion. Lincoln, they’d scoff, as if! But they didn’t know what Lori knew, and what Lori knew was that no matter how hard he tried otherwise that boy was a magnet for trouble. He couldn’t help it! No matter what he did it always ended up biting not only him but all of them in the butt later.

He tried; she couldn’t fault him for that, and it’s not like he ever meant to mess up. And he was young, it happens, and it wasn’t like he was the only one either, but he was almost thirteen now, it was time for him to man up a little. She knew why he did it, she knew better than any of them how much it hurts to have an empty place on that trophy shelf, how much it eats you up inside until it’s all you can think about. Heck, it took her until High School to get hers from that golf tournament, and she still thinks about it sometimes…

Whatever, he needs to grow up. Besides, it’s not her job to worry about it, that’s literally Mom and Dad’s job. When they can be bothered to do it, that is.

Which, apparently, wouldn’t be now if her traipsing about the woods was any indication!

Lori’s scowl deepened as she marched along the dirt path – one of the many hiking trails that dotted the camping area her parents had chosen. Why anyone would willingly choose to walk through the woods was beyond her but that was neither here nor there.

Lori stopped in her tracks and raised a hand over her eyes as she peered down the trail. She scanned the horizon for a moment or two, but quickly sighed in annoyance and defeat when she couldn’t make out the telltale signs she was looking for.

For a second, she stood there, hands on her waist and tapping her feet, then looked upward and sneered at the early day sun just barely making its way through the sky. It was very nearly afternoon now and if she didn’t find him soon…

Lori looked down the path, raised her hands up around her mouth, and called out:

“LINCOLN LOUD! YOU GET YOUR LITTLE BUTT BACK HERE THIS INSTANT!”

The echoes of Lori’s cry hung in the air for a good few seconds, wafting through the woods like some irate breeze of ill portent. Lori waited for about half a minute before letting out a primordial shriek of wrath that sent small animals a mile around and children the next campsite over fleeing for their lives.

Lori wasn’t a happy camper.

Grumbling and snarling and swearing to herself Lori kicked at the dirt trail and stomped her new hiking boots (totes fab by the way, thanks for noticing) and blew billows of vengeful steam as white froth flew from her maw in a maneuver of sheer unbridled teenage immaturity that usually only Bobby had the privilege of witnessing.

This was, officially, shaping up to one of the worst days of her life. Not only was she forced to go around waltzing through the woods when she could be home where they had working toilets and wifi, now she had to deal with this bullcrap!

Lincoln Loud was, in her honest opinion, a little twerp but still overall a good-ish kid. He messed up, but that was usually because he tried to be smarter than his own good. And he was smart, or at least Lori thought he was smart enough to not go around running through the woods without permission!

And yet, here we are! What should have started out as a normal day (as normal as you can get with this family) was instead a mad scramble as Lori woke up to Dad looking over a pilfered campsite and Mom frantically calling out for Lincoln, who apparently wasn’t in his tent. Lynn and Lucy – who’d been bunking with him – hadn’t noticed him leave and Mom was starting to get a bit frantic. Naturally, it fell onto Lori as the oldest to go look for him, and when she did catch him, she was going to beat his little ass for making Mom worry like that!

In the midst of her temper tantrum Lori noticed something that gave her pause, though admittedly did little to assuage her anger. Blood boiling and eyes smoldering Lori stomped her way up to the tree line and glowered.

There, hanging almost innocuously off a branch of a low-lying bush as it fluttered in the light breeze, was a bright orange piece of fabric.

Great, Lori thought as she huffed and threw her hands up. So not only did Lincoln sneak out before everyone else woke up, he tore one of his shirts. Great, no, fantastic!

Lori ripped the piece of shirt off the branch and sneered at it, as though it were the source of all her earthly woes. Might as well be, it came off him at any rate.

Lori sighed, rolled up the strip into a little ball, then clenched her fist so tight her knuckles went white before stuffing it into her pocket. For a moment she stood there, as if in thought, but in truth she knew what she had to do.

Lori cast one last glance over her shoulder, her eyes sweeping down the trail she’d just traveled and up to the bend almost longingly. Back there was camp, back there was food and comfort and company and all the things that makes a person feel safe and warm. She stared for a second longer before turning back to the trees that loomed overhead. Before her stood the dark, the unknown, the deep recesses of nature that man left behind when he chose his houses of wood and stone and his little patches of dirt to till and plow. Out there was danger, out there was loneliness.

Out there was Lincoln.

Lori took a deep breath, let it out in a huff, and stepped forward.

That little twerp had no idea what he’d just gotten himself into.

Lori Loud was not a happy camper.
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Lori brushed aside another good handful of leaves and twigs with a snarl and a swear on her lips.

Yet again Lori asked herself how anyone could find enjoyment in all this camping rot, especially the hiking part. Setting up a tent, sure, alright. Getting a nice fire going? You get s’mores and campfire stories! But hiking? Yeah, no thanks.

An errant twig scrapped against her arm, leaving a thin white line, barely a scratch, in its wake. Lori snatched it up, snapped it off at the base of the branch, and smacked it against a tree until it was naught but splinters.

Those who knew Lori would no doubt express shock at this. The Lori they knew would’ve ripped the whole branch off!

But time dilutes all things and the deep wellspring of Lori’s wrath had begun to finally run dry. Oh, she was still pissed, make no mistake, but rage had begun to smolder into a lingering sense of irritation as yet another emotion began to stir in Lori’s breast to wrest away her attentions. It had always been there mind, its muffled voice drowned out by the vengeful bellowing of Lori’s rage, but with every step the bellowing grew quieter and the feeling only grew stronger and stronger until it could no longer be ignored.

Worry. Lori Loud was worried.

Well, of course she was worried! Who wouldn’t be worried in her shoes?! Her little brother – her only brother – was alone out in the middle of the woods without anybody with him. Nobody even knew where he was, they all just woke up to find themselves Lincoln-less and as far as Lori was concerned it was just about the worst thing to wake up feeling. Mom and Dad were practically beside themselves and Leni and Lily were crying, then Lynn wanted to go off and look for him and everyone was scared, and it sucked, it sucked big time.

So yeah, she was worried. Didn’t mean she wasn’t going to tan his hide when she found him though, scaring them all like that. What was he thinking!?

…what was he thinking?

Look, Lori liked to pick on him, sure, and maybe he didn’t always think things through, but Lincoln wasn’t stupid, far from it. Lincoln was smart, too smart to pull something like this. He wouldn’t just run off, not without reason. Truth be told the little dork didn’t take to things like hiking much better than she did, and what little adventurous moments he did indulge in were likely the result of something catching his eye or because he got it into his head that there was something to be gained.

Like she said, too smart for his own good, always scheming. She didn’t really have anything against scheming in and of itself, in their house attention and resources were spread thin and to get either you had to be crafty. No, her issue was that Lincoln wasn’t half as good at it as he thought he was.

But this… what was the point? Lincoln didn’t do anything without a point and as far as she could tell he had nothing to gain from just up and leaving before anyone had woken up. He must’ve known the rest would’ve been worried if they woke up and he was gone.

Maybe he’d gotten up to pee and just got turned around? Kept walking back only he went the wrong way? But why would he go off so deep into the woods just to pee anyhow? The tree line was more than fine, he knew better than to go out of sight of the camp.

And why was the camp all torn up? What was he looking for…?

Lori bit her bottom lip and wrenched another branch out of her way as she stumbled onward through the brush. It was harder than it looked, she mused, almost tripping on a rock hidden by the leaf litter. The ground was uneven, and the plants get in the way and there’s so many rocks and about a hundred other things movies never tell you about the woods.

Lori had been up for a little over an hour now and about half of that time had been spent out and about looking for Lincoln, all in all she’d say she stepped off the trail a good fifteen minutes ago. By all accounts that’s fifteen minutes too long to spend in the woods.

Kicking a rock at a tree Lori wondered how she let herself get into these messes. Must be because she’s so empathic, a regular bleeding heart, too nice for her own-

Lori’s blood ran cold, and her head shot straight up as she peered intently far off into the woods.

…was that?

…did she?

Did she hear something, just then?

Could’ve sworn she did…

Lori remained silent and still, her body rigid and her eyes peeled as she scanned the woods in the direction she thought she heard the noise. It was faint, far away by the sounds of it, if she had heard anything at all that is.

All around she could hear the sounds of animals, squirrels in their trees and birds calling to each other, but this didn’t sound like any of that. It sounded like… well, like a voice.

Like a person.

Lori’s eyes narrowed ad she cupped her hands around her mouth.

“Lincoln!” she called out, her voice resonating through the woods and bouncing off the trees to cast an ominous echo. “Lincoln! Are you there!”

The only answer she received were the last vestiges of her own voice hanging in the air, taunting her. And after that, silence. Lori stood in place, and for a moment wondered whether she should have said anything at all, frozen by some inexplicable… feeling.

Then, suddenly, a bird chirped, and slowly but surely the sounds of the forest came back, albeit cautiously, no longer so loud as they were before. The woods felt tense, and so did she.

Lori looked out into a sea of green and shuffled her feet.

She knew she’d heard something just then; she’d heard a voice out there and as much as she didn’t want to set another foot out into those woods, she also knew that she was going to go check on it. The chance that it might be Lincoln was just too big to ignore, and the very thought that she would go back to camp without him was out of the question.

“I’m gonna kill that twerp,” she muttered, and set out in the direction that she could’ve sworn she heard something, twigs and leaves crunching underfoot as she made her way deeper into the forest.
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One thing Lori noticed as she delved into those woods was that the further she went the less light there seemed to be. It wasn’t that is was growing darker or anything, the sun was still fairly in the east and the sky still faintly red in that vibrant early-morning color, it was just… there was less light to go around. The trees seemed to grow closer together, so close at times that only the thinnest streams of light peeked down from between broad, green leaves, and it was as if a pallid gloom had been cast on the forest at large.

Where once it seemed green and inviting it was now grey and foreboding, and all around the trees loomed over her, closing in on her like she was an intruder, and Lori no longer felt nearly so sure of herself pressing onwards.

Another thing she noticed was that walking through the woods was much more difficult than the movies made it out to be. Like, you ever watch a horror movie where the main girl is running through the woods in high heels with the killer enjoying a nice, brisk walk behind them? Killer’s got the right idea. You just try and run through all this, go ahead! Not only were there bushes to push through but that hardly mattered because the leaf litter was more than sufficient at tripping her up with hidden rocks and sticks and other surprises, especially with the lack of light to hinder her.

It wasn’t like it was so dark she was blind or anything, she could still see, but it wasn’t at all pleasant. Kinda creepy actually…
Lori huffed to herself, letting just a hint of the agitation that was bogging her down reflect in her tone as she cupped her hands in front of her mouth and called out:

“Lincoln! Can you hear me!?”

Lori’s voice rang out loud throughout the trees, desperate and anxious, and by the time the echo came back to her it had become warped, distorted, as though the forest itself was mocking her.

Well, that thought certainly wasn’t helping her nerves!

When Lori had first set off after that mysterious sound, she’d had nothing on her mind but her brother, and in her mind, it had seemed a simple task. Track him down, give him a hiding he wouldn’t soon forget, and then drag him by his ear back to camp after making him swear on his own grave that he wouldn’t do anything like that ever again. But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, which is just a fancy way of saying the world hates you and something’s going to go wrong eventually, and right now Lori was starting to really feel like she’d screwed up.

See, it hadn’t occurred to her until just now actually that she probably shouldn’t be wandering around the woods.

Lori stopped and considered her actions and where they had led her. She’d found evidence that Lincoln had gone off the trail, and instead of going back and telling someone she went off to go find him by herself. She thought she heard him call for help – something she still wasn’t entirely sure she heard at all – and she went after it. And now she was walking through the dark and creepy forest, again, all by herself! Alone!

Nobody even knew where she was…

Lori mulled this over for a moment, took a deep breath, and then screamed her ever-living lungs out.

When the last vestiges of her frustration had faded from the air Lori hung her head in her hands and tried her best to stifle a sob.

This sucked. She was lost in the woods, stomping around like an idiot, and she was no closer to actually finding Lincoln than when she started. Why, he was probably back at camp right now! Wouldn’t that be something, and now they’d have to go out and try to find her dumb—

There was a crash, the sound of branches cracking and falling to the ground as loud as a gunshot in the stillness of the air. A shadow passed over Lori’s face and she shrieked and ducked low as a gust of wind blew over her. There came the general impression of a shape, of feathers and sharp eyes glaring out from the dusk, sharp talons poised and ready.

It came just as soon as it went and almost immediately the fear in Lori’s heart was replaced with annoyance and a fair amount of misery on her part.

“Just a stupid owl,” Lori muttered to herself, tight-lipped and blushing as she stood up straight and brushed the leaves off her shirt. She glared at the bird as it weaved between the trees and out of sight and sighed to herself, shaking her head as she let out a chuckle.

Well that was something. Getting spooked by a bird of all things, lol! Good thing nobody else was here or else she’d literally—

Another shape whizzed by overhead and Lori flinched, went still for a second, then frowned and growled to herself as a cardinal went sailing into the forest behind her.

Right then, that’s two birds now.

Lori huffed and took a step and when something brown shot by above her head, snapping a twig off a branch to crash into the leaves below, she turned and glared.

…three. Three birds.

And suddenly the forest was alive.

Lori screamed and threw herself to the ground as the world around her exploded into a cacophony of noise and movement, hands firmly pressed over her head as birds of all sizes and shapes and species swarmed above her head, surging forward into the forest.

There were no calls. No caws or chirps or screeching to speak of. The only sounds they made were the beating of their wings and rustling of branches and leaves as they tore through the treetops, each bird straight as an arrow and not even trying to bob and weave around the trees as they should.

It was as if each one was stuck in the same mindset, a single-minded pursuit, so desperate to achieve their goal that nothing else registered.

And when the last of the birds had fled, and the noise had grown distant until finally dying away to allow that horrible, ominous silence to once again fill the world around her, Lori finally got to her hands and knees and looked around.

The forest was quiet. The birds had left. But why? What made all those animals just… do all that? What even was that!? Lori didn’t know much about nature, but she didn’t entertain for even a second that what she just went through was by any stretch normal.

Looking off to her side Lori saw something sticking out of the leaves that made her heart sink.

Crawling forward on her hands and knees she made her way over and looked down with a small frown at the shattered body of a crow. Its wings were broken, and its little chest heaved as it slowly died, and even though Lori never much cared for crows and their raucous caws she still had to admit it was beautiful even as it faded away.

She wished she could do something, but knew this was beyond her, and the thought of putting it out of its misery was quickly quashed with feelings of revulsion and, oddly enough, guilt. Must’ve hit a tree, going the way it was. Dumb thing, why’d it go and do a thing like that!? Was it her fault, maybe? Going through the forest like she’d been, did she scare them enough to make them, I’dunno, freak out? Poor creature looked terrified…

Lori resisted the urge to pick it up – maybe give it a little comfort in its last few seconds – and looked deeper into the woods where all those birds had come from. It looked so quiet, so peaceful, like nothing had even happened.

She turned and looked back to where they had gone, to where she had just been. Broken branches and falling leaves signaled their passing, and Lori blinked as the confusion already swirling in her brain really set in. Frantic was the first word that came to mind as she tried to describe their flight, and then followed shortly by panicked.

And then, with a chill, frightened.

They were scared.

And quite suddenly Lori realized well and truly that the birds were flying away from the direction she was going and just what the entailed.

Swerving her head ‘round Lori turned back and gazed deep into the woods from where the birds had emerged, from where they were fleeing, and to where she’d been heading just moments ago. She felt cold staring into those woods, and perhaps it was just a trick of the light or her own paranoid imagination, or did they seem even darker now?

And as Lori stared into those silent, dark woods, an ominous chill descended upon her. She couldn’t move, she could barely breath. She felt cold, and her tummy hurt, and so did her head and her legs but she couldn’t move, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to. She was sure that if she moved, she would… she would die. If she moved even an inch, she would die out here and be gone forever and nobody, not even her family, would know what happened to her.

And in that one moment, frozen in time, Lori was sure she was being watched…

And then, suddenly, and all at once, it passed.

The paranoia, the painful pressure building in her head, that raw, primal fear bubbling up in her stomach, all of it vanished in an instant. Some remnants remained, a deep well of anxiety that still pervaded her senses, but it didn’t seem so real anymore, so pressing and imminent, so visceral in its immediacy.

Lori shook her head, blinked, and then scowled.

Get it together girl, she thought to herself scornfully, this is no time to lose your head, especially over some dumb birds.

Lori put her hands on her knees and pushed herself up with a grunt, wobbling a bit from the sudden rush of blood to her head. Always happened when she stood up too quick, Lisa said it was because she had high blood pressure but what did she know? If Lori had high blood pressure it was because she had to babysit all those little twerps 24/7. God she couldn’t wait until college started, then she could move out and—

“…”

Lori’s head whipped back so fast she could feel her neck crack. Fervent eyes peered into the background, scanning the trees and brush for a shape, for an outline, for a sign that something was there. Nothing stood out immediately, but that did little to assuage the growing pit in her stomach as the remnants of that earlier paranoia began to stir.

She’d heard something. There was nothing to debate anymore, however much she might’ve wanted to deny it she had definitely heard a voice just then. It was as light and airy as a breeze, as faint as the echoes of a whisper, but she had heard it all he same and she wasn’t about to let self-doubt cloud her judgment again.

She wasn’t alone out here…

A soft, pink tongue darted out to whet her lips and Lori gulped down the rising trepidation in her throat as she eyed the forest ahead of her. The part of the forest from which she’d just heard that voice. The part of the forest from where all those birds had just fled. The part of the forest that, now that she was looking at it, seemed to grow ever darker, the verdant greens of the forest landscape blurring away into a gloaming haze ‘neath the shade of the canopy.

Lori breathed deeply and hoped against hope she that what she was about to do, what she knew she had to do, was in fact the right thing to do here.

“L-Lincoln,” she called, wincing as her voice stammered if only because of how pathetic and weak it made her sound. “Is that you? Can you hear me?”

Only the faint echoes of her call answered her query and when those too had faded away Lori was left with the silence of the forest around her.

And what a silence it was! Overpowering, imposing, it dominated the senses with its absence of all things familiar and comforting. There was an emptiness here, an empty void that only grew the more she noticed it, and suddenly Lori became all too aware of what was missing.

She couldn’t hear anything. Gone was the trilling of birdsong that she’d endured ever since she’d first set foot in these woods. Gone was the constant cacophony of insects, the screaming of cicadas and the chirping of crickets, that served as the background noise of forest life. There were no animals, the squirrels chittering to each other in the branches of trees, no noisy beast scuffling through the underbrush, unseen but not unheard, no breaking twigs off in the distance to signify the presence of life. Everything was still, too still, even the air itself seemed to pause before this awesome show of silence.

Like the forest itself was too afraid to even breath…

“Ne… elp…”

Like a gunshot on a still night the voice cut through the silence and Lori felt her heart skip a beat.

That was a voice. Those were words she’d heard. They weren’t clear and she couldn’t make the whole thing out, but she knew she’d just heard someone speak and more importantly than that was she could definitely tell who it was she’d just heard.

“Lincoln!” Lori screamed, racing forward into the forest, headless of the growing darkness and the stillness of the air and no longer concerned with the pervading silence around her. There was nothing else on her mind save for her brother. Get to Lincoln, those three words repeated in her skull one after the other again and again, nothing else mattered except for him. No baseless fears would stop Lori from getting Lincoln back, not when she was this close.

“I’m right here Lincoln just hold on!”

Lori’s heartbeat echoed in her skull as she raced forward, stumbling on roots and rocks and not at all caring when she hit the dirt only to push herself up and forward again. A little scratch never killed anyone, just rub some dirt in it you’ll be fine.

“Ne…d… h…lp”

And there it was again. Faint, distant, but distinct all the same with that youthful, boyish inflection so uniquely Lincoln that it sent her heart fluttering with relief. She’d found him, but what was he saying? The words were choppy, the meaning unclear. It sounded like he was asking something, but what could he…

“…need help…”

A pang of horror shot through Lori’s core.

“Hang on Lincoln I’m coming!” Lori screamed, a hundred and one doomsday scenarios and bloody images racing through her mind as she tried to home in on the sound of his voice. Christ what had happened to him? Hell, what couldn’t have happened to him out here! Did he just get lost, did he trip and twist his ankle? Was his leg broken, did he get attacked by an animal!?

The possibilities, all of them equally horrifying and too terrible to even consider for more than a moment, kept coming, swirling around in her mind though she tried to shake the miserable thoughts away. Lori swore to God in heaven that when she got her hands on him she was going to hug him and kiss him and then twist him into a human pretzel if only so he’ll learn to never run off again and worry her like this!

…ah hell, she was going to smother the ever-loving snot out of him when they got home, wasn’t she?

Pushing an errant branch out of her way Lori made her way ‘round a tree and leaned against it, panting heavily from the exertion. Wow, was she really that out of shape? Maybe she should go join Lynn on those early morning runs. Sucking in a ragged gasp Lori cupped a hand over her mouth and called out:

“Lincoln! Can you hear me? Are you hurt, where are you!?”

Lori listened with baited breath for an answer, waited to hear his voice answer hers, to tell her where he was so she could swoop him up in her arms and carry him back to camp so they could finally go home and get out of this dirty, bug-infested, creepy hell-hole of a forest.

In fact, soon as she got home, she was going to go find Charles’ dog leash and literally tie Lincoln to her waist for the rest of Summer up until she had to leave for college! That’ll teach him to go running off, the little twerp. And after that she was going to—

The silence of the forest shattered and the world around her burst into sound and fury as the woodland brush exploded, scattering sticks and leaves and debris in all directions to whip through the air and across her arms as she tried to shield her face. Lori screamed and fell backwards as an enormous shape, brown and blurry and many-legged, erupted from the bushes, a deep, chesty bellow wracking her senses and sending panic racing through her beating heart.

Cloven hooves battered against the ground, sending a cloud of dirt and grass flying up into the air in the deer’s wake as it plunged on through the underbrush, tearing its way through the thick brambles clinging to its hide in a desperate bid to get away. Its antlers cut a swath through the branches and foliage that impeded it, the tightly coiled muscles rippling under its skin as it flexed and pulled and soon ripped itself clear in a terrifying display of strength.

And then it was free, and Lori watched in a haze as he galloped off. It was as though time itself had frozen as Lori watched the beast flee, its powerful legs kicking out and propelling it forward in this mad, frenzied dash. Her eyes sought out the buck’s but all she could make out were the bright whites of its eyes as they rolled to the back of their sockets, and as it threw its head back to let out another bugle bellow its tongue lolled out spraying flecks of foam about its muzzle.

And then it was gone, leaving nothing but torn turf in its maddening haste to get away. Lori watched the whitetail dart away with wide eyes and an open mouth, shocked still and quiet by the animal’s sudden passing.

All Lori could think of were those eyes, white and wide, and rolling wildly in the sockets. There was panic in those eyes. Fear… no, panic. It wasn’t just running it was fleeing, something had scared the ever-loving crap out of that animal and it was getting the fresh heck outta dodge as fast as it possibly could.

…was it her? Had she scared it, screaming the way she had been.

Lori pushed herself up on shaking legs and shook her head, glaring at the torn bushes where the animal had burst out of.

No, she decided. It wasn’t her. The animal’s eyes… she’d be surprised if it even noticed she was there. She’d seen deer before, see them run from her, and it was always with that same lazy trot, like they knew she was human and so they should go but it was like they also knew she wasn’t a hunter, so they weren’t really so much afraid as they were put off.

This thing? This thing was terrified. She’d never seen anything so scared in her life.

Lori turned to stare off into the direction the buck had sprinted off to, and idly noted that it was going the way she’d came.

And then, like a weight being suddenly dropped into her stomach, Lori realized that the animal had just come racing like a bat out of hell in the direction she was heading.

Just like the birds from earlier…

Whipping her head back Lori peered off into forest. Now up until this point Lori had been handling herself as well as anybody could in her situation. She’d tried to hold it in, tried to stem the tide of growing anxiety, but ever since she’d stepped into these woods there’d been something growing, a feeling both pressing and imminent, in Lori’s stomach. Something cold and empty, an ever-expanding pit that threatened to swallow her whole from the inside out, and now that she’d noticed it, acknowledged it even, that feeling was finally ready to reveal itself in full. And as much as Lori wanted to deny it, wanted to ignore it, she couldn’t deny it.

It was fear.

She was afraid.

It was the same fear she’d felt when she’d woken up to find Lincoln missing. It was the fear she felt when she’d first stepped into these woods, still distant then but there all the same and it only added upon itself witch each passing second, with each unexplainable thing that happened to her.

She disregarded it at first, she paid the warning sin her mind no heed because she couldn’t afford to listen to them then, she was on a mission to find her brother and she was going to do it whether or not she was afraid. But this? This wasn’t some disembodied premonition, nor some ethereal instinct warning her from imaginary peril. Those birds, that deer, those were real. Those animals were terrified, and it was beginning to truly dawn on Lori that perhaps she should be as well.

“Need help…”

Lori’s heart stopped.

The voice rag out in the quiet, loud as hell’s bells and just as ominous.

Yes, ominous. The words no comforted her with visions of her brother’s smiling face. They no longer inspired her with reckless hope and wild abandon. The words seemed marred somehow, a tinge of unknown intent discolored their meaning.

“L-Lincoln?” Lori whimpered, questioning and wary. “That you, Linc?”

“Need help?”

Back stiff, arms rigid at her sides, Lori stared off into the woods, eyes wide and mouth pressed in a thin, white line as she scoured the trees for life.

The voice was… something was different now. It was immediate, so self-evident that her senses could instantly pick up on it. The voice was… something was off about it.

No, Lori thought to herself, not off.

Wrong. The voice was wrong.

It wasn’t Lincoln’s…

Too deep. Too… too guttural. Like it came from deep in the throat. A very, very, big throat. Not at all like Lincoln’s but it was, it had been she knew it was, she’d heard it!

A flash of movement to her left caught Lori’s eye and she turned fast enough to catch the fox just as it cleared the empty space right between the trees. Eyes wide, tongue hanging from its mouth, hackles raised and fur standing on end, the frightened animal vanished from sight just as quickly as it had materialized, its bushy tail disappearing into the bushes with the snap of a twig and nothing else to signify its passing.

“Need help?”

The words no longer carried the same meaning. Gone was the pleading inflection of a child calling for help, supplication had given way to questioning, entreaties had been replaced by interrogation. The voice wasn’t asking for help, it was asking if she needed help.

Why didn’t that make her feel any better?

“H-hello,” Lori answered, pausing to swallow the accumulating consternation that was eating away at her guts. “Um… yeah, I uh… I need some help. My brother’s, uh, missing, and I tried to find him. Think I got lost myself…”

Lori ended her plea with a weak chuckle as she rubbed the back of her head. When no answer came the joviality, no matter how fake, tapered off leaving her awkward and freaked out. What the hell was this? Who was this jerk?

“Are you, like, a ranger or something?” Lori asked, wincing at how much she sounded like Leni there. “Look I really need some help, okay? Can you give me your name or something? Please, my little brother is lost, and I need to find him.”

No answer.

Lori’s brows furrowed and she glared off into the trees. Up above a couple squirrels made a racket racing through the branches, knocking leaves and errant acorns to the ground as they leapt from tree to tree in their mad dash for safety.

Why were they so afraid?

Off in the distance she could make out the faint sounds of something big and heavy moving through the leaf litter, crunching leaves and sticks as it trudged along.

Was that really what a person sounds like going through the forest?

Sounded too… big. Too loud.

“Who are you!?” Lori screamed, her voice breaking as fear and desperation creeped in. Her only answer was the smashing of leaves in the distance.

Off to the side a hare tore through some bushes, its little chest heaving as it went ‘round some trees and was out of sight before Lori could so much as glance at it.

All at once Lori noticed that she was no longer moving towards the sound of the voice. Indeed, she’d been walking backwards this whole time, one step at a time, slowly at first, tentatively, but now quite a bit faster, there was raw urgency to her movements as sluggish as they might’ve been.

Like her body realized the danger her mind had yet to recognize.

A mourning dove flew by her head, the feathers in its wings whipping the air to make that beautiful whistling coo they were known for as it passed. As it left her behind.

As the forest itself left her behind.

Lori finally got the message.

Somewhere in front of her something heavy and wooden and hard was crushed. She could hear it, could feel the wood give way into broken splinters as it was smashed and torn in a hail of violent noise. It was a sound of brutality and more than that it was a promise, one Lori understood on a deep instinctual level beyond the mere confines of the modern human psyche; striking her right in that small part of the brain that still feared snakes and spiders and told her to move the bathtub curtain aside because who knows what could be hiding behind it.

“Need… help?”

Lori’s nerve broke and quick as a flash she took off.

Smashing her way through the forest Lori ran without scream or breath or sob. She kept her mouth shut and her eyes wide, breathing through her nose and guided by her fight-or-flight response. She didn’t know where she was going and right now it didn’t matter, all that did matter was getting away. There was no room for thoughts, no time for logic, all that mattered was being safe, all that could ever matter was getting as far away as possible.

Blind terror gave her muscles strength, got her blood pumping and her adrenaline running hot. For on brief moment Lori was no longer here nor there, she was lost in time within her own personal space, completely separate from the world at large, alone with herself and the only sounds she could hear were the pounding drums in her skull as she ran, one foot in front of the other, striking the earth with each step.

And then, nothing.

Lori fell with a scream and hit the ground hard as she rolled into the dirt and leaves and stones.

She laid there for but a moment, then pushed herself up, panting like she’d just run a marathon. Hell, she probably had all things considered. Rubbing the sore spot where her skull had kissed terra firma Lori glanced over her shoulder and frowned.

It wasn’t a steep drop, but there was a drop there, where the very ground shifted and rolled, and the forest seemed to decline in elevation. Luckily, it immediately rose again, creating a small ditch, like a giant divot in the earth. And a good thing too, Lori didn’t much fancy the idea of rolling down a hill with all these trees and sharp rocks in her path.

Hauling herself up to her feet Lori idly wondered how she hadn’t seen the drop. Granted, she wasn’t really paying too much attention, but you’d think she’d notice a damn ditch in her path. An optical illushion, she could already hear her sister Lisa say in that lisping way of hers, becaushe the foresht continuesh pasht the ditch your depth persheption was desheived.

Oh yeah? Well if you’re so smart Lisa why don’t you fix that lisp of yours? Checkmate.

Somewhere in the distance a stick snapped.

Lori’s heart leapt into her throat and she turned around, eyes wide with a feral glint as she panted from exhaustion. The sound of wood and leaves being crushed mingled with the ominous knell of a low groan emanating unseen from the direction she’d been running.

And it was growing closer.

She’d been followed!

Lori’s panting only grew worse as panic set in, and she quickly glanced about, trying to wrack up some form of plan. She couldn’t run anymore, that was out of the question, but as she turned around fully, she found salvation in the most unlikely of places.

There, just at the ridge of the earth were the mouth of the ditch she was in opened, grew a tree. A mighty tree, an old oak with wide branches and a stout body. What particularly drew her attention however was the multitude of roots sticking out of the ground, exposed thanks to the lack of earth. The roots stuck out and about haphazardly, but the more she looked at it the more a shape seemed to emerge, and it was an all too appealing one given the circumstances.

It looked like a cage, and Lori wondered if she might fit.

“Need… Help…?”

That was all the motivation she needed.

With the echoes of that horrid, deep, unsettling voice echoing in her skull Lori rushed towards the roots and stuck her head through the opening. Just big enough to get the shoulders through, but too shallow for the body. Through desperation was borne drive and Lori dug at the exposed dirt with ragged nails and clawed fingers, scooping away the rich, black soil as she tried to make space for the rest of her body.

The task was arduous, but it was over quickly, and soon Lori found herself nestled among the roots of the oak with her knees pressed tightly to her chest and her back arched sharply, uncomfortable but much too afraid to even acknowledge the cramps. Cradled in this earthen womb of the forest Lori was alone and bare, helpless and afraid as she listened to the sounds crunching leaves above just barely rising above the din of her own voice rattling in her skull.

Idiot, she thought, idiot! What were you thinking! Stupid, stupid stupid! Just had to go and get him, didn’t you! Just had to go in the woods and get him! Didn’t even think that you should’ve gone back to camp and called the ranger, no, just had to go and get him yourself! Just had to wander off and get lost, just had to follow that voice! And now we’re being chased! It’s probably some kind of redneck growing pot out here in the woods or maybe a murderous-lunatic-psycho killer with a chainsaw and a penchant for cutting off woman’s faces and now we’re going to die out here! Dumb bitch, of course it wasn’t Lincoln’s voice!

…but it was, her mind argued, it was Lincoln’s! It sounded just like him…

And that, really, was what scared her the most. It was Lincoln’s voice, she was sure of it, she’d heard it plain as day. It sounded just like him, all plaintive and scared just like when he was a little boy asking for his big sister to come and save him and it was more than enough to get her to come running, to throw caution to the wind and race towards that voice with no heed to the consequences, like it’d been tailormade exactly for her.

And she’d fallen for it, hook-line-and-sinker.

It was a trick, she decided, the forest played a trick on us. It literally happens all the time, hikers get lost because sound works differently out here. The trees mess with the acoustics, I’m sure Lisa’s mentioned it a thousand times.

It was a nice theory, all things considered.

Shame she didn’t believe a word of it.

"Need… Help…?"

Lori’s blood froze and the trembling in her limbs ceased as her whole body went completely still.

Oh God that voice, it was so close now. That horrible, horrible voice…

Lori hated that voice. She hated it for everything it had done to her. She hated it for luring her out into these woods. She hated it for tricking her like this, for impersonating her brother. She hated it for chasing her, for scaring her, for making her think of things like life and death and never seeing her family again, for worrying about how they’ll react when they find her body out here, if they ever did.

But most of all she hated it for how wrong it was. And that’s what it was, it was a wrong voice. Not just an off voice, not just a threatening voice, not just a scary and ugly voice all deep and raspy and hungry, it was wrong. It was wrong in a way that made her head hurt to hear it, wrong in a way that made her stomach churn, wrong in a way that made her want to run and punch and kick and bite and scream get it away, get it away, GET IT AWAY!

"Need… Help…"

And that’s when Lori suddenly knew two very important things.

She knew why the voice was so wrong, why it sounded so wrong on so many levels. It wasn’t just not her brother’s voice; it wasn’t a person’s voice. People didn’t sound like this, this… this guttural, this raspy, and yet at the same time almost whiny, like whatever was talking wasn’t used to it, wasn’t built for it. It sounded like… well it was almost like…

It was like an animal.

Like one of those little videos you pull up where a dog or a cat says, ‘I love you,’ or something like that in that creepy-cute way that makes the owner gush and can make you laugh even though you kinda cringe at the same time. It wasn’t just the tone or the inflection, it was the absurdity behind it. These were things that shouldn’t talk and seeing videos of them doing that ‘almost-talking’ hit that special mix of curiosity, humor, and ‘Woah!’ factor. Like it makes you flinch the first time you hear it, but then you laugh it off because its sorta cute. But it’s not cute, not the voices, not really, it’s only cute because it’s a cat or a dog talking and those are cute and them sounding like people is cute because they don’t really understand.

That’s what it sounded like. It sounded like an animal trying to talk like a person. The way it enunciated, the way it almost seemed to taste the words as it talked, trying to sound them out even as it spoke, like talking wasn’t something it could just do like a person could. Like its throat wasn’t made for it.

Biggest difference here was that this wasn’t some cute little dog saying it loves you. It was bigger; much, much, bigger. And this voice was so much deeper, you didn’t so much as hear this voice as you felt it.

And Lori didn’t doubt for a second that whatever was speaking understood what it was doing, what it was saying.

The second thing Lori had been made aware of was that it was directly above her.

It came smashing through the trees as it spoke, it came with a hurricane of noise as it plowed through the leaves and dirt and sticks and rocks, huffing as it sent a cloud of forest floor detritus into the air. It grunted, a deep, sharp noise that made her flinch, and when it came snuffling up, sniffing at the ground and rasping as it sucked in huge lungfulls of air, it sounded like a bear.

It’s a bear, the more logical side of Lori’s mind opined.

It’s not a bear, replied the more sensible side.

It sounds like a bear, came the retort.

Bears don’t talk… and that was the end of it.

"Neeeeeeeeeed… Heeeeeelllllllllllp…"

And there it was again, that terrible voice, raspy and guttural and emanating from deep in the throat. Almost like it couldn’t talk like a person could, with lips to shape the words and give them distinction. It had to use its throat to talk.

Something snapped above her, and images of slavering jaws filled with razor-wire teeth filled Lori’s mind.

The snuffling grew louder, grew closer, and to accompany the dreadful noise came a foul stink in the air, pungent and musky enough to make Lori’s eye’s water and her stomach churn. Christ this thing reeked! It was a rank animal stink, almost like wet dog mixed with skunk and Lynn’s unwashed gym shorts; Lori had never visited a barn before, but she imagined this wouldn’t have been far off.

The roots of the tree that housed her creaked and compressed as something large and heavy pressed down on them from above. Lori flattened herself into the dirt as far as she could go.

"See-Smell… Food…"

Lori shut her eyes so tight that tears leaked from the sides and she pressed both hands over her as tightly as possible, trying her best to not sob. The wood creaked again, so close to splintering, and Lori forced her eyes open.

Through the haze in her eyes she saw it. A claw, right above her head, mere inches away from her face. It was black and wickedly curved, and it was hooked around one of the roots. The claw started to move away, and to Lori’s mounting concern it was taking the root with it. Any second now the pressure would be too great, it was already creaking and soon it would snap, leaving a hole. And then the claw would come back and peel away another root, and then another, until there were no roots left.

And then it would come for her.

"See-Smell… Help… Food…"

I’m going to die here, Lori thought, and a strange numbness overcame her. It wasn’t painful this numbing sensation, it was almost… peaceful. In fact, she almost felt like laughing. Laughing and crying and screaming and just closing her eyes and going to sleep. This is it…

Somewhere, off in the distance, hidden and unseen amongst the foliage and the darkness of the forest canopy, something moved, a rustling of leaves and branches amongst the bushes just out of sight.

The shape above growled, a deep, booming sound that Lori could feel in her chest as the hairs on the back of her neck and arms stood up. The roots still surrounding her cracked and shook violently as the shape shifted its weight and then, in a flash of movement, leapt over the ditch twice as wide as she was tall and vanished into a briar patch.

She caught only a glimpse of it. A huge, powerful looking figure, and most oddly of all the only color she could make of that blurry figure in the few precious seconds she had to observe it was white. Just like Lincoln’s hair.

Lincoln…

Oh God, her baby brother was dead, wasn’t he?

Lori waited until the cashing in the forest as the thing ran grew distant, grew dim and faint. She waited until the lingering stink of the monster’s passing no longer stung her eyes and nose with its vitriolic presence. She waited until her limbs no longer shook quite so intensely, until she could feel her limbs again and regain some minor form of control.

And then, slowly, careful not to make a sound, Lori cautiously extricated herself from the cradle of tree roots that held her close. She rose from the ground, marred with mud and dirt, and caked in the remnants of wet leaves. She brushed herself off and cast one last side-long glance in the direction the thing took off in, straining her ears to see if she could make out a sound and noting with satisfaction that she couldn’t.

And then she ran.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lori couldn’t tell you how long she’d been running.

She also couldn’t tell you where she was or where she was going.

She was just running, a flight of panic and terror devoid of thought and reason, and wherever she ended up when her legs inevitably gave out on her would be better than where she was.

And when her legs began to truly hurt, when they started trembling so hard she could barely take another step and her chest was heaving in fiery pain from each breath, she stopped and leaned against a small stripling of a tree and tried to catch her breath, tried to find the energy to keep going.

She sucked in deep gasps of fetid air until her lungs were left brittle and stinging and as she breathed and waited for her legs to stop shaking and burning Lori listened, ears pricked and eyes wide. She heard nothing but her own labored suspiring and took comfort in that.

Lori didn’t fancy her chances of making it out of here alive. But then Lori was a Loud, and Louds weren’t in the business of just giving up. Even if she couldn’t make it out of this forest, she wasn’t about to just hand herself over, if that thing wanted her it was going to have to work for—

*poink*

Lori flinched and reflexively her hand shot up to her head and started rubbing at the sore spot. The pain brought her back to reality and Lori winced as her fingers traced the impact where already a small bump was forming.

Holy Hell that hurt! What even was…

Lori glanced to the ground and her brow furrowed when she spied a small stick just lying there all chill like it hadn’t just gone and plonked her on the noggin’. Which, y’know, begged the question of how on God’s green earth did a stick just—

*plonk*

Lori winced again and growled as a much bigger stick this time around cracked her in the shoulder. Hissing in pain and irritation Lori rubbed the delicate bruise and, eyes flashing, looked around for the very-soon-to-be dead squirrel or raccoon or whatever it was that just went and dropped a stick on her.

Finding nothing on the ground Lori’s eyes traveled up, scanning the tree branches above her. One tree in particular seemed to stick out, a large and healthy-looking maple, its branches wide and strong and its leaves tightly cloistered and when Lori peered into those branches—

A flash of white caught her eyes. A smattering of orange and blue amongst the leaves. The quickest, briefest glace of sapphire eyes peering back at her.

Lori’s heart could’ve burst from her chest right then and there.

“Lincoln!”

Lori hadn’t climbed a tree in years but from the way she shot up that maple you’d be forgiven for thinking she had a knack for it. Lori climbed without hesitation, leaping up past the trunk of the tree and hoisting herself up the lower limbs, pushing past the leaves and heedless of the branches that scratched her arms as she climbed upwards.

And there he was, clutching to the very top of the tree, trembling arms tightly wound ‘round the bark as he looked down at his big sister with wide, watery eyes.

“Lori!” he cried, and Lori laughed to hear his voice again, when she was so sure she’d never get another chance.

She was on him in an instant, sitting on a branch and wrapping her arms around him and prying him off the tree so she could squeeze the ever living daylights out of him and pepper his face with kisses and hold him close and never let go.

And he held her back, he grabbed the back of her shirt with small, shaking hands and rubbed his face into her shirt and sobbed his little heart out. It hurt to hear him cry like this, Lincoln had always been a quiet crier and this was no different but it was rough and ragged and it made him cough and it just broke her heart to hear him like this. But she figured it’d been long overdue, so she let him cry, and all the while she rocked him and hummed a little song just like how she used to when he was little and scared and when nightmares of imaginary things lurking in the dark sent him running to her arms.

Some things never change, it seems.

Yes, they have, a niggling voice in the back of her head whispered, you can’t tell him monsters don’t exist anymore…

Lori nestled her head in his soft, snowy locks and breathed deeply, nuzzling him as her song came to an end in tandem to his whimpering. When that at last finally died away he looked up at her with a tear-stained cheeks and quivering lips, his eyes narrowed and blood-shot.

“It was a monster,” he whispered, but there was conviction in his voice, and his tone was resolute. He would broker no argument. He knew what he saw, and he was telling her plainly what it was.

Lori opened her mouth, let it hang open for a few seconds, then smacked her lips closed and ran her tongue over her lips before trying again.

“Yeah,” she croaked, and he looked at her and shook his head, probably unsure whether or not he was relieved she believed him or upset that she’d seen it too. He was worried, she could tell by the way he bit his bottom lip, and as sweet as it was that he cared for her Lori was a big girl and it was her job to make sure he was the one being comforted.

Of course, she’d take what she could get all the same. Just having him here in her arms was already doing wonders for her blood pressure.

Lori said nothing else after that, she just kept rocking him in her arms and holding him tight. What could she say? What was there to even say? How could she properly comfort him after this? It wasn’t enough to shush him and tell him that everything was going to be okay like she did when he was little.

It wasn’t okay. It could never go back to being okay, not like how it was before.

“…it sounded like you.”

Though Lincoln’s voice was but a whisper, raspy and haggard from his sobbing, Lori heard him perfectly and what he said sent a shiver down her spine.

“I-It sounded just like you,” he mewled, shaking his head. “I-I woke up to pee and… I heard you Lori. From the forest, I heard your voice from the forest. It sounded like you needed help, like you were calling for help. So, I followed the sound of your voice…”

Lincoln looked up at her with tear-stained cheeks and trembling lips and narrowed blood-shot eyes.

“…and then it stopped sounding like you. It sounded wrong Lori. It sounded like… like…”

“Like an animal trying to talk,” Lori answered, rubbing Lincoln’s back as she stared wide-eyed off into the forest.

Lincoln suddenly seized up and gripped Lori’s shirt so tight his nails damn near drew blood.

“And then I saw it Lori,” he whispered, once again burying his head in his sister’s chest, “I saw it! On the trail, waiting for me. And it talked to me Lori! It spoke!”

Slowly Lincoln’s clutching fingers relented, and his shaking hands fell to Lori’s hips.

“I ran. I ran as fast as I could. Tore my shirt on a branch…”

And here Lincoln leaned back to show her the rip in his orange polo, and he looked up at her so guiltily like he thought she’d be mad at him for tearing some stupid shirt when she was so happy he was alive she just had to sweep him up in another bone-crushing hug.

“It’s… well, I’m here now Lincoln. I’m here and you’re safe with me. I know it must’ve been scary for you and I’m proud of you, I’m so proud of you Lincoln.”

Lincoln shook like a leaf in her arms and Lori kissed the top of his head.

“It’s okay to be scared Lincoln. I was scared, I was scared I was never going to see you again, I was so scared that you were lost or… or gone. It hurt so much but now I’ve got you and I’m not letting you go Lincoln; do you hear me?”

Lincoln nodded his head and Lori chuckled a bit as the strangeness of the whole scenario caught up to her. And it was such a strange sequence of events, such an absurd happening in her otherwise uneventful life that honestly, Lori had no idea how she was going to handle this when they got back home.

So, for now she just put it out of her mind, and focused on the only thing that mattered, the small, lanky boy in her arms that clung to her like he’d done through all these years, still coming to his biggest sis when he was scared. And she was happy to oblige of course, spoiling him like she’d always done before.

She’d found him at last, he was finally safe. They were safe. They were together and nothing could take them apart again.

…and that’s when she heard it.

Soft at first, but quickly building in steam and power and noise and intent, growing steadily and steadily until it was too loud to ignore, to significant. It was inexorable, like a train in motion, this sound, this tearing, this crashing and smashing, this din of chaos and primal motion, and it stirred something in her chest as age-old instincts once thought buried resurfaced to take center stage in a mind that reeled back from the reality of what was happening.

And above all she heard it. The thing she hated above all else, bringing with it confusion and horror and sickness in the wake of its sheer unrelenting wrongness. It rose above the cacophony of broken branches and cracking wood and crunching leaves and upturned stones and dirt, it rose above the violence in the air like a mocking jeer that pricked at her ears and tugged at her instincts in a way nothing else ever had or would.

"Need… Help…"

Oh God…

Lori had only been privy to a mere glance before, and such would be her undoing for a glance could not prepare her for the totality of its presence, for the scope of its terrible visage as it burst forth from the forest brush and came lumbering into sight.

It was huge, enormous, bigger than anything she’d ever seen in person. It looked like a bear, and that analytical, logical, realistic part of her brain that had been second-guessing herself this whole time latched onto that, that last latchkey of normalcy in this screwed up world of hers.

It wasn’t a bear.

It looked like a bear. It was as big as a bear. It moved like a bear and sounded like a bear and – Lori assumed – probably smelled like a bear… but it wasn’t a bear.

And so that last thread of reality that Lori had been so tenuously clutching to finally snapped.

It didn’t have fur. It looked furry at first, but she could see now that it wasn’t fur that covered its huge powerful body but wool. Yes, wool. Curly and white in some places except it was mostly brown really from all the dirt with sticks and branches and brambles clinging to its coat. Its body looked weird, with shoulders a little higher up than the rump and its front legs looked a little longer than the back ones too.

Though the body outwardly resembled a bear’s the head didn’t, not really. Lori had seen bears on tv and at the zoo and even once in real life when she was little, and she knew what they looked like and this head was different. It was somewhat liked a black bear’s head, the straight profile, the steady slope from the top of the head to the nose, but it didn’t taper off at the end like a black bear’s snout, it ended bluntly and was the same size all the way through and jutting outwards from the jaws Lori could make out boar-like tusks. Great, curled horns grew from its head, like a ram’s, and its eyes, or what she could make of them from this distance, sat high up at the back of the head right in front of the tufted ears.

And perhaps the most curious thing about it was the long tail that dragged on the ground behind it as it walked. It was an ugly tail, it had no fur and it was greyish in color, and it reminded her of a rat’s tail or maybe an opossum’s. It was thick and large and gouged a furrow in the ground with its heft and length.

It certainly cut a strange figure, but for Lori it wasn’t comical in the slightest. It was horrifying, seeing something so big move so quickly, so effortlessly, so powerfully. Even in the tree Lori could see the muscles underneath its wooly coat flex and she knew it was strong, stronger than her, stronger than anything and if it found her, if it caught her…

Lori clutched Lincoln tight to her breast and covered as much of him as she could with her arms and legs as she leaned back on her branch.

Don’t let it see you. If it sees you, you’re dead. Don’t let it find you. Don’t let it get Lincoln.

Lori almost screamed when it started to head right for the maple tree.

It came sniffing and snuffling and making as much noise as it pleased, it’s blunt snout and wide nose digging into the ground as it shambled right up to the base of the tree, wherein it took a deep, long breath. And then it stood up; tall, taller than anyone Lori had ever seen in her life, and it gripped the trunk with its hands – yes, hands! It had hands, not like a person’s hands, more like a raccoon’s mixed with a bear’s and not tipped with dainty nails but short curved claws and each one was massive, bigger than her head.

Having situated itself the monster took another deep breath, then headbutted the tree. The impact was so hard the whole tree shook, and Lori lashed out a hand to grab another branch for fear of falling out. It did this a few more times, each of one harder than the last, then it started scraping at the trunk with its horns, driving the pointed ends deep into the wood, scouring its horns and leaving etchings in the bark like ragged wounds. The creature growled as it did this, a thick almost purring noise, and its heavy tail thumped the ground as it stomped its back legs. Was it enjoying itself? Well, at least one of them was.

Lori was having a rough go of it while the monster preened, all this shaking as the tree flung her about was making her sick and the monster’s musk wasn’t helping either, but so long as it didn’t notice them, she’d live with it. Just needed to wait it out, just need to wait for it to leave then she could make a break for it, then she could…

Lori glanced at Lincoln and saw he was looking at her. Not at her face, no, at her arm, his gaze flat and even and face devoid of color and mouth pressed into a thin line. Lori followed his eyes…

Oh shit.

There was a scrape on her arm, nothing large, nothing major, but it was there, and more than that it was fresh, raw, and bleeding. How did that happen? Lori wondered as she racked her mind for every spill and fall she’d endured out in these woods. How long as that been there?

And then it happened. A droplet, an itty-bitty tiny droplet, forming at the edge of the cut, iridescent and beautiful as the light of the steadily climbing sun caught it. She could see it form, coalesce, grow in shape and size until, finally, dangling from the edge of her skin, gravity exerted its indomitable will.

The world slowed to a crawl as the crimson droplet fell, the whole of the world reflected in its opaque surface, and Lori watched with a sense of cold detachment as it took her fate with it.

The blood droplet fell past the great, horned head and it the ground with an infinitesimal, imperceptible, but not all inconsequential, splat.

The monster immediately stopped.

So did Lori’s heart.

For a moment, a brief precious second frozen in time, nothing happened. But then, slowly, the head turned, horns fraying the bark as they scraped against the tree and angled down to the ground. The monster sniffed once, twice, three times, each one as loud as can be and even louder against the backdrop of complete silence that reigned throughout the forest.

A deep, basso growl echoed through the air, rich and powerful enough to rattle Lori’s bones and freeze the blood in her veins. Lincoln pulled himself tight against the Lori’s chest and went stiff.

And though Lori prayed then, though she begged and pleaded and bargained and supplicated herself before whatever gods or deities or unknown and unseen figures that might’ve been watching right then and there that what she knew was going to happen, would happen, might not; that maybe, just maybe, some higher force out there might take just a shred of pity and let this not come to pass.

Nobody was listening, and what Lori knew was going to happen did so.

The monster looked up.

Deep-set swinish eyes peered up into the branches of the maple tree, and when they saw twin sets of bright, blue eyes widely staring back, its own horrific visage no doubt reflected in those limpid pools of terror, the heavy brow of the monster pulled up and so did the creatures lips to reveal a mouthful of fangs and tusks as it smiled at the trapped children.

"FOUND… YOU…"

Huge, heavy pawlike hands wrapped around the trunk of the tree and short, curved claws dug into the bark as the monster’s massive arms hoisted it up to the lower branches in one swift movement and Lori was finally granted permission to vent her terror and panic and sheer frustrations and just scream her little lungs out.

The world seemed to move in slow motion as the creature ascended, baleful eyes alit as it stared at her with open hunger and slavering jaws. Lori was caught, deep in that primal, animal brain that sits snugly at the back of her brain she knew she was caught. She couldn’t climb any higher, there were no close trees or branches to jump to, the only conceivable way out was…

Lori blinked as the tree shook around her. She looked down at her side and stared at her little brother, still as a statue from fright and awaiting his death the only way he could.

'No.'

The creature was hallway to them now. Its bulk fared poorly in the branches, which either snapped under it or were caught in its wool. However, its strength alone gave it purchase, and whatever branches that impeded its progress were torn away as it shimmied up the tree.

'We’re not dying.'

Even now, staring her death in the face, Lori felt resolve grip her core as tight and cold as ice. It came to her not in the way she was accustomed, hot and boiling wrath that wafted off her like heatwaves to give her the fortitude needed to wrangle her siblings; no, this was calm and hard like she’d never known before and she drank deep of it in the hope it’d give her the courage and strength needed to pull this off.

'Not here. Not like this.'

The monster was upon them, on hand wrapping around the tree branch they were perched on and the other grabbing the trunk of the tree, the iron-hard muscles of the arms flexing as they hauled the huge body upwards towards them. The eyes gleamed and the mouth opened wide as oblivion rushed to meet them.

Lori met it head-on with the cool, calculated glare of someone who had nothing left to lose and everything to gain.

Lori grabbed a stick, broke it off the branch with a snap to hold it aloft, and, squeezing Lincoln as tight as she could with her other arm, slid off the branch, driving the point of the stick down as she did so right into the monster’s eye.

The beast threw its head back and screamed and a horn caught Lori in the ribs and sent her flying back through the air. For a moment there was that sickening feeling of weightlessness before gravity fully takes hold, and then Lori hit the ground with a crunch.

Pain blossomed in Lori’s mind and the howled with such anguish to match the monster’s bellows. Lincoln was already up on his hands and knees, eyes wide and unbelieving, as if the fact he was still alive was too much stimulus for him, and Lori stared hard at him with tear-fogged eyes.

Get up, her mind urged, get up and run. But the pain was too great, and one of her arms wasn’t working right, and the exhaustion both mental and physical and even emotional was too much to bear. And just then, for one horrible instant, Lori entertained the thought of just giving up.

The monster hit the ground behind her and its screams of suffering were enough to cut through the fog of agony clouding Lori’s mind, jolting her awake and conscious and alert as the weight of the creature’s thrashing limbs and tail and horned head tore through the forest turf, sending wood and dirt sailing through the air.

Lori pushed herself to her feet just as the monster did, and with a growl the beast reared up and smashed its head against the tree, splintering the wood as it flexed its shoulders again and again, tearing trough the maple’s trunk with its horns as it pushed and shoved until, before Lori’s very eyes, the roots of the tree began to tear through the soil as the tree was knocked to the ground with a deafening crash.

Huffing and growling the monster clambered over the remains of the uprooted tree and threw it head back to let out an awful bellowing shriek before tearing through the branches with its claws.

It registered in Lori's mind then that the monster thought they were still in the tree.

Spinning on her heels Lori took off in a dead sprint, scooping up her shake brother with her good arm as she shot off into the forest. She ran with reckless abandon, heedless of anything in her path or where it might lead and moving so swiftly it was as though her feet nary even touched the ground, flying over rocks and roots and gait unspoiled by any obstacles save the useless arm clutched to her chest.

She ran for minutes. She ran for hours. She ran for days and weeks and all the way into forever until her lungs were bursting and her ears were bleeding from the pounding pressure in her skull and even then, she still ran for fear of what lurked behind them.

There was a blinding light in the distance and Lori homed in on it, it was all she could see, it was all there was; it was her salvation and damnation all at once and Lori cared not which of them might prevail so long as it led her far away from this waking nightmare she’d found herself in.

Lori bathed in that golden, warm light and her vision went white.

And then she was free. She was out of the forest. The sun hit her face and right then the barest tingling sensation of hope fluttered in Lori’s breast. To her right and left she could make out a trail, a cultivated path devoid of plant life, a manmade sign as close to civilization as there ever was or would be out here in nature’s domain. Lori had made her way out of the forest, but she was all too aware that it still loomed behind her, watching her every step with hungry eyes unseen.

Lori picked a direction and took of down that path like it was the road out of hell.

And as she ran, burdened by her brother still frozen in fear, hindered by her broken arm, wheezing for want of fresh air and legs burning for need of rest, Lori ignored all save sight alone, and she kept her sights square on the horizon and on the seemingly endless path that lay before her.

And that’s when Lori saw her.

Lynn Loud Jr., athlete extraordinaire, inspecting some broken sticks at the edge of those damned woods, eyes narrowed intently as she glared down at a footprint. At Lori’s footprint, the eldest Loud girl realized, and the idea that she was so close to the campsite gave her that last bit of energy she needed.

Joy turned to horror as Lori watched her little sister begin walking into the tree line, the same way she’d gone in search for Lincoln…

“LYNN!”

Lori’s voice, high-pitched and ragged with fatigue and fear, cut through the air like a gunshot and Lynn Jr. flinched back, shocked by the suddenness of the verbal onslaught. The red-garbed Loud spun around and stared off down the trail at the rapidly approaching figures, at first with open bafflement but then with clenched fists and a glare.

“Lori! Lincoln! Where the heck have you two been!? Mom and Dad have been worried sick—”

“RUN!” Lori screamed, and the urgency in her voice, the desperation and panic and terror of it all so unlike anything Lynn had ever heard in her whole life, raw and real in a way she’d never before imagined, made the athlete’s eyes grow wide as she stepped back.

And this is it, Lori thought. This is when it all comes crashing down around me. This is when nothing happens and when I tell my story nobody believes me. This is when everyone I know thinks I’ve gone crazy. This is when I go crazy.

And that was when the monster came bursting out of the forest in an eruption of cacophonous violence. It came huffing and sputtering, frothy spittle spraying with each breath, and when it stood up it was taller than anything, spreading out its arms wide to block out the light of the sun, and it opened a mouth that could swallow them whole and it roared.

Lynn’s face went as white as her brother’s hair as her mouth opened in a silent scream and then she spun on her heels and took off in a sprint, Lori hot on her heels with Lincoln in her grasp.

Lori didn’t focus on the monster. That would be suicide. She didn’t know how it would, but she knew it all the same, so she focused on other things. Things like the pounding of her heart echoing in her head. How the way her feet hit the ground with each step, painful and jarring but also even and with a spring in her step to keep her momentum. She focused on the way Lynn’s shirt ruffled in the breeze as she ran faster than she ever had before, and it was almost funny because Lori had never been able to match the little jock in a run before but now she was almost neck and neck with her. But most of all Lori focused on the fingers clutching tightly, desperately, to the back of her shirt, and who that grip belonged to.

And she paid no heed to the rumbling of the ground as something bigger and heavier and so much stronger than she ever would be came barreling after her. She didn’t notice the sounds it made, the huffing and puffing loud enough to drown out the sounds of the world as an open mouth bristling with sharp teeth and ill intentions closed in around her. She disregarded the heat of its breath on the back of her neck…

And then she saw them.

Her family, all of them milling about anxiously as they waited for Lynn Jr. to come back, wondering no doubt if she’d come bearing their lost little sheep back to the fold. Maybe they heard them coming, perhaps they sensed them in some preternatural way men can’t find the words to explain but all know to be true. Hell, could’ve been as simple as Lori letting out a cry of joy at seeing her family, a reflex born of unbridled emotion and unrepentant relief.

Whatever the case may in fact be it was with no small amount of surprise and reassurance that ten heads turned to stare as Lynn came bounding down the path. These reactions were only doubled when Lori came bolting right behind her, Lincoln slung over her shoulder while the other arm – much to Mom and Dad’s alarm – hung at her side, swollen, and bent at a painful angle.

Rita, as usual, was the first to take point, breaking away from the rest of the family with hand on her hip and the other wagging a perpetually disappointed finger at her children.

“Lori Marie Loud where on earth have you been!? We’ve been looking all over for you and Lincoln for hours now! What happened to Lincoln? What happened to your arm!? Never in all my life have—”

“GET IN THE FUCKING CAR!”

The whole Loud family not only flinched but physically leapt back as Lori’s voice struck them all like a smack to the face. It wasn’t nearly so much the words she’d used as the much as it was the unalloyed hysteria, the pitch of panic, that accompanied them.

And then, without fanfare or explanation or even so much as a fine howdy-doo, the two girls and one paralyzed boy zipped past the rest of the family, making a beeline right for Vanzilla. Lynn reached it first, slamming herself into the door, and after fiddling with the handle she’d only just barely got it open when Lori came ’round to give her a good kick in the seat that set her flying all the way to the other side of the van. Lori didn’t so much as place Lincoln in the van as heft him in like a sack of potatoes and then, without further ado, she jumped in herself and slammed the door shut.

Wincing at the sound Lynn Sr. and Rita looked to each other, both of their faces mirroring the same questioning, troubled expression while the rest of the children openly gaped in a mutual display of unbridled confusion, all of them thinking the exact same thing.

What the hell just happened?

And that’s when they heard it.

It started low, rumbling, a deep growl to rattle the bones, but quickly gaining in pitch and power as the bellow grew louder and louder until, finally, tapering off with something like an elk’s scream.

The echoes of that primal shriek resonated through the air like a song of choler and madness, a note of untamed wild savagery and vitriolic wrath that battered around in their skulls and left them insensate until finally the last vestiges of that horrible sound did lift from the air.

Then there was silence. Gone was the birdsong. Gone were the crickets and cicadas. Gone was the breeze and the light and that simple feeling of contentment that only a fine day out in the warm embrace of nature can bestow.

And then there was a crashing from the forest, the telltale sounds of something big and heavy and fast making its way right towards the campsite.

The Loud family surged forth like a tidal wave, sprinting towards the van in a tangle of limbs and breathless voices laden with panic. The sounds of slamming doors and high-pitched, shaky voices filled the air as the van rocked from the bodies piling in urging the father to hurry! Hurry! HURRY!

The engine sputtered once, twice, then roared to life, and the tires screamed as the van peeled out.

It wasn’t until they’d left the campsite far behind that the girls and parents could finally breathe again, letting out simultaneous sighs of pure relief, sinking into their seats as all the stress and panic washed off them.

Not all of them though could be so lucky.

Lori had situated herself in the furthest seats in the back, stuck in a state of total exhaustion, neither asleep nor awake, conscious nor unconscious, a half-state where she inhabited both the world of the dreaming and waking concomitantly, insensible and trembling as she muttered darkly to herself and clutched her two siblings as close to her body as she could with legs and arms wrapped around them. Lynn hugged herself with skin pale and eyes wide, shaking her head incessantly as she whispered the word, “No,” to herself over and over again. Lincoln was faring no better himself, holding onto Lori with a grip so tight his fingers had gone purple; his eyes were open but empty and his body wasn’t moving, barely even breathing it seemed, like he’d gone catatonic.

Lori pulled her little siblings closer to her, burying them within cascades of golden hair, nuzzling them and kissing their heads as she murmured to herself. And in a blessed moment of brief lucidity she told them that everything was fine now, they were safe; and all the while unaware of the ten pairs of eyes glancing back at her from the front of the car regarding her with open commiseration comingled with trepidation.

And then at last enervation caught up to her, and she gave Lincoln one last kiss before she passed out.
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Lori had been waiting in the little back office of a little log cabin for near on two hours now by the time the forest rangers finally decided to interview her. She’d relocated her chair as far from the window as she could because the window overlooked the forest and she was worried that if she ever glanced out it she’d see something staring back at her from the shadows of the trees. So, she sat in silence, legs still trembling in agony from their Herculean efforts and arm cradled across her chest in a splint until at last the rangers arrived. They came in one after the other, the first one rugged and bearded, and the other younger, all gangly limbs and nervous eyes, and the older one sat down at the desk with folders and papers that read Incident Report like she was just another damn statistic.

They’d told her that Lynn, who’d they’d interviewed just previously, had said they were chased by a bear. A bear, of course she’d say that, she hadn’t gotten a good look at the thing, or at least not a long enough look that she wouldn’t start second-guessing her eyes, that she wouldn’t just replace the reality of what she’d seen with a more preferable alternative, one that didn’t make her question everything she knew.

Lori wished she could afford the same luxury.

A bear. They kept repeating that. Bear. Big and furry and black and most certainly not wooly or horned. Well, it certainly fit the narrative of what could be considered standard procedure in these parts, after all black bears did live in this state and they could be dangerous sometimes.

“Why,” the barded man joked, “it just sounds like you had a close brush with Mother Nature!” He laughed at that, a strained, hard laugh, and when he gave his partner a hearty slap on the chest to get him to start laughing too Lori couldn’t help but notice that the younger man’s eyes were glued to the window.

Lori had grown up among ten little siblings and if there was one thing her nose was finely attuned to it was the subtle aroma of complete and utter bullshit.

It wasn’t that they suspected it to be a bear, oh no, that would be reasonable. It was the way they told her it was a bear, with quick but still cautious voices, with calming gestures of the hands and the near constant glances to one another.

It was the way as she told her story – carefully omitting any extraneous details of course, Lori knew better than to put all her cards on the table – that they interrupted, interjected, insisted that it was a bear. Like they just had to stop her here and there to question her and make sure it was a bear, that it couldn’t have been anything else but a bear, that they knew it was a bear. That she knew it was a bear.

Lori knew it was no bear that chased her through those woods.

Lori knew that they knew it was no bear either.

And most importantly Lori knew that they knew that she knew they knew it wasn’t a bear.

So when she laughed and rubbed the back of her head and nodded along with everything they said and laughed at the bad joke the bearded man made she did so knowing that she was just as responsible as these men and God knows how many others in keeping this a secret.

Was that wrong of her? Probably. Who knows how many people got lost just like her, how many were chased by something that society and science and common decency all said didn’t exist? How many people didn’t get out of those woods? How many bodies had they found? How many would nobody ever find? How many families just like hers would grieve and search and never find their Lori’s, their Lincoln’s?

How many people had gotten away only to be tracked down later by shadowy government types in black suits and told to keep quiet if they knew what was good for them?

It was a lie, and Lori knew it was, knew that she was feeding it with her willing silence and cooperation, but it was a convenient lie. It was an attractive lie. And perhaps in some ways it was a necessary lie. Perhaps people back then, in a time and place foreign to Lori and all she considered dear, wouldn’t have needed a lie like this, they would’ve been able to live with the terrible knowledge of things that lived in the woods and whispered honeyed words in your little brother’s voice to draw you in. But Lori wasn’t like those people, she wasn’t strong like them, nobody she knew was.

And it was a wonderful lie, wasn’t it? To tell people they had nothing to be afraid of. To tell people that the woods were safe so long as you minded the bears and coyotes. To tell them that monsters didn’t exist.

So, she lied.

And when she lied, when she looked at those men and smiled and laughed and told them, yes, of course it was a bear, what else could it be, it was like a switch was flipped in the room. All at once the men, who had been so tense and nervous just a second ago, seemed to fold in on themselves. They sighed and smiled and there was a twinkle in the bearded man’s eyes as he first glanced to his grinning partner then back to Lori and told her to be more careful from now on, and that he was sorry she had such a fright.

It was so quick for them, Lori noted. So easy for them to go on like nothing happened. Right then and there Lori was so mad, so angry and hateful and sick to her stomach that she could’ve just grabbed that man’s ugly beard and slammed his head into the desk until there was nothing left but a red paste.

She didn’t of course. She didn’t do anything but laugh and wait and hate herself until they’d filled out the report and sent her back out to the family.

“No need to hear out the boy,” they’d told her parents. “Got the full report from the sister, said he’d told her what happened. Poor kid, sorry to see it happen to him. But, hey, that’s nature for you, eh?”

Dad and Mom had a few choice words to say to that before piling everyone up in the van and then before she knew it, they were driving back home.

It was a lot quieter going back than it was getting there Lori noticed as she ruffled Lincoln’s hair, holding the sleeping boy so close he was practically on her lap. He clenched his fingers in fitful slumber and nuzzled into her side and she smiled and leaned down to kiss his forehead. She’d said she wasn’t going to be letting him out of her sight and she’d meant it. At her other side sat Lynn, apart but still close. She’d only been the recipient of a mere brush of the horror Lori and Lincoln had been subjected to, but it had marked her all the same and Lori was quick to offer her comfort as she could but Lynn had her own way of dealing with things and that was that.

She’d hear later about how the rangers and police had gone back to investigate the camp. It was a mess apparently, like a tornado had gone through it. All their personal belongings that they’d left behind in their haste to get away were destroyed, not a thing was left. All the food was eaten, the tents had been torn and trampled, and all their clothes had been ripped apart, chewed up and even, and this made Lori gag to hear, defecated on!

‘Petty monster,’ Lori thought but never said, glowering as images of that pretty shirt she’d been stupid enough to bring along for some reason came to mind. And it was such a nice shirt too…

The hospital had been annoying to deal with, but it was important to get her arm looked at. A clean break the doctor had told her, and when she’d told him the circumstances, he offered his condolences and told her she was very brave for protecting her brother. That made her feel good. The surgery? Yeah, not so much.

Slightly more annoying than the hospital was having to deal with Bobby when he’d found out. Of course, such attentiveness and worry came from a place of love and devotion and romantic adoration, so she stomached it as best she could and graciously allowed Bobby to fawn and fret over her even though it made her feel like a China doll and if there was one thing Lori wasn’t it was fragile.

Then, of course, there was the family. Mom and Dad were taking it particularly hard, holding themselves responsible for what happened to their precious babies, and they told her as much though Lori was quick to shut all that down by telling them no one could’ve predicted what happened that day.

Her words carried more weight then they might’ve suspected, and they still blamed themselves for what happened and likely always would, but they thanked her anyways.

The other sisters crowded around her as much as they could get away with. Injured as she was Lori was still a veritable battle-axe when it came to laying down the law and she wasn’t going to let a minor thing like broken arm make her seem weak. They did her bidding for a bit, which was nice, but they also wanted to hear what had happened constantly, which she could do without. At the very least it gave her the chance to get her story straight and polished, to perfect this lie she’d sold herself on.

The physical recovery process would be a long one for her. Mentally? Even longer.

Nothing could go back to the way things were. She’d been changed out there; her entire viewpoint had been irrevocably altered in so spectacular and sudden a fashion that it sometimes left her reeling. Before she would casually regard all those lunatics that claimed they’d seem bigfoot or UFO’s or ghosts and stuff like that with a sneer of disgust. Now? Hell, she’d apologize to every last one of them if she could.

Because if monsters were real, if things that live in the woods and tried to talk like people were real, what else was? She started watching strange shows, doing research about this kind of stuff, even joined an anonymous paranormal forum on some weird fringe website just to hear other people, people she would’ve disregarded and called stupid or even dangerous before, share their experiences. Of course, they could all be lying, but if even just one of them was telling the truth then Lori could take comfort in the knowledge that she wasn’t alone in this. It felt good to read these experiences, to watch shows and podcasts to see and hear people talk about what had affected them. They were braver than she was…

She kept it all to herself, naturally. If anyone in the family was even aware of her sudden shift in beliefs they left her alone about it, perhaps thinking she’d earned it via her near-death experience or more likely because they were afraid she’d twist their joints in unwholesome directions.

The only one who seemed to notice was Lucy, who Lori had grown both a sense of admiration for, courtesy of her knowledge about the unknown and her acceptance of the strange and paranormal, and irritation for if only due to her tendency to romanticize it.

There was nothing romantic about what Lori had gone through. It was nothing short of a nightmare. She’d been chased, hunted even, by something her worldview didn’t allow to exist and even though she got away all she was left with was a broken arm and a broader understanding of the world at large that was incompatible with the teachings of society.

Lynn, comparatively, was the first to get over it. It came as no surprise, though it did with an unhealthy amount of bitterness at first. After all Lynn had already relegated what she’d seen firmly into the camp of the mundane, and Lori suspected, though never tried, that any attempts on her part to try and convince Lynn that this experience of hers was in fact cryptic would be met with disbelief. Or, perhaps violence, depending on if Lynn’s insistence on the normality of these events was real and not an active attempt on her part to bury the reality of what she’d seen that day.

Again, Lori had no intention of putting her through that. If Lynn said it was a bear, believed it was a bear, then good for her, Lori honestly wished she could do the same.

It wasn’t immediate, of course. In the beginning Lynn was skittish, quiet, and it was honestly unsettling to see the vibrant jock scuttle off to her room or sequester herself to a corner just to be by herself. She never came to Lori or her sisters or even Mom and Dad with these problems; and if Lucy was to be believed, and why wouldn’t she be, sometimes Lynn stayed up real late at night thinking to herself as she stared out the bedroom window from her bed.

Eventually though, Lynn apparently got over it. She started going back out on her early morning runs, started roughhousing with her siblings, playing sports out in the yard, regaining some of that old Lynn Loud energy. It was refreshing after seeing her so lethargic, and by the time Summer had ended and school had begun Lynn was back to her old self. In fact she’d taken to telling the story to the other kids at school, bragging about how she had saved her brother and older sister from a rabid grizzly bear all by herself, practically wallowing in the praise and amazement the other kids sent her way even if no one really believed she’d fought off a bear.

Lori was happy for her, honestly. At the very least one of them was going to look back on this incident as nothing more than a random event in her naturally chaotic life.

Lincoln… Lincoln was another story.

See, Lynn was capable of filing away what she’d experienced under the broad category of ‘random chaos you deal with in life,’ and Lori was able to find some sense of solace in the shared experiences of other under the veil of internet anonymity, but Lincoln seemingly had no outlet.

He wasn’t the same since that day out in the forest. Shutting himself away hermitlike in his room most of the time he kept to himself even more than he was already prone to doing. None of the girls took it well, they all loved their brother and loved being near him and having him in their lives, but they gave him space at the beginning. How could they not, given what he’d just been through.

He was quiet, wraith-like in his habits, a shadow on the wall on the rare occasion he even left his room. It creeped the other girls out, and as much as they tried to support him Lori could tell they were getting sick of the whole traumatized beyond belief routine; also, Lucy was getting jealous. They came to her and told her that she needed to set him straight. She told them to screw off.

She kinda hated them a bit sometimes. That felt bad to think but it was true, and as much as she tried to remind herself that they didn’t know what had happened out there, that they couldn’t know what it felt like, that they’d never know the terror Lori and Lincoln had been subjected to out in those woods so she shouldn’t be so hard on them because they didn’t mean it, all it really accomplished was making them seem even more ignorant in Lori’s eyes.

Then the parents got involved after about a month back home and it was times like these Lori really had to sit back and wonder if her parents even knew what they were doing half the time. They would try and get him out of the house, insist that he come down to eat dinner with the rest of the family, tell him to start interacting with people again and just… get over it. That’s really what the crux of it all boiled down to. The family was sick of seeing him like this, they hated it and it made them feel bad so they told him to get over it, not for his sake though that’s what they insisted, but for theirs.

He met each imploring word with a sour look and head ducked down between his shoulders. He met honeyed smiles with glares and sneers. He shied away from gentle touches and backed away from opened arms. And when sweetness faded and the arguments started he met them with snaps and screams of his own, and when all else failed and he couldn’t stand it anymore he’d rant and yell until his face went red; he’d break dishes, throw books, bang his little fists on the table until his knuckles bled and then he’d storm off up to his room or Lori’s and just cry his little heart out, his wailing echoing off the walls for all to hear.

And the family would sit there, caught in the stillness of the aftermath of one of his little rampages. Slack-jawed and wide-eyed they’d stare at each other, silent at first, but then soon enough would come the questions. What’s happening to him? Why’s he acting like this? Where’d we go wrong? What do we do?

And that’s when Lori, silent at first and watching with narrowed, judgmental eyes, would stand up, clear her throat, and remind everyone that Lincoln had almost died. That he’d almost been eaten. That if she hadn’t found him, hadn’t gotten away quick enough, then they wouldn’t even have a Lincoln to complain about anymore. She told them they had no idea what they were talking about, that none of them would ever know what he’d gone through, and that it wouldn’t kill them to show a little goddamn sympathy now and then.

And she’d leave them to stew in regret as the weight of her words truly sank in, and she’d go upstairs to hunt him down, and when she’d find him in whatever room he’d closed himself off in she’d scoop him up and hum a little song for him as she stroked his hair and held him close. Like how she used to when he was a little kid and it was all he knew but to run to his big sister when he was scared.

He slept with her most nights. Not every night, but most of them. He’d either sneak in sometimes during the night and she’d wake up to find him there, or she’d hear a knock on the door and open it to find him standing there; either looking down at the round all shy-like if it was a good night or staring up at her with empty, grey eyes if it was a bad one. His nightmares were frequent, and they ranged from shakes and whimpers to waking up screaming and pissing himself. Lori had learned it was best to let him ride them out, as much as she hated seeing him like this; Dad had made the mistake of trying to wake him once and he got a nice black eye for his troubles.

Leni was excited to have him over at first, but as time went on, she became increasingly confused about the situation. “Isn’t he too old to sleep with you,” she’d ask, voice thick with unsaid hidden meaning that wasn’t at all hidden and most certainly didn’t need to be said. Lori would fight the urge to tell Leni to shut the hell up, she doesn’t know any better her mind would whisper, and instead she’d just remind Leni that Lincoln was in a tough spot right now and they needed to be supportive and gentle with him until he recovered.

“For how long,” Leni had asked, worried for her brother and yearning for a return to normalcy.

“As long as he needs,” was always Lori’s reply.

But time, they say, heals all wounds, and by the time Lori’s arm had just about fully healed and she was heading off to college Lincoln had made some progress. He hadn’t been sleeping with her nearly so much, had stopped screaming and crying and getting into fights (though honestly that might be because the girls and ‘rents had finally gotten the hint that their meddling wasn’t helping jack diddlysquat) and was even hanging out with his friends again, though Lori could tell they were confused and even a little scared of Lincoln’s sullen demeanor.

Truth be told she was worried for him. She’d been worried all Summer not only because of how he’d been handling what he’d experienced but because she knew one day, she wouldn’t be there anymore, and he’d no longer have that shoulder to cry on. Yes, he had friends and family besides her, but could they really help? Lori and Lincoln had experienced the same thing, been through the same trauma together, and he came to her when the silence was too much to bear and he needed to talk about what happened, had to tell his story to someone who would listen and believe because she knew what it was like. And so too did she, not to the same degree he did, he was younger than her after all and needed the comfort more than her, but it was nice all the same to just talk to someone about it.

But now that day Lori feared was upon them, and as well as Lincoln was doing Lori was worried how he’d fare without her to lean on. What if he relapsed? What is something happened to him? What if he blabbed to the other sisters or his friends and they called him crazy? Would Lori really have the strength to come to his aid, to tell stand firm at his side and tell them all that she too had experienced the same thing? And in those moments of thought Lori’s worst nightmare, one of nooses and bleeding wrists and tear-stained notes, shone through, and she looked at Lincoln and hoped to God he would be okay.

The family took her leaving about as well as expected, with plenty of crying and hugs and kisses and Dad alternating between being proud of his oldest daughter and sobbing like a baby while Mom kissed her cheeks and told her to call if she needed anything.
And when all the rest had taken their turns that left only Lincoln. Their goodbye was of a different sort. Yes, the others were emotional, but this was deeper. Lincoln and Lori had a connection now none of the others could share and through tragedy they’d bonded. She hugged him tight and kissed his face and made a joke about how she’d take him with her if she could.

And then he looked at her, and all at once he smiled and it was the first true, genuine, beautiful smile she’d seen on him ever since that day in the woods, and it left her breathless and teary-eyed just to see him smile like that again.

“I’ll be okay,” he told her, answering all her unsaid fears and doubts.

And Lori knew at that moment that Lincoln was going to be fine.

She still worried of course, that’s just how she is. She worried about him all the time, but it wasn’t as all-consuming as it had been over the Summer, it lacked that bit of genuine concern for his very life. It was more detached, not in a bad way you see, more like a big sister worrying about her little brother and wondering if he was alright rather than hoping he hadn’t suffered a downward spiral into depression.

She called home a lot at the beginning of the semester, talked over the phone. He didn’t seem to be doing any worse, and the girls said he was fine, but you can’t really tell over the phone.

It helped though to hear him say he was fine, and as her studies piled up and her free time became virtually non-existent Lori found herself calling home less and thinking about monsters in the forest less and just worrying less and eventually just let the rigors of college life sweep her up in a world where time only mattered if your ten-page paper was due next week or tomorrow.

And when the time came to visit home again, she realized with no small sense of worry weighing down in her stomach that it had been three weeks since she’d last talked to Lincoln.

The drive back home had been wrought with worry but when she walked through that front door to a chorus of cheerful voices all saying hi, when she saw that bright smile and shining blue eyes rush up to meet her with arms opened for a hug, well she could’ve kicked herself for ever thinking for even an instant that Lincoln Loud was going to let anything keep him down.

The reunion was nothing short of cheerful, and so was the air of the house as well and Lori suspected it had little to do with the festive Christmas atmosphere. While Lincoln told her all about the trials and tribulations of Middle School the girls filled her in. Turns out no sooner had Lori left than Lincoln had started making a genuine effort to make his sister proud by coming back out of his shell, and Lord almighty but wasn't the family relieved. Didn’t they just titter to each other about it, weren’t they just so happy to have him all happy again.

“It looks like Lincoln is back to is old self again,” Leni cheered in her usually bubbly manner, happy beyond measure that her Lincoln was back to normal.

Except he isn’t, a part of Lori wanted to say, and he never will be. Not completely anyway.

And it was true, just like her Lincoln could never go back. A part of his innocence had been snatched away and you can’t replace that, nor should you even want to because that’s just life. But still, Lincoln was as back to normal as you could possibly get, and she was proud of him.

And while the rest of the girls gushed on about of his progress and his social life and his dating habits and other such important things Lori caught his eye from across the room and smirked before giving him a wink.

He winked back, and the two chuckled because they shared a secret nobody else was privy to.
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Years later when Lincoln would tell Lori he was going camping with his friends to celebrate graduating High School she’d ‘bout have a heart attack. Her next immediate impulse would be to tell Lincoln if he even tried, she was going to chain him to the bed, lock the door behind her, and throw away the key.

He’d been expecting this, and while Lincoln had always been good at wrangling his sisters this was an older and wiser Linc and so he calmed her down, sat her butt right in the comfiest chair in the house, and before she even knew what was happening Lori found herself nodding her head as Lincoln laid out all his points in that calm, collected manner he was known for.

He told her that this was something he not only wanted to do, and yes, he was of sound body and mind thank you, it was something he felt like he had to do. For too long he’d been afraid, oh sure he hid it well enough and the nightmares weren’t nearly so frequent anymore, but that fear was still there all the same and he was sick and tired of it. He felt that so long as he was afraid, afraid to live and experience new things, then as far as he was concerned, he was still trapped in those woods. He had to beat the monster that had plagued his childhood, and the only way to do that was to go out there and face the unknown.

He needed to do this he told her, and she knew he wasn’t about to take no for an answer, nor was he asking for permission. This was happing whether she wanted it or not.

So, she let him go.

Oh, she wasn’t happy about, make no mistake. But Lincoln wasn’t the same scrawny little brother he had been all those years ago. He was strong, taller than her and even Dad, and he held a confidence now that can only come about from years of personal growth and maturity. She trusted him, and if he felt he had to do this to finally be rid of his demons, then she would never try and stop him.

That and, y’know, she was pregnant with her first kid at the time so it wasn’t like she could do squat about it anyhow.

Didn’t stop her from worrying herself sick the whole time he was gone. Yes, she said she’d stop worrying about him but this was different, he was literally going out into the untamed wilds (except not really, it was a rented lakefront cabin that Clyde’s fathers had bought and been using for years now without any trouble) and she wouldn’t be there to save him like all those years ago if something happened out there.

Nothing happened.

Lincoln came back perfectly fine, not even a single white hair on his head out of place though his cheeks were a bit rosy and she wondered just how much liquid courage he’d imbibed in during the trip.

She was relieved of course, and not just because he was back safe and sound. She could see it in his eyes, in his smile, in his totally relaxed posture. Lincoln had won. He’d beaten the monster. He’d finally freed himself from its grasp. The monster may have left its mark on him and that would never totally go away but like a scar that fades with time Lincoln had grown from his experience and he would no longer let fear hold its sway over him, he’d face the challenges of life with head held high and a steely gaze.

And though Lincoln was never the outdoorsy type he’d found that he'd taken a liking to nature and would in fact continue to go camping now and then, usually about one or two trips a year. Lori, naturally, thought he was completely insane, but then she always suspected her brother was a little crazy anyway so what can you do? He’d tell her about these trips – she liked the ones where nothing happened the best – and sometimes, with hushed tones and a knowing glance or two, he’d tell about some of his other experiences out in those woods, encounters with upright shapes just out of the corner of his eye and hooting calls in the dark and glowing lights that danced in the air. Nothing quite so life-threatening, but she could do without hearing them all the same.

Though, that’s not to say all his trips out there were bad or didn’t warrant a good story. In fact her favorite of these little “experiences” was the one where he and Stella came back from a trip carrying a little extra something more than they’d set out with, the kind of something that doesn’t make itself evident until a few weeks later when the belly starts showing and the morning sickness sets in. Same couldn’t be said for Mom and Dad though. No, somehow Lori got the distinct impression they didn’t quite approve of that little camping trip excursion. Sure was fun watching him squirm as he explained it though, hee-hee…

He’d ask her to come with him occasionally, but she’d always decline. No, it was good that Lincoln could find his peace out there, but Lori who had never much cared for nature now found the relationship particularly soured on both ends. Nature, it seemed, had marked her an enemy, and she responded in kind. Never again would Lori feel safe in wooded areas, in places where the wild world touched on the fringes of human civilization, she was a city girl through and through, especially after she’d married Bobby and settled down to start her family, and she intended to stay that way.

And a darker, more suspicious side of her couldn’t help but wonder what might still be watching her from the trees? Wondered if maybe the monster remembered her, was watching her still, waiting for one false move, one small mistake or misstep to snatch her up and the only thing anyone would ever find of Lori Loud would be her gleaming bones picked clean of meat.

Or maybe she was just paranoid. At any rate she wasn’t about to give it the chance, she’d learned her lesson about treading off the beaten path and what may be waiting for you under the dark boughs of the forest canopy where the world of man and all his technology and knowledge about how the world should be seems so cold and distant.

Lori Loud would never again go camping for the rest of her life.

And you know what?

She was perfectly fine with that!

{The End}