The Figure

The Figure

By Josie Gates

Dragging one weary foot after the other, she finally reaches the peak of the hill, gazing at the sun bathed valley laid out before her. It had been a challenging hike, but she was amongst those who had found it easier. The other hikers in the small group of ten she had joined were still lugging their weary bodies up the steep bank of grass, two elderly yet determined ladies adorned in sunhats making up the back of the group. With her on the peak stands the leader of the expedition, a muscular, middle aged brunette woman accompanied by her loyal canine companion whose brown coat gleams like melted chocolate in the bright summer afternoon. Looking down the hill through a veil of her windswept ashen blond hair, her squinted eyes catch hold of another pair that are already intensely fixated on her own. Her stomach lurches at the sight of their owner - an unsettling male seemingly only a few years older than herself. After fighting away from their grasp, her eyes dart away from his, fixating on the dark purple gouges set beneath them, a feature that followed the general aesthetic of his hollow face. She turns away, following the leader toward the nearing forest.

Entrapped under a web of woven branches, the group set up camp, the exhaustion of the day transparent in all of the faces now concentrated on tent pegs, tarps and poles. All except one. There was one who would not tear his beady eyes from the depths of the trees. One whose heart slammed against his ribcage as if it sensed danger and in an attempt to save itself was attempting to break through ribs and flesh and scamper away back towards the sanctuary of the sun. His hand attempts to swipe the fear from his face, in the process dragging down his heavy purple eyebags further. A dazed image of lost friends fading from recollection flashes into his memory before evaporating alongside the somersault of his heart at the unexpected crackle of a newly lit campfire. He swivels around and begins to gather his possessions into a neat pile. This time her eyes are on him first, peeking out from beneath the rim of her tattered cowboy hat. She tosses one of her loose braids over her shoulder as she scoots down onto the woodland floor, resting her plighted legs as she boils a pot of water over a small fire. An uncomfortable feeling seeps between the cracks of her rib cage and puts her on edge, briefly flipping her ravenous stomach like a pancake. She looks away, forcing her exhausted brain to focus on her well-earned supper.

Later that night they all sit around the campfire. They all feel the heat of the flames licking at their faces, leaving marks of warmth that spread down their bodies, right to their calloused feet. They all feel at ease in the forest, the forest that is now home to those who never left. But of course, only one person knows this. The only one who the fire doesn’t warm. He remains as cold as the look in his eyes which are still relentlessly sweeping over the trees surrounding them, as if they were looking for something. And just like he is the only person who knows, she is the only person watching him, her eyes suspiciously analysing his corpse like face whilst her fingers mindlessly trail circles on the head of the chocolate dog laid soundlessly at her feet. He was laid close to the fire, so close it was surprising that the chocolate wasn’t sliding off of him and pooling onto the floor, seeping in between the crevices of the crunchy leaves. As more and more people desert the community of the campfire, she becomes warier of the man watching the woods until the leader encourages her to get some rest. Climbing into a bed isn’t usually appealing to insomniacs like her but tonight mother nature ushers her toward the world of slumber, allowing shallow sleep to encircle her. She dreams of rustling, of a swivelling light, until she cracks open her weighed eyes and realises that she is in fact not dreaming. Without warning, a sharp shout slices through the air, severing sleep’s grasp on her and abandoning her in the waking world. Her brain immediately flashes to an image of the two elderly ladies and the steep slope riddled with protruding roots that leads to the designated toilet area. Concerned, she reaches out with shaky fingers to unzip her tent, poking her blonde head out into the motionless night. The lingering embers of the fire illuminate the dim circle of tents, which are all zipped up tight… except one. The tent belonging to the man with the sallow face and purple eyebags was gaping open. A nauseating wave of anxiety hits her right in the lungs. Could it be him that shouted out? An answer to her question arrives in the form of a beam of light that glided over the nearby trees like a false sunray. Conducting the torch light was none other than the man, skulking around in the undergrowth. Before she even realises what she’s doing her body has already yanked her back into the canvas of her tent. As she zips the door shut her ears prick up at the soft patter of slow, almost lethargic footsteps outside her tent. Looking over at the light which pervades the safety of her material refuge, her heart slows, realising that the shout must have been someone who slipped going to the toilet after all and that was them coming back. Sighing, she settles back down into her bed, expelling the nervous toxins from her body as she condemns herself to a night of sleepless dreams.

Flickering open like the wings of a moth, her eyes roam the ceiling of the tent, the blanket of her brief sleep remaining draped around her. Mindlessly, she forces herself out of her sleeping bag, dressing herself and gathering her breakfast in a small box, ready to cook over the fire she was certain was right outside. As the events of the night continue to evade her drowsy mind she opens the tent flap. Her breakfast drops to the floor… a bread roll scuttles into the back corner of her tent, hiding…

Everyone is gone. The tents are gone. Their outlines remain engraved into the grass like shadows without entities. Her lungs constrict, shrivel up on the spot right as she steps through the doorway of the only remaining tent. An unexpected yank on the back of her head almost sends her soul rocketing out of her body until she realises the zip of the tent has caught hold of her hair, urging her to go back inside where she cannot be seen. But she cannot hear it. It is only a tent after all. Its gaping mouth cannot tell her what it saw during the night. No one could. She swivels her body around to face her tent, ripping her hair from the zip’s grasp. Her eyes persist to flick up due to the anxiety thrumming through her body and they fixate on… something. About ten meters from her tent there is a figure. Just stood. Just staring… right at her. It is engulfed in the shadows, consumed by them so much so that she can’t tell where the shadows end and it starts. Fear blooms inside her, planting its unforgiving roots deep into the lining of her stomach as its tendrils slowly crawl up her chest, engulfing her lungs with blossoms of pure terror. The fear is now clawing its way up her throat, its bristly limbs constricting her oesophagus before migrating into her windpipe. She is nothing more than the host of fear itself. Her legs move on their own, backing away from the tent, away from the figure. Not once do her wide eyes leave it. Even as she turns to run they are rooted on it, which is how she sees it take a slow, deliberate step towards her. And another. And another. She turns… and she runs. She runs into the trees, dodging upheaved roots and pushing her way through the wiry branches, turning back to glance at the figure that is still taking slow steps toward her. She doesn’t stop running, for anything, not for the trees grabbing at her shirt or the undergrowth clutching at her ankles… and she wouldn’t have stopped if a hand didn’t clamp around her forearm, yanking her backwards. She didn’t feel fear anymore. She was fear, as if her soul had been ripped from her body and put into an entity manufactured purely of striking, engulfing fear. She turned her head and saw it… saw… him?

Two wide beady eyes stare into hers, the drooping eyebags carved beneath them more prominent than ever. She is struck by the emotion in his eyes. Terror mixed with… remembrance. She hears him mutter something about saving her like he couldn’t save them. And so they run. The figure has drawn closer by now, its shadowy being staring so intently it was as if it was trying to paralyse them with its stare. They sprint through the thinning trees, further and further from the camp where just last night their group had sat around a campfire. And where are they now? Only the figure knows the answer to that.

They keep running, breath coming in short gasps as blooming, blossoming despair pierces their lungs. She looks over her shoulder once more, seeking out the figure. It was nowhere to be seen. Relief pricks her heart until her head swivels back around. It is right there. She nearly runs into it, and she can now see that it is not made of shadows. In fact, her brain cannot quite work out what it is made of. Cannot comprehend. But it doesn’t have to – she is already running.

They run until they reach the end of the forest where the trees give way to the valley they hiked yesterday which is almost unrecognisable when smothered in the mist of the dawn. Bodies reeling with exhaustion the two runners come to a stop twenty meters from the forest’s edge, hunched over and panting, trying desperately to feed their starving lungs. This time it’s his empty eyes that seek out the figure – and they find it. It teeters on the boundary of the trees as if bound to them. She follows his eyes and sees the figure engulfed within the shade of the trees, standing unnaturally still. They exchange glances and let out a sigh that expels some of the fear pent up inside of them. Through pained breaths he whispers out a jumbled mass of words that sound something like ‘I… saved… her…’. A small tear snakes its way down his sunken cheeks, a tear that contains the guilt of surviving when they didn’t. He had been drawn back to this place seeking closure, and closure he now had. He feels it travel up and down his broken body, through his stomach, into his lungs and up into his eyes which now swivel back towards the forest’s boundary… and see only the absence of the figure Fear blooms inside of him like a developing bruise. It only takes him a few seconds to spot it.

It had broken out of its forest cage.

And was running… galloping towards them on all fours.

There was only a moment for the fear to register on their faces.