“Did you hear that?” Hissed Ivan.

I did my best to ignore him, I was in dire need of sleep and at the moment I was wide awake. I never realized how loud of a snorer Ivan was until this evening. He’d been my best friend since the third grade and I came to this horrific realization while spending the night with him in a tiny camping tent.

I also realized that I hated camping. I hated the plethora of bugs, I hated the fresh bites all over my arms and legs. I hated this tent for being too small for two grown-ass men. I hated that we brought too little ice and that our beer was warm. I hated cooking shish kabob’s over the fire, seeing as the first one was undercooked and the second one was overcooked.

I closed my eyes and threw out a fake snore to drive the point home.

“Dave? Are you awake did you hear that?” Ivan questioned obliviously. He tapped my shoulder like an annoying little brother.

“Ugh…Dude no. I didn’t hear anything.” I growled, frustration pulsating through my veins.

It was Ivan’s idea to go camping in the Shadowbrook Forest. Prior to this, I hadn’t seen him in well over a year, I missed the hell out of him and I loved him like a brother. But at this exact moment, he was driving me insane and I was on the verge of either sleeping in my truck or driving home and just leaving him in the woods.

“Dude it’s loud as shit, how can you not hear that?”

I rolled over and sneered at him. “Did you ever think that maybe you were woken up by your own loud ass snoring??”

Ivan rolled his eyes. “Oh wow, nice. How mature of you. I know what I heard you dick.”

“Do you? Because it sounds like I’m sleeping in this tent with a motorboat.” I snapped, rolling away from him.

“Oh!? Like you’re any better with your excessive moving. How the hell does Katie sleep in the same bed as you?”

“Stop! Shut up! I’m fucking exhausted. Seriously you’re driving home tomorrow. There’s no way in hell I’m enduring that three-hour drive back to…”

And then I heard it. It was faint, but in the distance, I could hear the sounds of a woman choking. The shuddered breaths, the sporadic gasps for air. After a bit of scrutiny, it sounded like she was being…

“Dude, it sounds like a woman’s being strangled.” Ivan whispered.

“Where is it coming from though?” I asked. Now that I’d heard the sound, I couldn’t unhear it. It wasn’t exactly loud, but it was the only thing I could hear. It was as though the forest had gone deathly quiet.

“Dude we have to do something.” Ivan said as he unzipped the tent. The flap fell to the floor and a sea of fog washed into our tent.

“Wait hold on. Ivan, we have no idea how many people are out there, and beyond that, we don’t exactly have any weapons to defend ourselves. We need to play this smart.”

Ivan rummaged around in his backpack and pulled out a switchblade. His eyes met mine and he gave a reluctant shrug. I reached for the flashlight I’d brought. The thing was just over a foot long and made of pure metal, and beyond that, it was heavy as shit. I gave him a nod and we exited the tent.

The fog outside was thick. When had it become so foggy? When we entered the tent for the evening the sky was beautiful, with an array of stars and a full moon that shone down upon us. All of that was gone, I couldn’t see my truck or the picnic table at our campsite. I could barely make out the trees that surrounded us.

“Why is it so foggy?” Whispered Ivan.

“I don’t know. Stay close. Be on the lookout.” I replied. I clicked on the flashlight, the enormous beam shooting out and hitting a wall of fog, reflecting into my eyes. I saw a wave of stars that had nothing to do with the sky above us. I quickly switched off the flashlight and flipped it around in my hands with the intention of using it as a bludgeoning weapon.

I could hear her as clear as day. Those same shuttered gasps as she struggled to pull in air. It was coming from behind us. We made our way around the tent, our shoes crunching over the dry leaves that littered the campsite. The sounds of the woman getting louder and louder. Why was she the only thing that I could hear? That we could hear? I heard no signs signifying that there was an attacker. It seemed as though she was the only one in the woods with us.

And then we saw her.

Through the fog, I could see the silhouette of a body hanging from one of the tree’s branches. I could see the outline of the body as it swung listlessly back and forth. I watched as her hair blew lazily to the right only for it to return gently to her shoulders.

“What the fuck.” Ivan whispered.

“We have to get her down.” I said.

We made our way through the fog, nearing her, and then we stopped. I felt my blood run cold, I felt the air exit my body. At that moment I’d wished we’d stayed in our tent. I wish we’d gotten in my truck and gone home. I wished we’d never gone camping.

Dry and brittle black hair covered most of her face, but I could still see it and that’s what horrified me. Her skin was whiter than the fog that surrounded us, I could see the deceased veins that ran along her neck and up her chin, her eyes bulged so far out from her skull that I thought they’d fall from their sockets. Her mouth hung open loosely, and her tongue was out. Her tongue went past her neck, hanging lazily across her chest.

“We need to get the fuck out of here.” Ivan said, his voice hoarse.

We turned around to make our way back to the tent, and then her head snapped up and her eyes met mine. Those bulging eyes stared directly into my soul, and then I saw her mouth arch into a smile.

“Fucking Run!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I grabbed Ivan’s arm and we made a mad dash blindly through the fog for our tent.

From behind me, I could hear the branch snap, in the silence of the forest it sounded like a human bone being broken into two. I heard the woman’s feet as they made contact with the dirt beneath her, and then I heard her rampant footsteps as she came racing towards us. I could hear the choking and gasping sounds for air, they were louder than ever, it sounded as though she were right behind us.

We ran blindly through the fog, in a direction that I believed would take us back to our tent, back to my truck. But I wasn’t sure, in the fog I wasn’t sure of anything, I only knew that she was behind us. Suddenly, from off to my right I heard Ivan grunt and then scream. He had tripped over something and since I was grabbing his arm, he brought me down with him.

I collapsed to the ground, a flurry of leaves and dirt spinning around us. I grabbed Ivan’s arms to pull him up and then I heard him scream again, but this time it was a scream of pain. His arms tightened around mine, as I felt him being pulled away from me. My heart began to race, I felt like I was going to throw up, I tried to strengthen my hold around Ivan but I was losing him. My eyes fell onto his right ankle and I saw her tongue. Her tongue was wrapped around his ankle, that’s what was pulling him away from me.

“Dave it hurts! It fucking hurts!” Ivan howled into the night.

I watched in horror as Ivan was pulled deeper and deeper into the fog, deeper into the woods. I raced after him, unsure of what I was going to do, adrenaline pumping through my veins. My hands tightened around the flashlight to the point where they throbbed in pain.

I followed Ivan’s screams, and through the fog I could see the silhouette of her dragging my best friend through the woods. I ran as fast as I could, I ran until my legs burned, until I felt like I was going to collapse. And then I saw them.

Ivan lying on his back screaming at the top of his lungs. I could see the woman’s tongue still wrapped around his ankle, and dripping from her tongue was Ivan’s blood, parts of his flesh. Her tongue was eating through his ankle. I made a mad dash forward and swung the butt of the metal flashlight with all my might across her jaw. A sickening crack erupted through the night sky, as the woman toppled off to the side. I slid across the dirt and brought the flashlight down across her skull, repeatedly. The woman howled in pain, as black crimson seeped through her wounds and rained down the dead white skin of her face. From the corner of my eye I could see her tongue retract into her mouth. I brought the flashlight down across her skull one more time, the contact causing the top of her skull to cave in.

She trembled feebly in a bed of leaves and dirt. A pool of blood formed around her body that came from the damage to her skull. I slowly brought Ivan to his feet, but he couldn’t stand, not with the damage to his right ankle.

“We need to get out of here.” I whispered.

Ivan said nothing, he only nodded.

I didn’t ask about the ankle. I didn’t ask if he could walk. I knew the answer just by looking at him. I helped him as we made our way blindly through the fog, in the direction that I believed was right, and thankfully I was. Ever so often I’d peer over my shoulder to see if we were being followed, and we weren’t. When we got back to the campsite we gathered the essentials, pretty much just our wallets and my keys.

I quickly helped Ivan into the truck and scanned my surroundings one more time before getting in. I turned the car on, put the truck in drive, and exited the campsite. I looked into the rearview mirror as we were leaving, and through the fog I could see her.

The Shadowbrook Woman.