...And as the figures move closer, pressing their hands against the outer fabric of the tent, I slip quickly into unconsciousness.
I wake gasping for air. It’s pitch black in the tent and it takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust. It feels like an eternity. I roll over and find Karen sleeping soundly next to me, breathing softly into her pillow. I pull the sleeping bag down from around my chest and do my best to look for any wounds. Nothing. No blood. No marks. Not a single sign to suggest that what I just experienced was reality.
But oh God, it felt so real! I close my eyes for a moment and I’m instantly bombarded by the image of murderous Karen atop me, her outstretched hands cutting off my air, her wild expression a vivid combination of slaughter and pleasure.
“Shit,” I whisper to the silent interior of the tent.
Suddenly the scene of my imagined demise becomes all too suffocating—pun intended. I open the tent’s zipper as silently as possible and slip out through the flap. I’m immediately greeted by cool night air. I use the moonlight to further examine my body. Not a scratch. I am, however, drenched in sweat, wearing nothing but my boxers in the middle of the forest. Common sense floods my head. It’s clear I’ll get sick if I’m out here in this night air for too long, dripping with perspiration. But I feel compelled to check on the others. Something still feels, well… wrong.
I walk back to the area of the campfire, finding nothing but small smoldering embers emitting a minimal amount of heat, a half-empty bottle of vodka and a few empty beer cans. Andrew is nowhere to be found. I scan the clearing for signs of anything unusual, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. I figure he must have just wandered back to his tent to pass out.
Suddenly I hear a low muttering from the direction of Dillon and Eve’s tent. It’s followed by a shuffling in the brush. Shortly after, Dillon stumbles out of the bushes and falls to his knees in front of the nearly deceased fire. Like me, he’s totally naked except for a pair of boxer shorts. He looks up at me with frantic eyes; panic turning his face into a frightening portrait of regret and confusion. He’s mumbling something incomprehensible—a low orgy of perplexing syllables falling from his mouth. As he crawls closer to the fading embers, their little remaining light falls on him, revealing blotches of blood decorating his body.
I run over to him, falling to the ground to put my arms around him. “What the fuck happened?” I ask anxiously. “Are you okay?”
He just stares at me, shivering and mumbling something incomprehensible. I lower my head to put my ear as close to his mouth as possible. The words are moving too fast to understand. It’s like an explosion of language. It almost seems impossible that someone could speak so quickly.
“Dillon,” I manage to say. “I can’t understand what you’re saying. You need to slow down.”
“NO!” he screams at me. Then, before I can pull my head back, I feel his teeth sink deep into the cartilage of my right ear. I scream and try to pull away, but his jaw is clenched. I can feel the blood streaming down the side of my head and neck. With all my strength I manage to push him off, but the upper chunk of my ear remains in his teeth. He falls back and lands on the pile of embers, howling as they singe the flesh of his back.
He lurches forward, away from the remnants of the fire, and lands on his stomach. The chunk of my ear falls from his mouth.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I scream at him as I manage to get to my feet.
I stare down. The frantic expression has vanished from Dillon’s face. It’s all confusion now. His eyes search the clearing desperately, like he’s looking for something to remind him of what’s going on.
He’s on his hands and knees, panting like a dog. “Oh God,” he finally manages to say. “Oh God… Eve!”
He jumps to his feet and stumbles awkwardly towards his tent. I follow, calling after him, “Dillon, take it easy. Just relax for a minute. You need to settle down.”
Dillon reaches the tent before I can even see it, but I know he’s there by the rabid, animalistic scream that pierces the still night air like a needle puncturing the skin of an over-inflated balloon. I pick up the pace and come to a short stop in front of the tent. The flap is open and I can see Dillon’s ankles sticking out.
“Dillon,” I say softly into the darkness of the tent, creeping up with extreme caution. I can hear his muffled sobs from inside. “What’s going on, man? I’m starting to get pretty freaked out.”
I’m just in front of the opening now, but Dillon’s cries are so disconcerting, I’m afraid to look in. Taking a deep breath, I reach down and pull up the flap. I bend down and peak my head in, Dillon’s diminishing sobs offering a morbid soundtrack as I wait for my eyes to adjust to the tent’s blackness. The shadows begin to pull together and transform into something mildly distinguishable, but the scene is so monstrous I can’t even believe what I’m looking at.
Realization strikes me with enough force to knock me backwards. I fall out of the tent and hit the ground hard. I push myself away until my back hits the sharp bark of a thick tree trunk. Only a few moments later, Dillon emerges from the tent.
“Dillon,” I say timidly, trying to keep some distance between him and I. “What happened? What did you do?”
Tears streak his face. He opens his mouth to speak but nothing more than a guttural cough escapes as he falls to his knees. “I… I…” He buries his face in his hands as his shoulders heave. “I swear,” he finally manages. “It was self-defense! She… she was killing me!”
He continues to sob. I think about what he says and my mind leaps back to the incident with my own girlfriend in my own tent. I walk over to him and put a hand on his trembling back. “Try and calm down, Dillon,” I tell him. “Try and tell me what happened.”
Dillon takes a deep breath, doing his best to steady his breathing. “We were both asleep,” he starts. “I was so fucked up from the booze and the weed—I pretty much fell asleep right as my head hit the pillow.” He’s managed to regain a little composure. “I started having some wild dreams—unbelievably vivid. There were people in the woods and they were surrounding the clearing. Moving in on all of us. Getting ready to attack or something. And Eve… she was helping them somehow. Collaborating with them or something. Jesus, it was so fucking real.” The tears start again, but he’s fighting against them. “They… they killed Andrew and she helped them! She fucking helped them!” He breaks down again, burying his face back in his hands.
“How did she help them, Dillon?” I push. “You mean in your dream or in reality? Andrew’s missing, man.”
“In the dream,” he responds quickly. “She held him down while they…” He trails off again, tears streaming down his hands and arms. “When I woke she was just sitting there, like she was in a trance. God… my head was such a mess from the dream. It was so fucking real!”
“I understand, Dillon. I understand it felt so real. What happened when you woke up?”
He takes a deep breath. “She didn’t say a word. She just picked up the flashlight and hit me over the head with it. I fell over. I was all disoriented. She picked up the pillow and… and… she started suffocating me. She had all her weight on top of me. I couldn’t push her off. I was desperate. I knew she was going to kill me. I searched for something, anything, with my hands. I managed to find the flashlight, so I picked it up and I hit her with it. I fucking put all my strength into it and I hit her with the fucking flashlight, man!”
“Okay, Dillon. I understand—it was self-defense. But you said she hit you on the head, right? Hard enough to knock you over?”
He nods.
“But I don’t see any cuts or bumps on your head. If she hit you that hard, it would leave a mark. And there was so much blood in the tent… is it possible you were still dreaming when you thought she was attacking you?”
“She wouldn’t quit!” he screams at me, avoiding the question like I’m accusing him of something worse than the obvious. “I’m telling you, it was like she was possessed. She started coming at me again, like a rabid animal. She was punching me and grunting, clawing at me with her nails. I didn’t know what I was doing, man. I just hit her again and again. Until she stopped coming at me. I bashed her fucking brains in! I bashed her fucking…” He loses all composure and sobs uncontrollably.
“Okay,” I try to console him. “It’s okay. Are you sure she’s… Dillon, are you sure she’s dead?”
“Jesus man,” he says through choked sobs. “She looks pretty fucking dead to me.”
“Alright,” I say, using my most serene tone in a futile attempt to calm his hysterics. “Just stay here for one minute, Dillon. I’m going to take a look. Just stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Dillon nods and leans up against the tree. I walk cautiously over to the tent and take a deep breath before pulling the flap open. Inside, it’s nightmarish. With my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I can see the blood all over the interior of the tent. The flashlight is only an inch or two from my right hand, matted hair and gory flesh stuck to the metal casing. I try to remain calm as I pick it up and flip the switch. The tent instantly fills with a crimson illumination because of the blood covering the bulb. I shine the light on Eve’s lifeless body, which is crumpled in the far corner of the large tent. I move the light towards her head. Her eyes are closed and her face is mangled. She’s nearly unrecognizable. Clumps of ragged flesh hang from her head. As I move the light higher, I see pinkish fragments that I can only assume are bits of her brain peeking out behind the bleached white of her skull. My hand begins to shake and the light becomes flashy and unsteady. I reach towards her neck in an effort to check her pulse. And as my fingers touch her warm flesh, her eyes shoot open and she reaches for my shirt in one astonishingly quick motion. I let out a surprised and exceedingly feminine yelp as I fall back out of the tent, flashlight still in hand. She begins crawling after me, slowly moving towards the tent’s opening, pulling herself along with her hands.
As she chases me from the tent, I look behind to see Dillon staring off in the distance—not even looking at the girlfriend he’s beaten to within an inch of her life crawling on all fours out of his blood-spattered tent. From my position on the ground, I make some attempt to reason with the encroaching creature that may or may not still be some part Eve. “Just take it easy, Eve. We’ll get you to a hospital…” But before I can say another word, a figure emerges quickly from the side of the tent, knife in hand. In a flash, it’s over—the long blade is brought down through the back of Eve’s neck, emerging quickly through the front. Eve sputters and gasps, blood leaking and spitting from her mouth. I look up to see Andrew removing the knife from her neck.
“Fuck that bitch,” he says, bringing the knife down one more time in the back of her head. “I mean seriously… fuck that bitch.”
I stare up at him with complete disbelief. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Andrew? That’s Eve. That’s Dillon’s fucking girlfriend!”
Dillon paces behind me and doesn’t say a word.
“No way, man,” Andrew replies, removing the blade from her head. The sound is grotesque. “She’s helping them. Dillon, tell the man she was helping them.”
Dillon offers a confused half-nod.
Andrew gives me a smug ‘told you so’ look.
I stand up and shake my head with incredulity. “Are you guys still high? Who is them? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Indians bro,” Andrew replies. “They’re trying to kill us white devils.”
“Holy shit,” I say. “You guys have fucking lost it.”
“It’s true, dude,” Andrew continues as he calmly uses the bottom of his shirt to wipe the blood, skull and brain from his knife. After examining the glistening blade, he puts it in a long protective sheathe and returns it to his pocket. “Looks like there was a little more truth to Dillon’s bullshit horror story than we thought. I was hiding in the woods just now, listening to Dillon tell you about what happened with him and Eve. I was bugging out dude, I didn’t know if I could trust you guys. But it looks like we’re all on the same page.”
I stare at him. “The same page? I can’t believe I’m hearing this. It’s absolutely insane. Where the fuck did you get a knife from anyway?”
“C’mon… we’re in the middle of nowhere. Why wouldn’t I have a knife? This is wild country, man. We’re like colonists or explorers or some shit. You never know what you’re going to find out here. I know I certainly didn’t expect to encounter Indian ghosts. How about you guys?”
Dillon shakes his head in agreement. “Definitely didn’t expect it.”
“Alright, well you idiots need to stay right here while I go and check on Karen. Do me a favor and actually take a minute to think about what you’re telling me.” I look at them, blank but oddly certain expressions on both their faces. “You know what, just don’t think at all. Don’t do anything. Don’t think anything. Just please fucking stand here and try not to kill anything. Okay?”
They both nod, but as I turn to head towards my tent, Andrew interjects. “I’d be careful though. They’re using the women against us. I’m kind of surprised Karen hasn’t already tried to torture or kill you by now.”
Again, the image of Karen’s hand wrapped firmly around my throat comes to mind.
“It’s a trick,” I say quietly. I turn back to Andrew and storm towards him, so I’m only an inch or two from his face. “Let me take a wild guess: you had a nightmare where Eve killed you? Am I right?”
“Technically the Indians were killing me,” he responds. “But she’s the one that lured me into the clearing. She’s the one that held me down while they…” It’s the first time I’ve seen him balk since before the shit hit the fan. His voice drops and his confidence evaporates. “While they took my scalp.”
I look at him, seeing the fear momentarily show through the callous shell he’s so clearly constructed. Sympathy takes over for a moment and I cool my tone. “But it was a nightmare, Andrew. It wasn’t real. You’ve still got your scalp, but Eve’s really dead.”
Confusion sneaks into his expression. It’s like he’s created his own reality as a safety net and this is the first time he’s heard the scenario approached with some kind of logic. The safety net disappears and he hits the ground hard. He shakes his head, denying the severity of the situation. “Fuck man, I…” He stops and that false assuredness reappears. “She would have killed us. And Karen will too. You can go ahead and check on her, but I recommend you take this.” He offers me the knife.
“I’ll be fine,” I say as I start to walk away. But before I get three steps I realize how dangerous the knife could be in Andrew’s hands. “On second thought… a little protection couldn’t hurt.”
Andrew smiles. He hands me the knife and looks me in the eyes, appearing completely sincere as he says, “That’s how we have to play this—with caution. We need to watch each other’s backs.”
I nod and head off towards my own tent.
In less than a minute I’m standing in front of the tent, knife in hand. The flap is still half-zipped, just the way I left it. The tent itself is completely dark and silent. I creep closer, doing my best to remain as quiet as possible. Admittedly, my hands are sweating, my heart beating much faster than it should be. I’m actually a little relieved when I peer into the tent and see that it’s empty. No Karen—just the wrinkled piles of our sleeping bags, pillows and sheets.
I duck into the tent and quickly rummage through my bag, pulling out a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I find my cell phone and check for service, knowing it’s a futile effort. My intuition is confirmed, but I tuck the phone into my pocket anyway and grab my pack. After hurriedly scanning the tent for anything that could prove useful, I grab a small flashlight and head back towards Dillon and Andrew.
I’m somewhat surprised to find they’re exactly where I left them. “You must be freezing,” I say to Dillon. “You need to put some clothes on.”
Dillon looks towards the tent, which is obstructed by Eve’s bloody, lifeless body. He looks back at me, a helpless expression spreading across his face. I sigh and move towards the tent, simultaneously stepping over the corpse and reaching inside to pull Dillon’s pack out. I toss it towards him and he begins picking through it immediately, throwing undesired articles of clothing behind him.
“Now Dillon,” I say. “I know we’re all a little of out it and a little confused, but I need to know something: can you get to the cabin from here?”
He looks at me as he puts on a pair of jeans. “Um, the map’s right here,” he says pulling it from his backpack. He stares at it for a moment or two. “I think I can do it.”
“You think?” I reply skeptically.
“Yeah, I think,” he says curtly. “Look, I’m kind of a mess right now. I really don’t know what the fuck’s going on and I’ve never navigated these woods at night. My girlfriend’s fucking dead and—as crazy as it sounds—I think there might be Indian ghosts fucking with us. Why? Because I can’t think of a better explanation. But I still think I can manage to find the goddamn cabin. Okay?”
“Well I guess that’s the best we’ve got,” I respond. “We can wait there until sunrise. What are the chances of us finding someone that can help us at the lake?”
“Pretty good, actually,” Dillon says as he throws a sweatshirt over his head. “This time of year, there should be plenty of people fishing and staying in the area. We should be able to find someone without a problem.”
“Then I guess that’s the plan… unless someone else has a better one.” I look to Dillon who’s throwing his bag on his back and then to Andrew who’s taking a long, slow hit off his pipe. “Andrew, what the fuck? Is this really the time?”
“Can’t think of a better time, man,” he says, pulling on the end of the pipe. “I think we could all stand to mellow out a bit. Nothing good can come from us being all frantic and irritable.” He takes another hit before offering it to Dillon.
“He’s got a point,” Dillon says, reaching for the bowl. He takes a few hits then offers it to me.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I concede and take a hit and then another. Again, I’m caught off guard by the almost overwhelming flavor. I exhale and hand the piece back to Andrew.
“Alright,” Dillon interjects. “We should get a move on. Wait…” He turns to me. “Did you find Karen?”
“No. That’s why you guys are going on without me while I look for her.”
“Are you fucking retarded?” Andrew spits. “That may be the dumbest thing I’ve heard this entire trip. We need to stick together. We’re in the middle of a supremely warped situation here and we can’t just let you go off on your own looking for a girl who may be possessed by evil spirits.”
“Possessed by evil spirits?” I snap. “And me looking for my girlfriend is the dumbest thing you’ve heard? Clearly you haven’t listened to a word you’ve said.”
“Look,” Dillon chimes in, asserting the role as Voice of Reason. “I know how ridiculous the ghost thing sounds, but you didn’t have the dreams that Andrew and I had. You don’t know how real they felt or how fucking scary they were.”
I look at him, debating whether or not to offer a report on my own nightmare. I’ve kept it a secret for this long, hoping to avoid dumping gasoline on a fire that already seems to be burning out of control. But as I look into Dillon’s frightened eyes, I realize I can’t keep the nightmare from these guys any longer. So I spill it. I tell them about the dream in which Karen tried to kill me while figures from the woods slowly surrounded our tent.
They both stare at me for a moment or two until Andrew breaks the silence. “That’s fucking incredible!” he exclaims. “I mean you guys both having such similar dreams—what are the fucking chances?”
“The chances?” I reply. “Who cares, Andrew? This isn’t some fucking case study. Eve’s dead and Karen is missing. There’s nothing fascinating about this whole situation. Absolutely everything is fucked beyond all recognition and right now the only thing I’m concerned with is getting home alive.”
“And that won’t be a problem if we keep our heads on straight,” Andrew says. “And we need to stick together. You wandering off into the woods with no idea where you’re going is a terrible idea.”
“I agree,” Dillon says. As he speaks the words, he stumbles a little and closes his eyes. It looks like he’s trying to compose himself. After a few seconds, he continues. “Splitting up is the worst thing we can do right now.”
“Well what am I supposed to do? Leave Karen wandering around the wilderness like a lost dog?”
My eyes search the dark woods around us. They seem to breathe and shift in the comparatively insignificant illumination of my flashlight. The trees undulate like tall, timber beating hearts reaching up towards infinity and the incandescent particles beyond. Shifting my eyes back to Earth, everything past the beam of my flashlight is somehow both identical and completely different. The patterns of the foliage and the bark and the shadows fold into each other like kissing mouths, like serpents fucking, like sinister mosaics that trade color and contrast for menace and danger. The forest is a mysterious gaping mouth with teeth of wood and tongues of undergrowth. In the distance, I think I can see figures, but they disappear after taking only a few steps. They’re movements are impossibly slow and deliberate. And after being visible for just a few moments, their charcoal frames dissipate into the gloom like puffs of hopelessly dark smoke. It takes me some time—I’m not sure how long—to realize Andrew has not stopped talking. I pull my eyes from the hypnotic scenery, which has become more daunting in the last few seconds, and interrupt him.
“You’re right,” I finally say. “Splitting up is a bad idea.” I think of Karen and close my eyes. But instead of the maniacal, homicidal Karen that has been so present in my thoughts for the last few minutes, I think of Karen walking through the clearing, her silhouette outlined by the fluorescent explosions of the fading sun, her eyes more vivid than they’ve ever been. She’s emanating determination, looking beautiful despite the sweat dripping down her forehead, despite her frazzled hair, despite the heavy pack causing her to hunch over. She walks slowly towards me, smiling. And as she reaches out her hand to grab mine, I open my eyes and stare at the dirt below my feet. “I’m sorry, Karen,” I whisper, absorbing reality and turning towards Dillon and Andrew. “Okay, let’s move out.”
Dillon looks at the map, takes a deep breath and leads us to the clearing where no trace remains of the once-raging fire. He points the flashlight towards a painfully thin path. The neighboring tree limbs clutter the slender trail like devious skeleton hands reaching out for us as we pass. The path shifts and warps in front of us, appearing to vanish into the crowded wilderness only to find itself arbitrarily. At points it seems as though we’ve wandered off into the dense claustrophobia of the seemingly infinite and forbidding forest, irregular forms swarming around us like unfriendly specters, their frigid, ghostly fingers grazing our arms and legs as they tauntingly sever the distance between us and them. And as panic grips me, I realize we’ve only moved a few steps forward on the same trail, the forest invading our space only in the limited forms of branches and leaves.
Dillon’s leading the pack with Andrew following closely behind. I’m acting as the anchor, flinching and turning to inspect any and every unusual noise. But as we work our way deeper into the forest, moving further from the clearing, the previously subtle wilderness orchestra builds to a veritable cacophony, confounding my senses and rendering me incapable of distinguishing any single sound.
“Is anyone else really fucking uncomfortable with this situation?” I ask timidly, like whatever lurks beyond the beams of our flashlights is just waiting for one of us to speak, like it’s using that simple auditory stimulus as a signal to pounce.
“Of course we’re fucking uncomfortable,” Dillon replies from the front. “But we don’t really have much of a choice, do we?”
“Maybe a few more hits will chill us out,” Andrew offers.
“Shut the fuck up, Andrew,” Dillon says. “I need to focus and you guys need to be quiet.”
“So how much longer until we’re there?” Andrew asks.
“Christ Andrew,” Dillon stops and turns around. “What part of ‘shut the fuck up’ don’t you understand? I told you, I’ve never done this at night. And I’m starting to think maybe our brief little blaze session back there wasn’t the brightest idea. So please, let me concentrate.”
“Okay dude,” Andrew says. “You’re right. I’ll settle down.”
Without another word, Dillon turns around and continues down the path. Obediently, Andrew and I follow in silence. After another minute or two of walking, I realize what I’ve been too occupied to realize minutes or perhaps even hours ago: I really have to piss.
In an effort to keep from distracting Dillon, I tap Andrew on the shoulder and whisper to him, “I’m gonna hold back and take a piss real quick. I’ll just be a second. Don’t stop Dillon, he looks like he’s in the zone right now.”
Andrew nods and turns around quickly. “You still got the knife, right? For protection?”
“Yeah,” I whisper back as I stop moving and watch them continue down the path. I unzip and piss off into the woods, so I can still maintain periphery sight of them. I watch as the surrounding forest encompass their flashlights and I’m surprised to see they’ve almost entirely disappeared in the time it’s taken me to relieve myself. As quickly as possible, I tuck myself back in and zip up, taking my eyes off the path momentarily to ensure my most beloved appendage doesn’t get caught in the jagged metal teeth of the zipper. As I shift my gaze back to the trail, the air escapes my lungs in a violent gasp and the flashlight falls from my hand. I hear the bulb shatter as it hits the ground and I’m encased in black.
Even through the darkness I can see Karen standing not five feet in front of me. Her blue eyes manage to glisten through the oppressive night with a sad sort of abandonment. “You left me,” she mutters softly, inching closer. “You left me for them.”
“K-Karen,” I stammer. “I didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t find you and Eve… Eve’s dead, Karen. We had to leave the clearing. I tried to find you, baby. I swear… I tried to find you.”
“You left me,” she repeats, advancing on me. Her eyes hold mine through the darkness. “You left me… to die!” Her meek, disillusioned tone vanishes when she spits the last two words at me with a vehemence I’ve never heard from Karen. As the words strike the air, she lunges at me, her arms reaching for my throat. And I realize, with nauseating horror, that her scalp is missing. Blood oozes down the sides of her face. Her skull protrudes overtly from the top of her head, its crimson-washed whiteness seeming to catch the little illumination that’s present in this area of the forest.
“You left me to die!” she screams as I try to push away her persistent advances. “You left me to die!”
I backpedal but stumble over a large fallen branch. My back hits the ground hard and the oxygen flees from my body. She’s on top of me, her gory skull dripping blood into my eyes and mouth, her shrieks piercing my eardrums, her rank breath a combination of death and earth. She becomes more monstrous by the second. The skin left on her face rots and peels, falling off in thick gruesome clumps, creating a nauseating smack as they splatter on me in wet gobs. She’s literally decaying as her hands reach for my throat.
In an urgent burst of adrenaline, I manage to push her off me. I sprint blindly down the path, calling for Dillon and Andrew, screaming their names madly at the top of my lungs. I only make it a few hundred feet before I trip over another log jutting out from the woods. I manage to get my hands out in front of me, which prevents my face from colliding with the cold, hard ground. As I quickly get to my feet, I feel a hand grasp my shoulder firmly. In a fearful panic, I pull the knife from my pants and unsheathe it in one clumsy motion. Without so much as a glance, I swing the knife behind me and feel it land hard into flesh. I hear the body fall to the ground before I even manage to spin myself around.
There, in a pile on the ground, is Karen. I kneel next to her, doing my best to see through the darkness. It doesn’t take long for me to realize this girl has both her scalp and the delicate, pale skin still clinging to her face. In fact, her only visible wound is from the knife I just pushed into her flesh. The gaping, bloody gash leaks onto her white t-shirt. As understanding strikes me, I notice I don’t have any blood on me either. No vile clumps of flesh staining my shirt. No blood on my face from the scalped creature that was attacking me.
And I watch helplessly as Karen’s blood seeps into the dirt of this goddamn forest.
