In The Woods

The woods are dark and deep here in Sweden, and full of ancient beings that you never see in the light of day. You never see them..but you can feel them, and you can tell they´re always in the shadows watching you.
The story I´m gonna tell happened a couple of years ago, and because of it I´ll never go into the woods alone again.
My parents had rented a cabin for the summer, and because I was sixteen, I had to come along. I didn´t really mind, since I could bring my horse-Junior-with me. The cabin itself was pretty nice. It looked like most Swedish cabins-red with white corners, and of medium size. I got my own room which had a view of the little field where Junior was,and I would watch him grazing and revel in the beauty of the sun hitting his grey coat,making it look almost silvery.
The first couple of days were pretty uneventful. I let Junior have some time to himself in his field, and my parents and I explored our surroundings, taking trips in the car or going for long walks. It was nice for a while, but I soon got bored.
Junior and I took our first ride on an afternoon when Mom and Dad had taken the car into the small village down the road, to have dinner there and go dancing afterwards.
The sound of Junior's hooves against the soft ground of the forest, the smell of him and the warm smell of summer filling my nostrils, made me smile as I thought of my friends back home in the city. No matter how hard I had complained when Mom and Dad revealed their plans for this summer, I would not trade this for hanging out at the beach or going shopping. This was what summer was all about.
As we turned onto the old logging road behind our cabin, I noticed how it was completely silent around us.The spruces stood so close together that you could see nothing but darkness between them, creating the feel of huge walls on both sides. The heat from the summer sun made the various smells of the forest more vivid, and normally I would have enjoyed the heavy scent of the trees around me, but at that moment the air felt stale and thick.
Shrugging the uneasy feeling off me I put Junior in a trot, which led into a smooth canter, and before I knew it we were in a place I didn´t recognize. We had made a couple of turns while cantering and when we stopped I felt confused of which way to go to get back home.
“ What do you think, boy?” I asked Junior. “ Are we lost?”
He turned his head and looked at me as if to say “ What are you asking me for? You´re the rider.”
“ OK, you´re right”, I nodded. “ I´ll get us out of here.”
Suddenly, it felt as if the air stood still around us. I could feel Junior tensing up under me, his ears swiveling around like mad. What was he hearing? Looking around, I saw nothing, but I could swear there was someone- or something- behind those trees. Now, Junior isn´t a horse that´s easily spooked, but at that moment he started behaving like a nervous thoroughbred. He threw himself backwards with his eyes wide and nostrils flared, and his ears were still swiveling around as if he was hearing things all around him.
“ Calm down, Junior! Whoa, boy!” I tried to calm him while at the same time trying not to fall off when he reared and backed up so fast he almost sat down on his hind legs. Finally, Junior made a quick turn and started running down the road at breakneck speed with me hanging on for dear life. Powerless to do anything about it, I held onto the reins and ducked for any branches that hung low, praying he wouldn´t stumble. A fall at that speed wouldn´t end well.
When he eventually slowed down, I could see our cabin a couple of hundred yards in front of us, so I jumped off and took his head in my arms, stroking his grey muzzle. Junior was shaking and breathing heavy. Whatever it was he´d seen or heard back there had really scared him.

The next day, Junior acted normal and was his usual calm self when I walked out to him in his field. No signs of anything scary following us home, anyway. Just to make sure, we went a different way when we rode out that day.

A couple of nights later, I was woken up by a terrible sound, like a scream. Realizing that it came from Junior's field, I threw myself out of bed, grabbed a flashlight and ran out. I woke dad on the way out, thinking that I didn´t want to face a wild boar or a moose on my own. When I saw Junior, I just froze. He was standing up against the fence, his grey coat soaked with sweat and his eyes wild with panic.
“ You get him into the stable and I´ll check the field!” dad said and ran up to the gate.
“ Yeah. OK.” I nodded and followed. I put Junior´s halter on him and led him into the small stable next to our cabin, where I wiped him off with a sponge and put a stable blanket on him.
“ There´s nothing in the field. It was probably just a wild boar.” Dad said, standing in the doorway. “ Is Junior OK?”
“ He´ll be fine.”
We closed the door to the stable and returned to the cabin, but as soon as we got in we heard Junior neighing like mad and kicking the walls. Dad and I looked at each other, he grabbed a firepoker and ran out, and Mom almost scared me to death appearing in the doorway to their bedroom.
“ What is going on?” she said. “ What´s the matter with Junior?”
“ I don´t know, but I have to go to him!”
I ran out to the stable where Dad was desperately trying to get Junior to calm down, and at the same time trying to avoid getting kicked by his front legs. Managing to grab hold of the halter I attached a rope to it and got him to stop rearing.
“ It´s OK, sweetheart, I´m here.” I turned to Dad, “ I have to get him outside before he wrecks the stable!”
Dad opened the door and I led Junior outside, where he stopped and stared into the trees on the other side of the field. His ears were pricked and he stood completely still, but I could feel him shaking. Trying to see whatever it was that he saw in the darkness, I noticed a tall figure moving by the fence on the other side of the field. Slowly it made its way to the far corner where it stopped for a minute before disappearing into the trees without making a sound. The branches didn´t even move.
“ Dad, did you see that?!”
“ See what?”
“ Over there! By the trees! Something was there!”
Dad looked at me, then over at the trees where I´d seen the dark figure, and back at me again.
“ It´s dark, Sam. How could you see anything out there?”
“ But I did!”
Dad put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes.
“ Sam, we´ve had a rough night. Let´s just put Junior back in the stable and go back to bed, OK?”
I knew there was no use in arguing with him, so I made sure Junior was calm and that there was water in his bucket, then I followed Dad into the cabin.

Making sure not to go down the old logging road, I took Junior out again two days later. I found a lovely little road with lots of light , and we had a nice ride. However, on our way home we somehow ended up on the logging road again. To top it all off, the sun was starting to go down.
“ Come on, we´ll go this way!” I said to Junior and turned him onto the road next to the logging road, hoping it would get us home at a safe distance from that dark place between the high, thick spruces. With his ears pricked forward, Junior cantered on down the road and then suddenly he just stopped. Unprepared, I hit my nose against his poll and almost fell off, losing the reins and one of my stirrups.
“ Junior, what on earth..?!!”
The air was still and it was dead silent around us. I could feel Junior shaking under me, and again his ears started listening for sounds I couldn´t hear, his eyes wide in fear of something I was unable to see.
Quickly I took hold of the reins and also of his mane- there was no way I was risking falling off there!
“ What is it?” I whispered, my eyes searching the trees around us.
Nothing. I saw nothing.
Then, just up ahead to the left I saw something dark between two trees. It moved towards us, and in a minute it would be out on the road infront of us! Pulling the rein, I turned Junior around and dug my heels deep in his sides causing him to set off in yet another dangerously fast gallop, but all I could think was that I wanted to get away. Far away.
We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because when we slowed down we were again in between the tall thick spruces, and the sky was darkening as the sun went further down on the horizon. By now I was really getting scared, and could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I cursed myself for not having bought a new mobile phone after I broke my old one in the stable the week before going up to the cabin. If only I had taken the time, I wouldn´t be here all alone. I would have been able to call dad, or anyone!
Junior started moving again, nervously stomping his hooves and snorting through his flared nostrils. His ears were pricked forward towards a small clearing in the trees.
As I stood up in my stirrups and squinted to see better, I could see a mere. Its cold, black water gleamed as it reflected the last light from the setting sun. Rising up from it was something dark, and it was slowly making its way towards us. Clawlike fingers bore deep into the moist earth around the mere as the being pulled itself up without making a sound, not even disturbing the surface of the mere's dark water. The being seemed to have no eyes, no features of any kind on its shapeless body, but I knew with a terrible certainty that it was somehow watching me and Junior. The woods around us were quite, as if nature itself were holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen.

Somewhere in my mind a panicked voice was screaming at me to move, to get away from there, but all I could do was stand in my stirrups, my legs rigid with fear, and stare into the clearing. As the being made its way towards us an icy fog started enveloping us, making it impossible to move, and I could feel Junior's body trembling beneath me. I turned my eyes down, looking at Junior's neck, wondering why his natural instincts to flee hadn't set in, and desperately hoping they would.
When I turned my eyes toward the clearing again it was as if the being had spread its darkness over the surrounding trees and ground, so that I could not even see the slightest sliver of sunlight. With darkness all around us I could now see the icy fog clearly, reaching out to me like two skeletal arms, wanting to grab me, to pull me down and into the dark and wet of the mere.
My whole body started to shake violently, my teeth chattering and hot tears burned their way down my cheeks. A smell drifted in the air, a smell of murky water and ancient evil, and voices whispered to me to come, to go into the deep.
As I watched the shapeless being glide soundlessly towards us, my mind felt numb, my thoughts slow, as if the hissing voices around us were hypnotizing me.
Slowly, the being inched closer, clawing at the ground and its body seemed to elongate and shape into something else. Something resembling a human. A face with hollow eyes and a mouth impossibly wide appeared along with long, skinny arms that reached almost desperately for Junior's dark grey legs. In another minute those nightmarish claws would close around his pastern giving the being all it needed to drag us down into its shadowy worlds, away from life.

I turned Junior, and, dug my heels into his sides.He ran as fast as he could, and thanks to him we finally made it home. When we rode up to the cabin, Mom and Dad were standing outside waiting for us. They had gotten worried when we hadn´t returned and thought that maybe we´d got lost. Although I never lie to my parents, I felt it necessary at the time. I told them I had fallen off and hit my head, and could we please go to the hospital in the city? I must have looked so pale and shook up that they believed me even though my clothes weren´t dirty, and I had no bumps or bruises. We packed everything, put Junior in his transport, and went home. Driving out of the woods I had my eyes closed. I didn´t want to see the wall of tall, thick spruces around us. I knew what hid behind them.