A few years back, I woke in a morgue with burns on my body and no memories of who I was or how I got there. No one has been able to tell me who I am or who I was before the fire. The name they apply to unknown victims stuck to me so I'm called John Doe.

I may be strange but, so far, it seems I'm only as strange as the world I've found myself in. I have ten toes and ten fingers in the usual configuration. This world has villages, towns, cities, suburbs, rivers, trees, and animals. That doesn't mean the world or I are normal. There are things in these woods you can't find in a text book. If the man in the morgue had managed to open my chest, he would have found pieces of me that were not inside any other human. I've seen some of those parts myself but, like the woods and brambles I wander through, I haven't seen them all.

Would you like me to read the story to you instead? I have a recording of me reading it on YouTube?

Like the proverbial magpie, I spend a lot of my time learning about whatever new mystery happens to catch my notice. Maybe some of those things are in books. Maybe they're not. It's hard to get good books here. Today, I'm following some mysterious moths. Mrs. Welkie, whose house is maybe a mile away, lent me a book about moths in the region. These look like Ornate Tiger Moths but have blue coloration instead of orange.

I sat on a log and watched a group of the moths slowly opening their wings. The book said the Ornate Tiger Moths had a 1.7in wingspan. These seemed closer to 2 inches but I wasn't bothered by the discrepancy.

A pair of people approached, bothering the birds, bugs, and who knew what else. It was unlikely they were here for the bugs or at least not the same bugs I was watching.

The two stumbled around the biggest tree closest behind me.

“John?” a woman's voice said.

“Yes.” I didn't turn from my study subject.

“Mrs. Welkie said we'd find you out here,” a man's voice said. Mrs. Welkie was an older woman who made friends easily as I well knew.

“Does she need something?”

“No. She said you'd know where we might find three-banded ladybugs. They have yellow around their black spots —”

“I know what they look like. Try up that way,” I raised my left index finger and pointed up ahead. Strange enough to have someone else out here looking for a specific bug. Three-banded ladybugs might be about as rare as whatever I was looking at. I hadn't seen the bugs myself on this outing but I had a sense about it.

“Thanks!” the man said. The two started to march further into the forest. Both were dressed in tee shirts, shorts, and worn tennis shoes. Each carried a thin bag on their back.

“If you don't want to scare them off, walk more softly,” I said.

“Sure thing, dude,” the woman said.

I wasn't surprised when they continued to clomp and bluster through the wood. At least they were moving away from me and only a few of the moths had moved on.

I finished the lunch I'd packed and cleaned up the mess an hour or so after the sun had reached its highest level in the sky. There was a lot of light left in the day but the sky had started to turn a little. I'd been so engrossed in the moths that I hadn't been paying close enough attention.

The people after the ladybugs surely didn't have the gear they needed to deal with the coming storm. I sighed and retraced their route through the trampled plants they'd left in their wake.

Following them on foot would become harder once the sky darkened completely but I wasn't ready to pull out my flashlight yet.

Someone screamed a pretty good distance away. I ran toward the sound. I found the bugs they had been looking for but not the woman or man.

Their bags were up against a tree.

I kept my eyes on the ground in front of my feet, moving slowly and only occasionally looking above. The plants between the trees had been pressed down. The ladybugs they'd been looking for might have a lost a few of their number to whatever had pressed down on the plants but there were still plenty of them on the trunks of the trees.

“Hello?” I called out. I waited to hear a response.

The only thing I heard was the chirp of bugs and the rustling of the wind in the branches of trees. A group of birds cleared up from their roosting spots and flew to new, nearby branches on the same trees.

They distracted me for a moment. I nearly fell into the hole.

The hole was roughly round and about four feet in diameter. The interior wall was built of dirt. Shocks of roots from grasses and trees stuck out of the tunnel. The hole didn't go straight down like a well. It curved down and into the dark. I moved around to the side facing furthest away from Mrs. Welkie's house since that was the direction the hole headed.

I turned around and checked I could still get out before I was any further into it than waist deep. Before I lost sight of the light, I shouted. “Hello?!”

I counted beats and listened. I only heard what might have been a scratching. I pulled a flashlight out of my pocket and pointed it at the looming dark ahead of me. Four foot of vertical space isn't much to work with. I had to crouch to move. I steadied myself on the sides of the tunnel and stopped every few steps to shine the light ahead.

“Hello?” I called into the dark. I weighed options. Whatever had made this hole was huge. So far, the things I had found in the dark were creatures that weren't able to deal a deadly blow to someone who could recover from burning to death. My memory was limited. The fire that sent me to the morgue hadn't killed me but I'd forgotten everything I'd known before then. I don't know what I am or what my limits are. I seemed to need to breathe, eat, and sleep. I might survive a fire — at great personal cost. I didn't know whether I could survive a fall, drowning, or some other thing.

Some stories I'd read suggested that strange entities like me might be killed by silver knives or salt. I'd never had a chance to test the silver theory but salted fried potatoes hadn't harmed me yet.

Assuming the woman and man were even in the tunnel, I might not be able to rescue them unassisted. I didn't have more on me than the clothes on my back, the flashlight in my hand, truck keys, wallet, notebook, pencil, and folding knife in my pockets. These weren't ideal tools for a rescue.

I shouted down the hole again. My voice echoed off the walls of the tunnel. I heard a drip and some rustling in the distance but no voices answered mine.

A few steps later, the tunnel under me crumbled and sent me down through another passage.

I woke in a pile of debris, looking up at faint light from a hole in the uneven roof of the place where I found myself. There were roots a few fingers thick leading up. I felt for my flashlight and found it by my right hand in the dirt and stones. I shined it up. The plastic lens in my flashlight had been cracked but it didn't do much to hurt the light. I'd still have to replace the lens sooner or later. Before I could deal with that, I would have to get out. Even with the light, I couldn't be sure I could climb back up that way. The roots might snap under my weight and, even if they didn't, there were too few of them to be certain about making my way out the same way I'd come in.

If the woman and man fell like I had, they would probably be injured. I always wore denim, long-sleeve shirt, and thick leather boots when I went in the woods. My outer layers were dirtied but the fall hadn't cut through them.

The casual clothes they had been wearing wouldn't cover much of their vulnerable skin let alone hold up to a fall like that.

I didn't know that was what had happened with them but the math was starting to go sideways. I got to my feet and dusted myself off.

“Hello?! Can you hear me?” I bellowed. My voice didn't echo as much here. I listened and shined my light around the makeshift room I found myself in. Water dripped from somewhere. Where I'd fallen was near the high spot of the space so I hadn't woken up in a puddle.

I pushed my way through a gap and into the next space. It was larger than the place I'd first found myself in but it still wasn't really a place in the way the tunnel had been. Something was using this empty area and had made changes to it but the space itself may have been there for decades or more.

I don't know whether it was rational or not but I felt a shiver of fear. This was not a place for shouting. I moved quietly and turned the light in a circle around the room.

Something big had flattened out some of the space in the room but I didn't see it anywhere. Things were moving, though.

I spotted a human arm and made my way to it. It was still attached to the person. The woman.

She was covered in a thick, gooey mucus. Otherwise, she looked very much like she had when she and her friend had asked me about the bugs. Maybe she'd had an easier trip here than I had.

I wiped my hand across her face, making sure her mouth and nose were clear.

She squirmed and moaned.

“Are you ok?” I whispered.

She whined and squeezed her eyes closed.

“Sorry,” I muttered and moved the light away from her face.

“Where is he?”

“Your boyfriend?”

“He's not my boyfriend.”

I didn't have an answer to my question and my hand was starting to numb from the stuff I'd cleared off of her. I pulled her to one of the low spots in the space and used the water from the puddle to clear the goo from her exposed skin.

This wasn't a good place to be in but I was never going to get her topside without her cooperation.

She shrieked.

“Hush!” I said.

“Where the hell are we?”

“Underground in a den or something. Probably made by whatever brought you here. Where is the man you were with?”

“Who?”

I moved her to one of the walls and sat her down.

“Stay here,” I said. “And stay quiet.”

She nodded at me. She looked sleepy.

“What's your name?”

“Steph.”

“And the name of the guy you were with?” I rinsed my hands in the puddle closest to her.

Some presence of mind shook loose.

“Nathan. His name is Nathan.” Steph crawled close to the puddle as I walked into the dark.

A loud thud came from the direction I was heading.

Steph startled behind me, splashing the water she was now rinsing her shorts in.

I crouched lower and pointed the light at the ground. I had to climb through a gap into the next space. I stood to full height again.

I heard voices. Or something that sounded very much like voices. Chanting. Not words, I don't think. The voices were around me, talking to each other. At least that's the way it seemed to me. Maybe like birds or bugs calling to each other.

Something whizzed by my head. I ducked and flashed the light around. I didn't see what had flown by me but I did spot Steph's friend. I scanned around the room as I stumbled through the uneven ground. Stones and roots threatened to make me stumble.

Nathan was completely out of it. His legs were splayed and his upper body was hunched over them. He looked a little rougher than Steph did. He had cuts on his arms and legs but nothing life threatening.

I shook his shoulders.

He wasn't as covered in whatever slime had gotten on Steph. Maybe that was the reason for the cuts but I didn't have evidence of that yet. Nathan thrashed, almost like he'd been stirred from a slumber.

“Where am I?” he muttered.

I pulled him to his feet.

“Come on, Nathan,” I said. “Let's get out of here.”

“Ok,” he mumbled. “I lost my shoes.”

“I'm not surprised,” I said. I led him by the hand.

He squirmed in my grasp but didn't pull his hand back.

“Nathan?” Steph said as we made it back to the same chamber I'd found her in.

Nathan pulled away. He rushed around me and hugged Steph.

“You've still got goo on you,” Steph complained. She squeezed out of his grip and shoved him into the puddle.

“Make it quick,” I said. “We need to get out of here.”

The voices returned. They surrounded us. I flashed the light around. I could only catch the edges of them. They might have been bats or very large insects. I wasn't ready to rule anything out yet.

Steph and Nathan splashed around in the puddle, making a quiet racket the voices and flutterings couldn't quite drown out.

The splashing stopped suddenly.

“We're ready,” Steph whispered. “Are we going out the same way you came in?” (15:23 issue) “No,” I shook my head, heedless of whether they would see me do it. “I doubt I could get myself up that way. Without a rope, the three of us definitely wouldn't make it.”

“Sorry,” Nathan said.

I didn't respond. I went left since behind and front of me were blocked off and the right is where I'd found Nathan. Someone grabbed the back of my shirt but the hand didn't pull on me.

The makeshift tunnel we went through was uneven. It winded up, down, left, and right at random intervals and had the ends of tree roots crossing through the paths. I'm not so good with time when I'm deprived of the sun, moon, and stars.} I've never seen the point of wearing a watch. It makes sense for others. Just not for me. I rarely have appointments and what little money I need I get from donations or trades.

I wished a little for a watch now, though. It would be good to know if I should bother looking for a trace of sunlight through the drizzle that was surely happening above by now.

We came to a wider spot with the path diverging in two directions.

“Which way do we go?” Nathan said.

“Stay here,” I said. “I'll check one and come back for you.”

Steph looked like she was going to panic.

Irritation rose in me. I didn't want to deal with this but I couldn't risk them screaming.

“I won't be gone long. Please stay calm. I'm sure you don't want to draw them here.” I didn't even know who 'them' might be in this case. I hoped they knew more about what had brought them here than I did. I wanted to ask them if they remembered anything now that their skin wasn't covered in the mucus. I might try again later. I just had to hope whatever memories they might have would be enough to motivate them.

Steph nodded, biting her lower lip like it would keep her from making any noise. One of those strange human things. It wasn't that the lips made the noise but rather some strange shared symbolism I didn't have access to.

Had I known that kind of thing before the fire that took my memory and my past? I considered it often.

I rounded the corner. The trail narrowed and went up before going down again. I followed it a little further.

Something startled me. Some ... being. A creature of some sort. I wasn't close enough to see it clearly. Its proportions were inhuman. It had short hind legs, long forelimbs and giant gold eyes. Its body was more like the size and shape of a large dog than a human. It didn't have skin or solid pieces of an exoskeleton like an insect. It could have been made of rags. Some of its patches were brown and others green, black, or cream colored. I wasn't close enough to see for sure whether the colored spots were really made of cloth.

I had never seen its like. At least not in the memories I still had. I waited there for a moment to see what it would do.

It stood still but not so steady that I could mistake it for a statue or a dead thing. Its chest expanded and then contracted like breath.

If I could have been sure it was safe to draw near, I still wouldn't. The creature didn't seem inclined to let me move past it.

I turned around and kept an ear out for movement behind me. If the thing did follow me, it was utterly silent and didn't change the pressure of the air that surrounded us.

Had something like the creature taken Steph and Nathan into the tunnels? Had beings like it made the tunnels near the surface? If so, the things might have no interest in whatever I was. That didn't mean I was in the clear from danger. Anything after the others was a threat to me and there were other things in these tunnels too. Not just creatures but probably holes and cliffs.

When I got back, Steph looked like she was ready to chase after me.

“Well?”

I shook my head and led them the other way.

The path started out narrower and went down deeper and faster than the other had.

Steph and Nathan whispered behind me.

I had a rule I'd developed since losing my memory. I didn't involve myself in others' conversations where I'm clearly not wanted even if the conversation is about me.

“Mister,” Nathan said.

“Yeah,” I said without looking back. The darkness still enveloped us on every side, tempered only in front of us by my flashlight. I didn't have spare batteries on me. I wouldn't lose my head if I didn't have the light but Steph and Nathan were barely holding on.

“We didn't get your name.”

“John Doe,” I said.

Nathan laughed.

“Really. What's your name?”

“It's a long story but that is my name,” I said. It wasn't really that long but I didn't feel like telling it.

“John?” Steph said.

“Yes?”

“What was on the other path?”

“Dead end,” I said. If they found this unconvincing, they didn't say anything about it.

The path widened into another space. This one didn't have offshoots to worry about so we moved through it and into the next tunnel. I flicked the flashlight off and felt my way through the winding passage.

Maybe I was listening closer since I couldn't see or maybe my companions were more scared because it was dark. They made so much noise behind me that I wasn't confident I could clearly hear the things ahead of us. I guessed asking them for quiet would have made them angry and noisier. I tried to live with it.

The path opened up after a long while. I turned the flashlight back on.

Steph shrieked and Nathan startled. Nathan fell back onto his butt. At least the dirt here was dry.

I spotted what they were concerned about. Four creatures. The same kind that had turned me back from the other tunnel.

The creatures jumped back when they heard the noise from the other two but they didn't move off the paths they had staked off.

“I don't think they're trying to hurt us,” I said. I moved toward the one path that wasn't blocked.

The creatures didn't move from their spots. Their eyes seemed to glow in the dim frame made by my flashlight. It was just a reflection of light in a slightly golden hue.

“Come on,” I said.

Steph and Nathan didn't hurry to join me. I had to walk back to them and push them by the shoulders.

“If they wanted to hurt us, they would have done it already.”

Steph let out a cry of relief once we were in the next tunnel.

I squeezed in front of both of them and led them down the new path.

“Were those like the things that brought you here?”

“What? No. I don't think so at least. I couldn't see.”

“It might be the goo talking but I thought the things that got us were snakes.”

“Big ones. Like nothing you've ever seen.”

It was presumptuous to guess what I had and hadn't seen. In this case, they happened to be right. I hadn't seen a gigantic snake. I had seen things that frightened even me, though. I didn't need to fill their minds with terror as I was trying to get them to the forest above us.

I didn't think we could outrun a snake large enough to make the tunnel I'd first jumped into. I didn't know if a gigantic snake could move faster than a smaller one but they'd probably move fast enough especially in their own tunnels.

The passages were so quiet the sounds of Steph and Nathan breathing behind me were almost deafening. Much of this segment was pretty skinny but nearly tall enough for me to stand at full height if I needed to. Every step was uncertain and I was held up as much by my elbows pressing against the sides as I was by the ground under my boots.

“Can't we look ahead?” Nathan said. “I think this is starting to get to Steph.” The sound of something hitting a human back punctuated the silence.

“I'm fine. Just keep moving,” Steph said.

I slipped my hand inside my pocket and pulled out the cracked flashlight. I pressed the little rubberized switch to click the light on. Because of the bends and twists of the tunnel, I couldn't see much further ahead with the light than I could feel. I pressed the button again and dropped the flashlight in the breast pocket of my flannel shirt.

Several long and tense minutes later, we found ourselves in an empty space.

I turned the light on again and shined it around the room.

Steph shrieked as the light passed over some bats.

“They don't have any interest in us,” I said. “They eat bugs and small rodents.”

“No! You don't understand! Nate!”

I turned around.

Nate was down low with his ass on the ground, crawling backward. He looked up with his mouth wide open.

I spun around and searched for what they were reacting to. All I saw at first were the same flying shapes I'd identified as bats just a moment earlier. They still looked like bats but a large group of them melded together.

At first, the shape they made was like nothing I have seen on Earth or beneath it. It could have been like the shapes that swarming birds make sometimes but it morphed and shifted until they made five bipedal forms. The forms stood at about shoulder height. They weren't shaped much like humans. They had round bodies and spindly legs and arms. Their heads were roughly melon-shaped with big, gaping jaws and no sockets for the eyes they didn't have.

Even I felt a cold shiver in my bones. I didn't recognize them. Maybe I would have if I hadn't lost my memories. Something about them spoke of hunger and something else. Despite the similarities of our present forms, they didn't recognize us as anything more than prey.

Something fluttered around us. More of the little flittering, flying things that had merged to form the figures in front of us.

Nathan shrieked this time.

The form closest to us took a swipe at me. Its gleaming claws looked sharp enough to rend flesh from bones.

Instinct pulled me back in time to avoid a serious injury.

“Don't let them join up,” Steph shouted.

I scowled at that. I didn't have any reasonable options to keep them apart. I stepped between two of them, leaving three to my left and two to my right. I protected my front with my left arm and my back with my right.

The creatures formed of little flying animals shrieked and hissed at me. One of them held a clawed hand up for a moment and took a swipe at me.

I didn't have enough room to dodge this time.

It hit my left arm and left three deep gashes in it. The pain was sharp and bitter. It stung.

I was going to need a new shirt. I reached my right hand behind me.

“Get close and follow me. You can hold your fists up together to protect your midsection and most of your arteries,” I said with a quiet hiss.

There was a little scuffle behind me and then I felt someone press up against my back.

I reached and grabbed a shirt and pulled them forward with me.

“Don't stop for anything,” I muttered.

A few more of the bat creatures took swipes at me. A few claws landed, tearing the shoulder open on my shirt. I pulled through anyway.

Steph and Nathan both made noises of surprise. I would be able to rescue them if I could get them out but I didn't see a way to do it without further injury. It was no time to stop.

We pulled past the beings and made it to a tunnel.

“We got everyone?” I shouted without looking back.

“Yes,” Nathan and Steph both said.

“Alright. Keep going.”

I pulled the flashlight out and flicked it on, lighting up a little of the winding path in front of me.

We did the closest thing to a run that we could do in a tunnel that was a little wider and much shorter than me.

We came to another open area. This one was pretty small. The others wouldn't be able to pass me unless I pressed myself up against a wall.

“How are we doing?”

“You're bleeding,” Nathan looked like he might pass out at the sight of the blood running down my left arm.

“It's not as bad as it looks,” I said. I didn't know how bad it was but I had recovered from fatal burns. I figured a few cuts on the topside of my arm were probably not going to do the job. I squeezed past them and shoved the flashlight into my mouth. I dug into the low roof of the tunnel we'd just come through, partially collapsing it. I turned around and squeezed past them again. “Let's get going.”

The next stretch of tunnel started heading up a little. It was a relief. We'd been pretty steady in depth for a while. I'd already considered trying to dig up whenever we found a good place to try it.

Before I could give it any more thought, I realized I'd missed something.

“Back up,” I told the others.

“What's wrong?” Steph's voice came from behind Nathan.

“Nothing. We might have found a way out.”

They backed down the tunnel.

I turned back and found the hole I'd missed. It was a little small for me to fit in. I used both hands to dig it out.

Nathan watched me with something like fear mixed with excitement.

I was sure he was watching the wound on my left arm. I held the only light in my mouth. It was just strong enough now to help us make out the path ahead. It wouldn't give him much of a hint about how deep the cuts were.

I got the hole big enough to lift myself up into it. I shined the light and found one of the bigger, rounder tunnels.

I let myself back down.

“Go on. I'll help you up. Head left when you're up there,” I pulled Nathan toward me and lined him up with the hole.

I helped push him up. He disappeared into the dark.

“Are we getting close?” Steph said.

“It's heading in the right direction and it looks like the hole I came down to find you. I hope so.”

She nodded, looking more like she was thinking on what I'd said than anything else.

I pulled myself up into the tunnel after them.

“Careful where you step. On the way down, I fell into a hole that led me to you two.”

That seemed to give Nathan an idea. He got into a crawl and spread himself across as much of the width of the tunnel as he could.

“Do what Nathan's doing,” I told Steph.

The three of us crawled up the steep incline. The tunnel curved gently this way and that, occasionally leveling for twenty feet. It was almost a surprise when we crossed the hole I'd fallen in to begin with.

Nathan was able to easily avoid the hole. Steph and I followed after him.

Soon, the three of us were in mud from the rain that had come down into the tunnel.

“We're almost there,” I said. “Keep going but be careful. We don't want to slip down the tunnel.” I let the mud that we were crawling in cover my forearm. The mud couldn't hide the shreds that had been made of my shirt but the cuts would be less obvious. There was still water dripping but it might have been the leftovers of the rain working its way off the leaves and needles of the trees.

Steph managed to get herself out of the hole on her own but Nathan needed help.

As I was pushing Nathan out, small shapes chattered around us, moving past us and into the night sky.

“God. Not again!” Nathan said.

I pushed him out of the hole and climbed out of it myself.

The flying creatures formed up. This time, not in the shapes of the bipedal creatures that had found us underground. They formed into a gigantic, curving snake.

Steph wept silently and shook.

“Oh shit,” Nathan said when he saw what Steph was reacting to.

“Don't panic,” I said through gritted teeth. I pulled the flashlight out and turned it on. I shone it at the snake and walked steadily and calmly toward it.

It hissed and moved past me.

I spun around and saw it go down into the tunnel. It seemed to give us a final flick of the tail as it disappeared down the hole.

“What are we going to do now?” Steph said.

“I'll lead you back to Mrs. Welkie's place. You can find your way to your car from there.”

We walked through the damp of the night. I hoped they would calm down before we made it back to their car. I hoped the memories would fade into a dream-like thing with fuzzy edges.

They bickered about what to do. Nathan wanted to go to a nearby bar and try to tell others about what they experienced.

Steph looked skeptical.

“Will you go with us?” she asked me.

“We fell in a hole and dealt with some bats and badgers. I've already had my vaccines. You should get yourselves taken care of.”

“Bats?!” Nathan seemed offended. “You saw what we saw.”

“I don't think I did.” I flashed the light up ahead of us. “There's your car.”

“Where are you going?” Steph said.

“Back to my own truck.”

“Thanks for everything,” she said.

“Yeah. Thanks, man.” Nathan sounded a lot less grateful than Steph did but I hadn't just insinuated that she'd been imagining everything they went through.

We parted ways. I did stop at my truck. I pulled my torn shirt off and tossed it into a waste bag I keep under the shell. I pulled out a spade. I usually used it for latrine duty but it would have to do for my purpose.

The walk back to the tunnel was faster since I didn't have to worry about the others keeping up.

I hopped down the tunnel and scratched at the roof with my spade, aiming for the spots I thought might be weakest. It may have been my paranoia but I felt eyes staring at me in the dark. I didn't know how long I had before the others showed up.

Minutes of work left a nice pile of dirt and stones blocking the tunnel entrance. It would take more time and effort to block out the dim light from the moon and stars.

I dug faster, aiming to bring down big chunks. I was a little too successful and got myself caught in a crumbling pile of dirt and roots. I backed myself out of it and shook out my undershirt. I walked down the tunnel a good ways.

The eyes I'd felt on my back shone lightly in the dark. It might have been a trick of the mind or eyes.

What I saw had dim, red eyes. They made small movements. A group of them worked on another hole in the top curve of the tunnel. Each figure was a little taller than half the height of the tunnel itself. I couldn't make out much more about them than that.

I drew near. This part of the tunnel still required me to hunch down to move through it. I couldn't have been silent even if I'd tried. Every foot step and move involved a subtle crunch.

The red eyed beings didn't run or flinch. They did look at me from time to time as I moved closer to them. That didn't mean there was no danger. There wasn't enough light in the tunnel to see if they were the same kinds of creatures as the ones that had tried to keep us on the right paths before.

My heart pounded. After the help the others had given us, I wasn't ready to assume these were interested in harming me but I was still cautious.

The red eyed beings backed away from the hole they'd been digging. One of the closer red eyes nodded at the hole.

I looked up through the hole. It had a steep slope but it led to a dim sky blocked by the tops of waving trees.

“Thanks,” I said. I tucked the spade in my back pocket and started making the climb out of the hole.

I got out in time to find men wandering around the woods with flashlights in hand. Closing the hole I'd climbed through would have made too much noise. I slipped behind a row of trees.

They didn't see me.

I went off to the left, parallel to the line I figured they were making from Mrs. Welkie's house. I hopped Mrs. Welkie's chain link fence and slunk through the back yard to the house.

The yard was covered in leaves but the damp from earlier made the surface soft if not quiet to walk through. Someone who stood perfectly still might hear me from a pretty close distance. It was a risk but a smaller risk than standing still in woods that were being scoured by men with flashlights.

I scratched at the back door.

Mrs. Welkie opened it. She spotted me and came back out with a broom. She brushed me off and then let me into her house. She locked the back door behind us.

“Shower's in that way. I'll come in for your clothes and leave you a pile of my late husband's so don't mind the door.”

I nodded.

A knock came on the front door. I rushed through pulling on the clothes Mrs. Welkie had left me. The cuts on my arm and shoulders had stopped bleeding though they looked pretty severe still. The shirt would cover the wounds long enough to keep prying eyes away from them. I gave my hair another pass with the towel before walking out.

“John,” Mrs. Welkie said. She was near the front door and looked a little nervous.

“Coming,” I said. I took a steady pace to the front door, towel still around my neck.

A group of men stood outside Mrs. Welkie's house.

“Take us to the tunnels,” a man at the front said. He directed this to me.

I stepped out onto the porch. I felt a cold shiver. There were about thirty people gathered there.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked.

“All my life. Forty years.”

“In all that time, how many have gone missing from these woods?”

His face twitched. He looked around at the crowd that surrounded him.

“Before today, none.”

“Counting today, none,” I said. “There's no one missing unless there are other hapless tourists no one has told me about.”

Some muttering broke out between the others in the crowd.

“They said there were monsters in the tunnels. It's not safe to have them so close to our houses.”

“I found them disoriented and distraught. They got out safely with my help. I climbed through dirt and muck to get them out. I didn't see anything scarier than a bug or a bat. I've already had my shower. I'm not showing you a hole I'll have to rescue you from in forty-five minutes.”

“Come on, James,” one of the other men pulled James's shoulder. “Let's go back to the bar. First round's on me.”

James scowled and pulled his shoulder back. He walked away from the woods.

I went back inside Mrs. Welkie's house. The smell of grilling sandwiches hit my nose. I sat down in a chair at the kitchen table and rested my head on my hands on top of the table.

“You know how long I've lived in these woods?” Mrs. Welkie said as she stirred the soup that was bubbling beside the sandwiches.

“No,” I said. Exhaustion filled my voice.

“All seventy some odd years of my life. I've seen things in the darkness. Things I wouldn't dare tell anyone but you. I think of them as friends. Or at least well-behaved neighbors. They never borrow my sugar or shout at each other after the sun goes down.”

There are things in the forest worth worrying about and I did see some of them that night. Most of those were humans, though.

“I feel like thanking you but I wonder if you're not something more than you appear to be,” Mrs. Welkie said as she placed a pair of grilled sandwiches on a plate and set them in front of me.

I raised my head and gave her a slight smile.

I cleaned up the plate, bowl, pan, and pot after the sandwiches and soup.

Mrs. Welkie came back out. She had on a night gown that went from her neck to her socked feet.

“I put a blanket and pillow on the couch. You can sleep there while you wait for the dryer to finish or stick around until morning and get breakfast out of the deal. I'm up past my bedtime.”

I nodded.

She left and I bedded down on the couch.

The night sounds of a strange house are hard to sleep through. I wondered if some of the noises would have been more familiar before I lost my memories. I nodded off and slept until nearly three in the morning.

It was almost dead silent in and outside of the house. It might have been the quiet that woke me. I looked out the window beside the front door.

Some of the gold-eyed rag creatures were outside, rambling in the dim light of the moon on a night that had become clear since I had fallen asleep.

I stepped out into the chilly wet with my bare feet.

The creatures froze when they heard me but relaxed when they saw me.

I walked to them, crouching down to make myself less tall. I tried to see the world as they must have. A human might have seen the dark but even they could have made out the shapes of the trees and the dips and climbs of the uneven ground around us.

The creatures' ramble was almost like a dance. Their frames were built more for a four limbed stride than bipedalism but I still saw the artistry in it.

One of them rambled up to me. It turned its left hand up and raised it twice.

I held my hand up as it had but didn't repeat the raising motion.

It made a sound that might have been a squeak or a chortle and dropped something in my hand. It was a smooth but pliable round ball. In the dim light, I couldn't tell the color but it might have been a smooth ball of dirt. A little less heavy and maybe wrapped in smooth leaves.

The being showed me another ball in its own hand and touched its tongue to the ball.

I licked the ball it had given me. It tasted a little savory and slightly sweet. It was nothing like human food but it stirred something familiar in me. I was sure I wasn't one of these beings. It wasn't just the fact that I looked like a human to the casual observer. There were other, more fundamental differences between us but that didn't mean we were too unalike to share a moment.

“Thanks,” I said. I slipped the ball in the pocket of the shirt Mrs. Welkie had loaned me. I snapped the pocket button closed.

The creature made a repeated noise that sounded a bit like “squork.”

“It's a little late in the night for me to eat.”

The being rolled over its shoulder like it was a ball. It scampered to catch up with its friends.

I slipped back into the house and went back to sleep.

In the morning, a movement in the shirt pocket woke me up. I slipped out the front door and unsnapped the pocket. A bug flew out of it. Big enough to be the thing I'd licked before.

I lifted the left cuff on the shirt and peeked at the wounds on my arm. They'd started an inch deep and each was now the depth of a fingernail's thickness.

I may be strange but, so far, it seems I'm only as strange as the world I've found myself in.

#AudioFiction #Horror #Halloween #Fiction #JohnDoeIsNotAlone