The six of them, wrinkled maps clutched in their arthritic hands, began their ascent. They were not spring chickens; seventy years of living had worn grooves into their faces, like the paths they now attempted to follow.
Their laughter echoed off the pines, but a somber note underlaid it all. This backpacking trip, a supposed last hurrah, was born from a pact they'd made decades ago in their youth.
The forest was old, and the trees towered above them, their ancient limbs gnarled and skeletal. It was supposed to be an easy three day trek into the mountains, something to keep their spirits alive as their bodies withered.
Agnes, with her persistent cough, was the slowest. Her wheezing breath marked the start of their uneasy journey and was met by impatience from her fellow backpackers.
"We should've waited for those hip replacements to come through," Mildred quipped, not unkindly, earning a weary groan from Agnes. Their attempts at maintaining positivity only masked the trepidation they held, at both their physical limits, and their impending doom.
The path ahead, initially a clear indication of where to step, grew narrow and less defined with each hour. They found the maps were nearly useless in the forest's density, almost mocking the optimism with which they started.
The afternoon sun, usually a source of warmth, became obscured by the thickening canopy, a heavy and dense cover that cloaked everything beneath in a murky gloom. They trudged on in a disconcerting silence, the cheerful bantering they held in the beginning all but gone.
Anya, always one for a good tale, decided to speak up, in an attempt to get spirits lifted. "Remember when we got lost at that pumpkin patch? Mrs. Gable had that stick for protection!"
She got little reaction, the forest had seemed to have drained the levity and joviality out of her voice, rendering her anecdotes stale. The woods began to hold a dark feeling and their surroundings, once green, turned into ominous shades of grey and black.
Soon the sun faded, plunging the forest into near darkness, save for what few lights filtered through the dense vegetation. The elderly ladies stumbled on, the fading daylight making it that much harder to see.
"Maybe we should have brought flashlights?" Evelyn muttered, frustration creeping into her old tone, and regret filled her gaze, as she saw the hopelessness within her crew. Her sentiment was followed by a resounding silence.
"Let's try to get camp set up," Beatrice, ever the pragmatist, attempted, not looking for a vote, but demanding to take the lead on something, anything. Their attempt at taking control was like a mere ripple on the surface of a black, endless abyss, barely noticed.
They set up camp as best they could with their fading limbs and eyesight, the silence was broken by rustling sounds, and strange movements that came closer as they set down for the night, in their weak and barely standing tent.
"What was that sound?" muttered Agnes, her voice barely above her incessant cough, the very question revealing that not all of their sanity remained. The silence was an unwelcome answer.
They tried to eat a simple meal of protein bars and nuts, but no one had an appetite. Even Evelyn's usual insistence to follow a schedule fell to the wayside; the unidentifiable sounds were making her palms sweaty, their end nigh.
They huddled inside the tent, hoping some warmth, safety, or normalcy would return. One by one, each drifted off to a troubled, anxious sleep.
When the first light finally came through the tree leaves, it painted everything a ghastly shade of gray. Their shared fear could now be felt with all five senses.
They were six when they had gone to bed, but Mildred wasn't there; the area where her sleeping bag laid empty and cold. It felt so quick, like she was just gone as the air became thick and viscous.
"Did she go to the bathroom?" Beatrice proposed, attempting a reason so that they wouldn't have to confront the dreadful reality. Evelyn searched frantically among their backpacks, hoping she'd find her wandering, or that Mildred left a message behind.
They called for Mildred, her name falling on deaf ears, only being answered with mocking silence of the wind and birds in the branches. Fear was no longer merely felt; it was now a heavy weight upon them.
"Maybe… maybe she went on ahead," Anya said, her attempt to find reason now turning on the opposite side, going into denial. Beatrice did not answer. She knew better.
The rest of the women moved through the morning's cold air, like they had cement in their veins. A dreadful premonition seemed to weigh each of them to the earth with every single step, in some unspoken way they knew they could all meet a similar fate.
They tried to find the path, but the forest had now completely wrapped itself in dense shadows, a fog-like aura now seemed to cling to the ancient trees and the group of old women felt its grasp take hold.
The trees around them all looked the same, their limbs twisting like claws reaching out to capture them all. Even the birds sounded different now, not a song or chirp but a dreadful screech and a raven-like caw that carried in a mocking cadence.
They set up camp once again with less fervor, this time the tent was put up haphazardly, any attempt at keeping warm now feeling pointless. Their anxiety rose like an evil miasma in the dim light and any optimism that remained had completely faded into nonexistence.
They barely finished their dry ration when Beatrice saw something in the corner of her eye and she stood quickly up in shock and concern. She saw something among the trees that wasn't there before; it appeared to look like an old stone carving.
She stood slowly walking in front of the object, leaving her group to look at her curiously. But upon closer examination, it turned out to be what could've been some stone alter, a shrine of sorts, stained in a disturbing dried reddish color.
As she reached her hand out, Agnes shouted and Beatrice, almost in reflex pulled back and ran. Her heart was in her throat; and fear was like ice in her veins, as the sounds of rustling picked up.
Beatrice's fear spread to the others and in their discombobulation their terror took root, their voices weak with the terror as the forest seemed to breathe. Beatrice turned back toward the group, now unable to find anyone at their tent area, they too vanished.
The day was now going into dusk, as the sun became completely blocked by an endless and inescapable fog. The tree cover blocked all visibility, even close up, it made things become more disorienting.
Beatrice stumbled through the undergrowth, each step clumsy as she called out for her old friends, her words lost among the gnarled trees. It seemed like no time at all and she had collapsed onto the forest floor with defeat and sadness.
The trees were so tall and endless, that even her shouting echoed like some distant voice of someone from another world, far and beyond her reach. The weight of the isolation was crushing her and she closed her eyes.
When she awoke she could not tell if it was day or night, she could see a mere amount of light peering through the endless fog above, and nothing seemed to feel right anymore. The weight on her body, was a feeling as though she could collapse on the spot, just laying there until the earth swallowed her whole.
Beatrice sat up as she looked down toward herself, seeing that there was more blood, and mud all along her garments. A pain now shot up through her leg, she tried to take the load off by pushing down, only to feel it intensify with pain as though it had cracked.
It dawned on Beatrice in her tired and old mind, the blood was from her missing crew; the strange rusty color that was upon that alter-like thing. And her cracked leg felt almost purposeful now.
The rustling picked back up now all around her. She tried to crawl through the debris. Her hands shook like dried leaves, and the taste of copper now stuck with her with the bile rising from her stomach.
She could no longer control her panic as the dark figures took form, with each closer rustling now she was able to feel an inhuman presence now looming closer and closer and all her strength went to attempting an escape.
She dragged her body along, feeling like her strength was at an end. She reached out her one good hand hoping for an end but was unable to reach the familiar comfort of something other than tree roots and cold earth.
With the light coming now behind her, she watched a group of deer-like skeletal figures approach her. She made no sound, could barely take a single breath, the sound she made only gurgles and a painful intake of breath.
Her breath became slow, her consciousness slipped away. Her final thoughts were filled with sadness and the horror of how things had been at an end, her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she slipped from existence.
They picked her bones clean, their bony hands like claws, carefully discarding any non-nutritious remains, to leave with the old woman nothing more than an amalgamation of bone. As they departed her old bones to decay and sink into the earth with their silent laughter like caws carried on with the night's gentle wind.