DISCO IN THE WOODS

An elephant hawk-moth larvae crawls across the green sea as large shadows start to grow forward. Half a snake, half a stick, it crawls on, looking for its hanging spot.

A ragged shoe stomps down hard squishing the snake-like creature, they are dead, the killer none the wiser. The shoe belongs to a member of a camping group, full of early 20 somethings and old teens.

The group waddles on ahead with large backpacks that clank on every other step and crinkle whenever the awkward weight is reshuffled.

“When’s it supposed to kick in?” asks Mars, he aims his sight upwards as he pulls on his bag’s straps in anticipation.

“What’s the rush?” is Märi’s response as he kept his eyes out for a nice spot to set up camp. “I’m excited.” Mars said.

“Well keep it lax… until the light show begins” Märi smiles at Mars, whose eyes fall to meet Märis, his infectious smile jumps to him.

They continue talking, skirting around the inevitable flirting that always comes later. Matt witnesses this, he’s nearer the back of the group so watches as they all travel further and further in the long, spooky plains of the apple orchid. It’s impossibly large, you could get lost out here in these monocropped man-made lines of trees, that thought was a spiral starter, the first of many mind dropping ruminations that end in a swirling vision and looped mentality. His heart would race which quickened his introspection which was never good so his heart raced even faster which caused ill ideas which halted reasoning which started fight or flight which led to panic which-

“You okay Matt?” Mace pressed her warm hand on Matt’s stiff shoulder. After a moment of no response, she asks again “Are you feeling okay?”. Matt’s breath deepens, Mace closes in and blocks his vision with her enforced smile. “Panic attack?” Matt nods. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Four.”

“What colours the sky?”

“Blue.”

“Count the people.”

Matt glides his finger across the people in front.

“One, two, three, four, five.”

“What’re you thinking about?”

“That we’re so far in”

“Yeah, not a great bunch to get lost with… but they are a great bunch to have a disco with.” Mace begins to move her shoulder bones as her arms pull up and swing side to side, her legs bend together moving adjacent to her hands, and her feet twist the ground to mud. Matt enjoys this display, he begins smiling and nodding. Clicking his fingers as his tongue falls out, he can’t help his expressions as he joins in the sober dance. They share a laugh before they lock arms and follow the rest.

Mars and Matt attempt to set up the tent. Poles flip and fly around, plastic sheets are tugged and stretch, the shambling mass stays far away from its intended pyramid structure, as Märi and Mace tangle the trees in wiry lights. Max plugs in a medium sized vibradiorator, a box with a speaker and three antennas, used to tune into the distant sounds of old music that latches to the nearby radio frequencies, a low buzz ends with a pop from the speakers front. Max breaks the stillness of the air as they unplug the machine.

“Fuck this, I can’t work under these conditions.” they wobble underfoot, catching their balance but eyes keep rolling.

“Barely functionable hands.” Mars chimes in as he drops the pole and stares at his fractal fingers. Matt continues on, attempting to finish the large tent.

“I’m not passing out under the stars lads.” says Mace.

“It’s inevitable, remember in the cow field, we never make it back inside.” replies Max.

Matt makes progress, but is distracted by more buzzing from the vibradiorator, and an eagerness to have music drown out the others. Passing Mant he sets his attention towards the speaker.

“I’ll give it a go, let’s swap.”

A setting sun shines through the thin trees, its light lands on the campers’ faces. Matt stares at Mace, her lips are orange from the closing day’s shine, and her freckles look extra bright, they make her growing contentment seem so vibrant and explosive, a calm display of fireworks. I should write that down.

A tinny guitar plays the sun to sleep, the sound emitting from the working speaker by the tent. The wiry lights await the darkness so they can illuminate the small camp with their golden hue.

Sitting around either by the tent, the gas fire cooking pasta or on the outter edges of the small camp circle, they all sip their beers, eat some plastic wrapped snacks, stare a the waving leaves and chew on the cooling wind.

Max pipes up, again disrupting the quiet, “Can the sun go down any faster?”

“Let me just figure out time travel” Märi laughs.

“Funny, Märi, funny guy.” Mars sarcastically responds, “Let’s just start now.”

“Fuck no Mars! These lights shine only at dusk!” Max exclaims.

“Preach it Max!” Mace shouts agreeing with them, a novelty.

“Anyone know any spooky stories” Matt asks the group after a moment of silence.

“Please no Matt.” Märi is disgruntled.

“I know one” Max answers.

“You think it’s a good idea? Matt?” Mace concerns aloud.

“I’ve got that beer courage in me,” Matt says.

“I’ll sit this one out” Märi gets up and walks off into the dimming dark trees, Mars watches from his seat, quickly getting up as if a thought sprung to mind as he disappears. “Rule of two Märi!” He follows after him.

“Knew deep down Mars was chickenshit.” Max smiles.

“Go ahead Max.” Matt awaits eagerly.

Max pauses for a moment, breathing in the growing angst and attention. They then begin their story enhanced by a deep, eery voice.

“So there’s this group, of friends, they go out into the woods- these very woods”

Matt and Mace share a glance.

“And they set up camp. Make a fire. Listen to old back country songs and just take it easy. As all good young bucks tend to do.

“But one of them notices something. Something that they are not supposed to notice. Or at least something that someone was trying to hide from them. In the woods, far from any sort of civilisation or help, the vigilant one noticed that there was…”

Matt leans in, giving into the horror.

“A lack of beer” Max jumps up and throws their empty bottle into the air, and forces a bellowing laugh. Mace sighs and looks out to the wilderness, Matt still leaning forward gives a reassuring but awkward smile and thumbs up. Max pouts, “You guys are no fun.” they walk off into the woods looking at the trees, probably to go piss. “How you feeling?” Mace stops Matts thoughts.

“Pretty melo. Think it’s the drink.”

Mace scoots her foldable chair closer to Matts. He can’t hold back the smile as her face nears his. The growing darkness blurs her features but he remembers them, her curly black hair, her green wide eyes, her small nose and round chin. He found her face wonderful. Her smile was slight and her half closed eyes told Matt all he needed to know about the thoughts that might be in her head in that moment. She wanted to kiss him, and he most certainly wanted that too.

Her head cocks to the side, her neck finds an angle, he looks down at her dimples and his tongue pops out for a split second. Teeth press on bottom lips.

Crunching footsteps stop the tenderly enthralling moment, as Max returns from the depths of the apple trees. “It’s getting dark…” they trail off.

Mace arises, keeping her gaze on Matt until she exclaims in an authoritative voice, “Call the others!” Max salutes, Matt stands beside her. They cup their hands around their mouth.

“MÄRI!”

“MARS”

“M-”

Max stops mid letter, their eyes grow tight as a thought crosses the threshold, their face freezes for a second, their shoulders are high and their hands drop down. They turns back to the camp. “Who else?”

Mack responds “No one”. Max nods slightly, turning back slowly, their body still finding its place in the waving and flowing drug altered world.

“MAAAAAAARS! MÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄRI!” they shout louder, “STOP MAKING SWEET LOVE! THE DISCO BEGINS!!”

It’s dark but this evening is well lit, at least in this small circle of lights, holding off the black fog of night, the lines of trees disappear after the second or third row in any given direction. Beyond that is the abyss of the wild, no distant lights, no distant sounds. In fact, no owls hooting or foxes yelping, not even the songs of the griccids buzzing from bushes. All have left. Perhaps due to the booming songs from within the light circle.

The singular tent stands tall with chairs flopped on their sides outside. The speaker pumps the air with hard industrial vibrations, the rhythmic drones and sharp drums keep the campers thrilled and dancing. Mars and Märi dance locked together, every so often they distance themselves as the feeling of each others bodies gets too much, only for them to succumb to the pleasure of skin on skin to take hold again.

The pasta bowl is empty and the butane fire is out. Empty cups and bottles strewn about, one plastic cup is crushed under Maxes foot as they stomp the ground with their usual shuddering dance. They move and sway around the camp, getting involved with everyone at least once, wanting to hug or kiss all of them and any of them. They pass Matt who dances a few feet away from Mace. She moves like fire. He moves like a tree in the wind. Mace from time to time gets invested in her hands, how they move, the echoes they leave in her eyes as they flutter around her vision. Matt is concentrating on the way Mace moves, he occasionally tries to copy her movement, he can’t quite get the same motions but doesn’t care and uses the momentum to create his own dances. Swaying back and forth.

The group look so small from afar. They are the lightest thing in the woods. The young black summer apples bob in the wind. Graft marks and string can be seen on some of the trees where the farmers have deemed it necessary to attach different apple types to create a unique or specified fruit.

Matt felt a shift. He held onto a glow stick in one hand and his drink in the other, but right now he didn’t want to be holding anything. The wind looks wrong, the wind looks tangible, like he can reach out and touch it. The colourful fractals in his vision have turned grey, the wind has turned red and wiry, his eyes begin to ache as the wind itself spoke, or at least tried too. It holds thoughts in symbols that swirl around his vision. He can’t make out what they are but he can feel them wriggling in his reddening eyes.

He stumbles back slightly. He whispers “four.” as he counts the flexing fingers of Mace’s hand that shimmer around the air. He says “Black.” as he looks up at the sky. He counts the dark featureless people around him.

“SIX!” Matt shouts.

No one except Mace notices. Her smile falls to a neutral worry. Her lips repeat the number.

The lights seem duller. The darkness seems to lap at the faces around her. The music becomes an unbearable noise, a hindrance for her to relay her worry to the others. As she realises what Matt has already figured out. Amongst the dancing shadows in this tiny circle in a vast wild darkness is the realisation that there is one more person than there should be.

Her neutral worry becomes horror. Matt drops his drink and glow stick. The others stop dancing. He grabs a torch. Everyone is suspect. Everyone a demon. The industrial music shimmers and cracks, the drones grow ever lower in pitch. Matt flashes the light on peoples faces. Someone switches off the music.

“What the fuck man?” asks Max, or was it Märi.

“He’s took too much.” exclaims Mars, or was it Mack. Wait- who’s Mack?

“I saw it too!” Mace desperately tries to convince the shadowy crowd, their frantic faces lit up by a shaking torch. “You too then!” shouts Max or Märi.

“Fuck you!” screams Mace.

“Nah fuck you!” said most likely by Mars, which means before it was probably Märi. Mars would never defend Max.

“Hey, we’ve all been there”, Max, definitely Max.

“There was six of you!” replies Matt.

“I believe ‘em” Mars calmly responds.

“Not you too, for fuck sake, you’re ruining the vibe-a-phone.” Max chimes in.

“That’s a myth, vibradiorator’s don’t pick up auras or human ambience or bullshit.”

“It always catches mine. It reads the waves you give off.”

“‘When the horrors persist, dance!’” cites Max, as they begin to shuffle their legs to the quiet winds.

Matt grabs his sour reddened eyes.

“Guys, kindly shut the fuck up. We have an actual worry here” Mace brings that authoritative voice back. Max’s shadow salutes.

“It would help if these lights were brighter” Märi huffs.

“There’s been a fair number of us for a while now…” Mars elaborates this disturbing fact with such tranquillity that the others slowly turn to see if he’s being serious. He stands chewing on his cheek.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Max questions Mars.

“I’m waved Max, it didn’t seem off.”

“You’re nuts Mars. Mass hysteria, you all got it.”

“Where’s Mack?” Mars asks the group, looking around, still chewing, still dazed.

“Who?” Märi turns to him, with inquisitive angst.

“You guys are too damn high. Put the music on.” Max tries to go back to how it was before.

“We need to think for a second.” Mace says sternly. Max salutes again. Mace pushes them.

“We should all get in the tent.” Matt gasps, as his eyes ache more.

Max pushes Mace back, “Fuck off tyrant, you guys best go to bed before shit gets weird again, I knew inviting the nervous wreck was a big bad idea.”

Mace shoves Max harder, getting in their face, she grits her teeth. “CALM DOWN!”

“Queen Disco Killer, get on in” Max grins grimly. Mace backs off, gaining composure and then clarity. Märi speaks softly, “I’m not staying out here with you” he looks at Max who’s starting to feel the sting of collective annoyance they often have aimed at them. “Get in princess” they walk towards Märi, Mars steps between them. “He fucking hates that word.”

“We all need to calm down.” Mace had grabbed a torch and was looking around the area with Matt. “We need to check the area, and then get inside the tent.” Märi quickly follows her command, which brings Matt also. They survey the area for footprints, cups, broken sticks- clues. Max leans on a tree, looking out to the cool darkness. The lights still vibrantly showcase the small circle making the wall of darkness just beyond it all the more present. Matt tries to help but his sight grows blurrier and blurrier.

“I don’t think there’s anything here.” Matt says rubbing his eyes.

“Let me see your eyes.” Mace says, he opens them for her, “they’re bloodshot, they look scratched. Did you get something in them?”

“I think so, I could see the wind Macey. It had its own language.”

“I didn’t get any visuals.”

“Me neither” Max butts in.

“I don’t think you do with this stuff” Mars also butts in.

“I think we go inside.”

As the zip is pulled shut with a scratchy roar, Max smears the quiet “And just like that, the disco is officially killed.” Colourful patterns spray across the tent from the outside lights. Everyone has slithered into their sleeping bags for warmth. Märi stares at the decorated tent walls and traces his finger across the speckled fabric. Matt is sitting up, mouth closed, tongued exploring his teeth. Mace sits near Matt, who chucks everyone a torch.

“We each take one. When you speak or someone asks to see you, light up your face.” he says. “Tad over the top.” Max responds.

“Let’s stay up in pairs”

“I’m too steamed for this” Mars explains.

“You and me both” Max offers his hand for a high five, Mars just stares at it.

“I don’t think I’ll sleep.” Märi informs the group.

“You and me group up then.” Matt says, Mace squints with green eyes.

“Are we checking for Mack?” Mars gains some lucidity.

“There is no Mack idiot!” Max exclaims.

“I don’t who who that is Mars. Get some rest. We’ll wake you up in a few.”

Heavy but slow breathing fills the tent. Someone amongst them is a chronic snorer. Matt lies with heavy eyes almost closed, his fight against sleep is almost over, everyone else is out cold and he will soon be joining them. His mind wanders away from the fear of the night to a creeping worry that he had been wrong, it turned to fear of not being invited to these micro-adventures again, which turned into an old memory.

When young, he believed sleeping without dreams meant you skipped through the night, meaning you would effectively race someone to the morning, so as he would lay awake stuck in night, he thought everyone else might already be awake in in the morning. It made him feel truly alone, and now even though he was surrounded by his friends, people he cared about deeply, he felt alone in a creepy woods on an evil night.

Until the zipping of the tent sent a shock of adrenaline through his body. He felt a shift to his right, someone had woken up. In the faint darkness Matt sees something thin and long poking through the open zip, he freezes. Whatever it is, its slow and quiet. The stirring to his side continues. Matt is lying to the side of the door near a sleeping Mace, so he can’t see what’s out there.

Mars groggily hushes some words, “Hello? Show your face” he lazily gestures to his own face, as it goes from a post slumber disorientation to wide awake realisation. He was sleeping opposite the door so can clearly see out, “Mack! I was getting worried.” there’s a deafening silence as Matt begins to build the courage to speak.

Mars continues to speak to the open door before he gets the chance, “Okay, cool man, of course”. Mars gets up and leaves, “w a i t…” Matt whispers tiresomely.

Matts eyes begin their swirling ache once again, as he finds the ability to move come back to him, he jolts up and looks outside the tent for Mars. Through the gap in the plastic mesh fabric, he sees nothing out of the ordinary, the apple sway peacefully in the wind.

His eyes burn. He realises he can see all the apple trees, and then a second realisation comes: it’s morning! He instinctively screams out for Mars “WAIT!”.

Everyone sits up.

“What the fuck?” Max holds their head. The instant reaction dies down as Matt watches out the tent door, softly panting. Mace holds his arm.

“My head.” Max scrunches his eyes close and presses on his temples.

“I had the wildest dreams.” Mace says to no one.

“It wasn’t a dream Mace.” Märi tells her.

“No this was a man, someone from our college or town or something. He came in and-”

“Where’s Mars?” asks Matt.

They all turn to Matt, concerned, but almost fed up, not with him, but with the situation. But who else can they aim their angst towards?

“Who?” Max asks the question on everyone’s lips.

Matt stares back at them, the light of the sun reaches the tents sides, and the heat of warm bodies has filled the tent with stale air. A freshness comes from the open door that Max opens more once they realise Matt won’t be responding to that question. Matt stares at them, at the spot Mars was sleeping, at the missing sleeping bag. Thoughts of the thin thing that surfaced the tent come to mind, a stick… a finger… His gaze moves to the outdoors, matching the gaze of the other three. He looks at the mess they have made. The spilt snacks, the cups, and bottles, the chairs. He counts the chairs, he isn’t surprised by the result. Four. “Let’s go” he says.

“Way ahead of you” Märi responds.

They pack up and leave quickly. Max takes the front, Mace not far behind. A hungover Max holds inside a nasty comedown from the concoction of the prior night and is ready to be in an actual bed. Mace is having deep, complex feelings warring in her stomach, she too would like a real lie down. Further back but still in front of Matt is Märi, who drags behind, his emotions are on fire within, reassuring himself as he goes that the unnameable loss within is just a hiccup from the crazy night behind him. Matt facing backwards, lags far behind. His breath is shallow with fear, his mind is swirling once again and his eyesight is greyer than usual. But the thoughts don’t pull him down. He doesn’t tally his fingers or look up at the sky. He certainly doesn’t count the people, for he wouldn’t know if he should add to the sum the far off being running from tree to tree.