The People in the Woods

One sunny summer day when I was a boy, I was playing on the grass around the house with my mother nearby hanging laundry on the clothesline. I was probably about 5 at the time, though it isn't really clear to me.

I was venturing a little farther and farther away from her, taking me closer to a field which had a large woods sitting on the other side of it. As I looked across the field toward the wood, I thought I saw people watching me.

I stopped and stared. I was sure they must be people, three in fact, so I waved. They did not wave back, they actually seemed to be startled by my waving and quickly moved into the wood and out of sight.

I hurried back to my mother and asked, "Mama, who are the people who live in the woods?"

Her reply was simple and calm, "Honey, there are no people who live in the woods."

"But, I just saw them. Do they live somewhere nearby?" I pressed.

Her tone changed then, becoming much more stern, "I just told you, there are no people who live in the woods. I don't know what you saw, but it was certainly not people."

Looking back, that should have been my first sign, that change in tone, that defensive posturing, my mother knew something that she didn't want to tell. Mind you I believed everything my mother ever told me with the utmost faith. I mean, what young boy wouldn't believe whatever his mother told him.

I went on from that point in my life sure I had seen something, but not sure what it was. My mother had told me there were no people living in the wood and so my imagination tried to replace what I'd seen with other possibilities like trees swaying in the wind, bears, shadows playing tricks, anything really, but not people.

Over time I had largely forgotten about the day I had seen the people in wood. Of course, there had been other issues around the wood that seemed strange and always kept that day in the back of my mind. I could go out and play, but I was never to go into the field that led to the woods. It was not our property after all and we did not want any trouble with trespassing. Once, I had seen lights flickering in the woods briefly. I had asked my father about this and he thought I merely saw fireflies off in that direction.

It was several years later before another real incident occurred, I was now eleven years old. I had been begging for a dog for years and was told I could not have one until I was responsible enough to take care of him myself. Finally, my wish was granted, at eleven I had apparently learned enough responsibility and one day my father brought home the cutest yellow lab pup. I decided his name would be King Tut as he was made out of gold just like the Pharoah's mask, archaeology always intrigued me as a boy.

The spring had come in quickly that year and despite being early March the grass was starting to green. The field towards the woods was still filled with mostly long brown grass as it took until midsummer for it to green up. I had let my pup out to go pee and looked for my coat to go out with him. He was only a few months old and was very curious, so it didn't surprise me when I went out and I didn't see him right away.

I called for him, but he didn't come. "King, come. Tutty puppy, where are you?" I was getting louder and louder, but there was no sign of him. I became nervous quickly, I could feel my chest tighten and heart start to beat more quickly. I didn't want to lose him, I didn't want anything bad to happen to him. I kept calling him as I ran around the yard scanning for any sign of him.

I heard a high pitched puppy yip in the direction of the field. As I glanced out over the tall brown grass I saw him jump up as he was on the run. He was headed in the direction of the wood. His color made him blend into the brown grass quite well and I certainly did not want to lose him, so I took off on a run after him.

The grass was tall and slightly damp from the morning dew, my jeans and shoes were getting soaked, but it was not going to slow me down. I ran with my knees high, hurdling large clumps of grass and yelling for Tut the whole time. I decided he must be chasing something because he had yet to slow down or even look back at me yelling. I was closing on him, but it was slow.

I was close to halfway across the field and Tut was nearly to the wood. He came to a sudden halt and started yipping frantically. I thought he had merely cornered his prey at first, that was until I noticed the figure just inside the treeline of the woods.

I came to a screeching halt as I realized what I was seeing. It appeared to be a relatively tall man, perhaps the tallest man I had seen before. He stood there motionless, as did I.

Tut continued his yipping and after a few seconds of frozen fright, I began to call for him again. Tut paid me no attention though, so I started closing on him slowly. I was afraid he was bothering this man in the woods and I certainly didn't want any trouble with him.

That's when it happened, the man stepped from the edge of the wood into the light. Let me just tell you that this moment will never leave my mind and the image of him is as clear today as it was at that moment. He was not naked, not in the sense that you or I am naked when we have no clothes on, but he certainly had no clothes on. He had long reddish brown hair coming down from his head well past his shoulders, with a slight bald spot right above his forehead. Speaking of his forehead, it was more like a fivehead, you know the type that seems unusually lengthened. His nose was large and wide. His eyes seemed to be slightly wide set, in the kind of eerie way that makes you feel a person is not quite right. He was most definitely that tallest man I had ever seen and his long arms and hands even seemed to accentuate that appearance. He was also the hairiest man I had ever seen, which is why I say he was not naked like you or me when we are unclothed. His chest hair was long enough to come down past his pecks. His belly, thighs, and midsection all appeared to be completely covered in hair. The rest of him appeared to have some hair, but nothing like his front side.

I was frozen in my tracks again and entirely unsure what to do. In my mind, this was a man, a very strange man, but a man. I had seen stories of bigfoot creatures before and this certainly did not look like the image I had of that. This was a man, a man who almost looked like he wore a fur coat on his front, but a man nonetheless. This man continued out of the woods toward my yippy young pup. I was afraid and so I knelt down in the grass and hid behind it watching leerily. The man stepped closer and closer to the dog and once he was within a few feet he simply raised his arms tall and yelled loudly. I will tell you that I had never heard anything like that before. It reminded me of a couple years earlier when I had heard a lion roar at the zoo, not quite as load, but definitely as deep.

My dog immediately took off in fright. It yelped a little as it sped back towards me. Then when it got to me it jumped into my arms. The man seemed to follow the dog's path and quickly his gaze was upon me. He stood motionless for a moment, then pointed directly at us and, with a rather mean glare, pointed directly back to my house. It was the kind of signal that meant - Go, go now!

And so I went, with my pup in my arms, as fast as my legs would take me through the grass. I ran all the way to the house, all the way inside, all the way to my room, shutting and locking each door along the way, where I sat down on the floor with my pup still in my arms, and I cried. I cried not sad tears or tears of regret, but fearful ones.

I spent most of the rest of that day in my room. I came out for dinner that night and when mom asked what was wrong, I lied. I told her I just didn't feel good. She had dad take the dog outside later and I almost cried out that he shouldn't, but I stopped myself.

My mind was struggling with how to handle this situation, I was afraid. I feared this man in the woods, but I also feared the trouble I would get into for being in the field. Did my parents know this man lived in the woods? Was this really why I was never supposed to go into the field? Why had my parents lied to me? I didn't feel like I could even think straight with all the swirling questions and conspiracy theories going through my mind.

Eventually I slept that night. It was not a peaceful sleep and I did not feel particularly rested the next day. I do not recall my dreams now, but I do remember they were not pleasant.

It was rainy the next day and I had a reprieve from my thoughts while I went to school. I came home and I went out briefly with Tut, keeping him on his leash the whole time. I could barely see the woods in the distance through the rain and haze. I wasn't sure if the cold rain was making me shiver or if it was the memory of seeing the man in the woods, but the thought of him was enough to quickly frighten me back inside.

I went to school the next couple of days and thought about what had happened off and on. It was lingering in my mind all the time. I remembered seeing three people out there when I was younger and wondered if that man was one of them. If he was, were the other two his family. I couldn't imagine what they might look like, or at least I didn't really want to.

The weekend came around and my parents were both home, sitting in the living room with me. We had an older Zenith tv with a decorative wood casing sitting on the floor. The news was on and I was sitting in front of couch petting Tut who lay between my legs. I had thought about it long enough and needed to have it out.

"Why have you been lying to me about the people in the woods?" I asked, seemingly to the room itself. But, it brought the desired response. Both my parents looked at me and stared eyes wide, but my mother's mouth had fallen open as well.

My dad was the first to speak, "Son, what are you talking about? There are no people in the woods."

"So you're just going to keep doing it, you're just going to keep lying to me?"

My dad's expression turned sour. He didn't take kindly to being called a liar and if I were a grown man I could imagine him coming over and hitting me square in the nose. "I will not sit here and be called liar by my own son," he said with a fierce town in his voice. His hands were gripping tight on the armrests of his chair now. "I'll give you exactly one chance to explain to me what you're talking about."

My mother's face was growing pale. She did not like where this was going, I could tell just from looking at her. I thought quickly and said, "Maybe mom should tell you." My mother's look went from pale to horrified.

"What's this boy blathering about, Karen?" my dad asked.

She looked at me, daggers coming from her eyes, I could feel them trying to cut through my chest. My dad looked at her, his expression seeming ponderous, yet somehow staying stern with creases across his brow. My mother started softly, "He... He's delusional Bill. He thinks he's seen people in the woods, you know how his imagination can be."

I couldn't believe it. I could tell she knew something and not only was she denying it to me, but she was lying about it to my father as well. Unbelievable, I thought. My dad was shaking his head. "James is this true," he said.

"No! No, it's not true. I have seen them with my own eyes more than once. I have seen one of them closer than I would have liked to and..."

My mother cut me off, "What? What did you see? When? They would never come up toward the house?" She had outed herself and she knew it. Her expression went blank and stern.

She looked at my father who stared back at her. "Karen, what the hell is going on here? You've got some explaining to do and you better start now," he said as he stood up from his chair.

My mother paused a long while. She looked from my father to me with her bottom lip curled in, like she wasn't sure if she should tell us or just kill us and forget about it.

"Fine, fine," she said, drawing out the second fine like someone had been twisting her arm behind her back and she had been given enough pain to relent. "I do know what he is talking about. He has mentioned seeing them years ago, but I didn't know about anything recent."

"Get to the point! What do you know and who are they?" My father's frustration was starting to show and his face was turning red.

"This was my parents' place before we lived here you know. It sat vacant for years because they died in a car crash along with my brother. At least that's what I told everyone. There never was a crash."

My father sat back down and look starkly shocked. I just sat staring intently at my mother, happy to finally have heard some truth.

My mother continued, "My brother George was a sweet boy, but he had something terribly wrong with him. When he was six and I was twelve we were the same height for the first time. That only lasted a few months and he was half a foot taller than me by his seventh birthday. This was not the only thing going on with him, it was just one of the first signs of a deeper problem. His body was in overdrive producing growth hormones out of control. He didn't fit in anywhere and was ostracized at school. He looked like a high schooler, but he was only in first grade. He was hairier and more muscular than any normal boy.

"An older boy in 5th grade picked on him and George nearly killed him. We think George only hit him once, but it broke the boy's jaw and fractured his skull. George was kicked out of school. I remember how much commotion it caused, I was in 7th grade and it was still all anyone talked about for weeks in school. It was hard for me to have a normal life, let alone George.

"I remember mom and dad talking about it at dinner, what they could do to give both of us a normal life. As long as George was around things were going to be strange for all of us. The woods and field still belong to my family, they were put into a permanent trust to be kept, as is, indefinitely. They were George's favorite place to spend time when we were young. The only place he could be himself and not have people make jokes, point, or stare at him.

"They finally decided to build a cabin in the woods and stay there in hiding from the world. They gave me a choice of what I wanted to do. If I wanted to stay they would wait until I was eighteen so that I wouldn't have to go live with anyone else. I don't know exactly how they did it, but they faked their deaths in the crash. Dental records came back verifying there were in the crash. Their will set up the trusts for the land and for me with money from the life insurance, which was quite substantial."

"They just left you?" my dad asked.

"They didn't leave me, I left them. I wanted a normal life. They intended to sneak over to the house at night and visit me on occasion, but I left for college and never looked back. I went years without coming home, which is why the house sat vacant. It was their house, but it was in my name. Eventually, I missed them and felt I had made a terrible choice, but it had been too long and they did not try to reach me. I did not try to find them either."

"We were dating when we first moved back here, that was almost fourteen years ago. How long were you away before that?" My dad seemed awestruck but still filled with questions.

"Five years." came my mother's reply.

Meaning 19 years that her brother, mother, and father had lived in the woods. My uncle and grandparents who I had believed long dead were the people I was so afraid of in my woods.

It took some time and further discussion for all this to settle in with my father and me, but eventually, the picture became clear. My mother was afraid for anyone to know they had faked their deaths and, despite being separated from them for almost two decades, she still missed and wanted to see them. It was decided eventually that we would go one night to see them in the woods.

Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of the lie. My father and I had no clue what my mother was leading us into. This was just the surface of the pond still and calm, what lay beneath would come when we entered the wood.