More sounds of wood-knocking startled Jolene back to the present.
Thock-thock, from the left.
Thock, from the right.
This time, they were closer.
Jolene felt something thick gathering in her throat. She swallowed a long drink from her bottle of water, then took in a slow, deep breath. She almost gagged as a faint, acrid odor hit her nose. It reeked as if a skunk had rolled in dog shit.
Doing her best not to panic, she packed up the remnants of her lunch. Jolene was meticulous, leaving no packaging or napkin scraps behind. She did, however, leave the remainders of her jerky, nuts, and fruit in neat piles on the rock.
She took a moment to pull two plastic grocery bags out of her backpack, and a fresh pair of socks. After removing her boots and socks, Jolene put the thin nylon socks on. Then she put the bags over her feet. Then she replaced the cotton socks she'd removed, and finally put her boots back on over it all. It was tight on her toes, but if the waterproofing on her boots failed, her feet would stay dry.
As she stood from the rock and picked up her blanket, she heard the wood-knocking call-and-response again. There was, her primitive brain told her, no other explanation. None what-so-ever. The blanket went into the bag. Jolene double-checked for any overlooked items. She saw nothing of hers, but did spot a cigarette butt. She picked it up, pocketed it, slung her backpack onto her back, and stepped into the stream.
Jolene had walked no more than two hundred yards downstream when she heard another thock-thock thock, followed by the unsettling answer of kack-kack kack. A cold shudder ran down her back as she recognized the sound of a rock being struck against another rock. She walked on; her steps faster despite the slick rocks along the bottom of the stream.
A low, bone-creaking groan rolled up from behind her, followed by a thunderous wooden crack and the snapping, swishing, crushing collision of a tree falling in the woods. And oh, Jolene was without a doubt there to hear it! She refrained from running, and she refused to look back.
Lashawn's email had warned her that the further she traveled, the harder it would be to go back. As she walked, she wondered if horrid smells and odd sounds were what he had meant. Did this hike hold more surprises than she expected? After you enter the stream, the journey will get harder. Be alert, and remember that there's a better place waiting for you to arrive. Was the ominous tone of the words always there, or was it only her own fear changing their sound in her head?
As Jolene slogged through the now knee-deep stream, she began to realize that wading downstream was just as challenging on the body as going downhill. Her body fought to resist giving in to the current, the same way that the body has to fight against the natural pull of gravity down an incline. Maintaining control to avoid being swept away was physically taxing.
The treacherous footing under the water didn't help. Every few steps she encountered a rock that either wobbled or slid underfoot. Some proved to be stable, if jiggly. Others slipped loose and were swept inches or feet downstream until they were caught by some other piece of debris. Overall, it resulted in slow and risky travel.
It felt to Jolene as if hours had passed between her lunch at the rock, and when she reached the fork in the stream. But a quick check of her watch showed it had been just an hour since she'd entered the water.
The fork turned out to be a join, where a thick, fast rush of water came through a rock-lined gulley and spilled into the stream she was navigating. Balancing against the eddies where the two waters met, she turned into the rushing fork. She grabbed what looked like convenient handholds on the rocky face to step up into the higher water course.
As soon as she put her boot down and tried to step up, her foot slid out from under her. The bottom of this new stream was covered in a thick, slippery layer of silt.
"Great." She heaved a sigh, and tried again to step up into the gully, and again her foot slipped out from under her. Unable to maintain her grip on the rocks, she landed in the rushing stream. Pain exploded in the side of her head and her vision bloomed with sparks that rang like a whistle in her ears.
Tumbled by the water, she managed to get her hands and knees under her, against the bottom of the stream. She struggled to stand, then walked to the stream's edge where a tree's roots jutted out. She snatched a long, sturdy root and gripped it firmly. Then she stood there and just let herself cry.
Her head hurt and she was wet, alone, and genuinely quite frightened. Water streamed from her cap, tickling her cheek and neck. She tried to wipe it away with her wet sleeve. The seersucker clung to her skin and absorbed the smear of blood she'd wiped away.
She was bleeding.
She was bleeding...from her head.
Without hesitation, Jolene took off her backpack from one shoulder. Still holding the tree root with one hand, she used the other to fish through the pack's side opening. The small first aid kit she'd packed was easy to find in its watertight plastic case.
Hooking her arm through the tree roots, she opened the case and removed a paper-wrapped, sterile gauze pad. This she tore open, careful to keep the paper out of the stream. She put the trash in her pack, folded the gauze, and tucked it under her cap to hold it against the cut above her temple.
Now that she was paying attention and feeling for it, it was easy to find the tender, burning slash. It wasn't big, but like all scalp wounds it bled like mad before she applied the gauze. Once finished, she sniffled and checked her other injuries. She could feel bruises forming, especially in her butt and lower back, but the backpack had saved her much of that pain. Her hands and knees were scraped and bruised from her scrabble to stand. And she would certainly be sore for several days.
But she was alive.
She made her slow way back upstream to the fork she needed to take. Her wild tumble in the water had carried her more than thirty feet! "I'm alive," she said to herself. "I lived through it. There's no going back. There's only going on." Still, going on meant getting up into the narrow gully and traveling several hundred yards to the bridge, and the stairs that would lead her on.
Taking a moment, Jolene examined the rocks in the gully, and found better support for her hands and feet. "I guess third time's really the charm," she said, once she was standing in the narrow, water-cut channel between hills. The rush of the water through the narrow channel was faster than the first stream had been, but it was shallow, coming only to her calves. Moving into the water's flow was easier than fighting against being swept away from behind.
As she progressed, the hills grew to either side, putting the rock walls well over her head. Still, there was plenty of width between them, she could stick her elbows out and not touch the walls in most places. Nevertheless, her mind couldn't resist making jokes about all the things she could bullseye in this canyon.
She saw the end of the gulley ahead and felt something tickle her face and ears.
Jolene screamed and jumped, nearly straining her lower back, as she fought to maintain her balance in the slick muck while wiping and swiping at her face and the air in front of her. She'd been so focused on the gulley's end that she'd missed the shimmering spider webs that were strung back and forth across the way in front of her.
"Fuuu-uuh-uuh-ck my lii-iii-iife," she whined. Trying to remove all the spider silk was almost unbearable for her. Still, after several moments of fighting, she could no longer feel any traces on her face or neck or in her hair. Maybe I can get out of this without having to set myself on fire to be rid of it all? Fortunately, her first run-in destroyed all of the silky obstacles in her path, and she exited the gulley without further incident.
On the other side, the hills fell away into a flatter span of thick trees and sparse underbrush. She continued upstream until the edges of the water were finally low enough for her to climb out. The mid-May day was comfortable and sunny, but the deep shade of the forest left Jolene cool in her still-wet clothes. And while cotton was famous for drying fast, the denim of her jeans was also notorious for chafing chubby thighs. And that was her problem.
Unfortunately, the spare clothes that she was carrying in her backpack were just as wet as the ones she was wearing. She had debated putting everything in zipping plastic bags, but had decided against the waste and expense of more plastic. And so she was left to hike the last mile along the stream with raw fire being stoked along her inner thighs. At least I brought powder, she thought.
When she finally reached the ancient, rotting bridge with the gaping holes in its once sturdy roof, she very nearly collapsed in a heap with relief. Very. Nearly. Instead of that, she abandoned her backpack, removed her pants, retrieved the powder, and began rubbing it extensively on the raw, red rash along her inner thighs. "Oh thank heaven," she said, a sigh of relief heavy in her words.
There had been no further sign of...of whatever was making the knocking sounds earlier in her journey. Not since she'd left the rock at lunch. Checking her watch, she was amazed to discover it was already after three in the afternoon. How long was her struggle with the stream?
With her blanket being among the wet things in her now amazingly heavy backpack, there was really no place for her to sit down, especially as she was still letting her inflamed thighs breathe. Despite everything, she managed to snack on sunflower seeds and dried cherries.
She decided that sitting down would have been a poor decision, based on what her body was telling her just while she was standing still. Jolene knew herself and knew if she cataloged all of her aches and pains, bumps, and bruises, she'd never continue the journey. And so she finished her snack, pulled up her pants, picked up her pack, and headed to the western side of the bridge.
Seeing the stairs on the steep hillside was easy after she arrived. Obviously man-made, they were cut straight into the earth, with each step-sized terrace held from erosion by a repurposed railroad tie. Her eyes climbed them before she ever set a foot on them. They disappeared into the trees without revealing their finish. However, Lashawn's email informed her of their number: 360.
In the end, she took them in the only way she could, one-at-a-time. The steps were uniform in height, but their depth changed along the hill's curve. This meant that she would climb several steps in a row, but then the next several would be step up, step-step, step up, step-step. Climbing was a struggle, but irregular climbing made it even more difficult.
When, finally, she reached the top of the stairs, she just stopped and stood and stared. She was in a large clearing among the trees, a few dozen yards away from a small, three-story tower-like structure. The base was made of masonry, and the top was in a sort of log-cabin style. It looked like just another of the park's usual shelter areas.
Except, there was no reason to have a public structure this deep into the park. There were no access roads here, no parking, no concrete walks. All of that contributed to the creepiness of the place. It wasn't quite like finding a lonely brick staircase in the forest, the last remnant of some building lost to time and reforestation, but it definitely had that feel. The sort of ancient, haunted feeling of some lost cultural relevance that she would most likely never know.
Jolene checked her watch. It was nearly five. "Shit," she said. The mid-May sun would not linger in the sky forever. If she wanted to get to Avalon on time, she needed to get moving. Without further hesitation, she crossed to the towering park shelter, and stepped inside the stone walls of it's ground floor.
