Hey.

Writing this from a locked room upstairs at my husband’s cabin. It was supposed to be our two-year anniversary but now I’m not sure what the fuck it is.

For clarity, I just had a core memory unlock itself in unbelievably vivid fashion and needed to write down the details in case they might ring a bell for someone else.

The details surrounding the “watching”—kind of fuzzy, but I’ll do my best.

The details around the tape itself—oddly clear. Some gaps I might be missing here or there, but overall the elements that comprised the video are very palpable for me despite the time that’s elapsed.

It was third grade. A field trip to a nature trail. The thirty minute school bus ride—remnant of a now bygone time—was boring. The wheels on the bus take you somewhere you’d rather not be.

We arrived at the lodge-like area near the entrance to the trail. Entering, I recalled seeing stations with water and coffee and donuts (presumably just for the grownups), and a sign-up sheet resting on a kind of tall table that all of us had to fill in with name, date, time.

It felt like the kind of place where a Smokey the Bear knockoff would give a talk about how fires are bad because trees are flammable, you morons. A local ‘visitor center’ vibe like there was plenty to do here but nothing really meant for someone my age.

Sign-ups completed for our class of thirty, tall humans around us tiny ones, and I heard the tour guide beside our teacher speak up:

“Alright, who’s excited to go on this trail?!”

Muted response from the kids.

“Fair enough! Off we go!”

We were shuffled like penguins to a space with rows of carefully arranged seats. A TV perched on a cart, just like the good ‘ol days, VHS player tucked into the shelf below.

I was the queen of the back of the line, watching classmates in front grapple with the existential crisis that is ‘making sure your friends sit next to you so you know they actually like you.’ That’s when I heard a second tour guide, following closely behind, speak:

“Oof, looks like there might not be enough seats. Why don’t we take some of you to another room for the video?” His bouncer-like cutoff applied to the four of us at the end.

As he redirected us to the hallway, I distinctly remembered noticing that there were more than enough seats for everyone, with the kids in the room meticulously choosing their spots.

Our gang of leftovers was brought to a much smaller room. It looked like an extra-big closet. Four chairs already set up inside. I crossed the threshold first and settled into one of them. The others followed.

A TV in front of us on the table.

The tour guide turned on the TV, pressed play on the VCR beside, dimmed the lights, and walked out, closing the door behind him.

I then heard a click that sounded like a door locking. But I wasn’t sure.

Our dark little nook had two faint sources of light—the brightness of the hallway barely squeezing through a small window, and the blue glare of TV as the presentation commenced.

A disarming, cozy, ambient tune laced with simple synth pads and light flutes met my ears.

The title screen appeared:

TIMBERBROOK HIKING TRAIL GUIDE

Underneath the title—words broadcast on a backdrop of expansive nature trail footage—the following tagline appeared: For a great hiking experience.

And then, a transition to a new title screen:

SUPPLIES

These words rested on a light green background with a picture of a cartoon backpack beside them. The music changed—a transitory bell chime—followed by a breezier and more upbeat arrangement.

It dawned on me at the time of watching, 21 years ago today, that the video seemed dated. Like, really really dated.

On-screen: Make sure your backpack has…

And then, video footage of different items with corresponding captions:

WATER - a clip of an outstretched arm holding a water bottle to camera.

SNACK - same thing but with a granola bar this time.

A COMPASS

SHOES TO WEAR - a pair of sturdy boots held together and tilted downward

I glanced over at the other kids. They were trying their best to pay attention, albeit with drowsiness marking their illuminated faces.

A new title card on the CRT in front of us:

THE HIKE

Words displayed on screen with a light blue backdrop this time. Another bell chime, and a shift of the musical tone again, the same instruments taking on a more forward, adventurous tune.

This was followed by:

A scene of arms linking with text at the bottom of the screen reading: Pick your Buddy

A camera panning over a very clearly defined footpath in the woods: When walking with your buddy, follow the trail ahead of you.

A stationary image of cartoon children midway through a walk on a path: Make sure you’re in line with the group – don’t stray off course!

TIPS AND TRICKS

What followed this title card was a series of cartoon diagrams, looking straight out of an elementary school textbook, with a tacky, dated screen transition between each image and tip.

Tip #1: If you feel like you’re lost, stop right where you are, and listen to the sounds around you! You might hear the road, or people talking nearby.

This lengthy bit of text splayed across the screen beneath a drawing of a boy standing in the woods with a hand to his ear, listening out with a smile.

Tip #2: If you come across a log, step ON the log, then OFF the log. Do not step over it one leg at a time.

This tip paired with a progression of images showing a kid, as one would indeed imagine, approaching a log, stepping on and then off it.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Tip #3: If you hurt yourself or have a wound…

Words accompanied by the image of a kid holding out their bleeding arm.

…AIR IT OUT!

Then, a strange transition to clips of a real-life bleeding arm now, held out in the forest air. With each successive shot, the arm looked worse—the wound, the bleeding, the almost gangrenous effect on the appendage growing. Cut to—-

THE STAIRS

A camera fixed on a lengthy staircase jutting out from somewhere in the woods. Architecture that looked very out of place.

Accompanying text: Don’t take the stairs.

FRIENDS

A fancy new title card over a light red background—the heading overtop a display of cute cartoon woodland creatures huddled together.

Shifting to video footage with captions underneath of:

Squirrels - scampering up trees, looking for nuts.

Birds - sparrows and songbirds flitting about near shrubs.

Deer - softly peeking behind the trees before moving along out of frame.

Foxes - one seen darting through an underbrush.

Sleepwalkers - slow zoom in on a distant tree in the forest, someone peeking out from behind the oak. A woman-like figure with black, matted hair in a white nightgown.

MIDNIGHT

And suddenly, the comforting background music was gone.

Amateur camcorder footage now of someone maneuvering the woods at night with only a minimal light source illuminating the uneven path.

Text coming in, line by line, atop the footage:

If you’re still here, they’ll be looking for you.

Don’t panic.

There are many places you can hide.

A transition to a night-time shot of some trees:

Behind the trees

Slightly shaky but mostly-still footage of some leaves on the ground, still night:

Under the ground

An even slower zoom-in on a distant entrance to a passageway or cavern:

The dungeon

THE DUNGEON

I felt the chair underneath me, and remembered I was in a room with three other kids watching something.

My eyes were glued to the monitor. I didn’t feel comfortable looking to my left or my right.

The imagery on-screen wasn’t resonating in any comfortable way, but the childlike fear in me told me if I stopped watching, something even worse would happen.

It was hard to tell what I was looking at. The visuals on TV looked dark, thick, obscured—words that make no sense, but are the best descriptions I can muster. Like the sorts of shapes you’d see with your eyes closed and palms pressed upon them.

As I tried to piece together what it was, text—in the color red this time—appeared at the bottom:

The Dungeon might be a safe place to hide in for a little while.

The text disappeared faster than usual.

Slowly, the video began to clear. The footage seemed to be taken in a dark, cluttered room—tables, shelves, materials, tools, all sorts of items crowding the space. Near the top of the screen, what looked like a window. The sound of heavy breathing. It seemed like the video was recorded by someone crouching in the corner.

They might never suspect you would hide in the same place they were planning to bring you to.

Text gone. More breathing. Steady camcorder in the dark.

Just don’t stay there for too long.

Eyes appeared on the window, with the sound of something sliding open, and—

NATURE

What?

Once again, there was daylight on the screen.

Rivers, babbling brooks, and a friendly forest.

A reprieve that made my nine year old self think about the best way to delete everything I’d seen from my brain. My first tango with compartmentalization.

Nature. Just… comforting nature scenes.

Nature is beautiful. Take some time to appreciate its wonder.

Everything is in balance.

The text lingered for a beautiful while, before cutting to a new title card again. The final one, as I would find out—

THE CABIN

A camera that must’ve been positioned high on a mountaintop looking down at an expanse of forest from afar.

Daytime at first, but the footage quickly revealed itself to be a time-lapse, tracking minor changes and movements before bringing us to the night.

Then, for the third time, the camera began to pan—this time painfully slow—delving deeper and deeper into the forest. Granular details sharpened as it zoomed in, while I wondered just how far this seemingly telescopic lens could go—-

Closer and closer—

Further and further, until landing on—

A large cabin, isolated in pitch-black darkness. It didn’t belong with the rest of the forest. Lights on in all of the rooms, a glare cast out on the dense woods surrounding.

The following subtitle:

DO NOT GO NEAR THE CABIN

Mechanical sounds as the camera pushed in slightly closer, with a different clearness, as if the lens suddenly changed.

IF YOU ARE NEAR THE CABIN DO NOT GO INSIDE

Silhouettes of what appeared to be people within the cabin.

IF YOU ARE INSIDE THE CABIN, DO NOT LEAVE.

IT WILL BE TOO LATE.

And then, the camera violently started pulling back, away and away and away from the cabin as static warped the image—

YOU ARE NOURISHMENT TO THEM.

And back to the title card:

TIMBERBROOK HIKING TRAIL GUIDE

The comforting strings, synths, and wood-wind instruments were back. The text underneath the title now just read: “For a hiking experience.”

Then the tape stopped.

And it was just our smudged reflections on the TV now.

We sat in the still of the dark. No one moved an inch.

The shared, telepathic agreement we all seemed to fall under was: pretend everything is okay.

If none of us said we were scared, then we wouldn’t give the game away. If we looked like we were alright, then we were alright. Right?

The tour guide returned. He was hunky dory as normal.

"Alright," I heard him say, opening the door, light switch flicked on. "Looks like you’re all done. Ready to hike?" he asked with chipper delivery.

A muted response from us kids.

He motioned for us to follow, and so we did.

I’m not sure if it was a trick of sound, or a hallucination, but I remembered the guide whispering, only to me it seemed, “Best of luck” as we joined the larger group. Whether this potential remark was tinged with sarcasm or sincerity, I wasn’t sure.

The hike happened.

It was mundane.

Barely any elevation. It wasn’t a particularly dynamic path; more like a trudge through some level, open forest with an almost industrial-looking path leading the way through. Like any in-depth video guide on the ‘how’ of maneuvering this was completely pointless.

There was no way anyone could’ve gotten lost. And, it looked nothing like the video we’d watched.

Only one thing caught my eye on the trail.

The insignias that had been carved deep into the trees.

Elaborate scrawls and markings all along the path.

Then, it was all over. Quicker than one would have imagined. And I had to wonder if the larger group of twenty-six students actually saw the same tape that my group did.

Or if ours was different.

Now, some odd 21 years later, that same question cuts to the front of the line in my mind, as I reconcile with the bizarre childhood experience I’d severed from my head for so many years.

It’s my two year anniversary, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post. My husband pitched renting a cabin for the occasion—something I enthusiastically jumped at. When it came to romantic gestures, this was more bombastic than anything he’d ever done or anything I’d experienced before.

Our love story origins are pretty unremarkable. We actually met as part of a local hiking group, and struck it off immediately. Five years of boyfriend-girlfriend, two years of husband-wife. It’s strange to me as I write all of this now that the traumatic experience of watching the Timberbrook Guide didn’t subconsciously put me off of hiking forever. As I push myself to wonder why, I can’t help but find those carved sigils popping up in my head again.

Hubby and I drove into the secluded area, and as we got closer, there was a familiarity to the surroundings that I couldn’t quite shake.

The uneasy gut feeling was manageable at first. Unfortunately, when paired with my husband’s increasingly bizarre behavior on the trip, it became harder to ignore.

We were supposed to be spending quality time together at the cabin, I thought.

Instead, he was quiet. Stern. Always looking outside. Like he was waiting for someone.

Then, at night, after what I tried to justify as just an unbelievably off day for him, I woke up to find he wasn’t in bed.

I left the room, creaked down the stairs to ground level, to see him sitting on a couch and staring at the TV.

Before I even saw what was on screen, the musical chimes and soothing ambient tunes I heard brought the flood of memories back. I saw the title cards on screen - THE STAIRS, followed by FRIENDS followed by MIDNIGHT. And he—he was transfixed.

I ran back upstairs and locked the door to the bedroom. After that I tried to recall anything and everything I could about the video, and noted it down in this post.

And now, I’m trying really, really hard not to panic.

It’s been an hour. I swear the tape has looped ten times over, judging by the muffled and obscured sounds coming through the wall. It finally stopped only a few minutes ago.

Now he’s at the door.

He’s trying to reason with me. He says there’s nothing to be concerned about. That we should go outside. That he wants to show me something cool in the woods nearby. Some passage in the ground.

As he says it, I can tell there are other people standing there with him, trying to stay quiet. It’s only him talking, but still—I can hear their presence. Their breathing.

I’m having to keep the part of me that wants to jump out the window and run into nowhere at bay. After all, I can see that there are people outside too. They’re in the woods, barely peeking out from behind the trees. A full crowd… who look very, very much like the members of that same hiking group I met my husband at.

I can hear the tour guide’s voice in my head again. More vivid. He really did say it, both sincerely and sarcastically:

“Best of luck."