Country Roads, Please... Take Me Home

In the crisp autumn of 1975, Earl Harlan loaded up his 72 Ford Country Squire wagon with venison jerky, a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and his Winchester Model 70. His boy, Tommy, twelve and all gangly limbs in a flannel shirt and Levis, bounced on the balls of his feet by the garage in their small Ohio town. The AM radio crackled with Lynyrd Skynyrd as they hit the backroads toward the Allegheny National Forest, the wood paneled siding gleaming under faded gold leaves. Earl figured it would be like 72. Deer plentiful, bonding time pure as creek water.

Day one dawned foggy, the kind that clung to your Carhartt jacket like a bad memory. They pitched the canvas tent near a burbling stream, the Coleman stove hissing as Earl fried Spam and eggs. Tommy’s 22 rifle felt heavy in his hands, but he grinned, sighting squirrels through the iron sights. By noon, they trekked pine needle trails, boots crunching acorns. That was when Tommy spotted it first. A fresh deer carcass, gutted clean but not by claws or teeth, just precise slices like a hunter’s knife gone wrong. Earl shrugged it off as poachers, but the blood was still warm, steaming in the chill.

That night, under a harvest moon filtering through the tent’s nylon window, they heard the first oddity. Not a howl, but a low, rhythmic panting, like a dog too big for its lungs, circling their campfire’s embers. Earl chambered a round, flashlight beam slicing the dark, but nothing. Tommy clutched his sleeping bag, whispering about the radio ghost stories from Detroit. Sleep came fitful, the zipper’s metallic tang sharp in the air.

Day two brought clearer skies and the crunch of gravel under their boots as they pushed deeper, packs heavy with Tang powder and canned beans. Tommy nailed a rabbit, its fur soft as his mother’s old mink stole. But returning to camp, Earl’s gut twisted. Their snare line was snapped, wire ends curled like fingers prying free. No animal tracks, just deep gouges in the mud, too wide for bear, too deliberate. Earl muttered about coyotes, but his eyes kept drifting to the ridge where branches swayed without wind.

Twilight painted the sky orange as they roasted rabbit over hickory coals, the transistor radio picking up faint music before static swallowed it. Then came the eyes. Two amber glints low in the underbrush, unblinking, gone when Earl hurled a rock. Tommy’s face paled under his cap. He swore they were not wolf eyes, too knowing, too human. Earl said nothing this time, only double loaded the shotgun and kept it close.

Day three, the forest felt watchful. They pushed to a rocky overlook, spotting a buck before it bolted, spooked by something unseen. Halfway back, Tommy froze. A footprint in the loam. Bare, enormous, toes stretched long and wrong, pressed beside their own tracks as if it had walked with them for miles. Earl crouched and measured it with his lighter. Fifteen inches, with faint claw marks at the edges. He said nothing after that.

By evening, the panting returned, closer now, weaving through the trees with snaps of twigs that mimicked footsteps. They huddled by the fire, beans bubbling, when Tommy noticed the tent flap hanging open. Inside, the sleeping bags were sliced clean. Not torn. Sliced. Earl found a single long hair on his pillow, coarse and gray black, curled like something left behind on purpose.

Dawn of day four broke with frost lining their gear. No more hunting. They packed fast, hands clumsy with nerves. The wagon roared to life, gravel spitting behind them as they tore down the fire road. Tommy twisted in his seat, staring into the trees. He kept saying it was keeping pace with them. Always just out of sight, but never gone.

They camped closer to the ranger station that night, though neither of them slept. The panting had multiplied, circling, rising and falling like breath pulled through too many lungs. Sometimes it sounded like laughter buried under something animal. Earl fired into the dark more than once. The woods swallowed every shot without answer.

Day five came thin and gray. They abandoned the wagon and pushed on foot toward the highway, rifles tight in their hands. The markings in the forest had changed. Gouges climbed higher on trees now, some well above Earl’s reach. Sap bled from the wounds in the bark, thick and fresh. The air smelled wrong, sour and hot despite the cold.

Then, in full daylight, with the sun high and merciless, the woods went silent.

It did not step out so much as unfold itself from between the trees, as if it had always been there and they had only just learned how to see it. Its shape was wrong before it was visible. Limbs too long, joints bending with a slow, deliberate intelligence that made the eye struggle to follow. Fur hung in wet, matted ropes over a body stretched almost human, almost not, ribs shifting under the skin like something trying to rearrange itself. Its face came last. Not revealed, but assembled. A muzzle pressing forward from what might once have been a man’s skull, teeth forcing their way into a grin that split too wide, eyes burning amber and fixed entirely on them.

It stood in the open sun.

Breathing.

Smiling.

And in that moment, neither Earl nor Tommy felt hunted anymore. They felt chosen.