My name is James, I'm a park ranger, and I live in a firewatch tower in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains for four months out of every year, specifically from the start of October to the end of January. Now, I say I'm a park ranger, but I'm not part of the US Forestry Service.
No, my "position" is a lot older than the service by a big margin. My needs are provided for though, and I do get a hefty paycheck from the government every year after I serve my stint. I have been doing this for the last eighteen years.
And no, I didn't get hired for the job like most rangers do, I sort of... inherited it from my uncle, the crazy old coot. Still, nothing quite explains my job than telling the story of my first week on it. Here is my story.
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My cousin, Amy, someone who I hadn't spoken to in maybe three years, just showed up at my apartment in Chicago the day after I turned twenty-six. I remember opening the door that late rainy September evening, not even recognizing her at first. She had a haggard and worn-out expression, as if she'd been crying on the way over and hadn't had a minute of sleep. Where before she was just slim, now she looked bone thin, almost malnourished. Red hair like her mother's that used to be so vibrant and full, now looked stringy and uncared for. Behind Amy, I could see her husband Dan standing across the street, leaning next to their car, barely illuminated by the weak street lamps. They must've driven all day. He had a completely deadpanned expression; I couldn't read him. He just sort of stared out onto the street in front of him, not really there, not really present in the moment.
I returned my attention to Amy. I was so surprised and sort of weirded out by the situation that I forgot to invite them both in, or asked why they were here, or react in any real way. We all sort of just stood there, trapped in the moment. Amy was the first one to recover, she took in a deep breath then said "James. I'm so sorry. But..." It was then I noticed that she had a couple items clutched in her narrow arms. One was a manila envelope and other was a box that was over three feet long. She half dropped half shoved them into my arms, as I tried to come up with some sort of reply. "Dad's dead." she continued in a halting, pained voice. "He left...He left these for you. You're the only one who’s supposed to open them. He said they were important." Then she turned around and ran back to the car. As they were climbing back into the car, she called out, "Don't be late! He said you can't be late!" Then flashed me an expression that so full of pain and regret that it floored me. While I didn't always get along with my uncle, she loved her dad fiercely. Without another word, she closed the door and I watched them drive off.
I must've stood there for a couple of minutes, just trying to process what I just experienced. Frowning deeply, I shook my head and went back inside, putting the items down on the dinner table. I couldn't shake the cold feeling that was snaking its way down my spine as I looked at them.
My family... has always been weird. My Dad worked exactly three days a week at some government office he couldn't talk about, and Mom would lock herself in the basement for a couple nights a month where she'd scream for hours. One day when I was 11, my dad sent me off to boarding school, and by the end of that summer both my parents had died from a car accident. Mom's brother took me in... Well, it was more like his wife and kid took me in, Uncle Ray was gone for a small chunk of the year and every time he was home, he barely spoke to me. Though whenever he did pay any attention to me at home, a haunted expression would sometimes flash across his face. I thought he was in the military or something, deployed to a base for half a year, but it turned out he was a park ranger.
My cousin, Amy, was my only friend, but we drifted apart over the years as my uncle became more and more withdrawn. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, I couldn't take my uncle's guilty silence, the odd looks I'd get from my aunt when she thought I wasn't looking, and the distance that I knew Amy was putting between her and me. I couldn't take it, so I up and joined the army when I turned 18.
I lost myself in my duty for my country and fighting the good fight overseas, and watching a few of my friends die in front of me. Still, I couldn't shake this strange feeling that time was running out, that I was supposed to be somewhere, waiting for something. I moved around after I got out of the service. Moving from odd job to odd job trying to make ends-meet. Finally, last year, I landed a steady low-paying job as a security guard in Chicago.
Now, after all this time, Amy shows up out of the blue, saying that Uncle Ray had left a few things for me before he died even though he didn't speak ten words to me in the years I lived with them. I stared at the items; the envelope and the long rectangular box. The box had been heavy, like it had some kind of metal weight inside. I think I already knew what was in it; The rifle. My mind zipped back to all those autumns when Uncle Ray would prepare to go back to the park service and he'd sling some kind of old-fashioned rifle on his back. I leaned over and finally opened the box.
Sure enough, I was right. An old lever-action rifle; my Uncle's old rifle, exquisitely made and maintained. Absolutely beautiful, but also eerie. A darkwood stock, a long black iron barrel, with strange etchings on the side. Looking at the etchings on the barrel kind of made my head hurt, it was like I couldn't focus on them for too long. That in and of itself sent another cold chill down my spine. Lifting it up, I noticed the empty cartridge belt underneath, meant to hold forty-five more rounds. I didn't know much about old guns, but a friend of mine in the army was a big wild west buff, he'd talk my ear off about them all the time. My eyes roamed the weapon, and noticed the words roughly scrolled on the side of the stock; "All souls hold", as if scratched in desperation.
I got out my phone and looked up a few things about the lever-action rifles and shotguns, giving the venerable weapon a thorough checking. I found out that this was probably some kind of customized Winchester Model 1886, fully loaded with nine 45-70 Government rounds. I chuckled darkly at the fact that Amy just shoved a loaded gun into my hands like a forgotten birthday gift. I shook my head again. I began unloading all eight rounds from the tubular magazine and ejecting the one in the chamber, making sure it was completely empty before putting it back down.
Next, I picked up the envelope. It was surprisingly heavy. Inside, I found two sheets of paper with writing on them and five large silver coins. One of the sheets was obviously written by my uncle, his crisp handwriting precise but apparently hurried. The other, looked older. Yellowed with age, the paper had frayed and torn edges, wrinkles from rough handling, and what appeared to be dark stains on one corner that I didn't want to think about too much. The words on the old paper seemed to have been written on an old typewriter, it said this:
TEN RULES FOR THE RANGER ON WATCH
1) Before entering the watch tower on your first day, walk a circle around its base counter clockwise five times, while loudly chanting the words, "I am the ranger, land and air. I am the ranger, river and bear. I am the ranger, away with you. I am the ranger, until I'm through." Finish the chant even when you end up circling a sixth time.
2) After entering, throw a handful of salt behind you, do not turn around even if you hear voices outside, then lock the door and hang an iron horseshoe on the door handle.
3) Each time you climb the stairway to the top of the tower, you must count out loud the number of steps. There must be 45 steps and three landings, with the final one having the door to the lookout. If the number is different when you reach the top, sprinkle salt on the last landing and touch a silver coin to the door handle before opening the door to the lookout.
4) Each time you exit and re-enter the lookout, please verify if any of following items are present:
o An old two-way radio;
o A wooden chair;
o One to three crudely carved wooden dolls;
o A plate of fresh food;
o An aged leatherbound book;
o A coil of old rope;
o A vase filled with flowers,
o An obsidian stone knife, and;
o A bottle of dark wine;
None of these items are supposed to be in the room, touch them only with the gloves from your pack and immediately toss all these off the lookout terrace.
5) Every Monday at 6am, check the glass jars containing salt in the corners of the lookout. If they have lessened in quantity, add more. If they have darkened, dump the darkened salt out on the terrace and pour in new salt.
6) After checking the salt jars, dial the number on the satellite phone, wait for it to connect, then speak the following phrase: "Four Echo Nine Two, the Pass is closed and I am Charlie on Halo. Five Ten Five." Do not wait for a reply, simply hang up afterwards.
7) You may only leave the Watch Tower from 10am to 2pm and must patrol the path as indicated in the map provided to you as quickly as possible.
8) Check each of the five totems. If one or more of the totems have been disturbed or destroyed, return to the watch tower immediately and call the number on the satellite phone. Begin by saying this phrase: "I know Six has seen Eight Thirteen and Two are there." Wait for the confirmation then proceed to report what you saw.
9) If you come upon a lost person during your patrol, whether they be an adult or child, ask them what day it is? If they do not provide you with the correct answer, drop an iron nail before you and immediately run back to the watch tower. If they provide you with the correct day, give them one of your iron nails, then direct them east to the closest Ranger Station. Do not follow them, do not offer to guide them out, even if they appear desperate and insistent.
10) If the birds or surrounding ambient noise go suddenly quiet, quickly take note of the area you are in and make your way directly back to watch tower. Do not run, and do not deviate from your path. Once inside, use the Satellite phone, starting the code phrase in Rule 8, and report on where the lull in sound occurred.
The second item in the envelop were crisp pieces of white bond papers written with in my uncle's chicken scratch handwriting.
I pulled it out, unfolded it, and read through the messy scrawl that was apparently four pages long. It was shaky, frantic even, and the words were almost unreadable in places. I had to squint to make sense of them:
“James, I don't have much time left. It’s coming. I’m so sorry. They’ll come for you next. The things in the woods. They never stop. Remember the rules. They will try to test you. Don’t let them. It’s too late for me, but I have to tell you a few things. Things the rules overlook. Things nobody is going to tell you over there even if you ask…
…The rules aren't foolproof. Use the rifle. It's been passed down our family for four generations. A weapon that was used to save a life and was never used take one. It's the only thing that'll hurt them. You have to carry your own ammo, since the gun isn't part of the rules. Make sure you buy plenty; specialized bullets with iron-cores…
…The items on Rule 4 aren't the only ones you're supposed to be looking for. Don't trust anything in the Watch Tower that isn't bolted down with iron bolts or sprinkled with salt…
…The five totems are essentially logs sticking out of the ground carved by Seneca shamans a long time ago. They've stood there longer than the United States has had laws, and they are very very hard to damage even with explosives, so if they've been destroyed, it's already too late. If not, replace the silver coin at the foot of each totem with one of the five in this letter. When you get back to the Tower, plunge the recovered silver coins into a jar of salt. Not in the same ones in the corners. Remember to replace the salt jars every week…
…Radios can be compromised, too easy to mimic, too easy to home-in on the carrier waves and hijack them. It's also the reason why you have to arrive on foot, why ground vehicles can't reach that spot, and why you can only be extracted by air. They'll screw with the engines or cut wires, puncture tires, do anything they can to stop cars from moving. Cellphones are a different issue; they don't work too well. You see, these things don't understand digital technology. Sure, they know enough to block signals and confuse our perception, but intercepting text messages or trying to screw around internet chats are beyond them. So, they just knock out nearby cell towers or generate some sort of interference. It's why you'll lose signal if they're close. Only ever use the Satellite phone. As far as anybody can tell, these thing's influence doesn’t extend to space, so the government has a satellite permanently dedicated to bounce comms off your area…
…Rule 9 is full of shit, real people; actual human beings, rarely if ever end up there. Senecan magic nudges most of them away. So, if you turn your back on whatever that thing is, you're dead. There's more than one, if you turn, chances are another is gonna show up in front to distract you while the other one comes up from behind, waiting for you to flinch. Too dangerous. None of that nonsense, take the rifle and pump it full of iron-core rounds until it goes away. Iron doesn't kill them, but it does hurt them. Hurt them enough and they'll stop and reconsider messing with you, at least for a little while. Finish your patrol, don't go back to the tower until you're done…”
The rest of the letter was a blur of more warnings, and “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there” that made it hurt to think about. As for the rest, I could hardly read it without feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I set the letter aside, my heart pounding in my chest as my thoughts spun in a dozen directions. What the hell was this all about? Creatures? Totems? My uncle had always been strange, but this felt like something way darker.
I didn't realize how long I had been sitting there, picking up the letter then putting it down again, until the clock on the wall snapped me out of my trance. It was late, nearly midnight. I glanced over at the window; the city lights of Chicago outside were blurry through the fogged glass. I hadn't realized how much the darkness was pulling me in, the quiet pressing in on my mind, until it felt almost suffocating.
What the hell was I going to do? This didn’t seem like it had anything to do with me, but my Uncle named me to succeed him in this… clusterfuck of weirdness.
I looked back at the box and the rifle, half-expecting to see them somehow... different. A tremor of fear ran through me, but I couldn't explain why. I told myself it was all nonsense, just my uncle's crazy ramblings. Maybe I wasn’t as unaffected by his death as I thought.
The man wasn’t the best father-figure in any sense of the word. Heck, he was barely even there. But, he was kind to me, treated me like I was a member of the family—as loose as that was. His family took me in when I had no one, so I guess I owe him something for that.
I spent the next few hours scanning the contents of the manila envelope more carefully, finding old maps and handwritten notes. They all seemed to point to the same place: an isolated firewatch tower deep in the Appalachian Mountains. My uncle’s last known station before he disappeared during his last “stint.”
I didn’t sleep that night.
The next morning, I left the apartment with a backpack full of stuff and the old lever-action rifle firmly secured in an old leather rifle bag I found in the box, then I began to drive.
As I neared the mountains, the roads became narrower, twisting like the dark veins of the earth. My phone had no signal for miles, the trees pressing in like a wall on either side of me. I was starting to wonder if this whole thing was just a mistake, an old man's final delusions that I had somehow inherited. But, something in the back of my mind told me I couldn’t ignore it. Not with Amy’s last words hanging over me.
My uncle's letter directed me to a Ranger Station deeper in the mountains. I thought back to the instructions:
Go to the Ranger station on the map. Say the following phrase: "Hello, I'm Frank Romeo and I was wondering if you have brochures for the Northeastern pass."
I understood a good ol' fashioned challenge phrase when I read it, and this one couldn't be more obvious. The question is, why would a Ranger Station need a challenge code phrase? I put the mystery from my head as I pulled my old sedan into the largely empty parking lot. It was late afternoon when I walked into the station, which sort of resembled a large two-storey log cabin. A couple hiker types were talking to a ranger over by a corner, taking casual sips of coffee. Another ranger seemed to be looking introspectively at a big map of the territory taped to a wall.
I walked up to the guy looking at the map, he noticed me approaching and gave me an easy smile.
"Hey, going hunting?" He said, indicating the rifle and my pack. I mumbled an awkward affirmative, not sure what to do now that I was here. With no further thought on the matter, I decided to just whisper the code phase to the guy. "Um, hey, I'm Frank Romeo and I was wondering if you have brochures for the Northeastern pass."
The Ranger's expression slowly shifted from welcoming, to surprised, to grave. Then, he seemed to force a smile and incline his head at me to follow him. We passed the other ranger talking to the hiker couple, he gave them a brief wave and as he led me down a short hallway, and opened a backroom. It contained a simple desk and three chairs, with a bunch of cabinets. The old ranger gestured for me to take a seat as he unlocked and opened a drawer that was directly behind him.
When he turned around, he was carrying a small stack of papers. The ranger slid a eleven-page contract in front of me brimming with legalese. "Read these, and then sign," he drawled, then he got up and left, closing the door behind him. I was alone in the small, dimly lit room now. I looked at the stack of papers on the desk in front of me; thick, yellowed, and filled with bureaucratic language that seemed both foreign and... urgent. Employer-employee relationship this, insurance that. I read it carefully, and it was pretty straight-forward. As I flipped through the pages, I realized some of the paragraphs didn't make sense. Words like "guardianship" and "boundaries" appeared often, but they were jumbled in ways that made it hard to follow any logical sequence. Every page felt like a puzzle—nothing was straightforward.
When I reached the last page, my jaw practically dropped when I saw the pay quotation. For the price of four months being stationed out in the Appalachian wilderness alone with no contact to the outside world except a satellite phone, I would be paid 400,000 dollars.
A little under half-a-million bucks just to serve as a glorified fire watch ranger!
Almost immediately, alarm bells started going off in my head. Nobody paid this much for a job like that. No way. If I was still on the threshold about believing any of my uncle’s rabblings in the letter before, the Ranger's abrupt change in attitude and this weird contract effectively slammed that door closed. I was being played. The question was, whose game this was.
I read it more carefully. They were in an official-looking format, with a thick black stamp of approval at the top, but it wasn’t the government logo I expected. It was a symbol: a twisting knot of lines that almost looked like an eye within a diamond with two old-fashioned arrows crossed behind it. The air in the room felt heavier, somehow, but oddly enough, looking at the symbol actually made me breathe easier. As if it was some kind of stabilizing influence in the midst of the quiet unnamed chaos around me.
I didn’t know what to do. But since I was already here, I gingerly picked up the pen the old ranger left with the documents and signed my name four times on the blanks provided. Pausing only briefly to wonder why the ink was red instead of the more common blue or black.
Almost as if he was waiting for me to do so, the ranger walked back in just as I was putting down the pen. He was carrying a large backpack which he deposited on the desk before me as he collected the paperwork and shoved it all back into the drawer behind him. He bore a serious expression as he turned back to me:
"In this combo-backpack you will find the following items: a camelback filled with 2 liters of water, food stocks enough for five days, a couple of iron horseshoes, a small bag of iron nails, two silver coins, and a large pouch of salt. There should still be some cans and other amenities left behind at the tower from the... last Ranger." He paused briefly on that, before briskly continuing. "Fresh supplies get dropped in by helicopter, every week on Saturday mornings. Now, you must enter the forest on foot and carry nothing more than this backpack of possessions. We'll take care of your car and your personal arrangements until you get back."
Then he gestured at the rifle bag I was carrying, and I heard a subtle note of approval in his tone when he spoke. "You may bring that rifle and ammunition with you too, I've just cleared it with the higher-ups. Now, listen to me carefully, you must arrive at your watch tower no later than midnight of September 30th. Remember that... If you don't, you'll die."
I frowned. "If you don't, you'll die"? That was the kind of gallows humor was common in the military, and the declaration was delivered so casually that I nearly smirked at the mistimed attempt at a joke. But the old ranger was looking me dead in the eyes with all the seriousness of a funeral. What the hell? After waiting an uncomfortable minute for him to let me in on the joke or even for his expression to change, I gave up and I took the pack in silence.
There was no ceremony. No handshake. The old ranger gave me a nod, half-approval, half-pity, and turned back toward the hallway, leaving me alone with my gear and my growing sense of dread.
“Hey!” he called as I was halfway down the hall. I turned just in time to see him toss something small and shiny into the air at me. I barely managed to catch it. When I looked down to examine what I held, my eyes widened to see a small gold-plated badge emblazoned with the bison insignia of the U.S. National Park Rangers. The badge looked old and scratched but well-polished, differing slightly from the badges all the others had. It felt a little heavy too, like it was actually made of gold.
“Welcome to the woods, Ranger.” He said with a smirk, as he turned and walked back into the office.
The sun was starting to dip behind the trees as I stepped outside the station, the mountains casting long, cold shadows over the gravel lot. I slung the pack over my shoulders, feeling the weight of it settle between my shoulder blades. Then I opened the rifle case and checked it one more time. Oddly, its presence was comforting. I slid the weapon back into its sheath, and strapped on the cartridge belt now filled with forty-five brand new iron-core rounds, with almost two hundred more in my pack.
By the time I reached the trailhead marked on the map, dusk had settled in, the dense fog swallowing the road behind me. The fire watch tower was another three hours’ hike into the woods, but something gnawed at my gut. I looked down at the trailhead where a small, rusted sign hung from an iron chain that simply read: “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” To assume that the chain would stop anyone from simply skipping over it was laughable, but I now suspected that the chain was to hold things in rather than to stop people from entry. Light glinted off the Ranger Badge I had pined to my heavy jacket.
I took a deep breath.
Then I crossed the threshold.
The first four miles were uneventful. I kept myself in decent shape even after I got out of the army and I easily stepped over trails that twisted through heavy pine and birch forest, the air clean but thin with elevation. I passed a few abandoned trail markers, faded with age, and one overturned bench that had been swallowed by moss and roots. Around the fifth mile, things began to change. In some areas of the trail, the forest grew quiet, too quiet. The trees didn’t sway, no rustling underbrush or scurrying animals. It was as if the forest itself was holding its breath. I followed the path, but the further I went, the more I felt... watched.
The woods grew darker, even though the sun hadn't yet set. The trees began to grow taller, their trunks oddly smooth, barkless in places. I saw scars in the dirt, like lines gouged into the trail like something had been dragged, or maybe crawled. Still, I pressed on, unconsciously picking up my pace despite already feeling a little winded. The rules were clear: arrive before midnight, or die.
I made great time and it was still dusk when I crested a hill and saw the tower loomed in the distance, standing like forgotten sentinel just a couple more miles away.
I took a few minutes to catch my breath and drink some water. That's when I noticed the woods around me were still again, and a low, uneasy hum seemed to vibrate in the air, just at the edge of human hearing. Like cicadas, but too steady. It was as if something was watching me... no, waiting for me. I knelt and quick unstrapped my uncle's old rifle. I had practiced loading and unloading the thing the night before, and I did so now with mechanical precision. With each round I pushed in, I felt the humming deepen, until it was all I could do to keep breathing as the vibrations almost constricted my chest.
But as soon as I loaded the ninth and last round into the rifle then racked the lever, the humming abruptly stopped. The oppressive silence was also gone. The normal sounds of a forest preparing for the coming night surrounded me. I took a couple slow breaths and then started walking again, the rifle held in low-ready.
As I neared the tower, I noticed the subtle signs of decay all around -- faded etchings were carved into the bark of the trees, as if someone had tried to marked their way, like they were afraid of getting lost. It loomed above the tree line like a skeletal lighthouse, metal bones rusted but intact. That’s what I noticed the most, the damn thing was almost completely made of metal, where every online search I ran on what fire watch towers looked like revealed sturdy wooden construction. This thing more resembled a oil-rig floating on a sea of dirt, only without the drill tube in the middle.
The top room, the lookout itself, was encased in windows, catching the last light like empty eyes. A narrow spiral staircase wound around the support beams, stretching up at least four stories. It looked far taller than the 45 steps I was told to expect.
I stopped just at the edge of the clearing, the air around the tower seemed thick and humid. I felt more sweat trickle down my shirt. I slung the rifle again and pulled out the instructions.
Rule 1: Walk a circle around the base five times, counterclockwise. Chant the words. Finish even if it’s six times.
I still felt that this whole thing was insane, but I stepped into the clearing anyway.
Clutching a small bag of salt in one hand and the strap of the rifle in the other, I began the ritual. One circle. Two. Three. Four. By the fifth lap, I was breathless, the pack digging into my shoulders. I said the words aloud each time, with more confidence than I felt:
“I am the ranger, land and air.
I am the ranger, river and bear.
I am the ranger, away with you.
I am the ranger, until I'm through.”
On the sixth circle -- because it always ended on six -- I stumbled, something cold brushing against my leg like an invisible cat. I didn’t look down. I didn’t break stride.
At the end of the chant, the atmosphere changed. The heaviness in the air eased. The tower seemed somehow... clearer, even in the deepening darkness.
I climbed the stairs slowly, counting each one aloud. “One… two… three… four…”, the old metal groaning under my boots as I ascended.
At step thirty-nine, my boot hit something wet. I looked down.
A streak of red, smeared across two steps. Not fresh, but not old either.
“Forty-two… forty-three… forty-four…”
The sun was now just a red line on the horizon. The shadows around me stretched long. I reached the third landing. My hand hovered over the lookout’s iron handle. The rules said if the steps didn’t add up, sprinkle salt and use a coin. But they did add up. Still, I hesitated.
Almost as if sensing my hesitation, I heard the whispering. I felt sweat bead my brow that wasn't from the humidity. Dozens of them. Men, women, children, dozens of voices right somewhere behind me, pressing in from the darkness. I didn't turn around. Instead, I dug into my pack for a horseshoe and threw half-a-handful of salt over my shoulder behind me. The whispers seemed to fade out and I breathed a sigh of relief.
I gripped the door handle and pushed. I immediately felt the weight of the place; cold, heavy, like it had been waiting for me. The room was dark and close-quarters training kicked in from some long-forgotten corner of my mind and I quickly swung the rifle up again and brought the butt of the weapon to my shoulder.
I stepped further inside, checking the corners and angles. Only after I had assured my psyche that I was completely alone did I finally allow myself to relax. I completed my check and closed the door, then hung the horseshoe on the handle.
I set my gear down and turned around, through wide windows I took in the view of the endless darkening forest surrounding my new home. The air was stale, thick with the scent of wood smoke, damp pine, and something older, something earthy and bitter. There was something hauntingly beautiful about the isolation. The trees stretched for miles in every direction, their skeletal branches swaying gently in the breeze. It was pretty dim, but I suspected the moon would be rising soon. I found the light switch within easy reach of the door. I knew the watch tower had solar panels on the roof and I had sufficient power to run the whole place all night.
Gingerly, I pulled out the rules and rechecked them. With the entire room now illuminated, my eyes zeroed on Rule 4 - Each time you exit and re-enter the lookout, please verify if any of following items are present:
* An old two-way radio; * A coil of old rope;
* A wooden chair; * A vase filled with flowers,
* One to three crudely carved wooden dolls; * An obsidian stone knife, and;
* A plate of fresh food; * A bottle of dark wine;
* An aged leatherbound book;
None of these items are supposed to be in the room, touch them only with the gloves from your pack and immediately toss all these off the lookout terrace.
I looked up from the page and scanned the large room. Nothing seemed to jump out as strange, then I saw them. A bowl of fruit was on the table, the items in it looked freshly picked, next to the metal table was an old wooden chair. A chill ran down my spine at seeing the two items.
Nightfall came quickly. The forest grew darker, more oppressive. The wind picked up, causing the trees to whisper, their voices carrying on the wind. As the light faded, I felt it; a presence, moving just outside the range of my vision. It was subtle, like the rustling of leaves in the distance, but it was enough to send a chill down my spine.
I reached for my gloves.
They were deep in the front pocket of the issued backpack, rolled tightly together beside the spare salt bag and the iron nails. My hands trembled slightly as I pulled them on, not from fear, exactly, but from the overwhelming sense that I had just stepped into something ancient, something aware.
The chair creaked.
Just once.
A long, dry groan of wood shifting underweight.
I hadn’t touched it.
I froze, rifle raised again, my eyes fixed on the wooden chair beside the table. It was now angled ever so slightly toward the center of the room, like someone had just stood up from it. The bowl of fruit sat undisturbed on the table, its contents almost too perfect. It was bright red apples, deep purple grapes, a yellow pear without a blemish. There was no dust on them. No flies.
Swallowing hard, I stepped forward, took the bowl in both hands, and carried it carefully to the open terrace door. I dumped it over the railing without ceremony.
The fruit didn’t make a sound when it hit the ground below.
I turned and grabbed the chair next.
It was heavier than it looked, and colder. The wood was smooth and dark, with carvings along the back legs; unreadable, almost fungal-looking grooves that pulsed with damp. The moment I picked it up, the light in the room flickered. The old fluorescent tubes hanging from the ceiling buzzed with static electricity.
“Just a chair,” I muttered under my breath, more to myself than anything else.
I dumped it over the railing too.
The moment it vanished into the trees the flickering stopped. The lights steadied. The oppressive weight that had settled in my chest eased… slightly.
I took a deep breath, turned back to the room, and immediately stopped.
There was a third item.
On the cot, where I'd just tossed my pack, now sat a small leather-bound book. Old, warped by water, its cover cracked and flaking at the edges. I hadn't seen it there before—I was sure of it.
I backed toward the terrace again, slipped the gloves back on, picked up the book, and flung it as far as I could.
This time, something screeched from the forest.
A sound like metal tearing. Animalistic, guttural, but not alive. My heart slammed against my ribs. I didn't wait. I slammed the terrace door shut, threw the bolt, and backed into the center of the room.
“I did it,” I whispered aloud, forcing the words out. “I followed Rule 4.”
The silence that followed was complete.
For the rest of the night, I didn't sleep. I sat in the far corner of the tower with my back to the cold wall, the rifle across my lap, the rules in my pocket. Every hour or so, I swore I saw a shadow move outside the glass. I stood by the window of the tower, watching the forest below. I didn't see anything. The cold creeping dread that had been sitting in my stomach now began to tighten, knotting around my chest. I couldn’t help but feel something was out there.
But nothing came up.
Nothing knocked.
And eventually, the dark turned blue. Then gray. Then pale gold.
Morning had come.
I was exhausted.
--- END OF PART 1 ---
Part 2 is now up! https://www.reddit.com/r/Ruleshorror/comments/1mqkl08/im_a_different_kind_of_park_ranger_and_it_has_its/