“Shit,” I curse under my breath, ripping my mind from that awful memory and focusing back on the present.
Looking over my shoulder, I see that the pot hanging above the fire boiled over and started to put out the very flames heating it. Feels like there’s an apt metaphor somewhere in there for my life, but I’m too damn tired to think of it.
I grab a towel and carefully remove the pot from its hanging spot, setting it down in the sink to cool off. A tremor runs through my left hand, which shouldn’t surprise me. I always get the shakes after a flashback.
Lifting my trembling hand, I run my fingers through my hair and take a calming breath. I’m not hungry anymore, and there’s no way in hell I’ll get any sleep right now. I may as well see if there really was anything in the woods earlier.
Grabbing a coat, my hiking boots, and a headlamp, I make my way outside into the clear night sky.
2
ARI
Okay, I can admit it. Camping out here all alone may not have been my best idea.
As a paranormal travel writer-slash-investigator, I’ve spent the night in many a strange place. The haunted Winchester mansion, Alcatraz prison, and even Pennhurst Asylum, to name a few.
I’m noticing, however, that while those places are arguably scarier when it comes to ghosts and ghouls, they all have walls and a roof.
The wide-open wilderness of the Smoky Mountains? Not so much.
Don’t get me wrong, the hike up here was gorgeous. I’ve already almost filled an entire sketchbook with flowers and wildlife portraits to accompany the series of articles I’m going to publish about this latest venture. But now it’s dark and a lot colder than I thought it would be, and this tent isn’t nearly as sturdy as the man at the sporting goods store led me to believe.
Still, I’m living life on my own terms, doing something I know my parents would be proud of.
A heavy sigh escapes my lips as I lie back on my sleeping bag and a pile of blankets. I don’t have many memories of myparents before they passed away when I was seven, but those I cherish the most are centered around bedtime stories.
I was never a fairy tale kind of kid. I wanted something weird, fascinating, and unexpected in my stories. When my dad told me the legend of the Mothman haunting a small town in West Virginia in the 1960s, I was hooked. My mother was horrified at first, but she soon came to accept that I loved all the crazy paranormal monster stories.
She may have scoffed a few times at my father for encouraging my interests, but I remember her smiling and joining us outside whenever Dad made a bonfire and started up on his favorite stories of Bigfoot or UFO sightings in the area over the last hundred years.
It’s not that I believe one hundred percent that every story or experience out there is true. I’m not totally ignorant of liars, scammers, and those out to prey on people. But even if five percent of the hundreds of thousands of encounters are based in reality… hell, ifonepercent of every alien abduction story or ghost encounter were true, isn’t that worth pursuing?
According to my aunt Maureen, the answer is an emphatic no.
I roll my eyes at the memory of her incredulous stare when I told her I was going to travel to the most haunted and active paranormal sites across the US to document my experiences. Some part of me gets her reservations. I’m twenty-two, going out into the big bad world armed with nothing more than a bachelor’s degree in journalism and enough financial support from my small but loyal following online to pay for gas and a place to sleep.
If my safety were the cause for her concern, that would be one thing. But Aunt Maureen… She’s always belittled my father’s memory. She never liked him, and although she didn’t say it outright, she never truly liked me, either.
A creaking noise filters through my thoughts, putting me on high alert. Every muscle tenses as I listen for the possible threat. I have my EVP wrist recorder on, which measures Electronic Voice Phenomena for playback at a later time.
I didn’t haul my plus-sized ass all the way up this mountain for the exercise. No, thank you. I did it to be the first person to officially investigate and record their findings in the abandoned mining town in the Smoky Mountains. It used to be known as Slatesville, but that was over a hundred years ago.
Recent video footage from hikers has shown some strange things happening in the valley containing the old town. For a long time, no one could even get there. I happened to find what looked to be a new track all the way from the base of the mountain to right here, a half mile or so from the hotbed of recorded activity.
Things might not be paranormal here, butsomethingis happening, and I want to be the first to report on it.
Leaves crunch off to my right, and then an owl hoots, making me gasp.
“You’re overreacting,” I tell myself. I’m just not used to the wilderness aspect of camping out. Although I’ve been to some questionable places, they’ve all at least sheltered me from the elements.
Despite my justifications, my heart thrashes around in my chest, making my head throb as I listen for what’s next. The disembodied voice of a miner trapped in one of the dozens of tunnels beneath me at this very moment? Perhaps something less paranormal and more biological, like a deer or a squirrel. Or a bear.
Oh, God. Why did I think this tent was enough protection from a bear?
My eyes widen as I sit straight up, more aware of my surroundings than ever. The image of a hungry bear outside mytent morphs into a deranged Blair Witch situation, and that’s about the time I realize I’m not prepared to deal with any of that.
“Idiot,” I mutter, my hands shaking as I struggle to unzip my sleeping bag.
