The Wood for the Trees by Liam Whitmarsh

The Wood for the Trees by Liam Whitmarsh

Amelia looked through the passenger window at the trees flying by. During long road trips with her family as a child, she’d had a habit of imagining what it would be like to grow up in the places they drove through. They could enter a small country town in one direction, and by the time they had driven out the other side, she’d imagined a whole childhood of experiences in the various spots she’d noticed along the way. Reminiscing on this now, Amelia realised she’d never told her parents or either of her two brothers about this. Strange how people can feature such a central role in your memories but not know a core part of your own experience within it.

She wasn’t with her family now though. She was with Darren, a guy she’d been dating for the past two months. Things were going well. Their energies matched. So much so, that they’d decided to take their first weekend getaway together. Darren had excitedly messaged Amelia one evening on her way home from work and told her he had booked a surprise trip for the two of them.

Amelia was glad to discover that after some excited chatter at the start of the drive, they’d lapsed into a comfortable silence. Well, a form of silence. Music was playing softly through the car audio system: a playlist they’d created together during some of their initial dating app messages. You could have a good feeling about someone, but these little rhythms you settled into were an important part of learning your interpersonal dynamic during the dating process. At twenty-six, Amelia was no stranger to that.

Amelia continued looking out into the woods, searching for clues about their final destination now that Darren had said they were almost there. The stillness of the trees was mesmerising. Any movement amid that stillness stood out like a scream piercing a quiet night.

Like now. Amelia braced herself as a large figure bounded toward them from the woods, and in a flash, smashed into her side of the car. Darren slammed on the breaks, propelling them both suddenly forward. “Fuck!”

In no time at all they had slowed to crawl, and Darren pulled the car into a muddy inlet by the side of the road. “Are you okay, Amelia?”

Amelia was shaking, the adrenaline still coursing through her body like powerful water rapids. Darren unbuttoned his seatbelt and put his hands on both her shoulders, gently turning her to him. “Are you okay?” he repeated.

“Y-yes… I’ll be fine. Just a bit shaken up… Jesus! He was so close to my window. I could see the whites of his eyes.”

Darren exhaled deeply, his heart rate starting to return closer to its normal rhythm. “We should probably go check on him. You know, make sure he’s dead?”

“Yeah, I guess we should.”

“Alright. You stay here and try to calm down. I’ll go take a look.”

Amelia watched in the left wing mirror as Darren walked back up the road towards where the impact had happened. Well, this was a great start to the weekend getaway, she thought. Killing a kangaroo, how romantic. She stopped looking at Darren in the wing mirror, who was now inspecting the corpse. Her hands were still shaking a little, but her breathing was more under control. The sun was starting to go down, so it was no surprise that the ‘roos would be out. It had been so long since she’d been in a car that hit one though. It was a good thing Darren didn’t jerk the steering wheel when it hit. Amelia remembered hearing that it was the driver’s reaction that usually caused people to crash rather than the impact of the kangaroo itself. She looked up at the wing mirror again and saw Darren slowly walking back. He came along her side of the car, pausing to inspect the damage. Amelia looked down again as he did this. Guess she was going to learn even more about him now. She thought about how her dad would have reacted if there had been damage to his car. Her dad’s anger exploded out of him like a fuse had been lit and it was only a matter of time. Sometimes she wondered if that was why she was so jumpy now. It could be as harmless as someone shouting across a car park to their friend to say goodbye and it would make her jump, but didn’t seem to faze anyone else. Amelia watched Darren’s face attentively as he moved around the front of the car and back towards the driver’s side. He didn’t seem angry. Amelia still held her breath. “All good?” managed to escape.

“Yeah. He’s definitely dead. Car’s got a bit of damage, but nothing too bad. How are you feeling?”

They talked for the final fifteen minutes of the drive. Eventually, Darren said they’d arrived, and Amelia looked up to see where they would be staying for the next couple of nights. On both sides of the road were fields, some with cows, some with sheep, and some empty. On Darren’s side of the road was a long track leading into some woods. “It’s about 800 metres up that track. Should be nice and secluded. You can’t even see the Airbnb from here!”

& & &

“Is this going to be okay do you think? I didn’t realise it was all glass walls when I booked it.”

Amelia’s eyes traced the walls of the Airbnb. The place was essentially a tiny cabin surrounded by trees, but all the external walls were big glass panel windows and there were no curtains or blinds for privacy.

“Um yeah… it should be fine. I guess we’re pretty secluded out here,” she replied.

“Oh man, I wonder if the bathroom is completely exposed too,” Darren said, already moving over to the far end of the cabin where he presumed it to be. “Yeah, it’s the same in here!” Darren’s voice echoed out of the bathroom.

Amelia wandered over to him. Sure enough, as you entered the room there was a toilet, a shower, and then a floor to ceiling glass window with no shower curtain. The sun still hadn’t gone down completely, so it was light enough to see the thin trees and grassy bank beyond. It seemed private enough. The thought occurred to Amelia that when darkness fell and the bathroom light was on, the place would be lit up like an illuminated shopfront. The slightly paranoid part of her thinking whispered in her mind “I hope no one’s installed cameras in those trees.” You did hear about the odd Airbnb horror story every now and then.

As if the same thought had occurred to Darren and triggered another related one, he said “Maybe we could watch a horror movie tonight – whadya think?” as he moved back into the main part of the cabin where the kitchen, dining room and bedroom all bled into one. That was something else they’d bonded over during their early messages to each other: their mutual love of horror movies.

“Yeah, I’d be keen. I don’t think I saw a TV anywhere though…” Amelia replied.

“Oh damn. Yeah, looks like you’re right. Maybe we should have brought your iPad with us after all. Ah well. We could just have some wine and play board games?”

“Mmm yeah – that sounds nice.”

“But first things first…” Darren said and leaned in to kiss her. Amelia reciprocated gladly. His soft, slightly wet lips feeling heavenly against her own. Darren cradled her back as he leaned her onto the bed and gently rested her there. He reached his hand around her to feel below her waist.

Amelia pulled her lips away from his. “Sorry. I just don’t think I’m comfortable doing this with no blinds or anything,” she said.

Darren sat up. “Sorry – I should have thought about that. I just got a bit carried away. S’all good.”

& & &

The three glasses of wine had gone to Amelia’s head. She’d won the game of Scrabble, but it was pretty close in the end. They’d spent the twenty or so minutes since the game had ended curled up together on the small sofa in the living space sandwiched between the kitchen and bedroom. The darkness stared back at them through the front glass walls of the cabin.

Amelia yawned. Tiredness hit her suddenly, no doubt accelerated by the wine. “I’m going to take a shower and then I think I’m ready for bed,” she said.

“No worries. I might just have a whisky while I’m waiting,” Darren replied.

Amelia shuffled off to the bathroom, turned the light on, and closed the door. She’d had time to get used to the exposed bathroom by now, with the couple of toilet visits during the evening. The alcohol had certainly facilitated calming any initial nerves she had about undressing in front of the exposed glass wall as well. So, she had no problem now pulling her clothes off and stepping into the hot stream of water. She closed her eyes enjoying the warm hug that the shower offered.

She opened them again to reach for the beautifully packaged small circular soap on the ledge built into the wall facing her. Amelia froze. A jolt of anxiety shot through her body like she’d been struck by lightning. She’d caught something in her peripheral vision pressed against the window from the outside. Something that didn’t belong there. A human hand. She immediately turned the tap off, swung open the shower door and wrapped a towel around her. She was shaking and still dripping wet as she opened the bathroom door to tell Darren what happened.

& & &

“Are you sure that’s what you saw? You wouldn’t have had your glasses on in the shower. Could it have been a reflection on the window or something?” Darren said after she had shakily recounted what happened.

Amelia was a little taken aback. She hadn’t expected him to immediately dismiss her like this. Maybe it was because he’d also had a bit to drink. Or he was just trying to rationalise the situation. Or he was scared to go out and check. It suddenly hit her how unfamiliar the two of them were with each other. And yet here they were in the middle of nowhere together.

“I’m pretty sure I saw it,” she said.

“Okay, well I better go check. Wait here and I’ll do a walk around the outside of the cabin.” Darren was already putting his shoes on as he said this. Amelia sat on the sofa, still with just the towel wrapped around her. Darren grabbed his jacket and opened the front door of the cabin. “Two secs,” he said, leaving Amelia alone in the cabin.

Amelia saw Darren hold his phone light up to the trees out the front of the cabin and then, apparently satisfied, start moving to the right side of the cabin. She looked through the open door of the bathroom and could see his phone light moving past the glass wall where she had seen the hand appear. Shortly after, she saw his phone light coming past the right side of the cabin where the bedroom was. Finally, his footsteps thudded up the wooden stairs leading to the entrance of the cabin.

“I couldn’t see anyone,” he said when he came through the front door. “We’ve both had a bit to drink, and I think we’re both pretty tired. Maybe we should just go to sleep and get some rest. I’ll make sure all the doors and windows are locked,” he said, cuddling her head to his chest.

Amelia didn’t really know what else to say. She was still pretty disappointed that Darren didn’t seem to believe that she’d seen it. After they’d got ready for bed, turned all the lights out, and Darren had gone around and checked the locks on the front door and all the windows, the cabin completely lost its cosy feel to Amelia. Now it just felt like a fragile wooden structure in the middle of a forest.

& & &

Amelia heard Darren’s soft snoring next to her. It must have been a couple of hours since they climbed into bed, but she hadn’t fallen asleep yet. She was still too shaken by what she had seen. She glanced over at the alarm clock on her side of the bed. 1:00AM. Ugh, she had better try and switch off her brain. It seemed like the threat had passed. Losing sleep was only going to negatively affect her at this point. It certainly wasn’t going to help. She dragged the covers up to the bridge of her nose and decided to take one final quick look out the front glass wall of the bedroom.

Amelia couldn’t believe her eyes. A light. Flickering through the trees towards the cabin. She shuffled up so her back was now against the headboard of the bed. Suddenly another light flickered on. This one was closer to the cabin than the first and about twelve feet to the left. A third light appeared. This one was even closer than the second light. All three lights started moving slowly towards the cabin: towards Amelia and the sleeping Darren beside her. A few seconds later, all the lights vanished, and darkness enveloped the cabin once again. Amelia hurriedly shook Darren’s arm several times. On the third shake, with his eyes still closed Darren murmured “wha – what’s wrong?”

“Darren, I saw lights outside. I think there’s people out there coming towards the cabin.”

Darren shuffled up slowly so that his back was also now resting against the headboard.

“I can’t see anything,” he said, blinking slowly through half closed eyes.

“They’re not there now. But I saw three of them before, and they were moving towards the cabin.”

Darren, slowly becoming more awake, moved his legs out from under the covers and shuffled over to the front glass pane of the cabin. Amelia was incredulous. Why was Darren moving so casually? She had just told him there were people out in the woods moving towards the cabin. Squinting into the darkness, Darren murmured “I can’t see anyth-”

Before Darren could finish his sentence, three loud knocks sounded from the far end of the cabin. Darren swung around immediately. His eyes locked with Amelia’s, which were now wide open in fear.

“Okay, there’s someone out there,” Darren said. Even in her terror, Amelia felt a palpable sense of relief that Darren now finally believed her… or that another person had confirmed her senses were not playing tricks on her. She wasn’t completely sure which. Darren marched to the end of the cabin where the knocks had originated. Amelia still sat bolt upright in bed, her back against the headboard and the covers pulled up to her mouth.

Almost as soon as Darren had reached the end of the cabin where the knocks were heard, three more knocks sounded. This time directly behind Amelia. Darren came rushing back into the bedroom.

“Are they there?” Amelia asked, too scared to turn around to look.

“…No. I can’t see them. They must have moved.”

“What are we gonna do?”

“It’s probably just kids mucking around… They can’t get in.”

“Should we call the police?”

“I don’t think we can – there’s no network out here.”

“Triple-oh works even when you don’t have service,” Amelia said.

“Nah, I don’t think we call them. I’m sure they’ll get bored soon and bugger off.”

They both fell silent and listened for any further sounds from outside, Darren standing in his boxers by the front glass wall of the bedroom, and Amelia still in the same alert position in bed. After a few moments of silence, Darren moved back to the bed and shuffled his legs under the covers. He wrapped his arms around Amelia and gently pulled her towards his chest to cuddle her into him.

“It’ll be okay,” he said softly.

Amelia pulled her head away after a few moments, not wanting to hurt Darren’s feelings who was just trying to comfort her, but also not wanting to obscure her vision for too long in case something else happened. They sat side by side in bed for a short time, staring into the darkness.

It wasn’t long before the silence was filled again with a new sound. A chainsaw. The sound was coming from somewhere out the front of the cabin, deep into the woods. The guttural rhythm of the idling machine was interrupted intermittently by a higher frequency whining as the operator squeezed on the trigger in random terrifying bursts. The sound reverberated menacingly throughout the forest. Amelia glanced unconsciously at the clock as if to confirm to herself that no one in their right mind would be felling trees at this time of night. Then silence. Gut-wrenching, heart-stopping silence. The kind of silence that felt loud in your ears. Amelia’s and Darren’s eyes darted around as they focussed all of their attention on hearing: searching for any slight sound coming from their dark forest surrounds.

Amelia jumped suddenly as the chainsaw started again, this time much closer to the cabin.

“Jesus, Darren. We need to call the police.”

Amelia reached over to the bedside table where her phone was charging. She yanked the charging cable out of the phone port and oriented her fingers to unlock the phone and dial 000. Just as she was ready to type the digits, she was stopped. Darren’s hand was clasped around her wrist pulling it toward him. Not aggressively, but firmly. Enough to prevent her from pulling her arm away.

“Darren what are you doing?!”

“Don’t call the police. I’ll deal with it,” he said.

“They have a chainsaw, Darren.”

“I still think it’s just some people mucking around. I’ll warn them we’re going to call the police if they carry on.”

Before Amelia could reply, Darren was already up out of bed, pulling his trackies and jacket on. The sound of the chainsaw was still reverberating around the forest. Its operator standing somewhere nearby. Darren marched over to the front door, ripped it open, and then slammed it shut again. Amelia was physically frozen, but her mind and senses were working overtime. It felt like the sound of the chainsaw had penetrated her skull and was now coming from inside of her. If this carried on, she thought her head might explode. Darren had stupidly put himself in harm’s way and left her to fend for herself if their unknown assailants got the better of him. She felt safer when he was inside also protected by whatever defences the cabin provided.

Amelia heard Darren shouting into the forest but couldn’t make out the words, which were muffled by the cabins exterior. It struck her that if the sound proofing of the cabin was such that it muffled Darren’s shouted words to the point of unrecognition, the sound of the chainsaw outside must be ear splitting. Amelia felt her vision blurring and her panic intensified as she realised she was going to pass out.

& & &

Amelia awoke to Darren’s face peering down at her own. He looked scared.

“Jesus, Amelia. Are you okay?”

Amelia pulled herself up and tried to reorient herself to the situation. The chainsaw noise had stopped. The front door of the cabin was wide open. She looked back at Darren with wide eyes.

“I-I think I passed out. What happened?” she asked.

Darren looked at her with terror etched on his face. “We need to leave,” he said.

Amelia was immediately thrust back into panic. Darren had seemed assured before, but now he was terrified. He’d seen something out there that had freaked him out. “Are you okay to walk?” he asked.

Amelia nodded and they moved quickly to the car carrying their mostly full travel bags which were on the floor by the bed. They left everything else. It was still dark outside but starting to lighten. The air was cold and brisk. There was a complete absence of sound from the woods. They threw their bags into the back seats of the car, slammed the rear doors shut and jumped in the driver and passenger seat of the car. Darren reversed out with a jerk and drove the car quickly along the forest trail that led back to the country road they’d first entered the property on less than fifteen hours before.

Amelia peered out of the window as Darren sped along the trail. The trees loomed ominously in the darkness, appearing like tall bent figures reaching out to the car and Amelia inside. Suddenly, the mere illusion of human figures amongst the trees was replaced by an actual human figure: a man of about 30 years of age in a black hooded robe. The hood of the robe was pulled down, showing his long dark brown hair. With each tree that momentarily blocked the man from view, Amelia expected him to disappear, but he remained fixed in place. Just before they rounded a corner of the trail where the man would be out of view completely, Amelia saw him raise his hand and perform a series of gestures. He pointed at the car, pointed back towards the cabin, and then made a cross using both arms. Amelia felt the meaning was clear. ‘You’re not welcome here. Don’t come back.’

& & &

“Okay, I think we can work with that,” Dr Potter said.

Amelia had just finished describing to the psychologist her anxiety symptoms; how she had always felt that she had an anxious disposition anyway, but that since an experience she had about two months ago, things had gotten worse. She got panic attacks seemingly randomly during the day and it was affecting her work and being in public in general. The attacks would always reach a climax when she felt like she was going to lose consciousness and make an embarrassing scene in public.

“In the short-term, we can work on some exercises you can practice when you start to feel anxious, but it will be important to understand how different experiences you’ve had are feeding into your anxiety to help manage it over the longer term,” Dr Potter continued. “That will include the ‘experience’ you mentioned you had recently, when you are comfortable sharing it.”

& & &

Amelia pulled her phone out of her pocket to look at it for the first time since she had entered the psychologist’s office. She had spent the first ten minutes of the train ride home looking out the window at the rain hammering down on the suburban houses outside. There were only two other people in her train carriage, both scrolling mindlessly through their phones.

‘How’d you go with the psychologist? x.’

The message was from Darren. Their relationship had survived the weekend away. In many ways, it had brought them closer together. They had shared a distressing experience that showed sides of each other most people didn’t get to see. With time, Amelia had grown to admire Darren’s handling of the situation too. He’d remained rational and calm. It would have taken the police a long time to respond to the call from the nearest police station, so Darren had taken control of the situation. Still, there were aspects of the night neither of them revealed to each other. They seemed to fall into an unspoken agreed silence about the night in general.

Amelia was sure Darren had seen something that he wasn’t telling her though. The look of terror on his face when she regained consciousness still flashed in her mind on a regular basis, along with the other events of that night. And she hadn’t told him about the man she had seen in the woods.

‘Pretty good. It was just an intro sort of session. She wants me to talk about what happened at the Airbnb in a future session though.’

She saw the dots on the messaging app showing that Darren was typing a reply. But instead of the message of reassurance she was expecting, she got, ‘I need to talk to you about that night.’

Amelia had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. The train was slowing as it came to the next station. Another message notification flashed on her phone screen, but Amelia didn’t see it. Her eyes were locked on the man standing on the platform the train was approaching. The same man she had seen standing in the woods of the Airbnb when they were driving away.

& & &

Amelia held her breath as the man walked towards her seat.

“Please don’t be afraid. I need to talk to you,” he said, raising his hands to show he meant no harm.

Amelia remained silent as he sat in the seat facing opposite her.

“Were you aware of the Airbnb experience that the man you were with signed you up for?”

Amelia’s fear turned to confusion. Apparently the confusion was worn on her face because the man continued, with sadness in his eyes. “Ahh, I thought not. We realised something wasn’t right when the ma— when Darren came out and started shouting at us. I tried to signal to you as you were driving away not to trust him – that he’d lied to you about what happened at the cabin.”

Amelia remained silent, still unsure what he meant. He continued, “we made it clear on the booking that all guests must sign that they understand and agree to what the experience entails.”

“Wait. What experience are you talking about?” Amelia finally said.

“Oh sorry. Yes, of course. I should explain. People booked the cabin for a horror movie experience. We never entered the cabin though. And people knew what they’d signed up for. There was also a signal you could use to stop the experience… But yes, I don’t really need to tell you all this now. We unlisted the Airbnb and stopped doing the horror experience at all our locations after what happened with you. We never thought someone would sign up on another person’s behalf and not tell them what was involved. Fair to say it shook us all up a bit when we realised.”

Amelia sat in shock, taking all this new information in.

“But Darren looked so scared when he came back into the cabin…”

“My guess is he somehow didn’t realise how much the experience would impact you and he freaked out when he realised it had made you pass out… He was shouting at us saying we’d taken it too far when he came out the front of the cabin.”

& & &

After the man had exited the train, Amelia sat replaying all the events of the night over and over again in her head, trying to force this new perspective into her memory of them. After a while, she remembered Darren’s message on her phone just before the man had entered the train. She reached down for her phone now to see if he had sent any more messages. There was only one. The new message read: ‘There was something else in those woods.’

* * * *THE END * * * *
Copyright Liam Whitmarsh 2025