Sounds In the Forest

We have only been gone 2 days and already my wife wants to go back.
Traveling at night, we have only made it 5 miles

It’s those sounds.
Sounds in the forest, like something shadowing us…
Following us.

I cannot see anyone, or anything, except that blur at the edge of my vision.
And that hooting in the distance, at the fringe of hearing.

My wife is fine with it during the daylight, but night brings her misgivings.
The thrashing in the underbrush at a distance, the low pitched murmuring that builds until it ends in an unearthly howl.

We are all armed, that includes the kids. Whatever or whomever is  trying to frighten us, has succeeded.

The last howl ended inside our heads, as though listening to a soundtrack of fear through headphones of terror, ringing through our minds with a persistent echo.
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This is day 3.
Or I should say night 3.

Just before sundown I saw a shape in the trees…
I don’t know what it is, I have never seen anything like it before.
The more I try to define what I saw, the more indistinct my recollection is.
Like a mental fog rolling in and cloaking all with a robe of madness.

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 My wife has left; turned around and fled down the trail into the blackness.
The kids are hovering close, calling out for their mother to return, in vain.
I Shepherd them down the trail for we are nearing our destination.

In all, we have climbed 3500 feet in altitude, and my legs can feel it.
We have found an open area in which to camp, full of firewood and with an un-named stream chuckling its way down the hill to a rendezvous with anonymity, as it flows into the river in the valley.

Looking back over the distance you can see the small city where I used to live.
In the distance, a strange sight, like nothing I have ever seen before.
It shimmers like a lake, only turned on its side and it is as high as the surrounding peaks.
I am not sure why, but the sight of it fills me with an unearthly dread, as a prey feels the approach of a predator.

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It is dark now, and we are ready to travel.
Our strange companions keeping pace as we walk the pathway in the dark, listening…
To the sounds in the forest.