Stranger in the Woods

Chapter 12

I stood next to the unicorn as the darkness of night shrouded the woods.  I rested my one hand on its side and with the other I stroked its mane.  It stood motionless.  I did not know what else to do.  It never moved from its space nor did it cease its labored breathing.  I had become aware that the sounds of the woods were coming alive.  I could hear noises, the wind, the high-pitched chittering of night insects.  The thumping from above had gone away at some point, but I had not been conscious of its absence until I began to hear it again.  It was a strange sound that contrasted the living sounds of the woods.  A continual distant thud in the sky above.  It sounded like hoof beats.  As the sound grew in intensity, I could not place its exact location.  It was no longer just above me. The sound seemed to resonate from everywhere at once, echoing through the hills, and reverberating in the very core of my being.

And then, in a revelation, I realized what the sound was.  I looked up and saw the dark shape with pinpoints of bright lights moving above the trees.  Occasionally there was a sweep of a bright beam that shot out from the dark shape.  The trees violently swayed into one another.  

I could not see a distinct shape, but I shouted in defiance at the intruder as I watched it position itself directly overhead.  I saw some movement out of the side of the craft as it neared the top of the trees.  A huge spotlight shown down onto the ground.  Its light creating silhouettes of the craggy tree trunks and branches.  Within its beam I saw a number of heavy cables drop from its side of the craft.  The cables lashed down through the bare branches, which snapped and crashed under the force of the falling cables, until there was a lifeless thud on the forest floor.  

I stepped back from the unicorn and looked at its face.  It still remained stationary, however its breathing had become less labored.  The gaze of its black eyes were still fixed straight ahead and reflected the lights of the helicopter.  I was drawn to the eyes.  I stepped closer as if peering into a window and realized that it was not just the reflection of the helicopter's lights that I saw.  There was something else in there too.  I followed the unicorn's gaze.  Through the trees, beyond the unnatural light, there was another glow.  It was faint but I could see it.  Atop one of the distant hills was another one.  I stepped toward this new vision as it slowly turned.  It stopped and before it moved to vanished beyond the hill and deeper into the woods I saw its horn glisten and flash.  Then it was gone.

There was a heavy thud behind me and I knew that the unicorn collapsed.  I knew that it was dead.  I continued to stare at the darkness where the other one had been moments before but then turned my eyes away so as not to betray its location as the men came scaling down the cables.  They were soon all around me. 

I did not even look again on the fallen unicorn.  I began to walk down the hill away from it, away from the alcove, in the direction opposite to that the other unicorn had taken.  I had only taken a few steps before one of the men ran up to me.  He put his hand on my shoulder and told me to stop.  It was not a command.  The way he spoke to me, I believe he thought I was in shock.  I guess I was.  However, I assured him that I was ok, and that I had found the creature while I was out observing nature.  It said it reflexively.    When they found out who I was they immediately made sure that I was secured and lifted out of the forest and flown in the helicopter back to their base.  As much as the previous day had seemed like a dream, this seemed more so.  They must have thought I was delusional, and I played along with that idea.  I felt like a stranger in their world and like they were invading mine.  The sounds seemed to echo and every thing had a distorted and blurred edge to it as if I was looking through a dirty glass.  It seemed like a long nightmare from which I would never awake.