Nobody noticed the light until Tom stopped to tie his boot.
There were four of them on the trail that night: Tom, Leah, Marcus and Jess.
They had spent the evening at a campsite on the other side of Alder Wood and, sometime after eleven, Marcus had suggested walking the old forestry track to the lake.
It was supposed to take twenty minutes.
They had torches.
They had phones.
And Marcus had assured everyone at least six times that he knew exactly where he was going.
Which was why, forty minutes later, they were still walking.
“Hold up,” Tom said.
He crouched to retie his boot.
The others stopped.
Leah swept her torch across the trees.
“Marcus?”
“What?”
“You're lost.”
“I am absolutely not lost.”
“You said the lake was ten minutes away twenty minutes ago.”
“It's a large ten minutes.”
Jess laughed.
Then she stopped laughing.
“What's that?”
They followed her gaze.
Far between the trees was a light.
Small.
Warm.
Yellow-orange.
Like somebody carrying an old lantern through the woods.
The first light
Marcus raised his torch.
“Probably the campsite.”
Leah looked behind them.
“The campsite is that way.”
“Another campsite, then.”
Tom stood up.
The light vanished behind the trees.
“Someone walking?” Jess asked.
“Probably.”
They continued along the trail.
For several minutes nobody mentioned it again.
Then Leah stopped.
The others nearly walked into her.
“What?” Marcus said.
Leah pointed.
The light was back.
This time it was on the other side of the path.
And much closer.
Tom frowned.
“How did they get over there?”
Nobody answered.
The light hung perfectly still between two trees.
Not swaying.
Not flickering.
Just watching.
“Hello?” Marcus called.
The light went out.
Jess grabbed his sleeve.
“Don't do that.”
“What?”
“Invite the murderer over.”
Marcus laughed.
Nobody else did.
Keep walking
They walked faster.
The forest seemed different now.
The jokes stopped.
Every snapped twig sounded deliberate.
Every patch of darkness looked deeper than it had a few minutes earlier.
Tom checked his phone.
“No signal.”
“Same,” Leah said.
Marcus opened the map on his phone.
The blue location dot spun in circles.
“GPS isn't finding us.”
Jess groaned.
“Excellent expedition, Marcus.”
“I didn't build the satellites.”
They reached a fork in the path.
Neither branch looked familiar.
Marcus stopped.
The light appeared immediately.
Ten metres behind them.
Jess gasped.
Nobody spoke.
They could see it clearly now.
It wasn't a torch.
There was no beam.
No person carrying it.
It was simply a round, warm glow floating at roughly head height.
Tom took one step backwards.
The light remained still.
“Walk,” Leah whispered.
They walked.
The light didn't follow.
After perhaps fifty metres, Tom looked over his shoulder.
It was far behind them again.
He slowed.
Leah grabbed his arm.
“Don't stop.”
“What?”
“It gets closer when we stop.”
Marcus shook his head.
“No it doesn't.”
“Tom stopped with his boot. We saw it.”
“So?”
“We stopped again. It was closer.”
“Coincidence.”
“At the fork we stopped and it appeared ten metres behind us.”
Marcus turned around while continuing to walk backwards.
The light remained distant.
He stopped.
“Marcus,” Leah said sharply.
Nothing happened.
Marcus smiled.
“See?”
The light went out.
Then something warm illuminated the side of his face.
Jess screamed.
The light was now floating between two trees directly beside Marcus.
Less than three metres away.
Marcus ran.
The others followed.
The rule
They didn't stop for several minutes.
Eventually the path narrowed and descended toward a shallow stream.
“Slow down,” Tom said.
“Don't stop,” Leah replied.
“I know.”
They crossed one at a time, stepping across wet stones.
Jess slipped.
Tom caught her arm.
For half a second both of them stopped moving.
A warm glow appeared among the trees behind them.
Closer.
“Move.”
Jess regained her footing.
They climbed the opposite bank.
The light remained where it was.
Marcus was breathing heavily.
“We can't walk all night.”
“Then let's find the road,” Leah said.
“What road?”
“Any road.”
Tom looked at the trees.
“What happens if it reaches us?”
Nobody answered.
Jess glanced behind them.
“Maybe nothing.”
Marcus gave her a look.
“You want to test that?”
“No.”
The clearing
They found the clearing at 12:47.
Tom knew the time because he had begun checking his phone every few minutes.
His battery was down to twelve percent.
The clearing was perfectly circular.
No grass grew inside it.
Only dark soil.
At its centre stood an enormous dead oak.
Hundreds of strips of faded fabric had been tied to its branches.
Red.
White.
Blue.
Most had faded almost colourless.
“What is this?” Jess whispered.
“Don't stop,” Leah reminded her.
The four of them walked slowly around the edge of the clearing.
Tom shone his torch at the tree.
Something had been nailed to its trunk.
A wooden board.
Writing covered it.
The letters were badly weathered.
Marcus moved closer while continuing to pace back and forth.
He read aloud.
Nobody laughed.
Below the words were dozens of names.
Some had dates beside them.
1891.
1904.
1928.
1957.
1973.
2002.
Tom shone his torch lower.
At the very bottom someone had carved another sentence into the wood.
Jess began crying.
Marcus
“We keep moving,” Leah said.
“Until when?” Marcus snapped.
“Until we find the road.”
“We don't even know which direction the road is.”
“Then pick one.”
Marcus looked exhausted.
“My leg's cramping.”
“Walk slower.”
“I need thirty seconds.”
“No.”
“Leah—”
“No.”
Marcus stopped.
Tom swore.
The light appeared at the edge of the clearing.
Twenty metres away.
“Walk,” Leah said.
Marcus rubbed his thigh.
“I can't.”
The light disappeared.
Then reappeared ten metres closer.
“Marcus!”
“I'm trying.”
The light went out.
Five metres.
For the first time, Tom could see something inside it.
Not a person.
Something darker than the surrounding night.
A shape where the centre of the glow should have been.
Too thin.
Too tall.
Leah grabbed Marcus by the coat.
“Move!”
They dragged him forward.
The instant his feet began moving, the light stopped.
Marcus stared back at it.
“It has someone in it.”
“Don't look.”
“I saw a face.”
“Marcus.”
“I know that face.”
He stopped again.
“That's my dad.”
Marcus's father had died four years earlier.
Tom knew that.
They all knew it.
The light hovered among the trees.
Marcus began walking toward it.
Leah grabbed him.
“That isn't your dad.”
“You can't see him?”
“No.”
“He's right there.”
“Marcus, listen to me.”
The light brightened.
Marcus smiled.
“He's calling me.”
Tom slapped him.
Hard.
Marcus stumbled sideways.
“What the hell?”
“Keep walking.”
For a second Marcus looked furious.
Then the light flickered.
Whatever he had been seeing disappeared.
His face changed.
“Let's go.”
The footsteps
After that, the light changed tactics.
It no longer appeared ahead of them.
Instead they heard things.
A woman calling Jess's name.
A phone ringing somewhere among the trees.
A dog barking.
A child crying.
Each sound came from a different direction.
Each tried to make them stop.
They ignored them.
Then came footsteps.
Four sets.
Matching their own.
Tom stepped.
Something behind him stepped.
Leah stepped.
Something behind her stepped.
Marcus whispered, “Don't turn around.”
Nobody did.
The footsteps followed for nearly a mile.
Then Jess said something that made all three of them look at her.
“There are five.”
Tom listened.
Four friends walked through the woods.
But five sets of footsteps moved through the leaves.
The road
At 2:11 in the morning, they saw a reflector.
Then another.
A road sign.
Leah laughed.
Nobody stopped.
They emerged from the trees onto a narrow country road.
A farmhouse stood perhaps half a mile away.
One upstairs window was lit.
“Keep walking,” Tom said.
They followed the verge.
The light remained in the forest behind them.
For the first time in hours, it seemed to be getting farther away.
They reached the farmhouse.
Marcus knocked.
An elderly man answered wearing a dressing gown and holding a torch.
He stared at the four muddy strangers on his doorstep.
“We got lost,” Leah said.
The man looked beyond them.
Toward the woods.
His expression changed.
“You stopped, didn't you?”
Nobody spoke.
The man opened the door wider.
“Inside.”
Don't look through the windows
His name was Arthur.
He gave them water and let them charge their phones.
Nobody mentioned the light until Tom asked.
“What is it?”
Arthur shook his head.
“Don't know.”
“You've seen it?”
“When I was seventeen.”
“What happened?”
Arthur looked toward the curtained window.
“There were three of us.”
He said nothing else.
Jess understood first.
“Only you came back?”
Arthur nodded.
Marcus stared at the floor.
“Why does it come closer when you stop?”
Arthur looked at him.
“Because if you're walking, you haven't chosen it.”
“And if you stop?”
“It thinks you're waiting.”
A soft tap came from the window.
Everyone froze.
Arthur stood immediately.
“Don't look.”
Another tap.
Then another.
Tom stared at the curtains.
Warm yellow light appeared around their edges.
Marcus whispered:
“It's here.”
Arthur switched off every light in the house.
“Go upstairs.”
“What about you?”
“Upstairs.”
Morning
The tapping continued until 4:36.
Nobody looked outside.
Nobody slept.
Shortly before sunrise, the light vanished.
Arthur drove them back to the campsite.
In daylight, Alder Wood looked completely ordinary.
Tom almost hated it for that.
They packed their tents and left before breakfast.
Nobody suggested going back to find the clearing.
For several weeks, the four of them barely spoke about what happened.
Marcus refused to discuss what he had seen inside the light.
Jess stopped hiking.
Leah deleted every photograph from that night.
Tom couldn't.
Because one photograph kept coming back.
He hadn't taken it.
None of them had.
It appeared in his phone gallery three days after the walk.
The photograph showed the four friends from behind.
Walking through Alder Wood.
It had been taken from several metres behind them.
Tom.
Leah.
Marcus.
Jess.
And between Marcus and Jess walked a fifth figure.
Tall.
Thin.
Almost completely black.
A soft yellow glow surrounded its head.
Six months later
Tom moved to a flat in the city.
Third floor.
No woods nearby.
For the first time since Alder Wood, he stopped checking dark windows.
He stopped sleeping with the hallway light on.
He even went walking at night again.
Then, one evening in November, his phone rang.
Marcus.
Tom answered.
“Mate?”
For several seconds Marcus didn't speak.
Then he whispered:
Tom sat upright.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Marcus, listen to me. Don't go outside.”
“I'm not outside.”
Tom heard Marcus breathing.
Then:
“It's across the street.”
Tom stood.
“Keep moving.”
“What?”
“Walk around the room. Don't stop.”
Marcus gave a nervous laugh.
“We're not in the woods.”
“I don't care. Walk.”
There was silence.
“Marcus?”
Then Marcus whispered:
“Tom.”
“What?”
“It just moved.”
Tom's stomach tightened.
“How close?”
Another silence.
“It's outside my window.”
Marcus lived on the fourth floor.
The call disconnected.
Tom rang back.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Then Tom noticed something reflected in the black screen of his television.
A warm light.
Behind him.
He turned.
Nothing.
The room was empty.
Tom slowly looked toward the window.
Far below, on the opposite pavement, a small yellow light hovered beneath a streetlamp.
He stared at it.
It did not move.
Tom remembered Arthur's words.
Tom stood.
And began walking around his flat.
He has been walking ever since.