Commuters
By Himika Himadri
The transition from Park Slope to the damp, brooding shadows of the Olympic Peninsula was, in Maya’s professional opinion, a massive mistake. She was a woman of concrete, steam vents, and the reassuring hum of the F train. Here, the only hum was the wind, and it sounded suspicious.
Maya adjusted her $300 designer leggings and checked her GPS: "Offline."
She was three miles into the Rainforest trail when she heard a sharp, dry snap followed by a skittering sound in the underbrush.
"Ugh, great," Maya muttered, gripping her trekking pole like a weapon. "The rats here must be beasts."
She had spent a decade in a rent-stabilized walk-up; she knew the sounds of rodents. This was just a classic New York reflex. If something moved in the trash, it was a rat. If something moved in the bushes, it was a forest rat. She expected to see a long tail or a twitching pink nose darting between the ferns.
She rounded a massive, moss-caked cedar and froze.
The "rat" was currently standing seven feet tall.
It wasn't a rodent, but it wasn't exactly a man, either. It was a creature with tangled, mahogany-colored hair and sheer, terrifying mass. It stood with its back to her, its shoulders so wide they seemed to block out the meager sunlight filtering through the canopy. It was hunched over a fallen log, its hands—broad, leathery, and decidedly primate—tearing through the wood with the casual ease of someone opening a bag of pretzels.
Maya’s breath hitched. Her internal New Yorker, usually loud and cynical, had gone completely silent.
The creature paused. It didn't turn its head; it tilted it, as if catching a frequency she couldn't hear. Then, with a slow, heavy grace, it pivoted.
Its face was a map of ancient history—deeply wrinkled, dark skin that looked like cured leather, and eyes that weren't the glowing red of campfire stories. They were a deep, intelligent amber, filled with a weariness that felt older than the trees themselves.
Maya stared. The creature stared back.
In Manhattan, if you lock eyes with a stranger on the subway, you look away immediately to avoid a confrontation. Maya did exactly that. She dropped her gaze to the forest floor, her heart drumming a frantic techno beat against her ribs.
"I'm just… I’m leaving," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I’m going back to the trailhead. I have a SoulCycle class on Monday. You don't want any of this."
She began to back away, her boots squelching in the mud. The creature didn't roar. It didn't charge. It simply watched her with a tilted head, looking less like a monster and more like a tired commuter watching someone struggle with a turnstile.
When she was twenty yards away, she turned and sprinted. She didn't stop until she reached her rented Subaru.
As she fumbled with her keys, she looked down. Tucked into the mesh pocket of her backpack was a small, jagged piece of polished obsidian. It was warm to the touch, smelling faintly of ozone and wet cedar.
Maya sat in the driver's seat, locked the doors, and stared at the stone.
"Still better than the F train," she whispered, and shifted into drive.