night in the woods

"This is such a bad idea," Virginia whispered for the fifteenth time, her voice thin and crackly as she hugged her flashlight like it was a crucifix. Her breath fogged in the cold Appalachian night, white puffs trailing off into the trees like little ghost signals. "Why did we even come out here?"

"Because," said Mabel, the towering Canadian moose girl who had to duck under literally every branch. Her antlers were festooned with bits of cobweb and leaves like some sort of spooky holiday tree. "If we get a pic of that freaky trash monkey thing, we'll be legendary. Also, I really wanna punch it."

"Punch it?" Regina snorted. The roe deer tossed her bottle-blonde curls, her short pink miniskirt completely ill-suited to the trail, her crop top bedazzled with rhinestone letters that spelled out BOOTY DUTY. "What are you, a bouncer? We're supposed to photograph it, not throw hooves."

"I don't care," Mabel replied. "It's been breaking into cabins and stealing frozen pizza. That's a capital offense in my country."

"Girl, you're not even from a country. You're from Manitoba," Taiga chimed in, flipping her pastel-dyed bangs. Her long gyaru nails gleamed in the flashlight as she tried to tap on her dead phone. "Why is there no service out here? I need to update my Snapstory. If I die in these woods and nobody knows I was wearing this outfit, what's even the point?"

Marigold twirled a strand of her platinum-blonde hair, her white tail twitching nervously behind her. "Do you think the monster thing likes girls?" she asked, dead serious. "Like... maybe it's lonely? Maybe it doesn't even want to hurt anyone. Maybe it just wants a girlfriend and some Cheetos."

Regina spun around. "Marigold, babe, are you seriously about to start flirting with the cryptid?"

"I'm just saying," Marigold muttered, "we don't know its situation."

"You mean the feral, bald, sunburnt monkey thing that screams at porch lights and eats dog food?" Mabel asked. "That thing? Yeah, it's totally dating material."

Virginia made a tiny squeaking noise as something cracked in the woods behind them.

"Guys. Seriously," she whispered. "We should head back. The forest is... it's different tonight."

The forest really was wrong. It pressed in on them with damp breath and crooked fingers. The trees weren't just tall—they were ancient. Skeletal black branches clutched at the fog like they were trying to claw the sky apart. Every bush rustled like it was hiding something, and somewhere deeper in the woods, something groaned—long and wet and low, like a dying elk underwater.

But none of the girls were paying attention.

Taiga had pulled out a compact and was checking her lip gloss in the reflective surface of her phone case. "Ugh. This humidity is wrecking my aesthetic."

Regina leaned over her shoulder. "You look fine. If we die out here, at least the funeral guys will be like, 'damn, she slayed.'"

"I don't wanna slay," Virginia hissed. "I want to leave! What if the monster's watching us right now?"

"Oh my god," Marigold said suddenly, pointing her flashlight into the brush. "What if it's peeing?"

"WHAT?" Regina reeled.

"I'm just saying," Marigold continued, unbothered. "Everything pees. Even monsters. So, like... what if we're interrupting its bathroom break? That's why it's mad."

"Imagine being murdered by a pissed-off horny cryptid with BBL," Mabel grunted. "Legendary."

They crossed the rotting remains of a wood-planked bridge, the boards squelching under their boots. Below them, a muddy creek trickled lazily past, its surface covered in weird bubbles and a slick rainbow sheen. Taiga took a selfie on it.

"Hashtag: aesthetic decay," she muttered, tossing up a peace sign. "Bet I can filter this to look like a Lana Del Rey album cover."

Up ahead, a twisted chain-link fence jutted from the trees like a broken ribcage. A faded "NO TRESPASSING" sign flapped uselessly in the breeze. Beyond it: the crumbling remains of an old coal processing plant, rusted catwalks sagging, windows smashed out like missing teeth.

Regina squinted at it. "That thing looks like it has tetanus."

Mabel cracked her knuckles. "Perfect. If we corner the monster in there, we'll have the high ground."

"What is this, Star Wars?" Virginia muttered.

The door creaked open as they stepped inside. It smelled like oil, bat guano, and despair. Old papers were strewn across the floor. One had a crude drawing of something vaguely man-shaped, with the words "HE COMES FOR THE LUNCHABLES" scrawled beneath in smeared ink.

"Holy shit," Taiga whispered, holding it up. "This is art."

Marigold pointed at a trail of weird muddy footprints across the concrete. "Look! That's it! That's the thing's footprints!"

Regina bent down and sniffed one.

"Girl, what—"

"It smells like Taco Bell and shampoo," she announced. "This thing might be gross but it's bougie."

Something scraped along the upper catwalk. A shadow moved.

The girls all froze.

Then: a high-pitched, warbled screech, like a blender full of gravel and Red Bull.

"WHAT THE F—" Mabel yelled, lifting her flashlight as something pale, hairless, and way too tall zipped across the catwalk on all fours and dropped into the shadows below.

Screams. Flashlights swerved in every direction. Someone tripped over a chair. Virginia shrieked as the thing slapped the vending machine and ran off with a packet of crackers.

"IT'S RAIDING OUR SNACKS!" Marigold yelled.

"DO SOMETHING!" Regina wailed.

Mabel threw her backpack.

"Did you hit it!?" Virginia gasped.

"No," Mabel said, panting. "But I really hope it didn't steal my tampons."

"GO GO GO!" Taiga screamed as they all bolted out the back exit, shrieking, flashlights bouncing wildly in the dark.

Behind them, the thing howled again—deep, guttural, and pissed.

They didn't stop running until they made it back to the trailhead, wheezing and covered in mud, leaves, and shame.

Virginia collapsed onto the grass. "This. Is. The worst idea we've ever had."

Regina flopped down beside her. "Speak for yourself. I think I peed a little."

Mabel stood triumphantly over them, antlers tangled in moss and twigs. "We survived. And I still have my snack coupons. That thing's going down next time."

Marigold lay back and stared at the sky. "Do you think it'll text us?"

Taiga just groaned. "Someone call my mom. I wanna go home."