Ryan Wiley - Disappearance

It all seems very strange and unnatural, considering this cabin is surrounded by the woods. Granted, I don’t have much experience living in this type of environment. I’ve been a city boy all of my life. I have enough intuition though to know it shouldn’t be hard to find some kind of living creature if you spend enough time in the woods, so that’s what I try to do. Not that it really matters if I find something or not, it’s more to strike my curiosity.

I go to the creek and find a series of rocks I can walk across without getting too wet. I make my way over the water and now officially into the woods — ax in hand — looking for any signs of life. I’d be much safer with a gun, even if I would have trouble holding it, but I’m too lazy to walk back and get it. I don’t plan on going far.

I already know it’s easy to get lost in the woods. Unless I had a compass, it would be very difficult to find my way back. As long as I’m within eyesight of the creek though I can’t get lost.

I look at a tree next to me, trying to find a little creature crawling his way around, but I don’t see anything. I kick away some of the leaves beneath me and squat down to get a better look, but I still don’t see anything. If I were a bug living in the woods, where would I go?

Far in the distance, about one hundred yards away, I see a rather large log from a tree that fell over. There has to be something living underneath it. I make my way over, looking back and seeing the creek starting to fade from view. This reaffirms my understanding of how easy it is for someone to get lost out here. If you don’t pay strict attention to what direction you’re going, everything looks the same and it’s impossible to know where to go.

This log has taken me much farther into the woods than I was planning, but I feel it’s worth it. It’s surrounded by a bunch of leaves and sticks. It seems impossible these naturally came to be here. Either my cabin friends came out here and did this or a very large animal did. Somehow the latter doesn’t seem likely unless maybe a bear did it. Could a bear be hibernating underneath this?

The thought scares me, but not enough to make me leave. If there is a bear, it’s in a deep sleep giving me enough time to run or take a good swipe at its head with my ax. I’m Andrew the Cujo-slayer, after all.

I start kicking away branches with my feet and then realize these piles of branches are covering something up. It’s a huge hole! It’s hard to tell how deep, but it’s quite far. With every stick I move out of the way, I notice a strong odor coming from it. My sense of smell is terrible but this is even unbearable to me.

When I move enough branches out of the way, I look down and see what’s there. When I do my mouth gasps at what I see.

A dead, decomposing human body.

Of all of the things I was expecting to find, a human body was at the bottom of my list. I’ve never seen a dead body before other than at a funeral. I know after a few days they look almost the same. I can’t even tell if this body was male or female because it’s so heavily decomposed. All I know is it was human, which means its been here a long time.

The sight and smell are so disgusting I have to turn away. It still strikes me as odd that, like Cujo, no living thing is feasting on the body. It’s gross to think about but I know that on any other normal day this would be the case.

I step away, deciding I have no more interest in this hole and body. It’s more excitement than I was expecting to get out here.

When I look up, my heart goes into a panic. I’m lost. Seeing the body made me lose my sense of direction. I didn’t realize it, but I’m far enough out that I have no idea in what direction the creek is.

I look around, trying to find anything that looks familiar, but there’s nothing. Why did I do this to myself? I knew I would get lost if I went too far.

Using my intuition, I take a guess at which direction leads back to the cabin. You would think it would be easy, that there would be some tree or anything unique to remind me where to go, but there isn’t.

I start walking, and it’s not long before doubt starts to creep in that I’m going the right way. Nothing looks familiar, nor is there any sign of the cabin.

If I was a little panicked before, this has kicked it up to a whole new level. For all I know, I could be walking even further into the woods.

I look up at the sun as if this would somehow help. I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but that does me little good when I don’t know what direction I came from.

I’m so upset with myself for being so stupid. In hindsight, I should have paid attention to what direction I was going. I never thought I would go out this far though.

I turn around and make my way back to the body. If I can use that as my base point, I can walk in each direction for a hundred yards or so until I find anything that looks familiar. Yes, if I can do that I’ll be sure to get back to the cabin.

When I walk back, I realize the body should be around here somewhere. I look all around, but it isn’t here. It’s disappeared, and now I really have no clue where I am or what to do.

Thinking I should start being a little smarter, I take my ax and make several cuts into the tree next to me. This will mark my starting point.

I choose a random direction and after every other tree I pass I make a new cut in it with my ax. If a park ranger were here they would cringe with each blow. I make two eye-level cuts with each tree, deciding if I go on a new path later I’ll make a different type of cut.

I think to myself, all I have to do is walk in each direction making these tree cuts and eventually I’ll head in a direction that leads me out. I feel like such a genius. Why didn’t I do this originally?

I proceed to go what seems like forever until I give up and turn around. Walking back is relatively easy, although some of the tree marks are difficult to find and I almost get lost again.

When I get to my base tree, I proceed to go in the complete opposite direction as before, this time making one mark at the bottom of each tree. With this path I go farther than I did on the previous one, but there’s still no sign of the creek or the cabin so I turn around again.

Once I get to my base tree, doubt creeps in whether this is going to work. Putting ax marks into trees is starting to become exhausting so I sit down to catch my breath. I have to get out of here before nightfall . There’s no way I want to be stuck here all night. I’ve never been the type who wants to go camping in the woods; the thought is downright terrifying. Even though I haven’t seen any animals or bugs, the possibility of a bear coming and attacking me in my sleep is enough to keep me awake all night.

With this added motivation, I stand up and make a new path. This direction is lateral to my previous trails. I chop through this trail faster than the previous two, but I still get the same results. When I turn around again and make it back to my base tree, I start to get nervous but excited. I’m optimistic that the next path will lead me out of here; it has to. On each path I’ve taken, I’ve gone far enough that it should have gotten me out if I was going in the right direction. The first three trails though haven’t brought even a glimpse of anything new. It’s been one huge, flat area of land. No bugs. No grass. Just trees randomly placed everywhere.

On my previous trail, I made high marks, so now I have trails with low, middle, and high marks. For this final trail, I consider not even making marks. My confidence is high that if I continue going in this final direction I’ll make it out of here. My better judgment understands that stupidity is what got me here in the first place, though, so I make two marks, one in the middle and one below for this new path.