Midnight. Past midnight, actually. Closer to two o'clock AM—no longer the night of an old day but the black morning of a new one. A thick, deep blanket of night lay across the woods behind the Farmer house, seeping down through the branches of the naked trees and leaves that lay scattered across the forest floor. Moonlight frosted the topmost tree limbs as they reached toward the darkness above; it showered tiny diamonds of bluish light upon the ground. Those woods stretched for several miles across the couple of subdivisions Zach and Ada and Evan and most of the other students attending their high school lived in. Several roads cut through them, and then, about four miles back, the highway chopped them off altogether. They weren't too deep at all, so nobody ever really got lost in them. Every once in a while, some little kid would wander off and people would freak out, but they'd always find him within a couple of hours. Not too many wild animals were back in there, either. Nothing too harmful, anyhow. Mostly things like rabbits and raccoons and squirrels. An occasional deer or fox, but nobody had seen bears since they'd paved the highway through and chased most of them out of the area (except for the stray one that had half-eaten Adam Zarkey's dog not so long ago). Nowadays, it was a very quiet strip of wooded area.

Tonight was no exception. In fact, it was, perhaps, quieter than usual. Earlier, around midnight, there had been some sound. Footsteps crunching through leaves. The melancholy sighs of the boy making the noise. Then, shortly after his footsteps stopped, a mere fifteen minutes or so after he'd reached his destination, there were the sounds of metal containers clunking softly against each other. Scufflings. Leaves moving. A body trying to fit itself somewhere. An occasional movement. And then, after so many minutes, nothing.

It was very quiet.

Time moved, though in the silent stillness, it seemed as if the night was eternal and time did not exist. It was nearly two-fifteen. And now, more sounds—of dry leaves being crushed by feet, of frantic whispers, of rustling clothing—played against the trunks of the sleeping trees. Coming closer, closer.

A girl's voice, fearful, high-pitched, trying to keep quiet but raising feverishly in spite of itself. "I swear, Evan! I swear it's right back this way. It was this freaky white tree that he showed me one time when we were about twelve." There was a pause. Her voice was nearly forgotten by the woods, and for a moment or so, only their footsteps sounded. But then she said, "Please! Evan . . . don't let go of me. Something's really, really wrong here . . . I can just tell . . ."

"Me too," said a boy's voice, louder than hers, but it was now because they were coming closer. "When you called me . . . it was like, all of a sudden, I felt really nervous."

"My mom is probably freaking out about where I am right now."

"My parents aren't, I'm sure."

Ada began to whisper. "Do you think he's still out here?" She was holding on to Evan's arm tightly; there was no chance of her letting go. She felt more scared than she'd ever felt in her entire life.

The footsteps stopped abruptly. "Yeah," said Evan. "I think so. Should I shout for him?"

"No!" cried the girl. Then, more composed, she added, "It's really weird back in here . . . I don't like it at all. I think . . . I think we need to turn back."

"But—Zach?"

"He's probably at home, asleep."

"You know he's not."

"I do not know that!"

"Yes you do. You can just feel it, like me. Like you said . . . something's wrong. I can feel it as much as you can. I don't know why; it doesn't make any sense. I don't ever have feelings like this—like something is so definite, and I just know it without even having to question it."

The black fingers of the night began to creep in around them, now that they had stopped walking. Ada felt paranoid, all of a sudden, like everything in the woods was watching her, staring at the two of them, waiting for something to happen. Even though she was clutching Evan's arm as if her life depended on it (and he was holding onto her pretty tightly as well), she sensed a panic rising in her. "What . . . what do we do?"

Not wanting to offer her another idea only to be refused again, Evan took initiative and called out Zach's name, loud. So loud it seemed almost as if the ground would crumble from beneath their feet the second his voice finished reverberating.

"What are you doing?!" gasped Ada. She hit him in the chest as hard as she dared. "You can't just . . . just shout like that! What if . . . what if somebody else hears us? Or we wake someone up?"

"So what?" He rubbed his chest where she'd hit him. It'd hurt.

"Look," Ada persisted. "I say we just leave. In the morning, I'll call him and everything will be fine. He'll be annoyed, but what else is new?"

"You know something's seriously wrong here. Stop denying that you can tell!"

Ada actually let go of Evan and stood in front of him. It was dark, but he could vaguely make out the angry expression on her shadowed face. Her mouth was twisted into a frown, and her eyes glittered darkly in her head. She hissed, "I'm sick of people saying I'm in denial! Do you think I don't know what I'm doing or saying? Why does everybody think I'm crazy?"

"Whoa!" Evan held up his hands as if to fend her off. He knew he'd upset her, although he wasn't sure why. He could see his breath come out in a cloud as he replied, "Chill out! I didn't mean to say something that would make you angry! I'm sorry! Whatever I said, I take it back."

She breathed loudly several times, calming down. Evan watched her intently. Then, she said softly, "Sorry. I just . . . don't feel good about all this right now. I think we need to both just go home. We can't do anything here. It's too dark and . . . and—"

"Wait a second!" Evan interrupted her. "I forgot I have a flashlight."

Ada took in a quick breath in excitement. "You do? Why didn't you—"

"It's on my keys. I never use it, so I just forgot. Hang on a second." He fumbled around in his pockets for a moment, then the sound of jangling keys further broke the silence, and within seconds, Ada was blinking into a bright little ring of yellow light shining on her face. Evan grinned. "Not the best beam, but it helps a little."

"Yeah. It'll help us not trip as we head back to your car."

Evan rolled his eyes. "No. I already told you. Not until—" His talking stopped abruptly, the grin on his face evolving into a disconcerted frown.

Noticing how strangely Evan was suddenly staring at her face, Ada lowered her eyebrows. "What? What are you looking at me like that for?"

He turned his head to the side but kept his eyes plastered on Ada. His breathing became louder, the hand holding the flashlight trembled, making the soft light dance a little across Ada's face and shoulders. She stood, fearful, waiting for him to say something. At last, he asked in a hushed tone, "Did you hurt yourself earlier? Fall down, maybe?"

She knew something was wrong by the way his voice had become all creeped out. The panic returning, she murmured, "What? What are you talking about? I'm fine. No, I didn't get hurt."

Evan gulped. Y-you—y-you're . . ." He was having trouble piecing his words together. Then, all at once, he blurted, "You're covered in blood."

He was joking, she thought. In fact, his words didn't even register at first. Didn't make any sort of sense to her. And even when she understood him, she just shook her head, screwed up her face in confusion, a slight smile brushing her cheeks. She tried to figure out what to say, but before anything came out of her mouth, she glanced down at herself, and what she saw shocked her entirely. In the weak light of Evan's keychain, Ada saw that he was exactly right—something red had soaked all through the front of her jacket. It covered her chest and shoulders. Raising her hands to her face, then drawing them away, she saw that they were covered in glistening red liquid; her face must be bleeding! But how?! She wasn't in any pain! She felt something dripping on her shoulders and realized, to her horror, that blood was falling off the ends of her hair in little droplets.

Indistinguishable words came from her mouth. She babbled incoherently as she began to panic. This was impossible. Not real! It couldn't be. But before she could begin screaming, just as she began shaking her hair and trying to brush the blood off her with her bare hands, Evan took hold of her and the light spun off into the woods.

"Ada! Listen to me!" cried Evan, shaking her hard. "Stop freaking out! It's fine!"

Now that the light couldn't show her the blood, Ada did feel less frightened, but she still couldn't understand what had just happened. "Evan—what—why—where did it come from? I'm fine! I don't—I don't feel any pain or anything—what—"

"Just stop! I don't know, but as long as you feel fine . . . Maybe when you tripped earlier, you just landed in some mud or something, and it looks red in the lighting . . . I don't know!" Secretly, he was thinking that they maybe should be leaving; what if Ada was hurt, and she only didn't feel any pain because she was in shock?

They were silent for a moment. Then Ada's voice came again, soft, whimpering, "Can we please go back, please?"

"Yes," replied Evan. "I think we'd better." He stepped away from her, looked up, lost all prior train of thought, then asked, "The tree we were supposed to find . . . it was white, right? A white tree?" Ada replied that yes, it was. He slowly turned her around. She saw that his light cast a watery shine on a white tree that stood, eerie as a ghost, hardly fifteen feet away from them. Around its base were piles of leaves. Its trunk was smooth and pale, as if someone had come and scraped all its bark off to leave the soft belly of the tree exposed. It created a sense of deep disturbance in both Ada and Evan, who wondered why it seemed to be moving even as it stood firmly before them. "Do you see it?" whispered Evan.

Ada knew he didn't mean the tree. Of course she saw the tree. And of course he knew she saw it. What he meant was whether she saw it moving. As if its surface was quivering. Her voice sounding faint and far away to her, she said, "Yes, I see it. What's wrong with it?"

Instead of replying, Evan stepped past Ada. She knew at once that he was going to walk up to the tree, and she immediately begged him not to. But he wouldn't listen. It had captivated him, and he moved forward, slowly, while Ada stayed back, too fearful to go on and forgetting the whole issue with the blood as her fright for Evan grew to a boiling point. They shouldn't be here, she knew, in this dark place. They'd come too late, and now it felt ominous, as if the woods knew they'd screwed up and were just waiting to devour them.

Evan had reached the tree. Ada saw only his dark form behind the flashlight he held out before him. A small ring of light was shining on the tree trunk, and as Evan drew near it and realized what it was he was seeing, a sick horror rose in him. Pure disgust, mingling with disbelief. The trunk of the tree was, indeed, moving. For its surface was not bark at all but a wriggling mass of fleshy, moist white worms. Or maggots. Or grubs. He couldn't tell exactly what they were, only that there were thousands, maybe millions of them, all writhing across the tree trunk, wherever he looked. Up, down, all around the sides—as far as his flashlight could shine, he saw the moving mass of maggots. They made sounds, too. Squelching sounds, as they moved over one another, and although they were barely audible, they wriggled their way into Evan's ears. The tree was rotting, his brain told him. It was old and rotting. That was what was wrong with it.

Stumbling several steps backward, Evan felt some relief at gaining distance from the tree. When Ada clutched his shoulders, he nearly jumped out of his skin. He'd half-forgotten she was there. In his shock, his light turned toward the ground, and the two of them at once saw how the leaves were festering with little white maggots, moving under and over the decaying earth, crawling across the tops of their shoes, beginning to squirm up their legs.

Ada could no longer contain herself. She screamed into the silence of the woods, her voice echoing against the trees and burning a hole in Evan's head. Senseless, thinking only of getting away, the two of them turned and ran off in the direction they'd remembered coming from. In the darkness, they tripped over stones and roots, but neither fell entirely, and Evan was able to keep up with Ada as she went.

For nearly ten minutes, they all-out ran. Not stopping for breath. Not using the flashlight. Not pausing to talk sense into one another. Not ready to stop for anything in the world. But for some reason, as much as they ran, the exit of the woods didn't come into view. They'd spent only about ten minutes walking into them, so to spend equal time running yet not coming out into the open of the houses and yards and streets was madness. It was ridiculous to get lost—no one got lost in these woods! They were too small! And Ada knew them well, from the time when she had been in middle school and had spent hours wandering through them, playing games in them, with Zach and other people she'd once been friends with but had become estranged from when high school started. It was impossible to be lost here. Impossible! But when their breathing became too difficult and their legs began to give way, after what seemed hours of running for their lives, Ada had to stop. And Evan had to stop behind her.

Half-sobbing, half-panting for air, Ada cried, "Are we lost? We can't be lost!"

Evan could hardly answer. He was breathing harder than he'd ever breathed in his life. "We have to be!"

"Turn on your light," Ada demanded. She was hoping beyond hope that his light would show only normal leaves, normal trees, normal them.

"Are you sure?" he asked. He knew that whatever his light showed could either save or destroy their present sanity.

The branches of the trees above seemed to close in over their heads. The woods felt alive and threatening. Like they'd been hungry for a long time and were waiting to gobble up the two lost teens who'd wandered into them in the dark hours of the night. Everything was so still . . . so eerily quiet and calm. No breeze, no sound of other animals moving through the leaves, no porch lights of distant houses or noises of cars from the highway. Whatever was going on, they were most definitely no longer behind the Farmers' house. They were lost. Both knew it, but neither wanted to admit it.

"You sure you want me to turn it on?" Evan repeated, not having received a response from Ada.

She hesitated, then said, "Y-yes, I th-ink so." She sounded like she was shivering, and she was. The late-October air was cold, and she was scared to death. So she wasn't sure if her shivering was from the chill, her fright, or both.

Evan took a deep breath. His hand held the small, cold flashlight; his thumb readied to slide the button forward. "Ok," he said resolutely. "Here goes."

Both of them were certain their hearts had stopped beating, and when the flashlight clicked and no light came out, the fear-charged build-up inside them abruptly evaporated.

"What happened?" Ada was strangely disappointed that it hadn't come on, even though she'd been afraid to see what was around them.

"I don't know. I guess the battery died.

"Well, obviously. But I mean . . . how are we supposed to—"

"Let's just assume everything is normal. If we can't see it, it's not there. Ok?"

Ada was fine with that. For a second, she was satisfied. Then, her stomach churned again. "I've never been lost in these woods in my life, Evan. What do we do?"

He shrugged in the darkness. Neither of them could see each other's faces. "I don't know. Just keep going, I guess, but let's not run. Let's walk. We'll eventually come out to the road or houses. We have to."

Ada agreed in spite of the doubt she felt underneath. She took hold of Evan's arm. "Just don't lose me, ok? It's so dark in here."

Another fifteen minutes of walking through the black trees and dead leaves. They spoke very little to one another, because they were worried that if they talked, the dread they were beginning to feel would turn into panic. Both knew that after so much walking, they should've been out of the woods ages ago. But for all they moved, they were getting nowhere. What had happened earlier in the glow of Evan's flashlight seemed like a distant memory after all their running and walking. The two were starting to believe they'd imagined it all. Now, the trees and rocks and cold night air were all that was real. They concentrated only on getting out. On seeing signs of civilization again. They were tired and breathless; their legs were beginning to ache; it was late, and they wanted more than anything to just be curled up in their beds. Their minds were wandering and lost in confusion. At length, Ada actually began to cry. When Evan noticed, he stopped walking, put his arms around her.

"Don't worry," he said, although he knew that was a stupid thing to say. "We'll get out. Or else morning will come. Then we can see."

Ada sobbed on his shoulder for a moment, more tired and frustrated than anything else, by that point. "Don't you get it?" she said, pulling away a bit. "This is so . . . so wrong! It's weird, Evan! Something is messed up."

"No . . . no, we're just lost. People get lost in woods all the time."

"Not these woods. This is like some freak-nightmare or something! It doesn't make any sense! And I . . . I still . . . my clothes feel wet, Evan."

He was confused momentarily. Thought maybe it was the dampness of the air or something. "So?"

"The . . . what was on me earlier . . . I feel like it's still there. I know it is . . . I just can't see it. But that doesn't mean it's not . . . not there."

Evan didn't want to admit that her words disturbed him. He chose to ignore her.

"Wait!" Ada suddenly gasped. She began feeling her pockets for something. "Evan! I'm such an idiot! I can't believe I didn't think of it before. I have my phone. I'm calling my mother. Or Nate. Or somebody!"

Evan was skeptical. "What are you going to tell them? We're lost in the woods?" He bet Nate wouldn't come anyway, if Ada called him.

"Yes!" she cried. "We are lost! I just want to hear someone else's voice . . . to know that they're coming to help us." She found her cell phone. Woke it up. In the silence that followed, Evan sensed she was flustered . . . uncertain. And when she spoke again, her words confirmed his thoughts. "It's . . . it's not working! I have no reception, or something. How is that possible?" A sob rose in her again. "I hate this night, Evan!" A frustrated cry escaped her as she flung her phone off into the dark. The sound of it hitting a tree seemed unnaturally loud, and if Ada regretted her action, she made no sign of it.

Evan didn't want to give in to the growing terror inside him. He hadn't felt such loss of control in a long, long time, and he definitely didn't want to feel it now. He had to remain in charge, not let Ada see how truly upset he could get when he felt powerless. And in fact, since it'd been such a long while, he couldn't quite recall how it was when he felt such helplessness, and he didn't want to. So he pretended to be unafraid, told Ada that to keep moving was the best idea. Grabbed her arm and was about to force her to begin walking again when she pulled out of his grip and took in a sharp breath. The woods were dead silent. He stood, wondering what was wrong with her, wishing she would just listen to him—wishing he could see her face so he could maybe pick up some sign of what she was thinking.

Then, without a word of explanation, Ada began walking in the opposite direction Evan had wanted to go, and the dark closed in behind her as she went.

"Ada!" he called out. "Wait! Don't get lost!" He didn't even realize how stupid he sounded as he hurried after her. "What is it?"

Ada stood, quietly, and Evan turned in the direction she was facing. He saw it too, then, even for as dark as it was. The white tree stood out against the others. They were only several yards away from it, and they couldn't exactly see whether its trunk was still crawling, but neither would go nearer than they already were. They didn't say anything—only stood, staring at the pale branches of that tree—because they knew it was impossible to be back where they'd started. They'd not turned once in their attempted trek out of the woods. There was no way they could be back where they'd begun. No possible way.

Evan tried to move toward Ada, thought if they just turned and kept going—or even if they sat somewhere and waited until morning; if they were together, they would make it! But as he took a step forward, he tripped over something that lay at his feet and fell.

Ada looked back, having heard the sound of his stumble. "Are you all right?" she asked.

He hadn't been hurt, that was certain . . . whatever he'd fallen on, it was soft. Almost like a pillow, though with more substance to it. As he attempted to help himself up, Evan's hands felt across what he'd tripped over, and a horrific realization suddenly sank in. His breaths grew quicker, quicker, quicker—he couldn't respond to Ada. Couldn't even get to his feet, his body suddenly felt as if it was filled with liquid instead of bones. His frantic gasps brought Ada to his side, and she stumbled as well, though over something a couple of feet away from Evan.

Everything blurred after that. Felt too freakish and like a drug-induced hallucination to follow a realistic timeline in their minds. Whether they were in those woods for hours or days, they didn't know; it was all too much of a nightmare. Every which way they turned, they seemed to be tripping over bodies. Bodies of unknown people they could neither see nor count. It was as if the leaves had disappeared and been replaced with the unidentifiable dead. Their shoes dug into soft abdomens, their fingers clutched wildly at gaping mouths and handfuls of hair and eye sockets that were beginning to rot away; as soon as they were on their feet, seeking each other's hands, holding desperately to one another yet still terrified they were alone, they'd try to run, to climb, to crawl over the mounds of bodies, but they'd stagger again. Fall down into the decomposing mass surrounding them. Their screams of terror mingled with half-sobbed words and mumblings of hysteria and the stifling, roaring silence that overwhelmed them like a foul odor. They weren't sure if they made progress. The darkness held only horror. The white tree seemed to disappear in the turmoil. Ada and Evan knew only their continuous struggle to get to their feet, their loss of rational thought, the blackness of this impossible world they were desperate to escape. Running, falling, blindly groping through the tangled forest floor, forgetting entirely why they were there in the first place or what exactly they were trying to get to.

Lost.

It wasn't until much later the following morning, when a deep frost had settled into the woods and surrounding suburbs and made the earth as hard as stone, that policemen searching the woods for them came across Ada and Evan, who were crouched, trembling, hysterical, arms wrapped around one another, under a large rock protruding from an embankment. And it wasn't until several hours had passed, until they'd been taken out of the woods and warmed and rehydrated and spoken to, that their minds began to remember who they were and where they'd been. By the time Zach's disappearance had been confirmed, his friends were beginning to sort through the chaos so fresh in their minds, but no one would take the implausible ramblings of two clearly senseless teenagers seriously.