I always wanted to be a park ranger, for as long as I can remember. Being out in nature - hiking, camping, and fishing - that was pretty much all I wanted to do as a kid. Once I realized that profession existed, it was my only career pursuit. And I trained for it like an astronaut going to outer space.

Reading up on all of the necessary qualifications, I learned that it was a pretty daunting undertaking in a lot of ways. To be a park ranger, you need to be an expert outdoorsman, you need to be physically strong and have good endurance. You need to be confident with firearms if you’re working in an area with bears and cougars. And you need to have first aid training and a range of other certifications.

But those hurdles didn’t stop me. They inspired me.

Throughout my late teens and early twenties I had a corkboard on my bedroom wall with every park ranger requirement listed on it, flanked by photos of my favorite national parks, and I checked the qualifications off one by one, celebrating as I achieved them. Living at home with my parents I saved up every penny I earned - with the goal of going to school for Conservation Enforcement - one of several programs geared towards people in my aspiring line of work. Eventually I got my diploma from a nearby community college - which was about all that I could afford.

It took a while, and I worked a lot of shitty odd jobs, but eventually I was hired full time by the forestry service as a fire lookout. This was after at least thirty rejected applications. By that point the recruiters probably knew my resume off by heart, without even reading it.

I was thrilled, and accepted the job with a cry of joy over the phone, to which my boss laughed and said he was looking forward to meeting me.

Throughout my on-the-job training, I picked things up quickly, and my supervisor, named Ross, said I was a natural. It wasn’t long before he was sending me out alone to clear brush or do simple tasks, despite the fact that he was supposed to be shadowing me all the time. He said he trusted me, and that it took a lot to gain his trust.

On my last day of training at Fire Tower 14 we were sitting in the cabin playing chess, when Ross noticed something in the distance - a bit of smoke rising up out of the trees. It was just a wisp of white smoke - indicative of a campfire.

“We should go check that out,” Ross said, handing the binoculars to me and pointing.

I saw it immediately and nodded, thinking it would be nice to get out and do something different. The routine of clearing brush and taking out the trash, reading books and playing board games and cards, was getting monotonous. It was late afternoon and there were still several hours of sunlight left.

I grabbed my backpack and my rifle, filled my canteen with water, and was about to set out, when Ross muttered something over my shoulder.

“Son of a bitch,” he said, a little louder this time. It wasn’t like him to curse, and I was a little surprised to hear him do it. Ross reminded me of a boy scout in a man’s body - his enthusiasm for the job was infectious, and he was almost always in a good mood.

“What?” I asked, walking over to join him.

“Another one. Nobody bothers to get a camping permit these days anymore.”

He pointed at another fire burning in the distance, this one a little closer.

Normally we wouldn’t go out to bother campers, but these were not registered camping sites, and people like that often didn’t bother to clean up after themselves, and sometimes got injured out in the woods, since they weren’t prepared. Most people who care enough to go camping properly will actually acquire a camping permit. They know it isn’t worth the risk of being fined.

These people clearly didn’t care.

“You know what,” Ross said, looking at me. “This is actually perfect. It’s your last day of training, which means next time something like this happens you’ll be on your own - nobody around for miles. So let’s split up the two offenders and we’ll each take one. I’ll be in radio contact with you the whole time. They look like they’re only a couple miles away from each other. How’s that sound?”

Despite the fact that I’d been eager for the job my entire life, now that I was faced with the prospect of doing it alone I was a little nervous. But I nodded my head, agreeing with his plan.

“Alright, let’s do it,” I said.

“Just like we practiced,” he told me as we began to climb down the stairs from the tower. “Don’t get into any confrontations. If they want to get into an argument you walk away and call me for backup, otherwise just give them the citation and move on. Tell them to find a new campsite or we’ll be back to confiscate their gear. You know, the usual routine.”

The two of us took the jeep which was parked at the base of the tower and drove down the dirt trail until we saw the first vehicle, pulled over at the side of the road. It was empty, with no one inside.

“Okay, you take this one. Radio me once you make contact. Remember, don’t take any unnecessary risks. If anything doesn’t seem right just let me know.”

He looked very nervous all of a sudden, and it was making me more worried than I had been a second before. He looked like he wanted to say something else, and opened his mouth as if he were about to do so, but then he shook his head, as if telling himself not to. After a few seconds of awkwardness, I reassured him I’d radio him once I made contact.

He told me to get going, and stay safe, driving off once I’d shut the passenger door of the jeep.

I was left alone, surrounded by wilderness. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, I began to march into the trees, towards the smell of campfire smoke in the distance.

The brush was thick, since there was no real trail here. But I could see where the campers had dragged their cooler through the shrubbery, and could make out their boot prints in the mud. If I had to guess, there were at least three or four of them.

It didn’t take long before I came across a clearing, and standing in the middle of it was a large stone archway.

The human-made structure was about a ten minute walk from the road and looked like a bridge constructed for a railroad to pass over above it. But it made no sense for it to be way out here in the middle of the forest, far from any civilization. And far from any active railroads.

A dirt path emerged from nowhere, leading towards this arch, and going underneath it to the other side.

I didn’t know the area well enough to say that this was completely out of the ordinary - but to my eyes it did look unusual. Ross hadn’t mentioned any decommissioned railroads passing through this part of the forest, but then again it could have been long out of use and ancient.

When I approached the stone archway, I got a queasy rising feeling in my stomach, like when you’re a kid in the backseat of a car and your parents are driving down a hilly dirt road and you go over a steep hill too fast on the opposite side. Looking through the archway, I saw the sky was a bruised shade of purple on the other side. Black clouds floated along, in stark contrast to the clear blue sky which I’d seen from the watchtower.

I looked over my shoulder and the sky was blue. I looked straight ahead again and saw it was that surreal purple shade - but only on this side of the archway.

“What the hell,” I muttered to myself, walking through the stone archway to the other side. The moment that I did, my body broke out in pins and needles, as if every limb had fallen asleep for just a second, but then the sensation passed.

I felt as if I had crossed over through some threshold into another world. But I convinced myself I was just being foolish, letting my adrenaline get to me. This was simply a new and scary experience, being alone by myself out here, but I would need to get used to it fast.

Steeling myself with a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and continued marching forward.

The forest was still the same, but the sky was that dark purple shade, and I didn’t understand why it would look like that. It was still a few hours until sunset, so it wasn’t being caused by the sun’s approach towards the horizon. It was something else.

A forest fire, maybe?

“Ross, come in, Ross,” I said into my radio, which was clipped to my uniform shirt.

There was a burst of static but nothing after that.

“Ross. Status update, come in, Ross?”

Again, there was nothing.

“Great. Some backup you are.”

The forest swallowed me up again as I walked along the path until it disappeared. Strangely, the woods were difficult to traverse in this section. Huge trees blocked my path, their low branches impossible to get around.

I had completely lost the campers’ trail, and I was starting to worry I’d lost my bearings altogether, so I pulled out my compass to regain my trajectory.

When I looked down at the face of the compass, it didn’t make any sense.

It wasn’t pointing in any one direction. Instead, it spun around in lazy half and quarter circles, reversing and changing direction constantly. Then it began to spin in a maddening arc, faster and faster, going in circles until the glass broke and the needle flew off into the sky, completely unhinged from the device. I heard it whiz past my ear like a stray bullet.

Okay, that was weird.

I tried to comprehend what was happening. What could cause a compass to do that?

A strong magnet?

That was impossible, though. All of this was impossible.

I looked up at the sky and traced the bruised purple color, turning my head so I could see behind me.

The violet shade now covered the entire sky, including behind me where it had been bright blue just minutes prior.

What the hell was going on?

I turned around and started back, my heart beating fast, my legs trembling and numb, feeling like blocks of wood attached at the waist.

Had a nuclear bomb detonated somewhere? Was this the end of the world? Was that why the sky looked so strange now?

I keyed the radio again, hoping I would get a response from Ross as I blundered through the forest feeling sick. It felt like I was going to throw up.

“ROSS! COME IN, ROSS!” I practically screamed into the radio.

But there was no answer.

I began to run, picking up my pace.

It was that archway. That FUCKING archway. I should have never gone through it. I could tell it was wrong. I could tell it was evil. That feeling of pins and needles, that rising sensation in my gut, every part of my body had been trying to tell me not to go through it, but I hadn’t listened.

I’d heard stories before, read tales on the internet of back rooms and hidden interdimensional portals which led to places like this that shouldn’t exist. Dimensions locked away through space and time and other mechanisms we don’t understand which people stumble into and can’t escape.

Stairs that lead to nowhere but take a portion of your lifespan should you decide to climb them, causing you to disappear from your friends and family for untold lengths of time. People vanished in national parks all the time, and there was no explanation for it.

At least, not until now.

I pushed aside the brush and made my way out of the forest and into the clearing where the archway had been.

My heart sank as I stared at the blank spot where it had been.

The stone archway was gone.

I stood there for a while, just staring at the blank space where it had previously stood.

But it didn’t change the fact that the thing had vanished.

I spun around in circles, thinking maybe I had lost my way and gone off track. Maybe this was all in my head and I had just lost track of time, that was why the sky was purple and why I was having trouble finding my way back.

I wasn’t trapped in another dimension, I’d just spaced out and the sun was setting. That was all it was. Nothing more. I convinced myself this was true, even though part of me knew it wasn’t.

If I kept walking in this direction, I told myself, I would hit the dirt road eventually. I was sure enough of my bearings to know that the road lay in this direction - and I could simply walk back to Tower 14 from there, once I found it. Sure, Ross would be pissed. He would tell his bosses that I needed more training, and that I wasn’t ready yet.

But that was okay. Maybe I wasn’t. Despite all my years of getting ready for this day, maybe I was still just an amateur.

With this new plan in mind, I kept walking straight back the way I’d come. I knew better than to push it when I’d already lost my bearings, not to mention my compass. The best bet was just to walk back to the safety of the road.

The longer I walked, though, the more I began to realize what I had suspected deep down was true. The road was not there.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” I muttered to myself as my progress came to a halt. “It’s not here.”

The road should have been here. Even if I was slightly off course I should have seen it by now. But it was nowhere to be found.

Worse than that, the sky was getting dimmer with those horrible black clouds, covering up the patches of purple and filling them in with malignant darkness.

“ROSS! Please, come in!” I yelled into the radio for what felt like the hundredth time.

A clap of thunder boomed overhead, sounding discordant and wrong to my ears. It was a bad imitation of thunder - a foley artist still learning the ropes as he shook out a giant sheet of tin like a rug on cleaning day. It warbled and shook the ground, the reverberations lasting far too long afterwards.

That was what did it. The sound of that alien thunder brought me over the edge of certainty and I knew for sure in that moment what I had suspected all along.

This wasn’t the national park. This wasn’t even Earth anymore. At least, not my Earth.

I truly had slipped into another dimension through that archway. Despite how mad it all sounded, I was on the other side of some multidimensional gateway. And not only that, but now the gateway was gone. I was trapped here.

Turning around, I decided I needed to go back to the place where I’d found it. Even if it was gone now, it would have to return eventually. That was my only hope. I couldn’t stay in this place. I didn’t belong here.

And who knew what creatures might lurk in a forest like this after dark? Even in our world there were wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and bears. I shuddered to think what version of predator might live unchecked in this universe, without people around to keep their numbers down.

As if the forest had read my mind, I heard a rustling sound to my right. The light was dimmer now and it was difficult to see, but I thought I noticed something a ways off in the distance, ducking behind trees and hiding from view, following me through the dark woods.

Was it a person? It kind of looked like one.

“Hello?” I called out, my voice breaking with fear.

“Hello?” it called back, sounding like a tape recording of my own voice, slightly sped up and slowed down halfway through the word.

The thing paused momentarily as it ducked out from behind the trees, looking at me, measuring me. Standing in plain view for the first time, as if letting itself be seen.

My skin turned ice cold when I caught a full glimpse of it.

It saw me, that was for sure. And it was following me.

The dark, humanoid shape had grayish blue skin and at least two sets of arms. It walked on two legs and ducked behind each tree as it passed by, so as not to be seen. Its face was shrouded in long black hair, which covered its visage like heavy curtains.

It was completely naked and unclothed, its genitals covered by its long hair, and carrying nothing with it. To my eyes it looked like an animal. A creature more than a person, although it walked on two legs and resembled a human. The extra set of arms was the most jarring aspect of it, though. And made it feel so much more like a nightmare. Like this couldn’t possibly be happening.

My heart was pounding fast as I tripped over branches and fallen trees, stumbling and rising to my feet and looking to see the thing was even closer now. It was on a diagonal path through the trees, pursuing me but also making its way closer and closer to me.

For the first time I saw its eyes behind the mask of tangled hair - they were reflective and gold like a cat in the night. And then I saw its teeth, and its rancid, rotten smile. It rubbed its four hands together in a ball of moving flesh and fingers, like an excited old man about to eat his favorite meal.

The creature knew I was scared, and it was enjoying itself. Enjoying the hunt.

Another twig snapped underfoot and at first I thought it was my own foot which had done it, since the sound was so close, but then I realized it was only a few feet away.

Which meant…

I spun around just in time to see a face appear in front of me.

At first I thought it was another one of those things, and almost took a wild swing at it. But then I saw the face was human.

It was a man wearing a park ranger uniform. His hair was shoulder-length and greasy and he had a long beard which was untrimmed and scraggly.

“GET BEHIND ME!” he yelled suddenly and I did as he asked instinctively, hearing the sound of movement coming toward us through the brush from where the creature had been.

The sound of the rifle’s report was deafening. My ears were still ringing when he fired again a few moments later.

“That’s my last bullet,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet. “I hope you brought some ammunition with you - those things don’t like to die.”

Noises could be heard behind us and I realized that the creature was still in pursuit, despite two well-placed rifle rounds. I was compelled to follow the strange man as he raced ahead of me, looking back at me occasionally to see if I was still trailing him.

I didn’t have time to ask questions. I didn’t have time to think about the fact that the archway was getting further and further away with each step.

All I could do was run, and soon the sounds of more racing footsteps joined the first creature. There were several of them, and they were all hungry. Moving in a pack like humanoid wolves.

I only hoped this man knew where he was going. And that he had a plan to survive.

Part 2

JG

TCC