The Finding Party
A lone female backpacker sneaks into a nature preserve for some much-desired peace and solitude. But what she encounters in the forest—both terrifying and beautiful—will change her forever.
I’d finally kindled enough of a little flame to heat my pot of cold spaghetti, when I heard it: the low chainsaw buzz far off in the distance. Punk kids out on dirt bikes, probably. Roving packs of all-terrain vehicles, or ATVs, would coil through these woods like snakes, tearing up the trails, scattering the wildlife, and polluting the woods with noise—in other words, annoying those of us trying to break the law in peace.
The park was supposed to be closed after sundown – no camping allowed. The only reason I was here was that I very much intended to be: I’d backpacked in, went a hundred paces off-trail due north, Rambo-style, and set up camp as far away from any foot trail or fire lane as I could.
My husband James and I found this spot decades ago — a remote nook of a small nature preserve nestled among the sod and fruit farms of Eastern Long Island. We discovered that if you didn’t park in the lot, and stayed off the trails, and kept your fire small… This was back when we were young and stupid, of course. Before the fighting. Before we started taking our backpacking trips alone.
Despite how close to our house this place was, I’d never been back, though James had returned with our son, Danny, several times over the years. I couldn’t even say why, other than I often avoided this area, my parents’ old stomping grounds – the beaches and bars and neighborhoods just southeast of our house. My father and his parents had grown up traipsing around these exact woods and duck farms, down the Peconic River and all around Flander’s Bay. The names on the street signs and businesses were basically just a Rolodex of my parents’ old stories. It wasn’t a rejection of them, per se; I just didn’t like hanging around in their old memories. I liked making my own.
But it’d been so long, I wasn’t even sure this was the same spot. My compass had gotten stuck earlier and by the time I realized it, I’d skewed at least 50 paces in the wrong direction. After course-correcting with a 2nd compass, or trying to, I eventually just chose the nicest, flat(ish) spot I could find and called it good.
Setting up camp, though, the air felt charged. Like there were invisible lightning bugs flying all around. Ghosts, I laughed—but was spooked enough I nearly moved camp. What the spot did have though was plenty of fresh air, peace and quiet, and space to be out of the house—and that was exactly, blissfully, the point.
Except….Yep, ATVs. Louder now. I’m a pretty ‘live and let live type but I just can’t comprehend a sport that treats a living forest like a NASCAR stadium.
Well, they can’t ride all night, I told myself, swiping at another spider. Marauding legions of daddy long leg armies had been launching attacks on my campsite ever since I set up—but I flicked them away with resolve. I wasn’t a woman easily out-natured—and I certainly wasn’t gonna let a few dicks on trikes ruin my night.
*
My girlfriends always marveled at how I could camp alone and not get scared. “I don’t know how you do it, ” Janelle said. “I’d be too spooked.”
“By what?” I asked, amused.
“I don’t know. Bugs. But not even that. People. Guys. Weird guys,” Janelle said and I’d laughed. It was never the weirdos I was worried about. It was me you couldn’t trust.
But now I was grateful to be tucked so far off the trail. The engines were all around now. So much for a quiet evening, I grumbled, adjusting my slender backpacker’s grill over the fire.
That was when, not a few bites into my knot of day-old pasta there was an incredibly loud, terrific rush of noise and lights, the smell of gasoline engines—and an assault of voices shouting, more than several, floating over the wind. People gathering. I didn’t know exactly where... but they were close.
**
How close? I could pick out individual voices in a low cacophony of melodious, youthful... laughter, was it? Eventually, it must have lulled me to sleep. I awoke to the unmistakable sounds of, ahh yes, the time-honored tradition of minors learning how to get wasted in the woods. Seems James and I weren’t the only ones who’d triangulated this spot for unchaperoned fun.
Now that silent meditation was out of the question, I pulled out a book and a headlamp. An hour or two while the debate team drank up whatever they’d talked strangers into buying them at the convenience store, then they’d be on their way. Or maybe more like the football team?
When an instantly-recognizable ‘pop!’ from an undeniably large sound system turned on, “testing, one, two!” I tossed my book away in defeat. Well, there goes everything.
***
I mean, I’m no curmudgeon. Let the kids have their fun. I certainly did. I’d festival-ed, tripped, and clubbed my way through my youth. It wasn’t even that long ago I was rolling with the ‘cool’ kids at my old job in the city — singles in their 20’s who still did coke and went to happy hours and hooked up – and I partied with them, had stories for them, I was a legend. “Coolest mom, everrr!” one of the receptionists slurred as she sloshed her Veuve Clicquot at me at the holiday party, and I clinked my scotch right back at her. Damn straight. But now, my son almost was them. And it was disturbing.
Whiskey did seem apropos though, given the circumstances, so I took out the flask meant for a nightcap. It was not lost on me, the absurdity of coming out to the middle of the forest for some much-needed space—to think, to let James cool off, to take a break from my rude, angsty teenager—only to find myself camped next to a full-on... wait…was that… dance music? Jesus. A rave. I was camped next to a rave.
Fast beats and a deep, groovy bassline thumped through the trees. I wiped out my mess kit. Unbelievable.
****
I wondered what Danny would think if he’d come. Would he want to go to this party, through the trees? I mean, I wouldn’t let him. But would I want him to want to go?
An old, deep-house breakbeat cut blared through the woods. Huh. I took these kids for pop-country, or just terrible top 40. At worst, bad EDM, techno, whatever. Not...
Samples from my club days, deep cuts, spun all around me and I grooved and flowed as I tidied the campsite. I guess I hadn’t considered this might be a party... worth going to. I let the memories wash over me. I tamped down the fire.
When it was all done, I sat back in my hammock, swinging and staring out into the woods, taking slugs of whiskey from my flask. It was good to be back here in the trees, unseen. And I was physically ok. Right? It seemed so. It wasn’t that. But I was... something else. Agitated. Irritated.
Jealous?
I imagined sneaking up on them, these people in the forest having a good time. I’d be dressed as I was now: a fitted, ninja-black base layer, sort of ‘forest sexy’ if you squinted. Good for spying. Or maybe blending in?
For a couple of songs. Accept a Solo cup, if offered. What could it hurt? Nothing and no one, I decided. I strained to see something – anything – through the trees, but there were only distant, flashing lights, likely from the road. It’s not like I wanted to hang out with these kids, or whoever they were. It was more, just, a curiosity.
Leaving the campsite for real though, with the intention of….what, Laura? seemed comical, like this was some kind of Candid Camera gag. Or cosmic test.
I mean, of all the distractions to be found in a forest, this combination—dancing all night, in a beautiful location, to great music, specifically to this great music—this was like, my thing.
As if to prove a point, a song poured from the woods that has been scientifically demonstrated to be physically impossible not to dance to. I got up from my hammock in protest. Ok, seriously. Who was throwing this party, anyway?
It was too much.
I was dying to know.
Plus, it was so close. Just off to the left, just through the trees – near enough to walk right up to and melt right into.
Ok fine, I’ll go.
I grabbed my daypack with the working compass, a headlamp, my water bottle, the flask, a lighter, and the one cigarette I always stashed in my pack for...I dunno. Old habits die hard.
Would they even notice me? What would they say if they did? Would they think I was creepy? Old? Worried I’d snitch them out? And if I saw who they were, or what they were up to, would I?
Questions for later. I waded cautiously into the trees. The party was on the other side of this dense patch of woods—no trail would take me there. The vines pulled, but with a sharp utility knife I cut my way through, slowly tearing forward into the night.
After a long while bushwhacking, though, the party didn’t seem any closer. Worse, it still sounded west of me, despite having been traveling in a westerly direction (or so said the last working compass). Was I going in circles?
A panic rose in my throat as I clawed through the thicket; getting lost out here was not an option. I pulled and yanked and cursed my way out of the snarl of trees, until I broke into a clearing bathed in creamy moonlight.
It took my breath away. I stayed there for a minute, drinking from my water bottle and listening to the killer music still throbbing all around me.
And then I was like, Fuck it. Wherever this party is, whoever’s there, who the fuck cares?
I may as well enjoy it.
I started dancing.
The air was like velvet; I danced ‘til I was water. I danced as if it was my last night on earth, like this was my own personal dance floor, like I had my own private DJ—one song fading into another and another until the light started to look like dawn.
And then I froze. Something, or someone, was moving off in the distance.
The beat dropped.
My heart stopped.
It was a human figure, picking his way through the trees, making his way towards my camp.
The chill of fear froze my blood and I watched, paralyzed. The figure moved slowly, but purposefully, and with an ease I didn’t understand. Surely, he had to be from the party—but he wore a funny-looking hipster hat, old-fashioned waders, and a dirty smock. He reminded me of the photos of my great-great-grandparents on their farm, linen aprons smeared with tractor grease and duck fat—kind eyes, but serious faces.
The man kept coming, and Janelle’s voice practically rang out in my ears: You just let a weird dude come AT you? – but by the time the fibers of my muscles activated, the stranger was standing before me.
He let me take it all in, first. Then he looked deeply into my eyes, and gave me the most intense, loving smile—and I felt both terrified and safe at the same time.
Who was this? What was this?
Grease-smeared apron, kind eyes. Instantly, I knew: This stranger didn’t just look like my great-great-grandfather, he was my great-great-grandfather. He was beautiful up close. Luminescent.
But also... not alive.
Slowly, understanding worked its way in through the fog. Which meant...?
His name was Charles, I remembered, the founder of the Lawson Family Farm of Aquebogue, my paternal line—and though I didn’t have memories of him from this lifetime, his voice was so familiar it gave me chills: “Sorry you were on your own there for a bit, Honey-girl, we had a hard time locatin’ ya,” Great-great-grandpa Charles said with soft eyes and a not-at-all serious face, it turns out.
“We?”
Charles gestured toward the edge of the clearing—and I saw throngs of my extended family and relatives there, among the trees. There was Aunt Peggy; she gave a little wave. And my dance coach from when I was little, who died of breast cancer. My heart soared when I saw her lithe body strong again, bopping to a beat still playing.
Great-great-grandpa Charles said appreciatively, “What a party, eh?!” as he clapped his hands above his head in a sort of shimmy-jig, then he leaned in, conspiratorial, “The music was my doing.”
He motioned for me to follow, and just like that, we moved like liquid through the trees. “These woods back right up to the old farm, so it was me who was supposed to help you cross, but it all happened so fast—” he stopped to turn back to me, “Yours was a quick death, Laura. Your soul wasn’t quite ready to understand, or accept, on your own, you see – but you slipped off into the woods before we could. And made yourself a little campsite somewhere? Close by, we knew, but...” We stopped at the edge of some trees. “Luring you out with a party was your Great-grandma’s idea – you take after her, you know,” Charles looked off into the distance. We paused there, so I could marvel at all I’d made for, and from, my own imagination: the 2nd campsite, the whiskey, the spiders—then suddenly, it all turned sour in my mouth.
“Danny!” I wailed, and my heart wrenched, momentarily, from my chest. Charles placed his loving hands on my shoulders, and the pressing rush of adrenaline faded into the background.
“He’s gonna be great, Honey,” Charles squeezed my shoulders. “You did a wonderful job,” and I sobbed for truth in that, and for the child I’d leave behind. I sank into Charles’ arms when he offered them, and like a salve, I found comfort there. Soon, I could push forward.
What we came upon next, I didn’t have to look at long to understand: a crowd had gathered where an ATV struck a female hiker camped on an overgrown trail, despite emergency workers’ best efforts to bring her back. I hoped they’d give up soon. I knew I was gone.
“Will James know I loved him?”
“Always,” Charles said and I smiled, for that’s what I wanted—that we appreciated our time together. We’d both get a fresh start, now. The warm light of the moon seemed ready and it felt like a relief to walk away from the sad, messy scene below.
“It’s time, Honey-girl,” said Great-great-grandpa Charles, and he took my hand. Then he gave me a little twirl, as I danced my way home.
This short story placed 2nd in the R1 of NYC Midnight’s Short Story Challenge 2021 competition (prompts were genre: ghost story, subject: a fixation, character: a farmer).