My next coherent memory felt like it took place maybe 5 minutes later, when I realized just how dark out it had suddenly become. Our hike into the woods had lasted less than half an hour before we finally gave in and started on the path back. My own internal clock would have put the time at maybe 1PM at the latest. And yet the sun currently disappearing behind my Western horizon begged to differ.
I thought about what it would be like out in these woods at night alone, without even a flashlight to guide my way, and it didn’t take me long to decide that I very much didn’t want to do that. I started sprinting down the narrow dirt path so fast that my footsteps began to echo.
Eventually, I noticed what at first sounded like wolves howling but as I grew closer to the source of the noise, I realized that what I was hearing was actually several different voices shouting “Joel!” at varying intervals. Turning toward the sound, I spotted the fractured glare of the Covington House’s emergency flood-lights bleeding through a nearby wall of shrubbery.
I broke from the path I had been following and began to tear my way through the wall of foliage without hesitation or even much concern for efficiency. There was even a brief moment where I was sure I had gotten myself completely stuck during my mad flailing through what turned out to be several generation of vines and interwoven shrubbery.