After three days of rain from oppressively low clouds, the sun came out. I decided to fly for the pure joy of it. The sky was a brilliant teal. I took off in my Cessna 150 from Quonset Airport and headed north by northwest. I flew towards Pascoag, Rhode Island. It was a short flight, 38.6 miles away. As I continued to the northwest, I couldn’t wait to perform loops and rolls over the New England Uplands. The steady drone of the engine was music to my ears. I checked my instrument panel and noticed I was flying 100 miles per hour – just above 2,500 feet. I suddenly realized it felt good to be back in the cockpit again. I passed Pascoag and then climbed to 4,000 feet. I was about to execute my first loop when the sun vanished.
It was as if the sky swallowed the sun whole. Thick clouds engulfed my plane in darkness, and there was a blistering crack of thunder. The Cessna shook. The gauges flickered. The needles fell like torpedoes. The plane yawed wildly as the wings took on the steady rhythm of a seesaw. There was nothing childish about their movements. Suddenly, the nose dropped, and I was in a perpendicular dive. I pulled back on the yoke and eased the throttle. It had no effect. It felt like the cockpit was closing in as I blacked out and waited for the ground to swallow me. The straps were cutting into my shoulders as I awoke. I leaned back in my seat. It felt like my entire body was bruised. I didn’t expect to be alive and was almost grateful for the pain.
As I glanced out the left window, I gasped. My plane was amazingly still in one piece, hanging sideways in a tree. One wingtip pointed toward the ground. The opposite, to the sky above. How could this be? Before I could answer that question, the plane started to descend. Then, the left wingtip swung up, the right, down. The plane was righting itself. Only it wasn’t the plane. I could see the vines working through the windows. They were long, thick, and leafy. They were a deep green color. The vines wrapped around the wingtips and the nose of the Cessna. I glanced behind me and saw them wrapping around the fuselage near the rudder. Slowly, the Cessna was lowered to the ground. The three wheels touched down with the slightest bump. The Cessna stood in a small clearing. We were nestled in a heavily wooded area, and I could see the helpful vines withdrawing from my field of vision. As I unbuckled my straps, I noticed the metallic click was unusually loud. As I stepped out, the sky was a gloomy, slate gray. I pulled a cell phone from my nylon flight jacket. The five bars in the upper right corner were shaded. No service. I was in a dead zone. I retrieved a backpack containing a survival kit, a blanket, water bottles, and trail mix from the cockpit. I stuffed my flight jacket inside it. Then, I locked the cockpit door and limped toward a narrow path ahead.
If I could get uphill, I could get a signal and call for help. The twisting path through the forest had a slight incline. It gave me hope. There were no animals, no birds, and the leaves on the trees were perfectly still. I suddenly noticed that my footfalls made no sound on the spongy ground. After almost two hours of silent hiking through the sweltering humidity and fetid vegetation, I realized I’d finished two water bottles and all my trail mix. I came to another clearing. There – in the middle – stood my red Cessna. Had I doubled back somehow? I checked my compass. No. As I stood, open-mouthed, rubbing my jaw, I noticed something unnatural about my new surroundings. There was a peculiar uniformity to the trees. They stood so close to one another that they appeared to look like a facade of buildings. I turned in a circle. Sure enough, the trees at the edge of the clearing looked like skyscrapers in a skyline. Except the skyscraper-like figures were colored different shades of brown, tan, and green. It was then that I noticed doors and windows, alcoves and ledges, arches and struts. And there was another peculiar thing – these trees had no bark. They were smooth. It was as if they’d been sanded and polished. I looked from right to left, baffled. Suddenly, the thick leafy vines oozed out of the tree buildings and snaked along the ground toward my plane. The vines made strange motions as they got closer. Could they be communicating?
The vines snatched the Cessna and smoothly brought it back to the tree line, then into the treetops. The plane was placed alongside a few other small aircraft, hanging in the ropey ivy. Some vines clustered around and bobbed up and down, looking at the new arrival. It reminded me of a museum. Only then did a new thought cross my mind. These are more like trophies than exhibits. It was like they were bagged during a big hunt. Am I the hunted now?
Just then, I heard a panicked squeal off to the left. I walked toward the sound, determined to investigate it and leave the hanging planes. I sidestepped several vines crawling along the ground in the opposite direction. They were heading toward one of the structures where I first entered the clearing. I quickened my pace and entered an archway in a thick tree. I placed my hand on the glistening wood, and my palm became sticky with sap. I brushed it on my pants as I entered a large square yard. There was fencing in the far corner, near the direction of the sound. I headed toward it, but stopped dead in my tracks halfway there. I suddenly realized it wasn’t a fence at all, but a pen. But this pen was not wood – it was entwined vines. They were thick, leafy, pulsating. The vines were moving in a clockwise direction. The barrier they made was getting tighter and tighter as the pitiful creature inside squealed louder and louder. The vines circled faster, closing in. The squealing split my eardrums. It sounded inhuman, yet I couldn’t shake the idea that it was human in origin.
Suddenly, the vines stopped moving. There was a blood-curdling cry, followed by deathly silence. My entire body started shaking. I quickly backed away from the rank smell of offal. The vines seemed engrossed in their kill, so I turned and walked quickly toward the archway. I trotted through it, only to find that I wasn’t where I came in from. I was now standing in a narrow pathway between tall trees. As I spun around, the archway closed with a soft clap. I was alone. There was only one direction, so I hurried along the pathway. It resembled an alley you would find in a city. There was that same polished smoothness to the wooden structures on either side of me, glistening with sap. Then, I came to a window-like opening on the right. I looked in. Scores of compacted mounds of dirt formed straight lines. What must have been a budding vine was now sticking out of each mound. Fat vines slithered along the rows, depositing a milky substance on the top. The tiny vines looked like soft twigs. They bent to drink the sustenance. It was a nursery. What manner of creature were these vines? How did they even come to be? I started running along the pathway that had branches to the right. It was a maze of endless twists and turns. After a while, I realized I had no idea where I was. I was so disoriented I couldn’t tell which direction I came from. I stopped, wiped the sweat out of my eyes, and bent over with my hands on my knees to catch my breath.
The smell of vegetation clogged my nostrils. It was getting harder to breathe the dank air. Draining my last water bottle, I walked hurriedly along. It felt like a maze. I followed the path to the right, then to the left, then the right again. My shirt stuck to my back, and my pants chafed my thighs. I blinked the sweat out of my eyes and could suddenly smell my fear. Finally, the pathway led toward a small oval clearing. The vines were crawling along the ground, heading towards an ornate structure. Believing myself to be unobserved, I followed at a short distance. The vines went through a green door. Two ropey figures flanked the door on either side. Upon closer inspection, I saw two figures made entirely from scores of tightly woven branches. It looked like the wood had petrified over time. Statues? There was a loud, high-pitched screech from inside. I dashed off to the right along another pathway. It could have led anywhere, so long as it was away from that building. Was it a meeting hall? A church? And just what deity did these vines worship? I didn’t want to speculate, much less find out. My heart was beating faster and faster as I pumped my legs, running. I had to find a way out. Then, a fork appeared in the path before me.
I stood there, looking down one path, then down the other, undecided which one to take. It was then that I heard the rustling behind me. I turned my head. It was then that I saw what I had feared most. Quickly, I ran down the right fork, away from the biggest vine monster I’d ever seen. The vine was quick, especially considering its bulk. It was a deep, dark green with patches of reddish brown. The vine reared up, shot forward, and narrowed the distance between us. I ran in a zig-zag pattern to escape. Finally, I hit another clearing. At the other end was a small archway. I knew it was too narrow for the big vine to follow me, so I sprinted toward it. I must have only been several paces away when the archway shut. It brought me to a screeching halt. My breathing was too ragged to let out a yell. Turning around, I saw the big vine stop and let out a deafening screech. Off to the left, I saw two vines pulsating with blood creeping toward me. There was a moist waxiness to their pointed leaves, which were serrated and dripping green pus. I was hypnotized by the horrid look of the dreadful tree buildings. It was then that I had a tragic realization. I would become the next scream to echo through this world of vines. I would make the same devilish cry I heard moments ago in this wretched place. Was it a lost city?
No.
It was a city I wish I never found. •