“Look Amanda,” I said, my voice trembling. “The police are stopping the search. They said they haven’t found a trace of her, and it’s been five days now.”

Amanda, her clear blue eyes usually so full of love and kindness, now turned to anger and fury, combined with her five-day old mascara smeared over her face after so much crying, looked nothing like the girl I fell in love with. Instead she looked a bit more like a mournful banshee, hollow-eyed and wailing in grief.

Two weeks earlier, our marriage had been coming apart. In a desperate attempt to salvage it, I had suggested for us all to go on a camping trip. Somewhere quiet and remote, because I felt the fresh air might help us remember who we were before the fights. Amanda was vehemently against it at first, but after a few days of discussion and deliberation, she finally relented and we took the trip up here. But I never imagined it would lead to this – to our baby Charlene to vanish after a single, horrible accident.

After I had conveyed the message to her, she looked at me with such malice and hatred that I felt a chill running down my spine. “So you just want to stop the search now? I mean, it’s only our daughter. She’s out there, frightened, and you just want to stop the search?” She shouted at me, her voice cracking as she spat out the last word.

I felt as if I had been punched in the gut. Each word felt like a painful reminder that I was responsible for bringing them here. That Charlene being missing was my fault. Tears were welling up, but I managed to reply, in a desperate voice, “How could you say that. Of course I want them to continue the search. But I’m not in charge of the police. Please honey, don’t see me as the enemy. I love you. I love Charlene.” My voice finally cracked, as I was about to burst into tears.

“Don’t you dare speak her name,” she yelled. “You just see the search as an inconvenience to you. Just leave me be.”

I stood there for a moment, dumbfounded and helpless, before I sighed and did as she asked. I stepped out of the bedroom and went into the living room of our cabin. I sat down in the couch, hands on face, and cried over the loss of our daughter, and now, my estranged wife. I truly felt as if my world was crumbling down. Maybe the marriage had been doomed all along.

I thought about that fateful day, when we went into the woods, Amanda and Charlene looking for sticks. Charlene had always loved playing with sticks, and more than once we’d turned them into pretend swords for fencing matches. She’d giggle so hard, she could barely hold on to her “weapon”, her small face lit with pure joy. Those thoughts of her giggling and smiling brought even more sorrow to my mind. Remembering that sweet, wonderful sound only made me feel even worse. What had really happened that day? I replayed it in my mind again and again, but I just couldn’t grasp how the events unfolded.

As I sat in the living room, in the comfort of the couch, thinking about the horrible events of that day, I felt my eyelids getting heavier and heavier. The cabin was quiet, except for the ticking of the old wall clock. As the clock ticked on, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier, until I eventually fell asleep, and into a dream that looked exactly like that afternoon.

We were walking along a narrow trail, Amanda and Charlene at my side. Sunlight filtered through the trees in shifting patterns, warming our faces. We had decided to take a slow stroll, enjoy the beautiful scenery, and have some snacks. We walked around for a bit, with Charlene sometimes running a bit off the path to pick up a stick she found exciting.

After a while, we came to a small clearing with a few weathered benches. As we sat down, we opened the bag with our lunch, and enjoyed some sandwiches Amanda and I had made. Charlene had her favourite peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or as she called them, “peabudd an jell”.

Amanda and I had our sandwiches and laughed a bit when we saw Charlene’s face totally smeared in peanut butter. Amanda took some baby wipes and cleaned Charlene up, while Charlene squirmed and protested with a high-pitched “Moooom!” that only made us laugh even harder.

After she had been cleaned up, Charlene started exploring the clearing. She saw some interesting bugs, and found herself some sticks to play with. Amanda and I just sat on the bench, quietly watching, enjoying Charlene’s adventures with her sticks and bugs. It was the kind of silence that just felt comfortable, yet underneath it was as if there was a chill between us. I felt that Amanda might have preferred to enjoy the day without me beside her. Don’t get me wrong, we both loved Charlene unconditionally. We just no longer loved each other. And that feeling hurt.

Eventually Charlene found two large sticks, and took them over to us, to show us. She then handed me one, and challenged me to a fencing duel. Or as she called it, “fessing”.

I took her stick and we began a playful round of mock fencing. Charlene giggled with every exaggerated swing, her little feet kicking up bits of grass. She was having the time of her life. Until the incident.

We were swinging our “swords”, and I got caught up re-enacting some scenes from various movies I had seen. Our sticks clashed, and I was trying to disarm her, but her small hand loosened their grip. Her stick flew out of her hand, spinning, and by a stroke of extremely bad luck, hit Amanda directly in the eye.

She yelped out in pain. Poor Charlene froze, her eyes wide, then stammered tearfully, “sowwy mom, I did not mean to.” The apology broke apart into sobs, and poor little Charlene started to bawl her eyes out.

I rushed to Amanda’s side, trying to get a look into her eye, but after a few seconds, she pushed me away and said, “Leave me be, go watch Charlene”.

Luckily, it seemed the hit wasn’t bad, but probably was really painful. I sighed, pressed a quick kiss on her temple and turned around. Immediately I saw something was wrong. Charlene was no longer there.

I called “Charlene?” But there was no reply. Then in a more friendly voice, I called out “Charlene, honey, come back. It’s fine, mommy is OK.” After a few moments of no reply, I got a bad feeling in my stomach, and we both started calling out to her. Our yells got more and more frantic, eventually turning into screams, as our nightmare was being realized. We went to the edges of the woods, calling her name, hoping she would come on out. Then real panic started settling in.

What had happened. How could she disappear. I only looked away for a few seconds. I told Amanda that I would go back to our cabin and call for help. Amanda was crying and shaking from distress. I noticed that it was getting dark. I looked up at the sky, and saw massive, dark clouds gathering, blocking out the sun. Darkness consumed the woods as well as me, blurring the edges of my vision and I felt a cold shiver running down my spine. We were not wanted in these woods.

The next thing I knew I was back inside the cabin, on the phone with the police. I was frantically asking them to come out here and help look for Charlene. The operator assured me they would be coming, along with rangers and volunteers. I thanked her, and everything got foggy again.

I looked up, and I was in the middle of the woods. It was dark. I didn’t know why, but I was running. Running away from something. What it was I didn’t know. I only knew I had to run. I ran further and further into the woods. As if my life depended on it. I couldn’t see what was chasing me, but I could feel it, staring at me, forcing me to move forward. I wanted to look back, but knew I shouldn’t. The urge to look back became too strong. But as I started turning my head, my foot got caught on a root, and I fell.

Before I hit the ground, my eyes opened up suddenly, and I gasped. My heart was hammering, my lungs were burning as if I had been running. But I was awake. Back in the couch of our small cabin. I had only been out for 30 minutes. Amanda was standing behind me, glaring at me. “Your daughter is out in the woods, alone, terrified and cold, and all you can do is sleep?”

“Look honey, I am exhausted from all of this. I am sure you are too. I want to find her as much as you do. But we have been up for hours, searching the woods for days. We also need rest, to be able to look for her some more. Or we won’t be able to do much of anything.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Whatever. As long as you can get your sleep while our daughter is… is…” Her voice cracked. She trailed off and started to cry, shoulders trembling.

I looked at Amanda, feeling so desperate to help her. To comfort her. To tell her everything would be all right – that we would be all right. But the sad thing was, I was terrified of what her reaction would be. Would she start striking me? Shouting at me? But, no matter what, she was my beloved wife.

After a few moments of hesitation, I decided I had to do whatever I could to comfort her. So I took her in my arms, gave her a tight hug. She kept on crying, but didn’t resist. I started stroking the back of her head while making a shushing sound. I felt weirdly glad at this moment. Maybe we had a chance. And maybe Charlene… I stopped there. I knew the odds of us finding her alive at this time were slim at best.

A wave of sadness blew over me, and I started to cry along with Amanda. We stood there for around 10 minutes. Just hugging and crying. Finally we looked at each other, and she went to the bedroom. I looked at my watch and it was almost 17:00. I decided to make dinner. I fixed us a simple dish of pork chops along with some vegetables. A simple meal, which could be made in the oven. While it was cooking, I looked out the window, into the dark woods.

I felt a strong urge to run in there, do whatever I could to bring Charlene back. But I knew that if I did, they would be searching for two bodies instead of… I stopped the train of thoughts right there. It was too painful. When the dinner was done, I called to Amanda, hoping she would join me. No response. I went to the bedroom and she was lying on the bed, fast asleep.

Looking at her so peaceful after these turbulent days warmed me. I felt glad that she was getting the rest she needed. I decided to eat my meal alone. Later that evening, I decided to sleep on the couch. I heard Amanda sobbing in the bedroom, and went to see her. I opened the door to the bedroom and said, “Hey baby. Is there anything I can do for you?”

She glared at me and yelled, “Find Charlene. Or do nothing. Like you always do.”

It felt as if a dagger pierced through my heart. I replied to her, “Sweetie, that’s not fair. I have tried everything in my power to find her. I can’t do miracles.”

“Leave me,” she said. “I want to be alone”.

Throughout the night, I heard her sobbing from my place in the couch. Even though I wanted to comfort her, I felt she would yell at me and say she needed space, or she would curse at me. The next morning I woke up, tired and stiff from a bad spell of sleep. I decided to make some breakfast, eggs and bacon, and brought it up to Amanda. “Here darling. I made breakfast,” I said.

She looked at me with puffy, red eyes. “Is that all you can think of? When our daughter is somewhere out there, scared out of her life?”

I sighed. “Look, it won’t do her any good if we stop living our lives, stop taking care of ourselves. We both need to eat.”

She looked away, tears welling up. The day continued like that, me trying to get any contact to Amanda, and her turning down my attempts. Each time I tried, it just made me more sad over the whole situation. I really wanted to connect with her again. Needed to connect with her. After all, she was my wife, and I wanted to help her in her situation, as well as help myself. I couldn’t go through all of this alone. And I was sure she couldn’t either.

I had to make some sort of breakthrough, like we had yesterday. With the hugging and crying. The day went on like that. Me trying to do anything to get through to Amanda, and her either ignoring me completely or getting aggressive towards me. Each time I failed, it felt we were gliding further and further from each other. Each time felt as if my heart was being stomped on. I felt worse and worse.

As the day faded into evening, I made dinner for us. I helped Amanda down to the dining room, and sat her in her chair. I sat down in my seat and started eating. A bit into the meal, I snuck a glance at her, checking how she was doing. She was poking her fork at the meal listlessly, her stare shifting from the meal to the window, then back to the meal, and letting out a long, sad sigh. It pained me to see her like this. So hollow and empty, so far away from her cheerful self. But then again, I was a total mess inside. But I felt I had to stay strong, for the both of us. It wouldn’t do any good if we both just crumbled down and stopped functioning out here, in the middle of the woods.

I was also angry, on top on all the sadness. Angry that the cops and park rangers decided that it would be too dangerous to continue the search. There had been a massive rain, about a week ago. There had been some flooding, and the rangers had said that conditions were bad. Therefore the search would be called off for now. I had shouted at them, pleaded with them, but to no avail. The ranger had said that he understood me, but he couldn’t risk the lives of the search party. It made me angry that they could just wave off the life of a 4 year old like that. Such an inconvenience to search for her. And eventually I broke down in tears.

Amanda looked at me, and started crying too. As the night covered everything around the cabin in darkness, we both decided to get some sleep. Amanda went to the bedroom, while I took the couch. I wanted to be with her of course, but she seemed to need her own space, and my presence made her uncomfortable, even angry.

As the next day dawned, I made us eggs and bacon for breakfast. We sat at the table, looking at each other, then looking out the window, both in silence, while prodding at our food.

We both knew how each other felt. We also knew we couldn’t just go out and search on our own. For starters, we didn’t really know the woods. We could easily get lost in there if we went in too far. We had tried earlier, before the incident, only to lose each other and the path – only to find each other by sheer luck and work our way back. That day Charlene had been with Amanda, and I had thought I had seen something interesting, so I went to investigate. It turned out to be nothing – but when I returned, it looked… different. And there was no trace of Amanda nor Charlene. I had started to panic and shouted their names. I was afraid that Amanda had just decided to finally leave me. Alone in the woods. And that thought terrified me. I started running, bolting through the woods, hoping to find the trail again. Then I heard Charlene’s giggling. It was my light through this darkness. My beacon of hope. And when I finally found them again, I felt so relieved and happy. They had barely noticed though.

Secondly, we weren’t equipped for a long stretch in the woods, and our clothing wasn’t really helpful against the elements. We probably wouldn’t survive for long if we got lost. No need for that, no matter the circumstances.

I tried several times to talk to her. Sometimes she acknowledged me, other times she just stared out the window, or stared right at me, or right past me. She never really answered. Then again, it was hard to make small talk when such a thing had happened. And I didn’t know what to talk to her about. The incident was weighing heavily upon both of us. And again, the day seemed to fade away like a dream you can’t really remember. I was a bit surprised when I realized it had turned dark outside. I stood up, and was going to prepare dinner. Then I thought I heard Charlene’s voice coming from the woods. “Mommy? Daddy? I’m scared,” followed by a… a short, muffled scream is the best I can describe it.

Now I was starting to hear things. I looked at Amanda, and saw that her eyes were wide open, as well as her mouth. Had she heard it too? We looked at each other in stunned silence. Then we heard it again. “Mommy? Daddy ? I’m scared,” followed by that muffled scream. But there was something wrong. I just couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something at the back of my mind warning me against this. Amanda shouted “Charlene!” and lept up.

She didn’t even put on shoes, she just ran outside. I tried to call out to her, to stop her, but she was gone in an instant. I grudgingly put on my shoes, and I ran after her, hoping she would come to her senses. “Amanda,” I yelled.

At first I couldn’t see her. But then I caught a glimpse of her running into the woods on the far side, darting past trees and stumps. I ran after her as fast as I could. She kept darting out of my sight, but I yelled at her. “Amanda, please stop.”

I ran past high trees, bushes, stumps. Amanda was faster than me, as I couldn’t run too well after my accident. I prayed to whatever deity was listening, praying for the well being of my beloved wife. I also prayed for my daughter’s safety, although inside I knew it was too much to hope for.

As I ran into a small clearing, I could see Amanda there, looking in each direction. “Honey, please,” I said. “We don’t know where she is. It won’t help her if we also get lost in here.”

She looked at me with such fury that I thought for a second she hated me. “Well, then go back to the cabin. Go back and just leave our daughter out here in the woods. You don’t care about her. You don’t even care about me.”

The force of those words, the angry tone, and the hatred in her eyes. The words, and our current situation were too much for me. I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. I dropped to my knees, covered my face in my hands, and cried a bit. “Don’t even suggest that honey. You two are my world,” I said.

As I removed my hands from my face I realized Amanda was gone. “Amanda,” I screamed, now getting a bit scared.

Where had she gone? “Amanda,” I screamed again, more urgently.

I heard some rustling of leaves to my right. I didn’t think, I just sprinted there, calling out to Amanda every few seconds. It was hard to navigate the woods in the dark. I called out to Amanda, then tried to listen to any sounds, from either Amanda or Charlene. After a few minutes, I heard something close to me. “Mommy? Daddy? I’m scared,” but it was not Charlene’s voice.

It sounded like several voices at once. A cold chill ran down my spine. What on earth could that be? Then, to my left I heard Amanda’s voice. “Oh honey, I’ve missed you so much. Come to mommy,” followed by a blood-curdling scream.

“Amanda,” I yelled as I ran towards the sound. Branches flew by as I hurried towards where I had heard Amanda scream. What’s going on in these woods, I thought as I ran. As I ran, I felt breathless, my energy drained. I stopped and leaned up against a tree, catching my breath. But then, an image flashed through my mind. A happy image, of me together with my two beloved girls, Amanda and Charlene, playing a board game that Charlene loved. We were all laughing and enjoying ourselves. I knew I had to continue running if I was to have any chance of it happening again.

As I ran, I continued shouting Amanda’s name, but there was no reply. In fact, there were no sounds in the woods. No birds chirping, no small animals scurrying around. I knew what that meant. Suddenly, I tripped over something. I fell down hard, knocking my forehead.

I saw stars as I lay on the ground, wondering what had happened. Then, as my vision started to clear, I realized I had tripped over a person. Or the remains of a person. It was a body, but it had been completely skinned. And right next to it, folded neatly, lay Amanda’s clothing. Although the clothes seemed to be ripped in some places. And there was blood. Oh god, there was so much blood.

I screamed as I realized what I was seeing. It was Amanda. Or what was left of her. Her skinned torso had been cut open, her ribs cracked and bursting outward, and someone – or something – had been eating some of her organs. Her liver, heart and lungs were gone. I only hoped she had been skinned after she had died. The pain would otherwise have been unbearable. I imagined that her mouth was open in a terrified scream, although it was impossible to tell.

As I lay there on my knees, the weight of the situation crushed me. I had suggested this camping trip, in order to save my failing marriage. In doing so, I had condemned my girls to a grizzly death. It was all my fault. As the realization sat in, I started crying. Hard. I hugged Amanda, crying, screaming her name. I felt so much pain and grief in that moment. Then I heard it. Rustling of leaves, from behind me. Whatever it was, it was big. I didn’t dare look back. And then I heard Amanda’s voice saying, “Oh honey, I’ve missed you so much. Come to mommy.”