The Algonquin Pod

"Are we literally going to die out here?" Brianna asked.

She stared out the passenger window of the rusted pickup truck. The glass was coated in a thick layer of yellow pollen. It made the dense wall of pine trees outside look sickly and neon. The air conditioner in the dashboard was broken, blasting a constant stream of hot, metallic-tasting air directly into her face. Her sports bra was soaked in sweat.

"It's fine," Chad said. He didn't look up from his phone. His thumb was a blur of motion, refreshing a crypto chart that kept flashing red. "It's just an hour off the highway. The listing said extreme privacy. That's what we paid for."

"We didn't pay for it," Brianna corrected him. "We traded a sponsored post and three TikToks for it."

"Same difference. Engagement is currency."

Evan, the local guide driving the truck, let out a harsh, scraping noise. It took Brianna a second to realize it was a laugh. Evan's hands were gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles looked like marbles under his sun-baked skin. He hadn't spoken more than three words since they met him at the gas station. He smelled like wet dirt and stale coffee.

"Almost there," Evan said. His voice was gravelly. Unused.

The truck bounced violently over a massive rut in the dirt road. Brianna's phone flew out of her hand and hit the floorboards. She gasped, diving down to grab it, checking the screen for cracks. It was fine. She rubbed her thumb over the glass, feeling a spike of genuine anxiety before her heart rate settled.

"Watch the suspension, man," Chad snapped. "I have ten grand worth of camera gear in the back."

Evan didn't reply. He just turned the wheel sharply, taking them off the dirt road and onto a path that was barely two tire tracks through thick, knee-high ferns. The branches of the trees dragged against the sides of the truck with a sound like nails on a chalkboard. Brianna shuddered. The woods were too close. There was no sky visible through the canopy. Just an endless ceiling of dark green needles.

"Here," Evan said, slamming on the brakes.

The truck skidded to a halt. The dust from the road caught up to them, swirling through the open windows and coating Brianna's lips with grit. She coughed, waving her hand in front of her face.

Through the windshield, sitting in a small clearing, was the pod. It was a perfect, matte-black cube with massive smart-glass windows. It looked like a spaceship that had crash-landed in a swamp. There was a sleek solar array on the roof and a wooden deck that wrapped around the front.

"Okay, wait, the aesthetic is actually insane," Brianna said, already reaching for her phone to start a video. "This is going to do numbers. The contrast is perfect."

"Told you," Chad said, finally looking up. He shoved his phone into his pocket and popped the truck door open. The heat hit them like a physical wall. It was ninety-five degrees and the humidity felt like breathing underwater.

Evan got out slowly. He didn't offer to help them with their heavy Pelican cases. He just stood by the front bumper, watching them drag their luggage out of the truck bed. His eyes were pale blue and completely flat.

"You got the transfer?" Chad asked, slamming the tailgate shut.

"Wallet confirmed it," Evan said. He pulled a thick, brass key out of his pocket and tossed it onto the dirt. Chad glared at him, then bent down to pick it up.

"You don't hand things to people?" Chad asked.

Evan ignored the question. He stared at Brianna's white sneakers. "Don't walk on the wet leaves. Stay on the deck."

"Why?" Brianna asked. "Ticks?"

"Something like that," Evan said. "The soil out here is hungry. It takes what it can get. Don't touch the ground if you don't have to."

"Spooky," Chad laughed, dragging a case toward the deck. "Good local flavor. We'll put that in the vlog. 'The Hungry Soil.' I like it."

Evan didn't laugh. He got back into the truck. He didn't put his seatbelt on. He just slammed the door and put it in reverse.

"Wait, how do we get the smart home system online?" Chad yelled over the engine noise.

"Read the manual," Evan yelled back. "And keep the windows locked."

He backed the truck up faster than seemed safe, tearing through the ferns and disappearing down the narrow track. The sound of the engine faded quickly, swallowed entirely by the dense wall of trees.

Silence crashed down on them. It wasn't actually silent. The woods were deafening. There was a constant, high-pitched hum of insects, and a weird, deep clicking sound coming from the trees that Brianna couldn't identify.

"He was a creep," Brianna said, grabbing her duffel bag.

"He's just poor," Chad said dismissively. "People out here hate us because we have options. Come on, let's get the AC on. I'm dying."

They walked up the steps onto the wooden deck. The wood felt soft under Brianna's shoes, spongy and slightly damp despite the blistering heat. Chad jammed the heavy brass key into the lock on the pod's front door. He twisted it, and the heavy black door swung open with a pneumatic hiss.

Inside, it was a minimalist dream. Polished concrete floors, floating wooden shelves, a massive king-sized bed covered in white linen, and an entire wall made of glass looking out into the forest. There was an iPad mounted on the wall next to the door.

"Sick," Chad said. He immediately went to the iPad and tapped the screen. It woke up, displaying a sleek interface. Climate Control. Lighting. Window Opacity. Toilet Composting Status.

"Turn the temperature down," Brianna said, dropping her bag. "I feel like I'm baking."

Chad tapped the screen. "Setting it to sixty-eight. Give it a minute."

Brianna walked over to the glass wall. The trees outside were pressed right up against the window. The bark on the trunks was black and wet. She pressed her hand against the glass. It was warm.

"I have no service," Chad said from the middle of the room. His voice was tight.

"Obviously," Brianna said. "We're in the middle of nowhere. That's the whole hook of the video. Digital detox."

"No, you don't understand," Chad said, turning around. His face was pale. "My coin was dropping. I need to set a stop-loss order. I can't be totally dark. I brought the Starlink for a reason."

"Chad, you promised. Forty-eight hours. No screens."

"I lied," he said flatly. He grabbed one of the hard cases and flipped the latches. He pulled out a white, rectangular satellite dish. "I'm going on the roof. I need a clear view of the sky."

"You are so addicted it's actually pathetic," Brianna said, rolling her eyes. She pulled her ring light out of her bag.

"I'm protecting our future," Chad snapped. He walked out the front door, slamming it behind him.

Brianna sighed. She set up her tripod in the center of the room. She angled the camera so the glass wall was behind her. She checked her reflection in the screen. Her makeup was sweating off. She wiped her forehead and hit record.

"Hey guys," she said, pasting on a bright, effortless smile. "Welcome to the middle of nowhere. Chad and I are completely off the grid for the next two days. No phones. No internet. Just nature."

She stopped recording. She needed B-roll. She walked over to the bathroom door and pushed it open. The bathroom was tiny. The toilet was a massive, stainless-steel cylinder with a black rubber seat. A digital display on the wall read: BIO-COMPOST ACTIVE. INTERNAL TEMP 110F.

"Gross," she muttered.

She walked back out into the main room. The air wasn't getting cooler. She looked at the iPad on the wall. The temperature reading was going up. Seventy-five. Seventy-eight. Eighty.

"Chad!" she yelled.

No answer.

She walked over to the iPad and tapped the screen again. The interface stuttered. The screen flickered, then the lights in the pod shut off completely. The sudden darkness was absolute, save for the murky green light filtering in through the glass wall.

Then, a thick, hot drop of liquid fell from the ceiling and landed directly on her shoulder.

She yelped, slapping her hand over the spot. It was incredibly sticky. She pulled her fingers away and looked at them in the dim light. It was amber. It smelled like rancid pine needles and copper. Sap.

"Chad!" she screamed, panic finally breaking through her annoyance. "Get in here! The house is broken!"

The Smart Glass

Brianna wiped her hand on her shorts, but the sap wouldn't come off. It clung to her skin like warm glue. She rubbed harder, her nails digging into her thigh until it burned. Above her, the ceiling groaned. It wasn't a mechanical sound. It sounded like a wooden ship settling in deep water.

She ran to the front door and shoved it open. The heat outside was actually a relief compared to the stifling, malfunctioning box. Chad was standing on the edge of the flat roof, holding the white Starlink dish above his head like an idiot offering a sacrifice to the sky.

"I can't get a signal!" he yelled down at her. His face was red and covered in sweat. "The canopy is too thick. I need to cut some branches down!"

"The pod is broken!" Brianna yelled back. "The AC is blowing hot air and the ceiling is leaking sap! Get down here!"

"I don't care about the AC!" Chad screamed. His voice cracked. It was the sound of a guy who was losing money by the second. "My portfolio is bleeding out! I am losing thousands of dollars right now!"

"Who cares about the stupid coin?" Brianna shouted. She stomped her foot on the deck. "We are in the middle of nowhere and the smart home is dead. The iPad just shut off."

As if on cue, a loud, mechanical snap echoed from inside the pod. Brianna spun around. Through the open door, she watched the heavy, automated blackout blinds drop from the ceiling. They didn't roll down smoothly. They slammed down like a guillotine. Bam. Bam. Bam. Every window in the pod was suddenly sealed off by thick, black fabric.

"What did you do?" Chad asked, leaning over the edge of the roof.

"I didn't do anything!"

She walked back inside. The pod was a pitch-black tomb now. The only light came from the open front door. She pulled her phone out and turned on the flashlight. The beam swept across the concrete floor. There were thick puddles of amber sap gathering near the baseboards. The walls were weeping.

"This is a scam," Brianna said to herself. Her heart was beating too fast. "That guy scammed us."

She walked over to the iPad. The screen was completely black. She tapped it. Nothing. She hit the power button. Nothing. The digital display on the compost toilet in the bathroom was also dead. The entire pod had lost power.

"Chad, the power is totally out!" she yelled toward the door.

He didn't answer. She could hear him stomping around on the roof, muttering furiously to himself.

Brianna felt a sudden, sharp pain on the back of her left arm. She slapped at it instinctively. Her hand hit something large and hard. It crunched under her palm. She gasped and pulled her hand away.

In the beam of her phone flashlight, she saw the crushed remains of an insect on the floor. It was huge, easily the size of her thumb. It didn't look like a mosquito or a hornet. It looked like a deformed beetle, with too many legs and a long, needle-like mouthpart that was currently bent at a weird angle.

"Disgusting," she gagged, wiping her hand on her shorts again.

She lifted her phone to check her arm. There was a puncture wound just below her elbow. It wasn't bleeding. That was the first thing that struck her as wrong. A hole that size should be bleeding. Instead, the edges of the wound were a pale, sickly white.

She brought the phone closer. Her breath caught in her throat.

Deep inside the puncture, something was moving.

She squinted, forcing her eyes to focus. It wasn't a parasite. It wasn't a maggot. It was a tiny, thread-like green root. It twisted blindly in the air for a second before curling back down and burying itself deeper into her flesh.

Her stomach completely turned over. A wave of intense nausea hit her so hard she had to lean against the wall. The wall was hot and sticky.

"Chad!" she screamed. It wasn't an annoyed yell this time. It was raw terror. "Chad, something bit me! Chad!"

She rubbed her thumb over the wound, trying to squeeze the root out. Intense, blinding pain shot up her arm, all the way to her shoulder. It felt like someone had jammed a hot wire under her skin.

"Stop screaming!" Chad yelled, finally dropping down from the roof onto the deck. He was holding the satellite dish by the cord. He looked deranged. "I can't concentrate with you shrieking!"

"Look at my arm!" she cried, holding it out to him in the flashlight beam.

Chad stepped inside, swatting at the hot air. He barely glanced at her arm. "It's a bug bite, Brianna. You're outside. Bugs exist."

"There is a plant growing in my arm!" she shrieked, grabbing his shirt with her good hand. "Look at it!"

He pulled away from her aggressively. "Stop being so dramatic. The battery bank for this place must have tripped. I need to find the breaker box. If I can get the power back on, I can boot the router."

"I am not being dramatic!" Brianna looked down at her arm again. The hole was wider now. Two more tiny green filaments had breached the surface of her skin. They were wrapping around each other, forming a braid. The skin around the bite was turning a bruised, mottled purple.

"I am leaving," she said. Her voice went dead calm. "I am walking back to the highway."

"It's thirty miles," Chad snorted, dropping the dish on the bed. "You'll die out there. Just sit down and let me fix the power."

"I don't care," she said, grabbing her duffel bag. She didn't bother packing the ring light. She just slung the bag over her shoulder. "You can stay here and die for your crypto. I'm leaving."

"You're not taking the truck keys," Chad warned, stepping between her and the door.

"We don't have truck keys, you idiot," she spat. "Evan dropped us off. I'm walking."

She shoved past him. He didn't try to stop her. He was already turning his phone flashlight toward the electrical panel in the kitchen area.

Brianna stepped out onto the deck. The sun had completely set. The forest was an impenetrable wall of black. The clicking noise she had heard earlier was louder now. It sounded like thousands of wooden blocks being knocked together.

She turned on her phone's video camera and flipped on the flash. She held it out in front of her like a weapon.

"Okay guys," she whispered into the microphone, her voice shaking. "Things have gone really wrong. Chad refuses to leave. I got bitten by something and I think I need a hospital. I'm walking out."

She stepped off the deck. Her foot hit the dirt.

The moment her sneaker touched the ground, the clicking noise stopped. Total, dead silence fell over the woods.

Behind her, inside the pod, the mechanical hum of the bio-compost toilet suddenly roared to life.

Zero Percent

The roar of the toilet was a deep, guttural grinding. It sounded like a massive garbage disposal trying to chew through rocks. Brianna froze, her foot still planted in the dirt. She looked back at the pod. The front door was wide open. Chad’s flashlight beam was darting erratically across the ceiling.

"What is that noise?" Chad yelled from inside.

"I don't know!" Brianna shouted back. Her arm was throbbing. The pain was pulsing in time with her heartbeat. She looked down at the bite. The roots were longer now, maybe an inch long, curling over the edge of the hole and pressing flat against her skin. They were digging in.

"Chad, get out here!" she screamed. "Leave the gear!"

"I'm not leaving the gear!" Chad’s voice was frantic. He appeared in the doorway, his silhouette backlit by his phone light. "Do you know how much this camera costs? I'm not abandoning it because of a bad breaker!"

"You are literally going to let me turn into a fucking shrub because your shitcoin is tanking!" Brianna screamed, tears finally spilling over her eyelashes. They mixed with the sweat on her face, stinging her eyes.

"You are insane!" Chad yelled. He turned away from the door, heading back toward the bathroom. "I'm going to turn that stupid toilet off, it's draining the reserve battery!"

Brianna watched him disappear into the dark interior. She took another step away from the deck. The ground felt wrong. It wasn't packed dirt. It was soft, yielding, like stepping on a massive, rotting sponge. The beam of her phone light caught the edge of the tree line.

The trees weren't straight.

Earlier, they had been normal pine trees. Now, the trunks seemed to be bending inward, leaning toward the clearing. The branches were interlaced, forming a solid, jagged wall. The geometry of the forest was fundamentally broken.

"Chad!" she yelled one last time.

Inside the pod, the grinding noise of the toilet spiked in volume. It was deafening. Then, a massive crash echoed through the clearing.

Brianna whipped her phone camera back toward the pod.

The entire front wall of smart-glass imploded.

It didn't shatter outward. It sucked inward, exploding into millions of tiny, glittering cubes that rained down on the concrete floor. The blackout blinds ripped away.

Through the gaping hole where the window used to be, Brianna saw them.

Vines.

They weren't thin or green. They were thick, black, and covered in heavy, gray thorns. They poured through the shattered window like a flood of water, moving with terrifying speed. They swept across the floor, knocking the heavy Pelican cases aside effortlessly.

"Brianna!" Chad screamed.

It wasn't an angry scream. It was the sound of an animal caught in a trap.

Brianna stood paralyzed in the dirt, her phone recording everything. The beam of her light caught Chad stumbling out of the bathroom. He was covered in the amber sap. It was plastered to his clothes, his face, his hands.

The vines hit him.

They didn't just wrap around him. They snapped around his ankles like whips. The thorns dug into his skin, tearing through his expensive hiking pants. He hit the floor hard, his phone flying out of his hand and skittering across the concrete.

"Help me!" he shrieked, clawing frantically at the floorboards. His nails scraped against the concrete, leaving bloody trails.

The vines dragged him backward.

He kicked and thrashed, but the plants were incredibly strong. They pulled him toward the open bathroom door. The grinding noise of the compost toilet grew louder, hungrier.

"No! No! No!" Chad wailed.

A thick vine wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his sides. Another looped around his throat, cutting off his scream. His eyes bulged, locking onto Brianna standing out in the dark. He reached one bloody hand out toward her.

The vines jerked violently, pulling him completely into the bathroom.

The door slammed shut.

The grinding noise reached a fever pitch. There was a wet, heavy crunch. Then, the toilet shut off.

Absolute silence returned to the pod. The vines that had flooded the room slowly began to retract, slithering back out through the shattered window and disappearing into the dirt below the deck.

Brianna stopped breathing. Her chest felt like it was going to cave in. She lowered her phone. The screen displayed a low battery warning. Ten percent.

She looked at her arm. The roots had grown another inch. They were weaving themselves into a tight net over her skin. The pain was gone, replaced by a terrifying, numb coldness that was spreading up toward her shoulder.

She turned around and ran.

She didn't care about the path. She just ran into the dark. The ferns whipped against her legs, cutting her shins. The ground beneath her felt alive, shifting and squishing with every step. She kept her phone light pointed straight ahead, but it barely pierced the darkness. The trees were too close together.

She tripped over a massive, exposed root and slammed face-first into the dirt.

She spat mud out of her mouth and scrambled backward. The root she had tripped over was moving. It was slowly sliding across the forest floor, burrowing back into the soil.

"Help!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Somebody help me!"

Her voice was swallowed instantly by the dense air. She pushed herself up and kept running. Her lungs burned. Her left arm was completely dead weight now. It swung uselessly at her side.

Up ahead, she saw a light.

It wasn't a phone light. It was a warm, yellow glow.

She pushed through a thick cluster of thorns, tearing her shirt and scratching her face, and burst into a small clearing.

Sitting in the middle of the clearing was a tiny, dilapidated wooden cabin. Smoke was curling lazily out of a rusted tin chimney. There was a single bulb burning on the front porch.

Parked next to the cabin was the rusted Ford pickup truck.

Evan's truck.

Brianna sobbed with relief. She ran toward the porch, her feet slapping heavily on the wooden steps. She pounded her good fist against the solid wooden door.

"Evan!" she screamed. "Open the door! Please! Chad is dead! The house killed him!"

She banged until her knuckles bled.

"Evan! I have money! I have crypto! I'll give you everything! My wallet keys, my seed phrase, everything! Just let me in!"

She leaned against the door, hyperventilating. Her phone screen lit up. Three percent battery.

She heard the sound of heavy boots walking across the floorboards inside. The deadbolt clicked. The door creaked open, just a few inches.

Evan stood in the gap. He was holding a mug of coffee. He looked completely unbothered. He looked down at Brianna, then his eyes drifted to her left arm. He stared at the roots weaving across her skin.

"I told you not to walk on the leaves," he said. His voice was flat. Empty.

The Local

"Help me," Brianna begged. She tried to push the door open, but Evan pressed his boot against the bottom of it. He didn't budge. "Please. We have to call the police. The pod. Vines came out of the floor. They pulled Chad into the toilet."

Evan took a sip of his coffee. "The compost chute. Yeah. It needs a lot of organic matter to keep the soil temperature right."

Brianna stared at him. Her brain couldn't process the words. "What?"

"The soil out here is old," Evan said, leaning against the doorframe. "It's older than the trees. Older than the highway. And it's hungry. If it doesn't get fed, it starts spreading. It starts taking the local wildlife. Then it starts taking the town."

He looked past her, into the dark woods.

"Used to be, we had to draw straws," Evan continued, his tone conversational. "Every summer, someone in town had to walk into the woods and not come back. It was bad for morale. Bad for the community."

"You're crazy," Brianna whispered. Her legs were shaking. She looked around the porch. There were no weapons. Just a rocking chair and a pile of chopped firewood.

"Then the internet happened," Evan said, smiling for the first time. It was a horrible, thin smile. "People started wanting to get away. They wanted 'off-grid experiences.' They wanted to pay us thousands of dollars to sit in a glass box in the middle of the most dangerous acreage in the province. So, we built the pod. Hooked up a smart-home system to make you feel safe. Put a direct chute into the root system."

"You killed him," she choked out.

"He killed himself the second he booked the trip," Evan said. "I just dropped him off. And took his Ethereum."

Brianna looked down at her arm. The roots had reached her elbow. They were burrowing deep into her muscle now. She couldn't feel her fingers.

"You have to save me," she sobbed, dropping to her knees on the porch. "I won't tell anyone. I swear to God. I'll just leave. I'll give you my phone."

"The forest doesn't want your phone," Evan said. "It wants carbon. It wants blood."

He looked down at her with something resembling pity.

"The bite will paralyze you soon. It's a localized neurotoxin. Just lay down in the dirt. It's faster if you don't fight it."

"No!" Brianna screamed. She lunged forward, trying to wedge herself into the crack of the door.

Evan calmly stepped back and slammed the heavy wooden door shut. The deadbolt clicked into place.

"Evan!" she shrieked, pounding on the wood with her one good hand. "Evan!"

She turned around. The woods at the edge of the clearing were moving.

The trees were leaning in. The ferns were parting. Thick, black vines slithered out of the underbrush, moving across the dirt like snakes. They were heading straight for the porch.

Brianna backed up against the door. She raised her phone. The battery indicator flashed red. One percent. She hit record.

"My name is Brianna Victor," she sobbed into the camera, her face a mask of absolute terror. "I am at the eco-pod in Northern Ontario. The guide's name is Evan. He did this. The woods are alive. They ate Chad. They're coming for me."

The first vine reached the wooden steps. It slid upward, the gray thorns scraping against the wood.

Brianna couldn't move her legs. The numbness from her arm had spread to her chest, traveling down her spine. Her knees buckled. She collapsed onto the porch.

"Please," she whispered to the camera. "If anyone finds this. Tell my mom I love her. Don't come here. Don't ever come here."

A vine whipped around her right ankle. The thorns sliced through her sock, hooking directly into her Achilles tendon. The pain was blinding, sharp enough to cut through the paralysis for one agonizing second.

She let out a piercing, ragged scream as the vine jerked backward, dragging her off the porch.

Her chin hit the dirt hard. Her phone tumbled out of her hand, landing perfectly upright against a rock. The camera was still recording.

Through the lens, the phone captured Brianna being dragged backward into the dark tree line. Her fingers clawed weakly at the dirt, leaving long trails in the soil. More vines emerged from the shadows, wrapping around her waist, her neck, pulling her deep into the crushing blackness of the forest. Her screams grew fainter, muffled by the dense foliage, until they were gone completely.

The phone sat alone in the dirt. The screen stayed bright for a few seconds. In the background, the porch light of Evan's cabin flickered.

Then, a massive, black root erupted from the ground directly beneath the phone. It curled upward, thick and pulsing with dark sap. The screen shattered as a thick black thorn drove straight through the camera lens.