The Red Forest (639 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.01 on 29 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Wigger Please (View user info) at 2009-09-23 01:24:05 EDT
This is a long story. If you lack the patience and willpower to read something for more than 5 minutes, then do yourself a favor and just skip this one entirely. Regarding its authenticity, you decide what you will. I'll leave that ambiguous.
When I was around 8 or 9 years old my parents thought a change of scenery might be nice, so they moved us from the city out to the country. I'm not going to give an exact location, I'll just say it was in the South. The town we moved to was small with a closely knit community. It was one of those places where everybody knew everyone and people would often be knocking on the front door to borrow a cup of sugar or ask you around for a cup of tea.
My sister soon found herself a small group of friends which she would reguarly congregate with. Myself on the other hand, being a little bit stranger and socially inept, found it hard to make friends. So on the weekends when school was finished, instead of spending my time at parties or sleep overs, I would reguarly go for walks into the bush. These walks would go from anywhere between 1 hour to even 4 or 5 hours. Keep in mind I was only 9 years old at the time, so I was in a particuarly vulnerable state. I always got warnings about wolves or wild boars, but during the entire time we stayed there I never saw a single wild animal.
As it turns out, there were much worse things out there.
One day whilst on my routine walk through the bush I ran into another boy. He was 13 at the time, if I recall correctly and I already knew him as Pete Walsh, the son of the Police Constable. As it turned out, Pete and I had a shared love for the serenity, seclusion and privacy that only the deep recesses of the forest could offer. Over the next few months we spent much time in the bush, finding new little spots and giving them nicknames. We drew our own maps so we'd never get lost and even made our own markers which we planted at certain landmarks.
There was one day, however, when we ventured much deeper into the forest than we normally did. The first and most apparent difference with this new spot was that the trees had bark which was a dark red. Also, there seemed to be very little light coming in from the outside. It almost seemed like this part of the forest was trying to seal itself off from the rest. It was late in the day, so we left one of our markers, a Wrestlemania flag, and headed back to town.
When we got back to Pete's house we started eating takeaway with his father, the Constable. Pete's mother had died during childbirth, some sort of complication arose, was never overcome. Pete's father asked us out of innocence and interest about where we'd been that day. When Pete described the Red Forest to him, his father seemed to become deadly serious. His normally calm and cheerful demeanor dropped and he immediately chastised us for going there. He made us swear then and there that we would never return. For what reason, he refused to tell us.
I couldn't get the red forest out of my head. I don't think I slept a wink that entire night after the discussion. I couldn't fathom the idea that there would be a part of the forest out there that we knew nothing about, that someone would want us to stay away from, for a reason I knew nothing of. What could be there that was so horrible?
Well, every school has its fair share of nosey, rumor spreading kids, that's for sure. Ours was a stocky, spoilt little brat named Oscar. While it was well known that Oscar was worse than Pinnochio on certain things, people also knew that at times he could be a valuable source of information. The only problem being that separating truth from bullshit was up to the listener's own common sense. So we told Oscar about it and he laid it all on the line. It all started in the 1980's, he says. There was a Midwife at the town hospital who would sedate children and sneak them out of the hospital, where she took them into the forest and did God only knows what with them. She got away with it for years before they finally realized what she was doing when a Meels on Wheels lady found a bunch of children's socks in the Midwife's desk. They looked into it and tried to find her for questioning, but she apparently escaped into the forest, taking another child with her. The manhunt lasted for days, until they finally found her deep in the forest, on her last leg.
They officers at the scene said that before she finally died, she uttered some sort of chant, an incantation, before collapsing and passing away. The bodies of the children were never found. Since that day, that part of the forest grew into something much different and became what we now know as Red Forest. People have said that they have seen the apparation of the Midwife. All old, bent and haggard, but growing no older. Some claim she returned from the dead, others claim the apparition is actually her final victim, the small child she abducted from the hospital during her escape, who has grown old and disorientated, lost in the forest.
Well we made the conclusion that we had to go in and find out what was going on. And it would be tonight or not at all. I have to admit I didn't like the idea of going into the forest at night. I didn't like leaving my house at night, let alone going into the bush where we would most likely get lost, or worse. But Pete was convinced we had to go tonight. We dragged Oscar along with us. Pete told his Dad he was sleeping at mine, I told my parents I was sleeping at Pete's and Oscar just told his parents whatever bullshit he needed to.
The forest is much different at night. The sounds, the smells, the way it looks and feels. You hear everything at double volume at night. It's like your ears are working overtime. You hear sounds you've never heard before and your mind starts playing horrible tricks on you. Many times I considered just running back home as fast as I could. But as we progressed deeper in, I knew that would be impossible. We were lost. Then we heard a weird flapping noise, like rustling paper. We headed in the direction it came from. What we saw made the hairs on our neck stand tall. All of our markers, the flags, everything we'd spent the last 3 months placing around the forest, were all hanging from this one, dead tree, flapping loudly in the wind. "Someone's playing tricks on us" says Pete. I wasn't convinced. There's no way someone could have found EVERY single marker we put out there. Some of them were in well hidden places. Things didn't feel right. Oscar at this point begins crying. Yeah, we were lost alright. Or maybe not. I looked around, shone my torch upwards and then realized at once: We were already in the Red Forest.
We all went dead silent, if you'll excuse the pun. The only sound to be heard was the creaks and moans of the trees as they shaked violently in the wind and Oscar's muffled sobbing. I spun my torch around frantically, almost in complete paranoia as fear began to set in. "Come on, we've got work to do" said Pete. I pulled out my junior compass. We knew that North would take us back to town, or at least, back to the highway. So we thought heading further South would continue taking us into Red Forest. We walked for only moments when something darted across the beam of light emanating from my torch. The unmistakable figure of a small child. Every attempt to focus light on the child and it would simply move to another spot. We ran towards it ignorantly, but the closer we got, the further away it seemed. Until it vanished entirely. I thought perhaps it had been trying to flee from us. I would later realize it was leading us. Ahead of us, there was a small wooden cabin. Dull light escaped from various cracks and holes in its walls. Someone was inside. And that's when I heard the footsteps coming up behind us.
The distinct sound of dead leaves crunching under the weight of something heading our way. Oscar was the first person to see it. Before I had time to even turn my head Oscar let out a horrible scream and fled off, disappearing into the forest. "Run to the shack!" yells Pete and we run without looking back. Inside the shack, we both hide in separate corners. I clutch my scouts knife close to my chest as my eyes are pinned on the door, waiting for any sign of movement. An eternity seems to pass before I finally muster up the courage to speak. "Pete!". He turns to face me. "I think it's gone". Though I had no idea what we were running from, nor did Pete, we were both terrified. I thought we could just wait in the shack until the sun would come out, but we were so deep in the forest that we'd never even know if the sun was out or not. I rememeber at this point, I felt something on my leg. I looked down and saw my leg covered with droplets of blood. But the blood was not mine. Again, another drop hit my leg. I looked upwards, and saw the blood dripping from a small crack in the ceiling. There was some sort of compartment in the roof.
"Pete! Look!" He crawled over to me and noticed the blood immediately. "Give me a boost". I knelt down on all fours as Pete hopped onto my back. He slowly opened the compartment, but all he saw was darkness. "Give me your torch". He stuck the butt end of the torch in his mouth and switched it on. I could see nothing but the residual light bouncing off the walls. There was a loud creak as Pete lifted the compartment open. And then Pete began to scream.
Pete lost his balance and fell from my back, landing with a thud on the wooden floor of the shack. His leg sprained from the fall, now meant his speed was severely limited. The torch took a similarly hard fall and cracked, now rendered useless. And then the footsteps started. Someone was in the room with us. My eyes, unable to adjust to the darkness quickly enough left me almost hysterical with fear. The footsteps circled around us and then I felt it. An indescrible presence of evil which overtook my senses. I began to cry, I felt like I was going to die. My chest felt tight, like a pair of hands clutched at them roughly. Hope began to falter, but then I felt a small hand grab my shirt and pull me towards the door. Then a second and third hand. I was being led out of the shack. Before the final shove sent me from the room, I took one look over my shoulder and saw the most horrible eyes I have ever seen, surrounded by the horrible visage of an old crone. She smiled at me, revealing a horrible set of teeth, gums rotted, stained and brown. Before the scream even left my lips, the vision had vanished into the darkness from where it came. Then I heard a voice, a whisper, the murmur of a child in my ear. "Run!". So we did.
We were running too fast to even comprehend what had just happened. I looked down at my compass. We were heading roughly Northwest. So we would reach the highway at the very least. It didn't take long for a patrol car to spot us. Apparently Oscar had told the police we were "murdered" and they were about to start a search for us. Before I knew it I was back at home explaining everything to my parents. As I emptied my pockets in front of them, a small child's sock fell out. Not my sock obviously and something I knew had not been in my pockets prior to the journey. I once again felt that horrible feeling of dread and fear, but though I knew it meant a miriad of things to me, it was meaningless to them. We tried to explain the entire story, the midwife, the murders, everything. But no one believed us. Except Pete's father. He took me aside and sat me down. "I believe you". "But why?" I asked. "Because, that sock belonged to my sister". His eyes filled with tears and he broke down as emotions of years since past finally returned. I felt some sort of security knowing that someone older, an adult, actually believed us.
Later the police would send a small search team to try and find the shack we came across. But they never found it and would deduce that we made the whole thing up. Everyone else in town either laughed at us or thought we were being immature, especially considering Oscar was with us. But we knew the truth. We knew that whatever happened in that forest all those years ago was still permeating through the spirits and haunts that still lingered there. Pete never told me what it was that he saw in that compartment and for a long time after the event he would randomly take time off school to see a psychologist. They just said he was doing it for attention. After all, who would believe a 13 year old kid in a small country town? Regardless, I never dared bring it up in conversation, because quite frankly it also scared the shit out of me just thinking about it. Time passed and I grew up and got married and had kids. Pete moved to another state and got married a couple of times. We still keep in contact and every so often we get together for a burger. I still think about Red Forest every now and then, it's not the sort of thing I'll forget. But whenever we have friends around for dinner or parties and they start talking about spirits and ghost stories and it comes to my turn, I usually just end up taking a rain check.
User Reviews
Submitted by spuj (user info) at 2009-09-28 05:26:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Thought this brilliant, i actually liked the fact that it had a bit of length to it!
the ending was a bit weak, but apart from that it was a very good read.
well done sir.
Submitted by cheerios (user info) at 2009-09-26 14:12:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by iseeyousucka (user info) at 2009-09-25 15:55:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
This was taken from the 4chan paranormal board.
it was there about 2 days before this was posted
that is all
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2009-09-24 06:49:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Either this is terribly brilliant, or brilliantly terrible.
I can't decide.
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2009-09-23 22:14:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
If someone showed me a little sock, I would never know it had been my brothers.
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2009-09-23 17:05:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I am bored this was something to read.
Edit
Submitted by linguafranca (user info) at 2009-09-23 16:40:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I was distracted by trying to figure out what country this tale is set in. USAians don't use torches or head into the bush.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-09-23 15:45:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
hmmm, I was just reading about the REAL Red Forest just yesterday...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_forest
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2009-09-23 14:37:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
OH HEY KAOS KING 2.0!
ARE YOU PUBLISHED TOO!?!
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-09-23 11:43:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"Run to the shack!"
The victims in horror movies always make stupid mistakes like that.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2009-09-23 11:29:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm not sure how I feel about this
and it's not necessary to add punctuation after a quotation already ending in punctuation, a la ["Stop!".] Just ["Stop!"] will do.
Submitted by Poots (user info) at 2009-09-23 09:49:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read it all mother fucker!
I liked most of it. The finding of the sock that belonged to the dead sister of the best friends dad was ehhhh, you know, nothing short of laughable. Actually I found the whole wrapping up of the story to be pretty funny and I started reading it in the voice of Eric Cartman.
Also the timing, chronologically speaking, of the story disturbed me. Maybe I'm an asshole but I think that you would be pretty young to be having kids and getting married and all.
Submitted by icarus1987 (user info) at 2009-09-23 09:32:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
While I liked it, it did have a certain "Blair Witch meets the Goonies" smell to it. That said, you tied up your loose ends and did a good job with critical detail. Could use a bit of revision, but then most things could.
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2009-09-23 08:52:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Entertaining, but there was no need to go quite so blair witch with it. Too many similarities.
Good ghost story though, all for some fiction on here. Ta.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2009-09-23 08:27:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read it all.
The first half is believable. The sencond half turns into one of those shitty Nickelodeon-ish wannabe Scooby-Doo afterschool specials that my kids put on the television, watch for 5 minutes, lose interest and decide to go play outside.
Submitted by Cakes (user info) at 2009-09-23 08:07:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
If they were Asians it'd have been more plausible since everybody knows that Asians are ghost-magnets.
Miss Cakes
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-09-23 06:34:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
What those who encouraged you to edit and research said.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-09-23 05:05:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
We-write this with my suggestions, kill off Pete, put your sister in lingery and add a joke about Oscar turning up with a 5.56mm NATO general electric 6 barrelled mini-gun and you'll be on to a winner.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-09-23 04:56:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
His leg sprained from the fall, now meant his speed was severely limited.
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He is not a car, he is a child. Read the reports on those 11 year olds who got beaten in that quarry by their insane, foster child, classmates and you'll be able to write this better.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-09-23 04:51:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
And then Pete began to scream.
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Pete is a fassy.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-09-23 04:35:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I couldn't get the red forest out of my head. I don't think I slept a wink that entire night after the discussion.
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It is at this point that the story just becomes a slog through a marsh. I don't want to read anymore. I want to go home. Can we stop? I want an ice-cream. I'm bored. What's on TV?
I think that maybe in your effort to create suspense you have abandoned dramatic tension. This could be achieved by adding more rape.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-09-23 04:29:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
My sister soon found herself a small group of friends which she would reguarly congregate with. Myself on the other hand, being a little bit stranger and socially inept, found it hard to make friends.
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This description immediatly made me think of a group of local boys running a train on your sister and then bullying you about it. I sincerely hope this was your intention otherwise you need to beef up your writing skills.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-09-23 04:25:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm not going to give an exact location...
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Why not? Are you worried we're all (all 5 of us) going to descend on the place and wreck it along with your fragile memories?
We're a global community of bored people and not, despite some anecdotal similarities, the Hell's Angels.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2009-09-23 04:21:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
thanks for the fair warning, kaos. saved me five precious minutes.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2009-09-23 02:30:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
read it
kinda
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-09-23 02:29:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I'd have enjoyed this a lot more if there wasn't all that blurb at first and trying to pass it off as perhaps true spoilt it for me a little.
I also found it long for the wrong reasons, if this were edited better it could have been a lot punchier.
Still, everyone loves a ghost story and I am no exception.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2009-09-23 02:16:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
you could lose the first 3 paragraphs, and a little more here and there, and not diminish the story
concise and compact is a good thing here
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2009-09-23 01:59:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
what a pissy way to open a post.
guaranteed to get a shit response, kaos king esque.
i'll read it now.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2009-09-23 01:41:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Didn't read it, your name made me smile and I rounded up.