Forest of the Damned

by Lee Mountford

  Ken looked right past the camera to James and sighed. ‘Not now,’ he said. ‘Get that out of my face. We’ll get some footage a little later.’

  James stopped recording and lowered the camera, but did not close the viewfinder. He shook his head and let his own annoyance show.

  ‘For God’s sake, Ken, this is why we’re here. I know you’re averse to this kind of thing, but guess what? That’s the name of the game. We investigate and film what we find. This is exactly what we need to be getting. It’s what we signed up for, so will you please get over yourself and talk to the camera?’

  Ken looked furious, but James didn’t care. What he’d said was nothing but the truth. If Ken was so against talking about these things, why was he even here?

  ‘We don’t have anything,’ Ken answered. ‘Like you said, it could have been the wind, for all we know. It’s nothing we can prove, just a noise I heard.’

  ‘You seemed pretty sure it was a voice.’

  ‘I thought it was.’

  ‘Then tell us about it.’ James threw his hands up in the air, and then looked to Tony for backup. To his surprise, he actually got it.

  ‘He’s right, Ken,’ Tony said. Ken looked as surprised as James felt. ‘You don’t have to say it is anything concrete, but just describe what you heard. That’s all. Put it out there for what it is. Nothing more.’

  Ken remained silent for a moment. ‘Did you hear anything?’ he asked Tony.

  Tony shook his head. ‘No, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. To be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention.’

  Ken stared down at his boots and chewed his lip. ‘Fine,’ he eventually said, then looked up. ‘Whenever you are ready.’

  ‘Great,’ James replied with a smile. He aimed the camera back at Ken and quickly ran through another introduction, before asking, ‘So, Ken, can you tell the viewers exactly what you heard?’

  Ken took a moment, looked into the camera, then began. ‘As we were walking, I heard a faint sound up ahead. Though I can’t be one-hundred-percent certain, it did seem to me like a pained moan. It definitely didn’t sound like the normal noises of the forest. And while it’s nothing concrete and could be explainable, it is something. Enough to keep us on our toes, at least, and a reminder to keep our ears and eyes open.’

  James nodded and spun the camera around to face himself. ‘Wow, what a start! Like Ken says, possibly explainable, but we’ll hope to get much more in the hours and days ahead. This is just the beginning. And not only that—’

  James suddenly stopped and whipped his head up, scarcely able to believe the sound he was now picking up.

  It appeared that Ken had been right.

  5

  After hearing those pained, distant cries, Roberta found herself rooted to the spot for a moment… but only for a moment. She soon realised that whatever was happening needed to be recorded, in film if possible.

  James had his camera pointing off into the distance, towards the direction of the unnerving sounds, but the audio quality on a simple handheld camera with no external microphone would be lousy at best.

  The haunting noises went on, seemingly drifting towards them on the light breeze, and Roberta slipped off her rucksack, dug inside, and retrieved a short, boom-style mic. She then quickly moved over to Tony, who was nearest, and grabbed his handheld camera before plugging the mic into it.

  ‘Hold this up with the camera,’ she said. ‘Record what you can.’ Mouth agape at what they were hearing, Tony gave a nod and did as instructed. Roberta then went back to her equipment and quickly found her handheld digital audio recorder.

  ‘This is unbelievable,’ James said, his voice little more than a whisper. Roberta quickly slung on her backpack and stepped beside him, then lifted up her recording device. ‘What do we do?’ James asked.

  ‘Find out where it’s coming from,’ Ken said.

  Roberta was already on the same page, as pursuit was the obvious choice. Which is why she hadn’t taken the time to set up any of the bigger, high-quality equipment that could pick up the sounds with more clarity; they needed to be quick and agile here.

  Though, in listening to the faint yet undeniable cries of pain, Roberta would be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t a little hesitant. The voice seemed to be coming from a single person—a male—and if it was actually someone in danger who needed help, there was a chance that danger could find them too.

  If it was something else entirely—the very thing they were here looking for—then that brought its own fears, too. Roberta had looked into many cases with Paranormal Encounters and was certainly a believer. Even though they had never found anything mind-blowing, she was always nervous during investigations and had no idea how she would react if she actually did see something. That was always the difficulty for her. She wanted desperately to find something, but in the moment things were happening, she was generally relieved when they came up empty-handed. It wasn’t until after, when the fear had subsided, that the inevitable disappointment reared its head.

  And now, listening to this… could it actually be something? Was Roberta about to see the thing that she both craved and feared?

  ‘Follow me,’ Ken whispered, then began walking forward, taking slow and steady steps. The rest of them followed, losing the shape of the single-file line they had been keeping as they bunched together, allowing the cameras and digital audio recorder to pick up what whatever they could, unobstructed.

  Leaves, foliage, and twigs crunched underfoot. The forest was not a dense one, and the trunks of the trees were relatively thin, but it stretched out seemingly forever in each direction. They had been walking through the forest for a few hours already, and Roberta was aware that, with each step, the group was becoming more and more isolated.

  Just what were they walking into?

  They kept on going. Five minutes, ten, then twenty— always following the sound. One that didn’t seem to be getting any louder. Roberta suddenly spun after hearing something directly behind her. A whisper, saying her own name, and it was so close she could have sworn she’d felt a cold breath displace her hair. But there was nothing.

  She sighed and shook her head, thankful she had refrained from shouting out in fright, which could have embarrassed her in front of the others.

  Don’t let yourself get creeped out.

  Roberta knew that she was just letting her mind run away with itself and that she had to focus, and not let herself get spooked. This was just another investigation, nothing more. It was then she felt something cold and wet drop on her head. She quickly looked up, and saw on a tree above a string of thick liquid falling from a branch. The gasp that came out of her was ill-timed, and Roberta felt the thick substance splashing against her tongue. She quickly side-stepped, gagging and coughing, as more dripped to the forest floor, but inadvertently swallowed some of the foul-tasting fluid in the process.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she heard James ask.

  Robert continued to cough and spit as she pointed up above. Everyone gathered round and Roberta, when she had managed to get her gagging under control, saw that the branches of the tree that the liquid was falling from looked black-almost like they had been burned. ‘I swallowed some,’ she said, feeling disgusted. The taste in her mouth was awful and—whether it was her mind playing tricks, she wasn’t sure—Roberta could almost feel a glob of the stuff fall into her stomach.

  Tony bent down and examined the liquid, grabbing at some of it between his fingers. As he spread the digits apart, the substance held together and stretched out in strings.

  ‘Possibly sap,’ he said.

  ‘What sort of sap is black?’ James asked, but Tony just shrugged, not knowing the answer.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Ken asked Roberta.

  ‘I think so,’ she replied. ‘But I definitely swallowed some. Will it make me sick?’

  ‘How much went down?’

  ‘Only a little.’

  Ken paused to think for a moment. ‘Drink p
lenty of water,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it can do you much harm, but let us know if you start to feel ill.’

  Roberta nodded and took long pulls from her water flask, spitting some of it back out in an attempt to rid her mouth of that horrible, sour taste. Eventually, she gave them a thumbs up and they started walking again.

  ‘Are we even going the right way?’ James asked not long after they set off.

  ‘I thought so,’ Ken answered. ‘But we don’t seem to be getting any closer.’

  ‘We should be, though,’ Tony added. ‘We are definitely heading towards the noise, I’m certain of that. But the cries still sound faint, as if they are still a ways away.’

  James nodded his agreement. ‘And that’s not normal, right?’

  ‘No,’ Ken said. ‘I don’t believe it is.’

  They walked for just shy of another ten minutes before Ken held up his hand and drew them to a stop.

  ‘Notice anything?’ Ken asked. Roberta did and was about to raise the point right before Ken stopped them.

  ‘It’s gone,’ Tony said. ‘The sound is gone.’

  Roberta wasn’t sure when exactly that had happened.

  For the last few minutes, the subtle cries of pain had seemed to get quieter and quieter, but now they had phased out altogether, becoming lost in the natural sounds of the forest.

  They continued to listen for a little while before Roberta switched off her recorder. Tony followed suit, flipping shut the viewfinder on his camera and unplugging the mic. James, however, turned his camera around, to once again face himself.

  ‘Well, I guess we can all confirm what Ken heard earlier. The sound of someone, seemingly in pain, was clear to all of us. We followed it as best we could, but never seemed to get any closer. As you may have heard, the noise has apparently stopped, but it was certainly unsettling to hear. Hopefully our equipment picked it all up. Right now, we’re all wondering the same thing: was this our first supernatural encounter here in the Black Forest?’

  He raised his eyebrows as he finished, letting the question hang before switching his camera off. A big grin spread across his face. ‘That was fucking awesome.’

  Roberta wasn’t sure she agreed with him, and she could still feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. Whoever was the source of those cries was undoubtedly in pain—whether alive or dead, they were suffering, and she couldn’t help feel the group should take it as a warning.

  ‘It was certainly interesting,’ Tony admitted.

  Roberta shivered. ‘And really fucking creepy.’

  ‘Yeah, I agree,’ Tony replied, surprising her. ‘Definitely freaked me out a little. But it had to be something paranormal. Right, Ken?’

  Ken was still surveying the area around them, scratching at his greying, scruffy beard with a large hand. ‘Well, we can’t say for certain,’ he answered. ‘But we definitely can’t rule it out.’ Roberta actually saw a hint of a smile creep over his face, which was a rarity. ‘It might just be, though. We can review the audio when we stop for lunch.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Roberta said, feeling her stomach growl. The internal organ seemed to have a mind of its own and reacted almost immediately at the mention of lunch. ‘When will that be? I feel like I could eat a whole cow.’

  ‘Well, be careful to stick to your ration portions,’ Ken said. ‘Otherwise, you’ll be eating leaves the second half of the week. But I guess we could stop now.’ He looked around and pointed a little way ahead. ‘There seems to be a small clearing over there. Looks as good a place as any.’

  They walked the few hundred yards to the spot Ken had found and began taking off their packs. The feeling of the weight falling from Roberta’s back was heavenly, as if her shoulders were rising up of their own accord. James let out an audible groan of pleasure.

  ‘I’m going to be sore as hell, lugging that thing around all week,’ he said as he rubbed the side of his neck before letting himself drop to the ground next to his discarded pack. He stretched out and groaned again.

  Roberta giggled. ‘Don’t over-exaggerate. They aren’t that heavy.’

  James rolled over and propped himself up onto one elbow. He gave a smile. ‘Mine is, but I’m probably carrying more than you, given my hulking, manly body.’ He flexed a rather thin arm, theatrically. ‘So I think you should come ease my aching muscles.’

  ‘I don’t think any of us want to see that,’ Tony cut in, chuckling.

  James shrugged. ‘Suppose you’re right.’

  Ken squatted down and began to dig through his own pack. ‘For now, I recommend we just eat something quick. We can set up the stove tonight and have something a little more hearty when we stop to camp.’

  As much as Roberta felt like she could eat their whole supply of rations at that moment, they all agreed, and instead Roberta indulged in a tin of tuna she ate with her fingers, a chocolate bar, and a packet of mixed nuts—all washed down with a little water from her flask. It was a meagre feed and did little to quell the insatiable hunger that seemed to gnaw at her, but it at least replenished a little more strength.

  They all finished at roughly the same time and remained seated in the circle they had formed. Ken and Tony sat on fallen logs, Roberta nestled at the base of a tree, and James rested on the ground beside her.

  ‘So,’ Ken said. ‘What say we check out a little of what we recorded earlier?’

  ‘I’m all eyes and ears,’ James said, sitting a bit more upright.

  Ken looked to Roberta. ‘Would you do the honours, please?’

  Roberta nodded. ‘Sure thing. I’ll check the digital recorder, see if we got any of the sounds on there.’

  She unfurled her earbuds from her pocket and plugged them into the device. Starting from the beginning of the recorded audio, she listened intently. James plugged his own earphones into his camera and also checked the footage.

  Roberta heard the distorted, pounding noise of the wind—which had in fact been very light—hit against the device’s microphone, making it sound much worse than it had actually been. This was one of the inevitable pitfalls of recording sound outdoors, but Roberta knew she could clear most of that up in post-production with her editing equipment.

  She listened for something more, however, hoping to pick something up in amongst the distortion.

  Then she heard it. Her eyes went wide. Roberta looked over to see that James had a similar expression on his face. He ripped the earphones out of his ears.

  ‘We’ve got it!’ he shouted. ‘You can hear that creepy fucking wailing on here. It’s unmistakable. I can’t believe it. We actually have some evidence, and we’re only a few hours in.’

  Ken held up a hand. ‘Now, now,’ he said. ‘We don’t know exactly what it is yet.’ Despite his words of caution, Roberta could see that their leader was not able to conceal his own smile.

  6

  Even though it stung his cheek, the fire felt good against Tony’s skin. Given they were only just approaching autumn, the weather so far had not been nearly as bad as they'd feared. But even so, now that night was setting in, there was a noticeable chill to the air.

  The remainder of the day, after the initial excitement, had been uneventful. There was plenty of walking, taking in the sights that the Black Forest had to offer, and Tony had on more than one occasion felt a sense of peace and contentment he’d not known before, simply by getting closer to nature. It wasn’t a lifestyle he could keep up permanently, of course, as he was far too used to his creature comforts, but as a novelty it certainly gave him a new appreciation for the world around him.

  At around six in the evening, Ken had made the call to stop and set up camp for the evening. They had found a relatively large clearing with plenty of room for their tents, and the canopy from the trees above gave them plenty of shelter, which would help if rain set in.

  They had assembled the tents quite efficiently given they were all—except Ken—relative amateurs to camping, with James having the most trouble with his two-pe
rson tent. He stoutly refused any help, even from Roberta, who would be sharing it with him. Once that task was completed and their sleeping bags and equipment were all stored inside, they set to work building a fire by gathering up as many dry branches, twigs, and leaves as they could, then dumping them into the centre of a circle of stones that they had formed. Thankfully, the group didn’t need to resort to rubbing dry sticks together to spark a flame, as both Tony and Ken had brought cheap, disposable lighters, so it didn’t take long for the fire to take hold and leap up to an impressive height.

  As they all warmed themselves by it, sitting in a circle, Ken busied himself setting up the camping stove. The meal that night would consist of only rice and beans, but at least it would be warm, and there would be more than a few mouthfuls. To Tony, that sounded like a feast. Dusk had taken hold, and the natural daylight was failing.

  ‘So, Ken,’ James began, ‘do you have a good feeling about what we’ve experienced already?’

  The stove was erected, and Ken was pouring beans into the metal cooking pot. ‘We’ll see,’ he replied. ‘I won’t deny the events from earlier excited me… somewhat. Certainly not the start I was expecting. But let's see what the rest of the week brings.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ James replied. ‘Doesn’t hurt to remain cautious, I suppose. But I think we will see even more tonight. This place is unreal. I think it’s a hive of activity.’

  ‘Hive of activity?’ Roberta asked with a raised eyebrow and mocking smile. ‘That a technical term?’

  ‘As technical as any we use, I suppose. But you know what I mean. To have something like that happen straight off the bat—I just know it’s the tip of the iceberg for us.’

  Tony tried to take Ken’s approach and keep his expectations in check, but James’ enthusiasm was infectious, and Tony couldn’t help but hope for the same. What they’d recorded earlier was undoubtedly some of the most compelling evidence they had ever produced.