Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27898345-20160301213332

Just a coincidence, right?



I used to live in the mountains, a large log cabin with 24 acres of thick snowy forest to play in. The thick bushes covered most of the ground, and what they didn’t was carpeted with decaying leaves. Large tree canopy’s overhead kept most of the snow off the ground, with only a few places where it got through. It was the ideal play space for a curious growing 9 year old girl. I remember hours of running, climbing, and exploring spent there. But... There was one place I always avoided. Even as a 9 year old, I had enough common sense to know that... Something.. Was just kind of.. off about that place. A large cliff surrounded the area, making it look like an entrance to an arena of some kind. The trees at the top of the cliff covered it completely, making it dark and eerie. There were never any animals near there.. no birds, rabbits, deer.. I always avoided that place, except.. For one time. I was sixteen; my days of exploring the forest had been gone for many years. We would be moving the next day, and the boxes were packed and ready to go. I had a friend over, and we were playing with his dog outside, when it suddenly took off running into the woods. It was getting dark, so we had quickly gotten up and chased it, thinking we could find it and be back before it got to dark. My parents had been gone at the time, and my older brother was inside playing god knows what videogame. We knew wouldn’t have cared if we had left and didn’t get back for a week, so we hadn’t bothered telling him. We lost track of his dog after a while, and stopped to rest. It was getting dark, and we were both anxious to get home. I remember, I found tracks after searching for a while and we hurriedly followed them hoping to quickly find his dog and get home. Neither of us noticed that the normal sounds of the forest animals had abruptly stopped, and it had grown eerily silent. We were standing in front of the cliff face, and the tracks led inside. Both of us were uneasy about going into the area that had scared me for so long, but we stepped in, and stopped dead in our tracks. It was dark; no light was coming in from the slowly darkening sky above. Looking forward I saw small bushes lining a menacing looking path going towards a large tree in the middle of the clearing. The rock surfaces around the clearing were covered in what seemed to be large claw marks, and a small pool of water stood at the far end. It was silent, not even the wind could be heard. We saw no sign of his dog anywhere, except for the tracks still leading to the large tree in the middle. A low whine suddenly came from the tree, and I remember calmly walking towards it expecting to find his dog waiting happily for us. It got louder as we walked closer turning from a whine to a low menacing growl.. We hesitated on the opposite side of the tree from the now growling dog. When suddenly from behind us, at the entrance of the clearing, his dog happily barked at us. We turned and walked out to it, excited to see it safe and sound. Before we left to head back, I looked back and saw a small white hand and a large bloodshot eye staring at us from behind the tree.. We moved away after that, to the city for my dad’s work. Later in the news the police filed a report of over four dead bodies found in the stump of a tree in a clearing in our old property. The stump of the tree had a ladder and had led to an underground cave where it looked like someone, or something had been living for quite some time. The police found tracks leading toward our house, but they had ended near our driveway. Come to think of it, I did see some peculiar looking tracks on the floor of our moving truck when we were unloading.. I guess it’s just a coincidence, right?  