Author's note: The following story is based off of a story that I heard about two years ago.
The interesting thing about the town that I live in is that in it there is a giant forest where part of the American Revolutionary War was fought. I always thought it was a magnificent and mysterious place. From my bedroom I could just stare at the forest for hours thinking of all the stories it could tell. Since my house was on a hill the forest was below us, so I would always travel down to the forest and just walk through it. It was beautiful seeing the light glisten from in between the tree's leaves. To me the forest was so great that I built a fort in it so I could spend more time in it.
The most fun part about the fort was that my friends would visit me there and we would pretend that we were soldiers preparing for battle. The friend that I would do this the most with was Edgar Larrsonn. One warm summer day right, that was a couple of days after school got out, Edgar and I were once again in the forest playing soldier. While we were pretending to reload our stick guns, Edgar asked me if we could go deeper in the forest and that if we went deeper we would have way more fun.
I was very eager to go farther into the forest, but I wasn't sure if my parents would like it. I explained this to Edgar, but he told me that my parents would never know. Thoughts were flying around my head, most of them said that Edgar was right, and even if I get lost I know this forest well enough to find my way back. With a frightful voice that evolved into a more confident voice I stated that we really should go deeper, and that it would probably be a grand adventure for the both of us to cherish. We went out of the front door of the fort and walked down the rickety steps. Every step that was drawing me away from the fort made me have the feeling of regret, but I stupidly ignored it and continued to walk forward.
As we melted into the vast forest, Edgar said that he was hungry. I told him to wait till we got back to the fort, but he refused. He threw his slender body to a bush with berries on it. He got about four of the berries and shoved them in his right pocket. Edgar said that he was going to save them for later in case he got even hungrier. At the time little did I know that the berries carried a deadly poison. Venturing deeper into the woods, the trees seemed to start to grow 20 feet, and the landscape became more flat and barren. At this point we were very weary and weak. Edgar fell onto the floor and said that he needed to eat. He grabbed all the berries and cupped them into his hands. Just as he was about to put them in his mouth I told him to look to his left. There were some primitive bullets on the ground and old muskets all covered in dust and spider webs. We were both overfilled with joy and ran to the weapons. We both sat down and looked at them with amazement. Both of us were thinking the same thing, "If we took these back we would gain so much money if we sold them!"
As soon as Edgar touched the musket he spotted a tattered revolutionary war uniform in the hole of one of the trees. He told me to look and that if we sold that we would make even more money. As Edgar pulled the uniform out of the tree a full skeleton fell off and fell on him. We both screamed so loud that all of the crows flew away from the treetops. There seemed to be thousands of them all screeching at the same time in unison. Edgar ran away and tripped on a root. Just as he was on the floor I picked him up and helped him run. Right after that scary moment we found ourselves in the presence of a faint whisper. It seemed to be saying, "I shall punish you for touching my item, they are only to be touched by dead hands."
We turned around oh so slowly and found a six-foot apparition standing in our line of vision. It was the vision of a British soldier who was deformed with the rotting head of a moose. It walked with a limp on its left leg, and the leg that he could walk with was tainted with blue mold and peeling flesh. He pointed his finger, which was bending the wrong way, at us and uttered, "Just because I'm dead, does not mean I can't kill you."
Edgar created the saddest cry ever and even made me weep. Tears ran down our faces as we were shot down by true horror. At this point I was so freaked out that I dropped Edgar and ran for dear life. Edgar ignored his physical pain and ran with a limp, but quite fast. He was able to drag his body two feet away from the beast before he fell in a bush full of berries. Being completely starved he grasped one of the berries with his frail body and ate it. While this was happening I was hiding behind a termite-infested tree. What I saw was most disturbing. Edgar picked himself up off the ground and then fell on the ground again. Then he started to throw up chunks of past food he ate. This continued for a while until he started to throw up blood and gasp for air, while squirming violently in the dust provided by the ground. The creature came to the scan and lifted Edgar up. The sight of him made me back up into the darkness casted by the tree. The moose man opened his mouth unnaturally wide and sucked his face into his.
His face was being inhaled with great force. As soon as I knew it, Edgar's body was completely consumed by the spirit. All that was left of him was blood that was now dripping from the mouth of the moose. The moose then started to inhale all of his puke to clean his resting place. As I was about to run away termites on the tree started to crawl on my body and attack me in frightening numbers. I transported my body at light speed away from the spirit while trying to slap the bugs off of me. Next thing I knew, my body was a ragdoll falling backwards down a trench, into a nearby ravine. My head hit the shallow part of the ravine, and I was knocked out cold.
I have been unconscious for some time, given the fact that when I woke up it was the afternoon of the following day. I was covered in the blood of my wounds that originated when I fell such a long way. While I was laying there I heard heavy boots clomping my way. I forced my wimpy body to shift the other way to see what was going on behind me. What I saw was a man with a red beard, a fishing jacket and brown waterproof boots coming my way. He looked upon me and noticed that I was awake. "'Ey are you okay matey?" he said in a deep raspy voice. He picked me up and took me to his wife and kids where they told me many magnificent stories by the fire. I was later returned to my family, and told my parents that Edgar simply died of falling down a pit. The boy became one of our family's closest friends as well.
I never told anyone my story, and I will never go back to the forest as long as I live.