Where The Forest Laughs

This is a supernatural American folk Horror about blood thirsty little creatures that bite.

Two New York detectives follow the blood stained evidence of a murder case deep into American mythology, legend, folklore, and blood thirsty little creatures--THAT BITE!!!

Ethan ran. Ran as fast as he could. Ran as fast as his legs would carry him. Ran as if his life depended on it. Because his life depended on it.

Ethan ran until the wood and everything in it: the tree branches, limbs, and vines that he ducked under, the fallen tree trunks and above ground tree roots that he crawled over and across, and the dense shrubbery and vegetation that he pushed his way through; became little more then blurred images to his eyes. But it wasn’t a failure of his eyes to see that caused the blurring. No, it was the level of how lost Ethan was in his head that was the cause of it.

How lost he was with his thoughts. With the voices in his thoughts. Voices that called out to him from within the very confines of his mind. Drowning out Hannah’s voice in the distance behind him as she called out to him desperately. Pleading with him as she tried to catch up to him in the wood to keep to the path that they had taken to find their way to the clearing.

Warning him that it was the only way to make sure that they could now find their way back out. Out of the wood. Out of the wood and back to the safety of the school yard. The very same school yard that the voices within the confines of his mind screamed full throatedly at Ethan that they all should have stayed in to begin with.

The school yard that they should never have left. Should never have left because they were safe there. Safe from the wood and all things in it. Things of the darkest hue and child like stature that now threatened their very lives with their coming.

Things who’s coming had already cost them Caleb, Luke, and now Mason with their arrival. With the intent of their coming and it’s malice. Things who’s coming now threatened himself and Hannah and caused them to run. To run for their lives. Because the things to the darkest hue and child like stature kept coming.

And that’s when Ethan heard it…the rustling.

At first Ethan thought it was Hannah. The rustling. Just Hannah fighting her way through the foliage, just like he had, on her way to him. Except for the fact that he could see Hannah now.

He could just make her out through the numerous small visible spaces between the stems, limbs, branches, and leaves cluttered all too closely together to form the dense vegetation of the wood. Steadily making her way through the difficult path of forested overgrowth with a determination that matched the struggle. But Hannah was behind him. Directly behind him.

And the rustling?

Like the heralding of the foot soldiers of an invading army on the march, the rustling began right in front of Ethan as he turned toward Hannah, fast approaching him, and watched in horror.

The winter chill like shivering of the leaves and branches of the mountain range of tall trees that made up the wood began from just behind Hannah as she rushed toward him through the tangles of the wood. Fanning out quickly from that center point into two great sweeping arches like the circumference of an enormous circle in the making as Ethan watched wide eyed.

The echoes of chattering laughter rose by degrees, drowning out all other sounds in the wood. Reaching steadily toward ear splitting as the army, the multitude of dark little things in rapid motion hidden behind the shadowy veil of the woods dense foliage, began to encircle Ethan.

Began to surround him as he watched awestruck with fear, as this trap in the making sought to ensnare him with it’s increased breadth around him, and in the doing prevent his escape. And that Ethan just could not let happen.

Ignoring Hannah’s calls to “Wait! Wait for me, Ethan! Wait for me!”; Ethan turned on his heels and, with one last fear tinged glance at the rustling quickly surrounding him on all sides, again prepared to run.

And that’s when he heard it…The scurrying sound.

Ethan was familiar with the sound. The scurrying sound. Anyone born and raised in the wilds of West Virginia, familiar with the great outdoors and the wood therein, would have been as well.

It was the sound of claws. Claws cutting deeply into the bark of a tree to a high pitched “CLICK! CLACK! CLICK! CLACK!” and the familiar “WOOSHING!” sound of frenzied motion that accompanied it. Like a squirrel running up and down the total length of a tree as it foraged for nuts. Only this sound was bigger. Much bigger.

And instead of growing fainter like the sound of an aforementioned squirrel scurrying up the side of a tree and away from him, Ethan noticed that this sound was growing louder and louder the longer that he listened to it. As if whatever was responsible for the sound in the making was descending the tree toward him.

Looking up above himself, Ethan’s mouth fell wide open as if to scream, but made no sound in the doing. That’s how quickly it was upon him. The dark little thing. Descending the branches of the towering trees that surrounded Ethan with an agility that was otherworldly and setting upon Ethan in the doing.

The vice like grip of it’s tiny hands clutching him and holding him tightly, it’s claw like fingernails biting into his flesh like the fangs of a hungry animal, it’s sinewy muscled arms coiling slinkily around him like pythons ensnaring him with their constricting; as it pulled Ethan up and off of his feet, off of the ground that he stood on, and back up into the treetop canopy with a strength beyond it’s measure.

And all before the scream of terror well deserved could escape Ethan’s lips..