Friday, November 24, 2017

The Fifth Trip

45.

"I really wish you wouldn't do this." Sheriff Marta, or as the young deputy called her when he said he'd get her Sheriff M, was a woman older than Gilbert. She had the look of someones grandmother, she looked out of place in a police uniform with a gun, though Gilbert told Clarissa looks can be deceiving and Marta was about as hard heeled as she looked kind.

"Marta I got a duty to do."

"The fuck you do, you know what's in those woods, you been up there enough Gilbert, each time you go I see a little more of you left behind, don't you remember what happened last time?"

"I know what happened last time Marta, I got Clarissa here with me, I'll be fine." Marta spit.

"That's another god damn thing, why are you bringing someone else up in those damned things, so determined to kill yourself want to bring a witness?"

"Grown woman makes her own decisions."

"Fine, you big idiot, then go I already told Hansen his sister was dead, only gave him your name hoping you'd talk him out of searching not go up there yourself." Gilbert went to leave the Sheriff's office, he nodded as he left.

"It was nice seeing you again Marta, be a shame when you retire."

"You won't be around to see it exterminator, go before I arrest you." Gilbert and Clarissa made their way out of the sheriff's station and into the van. Gilbert got out his pipe and had a smoke before starting the van back up, it was the first time Clarissa had seen him smoke prior to a job.

"You can always leave, you don't have to go up there with me." Gilbert had stopped the van at gas station, behind it looming like a bad dream was the woods.

"I'm afraid Gilbert not going to lie, but before I make a choice I want you to tell me what happened on those fourth and fifth trips." Gilbert looked away from her for a moment, she couldn't tell if it was to think or plan a lie.

"Fourth time was nothing, I went up there feeling sick to begin with, the family had told me they'd been missing for two weeks and didn't even know if the guy was in the woods, so I went up looked around found shit went home told them I searched all day when I did nothing of the sort, I didn't feel too bad about that one," Gilbert let a huge puff of smoke out the window, "That fifth trip, that's when shit really went south fast..."

****

I was looking for a young boy, its what got me out there again. Someone who had been on a fishing trip with his dad and gotten lost or so they thought. I don't know what idiot thought to fish up near the woods, but these are the kind of things you see in hindsight you didn't see the first time. It had been less than a day since the kid had gone missing. Marta hoped if I got out there early enough I might find a trace, I'd found the Smith boy within a couple days, she figured even sooner might make it possible.

Something felt off from the start, the woods smelled and I'd never smelled shit before. It's why I knew something was really wrong. I didn't hear music, but I don't think anyone had ever come across what I did in the woods and lived to tell anyone about it. I had cleared what I called the "sound line" the line in the forest where sounds of the forest had dropped off and the quiet of those deep woods existed. The smell started bad and got worse as I went, and then the smoke was there. Like being in a fog, I should have left then, figured some how a fire had started and prayed it took that evil place with it. But I knew it wasn't real, that no real fire could exist in that place without being allowed, so I pushed on.

I came across a clearing, that being rare enough in these woods, with eight people being burned on stakes. I didn't recognize all eight, but I knew at least three of them including the former Sheriff Powell who'd been missing going on twenty years. They were all screaming and begging for help. I didn't hestitate I ran, I didn't hear the music but I felt it was coming along with the carnival barker and his evil call. I knew they were dead, couldn't even be alive, but I was also worried I was wrong and I left those men to die when I ran away.

The problem for me was the smoke, it distorted and threw me off. I thought I was running out of the forest, but I ran deeper in. Just got lost entirely. I knew I was fucked when I saw how dark it had gotten. I had never been in that forest after dark and I hadn't even thought to bring a flash light. I thought it was bad before, I was wrong, the carnival barker was the forest playing nice. At night it really came alive. I could hear the heart beat of the place, an actual beating heart drumming along in my ears. Every branch or cloister of trees felt like arms and hands reaching out to me. I kept walking though, I felt a desire to keep moving, if I stopped I sensed something would get me. I'd hear the music and know it would be it for me. So I kept moving through tree branches, sticker bushes, and everything else. The forest felt like a creature tearing at my clothes as I blindly smashed through in the dark.

I knew the place was evil, I just didn't know how it could trap you. I figured if I kept walking I'd make it out, make it to something like the mountains or a clearing or something. But no, it was just more forest. I never changed my direction, never went in circles, but I wasn't getting out. I started to worry if that's what happened to all the people I'd not been able to find, if I'd run across one of them, hair all wild, naked, barely any flesh on their bones wondering if I was an illusion or not. I had never felt that alone in the world, not since my wife had died. Just stomping through the forest, not eating, not drinking, not even having to take a piss. Always feeling like something was right behind me, but too afraid at that point to turn around.

It came as a bit of a shock to my system when I almost barreled into Marta. She was crouched talking to a horrifying creature. It was all flesh and bone like the carnival barker. I could see an ugly bone claw reaching up near Marta's neck as she cooed at it that everything would be ok. She didn't even see me, she was so focused on the creature and trying to sooth it. She went to pick it up and I screamed.

"MARTA NO!!!" And crashed into her, the creature's bone claw sliced down her neck, you didn't see it when she was in her office because she uses make up and wears turtle neck shirts, but she's got a scar running from just under her earlobe to her breast bone from what that thing did to her. I picked her up and started running now. I couldn't see the creature, but I got the sense I'd interrupted it and much like when Tyler Smith had saved me it wouldn't pursue us. I was of course still as hell, and figured I'd keep running through the woods until my legs gave out and Marta died from her wound, but that didn't happen. Somehow I got out, got Marta to the hospital and saved her life as she had saved mine.

Took me a month to fully recover. Apparently I'd been eating leaves and pine cones and shit while I was lost. I don't recall doing it, but I sure as hell started crapping things out of myself I never want to see again. Along with the tree stuff was a black sludge, don't know what that that was, don't want to know. After the month I was mostly fine, still had the occasional dream when I'd wake up scared I was back in the woods, but those have faded in time.

****

"So that's the fifth trip, and now we're back." Gilbert had gassed the van up and bought some snacks from the clerk who seemed skittish for no good reason to Clarissa.

"Why would you ever want to go back here Gilbert?"

"Because I'm hearing music Clarissa, been hearing it for a couple months now, faint at first, but I'd wake up in the middle of the night hearing that carnival music, I'd look out in the direction of the woods from my porch and I'd see him standing there, the carnival man, and he's not alone, standing next to him are the ones I didn't get back. As the month's have gone on more and more people are being added to those next to him. I don't know if those are the ones who have been lost, or the ones to be lost. I have to go back, one way or another, go to stop the music."

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