From the Dark of the Forest

Part 4

Candice screamed at the sight of the grotesque ape face. It grinned menacingly, fangs protruding, a slimy pig nose and glowing green eyes. Its skin was fleshy and scarred. Worst of all, it was laughing.

A hyena laugh pierced Candice’s ears. The creature was heaving with giggles, the breath escaped from its mouth harshly. Candice backed away, but at the first step back the creature bounded on her and brought her to the forest floor.

Candice, before it leapt, saw a glimpse of the thing’s whole body. It was definitely ape-like, long arms scraping the ground, but scaly and fleshy. The creature pinned the teenage girl to the ground and started to rip away her cloak. Her knife was thrown away, stabbing a tree, and the flashlight was tossed into the dark. She was now not only sore and scared, but blind. The journey in the forest had become what it was like before: a hellhole of death, nothing visible from the startling black that enveloped it.

Candice’s nightmares had come back to her. She was in the dark of the forest, alone, death at her doorstep, a disgusting being tearing at her clothes and ripping away skin. Its long claws sliced through her arms and chest. She could feel the blood gush out of her. She cried and screamed. Gosh, this is worse than the snakes, worse than the spiders…

Her arm gripped the soil, digging in to hold onto something to help cope with the pain. While her fingers twitched through the dirt, a hard object touched her finger. Instinctively, she felt for it. It was very hard. Not rock, but better - metal. She grabbed at it, and succeeded at getting the object into her palm. Her fingers slid over the contours. It felt long, heavy, but there was a thin part… a little hook… It fit into her hand so well, and her index finger hooked into the nook easily… Like a gun.

The revolver!, she thought. Not all hope was lost. Completely unable to see, and being ripped to shreds - the fiend starting to eat some of her broken flesh - she positioned the gun to where the creature was supposed to be. Slowly, she pulled the trigger.

Candice heard the gunshot, and a curdling alien scream, and the weight on her body lifted. The monster was a couple of feet away, screaming and tossing in pain. Before it could attack again, she aimed two more shots in front of her. One shot hit an object in the distance - a tree, perhaps - but the other hit on target. A final cry escaped the thing, followed by a soft thud.

Candice started to crawl away, the gun still in hand. She was in agony, but from the fear of even worse pain, she tried to gather her energy into parting from the scene. She pulled herself through the dirt, rocks stinging her chest, and after a few yards slowly got up. Like a zombie, she stomped away, one foot slowly after another, praying that she could make her way out of the forest, or at least be able to find her flashlight.

She regained strength as she moved along. Soon enough, she was walking faster, though continued to clutch her body in anguish. In the distance, she thought she saw a light - dim, but a faint glow did exist. The excitement gave her a little more energy and she walked with increased speed, grunting along the way.

But her hope died. She heard the growl. Again… And this time, she knew where the sound came from. It was behind her, and close by. Very close by.

She whimpered. A pounding, stomping nearing her shook the ground and shuddered her soul. She put all her pain aside and made her way to the light, as fast as possible. The roaring, grumbling sound of the violent snarl vibrated against the creature’s throat and lungs, making Candice panic. This creature was worse than that monkey-thing, she knew it. And - oh my gosh! - the creature started to sprint.

Candice sped forward, and realizing she had a gun, charged it and pulled the trigger. It did not hit the creature, but it did anger the beast. She tried again, and again, but the darkness ruined her aim. She continued to run, bumping into trees, pushing everything else in front of her away. Why was the light so far away?

Then she heard something even more horrible. She not only heard a growl, but a doubled growl.

There was more than one.

“Oh God!” she whimpered. “OH GOD!” She panicked even more, heaving and crying. She aimed more shots into the darkness, but none of them hit a creature. She darted away, as fast as her damaged legs could take her, but she still couldn’t seem to get away. And then -

Grrr…

“Oh my gosh, there’s three of them!” she cried. She shot more into the distance, but it only made the roars louder. She could hear them ganging up on her. Soon enough, the gun could not shoot anymore. There were no more bullets. She threw it away, and fought the sharp pain in her throat and stomach and ran faster, anything to escape.

The pattering, stomping paws, if that’s what they were, became louder and quicker. She pushed through the bodies of wood in front of her. She looked in front of her, the dim light escaping through the gaps in the trees. It was her only hope.

“Almost there.”

A final sprint got her through the clutter, breaking away into an oasis in the midst of a nightmare. She found herself in a small open space, an area surrounded by a crowd of closely-grown threatening trees. The place was bathed in moonlight, giving her sight after the blind marathon she had escaped from. There were still shadows waiting at the edges of the encircling trees, the only reminder of the outside world’s darkness.

Candice was relieved to find this spacious patch of lighting, but the relaxing haven was only an ersatz escape. The place did not keep her safe from the monsters approaching. From the trees came three gigantic beasts. They were fiercer and uglier than any wolf, larger than any bear. They did look somewhat like a mutation between the two creatures, a wolf and a bear. They stood up on their hind legs, strong and humanoid, with muscular hairy arms ending in piercing claws. Matted, bloody fur covered their entire bodies. Their faces had a deformed canine structure, but their jaws were jagged and filled with knife-long fangs. Their lips oozed green slime, and their eyes - oh their eyes! - glowed bright red.

The thought of werewolves passed Candice’s mind, but the poorly-done special effects version of the Halloween mutant from horror movies was a parody of what she saw before her. The three beasts stomped towards her, making the haven shake. The three were spread out, in pouncing position, cornering Candice. Her limbs began to feel weak, she was shaking and sweating more than she ever had. Her legs finally gave way, and she fell down. She backed away into a tree, but when she glanced behind her, she noticed that the trees were moving. They were all cluttering together to block the spaces that enabled escape. Candice tried to squeeze in between before the spaces closed up, but her efforts failed.

“I knew you’d come back sooner or later.”

Candice jumped at the sound of human speech. She got up, turned around and glanced about. That was definitely a female voice, a silky and self-assured voice. It did not come from any of the monsters, who were positioned a little further away from each other so that Candice got a good view of what was across the treeless space. She ignored the stare of the monsters, who though were not moving yet, did remain threatening.

A figure was standing in the shadows, a light illuminating its face. My flashlight, she thought. She squinted to get a closer look of the being. It was so angelic, especially with its face aglow. Wavy blond hair cascaded down her face, pale and thin with large blue eyes. It was Emily.

“Welcome back, Candice,” said Emily with a smirk. Candice studied the grown-up Emily, in particular the smirk. It looked too mischievous to be appreciated.

“What the hell do you want, Emily?” answered Candice in a harsh voice.

“Eight years since we last saw each other and you answer me like that? Tsk tsk, I’d have thought you had some manners.”

“Manners?” shouted Candice. “You want to know friggin manners? How about getting me out of this predicament, have you thought about that?”

“Getting you out of a predicament? Like the one you got me out of when you heard me screaming in the forest that night long ago?”

Touché.

“I was eight years old, what was I supposed to do? I was scared, I was weak - ”

“And you think I’m any better than how you were eight years ago?”

“I - I don’t know… Why aren’t those things after you?”

Candice heard Emily chuckle playfully. The laughter annoyed Candice, even angered her. What is this girl doing? This can’t be Emily. Emily wasn’t a dirty little witch like this girl is.

“They say the police found my mutilated remains, so unrecognizable that the only way they could tell it was me was a few strands of hair and my bucket of candy… If that’s true, then I must say the police isn’t very good in this town.”

“So they weren’t your remains?” mumbled Candice.

“Goodness no. That was another creature that was chewed up and spit out. My hair and bucket just happened to be there.”

“So… you’re alive… You’re not a ghost, are you?”

Emily burst into a satanic laugh, which made her cringe.

“No no Candice, I’m not a ghost… Would you like to see what I am now?”

“W-w-w-what are you now?”

“I’ll show you.”

“Just tell me, what are you?”

“I’ll show you.” Emily continued to chuckle.

“I hate you,” breathed Candice from the bottom of her soul.

“Oh, you hate me? Well what a coincidence! I hate you too! I hate you for abandoning me in this forest, making me go in alone. You know I was actually scared to walk into this place first, but I did it because you were such a cry baby and wouldn’t come in yourself. And when I saw those beasts for the first time, I screamed so loud, thinking that you’d come to help me escape. I was running away from them at first, not… bitten by them yet. You could have helped me, you know. You could have rescued me, but no, you wanted to save your own ugly skin and you left me for nothing. And that is why I hate you, Candice.”

“So…” Candice gulped down hard, feeling ashamed of the memory from that frightful Halloween night, yet clinging onto her excuses and pride nonetheless. “What are you going to do to me now?”

“Exactly what happened to me, except worse.”

“What… what happened to you?”

“Bitten, transformed, into one of them.”

“But you look… you don’t look like those…” Candice eyed the panting, waiting werewolf creatures staring at her.

“Really? Let me show you.”

Emily dropped the flashlight, and sauntered into the moonlit space. In the crepuscular light, her beautiful body transformed into a grotesque monster that resembled the three others stationed in front of her. The new creature, its claws gripped tightly into fists, stared Candice down and made its way into the centre of the line. Candice backed away, slamming herself into the wall of trees, covering her face and whimpering. The monsters were heading for her.

“Bye bye, Candice,” roared the creature in an inhuman, barking voice.