Cindy and the Forest of Horrors

The sheer fucking breakdown of the Alabama tourist culture the second that uncaringly cold plum-colored fog hits my nostrils, all the sawdust and pine-scented air fresheners washed away for this discordant but natural atmosphere. This is how they said it’d be, the gray-leaved trees twisted with their colorless oak bending around each other in impromptu marriages. My confidence fades, then comes back again. I knew I wanted this.

I lost signal on my phone an hour ago. Did Penny mean what she said? Danger is one thing, but if I can’t get back, what will become of me? She couldn’t have known it would be like this, could she? There’s something scary about how quickly my feet lead me into the spiral mist of the hazy landscape. The arousing tickle of my impending end is a push far, far harder than what sent me here in the first place. Every footstep is another hit of this new addiction I’ve discovered- something like Russian Roulette.

I look back, not really wanting to leave, just hoping to save a taste of that delicious regret for later if this ends up being how the overbearing atmosphere is promising it will- but wherever I entered, it’s not behind me anymore. As far as I look, the trees are in all directions. Are they watching? Wherever I stand feels like a spotlight just for me.

I walk for dozens of minutes before I sit and rest. There’s nothing on the ground. Like it’s been diligently sweeped, the flat brown of the forest floor lacks a single twig or pinecone. The only hint of other life is the owl off cooing in the distance. It must be night by now. The overcast sky betrays the thought that any time has passed at all.

The owl becomes my metronome as I ride my body forwards. One cry, two. eleven cries, twelve. I try to follow the noise, but I’m always going in the wrong direction. If the owl is here, what does it eat? Not even a hint of mice. Not one bug. No droppings either. I haven’t made a sound. You’d expect to see a deer by this point.

There’s a pinch of red in the branch-striped distance. Trail markings maybe? As I approach the streak, it’s just a banner. No others in sight. The limb of the small tree it’s tied to is limp and light. It wilts downward, its triangle end pointing to a spot on the ground.

I dig the chilled Reese's-peanut-butter mud with my hands. I pull out something big and solid.

The box is engraved with fifty symbols. The lines are their own symbol, stretching all across all subtly connected. I pry the hatch open. The chest reveals its contents to me, a kiss-sealed letter and what looks to be a real Browning handgun.

Darling, you’re just plain unlucky.

Rating- 2%

As I’m examining the odd purple shade of the remnant of the lips, matching the size with my own in an embarrassing peck, I’m struck with the muscle-tightening alarm of growling.

“H-hello?”

How stupid am I?

I see maybe a film frame or two’s worth of gnashing teeth before I’m laid to rest.

🌲

“Cindy, I could eat you up.”

The gift shop is devoid of everyone but us. I’m trying on what’s probably the stupidest outfit anyone ever has here, assembled from merchandise made for racist fishermen.

“You don’t mean it.”

Vannie is laughing by the cigarettes, stealing a pack for herself. Boss has been out for an hour talking to someone outside. Our coworkers are off.

“Hey, didn’t you say something about your album? When am I gonna get to listen to it?”

“That thing? I haven’t even recorded the first song yet. I meant to the other day but I’ve been congested all month.”

“Can’t do the instrumentals?”

“I start with lyrics.”

“That’s weird.” The way she laughs it’s like she’s not listening to me at all. It’s also like no matter what I said she’d have been just as happy to hear it. “You gonna leave this place soon or what?”

“I said I was thinking about it.”

“You’re always thinking, never doing.” Vannie licks her lips before lighting the white stick ablaze with a charcoal-colored lighter. “A girl like you could learn a little from some spontaneity.”

“I’m just not into taking risks.” I snort, a little ashamed of myself. It’s been a year since I started working here. When I turn 20, I doubt I’ll be anywhere else. Stability’s hard to come by, so sometimes I’m glad to live in a place so stuck in the past.

She breathes out an ominous fog-machine stream of smoke.

“You should take one.”

Closing the changing room curtain to replace my oversized hunting gear with something befitting a scrawny thing like me, I say what I can to endear her.

“Have something in mind?”

She goes quiet, listening intently to the sound of my belt as it wraps around my torn black jeans. The rustle of my jacket’s denim betrays her first few syllables.

“You could go there.”

“Sorry?” I return from the thin veneer of privacy. She’s smiling like the devil.

“The forest off the hill. I hear a lot of cuties like you go down there and get their heads splattered.”

“Sounds like a good time.” I shove my half-fallen wallet back in my back pocket. “Wanna check it out on break?”

“I’m not going, what’d be the fun in that?” She sneeringly giggles. “I wanna hear all the scary stories you have to tell when you get back.”

“Do you usually send girls to their death like this?” I take up the register, as if anyone’s gonna come on a day like this. The sky outside hasn’t the faintest hint of color.

“I have a thing for ones with their heads still in tact, actually. At least their bodies.”

“I take it you have some high standards.”

“It’s not much.” The diva laughs. “Are you seriously considering?”

“I might go.” I coolly shrug. Her sudden impish smirk tells me I looked positively idiotic. “If it’s such a big deal to you.”

“I would be impressed.” She concedes with a puff of gray. “They say if you brave those woods you can brave anything.”

“Bet, I’ll go. You want a souvenir?”

“You back here safe should do.” She teases. “Won’t it?”

Her stupid infectious smile seals the deal.

🌲

“Oh, this ain’t so bad.”

I really like the parks, so it’s nice to see a part of them I never went to before. Why haven’t I gone here? Completely different from everywhere else I’ve been in the state, it’s like there’s no color anywhere- even on the greenery. Maybe it’s a place that only shows up when a cute girl dares you to go there, I joke to myself.

But I’m walking for a few minutes when I start to get bored. And cold, weirdly cold. Isn’t it supposed to be summer? Maybe it’s just the view. Everything I can see looks like it was frozen over.

Except…

“Well, what do you know?”

I step up to the vermillion banner seemingly pointing towards the ground by a tree. The thing feels weirdly high quality in my hands, kind of a stupid thing to leave in the woods. Wouldn’t you just make something cheap if you planned on tying it up here? I kneel down to see what it’s leading me to, but of course no leaves or grass has been covering the ground up until this point. The dirt is even unsettled, not quite as solid as the rest of the place.

“I’ve already come this far…”

I hate to get dirty, but I see what’s under the muck. Turns out it was worth it, some kind of ornate container. Almost like something you’d buy at the shop.

I open it up.

“Hahaha, the fuck?”

There’s a note and a surprisingly nice-looking edge. Not the gift shop kind either, big ol’ fixed-blade bear knife. Must be my lucky day.

Better shot than the lottery I suppose. Good luck hon.

Rating- 9%

“Nice shade…” I trace my lips over the marked stain on the letter’s envelope. Did Vannie put this here for me in advance? Isn’t her color…

For potentially the first time in human history, dead gray leaves fall onto the floor of this untouched forest, just beside my feet. I hear something above me.

“Huh.”

Looking up, I see it’s only a full-size adult black bear clinging to the very tree I just searched under.

Okay, so the first thing your entire body wants to do in this situation is to REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THE SIGHT OF THE BEAR. I want to do that too! But fortunately, I spend most days of my year at a nature center’s gift shop, and I know that running from one of these just gets you killed faster.

My feet don’t get the memo.

It dives up to me as soon as I start to run, the knowledge rushing back into my soles. I force them under a frozen spell, trying to recall the rest. I know there’s more to do, but I’m panting. I can’t think. It’s stopped. What’s it going to- right! Right. Big- make yourself big. Make yourself big right now.

It’s very hard to look intimidating when you’ve only just earned the right to live a second longer after almost convincing a massive predator you’re prey. I’m crying, so instead of yelling, I kind of have to wail at it. I turn my bawls into screams, not thinking about the attention it will draw. More, more- louder and louder. Whatever it takes to get this ultra-stealthy bear away from me.

The only direction it moves is forward.

The angry-crying plan has failed. I’m just crying now. I know I should raise my arms, but she’s on me now. Inches away. Smelling me. She’s so huge. If she stood up I would look like a tree stump in comparison. I hyperventilate, almost hoping to pass out, but begrudgingly pry my arms from their frozen sockets, waving my hands in the air. At first weakly as the bear follows their movement just above its toothy head, then desperately as any survival instinct I have is tossed out for the best survival chance. Closing my eyes, I pray on the inside while I conjure up hell on the outside.

“AAAAAAAHHHHH!! AHHHHHHHHHH!”

I bet someone holding a gun to your face is better than this. There is no motive or interaction here, it’s like a puzzle I have to bet on with my vocal cords. This darkness I reside in behind my eyelids is a hell I spend what feels like an eternity. I can almost feel her teeth closing in around my neck. My chances to live feel slim at first…

But then I open my eyes and she’s gone.

I break down into tears. My throat stings. I turn around to find the way I came, whipping out my compass, and start crawl-running to safety.

I run like that for an hour.

Were the branches always so interwoven? I feel like I’m somewhere else, like these aren’t the same woods. I’m only going in one direction, but you could convince me I was walking in circles. It hardly even feels like the same state anymore- even the scent is different. And all around me, with increasing frequency, are more of those same red markers. Not to denote a path- only more boxes. The thing is, something bad has happened with each one I open. The first time I swore something buzzed loudly past my ear, scared the shit out of me so I ran. The second time, I didn’t even get to dig all the way out before I heard very non-dog sounding barking and dashed the fuck out of there too. I had to stop after the third because once a tree nearly falls on you you start to consider that something might be up. At first I was sure it was a karmic thing, but I know better now.

I found one other visitor. She looked eerily like me… what you could see of her. Something is happening here. When I went back to check on the body a few minutes ago, it was gone. I am overwhelmed by the likelihood I’m being watched. Is Vannie doing this? I keep imagining some horrible woman in purple lipstick, organizing this forest of hell. What do the percentages mean? The knife? Now I wish I hadn’t left it behind, because it feels like these woods are almost forming around me as I go. Perhaps I was supposed to stab that bear in the goddamn face, like this is some twisted video game arena for girls trying to impress their crushes.

As much as my mind races though, it’s getting harder to think. The day grows long, and my appetite weighs on me. I think I’m going to cry.

I hear barking again, lots of it.

Please help me Vannie.

🌲

“You FUCKING ASSHOLE!”

When Cindy came into the shop that day I couldn’t recognize her at first- more cuts than skin it felt like, she just slammed her bleeding form against the counter and made me gasp.

“C-Cindy! Where were you, we- we- the cops are looking for you, another girl went missing t-“

“YOU BITCH.”

She grabbed me by the collar then. Her once-weak grip was now bear-like in its ferocity. She had this look in her little eyes like she’d seen everything. My urge to make her happy took over, I started going into the same mode I would when she’d cry over something mundane in the bathroom or joke during break about how her life was over-

“W-what’s wrong?”

I don’t know if she realized what she was doing or if the memories of what happened distracted her, but her eyes turned to glass, just analyzing the dusty countertop. And when she spoke, her lips quivered, words falling out in a smoky haze.

“…Animals… top jaw had to be plucked from the bottom, teeth marks still in my hands… the trees were like people, they tried to… and the… the water… you couldn’t drink the water, it would…” Every syllable contorted a destroyed face into something even worse. “I think there were a lot of us, I think they’ve been doing this since a long time ago…”

“I-I’m sorry I-“

Our manager ran in, it was a huge commotion. Cindy got on the news, only she couldn’t ever say anything, eventually she was just a picture they would constantly show… it was a work photo, so I was there with her in it. Every time I visited the hospital, she’d keep murmuring to herself, like she was asking some question.

“Why’d I… why’d I…”

I try and I try to get her to open up, but it’s as mangled in there as it was on the outside. And the last time we spoke, it really became a problem, because it was like I was talking to two people entirely.

It happened again and again in a cycle, the pair of Cindy's hopping in and out of the driver’s seat. The first one just cried. All she’d do was cry. She’d get all over me, and she’d grasp my hand till it bled. I would make out a different confession every time she spoke, a different promise started but never finished. She looked to be berating herself just for what she was feeling. I could try and coax it out of her, but then she’d only give up. Then once she’d had enough the new Cindy would appear.

This Cindy hated me. She hated me like I scratched every scar into her myself, and maybe I did. This Cindy could never forgive me, so it didn’t matter how much the first one loved me. I stayed every night just to comfort this Cindy, because I felt she was the one who needed the most help. Even if it meant letting her do what she wanted- usually taking it out on me.

I love both Cindy’s, so it’s okay.

///LOVEBOMB MASSACRE///

STORIES FROM THE VFOREST OF HORROR

///THIRD VOLUME///