Forest of the Damned

by Lee Mountford

  Forest of the Damned

  Book 3 in the Supernatural Horror Novel Series

  Lee Mountford

  For my wife, Michelle, and my daughter, Ella.

  Contents

  Free Books

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  The Demonic

  The Mark

  Also by Lee Mountford

  Also by Lee Mountford

  The Demon of Dunton Farm

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Free Books

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  1

  James raised his glass of dark brown ale. ‘I think a toast is in order,’ he said, his voice already showing the effects of the alcohol he’d consumed.

  Tony smiled, amused at James’ inebriated enthusiasm, and he lifted his pint of beer in response. ‘And what are we toasting?’ Tony asked. Ken and Roberta followed suit with their drinks, raising them up—Ken’s a tumbler of amber whiskey and Roberta’s a tall glass of red wine. The heat from the fire near to them and the crackle that accompanied the burning of the logs were a nice contrast to the dark skies outside the pub.

  Said pub—the Last Lodge—was situated in the small town of Amaley, in Northern Scotland. The bar area of the Lodge was warm and cosy with the large, roaring fire set against an outside wall that was all bare stone, and weathered oak joists supporting low ceilings above. It felt like a traditional, old-world public house, with few patrons in that night excluding Tony’s group, who were gathered in a corner booth. A withered old man with a hooked, bright-red nose sat on a stool at the bar opposite the rotund barman and cast them occasional glances as he sipped at his black, foamy pint. A bloodhound lay at the base of the man’s stool, curled up and snoring.

  ‘We are toasting us,’ James said. His cheeks were rosy and his eyes glassy, but he was in good spirits. His hair, light brown and set in a centre parting over a rather square face, reached down to his eyes, often hiding them when he spoke. He was taller than Tony, at over six foot, but was very thin, even scrawny. ‘Or, more specifically, the company,’ he continued on and held his glass even higher. ‘To Paranormal Encounters Limited. And here’s also to having one hell of an investigation. It’s going to be a massive success, I just know it.’

  Tony noticed that James seemed to be focusing mostly on their leader, Ken, as he spoke, and he had a big smile on his face. A small, rare grin spread beneath Ken’s bushy beard in response.

  ‘Very kind of you, James,’ Tony said, his voice gruff as usual. ‘But it’s going to be a long week out there in that forest. And chances are we won’t find anything.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ James answered with a dismissive wave of his hand. Roberta, who was seated next to him, shook her head, looking slightly embarrassed for her boyfriend and his bold claims. James went on, ‘We’ve picked up some compelling evidence in our recent investigations, but we’ve only ever had one night to get it. This time, we have a whole week. And what a location! We’re going to find something, I’m telling you.’

  Of course, Tony hoped James was right. That was the reason they were out here, and the reason Paranormal Encounters existed in the first place. They all had a shared interest in this kind of thing—the paranormal—and it was an interest that was a little too strong to simply call a hobby. Being from the same area, they had all found each other online, Tony and Ken meeting first five years ago. Tony had already set up his fledgeling company by then, with the sole aim of finding proof of paranormal existence. Between them, they had been on over fifty investigations and had certainly witnessed a few unexplainable things, but what they lacked was anything that could be considered undeniable proof the supernatural existed. After a year, Tony had joined the company officially as a minor shareholder director, but Paranormal Encounters was a company in name only. There was no wage or income to be had—it was merely a front for them to indulge in a pastime they loved, lending themselves some legitimacy in the process. All equipment the company owned had been bought from their own pockets.

  A year ago, however, after treading water and doing the same old thing time after time, Tony and Ken met Roberta and James: a younger couple who shared their interest in the paranormal. This young couple were also a lot more tech and media savvy, and showed Ken and Tony ways to push the company into the realms of profitability. Paranormal Encounters suddenly found themselves nicely branded and had a social media presence, all with the aim to piggyback off the success of ghost-hunting TV shows. Their audience, however, was not in front of a TV, but rather online, and the group streamed or uploaded the results of their investigations. Revenue wasn’t anything astronomical, but they managed to build up enough of a following for a steady stream to trickle in from advertising and donations. After this quick success, Roberta and James were brought officially into the fold. The company had direction now and—while it remained secondary to each of their full-time careers—there was the shared hope it could turn into something more. Especially for Ken. In all his years, Tony had never known a man so driven to prove the existence of the impossible.

  James finished his drink and smacked his lips together. ‘God, the ale tastes so much better up here.’ He wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve. ‘My round. Same again, everyone?’ He didn’t wait for an answer and squeezed past Roberta, exited the booth, and made his way over to the bar.

  ‘I’m so sorry about him,’ Roberta said with a small laugh as she tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. She was a very attractive girl, with classical Mediterranean features: long dark hair, olive skin, and blue eyes. A short girl at only five-foot-four, Tony knew better than to under estimate her based on her height. He had seen Roberta lose her temper on a few occasions and didn’t envy anyone on the other side of her ire. ‘I guess he’s excited.’

  ‘It’s good to be enthusiastic,’ Ken said, ‘we just need to make sure we keep focused. I’m not kidding when I say this next week is going to be difficult. When we’re all tired and grouchy and cold and hungry, the novelty will soon wear off.’

  ‘We know that,’ Roberta said with an ever-so-slightly defensive tone. ‘We know what we signed up for. But I do think James has a point. We have a full week in a location like this… there’s a chance we may get something.’

  Tony
wasn’t sure he shared Roberta’s optimism, given their lack of uncovering anything concrete over the past five years. Even the stranger things they had seen and experienced could either be easily dismissed by people of a mind to do so, or they hadn’t been properly recorded—such as the disembodied voice begging for help Tony had heard at Hobbes Hall in Northern England. What little they uncovered had been enough to gather viewers to their social media account, but it wasn’t enough to push them to the next level. There was nothing they had found that really separated the company from the scores of others who were doing the same thing.

  And some of them even faked it to advance their audience. It was something Ken in particular abhorred.

  ‘I do hope you’re right,’ Ken said and rubbed at his thick neck. In his early fifties, grey had stripped the vibrant black colour from his hair, which on his head was scraggly and pulled back into a ponytail. His thick moustache and beard gave him the appearance of an older Hells Angel, but his dress sense was more checkered shirts, multi-pocketed body warmers, shorts, and hiking boots. Definitely an outdoorsman, which was good, considering what they were about to embark upon.

  Roberta shrugged. ‘All we can do is try, then put out whatever we find. Even if it’s nothing, I think what we are doing here will be well received: a documented week in a supposedly haunted forest—where people have gone missing, no less. That’s gotta be a huge draw.’

  ‘And then there’s the legend of the lost village,’ Tony added, finishing off his own drink.

  ‘Exactly,’ Roberta responded, eyes widening in excitement. ‘The legend itself is interesting enough. I can’t believe it’s not more well known in the supernatural community.’

  ‘Well,’ Ken began, scratching at his beard, ‘you’d be surprised how much folklore is out there that’s been all but forgotten. The internet holds a lot of information, but it doesn’t know everything.’

  ‘Well, maybe not yet,’ Roberta answered. ‘But it’s gonna know a lot more about the Black Forest when we’re done.’

  ‘Hey,’ James shouted over to them from the bar, a row of drinks lined up before him. He was standing beside the ancient-looking gentleman perched on the stool. ‘This guy knows about the Black Forest, and even the lost village.’ James was pointing at the old man, whose expression was unreadable. ‘For a few drinks, he says he’ll tell us all he knows.’

  Ken gave Tony a disapproving look and shook his head. ‘That’s okay,’ Ken shouted back. ‘I think we know all we need to.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ James responded. ‘I’ve already bought him a drink, so we are good to go.’ James then expertly gathered up the four drinks for his table and headed back to them, motioning for the stranger to follow. The man slowly slipped down from his stool and shuffled over, his back hunched as he did, a fresh, new pint of black liquid clutched in his claw-like hand. His clothes—plain trousers, a black shirt, and wool coat—looked too big for his light frame, and the sleeping dog didn’t even stir as his master left. James set the drinks down and pulled up a chair for their guest.

  ‘His name is Alistair,’ James said as the man slowly sat down. ‘Tell my friends what you told me.’ He then turned back to the rest of the group. ‘You gotta hear this. Talk about setting the tone. Go ahead, Alistair, tell them.’

  The old man shook his head wearily and took a slow sip as the others waited for him to speak. When he did, his accent was a thick, harsh Scottish one. ‘You’re making a mistake going out there,’ he said. ‘And chances are, you won’t be coming back.’

  James let out a laugh. ‘Can you believe that? It’s straight out of a bad horror film. We’ve got to get that on camera. Roberta, get your phone out and record him.’

  James seemed to be getting off on the stranger's ominous warning, but when Tony looked Alistair in the eyes, he didn’t see a ranting drunk, or attention seeker, or anything of that nature, only a tiredness of someone who had seen things in life he had never wanted to.

  Alistair held Tony’s gaze and leaned in closer to him alone. ‘Listen to me, lad,’ Alistair said in a hushed whisper. ‘The Black Woods ain’t somewhere you want to be going. It ain’t a place for the living.’

  2

  ‘Roberta,’ Ken said, calmly but forcefully. ‘Please put your phone away. We don’t need any of this on video.’

  ‘Why not?’ James asked. ‘This is good stuff, and the viewers would want to see it. It adds a bit of backstory.’

  ‘We’ll be fine without it,’ Ken stated. ‘We don’t want to embarrass him online.’

  ‘I’ll just get perm—’

  ‘James!’ Ken snapped. ‘Just leave it. Talk to him if you must, but we aren’t going to record an inebriated old man and then splash him all over the internet to be made fun of.’ Ken then turned to the man in question. ‘No offence.’

  The man just shrugged. ‘No offence taken, lad.’

  ‘Fine,’ James huffed, slouching in his seat and crossing his arms. Roberta slid the phone she had retrieved back into her pocket.

  Ken was getting annoyed with the whole charade and felt a pang of anger worm its way up from his gut. He’d told them all time and time again that the next week was going to be tough, but it seemed his words were falling on deaf ears. James, in particular, just didn’t want to listen. Instead of the group focusing on the work ahead, the whole thing was being treated like a holiday, a bit of fun—rather than a serious project.

  Tonight had supposed to have been a few quiet drinks, and then early to bed, ready for tomorrow—ready for work. Instead, James was getting drunk.

  They were actually drinking in the same place they would be staying—the closest place to the Black Forest Ken could find given Amaley was the nearest town. Even then, it was a twenty-minute drive to the outskirts of the forest, so Ken wanted to be up early and checked out in good time.

  He knew he needed to draw the distraction with the old man to a close, get their remaining drinks finished, and send everyone to bed.

  ‘You should listen to me, you know,’ Alistair said. ‘Nothing good can come of you lot going out there.’

  Tony cut in this time. ‘So what do you know of the Black Forest, then? We’ve managed to uncover a lot of the local legend, I believe, but I’d be interested in finding out if there is anything we've missed.’

  ‘Let me ask you,’ Alistair replied, shuffling his seat closer to the table. ‘Why do you want to go there, anyway? What is of interest to you? It’s just a forest—an old, unforgiving place. There’s nothing for tourists there. Come to think of it, there’s nothing for tourists here in Amaley, either. Bit far off the beaten track, ain’t ya?’

  Tony nodded. ‘I guess. But that’s kind of the point. We investigate legends and folklore, things like that, and document what we find. Everything we find, we put up on the web for people to watch, so they can draw their own conclusions.’

  ‘The web?’

  ‘The internet,’ James clarified. ‘Surely you’ve heard of the internet?’

  ‘Course I have,’ Alistair replied, curling his top lip. ‘I ain’t stupid. Never had much use for it myself, though. And never heard it called the web before.’

  ‘Well,’ Tony interjected, ‘that’s what we do. And that's why we're here.’

  ‘You looking for ghosts, lad?’

  Tony shrugged. ‘I guess that wouldn’t be a bad thing to find.’

  Alistair let out a humourless chuckle. ‘Oh yes, it would. It would be very bad.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Roberta asked. ‘Why would it be bad?’

  Alistair took a long drink, which left foamy residue on his lips. The old man didn’t wipe it away, however, content instead to let it stay put, like a white, frothy moustache. ‘People go in there and don’t come back. Happened a lot through the years. Less now, of course, cos people have the good sense to stay away. Don’t get much in the way of hikers out here nowadays. Haven’t in a while. That’s a good thing. Do yourselves a favour and go investigate someplace else.’

&
nbsp; ‘But people going missing isn’t unusual,’ James cut in. ‘It happens all the time, even in small towns. And people getting lost in the woods and not turning up happens more often than you’d think as well. The last instance we could find of people going missing out in those woods was a group of hikers back in 2001.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got your facts wrong, ain’t ya, boy.’ There was a touch of annoyance in the old man’s voice. Ken squinted his eyes as he listened intently. If there had been others that had gone missing since the turn of the century, then Ken hadn’t heard anything. Alistair went on. ‘People from this town have disappeared. Called into that forest by the Devil himself. Or rather, his disciple—that evil bitch Mother Sibbett. And when the call comes, that’s it for you. You don’t come back. People around these parts know it, but never talk about it. Like to ignore it and pretend it isn’t real. But it’s real, all right.’

  Ken felt the eyes of the others land on him. ‘You know anything about any others going missing, boss?’ James asked.

  Ken shook his head.

  ‘Well it’s true,’ Alistair stated. ‘Sure as I’m sitting here with you.’

  ‘And what about the village?’ Roberta asked. ‘Do you know any of the stories about the village that people say once stood in those woods?’