Forest of the Damned

by Lee Mountford

  Which led him to think about the legend of the Black Forest, and how much of it he, or the others, had now witnessed for themselves.

  Back before Roberta had lost her mind, she had claimed to have seen the fabled Mother Sibbett. Indeed, Ken had seen evidence of her himself on the recording Roberta had taken. And he had also seen the very village thought to have been lost to the ages, or at least a version of it—one that was presented to him. And he had seen the souls of the damned that still lived in that village. If ‘living’ was even the correct term for it.

  None of the things he’d seen were natural, and they didn’t belong to this world, especially not when they were driven by such malevolence and malice.

  Ken understood now that this evil had preyed upon people exactly like him—drawing them into a nightmare from which they would never escape. And he also knew that it was unlikely he would ever gain any true understanding of what it was he faced; he would only be shown what the unknowable entity wanted him to see.

  Ken’s mission over the past ten years had been to reveal the existence of the paranormal. Well, he had achieved that. But how he wished he could just continue on in blissful ignorance again.

  He regretted ever hearing the name of the Black Forest all those years ago. And the realisation of how long this place had been a part of his life shocked him, with the story revealing itself to him at an early age, and helping to spark his interest in the paranormal. Ken wondered if his fate had been determined, even back then. Was the reach of the forest able to stretch back through time itself?

  Ken gave pause as the thought continued to run and develop. Could the forest—and, by extension, the presence that lived here—have even been behind the death of his daughter? Perhaps it was also responsible for his subsequent dive into a quest for the truth. All of it could just have been part of a decades-long plan, put in motion in his youth when the first story was told to him, all with the goal of one day drawing him back here.

  He shook his head. Preposterous.

  The notion was just the product of a tired and weary mind, one that was close to being broken. There was no way the course of his life could have been determined back then.

  Was there?

  No, surely not. The only thing that brought him here was bad fucking luck—horrible circumstances that had not played in his favour—and right now he needed to keep his head, not let himself spiral deeper into despair.

  Ken spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon continuing to push on. Eventually, the sun peeked over the trees, and he was able to orient himself. It rose in front of him, which meant—he was sure—that he had to walk away from it in order to head back west.

  But did he really want to go that way? Every time they had tried that route before, something had happened to stop their escape, and he doubted it would be any different if he tried again.

  Another option was to instead try and push on ahead and go east, breaking out on the other side of the forest. Hell, he could even turn ninety-degrees and try north or south. This place couldn’t stretch on forever.

  Problem was, he didn’t know which way, other than west, was the shortest route.

  But then, did it even matter? Even if he picked a direction and stuck to it, did he really expect safe passage straight out of this place?

  Of course not.

  But he was out of options, and he had to do something. He could either keep trying to escape until that proved physically impossible or just drop down and give up completely.

  He wasn’t ready for that yet. Not quite.

  But he didn’t know how much longer the slim resolve would hold out.

  So he walked east, hoping that way would turn out to be more successful, but knowing deep down it wouldn’t.

  Hours passed, and Ken’s aching for food increased. He felt drained and weak. His body had started to tremble, and dizzy spells became frequent. When a particularly bad one hit, Ken stopped and leaned against a tree, giving himself time to recuperate. Seconds stretched to minutes before the latest bout of dizziness passed.

  Ken knew he needed nourishment quickly if he expected to go on.

  Then, as if God had heard his desperation, something hopped through the undergrowth ahead, displacing the grass and shrubbery and moving quickly towards him before finally breaking through the high grass. Ken remained as still as possible the whole time, and he saw a small brown rabbit bound into view. It then stopped, its little nose twitching and large, round eyes on high alert.

  The animal looked extremely cute and cuddly, and Ken hated what he was about to try to do. But he had no choice. He needed to dig deep if he wanted to survive.

  Given there were only a few feet between him and the rabbit, Ken felt he had a decent chance of catching the animal if he timed his attack just right. It continued to smell the air, but did not move. If the small creature knew Ken was there, then it did not seem scared by his presence.

  So he readied himself, his mind already running ahead to try and work out the best way to light the fire that would cook this animal. Ken had never tasted rabbit before, but at that moment anything would taste like a five-star meal to him.

  Ken held his breath… and lunged. But it was useless.

  The rabbit quickly turned and leapt back into the undergrowth—with amazing speed and agility—before Ken had even taken a few steps. He gave chase, scrambling after the fleeing animal, but the rabbit was simply too quick, and it made good its escape. While the small creature may have been frightened, in truth Ken had come nowhere near catching it, so feeble was his attempt. He dropped to his knees and cursed.

  He should have known. Nothing would go his way while in these cursed woods. There was only evil and torment here. And it wouldn’t have shocked him if that animal revealing itself was just another way for Mother Sibbett to wear him down even more—by dangling a thread of hope, only to yank it away.

  Ken’s hunger continued to gnaw at his gut, to the point where it was becoming painful. The action of heaving himself back up to his feet took a lot more effort than it should have, and he walked forward on unsteady steps.

  He knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer.

  The rest of the day passed in a similar vein for him, with Ken heading due east in order to get clear of the forest. But his progress was painfully slow given his weakened state, and hunger, thirst, and fatigue were all starting to take their terrible toll on him. Ken spied other animals over the course of the day, all potential meals, but he had no more success catching those than he had the rabbit.

  A huntsman, it turned out, he was not.

  As darkness set in his apprehension grew, and he wondered what horrors would lie in store for him that night, or if he would even survive it. The final light was eventually taken and stars pin-pricked the sky. Ken trudged on for an hour more in the dark before he heard it: something approaching from behind. Whatever was coming was clearly much bigger than a rabbit, or any other forest animals he had seen. Signalled by the sounds of thumping footsteps hitting grass and bare patches of dirt, the unknown pursuer was moving quickly… and gaining ground steadily.

  Whatever it was, Ken heard it break into a sprint.

  Thump, thump, thump, thump.

  Ken’s heart-rate quickened and he, too, set off running. His stride, however, was slow and laboured as he struggled to navigate in the dark. It was clear to him that whoever was giving chase was rapidly gaining ground on him.

  Quicker and quicker the footsteps became, and at last Ken turned around to look behind, and he saw what it was.

  The woman broke into view, moving as fast and quick as an animal, hitting speeds that should have been impossible for a human being.

  It was Roberta.

  At least, it had been once. The sight of her now chilled Ken to his core, causing his heart to beat even faster—reaching dangerous levels of palpitations. Fiery pain shot down his left arm.

  ‘Oh, Ken!’ Roberta screamed in a voice that sounded more demon than feminine. ‘I
’ve come to play!’

  34

  She was on him in an instant, tackling Ken to the ground with frightening ease. He felt an acute pain flare up in the small of his back as the tender muscle struck something beneath him when he fell.

  Ken struggled to get air into his body, and his heart went into overdrive, beating out of rhythm while the pain in his left arm increased, shooting up and down. The best he could do was to suck in short, sharp breaths.

  He wasn’t a doctor by any means, but Ken knew something was very wrong, though he had no idea how severe it was. And the knowledge that something beyond his control was happening to him only served to panic him more.

  And, of course, it did not help to be looking up at Roberta’s ruined body while she sat mounted on his prone form.

  The once-beautiful woman had changed now almost beyond recognition. Her skin was the consistency of dried tree bark, with deep lines running between flat, wart-like lesions. Her sunken eyes appeared cloudy in the pits of her sockets, but had that ominous yellow gleam to them that Ken had seen on the other entities back at the church. The few strands of hair she still possessed had lost their colour, and were now a lifeless grey. On top of all that, the woman was now completely naked, and Ken could see that, in some areas, dark spots had formed at the head of some of the fleshy, puss-filled lumps that covered her body. These dark spots moved around in a murky liquid, like tadpoles still in their sacks.

  She stunk, too. The musty, rotten stench that seeped from her pores was enough to make Ken gag as he struggled for air.

  ‘Having a little trouble there, Ken?’ Roberta asked, her voice now a grotesque, hoarse rasp, as if the inside of her throat was as dry and hard as the surface of her skin. ‘Breathing a little difficult?’ She laughed. The mocking noise her throat created sounded old… even ancient.

  Ken couldn’t reply, as he had no breath in his lungs to do so. All he could do was try and fight what was happening to his body—forcing himself to calm down and slow his heart rate. But the nightmarish situation he was in was not conducive to anything but panic.

  Roberta dropped her head towards him and curled the edges of her lips up into a sneer. ‘Want me to administer CPR?’

  Her black and lumpy tongue then snaked from her mouth and smeared over her bottom lip. The thick, viscous saliva that ran from the inside of her mouth was black as well, giving the appearance that Roberta had been guzzling tar.

  But instead of carrying through with her threat of mouth-to-mouth, Roberta instead stood up and stepped away from Ken, leaving him panting and wheezing on the ground.

  She shook her head at him. ‘You’re pathetic, do you know that? Flopping around on the ground like a greasy fish pulled from its pond. And that’s all you are to the Old One: nothing but a lowly bottom feeder of a lifeform. But for me, it doesn’t have to be that way. With Mother Sibbett to guide me, I can ascend into something else. Something more.’

  As the girl rambled on, lost in the grandeur of her own speech, Ken could finally feel the pounding of his heart—and the pain that accompanied it—slowly start to subside. His breathing was still short and sharp; however, he felt his control over that return as well.

  He began to clench and unclench his tingling hands, grasping at the grass and leaves below him, concentrating on the movements in an attempt to ignore, as much as he could, the wild woman who was jabbering away above him.

  If he could get his breathing under control, then perhaps he had a chance. Ken wasn’t sure if he was suffering from a severe panic attack or mild heart attack—he suspected the latter—but either way, he had to force his body and heart to slow down. Gradually, his breathing became more regular.

  In through the nose, out through the mouth.

  ‘We are so ignorant to the truth of life,’ Roberta went on. ‘Little mites scurrying around in our own plane of existence, confident we have everything figured out. But we have no idea how things really are, and know nothing of the other places that exist, bordering our own. Touching it. And sometimes, the other side breaks through.’

  Ken squeezed his hands again and managed to move his left one from side to side a little. Roberta was now looking up to the heavens with arms held aloft.

  ‘The lines of existence here—between our world and the other—have blurred, allowing the Old One to come through.’

  Roberta went on and Ken’s movement became easier, if only slightly. His left palm rolled across an object in the grass, settling on something thick, cold, and coarse. He recognised it to be a branch of some kind, the end poking out from beneath his form. He quickly realised that this was the object he had landed on, and it was perhaps a nub or broken offshoot that had dug into his back and caused the sharp pain after his fall.

  Ken wrapped his fingers around it, but the girth of the sturdy branch was too wide to allow his fingertips to meet.

  Though it was stuck beneath him and—given Ken’s weakened state—not easily accessible, he hoped it would make a formidable weapon if he could summon the strength to stand and swing it. Perhaps falling on this spot, right onto the branch, had been his first piece of good luck since setting foot in the Black Forest.

  ‘And Mother Sibbett was chosen as the grotesque God’s emissary. She, in turn, has taken me to her bosom, allowing me to learn from her. To indulge in sacred knowledge. And what I have learned already, dear Ken, has opened my mind. Unlocked it to the truth.’

  ‘It’s turned you mad,’ Ken told her in a wheezing voice.

  ‘No,’ Roberta answered, shaking her head. ‘What you see as madness is merely something beyond your comprehension.’

  ‘You’re a monster.’

  She let out a humourless laugh in response. ‘Oh, you have no idea. The things I did to poor James would sicken you. But those acts, fun as they were, also allowed me to grow, to become more than I ever could have been before.’

  Ken slowly rotated his body and rolled to the right, lifting his back off of the log beneath him. Pain flared, but he managed to keep his movements subtle enough that Roberta didn’t notice. His hand found purchase on the makeshift club, and he gently slid it out from underneath him. Roberta was still looking to the stars, as if she could see something wondrous that Ken wasn’t privy to, giving him the opportunity to act.

  But the sound of the log sliding across the ground, against leaves and grass, alerted her, and she looked down on him.

  ‘And Mother Sibbett has something special planned for you, too, Ken,’ she went on, seemingly ignoring what he was doing. ‘You could yet have a purpose. You don’t need to join Tony and James in their eternal fate. All you need to do is to give yourself over to Mother willingly.’

  ‘Never!’ Ken shot back, pulling the branch free completely. He held it tightly in both hands like a sword, pointing it out away from him to hopefully fend her off.

  Ken had hoped to be able to get up and take a swing without Roberta expecting it, but that plan had been ruined the second she had looked down. The element of surprise was now lost.

  However, Roberta didn’t seem fazed by the sight of him with a weapon in hand. And in truth, why should she be? He was still stuck on his back, weak as a puppy, and Roberta was up on her feet.

  ‘You think that little twig will do you any good?’ Roberta asked, cocking her head to the side. As she did, a blister on the side of her neck burst. Clear liquid spurted free. The black spot beneath the punctured skin rotated and settled on Ken, and only then did he realise it was a pupil that had previously been trapped beneath the surface. Now he could see it was part of the bulbous flesh of an eye, looking more like a fish-eye than anything human.

  Roberta then moved back, actually giving Ken more space, as if goading him to act. Not looking a gift-horse in the mouth, Ken used the opportunity to force himself up to his feet. It took effort—causing him to run short of breath again—and he needed to use the branch as a crutch to keep his balance, but he finally made it to a vertical base. His legs felt like jelly, and it took him a few mom
ents to be able to hold his own weight and then draw back the club, readying himself like a batter waiting for a pitch. The weapon in his grasp felt like it weighed a ton, and Ken suddenly doubted his ability to be able to swing it hard enough or true enough to do any significant damage.

  Roberta chuckled, seemingly amused. ‘Oh, this should be good. Come on, Ken, you’re on death's door. Do you really think you can hurt me?’

  ‘I can try,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘And if you don’t fuck off and leave me alone, I’ll show you just how much damage I can do.’

  Roberta put her hands behind her back and started to pace forward, bouncing up and down with each step, exaggerating each movement.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a free swing. Do your worst.’

  Ken backed up, trying to keep distance between them, but stumbled a little as he did. Roberta, however, kept coming, moving slowly herself, but gaining ground easily. Ken knew he couldn’t outrun her. If he had any hope of getting away, then he would need to take this opportunity.

  But this was Roberta.

  It may be true that she was a monster now—quite literally—but was it possible the real woman was still there somewhere, trapped beneath the surface? Still able to see and feel everything that was happening to her. Could he really try to hurt a woman that, over the past few years, he had come to call a friend?

  ‘Can’t do it, can you,’ she said, either reading his thoughts or seeing the doubt that must have been written all over his face.

  ‘I can,’ he snapped back, trying to convince himself more than her.

  She walked right up to him. ‘Then do it. If you can’t, just drop the stick and quit fucking around. We’ve got somewhere to be… and someone to meet.’

  Ken clenched his weapon tighter. Despite his reservations, he knew there wasn’t really a choice to make. If he didn’t try to fend Roberta off, he was a dead man. And he knew the end waiting for him would not be pleasant. It would be horrific and painful.