Chapter Fifty: The Rules of the Forest (Patreon)

“What is happening?” Kimberly asked. “Why does the red wallpaper say that I’m a monster?”

She started to back away from us.

“It says that we all are,” Anna said. She looked at me. “Do you know what's going on?”

I looked from Anna to Tony to Kimberly. “Yeah. It messes with our minds so that it blends in.”

I explained all of the tropes to them as best I could. Truthfully, the entire experience was incredibly difficult to explain. I had known Anna since we were kids, and yet, looking at her… I didn’t know for sure if she was an ally. Somehow, my mind just couldn’t process simple logic.

Kimberly and Tony, I hadn’t known for as long. Either of them could be a Straggler, whatever that was, and I would have no idea.

On-Screen.

“We should leave,” Tony said. His voice cracked and he coughed hard.

Anna shook her head. “We can’t leave until we find evidence of what happened to these people. We’re reporters first and foremost. We have a duty to find the truth.”

“I don’t know,” Kimberly said. “With what that guy was saying about there being something dangerous about the forest, I agree with Tony. We should just go.”

“We came here to do a job. We should at least investigate before giving up, right?” Anna said.

We had to move forward. We couldn't just leave, but we also had to play our characters and logically our characters would argue about what to do.

“Let’s just make it quick,” I said.

Kimberly and Anna nodded their heads. Tony seemed more hesitant.

“Hide,” Anna said.

The lawyers were walking back down the path straight toward us. Our characters wouldn't want to be seen most likely. Arguably, we might want to interview the lawyers, but that didn't fit the scene as well. We would have to let Antoine and Camden take care of themselves.

We ducked down behind some bushes to let them pass. As they went by, Tony stood up and went right after them. He walked with a slight limp, but he was moving as fast as he could trying to catch up.

“Tony, get back here,” I hissed as he left. He didn’t listen to me.

“What is he doing?” Kimberly asked.

“I have no idea. He's an idiot,” I said.

“I guess he's going that way,” Anna said as the lawyers and Tony disappeared in the distance. They didn't seem to react much at all to his arrival, perhaps that was a viable choice for his character to take.

“Now we have to stick together, the three of us. We need to look around his house and see if we can find evidence of the missing hikers or the woman. On the off chance that there's not a supernatural entity involved,” she said with hefty sarcasm, “We’re going to have to actually find out what happened to these people.”

We got closer to the house. As we did, we saw Old Man Akers standing at the back of his pickup truck. There was a dirt road that led out of the forest in a different direction than the one we had come from. He was fiddling with something in the back of his truck. As we got closer I was able to tell that he had shovels, a pickaxe, and similar tools tucked into a storage compartment in the bed of his truck. He was closing it up as we arrived.

“This way,” Anna said.

She directed us around to the left in the opposite direction that Akers was facing. As we circled the property, we crept past a woodshed filled with firewood, a propane tank, and a small generator under a tarp. Nothing useful.

As we moved closer to the actual house, a small log cabin that looked like it could have been built a hundred years ago, we noticed something.

Leaning up against the side of the cabin, were two hiker's backpacks.

“Look,” Anna said.

“Should we take a picture?” Kimberly asked. "For evidence?"

Anna nodded. That was what our characters would do.

Kimberly held up her camera and snapped a photo. The camera let loose a flash and a loud mechanical noise as a photograph began poking out of the front of the device.

“Shoot,” Kimberly said under her breath. “Do you think he heard that?”

Anna waved for us to get closer to the backpacks. “If he did then we only have a few seconds.”

We ran up to the side of the house. Anna grabbed one of the hiking packs, and I grabbed the other.

“Go,” she said. We ran back out into the forest, just out of view of any prying eyes.

Unfortunately, none of our characters had thought to bring a flashlight. We started rifling through the backpacks looking for some clue as to who they might have belonged to. As I sunk my hand into one, I found a small square leather object. A wallet.

“What were the names of the hikers?” I asked.

Anna pulled out the notebook that she had started the storyline with. She flipped through the pages, trying to read them by a ray of moonlight.

“Here it is,” she said. “Edgar and Norman Barns. Brothers.”

“Edgar Barns,” I said, holding up a Carousel driver’s license.

“Maybe it wasn't monsters after all,” Anna said with a smile.

Of course, it probably was monsters. But this would be a great clue to help move the story forward.

Footsteps. A crunching twig.

Someone was walking toward us from the direction of the house.

“Hello,” Old Man Akers said loudly. “I know you’re out there. You had better not be those nosey lawyers. If you are among the living and you would like to stay that way, show yourself.”

“Dammit,” I said.

“Leave the packs,” Anna said quietly.

She stood up and raised her hands. “Don't shoot,” she said. “We're just student reporters from U of C. Don’t shoot.”

“Come out here,” Akers said. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

“We’re coming out,” she answered.

We stood up and slowly walked out from behind the bush.

“What are a bunch of kids doing out here this time of night? Don't you know what this place is?”

“We're here looking for some missing people. That's all.”

Akers rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. It was much the same as he had done around the campfire for the frame story.

“Well come on out here and I'll talk to you, but don't be sneaking around my property,” he said.

We did as he asked.

“You kids are in way more trouble than you realize being out here. Just had to run off a few lawyers for the same thing. But with the lawyers, I'm not so concerned. Come on around front.”

We followed him around the side of the house to where the large lantern on the back of his tailgate was set up.

“So, ask your questions,” Askers said.

Anna took out her notebook. “We're here investigating three missing people. We think the police missed something.”

Akers nodded in understanding. “Police chief doesn't send anybody into the forest. He understands. Might be the only person around here who does.”

“Understands?” Anna asked.

Akers nodded. “Understands that these woods or not to be entered by outsiders.”

Anna took a moment to think about what he had said. “We're just looking for three people. Have you seen anyone around here? Two hikers, Edgar and Norman Barns-”

She took out her notebook and started flipping through the pages again until she found what she was looking for. She looked at it for a moment, almost as if she thought she had read it wrong, “-and one woman who was in a traffic accident nearby, Dina Cano. She's been missing about a week.”

Dina was in an accident near here? No wonder we hadn't seen her yet.

“Never heard of them,” Akers said, “Though I suppose you saw those hiking packs that I found in the forest. You can look through those to see if they give you any clues. Truth be told I think you're too late. The Stragglers got them by now.”

“The Stragglers?” Anna asked.

“The Stragglers. They wander through the woods looking for newcomers to pass on their curse. Same creatures that you need to be worried about if you would ever like to make it out of here.”

Anna, Kimberly, and I exchanged glances.

“Is that what you were talking about with those people earlier?” Kimberly asked.

Akers smirked. “Heard that, did you? Thought I would try to warn them. I ought to try to warn you too.”

“Are we in danger?” Anna asked.

Akers nodded his head. “May even be too late.”

“Can you tell us about them?” Anna asked.

“Sure can,” he said.

“Do you mind if I write this down?” Anna asked.

“Do whatever you like, just pay attention.”

~~~

“If you want to survive you've got to learn the rules. No one wants to learn the rules, not until it's too late. I suppose the best way to tell you about the Stragglers is to start from the beginning.

"It started here hundreds of years ago back before the town even existed. The people that lived here first, the originals, they understood this forest and this land. They respected it. They knew that it was different, that it was intelligent. They never took anything from it, not timber, not flora, not fauna, not without asking for permission first.

“They lived that way for many generations. But then the settlers came. The locals tried to warn them, to tell them to respect the forest. At first, it seemed like the settlers would listen. The original inhabitants even taught them how to ask for permission to enter the forest. The forrest granted them permission, only allowing five or fewer to enter at a time and to only take what they could carry--to be responsible and respectful.

“It lasted that way for a year or two, but then the settlement grew. The settlers got greedy. What they saw in the forest were vast resources. One year in the spring they sent in twenty workers to gather timber. With them, they sent in a team of oxen that could haul entire trees out of the forest. In doing this they broke their promise to the forest. So after they'd worked a day, they went to leave. Only five made it out. The rest were stuck to wait in the forest, to wait until they could find someone to replace them.

“And so it goes that curse has become the law of the land. There is no peace between the settlers and the forest anymore. Any who enter will be beset upon by the Stragglers, those that did not make it out of the forest. They look to find someone to take their place, to take their curse. Over the centuries most of them have succeeded.”

Anna chewed on her bottom lip. “Are you saying that's what happened to the missing people? That they got lost in the forest and became Stragglers?”

Old Man Akers shook his head. “There are a lot of things that could happen to them around here. But that's a likely choice. Never know; months from now, a year, a decade, your missing people might just come wandering out of the woods one day having found someone to replace them. In fact, you may be the very ones to replace them yourselves.”

“Well I hope not,” Anna said. “So if someone comes out of the forest and wants to join our group we shouldn't allow them to, right?”

Akers laughed. “Won't be that easy. You won't know a Straggler when you see one. Everyone I tell this to doesn't believe me but I hope you will. To you, it will just seem like a person who's a part of your group. You won't be able to tell them from anyone else. The forest alters your mind. In fact, wouldn't be surprised if someone in your group right now is already one of them.”

Someone in our group right now? Who? Anna? Kimberly? When I had read the tropes for the Straggler, I hadn't considered that one was already among us. According to their tropes, you wouldn't even be able to tell them apart through common sense. What other way could there be?

“So if they attack us how do we kill them? Monsters have to have weaknesses, right? How do we keep ourselves safe?” I asked.

“I understand your temptation to think of them as monsters, but I would encourage you to think bigger than that. Whatever they are; they're trapped here, bound by ancient magic. It's hardly fair to judge them by it. They are what they were when they entered. They were human before and if they ever make it out they'll be human again.

"I've seen it happen. When I was a boy, one of the original settlers made it out of the forest after hundreds of years. His mind was mostly gone but you could see the relief on his face, finally being free.

“He ran from the forest, ran until his feet bled. Didn't take long. He had been walking for so many years that even being free of the curse wasn't enough to return him to perfect health.

"Of course, the man that replaced him is still there. I see him from time to time. When they first get there, you can tell they have a hesitance to pass their curse on to someone else but as time goes by, they get over that.”

“You said that separating and going through the forest individually would work, didn’t you?” Anna asked.

“It will and it won't. If you're by yourself, you know that anyone who comes near you is liable to be a Straggler. You know to run when you see someone. In a group, you can hardly tell who's who or what's what. But at least together no one can be left behind until you weed out the person you think is a Straggler and leave the forest. Separate, you just have to hope you're one of the first of your group out. Otherwise, you'll find yourself trapped.”

This is where things got confusing. If we all separated and there was a Straggler with us, it was possible that the Straggler would make it out and leave one of us behind.

If we stayed in the group and tried to weed out the Straggler, then we could all make it out at the same time. It was just a question of whether we could trust each other to come up with a solution.

In a way, we were all Stragglers already. We would be until we made it out of the forest.

Anna was writing this down diligently in her notebook. “If you don't mind me asking, why do you think you haven’t been cursed?”

Old Man Akers chuckled. “I have permission to be here. The entities that roam this forest and the land around it leave me alone. Those that don't, I know how to take care of.”

This was going to be a challenge. We needed to figure out who was a Straggler. First, we would have to figure it out as players. Second, we would have to find a good reason for our characters to separate from the Stragglers.

I only hoped that Antoine, Camden, Dina, and Tony could figure it out too.