At the Edge of the Forest Read online

  “Wait, you have to -”

  “She killed my sister,” I tell him again. “She used her and then she killed her, and all because two years ago I dared refuse her offer. Can you believe that? She threw a goddamn tantrum because she didn't get what she wanted.”

  “And you think you can just go in there and shoot her?”

  “I think I have to do something.”

  “Do you have any idea what we're dealing with here?” he hisses, keeping pace with me as we pass the dumpsters. “You can't just shoot this thing! Don't you think someone would have done that by now if it was possible? Don't you think I would have done it? This creature can't be stopped, I don't think it can even die!”

  “We'll see about that.”

  Stepping into the grass, I clamber up the embankment with the rifle in my right hand.

  “This is madness!” Brian calls after me.

  “No-one said you have to come,” I mutter. “In fact, I'd prefer it if you didn't.”

  I keep walking, but a moment later I hear him hurrying after me.

  “She wasn't your sister,” I point out. “You don't have to do a damn thing.”

  “What the hell do I have left?” he replies, already a little out of breath. “The only reason I'm here is that I wanted to help your sister. My plan after that was to go home and... Well, like I said, I have nothing to live for anymore. My wife is gone and the things I did for this creature... I can't live with that. Maybe I can help you when you find this thing.”

  “Do you feel her?” I ask.

  “The creature?”

  “She's here,” I continue, as we continue to make our way between the trees. “She knows we're here, too. Let me guess, she lured you in here a few years back and promised you anything you wanted, in exchange for doing her a few small favors?”

  “It was about five years ago,” he replies, “and... I was weak and stupid, I shouldn't have been so easily led but...”

  “There's not much you could have done,” I point out, barely able to see anything in the darkness ahead. “As my case proves, even if you resist her, she doesn't let go. I guess she can't handle rejection, she's just a child, she never -”

  Stopping suddenly, I realize I can hear footsteps nearby, running through the forest. I turn and look around, squinting in an effort to see a little better.

  “Did you hear that?” I ask.

  “Do you think it was her?” he replies, his voice filled with fear.

  “Have you ever seen her face?”

  “Once. That was more than enough. What about you?”

  “I don't think so,” I continue, turning to look the other way but still not spotting any sign of movement. A moment later, however, I hear the footsteps again, racing past just a few feet away, crashing through piles of dead leaves. “I don't really remember too well,” I add, “but I don't recall her face.”

  “Oh, you'd know if you'd seen it,” Brian replies. “Trust me, it's like... I've never seen anything so hideous.”

  “Nice to know,” I mutter, turning as I hear the footsteps once again. “She's trying to scare us, but why bother?”

  “Habit, maybe?” he suggests. “Her name is Alice, did you know that?”

  “Maybe. I don't remember too well.”

  “The version of the story I heard was that she was a little girl who got sick hundreds of years ago,” he explains, “and the forest was used to keep her alive.”

  “Figures,” I reply, setting off again on the walk to the nearest cabin. “All I know is that she killed my sister.” After just a couple more steps, however, I stop once more and listen. This time, I can hear a faint scraping sound down on the ground, as if something is being dragged along. “Do you have a flashlight?” I ask cautiously.

  “I think I have an app,” Brian says, and I hear him fumbling in his pockets before suddenly a harsh white light starts shining from his phone's screen. Reaching out, I take it from him and tilt it down, and then I immediately step back as I see a tattered, ravaged figure crawling past just a few inches from my feet.

  “Jesus,” I whisper, as the figure ignores us both and keeps going. “I think he's crawling toward the edge of the forest.”

  “Robert Mason,” Brian says suddenly, stepping past me. Turning, I see that there's a second figure, also crawling toward the forest's boundary.

  “Who?” I ask.

  “I killed him,” he explains, “or... I tried to kill him, but I guess we were in the forest so... She must have set them loose.”

  Stepping around the two crawling figures, I tilt the phone toward the second and realize that I recognize her ravaged face.

  “Mary,” I whisper, wincing at the sight of her skeletal form, with all her flesh having seemingly been burned away. For a moment, all I can do is stare in horror as she and the other guy continue to crawl away. A moment later I see several more rotten corpses following them.

  “She's letting them all go,” I say after a moment. “Clearing house, maybe. I guess she thinks good times are coming and she'll get plenty of fresh ones.”

  “What'll happen when they get to the edge?” Brian asks.

  “They'll finally die,” I tell him, watching them for a moment longer before turning to him. “Rita was right. Staying alive in this forest, it's unnatural. You either end up crawling away or losing your mind. There has to be -”

  Suddenly something bumps against my shoulder. I turn, raising the gun in case there's someone behind me, but when I hold the phone up I realize that there's nothing. A moment later, Brian steps forward and then turns, and it's clear that he felt something similar.

  “She's toying with us,” he says, glancing at me. “She knows we're here and she's treating us like toys.”

  “She wants me,” I reply, turning and watching as the figures continue to crawl away into the darkness beyond the phone's glowing light. When I turn back to Brian, I can see the fear in his eyes. “I don't think you should come any further,” I tell him. “Go back and tell the police what's happening.”

  “There's no way they'll believe me,” he replies, “and anyway, you can't stop this bitch alone.”

  “I don't even know if I can stop her with help.” Taking a deep breath, I realize that I have no right to send him away. “Okay,” I continue, “but remember, if she appears, keep behind me.”

  “Of course, but -”

  His phone buzzes, and I see that he's received a text message.

  “Someone named Alison,” I tell him. “I'll -”

  Snatching the phone from me, he stares at the screen.

  “We don't have time for correspondence,” I point out.

  He taps the phone and starts checking the message, and slowly an expression of shock crosses his face. “She wants to talk,” he stammers, as if he can barely believe what he's reading.

  “Listen -”

  “She's at our house,” he continues, “she says she's thought about it and she doesn't want to throw everything away.” He pauses, his hands trembling, before turning to me. His shocked face is bathed in the phone's light. “It's not over. Maybe I can -”

  Suddenly he lets out a gasp as his body is flung through the air, crashing into a nearby tree and then slumping to the ground. I rush over to him, but he lets out a groan before he's lifted up again and smashed into one of the branches overhead. I try to reach out and grab his leg, but I miss by inches as his body is sent flying across the clearing and into another tree. He slips down and lands hard on the ground, and as I hurry over I realize I just heard his bones being shattered.

  “Can you hear me?” I ask, grabbing the phone again as I reach him.

  He twitches and tries to get up, but I can hear the broken bones grinding against one another in his body.

  “It's okay,” I continue, “you can't die, not while you're in the forest.”

  “My wife,” he whispers, “tell her I -”

  Before he can finish, his body is lifted up and slammed into another tree, and then suddenly he's sent
hurtling through the air, pulled high enough that I can already tell what Alice is doing. She's tossing him out of the forest, and when he disappears into the darkness I already know that in a moment or two he'll be spat out onto the road and left to die. Given the state of his injuries, I have no doubt that it's too late to save him.

  “Done with him,” a voice whispers in the back of my head.

  A few seconds later, I hear a faint scratching sound nearby. Turning, I hold the phone up again, but there's still no sign of her. The screen's light merely bathes several nearby trees in an unhealthy glow.

  “Where are you?” I shout, hurrying onward through the forest. “I'm here now! Isn't that what you wanted? Don't be a coward, Alice. Come out and show yourself!”

  Spotting something up ahead in the gloom, I slow for a moment before realizing that it's a car. As I get closer, I see that it's Alice's vehicle from two years ago, twisted and bent after the crash. A little further on, there's a second vehicle, which I think I recognize as the truck that the drunk asshole was driving the night I first came into the forest. I guess Alice has developed a habit of tidying up the mess she creates at the forest's boundary, and dragging all the evidence deep into her territory so it won't be found.

  I guess she's also found a way to dissuade the police from coming here.

  As I reach Alice's upturned car, I lean inside but find that it's empty. The light from Brian's phone shines bright against the vehicle's rusting metal, and the whole scene seems almost ghostly as I walk around the battered hulks and continue to make my way through the forest. Deep down, despite the occasional scratching sound nearby and the hint of footsteps in the distance, I know that Alice won't reveal herself until I reach the shack. She's luring me there, she thinks she's finally getting what she wanted, but I refuse to surrender to her. I still don't quite know what I'll do when I find her, but my current plan is to use the gun to blow her goddamn head off and then come up with a better plan.

  Finally, after making my way cautiously through the forest for a little longer, I spot the shack up ahead.

  I pause for a moment, filled with a noxious mixture of anger and fear, before stepping closer while keeping the gun raised and looking around for any sight of her.

  As I get to the side of the shack, I hear the telltale sound of razor-blades grinding against one another.

  I stop for a moment, listening as the sound moves around the far side of the shack, and finally I hear it approaching me from behind. I want to turn and shoot her, but I also know that I need her to get closer so I won't miss. Maybe Rita had Alice's help to steady her aim, but I'm not so fortunate. The sound has almost reached me now, but I wait a couple more seconds before finally turning and holding the phone up so I can see her face.

  She's right behind me, and at last our eyes meet.

  “What...” I stammer, horrified by the sight. “I... What...”

  She's still just a child, in her early teens, but her entire body is criss-crossed by hundreds of little black lines. When she starts to smile, however, some of the lines slip a little further out from her putrid flesh and I realize that they're razor-blades, embedded in her flesh and constantly slicing against one another whenever she moves. There's even one in her left eye, slicing through the white as her smile grows.

  “I'm here,” I tell her, raising the gun and aiming at her face. “You finally got my attention.”

  II

  “There was a man here,” she says calmly, her voice sounding so childish now she's right in front of me. “He lived in these cabins, he was performing some kind of survey. He had a stash of supplies with him, and one of them was a box of blades. I don't know what he was using them for, probably some part of his project, but after he died I started to wonder whether I could still feel pain. I dug one of the blades into my body and although it didn't hurt, I did feel the very faintest hint of something, so I kept going until the box was empty.”

  She steps closer and I instinctively step back, while keeping the gun raised.

  “I could take them out now,” she adds, “if you'd prefer. If it'd made it easier for you to look at me. I know I probably look a little unusual these days.” Reaching up, she starts to slide one of the blades out from her forehead, causing a dribble of blood to run down her face. “Don't worry,” she tells me, “it'll heal. Everything heals in the forest. It was made magic just for me.”

  “What are you?” I whisper, taking another step back and aiming the gun at her chest. Damn it, I only have one shot and I don't know where to hit her.

  “I've been here for so long,” she continues, dropping the blade to the ground and then slowly starting to pull another out, this time from her left cheek. “Hundreds of years, never growing up or -” She flinches slightly as the blade comes loose. “That's odd,” she adds with a frown. “It never occurred to me that there might be more pain when I take them out. I so desperately wanted to feel something, you see. I've tried a lot of different ways to make it happen, I've even reached out and enjoyed the emotions of people on the edge of the forest.”

  She drops the blade and then pulls out yet another, this time from her neck.

  “You killed my sister,” I stammer, with my finger on the trigger.

  “She killed herself.”

  “You made her do it!” I shout.

  She giggles. “You were there. She shot herself in the chest.”

  “I know you were in her head,” I stay firmly, aiming the gun at her face. “I know how you operate.”

  “I'm getting hungrier as the years go by,” she replies. “I need to feel more emotions, more sensations in my body, and unfortunately pain and misery are so much easier to source than any other. I've had a few people dragged in here so I can drink their emotions directly, but now I've got a new idea. You and I -”

  “Go to hell!” I spit, horrified by the sight of her as she starts to pull out another blade from her chin.

  “You're the only person who ever managed to resist me,” she replies with a smile. “For that reason alone, I knew I had to have you. I waited, biding my time, and then when I sensed you were returning I began to reel your sister in. I'd been watching her for so long, but I had to be patient. That's not something that comes naturally to me, so I hope you understand how good I've been. I needed her, because I knew she was the only way I could get to you.”

  “You killed her,” I reply, my whole body trembling with rage.

  “That's okay,” she continues. “I can give her -”

  Pulling the trigger, I shoot her in the face, sending her slumping back down against the forest floor. I step forward and aim again, this time hoping to shoot her in the chest. When I pull the trigger, however, I only hear a faint clicking sound, and I realize I'm out of ammunition. I should have grabbed some more before I left the store. Tossing the gun aside, I look down at Alice's body and see that her head and chest have been blasted apart, but a moment later I realize that her hands are still twitching.

  “Shannon?”

  I freeze as soon as I hear that voice.

  “Shannon, it's me. Turn around.”

  “No,” I whisper, still staring down at Alice's body. “Even you can't be that cruel.”

  “Shannon, please,” the voice continues. “This is what you want, isn't it? You want me back.”

  Even though I know the sight might kill me, I slowly turn and see Rita standing a few feet away. Except I know it isn't really Rita, I know it's just another hallucination brought forward by Alice in an attempt to get me on her side. I guess there's really nothing she won't do in an attempt to get what she wants.

  “We can still be together,” Rita says, coming closer to me. She smiles as she reaches out and puts a cold hand on my arm. “I'm the most important thing in the whole world, aren't I? If you leave the forest now, I'll be all alone here forever. Could you really do that to me? I'd spend the rest of eternity weeping. Please, Shannon, I'd miss you too much!”

  I shake my head. “No...”

 
; Suddenly she lunges at me, wrapping her arms around my waist in a cold embrace. I know I should push her away, but I can't, not yet.

  “Please,” she whispers, “don't leave me again. I forgive you for leaving me the first time, I don't even blame you for my death even though it is your fault, but if you do it again... Please, let's just stay here forever. Alice isn't so bad, not really, and we can be together just the way it's supposed to be. Alice doesn't even ask for much in return.”

  “That's why you did it,” I reply, feeling repulsed by the coldness of her touch. “You thought Rita was the one thing that would make me stay here.” The worst thing is, she might be right.

  “I love you,” Rita continues. “You love me, Shannon, don't you?”

  I want to tell her that I hate her, that she's an abomination, but I can't say those words to my sister's face.

  “Don't you love me?” she asks, with tears in her eyes. “After everything I did to try to find you?”

  “I love my sister,” I tell her, slipping free from her grasp and taking a step back, “but you're not her. You're a vision, you're some kind of sick hallucination and if you think I'll fall for such an obvious trick, you must think I'm a complete fucking idiot.”

  “Do you hate me?” Rita asks, as tears stream down her face. “Is that the problem? Do you secretly hate me because I didn't find a way to save Dad when I found him? Maybe that's why you left me all alone for two years. Maybe you just hated me and you didn't care and -”

  “I was in prison!” I shout, my whole body shaking with rage. “I made a mistake and I paid for it! I was going to come back for you, I swear, but I screwed up and now you're dead!”

  “We can still be together,” she says calmly. “You just have to love me enough.”

  Before I can answer, I realize I can hear a slow grinding sound over my shoulder. Turning, I see to my horror that Alice is back on her feet, and that the bullet wounds in her chest and face are slowly healing as her damaged flesh knots back together, embedding the razor-blades even deeper in her body.