Don't Go Into The Forest

They're Coming

The next day I'm restless.

After my nightmare I laid staring up at the ceiling all night... thinking about the creatures that chase me, and I think I know what they are... wolves are the only thing I can think of when I try to picture them. The more I think about it the more it makes sense; red eyes and sharp teeth, hot breath and quick steps, flashes of silver and a black darker than the forest around it, and they know the forest... so quick in the forest it's not natural... always ahead of me.

The bus was the same as always. Same annoying people, easily drowned out by the music blaring in my ears. As the bus pulled into the school I could see people crowding around a figure on the grass, the lawn with a covering of white snow now stained a deep scarlet red, and I know... know that this person, whoever they are, is a victim of the wolves that hunt me.

This is a warning... a warning that they're coming for me... and aren't afraid to take some others while they do.

As is to be expected after finding a student mangled to death on the grounds, they closed the school. For the rest of the week there was to be no school. But they couldn't send everyone home, the buses had already gone and with a school of three hundred there was no way they were going to call everyone's parents. So we were stuck at school, half of us in the massive assembly hall and the other half in the music rooms, with nothing to do but wait till the buses come back.

I sat in a corner of the music room, resting my head on my knees, trying to block out the noise... no one knows who it is who was killed or what killed them... 'Well that's a lie.' I thought as my mouth mouthed the word that would send everyone running in a blind panic to the woods where 'they' lived... wolves...wolves... WOLVES!

But I knew not to. If I did then we would all die, the wolves would call others to the town, more wolves to kill and terrorise us. But they didn't want everyone did they? No. They just want me. So they'll get me... all of me.

The students that can walk home are being allowed to leave so I slip in between them, hiding so the teachers don't see me escape the room.

When I know there's no chance of the teachers seeing me I quickly turn and take a side track, one that I know shall take me past the school grounds and into the woods. But I must hurry, the woods are dangerous at night and though it's still day the woods are too uncertain not to have weapons while in it.

Everyone knows of the old shed at the start of the woods. It's been there before anyone alive can remember, and there's no record of it in the town's history books... the kids say that when the forest grew the shed came with it, a place for the people to store weapons that could be used against the creatures in the forest ... and they were used quite a lot, a least once a century there would be a hunt in the forest, and those who went in never came out once they got past the willow with the red leaves... or so the legend goes.

If I go back and wait for them there's no telling how many they'll kill before the find me, so it's time to take the fight to them.