Oh my apocalypse [YiZhanFF]

Part 22. Eerie Forest

The longer the two were on the road that night, the more the darkness around them seemed to turn into a thick, mushy, non-transparent mass. Both knew, of course, that their imagination was playing tricks on them, but this knowledge did not take away any of the eerie feeling that was inside them.

The moment they finally found the driveway that Zhan's father thought was the right one, they drove onto the dirt road in the middle of the dark forest. But after a few minutes, they already had a foreboding that in this darkness, they would not make it to the hotel.

The already very impassable road, became worse and worse. Again and again they drove through or over bumps in the ground and more than once the shock absorbers suffered violently under a suddenly appearing ground hollow. Yibo was finally fed up with the shaking and said to Zhan, "Damn it, stop the car. We can't go on like this. Our axles will break or we'll have an accident. Let's stop here and find a place to camp."

Zhan stopped the car and looked questioningly at Yibo, "Do you really want to rest here? What if we're already close by?"

"Zhan, I looked at the map carefully. We've been on this road here for 15 minutes and have barely gone 2 miles. And I can tell you, we still have at least 10 miles to go, assuming we hit the right entrance. And then we also have to find the two right mountains first. How are you going to find them in the dark? We're already having trouble seeing anything here with our lights on the car. What do you think it will be like in the mountains?"

"A simple yes or no would have been quite enough Yibo. So what are we going to do? Do we camp in the forest?"

Yibo looked at the trees, which are nothing but dark shadows, and nodded. "I'm afraid we have no choice. I don't like it either. I've never seen a forest as eerie as this one before."

"Mhhh, then we should stay very close to the car. I don't want to get lost here. None of us know the forest and we know nothing about the flora and fauna here. Besides dangerous animals, there could be poisonous plants here."

"I'm all aware of that, Zhan. Let's take a flashlight and look around a bit. I hope we can find a place for the tent."

The two left their car and felt a fresh and strong wind on their skin. It whistled between the trees, shaking their branches and twigs, creating eerie sounds to match the eerie darkness. There was rustling and cracking everywhere as they walked a few feet into the forest.

Zhan even grabbed Yibo's hand in fright when he thought he heard something run past beside him. Yibo, however, pulled his hand right back out of Zhan's grasp in case he needed to react quickly and draw his weapon. Zhan, however, did not like this at all and cursed softly.

When they had gone about 30 meters into the forest, Yibo finally found a spot where there would be enough room for the tent. The only problem was that the ground was uneven and littered with small stones, old branches and just two meters away there is an ant hill.

Yibo was about to ask Zhan if they still wanted to set up the tent there, when suddenly something crashed very loudly. Both of them really flinched and panicked, shining their lights around them. But, they couldn't see anything. The batteries of their flashlights were already very weak and so was the light. And therefore, the darkness around them seemed like a heavy veil that kept descending on them.

Again, something cracked in the forest, and the wind seemed to pick up even more speed. It shook and rattled the trees around them. Somewhere near them, something rustled. Panic spread through both men.

Not wanting to suddenly find themselves in the dark, the two slowly walked back to the car to change the batteries in their flashlights. They stopped abruptly when a large shadow appeared on their car. Yibo immediately turned off his flashlight, snatched Zhan's flashlight from his hand and turned it off as well.