The Woods Are Dark At Night - Countryhumans Canada

Chapter Four - Body

A week had passed since America and his family completely moved into their new house. They settled nicely into the neighborhood, an invisible weight lifting off the entire family's shoulders. They finally didn't have to deal with their creepy neighbor, who never moved out all those years of Ame's childhood.

The day went by with no interesting activity. It was quite dull in the house. America walked down the steps and into the kitchen where France sat at the dining room table. She looked up from her computer and smiled. "Bonsoir!" She said.

"Bonsoir, Mère." He responded.

"Do you plan on doing anything fun today?" She asked.

"Not really, it's only noon though, so something might come up." Ame shrugged as he reached for a cup in the cabinet. He was still trying to get used to the new placement of dishes in the new kitchen. As he was filling up his cup, Australia walked down the steps.

"Ame, I heard that there's a forest on the outskirts of the neighborhood," Aussie said. "We should go exploring in them like we used to do."

"Well, there's your fun thing for today!" France said. She continued to type on her computer.

America shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Lemme get my shoes first." Ame put his cup on the counter and walked to the front door where his shows were. He easily pulled them on, his brother next to him throwing on a sweatshirt.

"Bye, ma, we'll be home before the sun sets!" Aussie said, closing the door behind him.

"That's at like 8, are we really gonna stay out that long?" Ame asked his brother.

"Nah, but maybe we'll go downtown," Aussie said. "We still need to explore the area."

"That's fair. We have all summer for that." Ame said. He let Aussie lead the way to where said forest was located. "I wonder if we'll see any murderers in there." Ame joked. Aussie rolled his eyes with a slight grin.

"I know you weren't being serious but even if we thought there actually were, this neighborhood is so small and anticlimactic, nothing is gonna happen," Aussie said.

"We've been here for a week, how would you know?" Ame asked skeptically.

"I researched this place, barely anything interesting has happened for years," Aussie said.

"I hope you're right," Ame started. "Cause we don't want another one of those creepy neighbors like in our last neighborhood."

The two brothers shivered. Ame would never be able to get that country's horrid face out of his memories. Every encounter that he and his family had with who they used to call "Aggy" was flat-out creepy. At the time, Ame didn't quite understand, but now he does. That man was a huge creep.
The two brothers continued to walk down the sidewalk. Aussie found the outskirts of the forest he was talking about and the two walked in on a trail nearby. They wandered the forest, gazing up at the tall trees that didn't seem as tall as before when they explored as children. Since then they've grown. America hated that.

A few hours passed and the two brothers were deep into the woods. Along the way, they found old rubbish like trash bins, random plastic bits, plastic bottles, and a lot more. Once they walked deeper into the trail, less and less rubbish was coming up. The trail became more dense to the point where the brothers couldn't get any farther.

"Well, this is a dead end." America huffed.

"Maybe we could get off the trail," Aussie suggested. "It wouldn't hurt to look around in there more."

"I guess. But we should probably go soon. I know the sun isn't nearly going down yet but I think we should make time to look around town a bit." Ame said.

"That's a good idea," Aussie said. And with that, the blue country led his brother off the trail. But it was no use. The forest had overgrown too much. Aussie easily maneuvered through the thorn bushes, but Ame got snagged on one and stopped.

"Ok, this is too much, we should at least start heading back," Ame said.

"Yeah, I don't think there's gonna be anything else interesting past this point." Aussie and America turned back around and found the trail. The two walked in silence.

The two brothers heard a *snap* behind them. They quickly whipped around and scanned their surroundings.
"It's probably just a deer," Aussie said.

"Right..." America nodded, but his nerves began to fire up. He fidgeted with his flower necklace, the smooth surface keeping him calm. Every so often he would turn his head to see if he could spot the deer. But he saw nothing.

The brothers were halfway out of the forest when Ame turned around one last time, just to check if there was anything or if he was going crazy. Just as he thought he didn't see anything, he watched as what looked like a head disappeared behind a tree close to them.

America's stomach did somersaults as he grabbed his brother's arm and told him to keep quiet. "There's someone here." He whispered.

"You're going crazy, no one is out here." Aussie turned around and looked in the direction that America was looking. Even though he said he didn't believe America, he was still visibly put off guard.

The two brothers began to speed walk out of the forest, finally making it to the end. They found their way onto the sidewalk and glanced back at the forest. America could swear he could see an outline behind a tree, but Aussie refused to admit that he saw anything.

"Do you still want to go downtown and look around?" Aussie asked, an edge in his voice.

"Not really..." Ame said honestly. He couldn't get himself to calm down, even when they were out of those woods.

"Good, me too." Aussie nodded.
The boys walked down the sidewalk that led to their house. The two stopped when they saw blue and red lights going off near their house and looked at each other.

"What the fuck?" Ame asked. "What's going on down there?"

"I dunno, let's go." Aussie grabbed onto Ame's wrist and they sprinted down the sidewalk. The police were outside of their house, walking up to the front door.

"What's going on?" Aussie called to them as they reached their yard. They ran up to the porch in front of the two police officers. Ame panted to catch his breath.

"We need to speak to France and UK. Are they home?" One of the police officers said.

"Yes, those are our parents," Aussie said. The two boys walked into their house. America called out for France and UK, who came out of their room.

"The police are at the door, they want to talk to you guys," Aussie said before they could ask what was wrong.

"What?" France asked. They walked up to the door, opened it, and let the officers in. She offered them to sit at the kitchen table and they obliged.

"Can we stay?" Aussie asked. Their father nodded, so they sat at the table as well.

"What's going on?" UK asked. "Did these two do something?"

"No, sir, these two are just fine." One of the officers spoke. "I'm Officer Singapore, this is my partner Turkey. We're here to talk to you about your missing son, Canada."

"Canada?" France gasped. America felt his heart skip a few beats. Why now? He thought to himself.

"What happened? Did you find him?" UK asked desperately.

"Uhm, we did find him," Turkey cleared his throat. "Just maybe not in the state you would like him in."

"What do you mean?!" France was beginning to get agitated. She just wanted an answer.

"We got a call last night," Singapore started. "Saying that they found a body in the woods. It was horribly mutilated... but we identified him to be your son."

The table went quiet. America's stomach fell to the floor as he heard this, the blood draining from his face.
They found Canada. But he's dead.