The Forest by Elm Street

Chapter Five

 The first time I saw the eyes I was terrified.

The second time I saw the eyes I was paralyzed.

The third time I saw the eyes I was calm.

I stood, Will's soccer ball still in my hand, staring at the red orbs that appeared to be hovering in midair. The eyes stared back.

A beat.

Then they were gone.

I don't know why I did it. It wasn't logical. It wasn't smart. But I entered the forest.

The Forest by Spruce Lane was always the town's ghost story. It was almost a tradition of sorts: every September, fifth graders would wrangle groups of first and second graders to tell them the stories. Some of the children already knew a story, warned by over-cautious parents as to keep their children from exploring alone, or scared by older (and mean) siblings. It was almost sweet in some strange, twisted way, the way the stories seemed to unite the school. In elementary school, kids of all ages would huddle together, listening to some new version of the story. In middle and high school, the stories were almost a joke, now that people were too old to believe them.

Will - Will - told me about the forest when I was about five years old. He came into my room one night and he told me. I slept in my parents bed for weeks afterwards, an overactive imagination not playing in my favor.

The stories seemed to change every time I heard them, a little bit getting added each time to make the story scarier.

First, it was that everyone who entered the forest would be found weeks, months, or years later hidden in the basement of the school, killed by a ghost (It didn't help that our school loved Halloween decorations.).

Then, it was told that there were actually two ghosts, sisters who had been kidnapped and murdered in the forest by an evil creature - a witch, a wolf, or something no one had seen.

In third grade, Connor, one of my classmates, swore that he had met one of the ghosts in the forest. She wore a white, old-fashioned dress, an ax through her head. She swooped at him, but Connor ran out of the forest before she could kill him. After all, everyone knows that ghosts can't leave the place they die. No one believed him.

In fourth grade, I was playing with my friends, and we decided to have a contest to see who could get the farthest into the forest. Emily made it several paces in before dashing back. Maddie touched the bark of a tree. I made it to the treeline before I was petrified by fear.

Everyone believed that you shouldn't go into the forest, even adults and high schoolers.

But here I was.