The Witch of Eden Road

Prologue

And on the fourth night things did not get better. The air was cold and crisp, they hoped for the midnight sun to peek through the low grey cloud. They were lost, forced to spend another night in the place they sought to pry themselves away from. The fear, growing more prominent as the days come and close, the vulnerability at this point was piercing. Nobody felt safe.

After spending the day clambering over fallen tree and rock, they set up their tents in an outcrop just past the Red River bend that the team had already passed just two days prior. Stricken with exhaustion, confusion and hunger, they decided just to accept the matter at hand and call it an end to the almost shortened hour days.

Two hours hadn't passed after the fire ceased that the noises began. Shrieks coming from the trees, whispers from the forest dark. This time, they were closer. Within one-hundred yard's distance. Something was watching them, feeding off their fear of the unknown. This wasn't the first night it has been watching either.

Edwin awoke in a frenzy, reaching to his side to make sure Savanah was still there. The contagion in her leg has been getting progressively worse. He unravelled the gauze covering her wound to find the bite mark has hued to a darker pink color, with blue and purple bruises slowly spreading around the infection site. A yellow pus like substance had stained the gauze, her body fighting hard the infliction it's under. He heard rustling from the brush behind his tent, then of which he caught from the corner of his eye light emerging from the tent next to him.

It was sometime past midnight when a loud thud had woken the camp, followed by a yelp of some sort of animal. Derek was the first to emerge from his tent with flashlight in hand. Tree branches snapping behind the camp where the thud had originated. The dreary night sky clouded the moon from shining, the forest was as dark as it ever could be. The only light to be seen illuminates from their lanterns and flashlights.

"What the hell was that?" Derek exclaimed with fear in his voice. Nobody answered. Nobody knew how to answer.

"Was it a tree?" Amy asked, as she emerged from the tent with Joshua.

"What tree makes that type of noise?" Josh added. "It wasn't just a thud, there was a shriek. It sounded deliberate, like something got hurt."

"Has anyone else been hearing the whispers?" Amy asked. "I couldn't tell what they were saying, but I feel like they have been coming closer to us."

The group shined their lights into the dark abyss of a forest, looking for signs of movement in the trees. At this point, the woods have gone silent. No bird nor owl or insect can be heard. Dead silence has fallen over them.

Ann had emerged from her sac, and had started to step forward into the trailhead, noticing something strange imbedded in the soil.

"Guys..." She stated with concern. "There's something here..." The rest of the group emerged from their tents and had followed, minus Savana who was still asleep.

"Look..." She continued. There were thin impressions pushed into the soil following up the trail to the cave. The lines weren't engraved in any type of order, some were short, some were long.

"What are they?" Edwin asked.

"It looks like something was dragging a stick behind it..." Ann explained.

"What would be out here in the middle of the night dragging a stick up the trail?" Derek asked. Something was off, and they all felt it. There was a stiffness in the air that they all felt, a cold breeze running off the back of their necks. A silence before the storm.

Then, as they all looked puzzled and waited for what the next move should be, an ear piercing scream can be heard from all angles of the forest. Not one, but all directions the scream is coming from. They all sit still, waiting, watching each other.

"What the fuck is that..." Josh says.

"Shut up... nobody say anything..." Derek looks sternly at all the campers, they all stand in a near perfect circle at the barrier between the outcrop and the woods.

The screaming stops, hearts beat hard as the forest falls silent once again. After two minutes of no movement, Savana wakes to a dripping sound coming from the top of the tent. She turns to face Edwin, who had left his sac empty with the zipper to the outside open.

"Guys, guys what's that dripping noise?" She asks, confused and scared. The rest of the group looks over, Edwin flashing his light to the top of the tent.

Drip after drip of thick red substance falls from the sky. Savana crawls herself halfway out of the tent and looks up, a drop of liquid falling on her cheek. She takes her glove and wipes it across her face, streaking it from one end of her cheek to her ear. She starts to scream in terror with the image that lay hanging above her.

An elk of some sort floats in the tree above the tent, hanging from the sharp branches of the ancient spruce trees, above any man's upright reach into the sky. From the rib cage drooped the gut of the animal, glimmering in the canopy of leaves illuminated by flashlights. The skin had been torn from its back. At first glance no head could be seen in the heap of guts and flesh, but a bony jaw grinned down at them, skin ripped off of only half the face of the creature. Another triangle symbol of sticks hangs in front of the steer as well, symbolizing the creature had been there, and this was its' claim.

Derek stood, flabbergasted. At this point he had felt somewhat responsible for the happenings of the last few days, and wanted nothing more than to get him and his friends away from this nightmarish hell that he had persuaded them to accompany him to.

The elk drips with blood falling slowly emptying unto the tent underneath. Murmuring and astonishment whisper from the group as they do nothing but stare. Savana removes herself from the scene, and disappears back into the tent.

As soon as the murmuring had began it ended. They packed their gear as fast as they had set it up 6 hours prior. They made more noise now than they had over the course of the last few days, but they didn't care. At this point there was no sense in hiding, they were being watched and this was nothing but fact. They were being tracked, and there was no running. All they could think of was getting out of there. This incident was of no coincidence. There was no smell. There was no lingering stench of death. This was no corpse. This was a fresh kill.