Haunting Stories in the Trees

I realized my phone was dying when I tried to take a video of the trees by the road. There was something about the sun rising behind them. When I scanned the silhouettes of the trees, it looked like a barcode that told the stories of those who lived long ago. Sometimes you could relax your eyes and picture them old hunters, children running, and wild animals looking for a place to stay in the winter. I think it was a lack of signal that made my phone die faster. I don't know if that was a thing back then, but I had charged it up that morning and now it was at less than ten percent. The charger was in my bag in the back part of the van. I could have reached it if I tried hard enough, but all five of us were squeezed together with more bags on our laps and on the floor. I told them we wouldn't need that much food for such a short camping trip, and that was right, but not for that reason. Fear has a way of ruining your appetite. The story will bring us into the mysteries of the woods again, but this time with a chance to find some answers. My name is Edwin, and here is a scary story. Darren was fast asleep in the front passenger seat. The only two comfortable people in the minivan were him and the driver. Well, the driver had a bunch of sheets and maps in front of him against the window, and he thought it would be a good idea to decorate the entire dashboard with these mini hairy monsters collectibles. From there, I think out in these areas, people seem to have their own things going on. It's why we needed them for the trip. Otherwise you would have just taken two cars. They knew how essential they were, though, so they charged what it were worth. He was friendly enough though. He showed us a few viewpoints that were off the regular path that hiker and campers like us would miss because they were out in loops of dirt paths away from the main roads, and yet after zigzagging through some more pines and dry trees, he would somehow end up back on the road. If you have any trouble, he kept saying, the signal is best the top of that hill, and he kept pointing to it every time he came into view. He looked more like a flat mountain than a hill, But we understood we had his number and could spot that thing from anywhere where there was a clearing. Because of how strangely shaped it was. I called it a stack of pancakes, but my friends called it a pimple. Others called it the button, but I was glad they were on the same page in terms of safety. In having a plan, the guide made us take his business card and put it in our wallets. The phone number was crossed out on all of them, rewritten in blue ink on the back. It was good. When I was a kid, I got lost at Dizzeyland, and fortunately it's common enough there that it didn't get too traumatizing for me. But I did get scolded by my mom, who had told me time and time again if I got lost, I should go to the entrance of wherever we were and wait there. But where was the entrance of a large walkway with hundreds of people passing with strollers, all of them looking the same with t shirts, hats, and sunglasses. So I just stood there and cried until the kind lady with the broom came by. She tried to help me for a few minutes before trying to find my lost parents. I'd gotten lost before, and I would always be found if I stayed by the entrance malls, grocery stores, subway stations. Come to think of it, it might have been my parents' fault all along. And I knew that this trip was going to be something else, because there was no way I'd be able to make my way back to any entrance to any part of the woods, especially after all these twists and turns. But hey, that was a point of all of this or last trip before everyone went off into the real world after graduating college. The guide caught me looking at him through the rear view mirror and he smiled. About another half an hour, he said, smiling, or do you want to turn back? Everyone in the van knew he was talking to me. I shook my head no, thinking that maybe he had noticed that I looked sick from all the turns on the road. But I smiled back and turned to the window. Out there, in the hypnotizing trees, I saw the images again, like a flip book, the children running toward the car, chasing each other until I got to see their frightened faces. Tall strange creatures with legs like crabs were chasing after them, and from the top of the trees, a hooded thing rising up and passed the try branches, and then zooming passed the car and through the trees. It was the size of a human, faceless and dark. It vanished the trees somewhere in the next turn. I could feel the guides eyes reflecting on me again. He knew what I had seen, and he wasn't smiling anymore. This is where we're gonna be staying, Tracy asked out loud when we were dragging our legs between the bags to get out of the van. We had all been wondering that same thing. To the guide's credits. It looked exactly like in the pictures he showed us. He said it had a refrigerator and an emergency generator if we needed it. The stove needed wood that to be honest, we probably wouldn't be using. A couple of us brought camping stoves for when we needed to boil water for the boxes. Yes, boxes, a couple of noodles. A cabin would be too much to describe this. This thing was like a bungalow with a makeshift porch. The nicest part was the bathroom that actually had tile and was near the back of it. We had more than enough lawn chairs, and there were board games, a radio, a first aid kit. What do we do about the bears, Mark asked, out of nowhere, no bears this time of the year, but if you find one, we need to send out an alert because it's probably hungry and dangerous. We weren't sure if he was joking or not, because he changed the topic quickly to the signal that installed a booster nearby. But the pancake Mountain hill was blocking it and it wasn't working where we were. Do you see it? He kept asking? Do you get in touch with me if you get in trouble? What kind of trouble, Darren asked, serious this time. If someone gets lost, you turn out of food, You see smoke out there in the woods. No one else should be out there anyway. I'll be back here on Sunday four pm. Or do you want to turn back, he asked again, Looking at me. For an instant I could tell he wasn't making some type of joke in the car. Then his expression was serious, and that's how he was when he first booked the trip with him. He tried to convince us to take us instead to the other side by the desert, nicer areas, mountain views, and actual cabin. We were thinking that he was trying to upsell us that whole time, and I wish you would have listened. He was worried for this group of strangers, I could tell. Everyone started unloading the bags, mainly food and drinks and plastic bags. Michaela brought a suitcase that she couldn't carry on her own, but everything was now on the porch and everyone had gone inside to check out the place, the one where we would stay for that weekend. It didn't look too bad now. It had a lot of space, we were in a nice clearing and the lake was a short walk away. No one around for miles, just friends, food, and a weekend without homework or finals to worry about. I walked up to the guide. Tom was his name, as he sat in his vand taking notes on one of the many maps he had on the dashboard, looking at us every few seconds. You can see them, huh, he asked, sitting completely still as he rolled down his window A little more what I asked? Trying to get him to tell me instead of embarrassing myself with the thoughts and visions, the ones of something flying through the trees, children running, and all the things my crazy imagination came up with whenever I got to that level of boredom. I think those were the bad ones, he said quietly. The good ones are the ones you never see. He said. To stay where we were, and not to go out too far, to not open the doors at night. If we hear knocking, it might be, in his own words, an animal or something else. R Do you want to turn back, he asked, completely serious again. Thank you, Tom, We'll see you on Sunday. Here's something for you. As I handed him, I'm a twenty dollars bill. Feeling guilty for doing so. For some reason, he took it in thinking putting it in his shirt pocket. He tapped on a steering wheel, started up the van, and rolled away, leaving behind the kind of silence that seemed completely unnatural out there in nature. We spent the rest of that afternoon lounging and that clearing. The lake itself was beautiful, though dark enough to make me wonder how deep it was. It was one of those places that wasn't in the maps like the others. I mean, we could see the blue of the lake in the green of the forested areas, but knew little else about it, no names or details about landmarks and stuff like that. I think it's what brought Oscar here. He's the one that found it and told the rest of us who didn't want to go with the others on their usual summer trip, another trip to a cabin with a pool, beer, loud music, and coming back more tired than anything. So we just passed on that. Two of the guys got in the lake, following the rule about jumping in a natural body of water when they saw one, and they came back, rinsed off with the well water, and sat outside, drawing off by one of the lawn chairs with their towels. The last normal thing we experienced were the setup of the camp fire and sitting around it talking about politics and some of the plans for the future. He already felt like a proper good bye, even though our weekend was supposed to only be starting. I think of our conversations often we all had dreams. I mean, why struggle for so many years with money, stress and staying up so late at night with our work For the money, sure, but why do you need the money to have whatever we want? And why what do you want? Some of our reasons were to help our families. Others were to prove something to ourselves. A couple of us were in sure, myself included. We'll just figure it out as we go, was our conclusion. Once the ember started glowing dim, we decided to head inside. The darkness around us was dead quiet without the crackling of the firewood. The buzzing of the insects had stopped, and the wind started to pick up in a deep whistling that none of us had ever heard before. We were quiet as we boiled up some more water for the noodles, oscar ate from a cold can of Ravioli's, and we just sat on the enormous couch that took up the whole front part of the place. Tracy was messing with the radio, trying to find some music, but only kept cycling between the same two stations, one with what seemed to be church music and the other was a news announcer warning the public on an alert where he kept repeating this message is for the Vernacua areas south of Slugba Hill. Then she just changed the station back. Jesus as the sunset on the ocean, the rocks on mountain. Oscar jumped up, snatching the radio from her lap. Is that what this place is called? Changed the station again? Twenty two miles south. They was spotted again? Stay indoors, answer no calls. Thank you for your attention on this matter. Thank you for your attention in this matter. What was spotted? We were all a little scared, I could tell, but none of us wanted to seem like we were, so all of our questions started flooding the conversation very calmly. Who was it? What was the announcer talking about? What was spotted? Oscar put his phone back on the table and leaned back, hands on his face. No signal, he said, sighing as loudly as a person could. Vernaqua, That's what he said, Right, We're at Blackwood's not that other place. Or is Vernaqua the original name? Mark asked him what the matter was, Why was he so worried, tapping him on the back as he walked away from him and went to the kitchen for another Can we read about a place like this one? You remember, Mark? Right? We took this class together. We all chuckled. Mark doing the readings for any class was a joke, the stories of the voices and the very real documented deaths in the areas that surrounded it. Mark, you don't remember. Mark shrugged, looking at the rest of us, holding back a smile. But Oscar seemed genuinely concerned and grabbed the radio again. He was the smartest out of all of us by far, the only one on track for a PhD, and the only one interested in learning whatever we went through in college. He turned up the volume and then lowered it once the station kept flipping back to the songs about Jesus. He stood up and quickly went to the front door, the kitchen side door, and then went through the windows. He sat still for a moment before grabbing his phone again. Tom said, the hill has signal how far we can still stay somewhere else. Once we reached the base of the ridges that we passed, Tom can just come get us. But we had just arrived, and even though we wanted to listen to the things he told us about the events as early as two thousands, some stories from the eighties and many more from earlier, we had just gotten settled. Plus we all knew that the guy would get carried away and was always looking for something to be anxious about. Kayla told him that it was probably some joke or a late night radio drama like they had them before. Oscar was familiar with him, and we all knew about it after he made us listen to War of the Worlds when he was the designated driver and he picked us up from a concert. One time, he stayed quiet for a second, grabbed the radio and held it in his lap, listening for anything else aside from their music. He remained that way for most of the night until we all started getting ready to go to sleep. Mind you, it was not even ten pm by this time. Two were at the table playing some made up game, others were talking on the couch, and I was sitting in a lawn chair by the front door, with a cup of soup in my hand, in a magazine from nineteen ninety eight, my Reader's Digest kind of thing on my lap. Now it's at this point where I noticed that things were off, and still I remained quiet. I heard soft tapping on the door, quiet enough to ignore it. I looked up at Oscar. He was nearly falling asleep by the radio. I vaguely remember Oscar roaming around checking on the doors at night, had fallen asleep in the dark living room area with the other girls. Just as I started to doze off again, I heard another soft tapping, this time by the window. It was clearly separated, tap tap tap, rhythmic, unnatural. Again I tried ignoring it, but it persisted, tap tap tap. I looked to my left and saw Tracy's head turning to face the window. Do you hear that? I whispered, startling her. She moved her head, but I didn't know as she was nodding or shaking it. No. Then Mikayla turned round, wide eyed. Is that Oscar? She asked, confusing us even more. Mark, we heard from the outside, Mark you in there? It was Oscar's voice. Now, the first thing I thought was that he had gotten outside to get to the hill in order to get signal to get us right back, literally in the middle of the night, and I knew it was something he was capable of doing. The guy was a little weird to everyone else, and we were the only ones I had gotten used to the way he was. So I stood up and walked across that cold floor to look at the window, and sure enough, Oscar was standing by the corner of the property, far enough away from the front door that he had to shout. Why he didn't go up to knock on the front door like a normal person. I didn't know at the time, but it gave me a strange feeling, even after that relief from seeing a familiar person out there. Maybe it was the way his pale face stood out from against the dark trees behind him. Again, I don't know. I started walking towards the front door when I felt something grip my arm. It was Tracy. Are you sure it's him? She whispered, her voice shaky. Why wouldn't I be sure it was Oscar? We all knew his voice, the way he hunched over sometimes, and the way he phrased his sentences like a question every single time. But again there was something about it. Why doubt such a normal thing, something we were used to and had heard a thousand times? Why now? And why in this place? I thought about it enough to make me crouch down and hide from the window. I heard the voice outside calling my name, now, Maggie, is that you? It was a changed tone that made shivers run up my spine. But even worse, Oscar had always called me Mag's for as long as I had known them. Never, Maggie, I don't know how we ran while hiding from the curtainless window like that, but we did. Tracy followed close behind as we went over the bathroom and leaned into the section where the two large beds were. Right there on the first one closest to the door was Oscar, his eyes wide open and turned directly to us. It's not me, he whispered, voice trembling with fear. That section of the cabin or whatever this was, had no door, so we all crouched down in a position where we couldn't see out through the window, the one that faced away from the lake. Mark and his brother were moving themselves, awake, slowly, asking out loud what the matter was. Mark was probably still half asleep. He stood up as if nothing was happening and glanced over to the window. Dude, he screamed, Oscar, you weirdo. You scared the hell out of me. We all stayed quiet as we watched him reach toward the windowsill, and then all rushed over to stop him. We yelled for him to not touch it, that Oscar was in there with us, and crouched down too to hide from the window. Whence things got quiet again. Oscar told us about the legends of the place, the one that was mentioned in the radio by the announcer the play is where he thought we were in right now. Voices they say, call your name, aim to lure you out there, and they've been tied to crimes, and they have evenen shown up in court records. Oscar mentioned a few cases, but all were dismissed as lore or ghost stories, unacceptable by judges. Legends say that they lure you out into the lake, but nobody knows how or why they happen. But even in ancient writings and stories, they claim that the voices come with familiar shapes, ones that we make ourselves from the trees. There are so many that they blend together, and our minds pieces them into familiar faces. The voices of the wind combined to do the same thing. We all stayed still as he explained what he knew, and we listened. For the first time, we really truly listened to Oscar until the sun came up. Now we had one more night remaining in that area, and for the rest of our stay we actually kept close to each other. We thought about going up to the hill and calling Tom to come get us, but felt silly at the thought of giving him our reason why. Mark's younger brother was scared the whole time, but didn't say much, just asked Oscar a few questions here and there, but stayed calm. Now there were no more creepy incidents like the one from the night before, and I remained suspiciously calm, even to myself now. When Tom arrived earlier than expected the following day, we littered him with questions about what we had heard and seen, and he listened closely before speaking up. Isn't that what you came here for? He told us he had taken all sorts of people to these grounds, and apparently most had been searching for spirits out there. I saw relief in his eyes right when he realized that we were just a dumb group of students looking for something adventurous to do on a weekend. The stories he shared with us on that right back were hard to forget, although the details themselves I've started to escape me over the years. Turns out there's something out there in the empty wounds in the lands that whold secrets. But I often think of what that thing could have been. We all saw it the exact same thing, some type of oscar or a copy of them out there. And then I thought about the haunting words of Tom himself. The good ones are the ones you never see. Scary Story podcast has written and produced by me Edwin Corujas. Thank you all for your support on my other podcast, The Paranormal Club, where I read some listeners submitted stories. In our latest episode, you can find it and send me your stories through there. Someone actually sent in a real photo of an apparition that freaked me out. You can find the show on Paranormal Club and in this particular episode I'm talking about, it's called We See Ghosts Listener submissions number four. Anyway, thank you Scary Plus members for your support. I'm Edwin cove E, d w N coov on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook if you want to stay in touch. If you're following the show, I will be back next week to tell you another story. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it Scary everyone, See you soon.