The Wood

The Wood



Shey was eleven the summer she first ventured into the woods behind the house after dark. 
At a slumber party in honor of her birthday, she and three other young girls, Carol, Jeanne and Kayla, waited until after midnight and skittered out through the basement rec room. Jeanne saw the light first, coming from just inside the tree line. It flicked and danced in and around the young saplings at the outermost edge of the wood.

Shey’s father had built a tree house back there for her and her little sister late in the fall of the previous year. The girls spent countless hours playing in the crooked shack. Their father’s only rule - no going into the woods after dark. As soon as dusk trickled across the sky they were to be in the yard. They were allowed to stay out a while longer in the backyard but were always strictly mindful of their father’s steadfast rule. Shelia, Shey’s younger sister, had once stepped past the forbidden tree line after dark in pursuit of her favorite rubber ball that had been left there earlier in the day. Their father had steamrolled across the yard like a locomotive, shouting her name. He scooped the little girl up and practically threw her back from the trees onto the lawn.

Shey remembered a haunting look of nervousness on her father’s face before stepping into the trees. After pulling Sheila from the woods he practically ran out of his own skin trying to make the line. Once clear of the trees, he collapsed to the ground sobbing. The sobbing lasted only a few moments before he got back to his feet, grabbed hold of Sheila, and spanked her like neither she nor Shey had ever before received. Tonight was the first time since that night that Shey had ever even contemplated entering those woods again after dark.



Their father had lived in their home his entire life; a rural farm house set just at the edge of a large forest. It was the only house for miles in any direction. The land had been in their family for generations. Over the years several of his brothers and sisters had moved on. Two of his older brothers had passed away at young ages. Eventually their parents passed on and he found himself the sole occupant and owner of the century old house. He married their mother in the spring of 1961 and the next year Shey was born. Sheila came when Shey was three years old. Their mother passed away within six months of Sheila’s birth. Their father never told them what had happened to her, what had happened to the two older brothers he could now only scarcely remember. His generic answer to their questions about their mother’s whereabouts had always been, “Your mother took sick.” Never anything more.

Now, on her eleventh birthday, with a basement full of snickering, prepubescent girls and her father passed out from drink upstairs, the memory of the night Sheila had been caught in the woods came flooding back to her. She wrapped her wool coat about her shoulders and prepared to step into the night. Kayla was last through the door, pulling it gently shut, careful not to make a sound. They turned the outside light off so there was less risk of being spotted. Ducking out through the side door, they quickly skittered across the lawn and behind the shed. Jeanne pointed out the light in the tree line to the other girls and suggested they go investigate. Shey knew better than to disobey her father but wanted the girls to accept her so she followed along with their plan. As the group of them, all in their flannel nightgowns snickered and giggled behind the shed, the first faint noises tickled their ears from just beyond the tree line.

“It's some other girls.” Carol remarked, hushing the others and listening pointedly. The other girls began to hear it as well. There was the light again, deeper in the woods this time. Still it skipped and floated in amongst the trees.

“They have a flashlight.” Kayla whispered. The faint giggles of what sounded like a group of young girls materialized eerily from within the wood. The sound curved and wove through the trees like a heavy fog. By the time any of them noticed Carol was missing, they were deep enough into the woods that they could no longer see out onto the back lawn.

They could still hear the giggling of the young voices in and around the trees, sometimes sounding as if it were right beside them. Dark clouds shifted slowly across the night sky, blocking the moon’s light from the forest below. Complete blackness surrounded them. Before the clouds had moved in they were able to see somewhat by the silvery light of the moon, now they were blind. Nervously they each called each other’s names and extended arms in front of them trying to find one another. Carol didn’t respond to any of them. Shey, Jeanne and Kayla all answered and found one another quickly.

“Where’s Carol? Carol!” Jeanne yelled.

“Quiet, my father will hear us.” Shey pleaded. “Hello?” She whispered loudly, trying to get the attention of the giggling girls in the woods. Branches cracked to their right and the transparent laughter coming from the wood became shrill shrieks of terror.

“Help me!” It was Carol’s voice, screeching in agony.

“Carol, oh my God!” they screamed, “Where are you? Carol!” The screams continued on for a moment and then all was silent. Behind them, just out of their sight, the back light flicked on and Shey’s father stepped out onto the porch.

“Shey, girls – where are you?” he hollered; sliding closed the chamber on his rifle and running through the dew dropped grass of the early morning.

“Daddy! Over here, please!”

“Don’t move!” he answered back and tore through the woods toward them. Over the snapping of fallen branches behind them, the haunting giggles started again. They sounded like they were all around them, coming from every direction. Shey’s father grabbed her arm and she screamed.

“Its me honey, where are your friends? Girls!”

“Right here Sir.” Jeanne and Kayla answered back. They were standing only several feet from him but he was unable to see them through the inky blackness.

“Stay close and follow me now.” Shey’s father said, “Hold each other’s hands so you don’t get separated.” He took Shey’s hand in one of his and held tight to his rifle with the other. Her father leading the way, Shey and her friends were ushered quickly through the dark wood.

The tree line was in sight. Through the remaining twenty feet of trees they could see the back lawn and the light of the porch. Jeanne held tight to Shey’s hand and Kayla to hers. Kayla suddenly shrieked and was jerked backward. The force of the tug hurt Jeanne’s shoulder. The reverberation traveled up through the line to Shey’s father. Jeanne held desperately to Kayla’s hand as the frantic girl continued screaming and being pulled in the opposite direction.

Having nowhere near the strength of whatever was pulling against her, Jeanne quickly lost her grip on Kayla’s hand. She listened to the horrible squeals of pain and terror as her friend disappeared deeper into the woods; eventually the sound faded completely. Shey and Jeanne were hysterical, bawling and screaming, her father continued to drag them toward the approaching tree line.

They breached the line of trees and continued running until they were safely in the house, the girls still wailing.

“You have to find them daddy!” Shey screamed at her father. “We can’t leave them out there!” Her father walked to the door and secured the lock. He then lowered a heavy wooden brace across the door, ignoring the girl’s hysterics, their pleas to help their friends. He just sat there, staring out from the door into the pitch black tree line at the edge of the lawn, a blank look drawn across his face.


Jeanne never talked to Shey again after that night. Her parents had come straight out to the house to take her home. She didn’t speak to anyone for three full days. Shey would pass her in the halls at school after that and Jeanne wouldn’t even lift her head to look at her. Once Shey physically stopped her to ask her why she wouldn’t acknowledge her and Jeanne had gone berserk, screaming and scratching at Shey’s face until a nearby teacher pulled her off of her.

Shey made new friends and eventually learned to suppress the memories from that horrible night. They never found the girls. The police and a group of locals combed the woods for four days before giving up. No sign of them had ever been found. It remained a local mystery, just as the deaths of her mother and her father’s two dead brothers. Sheila disappeared nine months later. Shey never stepped foot in the woods again.



And now here she stood, twenty-eight years later, back in Nebraska to sign off on the papers finalizing the sale of her childhood home. She had driven out to the property to have one final look at the old place. Melanie, her daughter who had travelled with her from San Diego, had just run off into the woods, chasing after a fleeting spot of light she spotted just beyond the tree line. It was getting dark. The haunting, wispy sounds of young girls giggling wrapped in and around the trees and drifted out beyond the line to her mother’s ears.




Copyright M. Kizer 2008