Blackmoon Forest

         For nearly as long as I can remember, I have been enamored with Blackmoon Forest. As a child, I dreamt constantly of penetrating its thick, oaken walls and venturing deep into its mysterious expanse, along the way encountering amazing creatures that the world had yet to see. During my waking hours, I would pretend that I was a great adventurer, making my way effortlessly through the thick foliage as I admired the immeasurable beauty of the wood.  Sadly, my mother never approved of my wild aspirations. “Robert,” she would always say in that commanding tone of hers, “I don’t want to hear anymore talk of you going into that goddamn forest, young man. You don’t have any idea what kind of evil that place hides”.  Strangely enough, it seemed that everyone of the older townsfolk had a strong distrust of the forest, going so far as to declare it “evil” and “a monstrosity”. And yet when asked why they did not simply move away from the area if they despised it so much, they would say nothing, and simply look off in the direction of the forest with a strange mixture of fear and yearning glistening in their eyes. But I didn’t care about the old superstitions and hearsay. Not then, and not years later when I finally got the chance to fulfill my lifelong dream. But God knows I should have listened.



         I was around seventeen when my old friend Will Bagley approached me after school one day. “Hey Rob,” he said with his usual exuberance, shoulder length red hair partially obscuring his pale, freckled face, “You know that old forest up the road, right? Black…Black…”

Will knew full well how interested I was in the forest, and there was no way he had forgotten the name of the place. Regardless, I decided to humor him.

“You mean Blackmoon?" I said.

“Yeah! That place!” Will said, snapping his fingers in mock remembrance, “Well, we all know that our parents don’t want us going near that place, they say it’s cursed. But since we’re in the rebellious stage of our lives, what better way to rebel than to partake in that which Mommy and Daddy don’t want us to do?” he said smiling, “if you catch my drift.”

I most certainly did catch his drift. It had been years since the last time I brought up the forest in conversation with any of my friends, it being a bit of a puerile dream to start with. I assumed Will must have been getting bored of village life by then, as many kids our age were. Besides that, I had long dreamt of the day someone would willingly come to the forest with me, so naturally I jumped at the chance.

“Sure," I said, trying my best not to sound too giddy with excitement, "let's do it."

Will smiled and gave me a hearty pat on the back. “I knew I could count on you, Rob. Meet me and Ed by the forest at 11 tonight. See you there.”

I stood there for a moment, taking in what had just happened. “This is it,” I thought, “my chance to live my fantasy has come! Blackmoon Forest!”  As I thought this, an unusual feeling passed over me, displacing my excitement if only for a second. A feeling of dread. I brushed it off, unsure of what I had to fear, went home, and began to prepare for the adventure that was sure to come.



         As the hour for which I had been waiting my entire life approached, I slowly opened my bedroom window, crawled quietly out, and ran down the old gravel road toward the forest. It was quite dark, but the full moon provided just enough light to allow me to see where I was going. Soon enough, the magnificent silhouette of Blackmoon Forest against the light of the moon came into view. I was nearly exhausted by the time I reached the edge of the forest, having run the entire way, but the passionate fire in my heart kept me going in order to achieve my goal.

“Glad to see you made it.” I looked up to see Will standing over me, grinning in his usual manner. A few feet behind him stood Edward Mckinney, one of Will’s friends. A dark haired boy of slightly below average height and slightly above average girth, Ed's primary claim to fame in the village was his enormous cowardice, manifestations of which could be seen on that night as he stood there trembling before the mighty forest.

“Will,” Ed whined, pathetic as ever, “This is a really bad idea. We could get really hurt in this place. You know what they say about this forest! People have d-“

“Eddie, buddy,” Will interrupted him, putting his arm around the stout boy’s shoulders, “Nothing is going to happen out here. Nothing. “  Then, giving Ed a playful, if a bit hard, slap on the back of the head, he said, “Besides, it’s not like you had to come. You know you wanted to partake in this glorious event with Rob and me.” This evoked a whimper from Ed and a chuckle from me. As the three of us were standing there having a good time, an icy hand grasped my wrist. I yelped and shot around to stare into the cold blue eyes of a nefarious-looking old man.

“What in the world are three young fools such as yourselves doing out at this dark hour?” the old man asked in a low, disturbingly calm and tempered voice, “Not heading into Old Blackmoon Forest now, are you?”

The way in which he hissed the last couple of words sent chills down my spine. Ed whimpered and trembled timidly. Naturally, it was Will who stood up to the old man.

“Look, I’ve heard about you, old man,” he said boldly, “they say your name’s Wilton.  You’re that old hermit who lives in the shack near the forest who spouts all that nonsense about the things that live among those trees. Well, I don’t believe any of it, old man, so take your crap about monsters and whatever the hell else you ramble about madly and shove it up your constipated ass!”

“Monsters…?” Ed whispered. This was news to me as well. Despite constantly pestering my parents and others about the mysteries of the forest as a child, I had never heard anything about an old man named Wilton, let alone anything to do with monsters in the forest. Where was Will getting this?

“That’s right, boy,” Wilton said as he grinned madly, revealing a row of rotting brown teeth, “and you may not believe it yet, but trust me, there are queer things in those trees, and you will soon find that I speak the truth if you venture much further.”

“The only queer thing around here is you, old man,” Will retorted, “come on, Rob, Ed, let’s get this over with.”

And with that, Will marched towards the huge oaks that formed the gateway to Blackmoon Forest. Ed and I followed him, I excitedly, Ed reluctantly with a pained facial expression. I looked back at Wilton for a split second; he was muttering to himself with a crazed look on his face. I thought I heard him say, “It’ll like the tubby one. Nice and juicy, oh yes, yes, yes…” I didn’t dwell on the mentally ill old man for long, though; I wasn’t about to let some senile nutcase ruin the moment for which I had waited since I was a young boy. 

“Hey, Will!” I called after my friend, “Wait up!”

I ran to catch up with him. Ed groaned as he struggled to keep up with us. Before we knew it, the three of us had come to the edge of the forest. I savored every step as I reached my childhood goal.



         I gasped as I stepped beyond the giant oaks, both due to my nearly slipping as my feet touched the unexpectedly slick forest floor and to my amazement upon viewing the astonishing beauty of the place. It far exceeded even my wildest expectations and dreams. From every plant there glowed an ethereal bioluminescence which lit the otherwise pitch black forest with a ghostly green light. The plants themselves seemed otherworldly; the sturdy glowing trees stood regally as they showed off their elegant forms, fantastically ornate with strange curling vines and exotic-looking flowers. Some of the smaller plants rhythmically inflated and deflated like the steady rise and fall of a sleeping person’s chest.

“Wow,” I whispered, drunken with the intoxicating beauty of the world of my dreams.

“Yeah, I thought you’d say that,” Will laughed, obviously a bit enchanted by the place himself, “Come on, let’s go deeper.”

“Whoa, hold on!” Ed suddenly yelled, startling me and Will, “Come on, guys, isn’t this enough?  Okay, so we came here, we took a look around, we ‘rebelled’ against our parents. Let’s just go home; we could get into a lot of trouble for this!”

The plump boy looked around nervously at the strange glowing plants around him. “Besides,” he whimpered, “I don’t know about you guys, but this place is creeping the living hell out of me!”

Will merely scoffed and said “Please, don’t give me that crap, you wuss! We just got here. Besides, they’re only plants, and there’s nothing, I repeat, nothing here that can hurt us. So shut up and quit being such a little bitch!”

I was inclined to agree with Will, mostly because I didn’t want to skip out on my chance to really experience Blackmoon Forest. “Come on, Ed,” I said more reassuringly, “There’s nothing dangerous here. It’s just a forest.” And with that, Will and I turned around and continued our trek into the forest.

“No! Wait, just wait!” Ed cried, losing any miniscule bit of composure he might have had, “Don’t go! Please guys, there’s something really weird about this place! Look, some of the freaking plants are moving! It’s like...like they know we’re here!”

“Dude, seriously, chill out,” Will said as we kept walking, “don’t let those old superstitions the townsfolk talk about get to you.”

“But I think they’re right guys,” Ed shouted, his voice cracking, “This place is evil! And…Wait! Oh my God, wait guys! Something just moved! Something’s here!!”

Will chuckled. “Okay, now you’re just seeing things.” We had walked far enough away that the trees obscured our view, and thus we could no longer see Ed. “Whatever, man, Rob and I are leaving. See ya!”

Personally, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of concern for poor Ed. He had gone from merely nervous to outright hysterical very quickly. Perhaps his fears had some base in truth. Maybe it…No, I couldn’t. I could never let something as silly as Ed's irrational fear ruin my adventure. Never.

Now Ed was panicking. His voice cracked loudly as he cried out, “No! Please guys don’t leave me here! I don’t want to be alone! I don’t want to…YAAAGH!!!”

His crazed plea for our return was cut short by the most horrible, bloodcurdling scream I had ever heard in my life, the sheer memory of which continues to haunt my nightmares. Will and I shot around swiftly and dashed for the spot where he and I had left the poor boy. When we came to the area, we found no trace of Ed; even his footprints had been eliminated, it seemed, by the movement of the small plants that covered the ground.

“Ed!” we called. No answer. “Eddie!!" Any reply Ed might have given us must have been swallowed whole by the unnatural silence of the trees. Not even the chirping of crickets, nor the familiar call of an owl on the hunt. Absolute, soul-crushing silence.

“Come on, Ed!” Will called out to the forest with a notable unease building in his voice, “don’t screw with us like this! Please come out, we’re sorry!”

Having known Ed since preschool, I knew as well as Will that he was not the joking type. Regardless, we called his name for what felt like hours until, having realized the futility of our actions, I stopped.

Will shot around, his half-crazed half-desperate face illuminated by the glow of the plants, and, having completely abandoned the cool, collected facade for which he was famous, screamed “What the Hell do you think you’re doing!? Why did you stop!?”

“What do you want me to do!?” I shouted back, struggling to retain some level of composure. “Screaming his name like this sure as hell isn't bringing him back from wherever he went!”

“Well then we have to look for him!” Will yelled, his voice rising quickly to what was nearly a squeal, “We can’t just leave him here!”

The forest became deathly quiet again as Will slowly crumbled to the faintly luminescent forest floor and began to cry. “I just…” he sobbed, “I just wanted to have some fun, y’know? I didn’t know that…that…Oh God…”

I put my hand on my friend’s shoulder, and, as calmly as I could, said “I know, it’s okay, everything’s going to be okay. We’ll find him, I promise.” I looked quickly around at the expanse of luminescent trees around us. “But we have to stay calm. We can’t afford to break down in a situation like this.”

Will sniffled a bit as he looked up at me and weakly said “Alright”. I helped my friend to his feet and we continued our trek through the forest in search of our missing comrade.



         The two of us walked for several minutes, working our way through the maze of alien flora, occasionally calling Ed’s name, to which, as one might expect, we received no response. But we didn’t allow the deafening silence of the forest to deter us. Yet due to the intensity of our determination to find our friend, it didn’t occur to us in the least that we might be lost ourselves.

It was then that we noticed something strange: the trees seemed to be moving. Certainly we had already seen some plants that exhibited an unusual level of locomotion, but never the trees. We distanced ourselves from the towering plants as we watched them sway, at first only very slightly, slowly gaining in speed until they were shaking quite violently. Will began to whimper as I watched the monstrous trees dance with unmistakable malice, as though they were laughing at us for falling into their labyrinthine trap. But the worst was yet to come; for amidst the horrific shaking of the trees, a monstrous moan erupted from the heart of the demonic wood and swept viciously over the area. Will screamed as he entered the fetal position on the ground. I myself winced as I plugged my ears in an attempt to escape the nightmarish sound. But it was useless. I could not drown out that horrible moan, the sound of which I would never forget. But it was neither the volume nor the alien quality of the moan that so tortured me. No, it was the sheer level of bloodlust, the hunger expressed within its awful tone. Whatever the source of this unearthly sound, I knew one thing without a doubt: it was hungry.

The horrible moan droned on for a few more seconds before fading away into silence. The trees also slowed their maniacal dancing, eventually coming to a halt and standing as stiff and motionless as ever. I let out a long sigh of relief as I allowed my arms to drop to my side and stared straight ahead at the malevolent glow of the trees. It was safe to say by that point that any feelings of wonder and attraction I had still held for Blackmoon Forest had been utterly obliterated by the demonic spectacle I had been unlucky enough to witness. The once beautiful radiance of the flora now struck me as ghastly and despicable, while the formerly alluring mysteries that lay deep within the forest so repulsed me as to make me want to flee from the godforsaken place screaming. But despite my newfound hatred of the land of my boyhood dreams, I knew I had to press on. We had to find Ed. We had to-

“Jesus Christ! To Hell with this!!”

My brief moment of introspection was brought to a screeching halt as I turned rapidly around to see Will stumbling to his feet, shouting and cursing as he did so.

“Th-that thing…what in the h-…oh my God..Oh my GOD!!!”

He began to scream as panic overtook him, robbing him of all he had once been, or at least seemed to be. I tried my best to calm him, but he just pushed me away.

“Don’t you touch me!! This is your fault! You and your sick obsession with this damn place!”

I was in no mood to argue with him. My respect for the lad who stood before me had gone the way of my admiration for the hellish maze in which we were now trapped. The once cool and charismatic Will Bagley had been reduced to nothing more than a mess of paranoia and cowardice.

“Look,” I began, trying to reason with him even in my obviously shaken state, “We still need to look for Ed. He could still be out there somewhere. Don’t give up hope, despite-” 

“Despite what?!?” Will shrieked. The ethereal glow of the forest illuminated the tears rolling down his freckled cheeks. “Despite there being some kind of monster out there?! Did you HEAR that?! Hell, that thing probably ate Ed a long time ago!! Still, even if he is alive, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that he won’t be for long.”

He looked around nervously, twitching slightly in anticipation of an attack from any monstrous being that might have crept up behind him. The feeling was contagious.

“You know what, screw this. I’m out of here. See ya, loser!” And with that, he took off running, at first merely jogging, then breaking into a full on sprint.

“Hey!” I yelled desperately after him, “Will, stop! This is stupid!” He ignored my pleas, running faster and faster, his hyperventilation becoming quite audible even from the distance he had already run. “Stop! Please! We have to stay together! God damn it, stop, you idiot!”

But Will did not stop. He kept going, running through the dense foliage, wailing as he went. I could hear him crying, with an occasional shriek of “No! No!” interspersed between the sobs. I continued after him as best I could, having lost sight of him not long after he had took off running. Then, in what seemed like a fraction of a second, I heard a terrible, spine-chilling scream, producing a shriek more bloodcurdling than Ed's, and heard him no more. Will was gone, simple as that.

I dashed ahead in the general direction from which the scream had come, desperately hoping to find Will passed out on the ground or something, but found nothing. He had vanished without a trace, just as Ed had. I slumped to my knees as it hit me: I was alone. All alone, trapped in a waking nightmare, in an alien Hell come to Earth.

But just as I was about to sink into a bog of fatalistic despair, a ray of hope shone through the bleak fog of my misery. For off in the distance I could still hear the muffled sound of someone calling for help. Could it be? Was I still sane, and not simply fooling myself to avoid the melancholy of my imminent doom? The muffled cries kept coming, and I soon assured myself that they were no mere products of my imagination. Will was still alive, at least for the moment, and not too far from here! I leapt up from my pathetic position and bounded through the trees with renewed vigor. “There’s still hope!” I thought cheerily, “We’re going to make it! All of us are going to make it out of this damn place alive!” Soon, I came to a large cluster of trees, between whose branches shone a light bright enough to nullify the eerie glow of the plants themselves, whereupon the cries became much louder and more frantic. I peeked through the trees and gasped.



         My heart sank swiftly as my eyes bulged, taking in the horrific sight. Before me was a large circular depression, about 50 meters in diameter and approximately 20 meters deep. A ghastly green sludge coated the ground, glowing more brightly and more sinisterly than the trees from which I beheld the horrid spectacle. But this was not the worst of it, oh no. For the place was crawling with hundreds of people, horribly emaciated people, their grayish skin covered with a sickening number of scars and scabs. All of them wore the same listless expression, staring blankly ahead at whatever was directly in front of them. Every one of them was either bald or balding, with a few dirty white hairs protruding from their scaly scalp in odd places. It was nearly impossible to tell one apart from another, which made it quite easy to spot the single shape that stood out from the immense crowd of degenerate human beings: the shape of Will Bagley. Two of the disfigured men dragged him along, bound and gagged with sickening green slime, as he thrashed against his captors, screaming loudly through the grime that held his mouth shut. It was useless, however, as his kidnappers held him tightly in their iron grasps, marching him swiftly through the crowd towards the northern side of the depression.

That’s when I saw it. Rising up from an unfathomably deep crevice in the goo-covered earth was an enormous, slimy green tree, or at least it was similar to a tree in its shape. The similarities ended there. Its “bark” looked much more like reptilian skin than it did like wood, and it was coated in the same sludge that covered the ground in the depression. At times it pulsed disgustingly, reminding me more of a giant green vein than of a plant. It was covered in large, fluid-filled sacs that bubbled forth from gaping pores in its sickly green “skin”. The sheer sight of it was enough to make me wretch. This unnatural scourge that had crawled up from the deepest bowels of Hell was likely the source of all the demonry that ran amok within Blackmoon Forest. But what would the tainted, decaying people that constituted its cult want with my friend?

The two men dragged Will, who continued to flail about lamely, over to the edge of the fissure and stopped. After standing in front of the pulsating abomination for a few seconds, they lifted Will into the air and, as he screamed, threw him into the nearest fluid-filled sac. For a moment he simply floated there peacefully within the goo, leading me to almost reconsider the intentions of the grey people. This idea quickly faded away as I watched Will begin to struggle. His eyes bulged in a horrific expression of pain and fear. His skin seemed to be…coming loose. But how could that be? Surely it was a trick of the light, or the effect of my being a good distance away from the scene. But I soon saw the truth. I fought hard to suppress the scream building in my throat as I realized what was happening--

Will Bagley was being digested alive!

Will’s face contorted grotesquely as his skin melted away, revealing his musculature. His clothes dissolved as his body continued to erode, the poor boy thrashing about for the few seconds he remained alive. His eyes and vital organs melted into nothing as the pasty grime that was once his muscular system was absorbed into the ooze, leaving only his skeletal remains. However, these too corroded, breaking down into their fundamental components as the last traces of Will Bagley vanished forever into the digestive system of the gargantuan alien plant.

I could no longer bear to look. I could no longer stand to look upon the horrible towering form of the monster that had just eaten my friend before my very eyes and had certainly done the same to Ed in my absence. And yet, I found myself unable to move. I could not stop staring at that monstrosity surrounded by its debased human followers. I felt powerless, pathetic, hopeless…

What happened next swiftly changed my mind. For not long after consuming my friend, the monster tree, source of all the forest’s evils, began to glow brightly, changing from a sickly green to a burning white. My eyes opened wide and my pupils dilated as it emitted an earsplitting moan, the exact same demonic sound Will and I had heard earlier. That hungry moan that craved human flesh. I lost all control over myself at that moment. I screamed as loudly as my lungs allowed, and ran. That’s right, I ran. I refused to wait to meet the fate that had befell Ed and Will. I refused to watch the grey people dance as their god pulsated and bellowed his cursed song. I did not stop to think about which direction I was running. I just ran as quickly as I could, hot tears streaming down my cheeks, with nothing going through my brain other than the instinct to survive. I darted past the wildly flailing trees as the monstrous drone drilled into my head.

I don’t know how I escaped, nor do I believe I will ever know, but on that night, at that moment, fate looked favorably upon me. I dashed past the sturdy old oaks that hid the gate to Hell from the world, slumped down onto the grass, the lovely terrestrial grass, and cried. I cried for my dead friends. I cried for my foolish disobedience. But most of all, I cried for my shattered boyhood dreams which, to me, were as dead as my unfortunate friends.



         Four years have passed since that horrible night. No investigation was made into the disappearances of Will Bagley and Edward Mckinney, most likely because they suspected that the Forest was somehow involved. Nobody ever asked any questions, despite their obvious suspicions. My sudden conversion to the majority opinion of the accursed forest no doubt heightened their suspicions, though this could easily be explained as a reaction to the probable deaths of my friends. But it didn’t matter. Nobody needed to know what had happened, nor did they want to know, and in time, the incident was forgotten.

I, however, continued to suffer long after the experience. My pleasant dreams of adventure and discovery were twisted into nightmares filled with the bloodcurdling screams of my dying companions, monstrous alien plants, mutated forest dwellers who fed their god with live human sacrifices…and the moan. That unceasing hungry drone tormented me every night, calling out from the faintly illuminated deep, resonating horribly as terrifying glowing trees danced to its hellish tune. I’ve lived in constant terror, subject to psychological torture of the highest caliber every time I drift off.

And yet, the place attracted me. It wasn’t the same kind of youthful, curious attraction I knew before; rather, it was a hypnotic attraction, a feeling that the forest was calling to me, beckoning me forth, despite my hatred and fear. I began to sleepwalk, finding myself near the door or even out in the street when I awoke, my body always positioned in the direction of the forest. I hated myself for it. I despised the madness that was coming over me. I did not want to become like the old man Wilton who lived on the borders of Blackmoon Forest, driven mad by the opposition of all-consuming hate and unquenchable longing. Nor did I want to become one of the servants of the God-Tree, debased and emaciated, their minds crushed into listless, near catatonic submission. But most of all, I did not want to become a sacrifice to the God-Tree, thrown pitilessly into that disgusting ooze to melt away, all traces of my physical existence erased forever, with no one to come to my aid or even attempt to search for me.

But now, it is time for me to decide.



         I am standing in my room, alone, staring out through my window into the black of the night. I hear the forest’s call, and my mind erupts with a phantasmagoria of nightmarish imagery. The moaning of the God-tree begins. Part of me is screaming, begging for a release from the madness. The other part, the dominant part, reacts calmly and diligently. I open my window, step into the darkness, and make my way down the old gravel road.

                                                                The End