September 8th, 2018 at 07:07pm
It had been a few years since Newsham had covered up the deaths of six high school students and three PTO members. Three cheerleaders and three football players had decided to go swimming at a lake in the Brosmont Woods. There had always been a rumor about the woods that it was cursed, or haunted, and students always passed along different stories about the thicket- none that were even near to the truth though. The students that had decided to go swimming had also decided to completely ignore the rumors and stories, chalking it up to just urban legend. They had learned the truth though when Matt and Zacky had shown up, about two hours into them enjoying the lake. Two of the girls had been drowned below the water, all of the boys had been brutally beaten to death and stabbed, and the last girl- her body had never been found and no one to this day still knows what happened to her.
The parents and teachers of Newsham had put together a search party to go through the woods to find the kids. They had split up into four groups to search and they had found five of the bodies, but on the way back to town, they had also come across one of the groups, all dead, stabbed to death near where they had all agreed to regroup. Out of fear, the search party collectively all agreed to tell the rest of the town that it was a bear attack, that they had found the bodies, but the bear was still there and had killed three of the parents. With broken hearts, they left the kid's bodies in the woods, knowing if they brought them back it would be obvious that they were lying about the bear.
The woods were a restricted area now. No one was allowed to go anywhere near them and the towns people tried their best to divert travelers and tourists from camping in them, but it was impossible to stop all of them.
Johanna parked the van in a small clearing in the woods. It was about two miles from the dirt road that led them into the forest and about ten miles from the closest town. Johanna and Taylor had been best friends since middle school, and after graduating high school they had both gone off to different colleges, so every summer they had made a pact to always go on a trip together. They were in their junior year and this summer they had decided camping would be fun. She jumped out from the driver's seat and went around to the back of the van, opening the back door and pulling out their tents.
"I haven't been camping since I was like ten." She laughed, trying to remember the last time she had done something like this. They were only planning to stay a few nights. They had brought tents, plenty of junk food, and plenty of weed and alcohol. She dragged the tents over to the center of the clearing, before looking up at the sky to see that it was starting to turn a baby blue. "I'm going to go grab some wood to make a fire before it gets to dark." Johanna told Taylor as she walked back to the van to grab her pipe out of her bag and her lighter. "I'll be back in a minute."
She figured it would be best if she just went by herself, because while she was going, hopefully Taylor could fix up the tents and get the rest of the stuff out of the van. Walking out of the clearing and deeper into the woods, Johanna lit up her pipe and took a deep hit, feeling the smoke feel her lungs. She held it deep in her throat as she walked a little deeper, hearing the hoots of owls and chirping of birds. Exhaling, she decided to sit down for a minute and finish off the bowl before collecting branches for the fire. Taking another hit, she felt like her lungs were on fire, but her head was starting to feel light and her body numb. Now that she was looking around the woods, she realized just how creepy they seemed.
Jo had just finished the bowl when she heard a tree branch snap off to her left. She jumped and quickly got up to her feet, before she tried to look off in that direction to see if it was just an animal. "H-Hello?" She called, but obviously didn't receive an answer. She shoved the pipe in her back pocket along with the lighter and quickly gathered up a bunch of sticks and tree branches and ran back towards the camp.
Zacky quickly stepped behind a tree and looked over at Matt with a look that said, 'Shit.' He didn't mean to step on a branch, but he had. It had been years since they had been stalking prey through these woods, and as much as he didn't want to admit he was a little rusty. He peeked out from behind the tree after he heard the girl call out for them. He could already see the fear that was washing over her. The boys watched as she squirmed around to gather fire wood before running off to the north. "C'mon." He heard Matt tell him as they began to follow the girl back to her camp.
They trailed the girl back all the way to where they were setting up camp. Zacky could see another brunette setting up a second tent and she looked happy when her friend had shown back up. "I don't think they're from here." Zacky whispered, sinking down to sit with his back against a tree so he could watch them. He watched as the girl they followed dropped the wood to the ground and handed the pipe she had been smoking to her friend, before she opened a cooler and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. "This is going to be a lot easier than I thought." He chuckled. The girls were going to be high and drunk, completely out of their heads.
He pulled a knife out from his pocket and grabbed a rock from the forest floor and started to sharpen it, feeling the excitement swelling up in his body. It had been so long since he had seen blood spill, so long that he kind of regretted killing those students about five years ago. Only because it had sent the town into such shock and hysteria that now everyone knew not to take a step into the woods. It had been great at first because they had had all the privacy they wanted, but it had quickly grown boring and stale.
"Do you want to go in now or wait?" Zacky asked Matt, looking up from his knife.
