Short Stories

The Whisperwood

The smell of pine needles and damp earth still clings to my memory, a scent forever tainted. It was supposed to be a peaceful escape, just two couples. Mark and I, Jessica and David. Camping deep in the Whisperwood. We were young, foolish, and completely oblivious to the ancient hunger stirring around us.

I remember the campfire, a defiant orange heart against the oppressive black. I was huddled close to Mark, the warmth a small comfort against a chill that had nothing to do with the late-autumn air. Across from us, Jessica laughed, a bright, fleeting sound that vanished into dense three line, as David topped off their mugs of lukewarm instant coffee.

"Hear that?" David whispered, holding a finger up.

We all fell silent. The usual night chorus of crickets and rustling leaves seemed to have muted, replaced by an unnerving stillness. Then, a distant snap of a twig, too heavy for a deer, to deliberate for the wind, echoed from beyond the firelighters. My blood ran cold, even then.

"Probably a deer." Mark mumbled, trying to sound convincing but his grip on my hand tightened. He was trying to reassure me, but his eyes darted to the shadows.

Jessica shivered. "Or something bigger."

We tried to restart out conversation, but the edge was gone. Every shadow seemed to stretch and writhe, every distant hoot of an owl sounded like a mocking cry. Sleep eventually wrestled us into our tents, pitched a dozen feet from the dying embers.

I woke with a jolt. The tent zipper was undone, slightly. Mark was gone.

"Mark?" I whispered, my voice a thin thread in the suffocating darkness. No answer. My heart hammered against my ribs, a fragile drum against the silence. I scrambled out, flashlight beam cutting a desperate arc through the gloom. The campfire was a pathetic, dying light.

"Mark!" I called, louder this time, a tremor I couldn't control.

From the other tent, Jessica poked her head out, blury-eyed, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "What's going on?"

"Mark's gone." I choked out, the words catching in my throat. "And...and the other tents open too. Is David...?"

Jessica's eyes widened, truly awake now, mirroring my terror. She fumbled for her own light, sweeping it frantically around. Empty. Both tents were empty. A cold dread seemed into my bones, far worse than any forest chill.

Then it came. A low, guttural growl rippled through the trees, closer this time, accompanied by the distinct smell of something foul - like a butcher shop mixed with damp earth, but far more primal, more rotten. It wasn't an animal I knew. It was a sound of immense, predatory hunger, a sound that promised unimaginable horrors. Jessica and I clung to each other, our flashlights shaking, painting frantic arcs of terror on the ancient, unfeeling trees.

The growl came again, closer still. And then, a sound I will carry to my grave: a wet, tearing rip, followed by a sickening crunch, and then.. satisfied, sated sigh that was horribly, undeniably human. A sound of pure, unholy pleasure.

Jessica screamed then, a raw, primal sound that tore from her throat. It was a mistake.

The growl intensified, closer still, accompanied by the heavy thud-thud-thud of something large moving quickly through the undergrowth. My flashlight beam, in its frantic dance, caught a fleeting glimpse. Tall, impossibly gaunt, with skin stretched tautly over protruding bones like a decaying shroud. lts limbs were elongated, ending in talon-like hands that scraped against bark. And its eyes.. burning, feral points of hunger in a skull-like face. It was the stuff of nightmares, a skeletal mockery of a man, driven by an insatiable, endless craving.

It was a wendigo.

I pulled Jessica, scrambling backwards, tripping over roots, our eyes fixed on the impenetrable wall of the forest where the creature moved.I don't know why, but just as the shadow of something immense loomed,| shoved Jessica with all my might."Run!" ] screamed, a desperate, irrational command. She stumbled, fell, then scrambled to her feet and vanished into the darkness in the opposite direction. I never saw her again.

I ran too, not towards our car, not towards any path, but deeper into the forest, propelled by pure, unthinking terror. I heard the thuds of pursuit, the guttural snarls, the snapping branches. I heard another scream, fainter this time, quickly cut short. Jessica.

I ran until my lungs burned, until my legs gave out, until I collapsed, gasping for air, hidden beneath a thicket of thorns. I lay there, shivering, listening to the night, to the sounds of the Whisperwood that had once promised peace, now forever echoing with the screams of my friends and the sated sighs of the creature that hunted them.

I don't know how I made it out. Days later, I stumbled onto a highway, a dishevelled, hysterical wreck. They said I was lucky. They said it was a bear. But I know what I saw. I know what devoured my friends. And sometimes, in the dead of night, when the silence is too deep, I can still hear that satisfied sigh, and I know the Whisperwood is still hungry.