Do Not Enter the Woods

All residents who reside in Grayvine Village, has been told just one simple rule; Do Not Enter the Woods. It was plain and concise, just as all other laws that have been around since the beginning of time, but this rule was the most important, in all ways imaginable. No matter how long you have been in Grayvine, whether you were fifth generation, first generation, anywhere in between or just passing through, no matter your age, you were told as often as possible, Do Not Enter the Woods. Every child attending the Grayvine Primary School, every teenager who was enrolled at Grayvine Secondary and every young adult who studied in Grayvine Institute Further Education Centre was reminded each day on the way out of the school gates. Each week, at every place of work, an alert was sent out to every member of staff on the books phone, whether they were at work, had a day off at home or across the globe on holiday, had parental leave, sick leave, or anything else, reminding them of this rule, it was that imperative that it was not forgotten or broken.

This rule hadn’t always been in place in Grayvine, for the first one hundred and fifty years of Grayvine’s history, the woods were a welcome and celebrated part of everyday life for the residents and indeed guests of Grayvine. For the first hundred and fifty years, children were encouraged to play and explore the woods by themselves or with their parents, cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents, people would take day trips and hike through the woods and would even sleep under the canopy of trees and stars on warm summer nights, but then something horribly terrifying happened which changed the view of the woods instantly. It was a fairly quick thing that happened, but it really was the most horrifying thing anyone had ever seen.

It all started when a newly married couple, who were both 19 years old, were walking through the woods to celebrate. Edward and Jennifer Harlin had tied the knot, after being betrothed to one another by their families since they were 5 years old, just a week before their walk through the woods, which in turn changed the world of Grayvine Village. During their walk through the woods, both Edward and Jennifer’s parents were overcome with a deep and disturbing feeling of pure dread. This feeling was so strong, and so compelling, they got together and went into the woods to search for their children, despite being grown ups and only being in the woods for barely a quarter of their five-hour trip, the parents couldn’t sit around having this feeling hanging over them. Edward’s parents, John and Elizabeth Harlin were the first to realise that the newly weds were not where they should have been at this time, and it was Jennifer’s parents, Henry and Pippa Grove that saw the gruesome scene that would explain why they had all had that concerning feeling.

The scene that was found would make anyone’s stomach churn and skin crawl; laying on the floor at the base of the largest oak tree before the wood’s clearing was Jennifer’s blue dress, shredded to pieces splattered in blood, chunks of skin and clumps of hair. Further up the tree, hanging in its lowest branches were what was left of her brand new, lace up brown shoes, also covered in blood. Even further up the tree, within its highest branches and leaves was her torn and naked body, draped over the branches as if she was nothing but fabric hanging over a table. Her heart had been torn out of her chest and had a huge bite taken out of it, her intestines were strewn throughout the rest of the tree, dripping blood down the trunk into the dirt below and her scalp had been ripped from her skull, it was cracked open, and her brain had also been removed and eaten. Pippa fell to her knees at the sight of her once beautiful daughter’s murder scene, sobbing uncontrollably; Henry gasped and knelt down to hold his wife tightly, muttering under his breath “What could have done this? How? Why?” John and Elizabeth were too, devastated by the find, but also even more worried about their own son. Looking around them, up into the trees and into the clearing, Edward was nowhere to be seen; John noticed drag marks filled with blood and huge, what could only be described as, animal prints going in deeper through the woods.

“Elizabeth, something has taken our boy, something unnatural has killed Jennifer and has taken our Edward. We have to find him. We have to go back to the Village, gather the hunters and find our son, and Jennifer’s killer.” John and Elizabeth helped Henry and Pippa back up to their feet, walked them back to the village and into the church. Within an hour of returning to the Village they had recruited all hunters and anyone else who had muscle or weapons and began their return to the woods. All of the men and indeed women who had come along with the Harlin parents followed Elizabeth to where they had found Jennifer’s body, just an hour before and were disgusted to find the huge blood stains across the floor but were even more shocked to find Jennifer’s body not there anymore, there was no trace of her, besides her blood. The creature had come back and taken the rest of her. The Villagers grew even more angry at the situation and followed the trail of blood and animal prints further into the woods, their weapons raised and ready to be used.

Less than two miles into the woods, one of the hunters found an opening to a burrow in the ground, it turned out to be a rabbit home, but it was destroyed by the time they had worked it out. Just a few feet away, they were drawn by the sound of a snapping twig to look towards something quite horrifying, a dark large creature darted on all fours from behind a fallen and mossy tree trunk into a cave, disappearing into the pitch darkness, followed by a low and terrifying growl which rumbled through the floor and each person’s feet and chest. Everyone seemed to hold their breath right at the same time, then slowly exhaled, building strength to go against this creature that has killed one of their own. Some of the bravest men lead by John himself began to enter the cave, in hopes of finding Edward and killing the beast that has taken him. Every brave man and woman, who was recruited by John and Elizabeth to help find their son’s captor and their daughters-in-law’s killer, entered that cave, but only three emerged. The only three survivors had been severely injured and traumatised, they hobbled back through the woods, quickly followed by the hurtling creature who resided in the cave. Two more of the villagers were captured before making it back out of the woods, leaving one sole survivor of the whole ordeal.

“Monster! Monster!” mumbled and then screeched the sole survivor, who turned out to be Edwards older cousin Phillip, falling to the ground outside the church doors, banging desperately at them to be let in. Phillip eventually recovered from his physical injuries, although he could never hunt or walk straight again, but was so traumatised by the events that had happened in the woods and that cave that he could not speak again. All that he could do to communicate was write, and all that he could write was:

Do Not Enter the Woods! There’s Monsters in the Woods and they will Kill you.

Over and over again, for the rest of his life, he filled books and papers with that one line. Until one day, he wrote exactly what happened in the woods, everything that happened leading up to entering the cave, and running back to the village, but he never told another living soul what had happened in the cave. He took that disturbing secret to his grave. Several years later, Pippa and Henry wrote what they had gone through that day, and a few years after Pippa and Henry had both passed, Phillip’s written encounter was added to the Grove family’s written portrayal of the day and the rule of Do Not Enter the Woods was finally, if only partially, explained.

For three hundred years the rule had been in place, for two hundred and ninety- three years there’s been written reasoning for the rule, and for every single year the rule has been followed, because you just never know, are the monsters still out there? Would you really risk everything finding out?