One Night in the Woods

I was drinking with some friends a few nights ago, swapping stories from the old times, when my old roommate reminded me of these guys I used to hang out with.

Or, as he puts it, "That time you hung out with those crazy pagans in the woods."

The Crazy Pagans in question were a coven I crossed paths with while I was living in North Georgia. No one tells you when you there that there are a lot of nonchristian communes in the North Georgia hills. Given the interests I had at the time, I've met Pagans, Wiccans, Druids, and many other practitioners of strange and foreign beliefs. Most are just hobbyists, people with a passing interest who find the mystic section in Barnes and Nobles and go a little nuts. However, some of them take this shit very seriously and, sometimes, take it a little too far.

This story is about one of those groups.

I had taken an interest in religious studies, and it had led me down a rabbit hole that had led to a general interest in the occult and mysticism. This led to a lot of brooding in the back of my college library, reading over old books, and making notes on strange subjects and odd topics. I had taken an interest in runes, and that was how I met Patrick, or Wormwood as he was calling himself in those days. He was teaching me about runes in exchange for some notes I'd made about energy exchange. We became friends and started hanging out a bit at a coffee shop in Dahlonega that catered to that sort of crowd.

That was where I met Amadeus.

As enamored as I was with the idea of mysticism, Amadeus was weird. I arrived to meet with Patrick one day to find a man in his mid-forties sitting next to him. His gray hair was braided down his back, and his bald crown was oiled and gleaming. He wore an honest to god traveling cloak, not one of the Hot Topic long coats that this crowd usually wore, and his shirt was obscured with silver charms hung on long leather thongs around his neck. He stared at me as I sat down, fingers steepled before his eyes in a decidedly wizardly fashion, and began volleying very probing questions before Patrick could begin introductions. He wanted to know what I knew about everything from Runes, to Tarot, to Demonology, to Herbcraft, and everything in between. I had studied quite a bit, and I was happy to flex my knowledge for him, so we spent about an hour talking shop.

If I'd known what he wanted, I'd have left right then.

He must have been impressed with what I had to say.

"You seem pretty knowledgable. It appears that Wormwood did not exaggerate your abilities. I'm looking for someone to come into the woods with us for a gathering. I need someone capable of setting up and maintaining a protective circle around our campsite and act as a guide while we await the spirits. I'm willing to pay if you're willing to come out with us for the weekend."

We talked a little more about what was expected of me and came to an agreement. I would set up their protective circle, provide "scholarly advice", and keep them from wandering into the forest in the event that something took notice of our gathering. This would be a standard gathering for them, some twenty members of their Coven coming together, and Amadeus was pretty clear that it could get rowdy. He would give me two hundred and fifty dollars today and another two hundred fifty at the end for the weekend.

As a poor college student, it sounded pretty good to me. I had done similar things before, setting up circles and safeguarding people. It sounded like an easy five hundred dollars at the time. I took his money and set about getting a few things together for that weekend. I'd need a few things to pull this off, but I honestly wasn't expecting much more than some drinking in the woods and a bit of babysitting.

By Friday, I had assembled my components and made my way to the agreed-upon spot.

They had decided not to use an established campground but instead had decided to camp in a section of woods they claim to have heard about from someone in our circle. I arrived to find about six other vehicles down an access road, most of them old vans. Just as I was wondering how far into the woods they had gone, the door of one of the vans slid open, and out hopped a short blonde woman in a homemade dress. I say short, but she was probably about 5'2 with a long spill of silver blond hair. She asked my name, and when I told her, she told me that her name was Andromeda, but I could call her Angie and that she was my Guide for the weekend.

"Amadeus said I should keep an eye out for you. I'm to assist you in anything you might need this weekend."

That should have been a huge red flag, but I kind of shrugged it off at the time. Angie led the way, and we walked about a mile into the woods. She chattered all the way about how much she had been looking forward to this weekend. She said that Amadeus has been researching this area and thought this was a good spot for communing with spirits. The area was reputed for sightings, and the Coven was hopeful that they could make contact with whatever lived in these woods.

They kept saying Coven, but as the camp site came into view, I was beginning to wonder if Cult wasn't a better word.

The clearing was a circle about thirty feet wide with about twelve tents set up inside. The forest loomed around the campsite, an old forest that seemed to resent having a section of itself gouged out so people could camp. At the center of the tents was a fire pit, a big one, with a lot of styrofoam coolers sitting around it. I could see people bustling around the campsite, making adjustments to tents and setting up sleeping bags. Angie led me to the firepit where Amadeus was reading a book and smoking what smelled like a joint. He looked at my duffle bag and asked if I'd brought enough supplies to put the circle around the whole campsite. I told him I had, but I was already doing the math and realizing that the sage I had brought would go quickly. He nodded and told me there were more supplies in his tent if I needed them. He also told me that Angie was going to work with me this weekend.

"Use her in any capacity you see fit," he said, and the lecherous grin was hard to miss.

That was red flag number two.

Seeing as most of his Coven members were women, I was beginning to get a pretty good idea about what sort of setup I had stumbled across. I felt a little squeeby about it, but if they were comfortable with it, then who was I to judge? I had already decided what capacity I would use Angie in that weekend, and whatever ideas Amadeus had didn't figure into them. I wasn't opposed to sleeping with women I had just met, but the idea of sleeping with someone who might not be 100% okay with it was a non-starter for me.

I told him I needed to set up my tent, but it was quickly whisked away by a pair of women in homespun dresses who started setting it up near Amedeus's large, ornate tent.

So, instead, Angie and I set about setting up the protective circle. I won't bore you with the details; my process probably wouldn't work for you anyway. We dug a small trench around the campsite and filled it with the items I would use to seal the circle. If this sounds dumb to you, it sounds dumb to me now too. When I look back on it through the lens of time, I realize I was no less deluded than the rest of them, but that's kind of the code of silence in those communities. Even if you think someone is full of shit, you keep your mouth shut because you don't want them to call you on your bullshit. If you're lucky, you grow out of it.

If you're not, you become like Amedeus and his little harem.

Hopefully not literally, though.

By the time we finished, I was sweaty and ready to settle down for the night. Angie had actually been a pretty big help, and as we talked, I had learned that she had grown up in this community. One of the women, whose hair was very similar to Angie's, kept bringing us water, and I started to suspect that Angie might be her daughter. We set up the ingredients, and as we finished, I instructed her to start lighting the sage bundles I had placed every few feet. Once they were smoking, I lit the stick and leaves I had put in there too and hoped they would create a smoldering circle that would last until morning. When we stepped back inside, I spoke some pseudo-Latin, made some vaguely mystic hand gestures, and declared the circle closed.

That seemed to be enough for the Coven, and they began to set up around the fire pit.

The coolers, as it turned out, were full of beer. The woman brought out a large pot full of soup makings and set it on a hanger over the fire. Amedeus brought out a trunk from his tent, and I saw him passing out baggies of what I assumed were drugs. Mushrooms seemed to be the drug of choice, but there were a lot of pipes being lit and more than one person snorting something off the back of their hand. A group of young men were listening to Amedeus wax philosophical, and he leaned over to let me know that my secondary duties for the evening could begin now.

I sighed; I guessed I was on Guide duty.

I'd played the Guide before at gatherings like this, and it's rarely fun once people start using drugs and getting drunk. I guess Designated Adult sounds less fun than Guide, but that was essentially what I was there to do. My job was to make sure that no one wandered off into the woods, no one slept on their back and drowned in their own vomit, and no one tried to jump into the fire. Amadeus and his flock drank heartily and used heavily, but I was surprised at how tame a gathering it was. Amadeus and the five or six young men were pretty much waited on hand and foot by the two dozen women, and Angie seemed to think it was her job to do the same for me. I had soup when I wanted it, despite me telling her I could get it myself. She also intercepted anyone who tried to offer me a beer or a drug and kept a bottle of water close at my hand. She helped me the two or three times I needed to keep someone from tripping into the circle and was a delight to talk with. She was knowledgeable about a lot of the same things that I was, and I found myself having a good time, despite being an outsider in what was likely a cult gathering.

I had just made a Koolaid joke in my head when the soup pot was taken away, and three women carried out a heavy iron vessel that they hung in its place.

It was ugly and ill-made, not the beautiful thing that you usually think about for these sorts of things. It looked like a big teapot so much as anything, and the woman started shoving bundles of herbs into the top of it. I had no idea what kind of herbs they were, and when I asked Amedeus, he just winked at me and tittered. I told him that if they were planning to flood the campsite with smoke, I wouldn't be able to guide them if I was under the influence of whatever was in that pot too.

He snorted, "The smoke isn't for you or us. The smoke is to entice the spirits."

He called everyone close and set them around the fire as the kettle began to heat up, and the smoke started creeping out.

"Good evening, my children. The meal has been eaten, and the circle has been set by our most generous Guide."

This was followed by applause, and I nodded half-heartedly.

"Now, for the reason we are all here. This smoke will attract the spirits that dwell in this forest, and we will be free to view them from a safe distance as they will be unable to cross our barrier."

The smoke had begun to increase a bit, and I could see it making its way up the spout and across the campsite. It smelled terrible, like burning syrup, but it didn't seem to have much of an effect on anyone. Most of them were already tripping on mushrooms or any number of other things, and the smoke did little more than make them wrinkle their noses. As it began to billow out, the herbs catching fire, Amedeus continued to talk about philosophy and magic and a good number of other things. His followers sat dutifully, hanging on his every word, and I tried to be polite as I checked my phone to see if I had any service. To no one's surprise, I had no bars, so I put it away and tried to act interested in Amedeus's impromptu Ted Talk.

It was about thirty minutes later that I started hearing the noises in the woods.

The smoke was pretty thick by then, Amedeus giving his dissertation in a fog bank, when I started hearing noises. I mentioned this to Amedeus, and he got pretty excited. He instructed his followers to start chanting, taking it up first as they started copying him in a shakey, undulating tone. I got up and went to the edge of the circle, kind of figuring the smoke had upset some of the natural wildlife, and I wanted to see what we had attracted the attention of. It was mid-summer, and the idea that we had pissed off a bear or a small group of coyotes or feral dogs was not outside the realm of possibilities. I stood at the edge of the circle, not wanting to break it and mess up the protective magic, and squinted out into the dark woods.

Now, if you've never been camping out in the real woods, the first thing you come to realize is that it's really dark out there. I know that sounds obvious, but it's a different kind of dark than your normal city dark. The woods really only have to deal with the intrusion of the moon at night, and with the campfire starting to come down off its normal roar, it was very dark outside the circle I had made. I squinted and looked, but honestly, a bear could have swiped my face off before I saw him. I could hear something crunching around out there, something that sounded big. I returned to the fire, the flock still chanting and ululating, and I could hear the crunching noises coming from several points at once.

"He has heard our call!" Amedeus rejoiced.

That was when the tree's started shaking.

Out in the woods, I could see the shadows of trees being shaken and pushed violently. Limbs were snapping all over the place, and as they shook, there was an underlying sound accompanying it. Something was scraping the tree's bark being peeled away angrily as whatever it was, whatever they were, kept battering the trees around the campsite. I say They because it wasn't just one tree that was shaking. It was two, then three, then seven, and before long, it seemed like the whole forest was trying to get up and leave.

Above the sound of shaking trees and snapping limbs, I could hear animal sounds too. I could hear dogs, cats, birds, the grunt of deer, the growls of a bear, the snort of horses, and all of it around the campsite. I've been present for some weird shit, shit that makes me feel pretty secure in my beliefs about something being out there, but this was different. This was downright terrifying.

The flock, however, is ecstatic.

This is apparently what they had been waiting for, and they quickly moved to the edge of the circle so they could see what they had come to see. I, however, went back to my tent to get something out of my duffel bag. I was kind of done with this, the magic having gotten pretty real pretty quick, and I wanted to see what exactly was out there. I still figured our smoke had pissed off a herd of deer or maybe a wild dog pack, maybe even a bear, and I didn't want to suddenly become dinner for something big and angry. I had packed a big deer spotting light that my dad had given me last Christmas, and I wanted it right now more than I had ever wanted anything n my life. When I came out with it, I lit up a big section of woods and started hunting.

One of the boys that had been sitting with Amedeus slapped it out of my hand about twenty seconds later, but that was fifteen seconds longer than I needed.

When I had seen the deer, I almost breathed a sigh of relief. Well, not a deer. Not really. It had antlers, so I guessed it was actually a buck. The antlers, however, were long, and the tines sort of wound together like vines. It was up on its hind legs, scrapping its hooves against the tree in a way that I thought was kind of strange for a deer. I had heard of young bucks rubbing their antlers against trees, mostly to get the velvet off or to scratch an itch, but I had never really heard of them rubbing their hooves against trees.

When it turned its head to look at the light, its eyes glowed like a dogs in a camera flash.

When it turned its head, I could see that half the velvety skin was torn, showing the muscles of its face and the bone beneath.

I took all this in before the light was slapped out of my hand, and I backed away from the circle, suddenly wanting none of this.

People were standing around the edges of the circle, and as I backed away, I saw someone step over the trench and walk into the woods. Others followed suit, stepping into the ditch and snuffing out the sage. This would create holes in the circle. This would allow whatever was out there to come into our campsite. In my mind, we were breached already, and this job had just become pretty dangerous.

I am completely unashamed to say that I went to my tent, dug the padlock out, padlocked my tent from the inside, and stayed there until morning.

As I pulled the sleeping bag up around me, I could hear people outside the tent. From the dancing firepit, I could see shadows of things in the campsite as well. Some of them were on two feet, but some of them walked on four feet. Some of the people out there laughed, others cried, and a few were definitely screaming as they plunged into the dark woods.

I shivered with fear till morning, and when the sun came up, I collected my things and got out.

The campsite wasn't some sacrificial pit, though. I could see people lying around the campsite, some in various states of undress, and area around the bonfire was trashed. Coolers were smashed, beer cans were stomped and torn, and vegetables and food packages lay strewn everywhere. Of Amedeus, there was no sign. I never saw him again, and Patrick said no one had heard from him after that night. His Coven dissipated after that, and I never heard from any of them again either. I was never paid the other half of my fee, but I supposed that was fitting.

I had failed to guide them, and their ritual had gone astray.

All I know is that I ran the mile back to my car and never looked back.

I did a little research of my own when I got home. Turns out there have been a lot of weird happenings in those woods. People have reported seeing lights in the sky, hearing strange noises, hearing animals that aren't native to this region, and a feeling of overall dread felt by those who stay there overnight. People have gone missing in those woods too, and authorities have never found a trace of them.

I'm not going to sit here and claim that I had some kind of paranormal experience out there. I'm not going to tell you that I saw a skinwalker, a windigo, an alien, or anything like that. I'm not going to tell you that I saw a ghost, a cryptid, or any of that either. What likely happened was that Amedeus was burning some sort of psychotropic drug in that kettle, and we all experienced a group hallucination or something.

These are the things that I saw, and these are the things that I told my friends as we sat drinking around our yearly bonfire that night.

And after I told them my story, more than a few of them moved inside.

I guess maybe the dark dark outside my cabin was a little too dark now.