Whispering Pines Forest

Jun stood in front of his group of friends at their yearly vacation trip planning meeting, eyes open with excitement as he waved around a paper filled out with his idea for their vacation. “I have the perfect plan for our mid-semester break, camping at Whispering Pines Forest!”

Lena rolled her eyes, “The place with the supposed killer? No thanks”

Jennie, always observant, “Do you really think it was a rumor?”

Jun smiles at them, “It was a rumor started so people wouldn’t visit and could preserve the forest. Come on! It’ll be fun, and we’d be able to save money!”

Kai grinned, “Count me in, a get away from society with the possibility of getting murdered? Sounds like the perfect getaway.”

Riley stood blank expression, silent as ever, “If we plan it right, we need all the essentials and need to stay close at all times.”

Jun clapped his idea was the one picked out of all of them, “That’s the spirit! We leave Friday!”

 

When they arrived in the forest, they felt a strange feeling among the whispering winds and the smell of damp dirt. Tall, crooked pines loomed overhead like sentinels watching their every move. 

Their first night was filled with laughter around their campfire. Jun told ghost stories, Lena roasted marshmallows for the smores, and Kai teased Jennie about being too cautious all the time. The laughter quickly died when Jun returned from collecting firewood with a black expression, holding up a piece of paper of what seemed to be written in blood, “Leave now or else.”

“Stop playing around Jun” Lena stated, staring coldly at Jun.

“Someone is clearly playing a prank on us, it has to be,” Kai said. 

Jennie stared at the paper, blood dripping, “It’s fresh” she stated. 

That night no one slept well. Twigs cracked too close to their tents. Something seemed to keep making noises, but it didn’t sound like forest animals.

Still, they stayed thinking it was a prank. Maybe because no one wanted to admit they were scared or wanted to believe the warning. 

By morning, Jun was gone. 

His tent was empty, sleeping bag still zipped. A trail of disturbed leaves and drag marks led deeper into the forest, yet there was no blood. Just silence. 

“He’s probably the one pranking us,” Kai said, trying to sound like he wasn’t scared but his eyes scanned the whole areas.

By the afternoon, Riley found Jun’s hat, thirty feet in the air stuck to a tree. 

Lena clearly bothers stated, “What kind of sick joke is this?”

They tried to stick together, but the forest seemed to always change and looked different. Somehow watches seemed to not move and only shake in place. Shadows grew longer too quickly as the sun set. Jennie felt like they were being watched as if the trees had eyes.

That night when sleeping in two tents, Jennie heard rustling and muffled screams. She ran out of her tent with a flashlight. 

Riley’s tent was on fire.

She screamed for help but everyone else was too slow to react. By the time they put out the fire it was too late, Riley was gone. 

Against everyone’s protest Kai wandered off, stated he needed to relieve himself but never returned. Jennie and Lena found a smear of blood on a pine tree trunk, attached was Kai’s phone, cracked, with a video on loop.

A figure in a mask, antlers penetrated his skull-like face, dragging Kai through the forest. Kai was alive, screaming. 

They packed immediately, panic finally setting in. But the paths they’d marked were gone. Trees looked the same. Time lost all meaning. 

Night fell.

Lena tried to stay awake, knife in hand. Sometime before dawn, Jennie woke up alone.

Blood stained the fabric of Lena’s sleeping bag; it had been torn open and empty.

There was a noise outside the tent. Breathing.

Jennie held her breath. 

The flap shifted. 

She bolted.

Branched clawed her face. Something followed, the footsteps were heavy and fast. She ran and ran until she tripped and fell but kept going.

She saw a shack ahead, rotten and leaning.

She ran inside and locked the door behind her.

Inside was worse, hooks hanging from the rafters, bones in the corner. Something metallic glinted in the darkness.

A hunter’s mask. Stained with blood. Almost calling her name.

Jennie backed away, but the door creaked open.

 

Jennie opened her eyes to pitch darkness. Her hand tied, her lip bleeding. Blood dripping from her head.

Footsteps approached. 

The mask hovered over her, the antlers, twisted like dead branches. Instead of killing her, it just stared. 

Slowly it removed the mask.

Jennie’s eyes widened. It was Jun.

Alive but somehow not. His skin was filthy, eyes wild as they gleamed for no reason. 

“You stayed,” he whispered, almost like there had care in his tone. “You didn’t listen.”

He turned the mask in his hands. “They all laughed, treated the forest like a playground. But the tress remembers. They whispered to me. They taught me.”

Jennie struggled against her bindings. “You did this?!”

Jun tilted his head, “No. The forest did. I just listened.”

He raised his knife. 

Darkness. 

Jennie woke up on the forest floor. Alone. Cold. 

She was free but injured. Blood-stained shirt, her head throbbed. 

The sun was rising. 

She limped towards the woods, no longer sure if anything was real. What happened to Jun? she kept thinking to herself. 

At the edge of the tress, she saw it. 

A road. 

Finally safe. 

She limped forward then paused. 

In the tree ahead, nailed to the bark there was a final note. 

“One left. Not for long.”