Creepy - Creepaway Camp 2023 - Day 6: Jacob's Revenge & The Forest of Three

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

Jacob's Revenge***Written and narrated by Owen McCuen***The Forest of Three***Link: https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Forest_of_Three***Written by: Cdaley and Narrated by: JV Hampton-VanSant***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Anyone seen John around? I haven't seen him all day. Sorry, Rissa. Haven't seen him since yesterday. But I get the feeling he's around. Always watching. Like the Mothman. I don't think that was Mothman's thing. Slender Man? We aren't kids. Hmm. Let's see.

There's the Moth Man, Slender Man, Midnight Man, A friendly man, smiling man, the bye-bye man, chimney man, suicide man, mummer man, obscurity man, dry man, crooked man, jangly man, empty man, wolf man, invisible man, boogie man, bunny man, candy man, hollow man, ice cream man, incredible melting man, goat man, bug man, pastel man, tall man, sugar man, lightning man, dog man, sand man and pig man. He's probably one of those, right? Did I forget any? I hope not. I'm starting to think if I need a title for a horror story. I should just pick a random noun, verb, or adjective, and add man at the end. So, anyone have a scary story? You know, we don't have to tell scary stories. John isn't here.

We can just talk. That would be nice. Plus, I'm sure we have a lot more in common to talk about than horror. I have a scary. story. Oh, thank God. It happened when I was growing up. It's about Jacob's revenge. Okay, let's face it. Teenagers are usually up to no good. Back in the day, my friends and I were pretty harmless, but we did some dumb stuff. One of our favorite pastimes was to ride around in the woods. We didn't drink out there, believe it or not. Well, not till after we had graduated high school.

We would drive around aimlessly down dirt roads and turn off the headlights. Then we'd stick a flashlight out the window and point it into the darkness to lay our way. Sometimes a few of us would lie down on top of the vehicle, the roof, the trunk, the hood, and look up at the stars while the driver would half attempt to keep us from falling off into the brush. Wouldn't this damage the car, you might ask? Well, not if you're in a 1977 volare or a 72-d, duster. These were our chariots of choice back in the early 90s. Oh, and these weren't just any old woods. We were braving the one million acres of mystery known as the New Jersey pine barons.

We eventually began meeting up ahead of our adventures to plot our course. One Friday after school, we met up at McDonald's to figure out our evening's route. We busted out a map and scoured the town names for something interesting. That's when we found the strangest town we'd ever heard of. Heng's hat. Well, we have to go there, we thought. Done. Make the rounds at eight, pick up the guys, and we head out to the edges of what was then known as Lebanon State Forest.

Ang's hat was supposedly located right off the Route 70-72 circle. Small offshoot, down to ways, and then on the left-ish should be the town we're looking for. We all lived and went to school in southwest Jersey, closer to the Delaware River, about 15 minutes from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The trip out to the edge of the Pine Barons was about 50 minutes or so, depending on traffic farther east, where Route 70 narrowed down to one lane.

So, before heading out, we grabbed some snacks, drinks, and teeny tiny cigars. The road trips were pilgrimages, and we delighted in the ritual of calling out familiar landmarks as we made our way out of the light pollution and into the darker, quieter heart of the Garden State. That night we drove down Route 70 for nearly an hour until we reached the traffic circle. Swing to the left, past Route 72, past Route 70, past 4 mile, then a small road headed northwest toward Pemberton. As we crept down the dark road, our eyes scanned the woods on our left, surveying the scene.

Just trees for a while, then a shed. Then just about where our inner GPS told us the site should be, there sat a diner that looked as though it had been built at the front of a large piece of property. Sweet, we must be close now. more woods, some small houses and abandoned garage, then we came to an intersection. Damn. We were drifting farther away from our intended target on the map

when we spotted a street sign. Son of a bitch, Aung's hat road. So we're in the right neck of the woods. But now things were a bit more paved and civilized, so we retraced our steps back to the circle to start over. Down the road, past the diner, And then we decided to make the sharpest left-hand turn we could make in order to attempt to get into the woods behind the diner that was now to our southeast.

Barely visible was a small break in the tree line, a hidden driveway of sorts, totally unpaved, no curbs, no signs, no nothing. The car would fit, but just barely. The Valari limped down the path, deep ruts in the path testing the suspension. As tree limbs reached out to scrape the doors and windows, the metal and glass shrieked at their touch. Inside the car, we were unnerved and excited all at once at the prospect of finding any remnants of the ghost town of Aung's hat.

The path narrowed around us, and the ruts grew deeper. The scars in the ground this far in were slowly becoming puddles, and we feared that we might not make it out. We were probably a quarter mile in, but it took forever to make it this far. There was no space to turn around. Hell, we would have to drive in reverse. burst nearly all the way back to the entrance.

So we stopped the car and squeezed ourselves through the barely open doors to have a look around. But we definitely weren't driving any farther. We could walk a bit, though. I mean, we came this far, right? We debated leaving, just in case someone else drove back here, but in the end, we decided that unless Gravedigger was headed to Aung's hat to drop off a load of bog iron, nobody else was on the way. So, onward.

My buddy Toast grabbed a stick to test the depth of the puddle. Jesus, it was deep. Good thing we stopped driving when we did. Otherwise, we might still be there. Trapped inside 3,000 pounds of automotive steel for all eternity. The water wasn't quite water, though. It shimmered an eerie green in the moonlight and had a thickness to it. Not quite slime, but it definitely had a certain viscosity.

Since it looked like a miniature lake of snod, toast officially dubbed it the mucus pit. Okay, so I guess we hit a dead end. We smoked a stogie and skipped rocks across the mucus, then hopped back in the car and put it in reverse. Moles was our leader since he wore a leather jacket and had a burly beard. Before we turned 21, he was the designated alcohol buyer because he looked like a dad already,

complete with the dad bod to go with the facial hair. So he stayed outside and guided the car backwards through the treacherous path all the time waving a flashlight like a teenage lumberjack airport ramp agent. We made it out, did a quick tick check, and drove around some more forested back roads before heading home for the night. Ang's hat was a bust. Then a few weeks later, we gathered again to plan another jaunt into the dark intrigue of the pines.

My cousin Chubby mentioned our trip to Aung's hat and felt a little let down that we couldn't find it. He wasn't particularly rotund, but he was a little bit of a tonne, but he was a little bit of a little bit of worked at a restaurant called Chubbies back when it was still open. Anyway, as we checked out the map to pick out a new destination, Chubb noticed something strange. Ong's hat wasn't where we left it. It wasn't even on the map anymore. What?

No, that can't be right. Wait, it should be right here, past the circle at the edge of Lebanon. But no, it wasn't there. The name was no longer written on our map, as if the town itself had been reclassed. by the Burlington County Road Atlas we were reading. Did it disappear because we hadn't found it? Or because it didn't want to be found? Had we gotten too close?

This required some intense research. Back in those days, Google was called the library. We wasted that night doing something else and planned a day trip to the Burlington County Library where we could do some serious historical digging. We hit the card catalogs, micro-feasheesh, and we scoured the stacks. We had to wait our turn for the computer.

Now, keep in mind, the Internet did exist at that time, but the World Wide Web did not. We dug through historical records, land surveys, and old maps. And finally, we found it. Ang's Hat did appear on some older maps, but not everyone. At the site of Ang's Hat, there was a silver mine that hadn't been in service for generations. And you can scan the Internet now for references to an abandoned silver mine at the site of Aung's Hat. hat, but you won't find any. There is no such historical documentation, but I'm telling you, it was there when we did that research. We also found some old newspaper articles and books

about the lost and forgotten towns of South Jersey. We read historical documents and plenty of folklore that detailed the origins of Ong's hat. There were tales of prize fighting, revelry and ribaldry at a local dance hall, and a dandy fellow by the name of Jacob Ong, whose trademark top hat have been trampled and tossed into a tree by a jilted lover. There the hat stayed for many years, gradually gifting the town with its nickname Aung's hat. The name stuck. Oh, there are other more rational explanations for the name,

such as the bastardization of Aung's hut, a short rest stop along a trade route through the Batona Trail. But we delighted in the character of Jacob Aung, and so we chose to believe in that particular legend. Okay, so if you've ever heard of Aung, You may be wondering if it really was the gateway to the dimensions. Subsequent trips to the library in the years after had led to an entirely different legend of Vong's hat, tales of arcane texts, and interdimensional travel by way of egg-shaped pods.

Did we live that in real time? Yes, we did. Did we search for eggs that would carry us to Earth, too? Yes, we did. Did we write letters and make phone calls to publishing companies that may or may not have ever existed, searching for occult text that were collected into a shadowy tomb called the Incannabula papers? Yep. But not on this trip. Maybe I'll tell that story another time. But look, there and then, in 1992, we were on a quest for this place that should exist. We were going to find that silver mine

and prove that Aung's hat was real. Packed the Pringles and the Cigarillo's boys were headed back to the pines. The next Friday night we were all free, we stocked the car and grabbed a few extra flashlights and headed out to find Aung's hat. For real this time. Once again, the trip took nearly an hour. During our research, we found an old newspaper article that contained a write-up of a diner that had sprung up as an oasis of refreshment for road-weary travelers on their way

to and from the Jersey Shore. The article had a photo. It used to be known as Aung's Hat Diner. pay dirt. It was situated on the edge of a silver mine that had been abandoned for decades upon decades. We wondered if the new owners even knew about the existence of the mine. We also wondered if they had security cameras around back. Scoots was driving the Valare again.

He is Mr. South Jersey, after all. Toast rode shotgun because the tall guys rode up front. Moles and Chub flanked me on either side as I rode the hump. Our butt cheeks began to fall asleep. as we ambled down Route 70, three quarters of the way around the circle, and northwest up the dimly lit road. Slow and steady,

we nearly squealed with the light as we passed the diner. Dude, why did they change the name? Anyway, we weren't far now. We made that super sharp left and came to the break in the brush where the secret entrance was. I felt like Batman sneaking into the Batcave. Scoots was piloting the Valore

down the narrow path toward the giant puddles. We stopped the... before hitting the liquid so the tires wouldn't get stuck. And then we got out and walked around the mucous pit. But it wasn't the only one. The deeper we walked, the larger the pits got. We tried to skirt them, but our feet kept slipping into the sludge. Scoots had the bright idea to walk on the bushes. It's drier.

So we tried that. Like five ninjas, we spider-manned ourselves along the outskirts of the mucous pits, grabbing onto tree branches and prickly shrubs until at last the pits narrowed, and we could walk normally again. The path was strangely smooth at this point. Remote and unpaved, I couldn't help but think that we had stumbled across the ass end of Robert Frost's road less traveled. But two roads had not diverged, and this was no yellow wood. Nope. We were in the darkness of the Jersey pine barons with only one road in, and it was most likely the only road out as well. As the crow flies, we couldn't have been more than a

half a mile from a paved road and a mile a half from a literal highway, royal as it might be, this far east. But the woods are dense and crawling with god-only-nosed-able kind of animals, hunting blinds, and possibly the legendary pinees who inhabit some of these remote areas of wilderness. I'm sure they're nice folks, but a bunch of teenage strangers trespassing in the dark of night might not be exactly welcome, considering the circumstances. We walked with the spring in our step, though, since we were on an actual path that wasn't barbed with thorny bushes and sharp pine branches. We finally came upon a clearing that was home to a pile of wreckage. Remnants of what exactly we were looking at? We weren't sure. There looked to be parts of farm equipment or old carriages.

It looked like something out of an H.D. Wells novel had crash landed here. Where the pilot got to is anybody's guess. Looking back, I wonder if there had been any fragments of air. egg pods amongst the ruins. The clearing thinned out, and we were back on the path. A small fallen tree bridged a small brook that babbled along in the darkness. Luckily, there was a bit of moonlight, and it was an amazing sight. Would have made a great picture if anybody had thought to bring a camera. None of us had mobile phones, let alone one with cameras.

Actually, the first smartphone was introduced by IBM in 1992, if you can believe that. But at $900 back then, that's a nope. So we admired the moonlit scenery and crossed the log bridge. It was fairly wide and pretty easy to traverse, so, spoiler alert, nobody falls off it. About 50 yards or so past the log bridge, the path narrowed and seemed to be ending. It looked like a site that you'd stay at on a camping trip.

There was a fire ring and a rough-hewn bench and a smattering of other ancient junk lying around. No signs of recent activity, though. No food wrappers or cigarette butts. Nobody had probably been here since filtered cigarettes had been evented anyways. The atmosphere was a little tense by then. We had made it this far, and our nerves were a little frazzled as the possibilities dawned on us.

If we came up empty-handed again, we would still have to hike all the way back to the car. But there were more pressing concerns. What if we're caught? What if we're shot? What if we're eaten by a wild cat or maimed in a bear trap? There was a dark vibe settling over us now, as if the air had changed. We were together so often that we frequently seemed to share the same brain.

On this particular journey, we had been experiencing collective emotions, not unlike a crowd at a sporting event or co-workers on a team-building exercise. intrigue, curiosity, celebration. But for the first time, we could feel the chill of an emotion that groups of hikers shouldn't be feeling on a random Friday night. Fear. Luckily, someone cut the tension by voicing his very real concern in a slightly comedic way. It's a quote we still repeat 30 years later.

If I see any skulls, I'm Jen. After some chuckling, we spread out just a little to have a better look around. And there it was. A small mound of earth that had a hole carved in it, framed with wood, like a painting in a horror movie that would swallow you alive if you got too close. The entrance to the mine! The frame was nearly parallel to the ground,

so we got on our knees and peered down into the darkness. Flashlights in hand, we illuminated the cavern and had a peek inside. There were some pieces of wood, possibly the remnants of a ladder, down at the bottom of the shaft, which did us no good at the moment. And even if it were whole, who knows if it would hold any of our weight anyway, especially considering how old it must be.

The drop-down looked to be about six feet or so, the size of a dude. Scoots and toasts are tall, around 6-5-66, but Chubb and I are only 5'8 on a tall day, so we could hang down and maybe reach the bottom without getting hurt, but there was no guarantee we'd make it out. So, yes, we were definitely planning on going down into the mine to check it out.

We weren't so stupid as to walk too far in, just in case of, I don't know, collapse, but we were certainly going to peek around and see what was down there. We absolutely, positively, could have just danced and sang around the entrance to the mine, celebrating the fact that we found Aung's hat.

But we'd forgotten that that was the initial goal of the journey. Shit, we had just found two things that weren't supposed to be here in the woods, the town, and the mine. There was no way we were leaving without a little spulunking. But how were we going to make it happen?

Well, we're not exactly civil engineers, but we're pretty creative guys. What if we had something tall enough to stand on down at the bottom that would allow us to climb back out? I, being the shortest of the crew, needed to be able to get my armpits out, and it would be simple enough to hoist myself out the rest of the way. Then the other four guys could pop out easily.

We scavenged around for a bit, and Moles found the remnants of a tree-stice, that we pried out of the ground. Thanks, fearless leader. We stomped off a few roots to improve the shafto dynamics, and voila. We had our makeshift stepstool. It was about a foot and a half high, so it should work like a charm. We held on to toast as he lowered himself to the bottom.

He's pretty damn tall, so his head was just visible as he stood flat on the ground. The mine sloped slightly to the north where the earth rose up into a bit of a hill, so he could walk nearly upright as he backed away from the entrance just enough for us to toss the stump down to the bottom. He positioned it at the mouth of the shaft and dug out a few clods of dirt with his boot to more or less level of the thing. Then moles dropped in, looking like a human groundhog. Scoots and I lowered Chubby down,

and he stood on the stump with his head and shoulders peeking out above the wooden frame. He did a quick test to see if he could push himself out of the hole high enough to get his butt and legs out. Success! So, down into the darkness, he went. I followed, and Scoots finally came down after me. Flashlights ablaze we stood with our backs to the entrance. We turned them off for a second, just to see if we could make out the entrance-slash-exit

in the dark. Another win! There was just enough moonlight shining through that in the worst-case scenario, we could still see the stump at the bottom of the shaft. We turned the flashlight's back. on and had a look around. I wish I could say that we had uncovered buckets of silver or the skeleton

of chests or copper pot, but all we saw were a few old wooden handles and some rusted remains of digging tools lying on the ground. That is, until we crept just a few feet further into the mine, our flashlight beams reaching out in the darkness to feel around

for us, until the casual joke, made in passing, came to light as being terrifyingly prescient. Chubby said, There are your skulls, moles. Lots of skulls, and other bones, littered the floor, redefining our notion of the mine as a subterranean graveyard. I'm the biggest scared cat of the crew, so I turned to bounce immediately.

Obviously, we were all a little spooked, but we calmed down a bit as we noticed that the bones clearly belonged to animals. We definitely saw deer skulls. The smaller ones were probably rabbits, raccoons, and maybe dogs or cats. Random forest critters and lost pets who had wandered into the site and fell down the shaft. What we couldn't figure out was, why were they in a pile? Okay, mission complete, let's get the hell out of here. As I turned tail to head back to the entrance,

someone's flashlight caught a piece of metal in its beam, causing a glint to grab our attention. It wasn't very bright or shiny, like jewelry, just the dull pop of something metallic sitting in the middle. of the stone and dirt and wooden rafters. We turned to take a closer look. It only took a second to identify the metal bars as a crude cell. Like a jail you see in old Western flicks.

The bars were pitted in places, but seemed to be covered with a smooth coating. They weren't shiny until I started wiping at one of them with my sleeve. The tiniest bit of tarnish wore away, and I could tell that the bars were silver. No, not exactly. Well, they seemed to be ancient iron bars that had somehow been coated or plated with silver. It wasn't a great job.

The iron had corroded underneath, and much of the silver had gone with it. Bog iron was notoriously laden with impurities, and silver electroplating wasn't invented until the early 1800s. So no wonder the coating didn't hold well. Both iron and silver have a little. long been used as wards against dark supernatural forces, keeping the bad stuff out. But why would a jail cell be coated in silver? Unless there wasn't a jail cell at all.

Maybe this was a cage, designed to keep the bad stuff in. There we stood, staring at the cell, then back at each other, completely silent, when the flashlight beam noticed something else. The bars were not intact. Some of them were snapped off and jagged, jutting out at weird angles as if they'd been bent and then broken from the inside. And there, in the stunned silence, is when we heard it. Breathing. A shift along the gritty floor of the cavern and a dull squeaking sound like two people in leather jackets giving each other a hug.

A low, bass rumble thrummed in my chest, and the very hardwired fight-or-flight reaction was triggered in all five of us at once. Out we ran, back toward the moonlit stump that we hoped was sturdy enough to boost us out to safety. We must have looked like the Scooby-Doo gang trying to motor out of a haunted house on laundry suds, our limbs spinning out of control as we felt like we were making zero forward progress. Without discussion or previous planning, we ensconcerned. instinctively knew to bust out of the mine in reverse order that we came in. I ran up Scoot's ass so fast like my brother used to do to me when he had to click out that light and run up the basement steps of our old house.

Where had all that moonlight gone all of a sudden? Scootts ran smack into the stump, banging up his shin. The scar is still there. Swering at me all the way up, he practically levitated out of the hold and then leaned over to help me out. I made it through, but smashed my shin on the frame. paybacks are a bitch and Scoot smiled a little Chubb barely touched the sides

as his momentum and our Herculean tug pulled him up clear Moles groaned as Toast pushed him up from underneath his hand just about puppeteer deep up Moles's ass Finally up came Toast He stood on the stump and hopped halfway through We gripped him up and half

dragged him the first few yards until we were all on our feet and running in the same direction We tore ass through the makeshift campsite and down the path and crossed the log bridge without falling off and headed for the clearing. There was the wreckage right where we left it. Huh, I didn't notice that couch on the way in. Out of the moonlit clearing and back down the trail we went, never once looking behind us. The thought did cross my mind, however. Had Jacob Ong walked these trails? Had we passed by the infamous tree where his hat had once hung? I guess we'll never know. Our ears were ringing

with the sounds of footsteps along the trail and snapping branches, there were so many shadows. So many shadows. We were hoping against hope that the only things crashing through the forest were our dumbasses. Dred was welling up in my body again, despite the adrenaline. That deep base was back, like a diesel truck idling on top of my chest. The trail got hairy again, and the mucus pits were in our sights. Like the common basilisk, otherwise known as the Jesus Christ lizard, Chubby seemingly flew across the surface of the first hit without getting wet.

I wasn't so lucky. I turned my ankle as I attempted to Barry Sanders myself around the first filthy pond, and I fell in, all the way in. I remember looking up toward the surface to see the world above me through a filter of green sludge. The forest sounds and frightened voices of my friends, sounding like an extreme low-pass filter had been applied inside my head. Time seemed to stand still down there. I was terrified, and yet sort of at peace.

Looking down, I could have sworn the pit was as deep as a lake, or a lock. Those plants down at the bottom, why did they seem to be so far away? Hands breached the surface and grabbed me up. The guys helped me along as I limped past the rest of the pits. We ran on the bushes, because it was drier, and finally reached the narrowest pit. The Valari! We literally jumped in, and the three of us in the back seat lay down on top of each other so Scoots could drive in reverse. He'd practically turned around in his seat to drive backwards since nobody was out there to guide him.

We shot out of that concealed entrance and onto the paved road like the goddamn dukes of Hazard. Scoots slammed it into drive, and the Valorea rocketed away to the safety of civilization. For a moment, there was no noise in the car, save our labored breathing, and the sound of my soaking wet clothes dripping on at the upholstery. We weren't a few hundred feet down the road, when moles broke the silence by asking what time it was. He had a very strict curfew of 1 a.m. on weekend nights, and that deadline was non-negotiable.

I remember what time it was because it was easy to remember. 12.34 a.m. 1.2.334. burned into my brain. Even in the dead of night, there was a 45-minute drive home, so he was pretty screwed. Or so we thought. Yet another mystery of Aung's hat is the apparent wormhole that had opened for us. We made it home in exactly 20 minutes.

We dropped moles off first. We pulled up in front of his house at precisely 12.54 a.m. Now listen, if you're from South Jersey, you know that this here is some supernatural shit because we didn't get pulled over on Route 70 in Medford. I know that's weirdly specific and local, but trust me, if you know, you know. We all made it home safely that night.

Relatively safe, anyway, considering all the scrapes from our jungle run, the busted shins, and my twisted ankle. I was also sick for about two weeks with some mysterious infection that I picked up from inhaling all that grimy mucus. Although, it was sort of peaceful down there. And so now comes the part that nobody talked about that night.

It would be years before we would say the words aloud, even after many more trips to the Pine Marins and a few sketchy camping adventures in unsanctioned areas. We have tales of ghost trains and snake man and the woosh monster, but circling back to the silver mine, what was down there? What had escaped from a cage that had clearly been built to keep dark forces at bay.

I wish I could say that one of us had seen the burning red eyes, the cloven hooves, the leather and wings. We didn't see a shape in the skies above, but we felt the ancient gaze upon us as the shadows chased us out of the lost town of Aang's hat. We know what we heard down in that mind. We know that we narrowly missed becoming a cautionary folk tale ourselves. having crossed paths with the ghost of the pines,

mother leads to 13th child, the Jersey Devil. Or, maybe, it was the specter of Jacob Ong himself, trying to keep a bunch of nosy jerk-off teenagers away from his property. That's crazy. I'm amazed you're even willing to go back into the woods. Any woods. You guys are. here willingly? Not to take anything away from what happened to you, Owen, but I like the woods.

They're old and powerful and magical and mysterious. Magical. Example, please. You feeling all right, Nate? Yeah, just a little spring cold. You should try getting more C-daily. Anyway, J.V. You were saying, you were saying, I was thinking something about magic in the what? I was just thinking about... The Forest of Three. The Forest of Three. That is what it is called.

Nobody knows who named it or when. In fact, this secluded area is not labeled on maps. It has no official name. Only the name given to it by the townsfolk who live on its edge. on its edge. The Forest of Three. Perhaps it is named after the three tall redwoods that grow in its heart, three towering giants lifting their heads far above the tree line.

They stand in a circle with overgrown branches extended into each other's foliage, as if linking arms. the wind howls, one can see them sway, their powerful roots supplying the great forces needed to prevent them from falling. Viewed from the correct angle, it can appear as if they are attempting to dance to uproot themselves and skip in a circle with hands joined. The three redwoods have been left untouched for decades. Although the ancient, well-seasoned wood would surely be profitable for the town's lumber industry, not a single person has ever suggested cutting them down. The redwoods are viewed by the townsfolk as guardians of the forest, as protectors of the town.

And a very small town it is. How many inhabitants are there? Nobody knows the exact count, for such details are of little concern. But it could not be more than a few hundred. During daylight hours, the streets are occasionally filled with lively sounds of children playing, running, skipping, shouting, and all other manner of things that children are prone to do. However, the town itself is a rather boring place, and not the preferred playground of children. After all, the town sits next to a large forest.

What better playground could a child ask for? Thousands of trees to climb, rocks to overturn, creatures and insects to be examined. A child could spend every day exploring the vast expanse of green and never happen upon the same tree twice. Yes, the forest is a perfect place for children, a place for them to explore, to imagine, to learn. The children love the forest greatly. They even sing a nursery rhyme about it.

Skipping in circles with hands joined, the children chant, Come play, come play in the forest of three. You with thy and I with thee. Oh, such fun we have in store, lurking there forevermore. Where this rhyme comes from, nobody knows. It is possible that the children themselves wrote it, yet upon examination, this theory seems implausible. Forevermore, The, hardly the words that a child would understand, let alone include in a song.

No, this rhyme speaks of something old, something archaic, something beyond the understanding of children. For many years, life was peaceful in the small town. Nothing noteworthy occurred. There was no newspaper because there was never any news. A simple lumber town with a simple lumber industry populated by simple people. Everything was as it should be. Nothing was out of place. Then a child disappeared. How long ago was this? Few remember the exact year, several decades ago at least. A child, whose only concern in life was sweets and playtime, simply vanished.

A town meeting was called. One of the other children claimed that. they had seen the missing child earlier that day, that the missing child had gone into the forest to play, as usual, and had not come back. A search party was immediately organized and sent into the forest. They searched for hours until the falling darkness did not permit them to search any longer. We'll search again at first light. Everything will be. be fine. It's probably just a game. Don't worry so much. The townsfolk comforted the child's terrified parents. As soon as the first rays of sunlight crept through the trees, the search

party was out again. They covered miles and miles, hardly stopping for rest or food. Yet, there was no trace of the missing child. Each day they searched and each day they came back with sore feet, hungry bellies, and no child. Hope was still there, but it was quickly fading. Each day the search party came back sooner and sooner. Each day they spent less and less time looking for the missing child before heading back.

Eventually, the searches ceased entirely. If one were to examine the town at that time, at first glance it would appear just as it had before. Men chopped wood, stores had good business, school was in session, children still played in the streets and in the forest. Of course, the family. and friends of the missing child grieved, but nothing would seem out of the ordinary, at first glance.

Look closer, and you would see it. The children, they played, they danced, they sang their nursery rhyme, yet there was something odd about their games. As they skipped in circles, armed together, chanting, their favorite tune, there was a distinct gap, where two children should have been holding hands. Instead, they held their arms to the side, creating a gap in the circle, a gap that seemed just large enough to make room for another child. During the rainy season, the children often had to play.

inside. The school had an ample supply of checker boards, which were excellent at keeping the children's mind engaged. If one looked closely at the children playing checkers, you would notice a single, lonely child. Whereas all other children had partners to play checkers with, this child was on their own. Nevertheless, they seemed to be having a fine time, making moves for both sides of the board, and even becoming angry when they lost to their imaginary partner. Life in the town continued. The memory of the missing child faded with each year, until the other children scarcely remembered them. Soon, the children matured and had children of their own. The unfortunate unsolved mystery of the child that went missing, slowly was forgotten.

Until a second child vanished. The adults who remembered the original disappearance were disturbed. The disappearance of another child brought back painful memories. Many of them had been children themselves when the first child went missing, although they remembered very little about that child. Again, a town meeting was called. During the meeting, it surfaced that the child was last seen heading into the forest, eager to play, and again, a search party was formed.

The search party fared no better than the one 15 years earlier. Although the forest was searched each day four hours, with many, many miles of land being covered, not a single trace of the child was ever found. Again, the search party was disbanded, leaving the family to grieve their loss. For a while, the town seemed to return to normal. Daily life resumed its normal course, just as it had so many years before. Yet, if one looked closely at the children, you would notice the same curiosities witnessed 15 years before. The children skipped in circles, singing the nursery rhyme that their parents had passed on to them.

But again, there was a gap in their group, a void that was only a parent when they danced. This gap appeared to be just a little bit larger than the one before. Perhaps there was now room for two extra children to join in their happy group? During the rainy days, when the children were stuck indoors, playing with worn-out checker sets, there were no longer any lonely children. Every child had a partner to play with. However, laying unnoticed in the corner of the room, there was always, a solitary checker set.

It had no players, no children, to have fun with it. The pieces were scattered across the board, as if a game were currently in progress, yet there was nobody using it. Who can say what this meant? Maybe nothing. Children are prone to strange behavior, as any parent knows.

A gap in their dancing circle, an unused checker board. Why should any of these anomalies be caused for concern? In the end, it did not matter. No adult noticed the slightly unusual behavior of the children after either disappearance. Such was life in the small lumber town. Years continued to pass. Those who were children during, the first disappearance became middle-aged.

The friends of the second child who disappeared now had children of their own, and life passed by completely normal. Until tonight. For tonight is a very special night. If one were to visit the town center, you would find it bustling with activity, worried faces, loud arguments, and a weeping family is what you would find.

You see, earlier today, a child went into the forest to play and did not return. A town meeting has been called to discuss the best course of action. Many members of the town remember the initial disappearance, which occurred more than than three decades ago. Some are saying that the disappearances are connected, that two disappearances would be a coincidence, but not three. Some now believe that the forest is haunted, while others call them crazy. Early tomorrow morning, when the sun begins to rise, a search party will set out to find the missing child. Perhaps they will find the child, and perhaps not. Perhaps the child simply became lost while playing in the forest

and could not find their way back home. Or perhaps tomorrow, when the other children go outside to play and begin dancing in a circle, chanting their nursery rhyme. We will see a gap. A gap, just large enough for three extra children to join. And so tonight, I invite you to visit the Forest of Three. Early tomorrow, the determined search party will undoubtedly break the calm silence, the quiet serenity of the forest. But for the next few hours, all is still. stroll through the tall, broad redwoods, the thick bush, the moist soil, the trickling creeks,

gaze through the foliage into the night sky to see the bright starlight and thin gray wisps of cloud floating overhead. Eventually, you will arrive at the heart of the forest. Here stands three great redwoods, a hundred feet taller and a hundred years older than all others in the forest. They stand with their branches interwoven, as if dancing in a circle. The wind howls. The trees begin to sway. Sharp shadows are cast upon the trunks of the great redwoods. The shadows move across the bark, and it appears as if the trees are snarling at you,

sneering at some great joke that you cannot understand. The wind dies. Close your eyes. Listen for it. The soft rustle of the leaves overhead. The quiet trickle of water through streams. The small animals moving through the bush. Now it comes.

So very distant, yet so very clear. An innocent chorus carrying a sinister tone. The voice of the forest of the three. Come play, come play, in the forest of the three. three, you with thy and I with thee. Oh, such fun we have in store, lurking there forevermore. I'm going to go ahead and say I hope we don't need to be looking for any missing children. Agreed. It seems like we're missing enough people around here as is.

Uh, where is everyone? You don't think they... That whole part about John being a serial killer, picking us off one by one last year, but it turning out to be a silly misunderstanding, was just to lull us into a false sense of security so he could kill us all here and replace us with new narrators?

I was going to say that they all ditched us, but now... But now what? Ah!