Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S5 Ep226: Episode 226: Forest Horror

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

Tonight’s terrifying tale of insanity is the complete ‘It’s My First Time in an American Forest’ series, by Emily Blue 242, kindly shared with me via the Creepypasta Wiki and read here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA license. https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/It's_My_First_Time_in_an_American_Forest user/EmilyBlue-242

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Visit cfir.com.ca. Welcome to Dr. Creepen's Dungeon. Horace made the perfect setting for horror stories because they embody both mystery and isolation. The dense trees create an endless maze where danger can lurk behind every shadow. And the deeper one ventures, the harder it becomes to escape. The natural silence, broken only by rustling leaves or distant, unidentifiable sounds, fuels the imagination, making every snap of a twig a potential threat. Legends of creatures, ghosts, and lost souls wandering.

around the trees at the unease, making the forest a place where the unknown feels eerily close and terrifyingly real, as we shall see in tonight's feature-length story. Now, as ever before we begin, a word of caution. Tonight's tale may contain strong language as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. That sounds like your kind of thing. And let's begin. It's my first time in an American forest by Emily Blue 242. Part 1. To hell with this shit, seriously.

A few years ago, I, Welsh, born and raised, ended up sharing a university accommodation with Cassie, an American who had for some reason decided to attend Abarist with the University. I'll spare you our long and colourful history along the path to becoming best friends. Suffice it to say, Cassie and I are pretty tight. Even now, years after leaving Union, despite being on different sides, of the Atlantic, we're still practically sisters. So when she invited me and my fiancé Jim to spend a week indulging in trunk and shenanigans

in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, who am I to say no? Cassie met us at the airport. She ran aboard with our names on it. Blue and Jones. We almost sounded professional. For there she whisked us out to meet a group of her friends. Her brother Kit, her girlfriend Rice,

Alex, Jay, Craig, Curtis and a pair of twins. friends who looked like cheerleaders stereotypes brought to life. One was Ruby, and the other was Topas. But I lost track of which was which before we even got into the cars. One started out with the camera, but since they were passing it back and forth, that didn't help. Rice drove a minivan. Curtis had what he called a truck, cab up front, flatbed, that sort of thing. It was a pretty uneventful drive-up, mostly just catching up on things with Cassie.

The boys, apart from Jim and Kitts, were in the truck. I'm assuming a minivan wasn't quite manly enough for them. I'm getting pretty far out from civilization, eventually turning into this narrow, gravelly trail through some real dense forest. Like I said, I'm Welsh, so a one-track road in the middle of nowhere didn't upset me. The one did upset me was when Curtis suddenly slammed the bricks on up ahead. I didn't see what had happened. I was in the middle of a hilarious anecdote,

when Rice suddenly stood on the brakes. It was lit a little on the gravel before stopping. By the time I looked out through the front windscreen, the boys were already piling out of the truck, running around to the front. Naturally, we followed suit. Oh, man, we hit a deer, Jake called back. Mother fucking, came out of nowhere.

The twins lay out matching cries of horror. I did the same. My first glimpse of American wildlife, and it was splashed all over the bonnet of courtesy. his truck. Still, I went up to take a look with the others and, well, wasn't what I was expecting. I don't know how to describe what was wrong with the deer. That was just something about it, which didn't look quite right, you know. Like something about the angle of the legs, or the shape of its antlers, or even just the way his eyes sadden its head. I mentioned this, and though a second

before I swear everyone had been looking just as unsettled as I felt, they all started laughing. What did I know about white-tailed deer after all? Especially one which had been hit by a car. Of course it wouldn't look right. Besides, maybe it had a birth defect or old injuries that hadn't set right. Maybe it had been slightly mutated by pollutants. Everyone had a reason for why I was wrong. Craig and Jay both know how to butcher a carcass apparently.

God, remind me again of what we're going into the woods with these people for. Jim whispered to me. And since we were on Cassie and Kit's private property, there was no reason to let Bambi lay by the side of the road and rot. Curtis's truck was, miraculously, still drivable, and so off we headed. Place was your typical quaint little log cabin, set dead centre in a circle of green lawn. Around the edge of the lawn was this circle of stones, only about a foot high, set two or three feet apart from each other.

They looked almost like a boundary marker, and Kit said that's what they'd used them, as when visiting the cabin as kids. Their grandfather let them play outside unsupervised all they like, so as long as they stayed on the side of the house of the stones. I can see why, too. Even discounting the deer stop, it had taken us about two hours to drive out here, dense forest stretching away on every side.

Thinking about a child wandering off into all that made me shiver. It took the rest of the day to settle in, and that evening the boys presented us with a firepink. We were having a cook out involving not just the barbecue stuff we brought with us, but also fresh venison steaks. I couldn't stomach eating the deer.

I don't even know if it's because of the wrongness with it, but it was just the memory of it being wrapped around Curtis's truck. Did have a few drinks though. We were all getting along nicely, getting into the groove when we heard it. Another party, somewhere

off in the distance. Like I said, this is private land, acres and acres of it. Anyone out here who isn't us is trespassing. Cassie was pissed off, but Kit was already pretty drunk and he kicked right off. Suddenly he's got a rifle and we're all marching into the woods towards this group of other people with me just stumbling along in the back, clutching Jim's hand and praying my first visit to America doesn't end with me burying a dozen bodies in the freaking woods. Luckily, sort of. We never found the people making the noise. seemed to fade in and out.

Not like it was being blown on the wind, but more like someone turning the volume knob on a radio or something. Eventually Jay pointed out that all we were doing was getting ourselves lost in the woods, especially since by this point it was fully dark. We all agreed. And as we did, the sound stopped. Just like that, as if someone had finally switched the radio off altogether. We were all in a rough circle at this point,

and I had ended up alone. slightly away from the others. I was sighing in relief at not having to cover for a multiple homicide where I heard branches crackling in the trees behind me. It sounded huge, but before I could turn around,

it was right there, right behind me, so close I could feel its breath on my neck, so close that if I reached out backwards, I could touch it. I tried to call the others, but the smell of musty, fir, and carrion was so strong it came, about as more of a wretch instead.

I still got their attention. They turned to me, and despite the terror on their faces, nobody screamed. It's funny. How it's possible to be so scared you'd just turn into a useless statue. My head was screaming for me to run, but my body had apparently

decided to play that shit like I was facing a T-Rex. What is it? I managed to gasp eventually. No one answered at first. I don't think they really could. Finally, though, Cassie managed to grit out three words. Don't look, seriously.

Whatever it was, it reacted to my speaking. I felt movement behind me, and suddenly that hot, stinking breath was right by my ear. At the same time, I felt a gentle pressure on my shoulder, as if it was resting a paw, or chin then. I expected it to bite me at any seconds. What I didn't expect was for it to start whispering to me. I don't remember anything it said.

I think my brain just stopped functioning at that point. Like it couldn't handle anything else and had just given up and gone to sleep. I felt drugs, useless. I just stood there and let the whispering wash over me, like I'd already given up. I don't know what would have happened next without kids. The sludgy days I'd been in was blown apart by the loudest sound I'd ever heard. which I later realized was Kit shooting into the air.

The whispering stopped, the hot breath receded, and suddenly everyone was screaming for me to run, run, and whatever else you do, don't look back. I didn't look back. I did, however, look up, and I got me moving. It had antlers, freaking antlers. I couldn't make out any features through the thick hair all over it, except its eyes.

They were glowing, milky white, like twin moons hanging over me. And teeth. Oh, I definitely saw teeth. They all followed me. Kit and some of the other guys eventually caught up to me, then passed me.

Behind me I heard the sound of something huge and heavy crashing through the trees and then the shrieking of one of the twins. She tripped on a branch and twisted her ankle because apparently she decided now was a time to take a leaf out of the horror movie handbook. The sister was screaming after us, saying we had to stay in help. And then, distantly, they both started howling, howling like people being torn apart.

The rest of us made it safely into the house, locking the door behind us. Do I feel bad about leaving the twins? Well, I'd love to tell you, yes. But no, I didn't. Not even a bit. It's not like I twisted her leg, is it? It's not like they'd have come back for me or Jim. So why should I feel bad about it?

It all turned out to be a moot point anyway. We get people on guard for the rest of the night, watching the edge of the woods. Obviously, they do get reception out here, but it's seriously unreliable. Plus, I dropped my phone out there somewhere. Still, at 3 a.m., Craig woke us all up. The twins are outside, he said. No one believed him at first, not after the screaming, but no. There they were, waiting at the door.

They were smiling and looked exactly as they had earlier in the evening. They said the thing we saw was a costume, worn by some Mikey guy who apparently couldn't make it up this week. Could however make it up for one night to scare the shit out of us apparently, before heading back to civilisation without speaking to anyone else. Everyone accepted this without question and headed to bed But it was light before I could get to sleep So am I nuts or what

The idea of one guy bringing himself up here Luring us into the woods Pulling that shit and then vanishing back to society in time for work Just doesn't sit right with me And then again what's the alternative Seriously? What? Evil ghost dear Hulked out Bambi's dad

elementary my dear Watson I wanted to go home this morning once I'd actually grabbed a few hours of sleep but Cassie and Jim managed to talk me out of it doesn't help that the twins are supremely pissed off that we left them to die last night they say they're not but that doesn't stop them from staring at people when they're not looking

caught them looking at me more than once already today turned around to see those totally blank expressions suddenly twisting into beaming fake smiles before they turn and walk away. If they're pissed off, I'd rather they just say so. Worse, I'm pretty sure they've got something similar cooked up for tonight. Jim keeps saying he can't hear anything, but while I've been writing this out,

typing away on the laptop he told me not to bring, hoping to catch the barest smidgen of reception. I swear I've started hearing people calling my name out in the trees, just beyond the boundary ring. So, suppose my question for you is this. Should I stay or should I go? Part 2. Apparently, I'm a total idiot.

So, moving on. Something didn't sit right with me about that whole prank explanation. Jim? Well, Jim is one of those people you see in Ghost Story-Ass Reddits talking about carbon monoxide and infrasound and stuff. So we bought it hook one. and singer. Cassie, though, felt the same way I did, and so did Kit. He's been having this friends-with-benefits thing with Ruby for years, and he woke up at some ungodly hour this morning

to find her standing next to his side of the bed, just smiling down at him. That'd be weird enough, but Curtis, currently in an actual relationship with Topaz, had the same thing happen to him. Curtis is taking Jim's approach to things, though. I still managed to talk to you. I still managed to talk Jim into coming out with me in the Tovies. We told the others we were going on an all-day hike, which they seemed to buy. I assume since we had plenty of daylight, it would be fine. We were trying to find the place where shit went down last night, and we managed it surprisingly quickly. I thought the run back to the cabin seemed shorter than the trek out because of the fear, but it turns out we've been led on such a twisty path at the place we saw goat Mikey

is actually unsettlingly close to the cabin. It didn't feel good. good to find that out. We poked through the bushes for a while, but there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. We were just about to admit the Mikey story was true and head back. To tell you the truth, I was weirdly disappointed. Oh, I know things go and bump in the woods is scary shit, but my life is freaking boring. Who hasn't idly wondered what it would be like to have an actual adventure somewhere? Not just getting wasted in the woods, but solving an honest-to-god mystery. like Sam and Dean with less plaid and angst.

Oh, better boobs. So, yeah, I was glad as it was that we were apparently safe. There was still that little bit of me that wished there was something just a bit more interesting going on. And then, that little bit of me got its wish. We'd actually started walking back when Kit called us over, pulling something out of the undergrowth. I'd hoped it was my phone, but no, it was a digital camera.

The one the twins were passing around yesterday. Kit held it out to us wordlessly, looking a bit sick. I saw what was wrong a second later. There was something splashed across it. Something that looked an awful lot like dried blood. Cassie took it and started flicking through the photos. Most of them were pictures from yesterday. Jim and I getting picked up, photos in the car, the fire pits,

a selfie with both twins pulling fake scared faces, which they must have taken while we were following the voices. And that was it. The rest of the memory was just full of alternating photos of pitch black and over-exposed white. Jim being Jim insisted on checking every single frame in my new detail. We were trying to shepherd him back to the house when Cassie stopped us, holding a finger to her lips. When Kit tried asking her what was wrong, she punched him in the shoulder, shushing him.

Kit was carrying his rifle again, which made this seem like a bad idea to me. We all heard it then. Someone crying. Just this real broken-hearted sobbing, off in the distance somewhere. It was definitely female. I couldn't even guess at how old they were. We were all looking at each other now, and my skin had started prickling. There was something about the noise I didn't like, almost like it was echoing too,

much. It was really out to tell where it was coming from. Kit called out to whoever it was, but the sobbing continued without changing. If we could hear them crying, then they must have been able to hear us talking, let alone Kit's yelling. But there was no response at all. After shouting a few more times Kit turned to Jim, who nodded. I didn't get what was going on for a second, until Jim turned to me and told me they were going to try and find whoever it was to see if they needed help. You can bet I wasn't best pleased with that notion. As much as I wanted some adventure, that adventure was me being kidnapped by the king of the forest

and getting rescued by my motley crew of friends or something. Not my husband to be getting more by some crybaby woodland bitch. I asked him not to go, but then he made an annoyingly good point. What if it was some poor lost hiker? She'd die because I was paranoid about ghosts. Right, fine, fair enough. Off they went. Cassie and I stayed where we were.

Cassie pulling out a monster of a handgun, which I didn't even know she was carrying. It was a bright day, but in the middle of the forest, they disappeared from view so quickly it sent another chill down my spine. They had a point about the lost hiker idea. It must be so easy to get lost out here. That was when the whispering started.

Right behind us in the trees, is just this barely audible whispering. I thought it was the wind at first. Then I had a dunked in cold water moment when I realized that, though I couldn't make out any other words, I could definitely hear my name being dropped in there. I asked Cassie,

and while she could hear the whispering, she couldn't make out anything clearly. There was something about hearing my name in there. I don't know. It felt like I needed to check out what was happening. happening. I sound so stupid, especially since I've been thinking about how easy it would be to get lost in here. But still, it was like a compulsion. So I told Cassie to stay where she was, to wait for me and the boys, and to cover me with her hand cannon as much as possible.

She didn't like it, but I promised not to go too far, and off I went, following the voice as best I could. I'd barely gone ten steps when it stopped. And that's when I realized how quiet the forest was. I spent plenty of time outdoors. I know that when people say the woods are silent, they just mean there are no sounds of humanity. Other than that, there's plenty going on. Birds, critters in the distance, water, wind. But there was nothing. Just this really oppressive silence. You know what that reminded me of? Back home we've got this haunted chapel. When you walk in, there's the same deadly silence. So heavy it seems to absorb all other sounds, but at the same time you feel the potential for something to happen. The feeling of eyes on you. The feeling of

something waiting. That's what it felt like out there. Like a held breath before? Well, before. I quickly retraced my steps. Cassie was gone. Like I said, the place was oppressively quiet. I wasn't even ten feet away and I should have heard her moving. She was just gone. But it was like I couldn't bear to raise my voice. It felt wrong breaking that silence. The sound of the guise, the sobbing, that was all gone too. It was so oppressive.

It was like I could feel it as a pressure on my skin. I finally got a response just not the one I was hoping for. It was a click whine of a digital camera. No flash, just the sound. Almost like whoever was taking the photo was right beside me. Hey, who was there? I yelled, managing to sound angry rather than scared. Which was a feat, trust me, because I was freaking terrified.

Have you ever sat there in a really quiet house with a TV on standby and realized you can hear the TV making an almost sub-audible whining noise? It's less a noise, more of pressure on your. your eardrums, something you sort of feel in your back teeth. What I got in response was like that. Only then it started getting it louder and driving in deeper. First tinnitus, then a fire alarm, then so loud I could feel the pressure gripping my head like a vice. So much pressure it felt like my skull was going to collapse inwards. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't even think. There was just the noise.

And then it stopped, like someone had flicked a switch, gone, just like that. I was kneeling in the leaf litter, still alone, blood dripping from my ears and nose. And the oppressive silence was back. While I was recovering, I swear I heard one of the twins whispered my name nearby. And then a giggle, and then silence. Blessed fucking silence. I nearly peed myself a second later when I heard someone crashing towards me through the trees, but luckily it was just the boys.

They said they couldn't find anything out there, but the sobbing had stopped suddenly and then the trees had started rustling, like someone seriously fast was skirting around them. They'd been running back to Cassie and me when the sound had hit. Yeah, they heard that shit too, and they weren't bleeding, which to me suggests I was closer to the epicenter of whatever it was. still bad enough that it dropped them though we were just starting to freak out about Cassie when she stepped back into sight

smiling like nothing had happened we asked her if she'd heard the whistling stuff too she said she hadn't she thought she'd heard someone calling her name after I'd left her and she followed it but she hadn't heard anything else honestly though something about the way she said this was off

I think she's hiding something I'm pretty sure she's in shock like there's something not quite right in the way she's talking or moving I think she saw something and it scared her so badly she's dissociating or something like that I'm an office worker not a psychologist

anyway we headed back thoroughly creeped out and then to add the cherry of creepiness on top of the shit Sunday that was today I swear we were only gone for two, maybe three hours. No more than three. I'd put money on it.

Hell, I'd bet my freaking house on it. But everyone else was convinced they hadn't seen us for at least six hours. The worst bit is, I'd check my watch. And they were right. I don't remember looking at it when we were out in the forest, so I can't be certain, but... No, screw it, I am certain.

There's no way in hell we were in the woods for six hours. No way. we somehow lost time Jim and I said goodnight to the others claiming jet lag and wanting a night in together to be honest though we just couldn't process what was going on at least I can't Jim's still trying to formulate some rational explanation for this shit

I love the man but he's insisting we stay one more day in case this is all one big misunderstanding the rational part of my brain is telling us me to believe him. I mean, shit like this doesn't happen. It just doesn't. You're probably screaming at me to leave, but I think if I did, I'd have to leave Jim. If he left now, he'd be admitting there was something out there that he can't explain. He won't go until he's proven right.

I'm telling you one thing, though. One more incident, and I'm throwing the fool over my shoulder and sprinting about to civilization. Wish me luck. Hey Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BetMGM. Access to the Price's Right Fortune Pick is only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge.

BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Part three. This is me going to fuck home. In the immortal words of Lawrence Fishburn, for this trip. Those coyotes kept going all night last night, and on top of that, they were calling my name again, whoever they may be. I noticed it only happened when Jim managed to fall asleep. I woke him up the first few times, asking him if he did.

heard it too but i realized pretty quickly there was no point every time jim woke up it turned back into wordless yammering screams oh bless jim he wouldn't say anything about it he tried to pretend he didn't mind but i could tell it was irritating him so i just lay there awake and stared listening to those drawn-out yowling shrieks calling my name at one point i said fuck it and i went to take a look at what was going on I peaked out the window, fully expecting to see something awful. The screaming stopped right away. I thought that meant something, but then I heard the front door quietly close. Cassie and the twins had gone outside.

They must have scared wherever was out there away. I leaned in close to the glass and watched them. They walked in a line together to the very edge of the tree line, stopping just on our side of the stone circle. They held their arms up, like they were really. reaching out to something just out of sight, in the shadows under the trees. I couldn't make anything out. But then, it moved. I stepped back quickly, gulping down a scream, slapping my hand over my mouth so hard it's a wonder I didn't bust my lip. I considered waking Jim again, but decided against it and went back to the window. Now that the thing had come forward,

I relaxed a little. It looked like it might have been a stag, but a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a one as has been pointed out I'm not an expert on American wildlife wasn't a moose that's the best I can tell you whatever it was though it didn't seem to mind the girl was trying to touch it I finally got some sleep after that since it had actually gone quiet in the morning I went out to check the place I'd seen the dear thing hoping to get a look at the prince it had left maybe get an idea of how big it had actually been no luck though since everything was overrun with canine prints.

Pretty big ones too. Jim, for some reason, thought running up behind me and picking me up was a good idea at that point. He dropped me quickly enough when I twisted around and tried to bite him in the face. I can't even explain my thought process behind that one. He'd scared me and my instant reaction was to try and bite his face off. Hey, what the fuck, he said, and he was right to do so. I apologize for trying to maul him and he apologized for scaring me and then he asked me if I still wanted to leave and well I said no I don't know why it just came out like I know you guys are seriously worrying about this

so am I but whenever I think of leaving it just well it's like I want to but I don't want to at the same time what leaving now would be some stupid hysterical reaction you know oh I don't know. That's what I felt this morning anyway. Feeling a bit different right about now. I told Jim one more day. He said that if that was the case, Kit and the boys had invited him out to shoot at Cannes,

which I'm half certain means they're going hunting. But I'm not sure what the laws around that are, so... I asked him if he was sure. He just laughed and gave me a hug. At least he'll be with Kit. Once they'd gone, Cassie came over and told me we girls were going to take a walk down to the lake shore. Well, that's not much of a lake.

I don't think it's even got a name. A kid and Cassie have always just called it Lake Tovey. But it's big enough that it has a little island in the middle. A nice shingle beach and a little jetty. Very pretty. And with the day being sunny again, yeah, very picturesque. Plus the walk through the woods seemed to clear my head a bit. I always loved being out in the woods.

There was that silence again, though. No ducks on the lake, no fish break in the surface, no birdsong, not even the wine of mosquitoes or gnats. That last one was welcome, though. We were just about to step on to the shingle when rice grabbed my arm, risking a good biting to do so, and asked me if I thought Cassie was all right. Did something happen on your walk yesterday? She said, looking so worried, it pained me to lie to her. Her eyes are so dark I could see my reflection.

I didn't see the fake smile that I quickly plastered on. No, I told her. Everything went fine. Why on earth would she think otherwise? Oh, because I woke up at about 3 a.m. And she was stood over the side of my bed, just smiling at me. Shit, so I'd lie to rice. Told her everything was fine, would be fine, whatever. I think I tried to deny it to myself until then.

Even when everyone was telling me not to... But as soon as she brought it up, That was it. I couldn't unsee it. Cassie was like the twins now. Not quite as bad as them. She was definitely acting more normal. But there was still that blank look in her eyes.

Like even when she was looking at you, she wasn't really seeing you. The smile which was so fixed and toothy was more a case of them showing their teeth. And the fact that they were always watching someone with those blank eyes of theirs. They were just watching and watching. usually me but if rice caught their attention they'd turn it on her too how could i have told her what i was thinking if she didn't believe me she'd think i was insane and if she did believe me her heart would end up just as broken as mine is more maybe i don't know if this is something we can fix i hope it is i really don't think it is but i hope so as sunny as it was the water was way too cold to swim in plus i

got this thing about swimming in murky water at the best of times, which this is not. So we started skipping stones instead. By we, I mean Rice and I. The twins just stood back watching. Cassie, surprising enough, joined in after watching us for a few minutes. It turned out to be quite fun. Rice looked happier now Cassie was getting involved. Cass looked almost with it. It turns out I'm excellent at skipping stones. I do like winning things. but of course I didn't have long to enjoy it whatever it was it came from that island I didn't see it on there only noticed it when it slipped into the water it was swimming towards us leaving a wide V of water behind it all I could really see of it was a smooth head covered in dark fur a huge rack of antlers rice noticed it too and she smiled when she saw it.

A really delighted sort of smile. Wow. Is it a deer? She asked me, the not wildlife experts. I looked to her to point out I wasn't the best person to ask, so I saw it hit her the same time it hit me. A wave of dread so strong it felt like nausea. Stomach cramps, the works.

Her face twisted into a look of pure horror, and I could see the goose flesh raised. along her neck just as I felt all my hair standing on end it was like I suddenly ran hot all over before that was doused with an icy coldness my heart climbed up into my throat everything in me was screaming for me to run run like fucking don't stop until I reached the cabin but all of my muscles had locked up to cap it all off that's when I heard it again the tinnitus the whistle whatever you were want to call it. I knew what to expect, though that didn't help. Again it shut up through the register

up and up until it was like there was nothing left in the world, just the tiny bit of me that was still me adrift in this white-hot furnace of noise. I don't know how long it went on for. Came back to myself, lying curled up on the shale, hands clamped over my bleeding ears. As my hearing started to come back, I heard screaming and splashing. I looked around. I looked around. round as I sat up, dimly realizing that Cassie and the twins were already on their feet, smiling down at me. Rice wasn't there, though. I twisted to look out over the lake, and whatever the dear thing was, had gone. Rice, though, was about halfway between us and the island, screaming hysterically between coughing fits. I ran out onto the jetty, yelling for her to swim to me.

I was convinced she was going to die, that something had already ripped her open. or else it would wait for her to almost reach me before dragging her under for good. Instead, hearing me seemed to calm her down, and she started swimming back in. I waited on the very end of the jetty to pull her out of the water at the earliest opportunity. I even let her hug me, even though she was soaked in bitterly cold water. She had no idea what had happened. The noise had left her just as detached from everything as it had me. Only when she came back to herself, she realized she was.

was underwater, not just in the water, literally three feet or so beneath the surface. She'd sucked in a good lungful of lake water before she got out, and between that and the cold, I'm really worried about her. But I'm the only one who is, apparently. I helped her back to shore and the others were still just smiling, like nothing had happened. Well, I bitched them out for it, mainly because I don't want them to know I suspect them. As I outrise home, they trailed a few feet behind me the whole way. Cassie assuring me I was making a bigger deal about it than I needed to. We'd lost time again. I realized it when we got back, only a few hours this time. It was enough to upset Rice all over again, though. She's currently huddled next to the fire I built

in the huge fireplace they've got in the main room, and she's been sobbing steadily since she got back. Nothing I've said can stop her. Cassie and the twins are just hanging around watching us. sometimes in the room with us sometimes peering in through the freaking windows and smiling always smiling well this is it now as soon as the guys get back i'm going the fuck home of course that's the other problem the boys still haven't come back kit promised me they'd be back well before dark there's no sign of them though no sign at all Let Jim be okay. Please, if nothing else, if no one else.

Just let Jim, please be okay. I can see someone coming back now. I'm going out to get the van started. I'm not waiting for daylight. Part four. Something is very wrong with me. I don't know what just happened. I don't know where I've been.

I'm so freaking scared right now. There's nothing I can do about it. I think there's something in me. I don't know if I can fix it. It wasn't the boys, the ones that went running out to meet. It wasn't them. I know that much, even if I don't know who the fuck it was. I went running out to see them, to see if it was Jim,

fully intending to grab him and drag him aside and never let him go again. But when I got out there, whoever it was, they turned and started walking away. Only I couldn't just let them wander off. I couldn't. They needed to come inside. It wasn't safe. That's what kept repeating in my head, like a compulsion. It's not safe. Save them. So I ran after them. I mean, they were walking far too quickly for how dark it was under the trees. And that's the last thing I remember. Well, that's a lie. I remember plenty. I remember swimming. I remember that although I was under the water, I didn't feel cold, and I could breathe just fine, I could see just fine, and I was fast,

and I was so fast. I remember flying, I remember the creaking of my wings, the flutter of the wind through my feathers. I remember the way the muscles of my shoulders worked to keep me aloft, the way I could see the fall of every sparrow. I remember running. I was so fast and graceful, and although I was scared of a lot of things, I was still powerful. I ran with my family, and to keep. together we were strong. I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember being hungry and so hungry, this hunger beyond anything I've ever felt, like my stomach was twisting in on itself.

But then when I ate, everything was a hundred times more delicious than anything I've ever tasted before. I drank, and though it was only river water, I could have kept drinking forever, just for the taste of it. And I, I had desires, as if I hadn't been with someone for years. And when I was with him, I came, and I bit at him like a wild thing, and when I drew blood, he only laughed. I don't know where I was. I don't know who it was that I was with.

It's just a series of disjointed memories all shuffled together. Pain and pleasure and sheer, bloody freedom, all jumbled up so that none of it makes any sense now that I look at it, like a dream. It went on forever, and it lasted no time at all. The next real memory I have is of stepping over one of the stones in the circle around the cabin. It's like I dropped back into myself. Boom! And there I was.

I looked up, and Jim was sprinting towards me, yelling, and, for a second... Geez, for a second I pulled away from him. For a second he was a stranger running at me, shouting incomprehend. I was ready to attack him to defend myself. And he got close enough for me to see his eyes, and it all clicked back in. He was asking me what had happened, what was wrong with me? I didn't know what he meant until I looked down, wondering why I suddenly felt so cold. Turns out I was stuck, naked, but so covered in blood, mud and clumps of fur that it was hard to tell.

Every inch of me hurt. I was covered in cuts, bruises, scrapes, bites. I'd torn whole strips of skin off in some places. In total, I'd been gone for two nights and a day. Jim carried me inside straight away, put me in a hot bath and cleaned off what he could, fending off the others' questions. He got out the first aid kit, he took everywhere with him, and patched me up as best he could.

He said I was in a state of shock, which I found funny. He said that was part of the shop. He also told me what had happened to him. Why he was so late coming back? The boys had all been up in a tree hide, drinking. When they heard something. It sounded how he imagined a bare growling would sound, Jim said. It was right below them, moving around.

It never came in sight, so they couldn't try taking a shot at it. Instead, they just stayed up there all night, trying to stay quiet as to not attract any undue attention. mention. When they woke up, they found that Curtis had gone missing. No sign of him anywhere. No sign of a struggle. No one heard him leave in the night. He was there when they went to sleep and gone when they woke up. He finally made it back that day, only to find I'd disappeared too. Rice was hysterical by this point, and coughing steadily with a massive fever. Her swim apparently hadn't done her any favours, as I'd feared. Kit volunteered to take her to take her.

into town to get her to the nearest doctor. Of course, I'd disappear with the only set of keys to the minivan still in my bra, so God knows where they are now. So they'd taken Curtis's truck instead. Now even when Jim can get a signal, he says Kit isn't answering his phone. Poor Jim, he's so worried. He's worried about me, and he's worried about them. He's worried about Curtis, and that the twins don't seem to care about their boys. And that Cassie did doesn't seem to care about what's happening to her brother and girlfriend, just like she didn't seem to care when I was missing. He's worried about the fact that Craig and Jay since the night in the tree hide have also been standing around, smiling but emotionless. Mostly I think he's worried

because he still has hope we're going to live. He just doesn't know how to make that happen. I told him there's no hope, not for any of us. I told him we should have left on that first day. Well he shushed me. He seemed to think it was just hysteria, part of my shock rather than something I know. I think he feels guilty, like it's his fault we've stayed too long. Oh, my poor boy. He's already spoken to Alex, the last of us who seems reasonably normal, and we're going to sneak off first thing in the morning. I think that maybe if we start early and head through the trees to cut off a section of the road, we can be back in town by time. tomorrow night. I agreed with him because it's what he needs and because no matter what else

is going on, I still love Jim. We're going to leave before dawn. But it's not going to work. Part 5. It's my first time in an American forest and I'm all alone. This is it. This is the end of it all. But if before dawn, just like we planned, Jim, Alex. and me creeping out with whatever we could carry in rucksacks we set off into the trees at an angle so we could cut through the forest and meet up with the road further down that way if the others look for us they wouldn't catch us just by strolling down the driveway it's hard going harder than we expected the roots and grass clumps seem to be trying to grab our feet to trip us up with every step branches grabbed at our hair and faces or else snatched at any exposed skin cutting us like the forest itself was trying to keep us from leaving well the man wouldn't admit this of course they just kept slogging on forcing their way onwards their hope driving them to reach the road

as it turned out they were right and i was wrong alex reached it first stumbling through the last layer of grasping branches to topple face first down a banking onto the gravel Jim climbed down more gracefully, then held out a hand to help me follow. As soon as we reached the road, the boys seemed a lot happier, practically skipping along. They thought we were safe. Whatever they thought was going on, I don't think either of them ever admitted it was something otherworldly, not out loud anyway. Surely it was over now. They were on a road, a man-made thing. They were clear and away.

never mind that we were still surrounded on all sides by miles and miles of wilderness. The road was a thin strip of oasis, a lighthouse of humanity. We were safe. We found Curtis's truck about an hour later, sitting abandoned in the middle of the road. The windscreen was shattered, giving the safety glass a smoky look. The nose was crumpled in almost to the point of hitting the engine, and there was blood splashed across it. "'Ah, they must have hit something,' Alex said uneasily.

"'Something pretty fucking big,' Jim agreed. Both doors had been left hanging open. One dangled at an angle like a broken wind, where it had been half ripped off, but there was no one in sight. And the two sets of scuffed footprints lit away from the truck. They weren't following the road onwards. Rather, they were heading back into the trees. Alex headed off after the footprints without another word.

Jim went to inspect the trucks, so I followed him. His blood splashed across the inside of the cab too, across the dashboard, the steering wheel, the seats, the windows. Blood. Lots of it. The passenger side window had been kicked out from the inside. The driver's side was star and coated with the thickest layer of blood. You could notice hear the echo of their same.

screams in the air. Then Alex started shrieking. Jim ran towards him and even though he told me to stay where he was, I followed him. I couldn't let Jim out of my sight. I couldn't risk it. We ran, but as we did, something washed over us, something louder and more immediate than Alex's horrific screaming. Oh, the whistle, the tinnitus, where it was again dropping us to our knees. This time, though, I didn't end up drifting alone. This time I could feel Jim's hand in mind. When the whistle left us, Jim pulled me to my feet and we kept going like nothing had happened. Alex had stopped screaming. We pushed through into a small clearing, only to find Alex in the jaws of a cougar. It dropped him and retreated when Jim ran forward, swinging

a branch and bellowing a challenge. The cat poured up at the edge of the trees and turned to bear its teeth at Jim. Then it turned to me, and our eyes met across the distance. It blinked slowly, then turned and loped off into the tree shadow. Jim had gone straight to Alex, though it was obvious it was hopeless. The cat had bitten clean through his spinal cord right at the base of his skull. He wasn't the only one there either. Jim noticed first and tried to keep me from seeing, but it was what I'd have expected anyway. Kit was there too, sprawled out on the ground.

The cougar had been at him too, maybe even more than one. It didn't seem to be a lot of there. She's not here, Jim said after a while, sounding sick. Rice isn't here. Her footprint's led in here. But then they just stop. He was right about that. There was no sign of her.

Though I bet I could guess what she'd look like if I ever saw her again. Jim practically carried me back to the road. They both felt like there was something wrong, but it took us a while to realize just what it was. Yeah, we'd lost time again. It was far later than it should have been. I think that was the point when Jim really started to panic. He told me to shut myself in the truck cab while he ran the rest of the way alone. Then he would have someone come back to get me.

He seemed to think it was a great idea under the circumstances, but I thought it was about as awful as a plan could get. I begged him to stay with me, literally, begged him, and I think he thought I was scared for myself. He just didn't understand. He didn't understand at all. But I did. I knew if I let him go, I'd never see him again.

Not as we were then, so I begged him to stay with me. But he didn't. I didn't see any point in waiting around or in spending a night in a drafty truck. I made my way home instead, and I wasn't exactly surprised to find that the way back was easier. The cabin was empty when I got there, completely deserted. I wasn't particularly surprised to find that, either. I was still writing this because I want someone to know what's

happened to us. I'm inside now, with all the doors locked, all the windows shuttered. Jim won't be coming back, I know it. And if the others do, I don't know what I'll do. Geez, I don't want to I'm all alone but I can hear things moving around outside I'm so freaking scared but probably not for the reasons you think I'm not scared of what's out there getting in

I'm scared that eventually I want to open the door I'd help me part six my first time in an American forest and it's been wonderful I can't take it anymore I just can't

There are people out there I think it's the girls Maybe Craig and Jay too But they're hanging back With the other things I can see in the trees It's the girls And it's him They calling me still

All calling me but I don't want to go I don't I want to be me I want to still be me More than anything I just want to be me Why can I stay I should have gone with Jim when I was with Jim I remembered home

my real home he calls me and I should go no it's getting so hard to think it's not just coming from outside now it's coming from inside to from inside my head

the tenetus keeps sounding over and over and over each time it comes it lasts longer each time is getting closer together my contractions is it a rebirth then a beginning from an ending or is it just an ending? The things outside are they newborns or parasites?

Shells? Are they really there at all? I thought that has crossed my mind you know. Maybe everything has just been in my head. Maybe I'm locked up somewhere, dribbling on myself and screaming about things circling me in the darkness. Maybe I never even left the UK. Or maybe the plane crashed and this is hell. Why can't I still be me? Why do I have to go?

A sacrifice of myself to myself. I just want to go home and live my life the way I've always lived it. I wasn't exactly happy, but I was me. At least I had Jim. We could have been happy eventually. I know it. I know we could. But I won't open the door.

I won't open the door. I won't open the door. I'm bleeding constantly now. Nose, ears, even my eyes. It will almost stop, and then the tinnitus will come again. and start the bleeding afresh. Every time it comes, I lose a little more of myself. I can feel it leaving me.

I can't remember being a child anymore. Can't even remember how I met Cassie. I can still remember how I met Jim, though. I think I can anyway. I met him on a night out, and a friend of a friend. They only ever called him James, but he told me his surname was Jones, and I laughed about it. I never called him anything but Jim.

afterwards. My gym. I want people to know what happened. I want someone to know the truth that I didn't just get lost or eaten by a wild animal. None of us did. Don't forget us, please. Remember us because I don't know if we

will. I won't open the door. I won't open the door. I will not open the door. I can't remember what university I went to. Christ, I can't even remember if I have any brothers or sisters or my parents' names. Why Is it Jim that I remember?

Is it some stupid love conquers all shit? Is it because he's the only person I brought with me from home? I don't think he can cross the stunts. That's what they're there for. I see it now. To keep his attention away from here. That's all they can do. Once he's seen you, there's nothing you can do.

What he wants, he takes. He can't cross, but the girls can. They're at the doors now, at the windows. There's more of them than there should be. They're whistling, the tinnitus. It doesn't affect them. They just wait it out and then go on talking, telling me what I could be, telling me I've been chosen, telling me all I need to do is open the door. Open the door, Emily. I won't, I won't. Why can't I stay? Please, please let me stay. I don't care if they have to kill me so long as I can die as myself.

please that's all I want I just want to still be me I won't open the door I won't I won't Jim's outside I can see him now he has him I didn't think he'd make it away but I hoped I should have gone with him God I hoped I don't know how much will be left of Jim before long he hasn't stopped screaming They're not hurting him, just holding him. Still, he's seeing things. Things are rational brain shouldn't be forced to see. I was marked.

I see that now, I understand. This is all my fault. We came out here because of me, and then we followed the voices. It was me, he came for. I don't know why, but that doesn't change things. Everything, everyone, my fault. I'm opening the door now.

I'm sorry. That's all over now. Everything's okay. Jim's dead. I killed him. It was better this way, better for both of us. That I did it, I mean. Well, it was fast, and I was there for him.

There was no pain. I made sure of it. I used my tea. His blood is on the stones, and now the cabin is ours too. I went out to speak to the ones outside. Cassie, Ruby, Topaz. That's rice. Only that's not who they are anymore. Like I was Emily, but now I'm not. Now I am something more. Because I killed Jim. Back home I was nothing. Back home, I worked in an office.

Why should I have gone back there? Why should I have missed this? Home. Was it ever really home? Please help me. I was wrong. People have ideas about things. They try to explain things as best they can, but people's brains are small, narrow, thin, frail. Human brains can't see everything, because if they could, it would be too much to bear. Humans can't see everything, because if you could see everything, well, you wouldn't be human anymore. I can feel the trees growing. I can feel their roots. I can feel everything living in the forest like it's a part of me. I can feel Jim's life going back into the earth, and it's beautiful. As humans, everything is always so scary. We give names and stories to things we don't

understand, because it's by naming it that we understand it. No matter how scary it might be, if it has a name, it's manageable, it's understandable. You're scared of the woods and of what's in them. I know because I was too. Don't be. All we want to do is share this. Don't run. Come to us. Trust us. There'll be people who knew Emily who were worried. You don't need to be. It's okay now. It's all okay. I know now. This is a place where I'm safe and warm and love. I'm home. And you could be two. Part seven. This is my life now, I guess. If you're looking for explanations, I'm not the one to give them to you. if you're looking for a name we don't have one our people are old old enough that we can remember at time when we were the only ones here although technically only the elders were the ones physically here back then we can all remember it once we've well once whatever has happened to us it's happened to us i suppose we can see all the way back to when the first trees grew here and we can see and feel everything

that happens here now all at the same time. Yep, that's the sort of shit I have to put up with now. I think this will be the last time I can write anything. I'm still in and out at the minute. Sometimes I'm still just Emily, well, mostly I'm sort of Emily Plus, I suppose. Even then I'm still me, and sort of, I think. It's really hard to say. I'm trying to explain how this works now I'm Emily Plus is basically impossible. I'll do the best I can. but you don't have words for most of it. Telling you in person would be difficult.

Telling you in written words is, well, I can't. And trust me when I say you don't want me telling you in person, not now. The other reason for this being the last post is that electronics hurt like hell now. I think it's something to do with the frequencies they put out. It causes headaches, nausea, general feelings of achy unpleasantness. Basically not something I'm willing to put up with. Don't come out here. That's why I'm sitting through what feels like a wicked case of the flu to put down my last

words for you all. I know what we said last time about coming out here. Just fucking ignore it. Kid and Cassie's family were concerned about the fact they hadn't heard anything from us, especially since they were due to be at their parents' house for some big welcome back from the woods barbecue by about midday yesterday. They came out here a few hours ago, a father and a couple of uncles and cousins. Cassie went up and tried to convince them to live.

leave, but they'd seen Curtis's truck on the way in and had found what was left of Kid and Alex. They were pretty upset, understandably, and wanted us to leave with them before it was too late. What surprised me was the first thing Cassie's dad did was grab her and yell in her face. You crossed the stones at night, didn't you? What were you thinking, Cassandra? Didn't Grandpa teach you anything? Cassie just kept trying to get them to leave. It's almost like she cared. Maybe she even did. I don't remember anything from before I arrived here.

But you never know. Maybe if you put my actual parents in front of me, I'd at least remember who they were. We killed Cassie's family anyway. They point blank refused to leave without her. And worse, they were talking about doing something. Given it was her great-grandfather who carved out a human safe space and put the stones up in the first place,

we couldn't risk it. especially not since her dad and uncles actually seemed to know what they were talking about they looked surprised when most of us came out of the trees and started walking up to the cabin they looked a bit more than surprised when the elders followed us over the ring of stones well that's what complacency does for you never rely on hundred-year-old charms folks especially when they can be cancelled out by something as simple as a gift of beloved blood I miss Jim, I do. He prefer it this way though.

He was never going to be allowed to lead, given a choice between this and death, well, he was always a very rational man. According to the big man, some people just can't make the transition. They fight it so hard it rips their mind apart. They end up either dying right away or wandering the forest, neither one thing nor the other, completely insane.

And he can tell, who can make the transition and who can't. The only reason he took the twins is because he needed someone to watch us. He didn't want us to panic and make a run for it that first night. We'll look after them though. Probably won't be necessary for very long, won't we will? My eye was touch and go apparently. They called it a difficult birth afterwards.

If it hadn't been for, if I hadn't helped Jim, I mean, I probably would have ended up like the twins. Lucky for me, the big man was set on having me. Part of it was that I was due a reward for not eating the flesh of the elder Curtis killed. Don't ask what happened to Curtis. Seriously, don't. But, weird as it sounds, the rest was that I'm Welsh. Strange but true.

I'm the first woman they've seen with the accent. It turns out he's a fan. And then my little sojourn out there with him just sealed the deal. And so? My advice you is this. If you do decide to go into the forest for some reason, the fuck knows why, but it's your choice. Try not to kill anything.

Plants included. We don't like that. If you do have the overwhelming urge to kill something, and for fuck's sake make sure it looks like it's supposed to first. Why? I'll give you a little example on that one. Draw a deer from memory. Then compare it to the real thing.

Not so easy, is it? You really don't want to kill one of us, not even without meaning to. Because when it comes to our people, we don't really go in from mercy. There's someone coming up the road now. So I think Cassie's dad got the word out that there was an issue. Probably called the police after fighting the corpses. Sounds like it's going to be a case of retreat and observe, which works for me. Gives me time to get to know with the new family. Plus, I'll need to take it easy for a while. I remember what I said.

I remember us. Oh, and if you call me a goat man, I'll track you down and rip your fucking throat out. My sister disappeared into the forest last year, and I'm going to find out what happened if it kills me. Part one. My little sister Emily was always more adventurous than I was. She's four years younger than me,

even when we were kids she'd be the one climbing to the top of the tallest trees wading through dark tunnels to follow streams balancing across pipes over rushing water or trying to catch sheep up on the common always laughing while i stood behind or below her shouting for her to stop come back that she was going to hurt herself well that's just how things were m the daredevil me desperately trying to keep up borderline feral emily and stick in the mud anna I never mind it. She was my baby sister. It was my job to look after her, and I loved her. Summer she announced she and her fiancé gym were heading off to America, with some friends she'd met in university.

They were going to stay at some isolated cabin in the middle of the wilderness, a big gang of them getting wasted and doing crazy shit literally hours away from anyone who could help. As you might imagine, I was not best pleased. Get some time off. Come out there with you, I said. keeping my voice as light as possible. She just laughed. And we're going to be drinking and hanging out in the woods with a load of strangers, she said, in that lovingly mocking way that she had. You'd hate it.

And she was right. There's no way I could realistically push the subject. And if she worked out the real reason I was suggesting, she'd see me as exactly the sort of overprotective paranoiac I'd always try to deny being. And so I didn't go. I told myself I was making a fuss out of nothing, anyway. Jim was a sensible guy. She was an adult. It'll be fine. Bad things only happen to other

people, right? When work came through that she was missing, my parents didn't seem too concerned at first. I don't mean that in a bad way. They just felt the same way I did. Bad things don't happen to us, because, well, we're us. You hear about people vanishing in the news, but it doesn't happen to anyone you know. We boarded the Heathrow to Bangor Main Flight, fully expecting her. to have been found by the time we landed. Then we could all scream at her, have a holiday, and come home. When the police met us at the airport,

that changed. It wasn't only Emily missing, or even just her and Jim. Everyone she was with had vanished. Almost a dozen, 20-somethings had driven out into the woods one day, and that was that, just gone. All went out to the cabin, using it as a base for our search,

all the families together. Oh, but it was eerie. Reminded me of the Marie Celeste, or that Elymore lighthouse thing. Cup is full of food. All their stuff laid out like they just popped out. But they were gone. Everyone was really enthusiastic at first,

piling into the woods. Confident a group that size couldn't be missing for very long. We'd fight them. Of course we would. It'd all be a story to laugh at one day. Week by week, people drifted away, until finally everyone admitted defeat. They were just gone.

Missing. Presumed dead, but honestly who could say? Maybe they were in shallow graves. Maybe they'd been kidnapped. Maybe they'd been abducted by freaking aliens. The point was nobody knew and nobody seemed to want to know. Not by then. By then everyone just wanted to move on as best they could.

I was livid, but what could I do? The cabin belonged to Emily's friend's family and it was private property. Once we were told to leave, that was it. We flew home without her. It broke my heart. She was my baby sister. I hadn't been there to protect her. And I was expected just to give up?

Oh, fuck that. I always intended on going back, but what happened last week sealed the deal. While looking through a box of Emily's stuff, I found a notebook. And on the last page, she'd scribbled the login details for websites she used, read it among them, or this account. and then I read her posts. I can't tell if something unimaginably awful happened to her, or if she just had a complete psychotic break.

I'd write it all off as insanity if it wasn't for my grandfather's old stories. How my however many great-grandfather before, once helped out Gwynn, Knud, King of Anand himself. Now this chap had a very attractive daughter who came up pregnant very soon after Gwyn's visit. Well, that and something grander always said about it, kind knows kind that's why i came to take a month off work book a flight out to america and hire a four by four to get me back out to the cabin had to stop in town to pick up some essentials on the way try not to draw any attention to myself everything was going great until my month's worth of supplies exploded out of the bags as i crossed the postage-stamped car park i was hastily lobbing armfuls of stuff into the boot when i realized somewhere stopped to help me i looked up to

to thank him, flustered, and froze. He chuckled at the look on my face. Nice to see you again, Anna. He said, pleasantly enough. I said, because I knew the guy, I spent a lot of time with him last year. It was Basse Tovey, cousin of Cassie, Emily's best friend, who had also gone missing. We'd gotten on quite well, and so yeah, he recognised me. We stood up, dumping the last of the groceries away, and I slammed the boot, trying to avoid meeting his eyes. He leaned against the back of the car, eyebrows raised, watching me. I glared back, determined not to speak first.

Unfortunately, I have a will of couple. It's not what you think. He snorted. Well, you're just back for the night-lifer. Maybe I was coming to see you. Even though the last you knew I was still living in Norke. That's a point. Why are you here?

He shrugged. I got a place in town in the spring. I just wanted to be near them, you know. Oh, maybe that's why I'm here, I said quietly. He laughed again. Come, let me give you some advice, Anna, he said, leaning in and lowering his voice. Go home. Going out to that place, especially alone, is suicide.

My grandfather, people who live around here, they all tell you the same thing. That forest isn't right Last year was unusual But my family have lost people out there Practically once a generation Since they've owned the damn place People who've been out there They've seen things

What sort of things People off in the distance Who disappear when you get near them Things that look like animals but aren't Things that look like people but aren't That's not counting all the noises Please, I'm begging you Go home

I shivered slightly, which shook my head. I said, meaning it, I just can't do another Christmas without her. I just can't. He sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose. Eventually, he said, Fine, stay here, but don't go out to the cabin. You stay with me, and we'll talk about whatever you want to talk about.

Deal. I agreed, making a great show of my reluctance, and he told me to wait with the car while he picked up a few things, so I could follow him home. As soon as he was out of sight, I hopped in the jeep and headed straight out to the cabin. Ah, so soonie. I didn't fly all the way out here to sit in his house listening to regurgitated ghost stories.

I came out here to see if there's anything in that cabin to tell me what happened to my sister. The drive out was moderately difficult, but uneventful. Before too long, I was parked outside the cabin itself, which looked just as I remembered it. I was decidedly fewer people milling around. Once I switched the engine off, it was quiet out there. Not the eerie silence you might be imagining, just the peace and stillness of the forest. It felt sort of welcoming, actually,

like it was glad to see me back. I didn't try the house straight away, instead heading for the ring of stones separating the slightly overgrown lawn from the forest beyond. I never really looked at the stones before. They were rounded and seemed to be buried a little way into the ground, covered in lichens and moss. They also had some very faded marks on them, most of which I couldn't make out.

The ones I could see were mostly Celtic-esque ruins, I think. I was so focused on them. I didn't notice the engine at first. When I eventually realized while I was hearing there were practically the cabin, too late to do anything, not that there was much I could do anyway, like I was going to floor it out of there and drive whoever it was off the road. I'll go over really well with the police, I'm sure. It turned out it was just best.

He stopped his pickup truck just behind my rental, barely even spared me a glance as he hefty his own grocery bag and headed inside. Stead after him for a second, bewildered, waiting for the yelling to start. I thought maybe he'd gone in to grab his gun or something. On a peek through the door, though, he was just unpacking tins. He again barely looked at me as I went to stand next to him. "'So, you're not angry?' "'Oh, I'm pretty fucking angry,' he said.

"'But what good we'll yell and do? "'If I haul you back to town, you'll just end up back here as soon as my back's turn. "'At least if I'm out here with you.' "'He shrugged and went on unpacking. "'Well, thank you.' "'You do everything I say exactly as I say. "'No hesitation, no argument. "'No stupid questions.

I know stuff about this place you don't, so that's my deal. You want to stay out here? Fine. But you follow my rules, agreed. He held his hand out. I smiled and shook it, then handed in my phone, opened to M's first post. You, um, should probably read this, I said, before leaving to get the rest of the stuff from the car.

Creshed out on the sofa before I could hear what Bass thought about Emily's story. I guess thanks to Jetlack. I joined it awake some time in the early hours, and for a second had no idea who I was, where I was, or why I was. And then it all came back to me, and with it two realizations. One, Bass had given me a pillow and blanket as I'd slept, and two, something was shrieking outside. Specifically, I think it was shrieking my name. I was headed for the door before I could reconsider, half convinced I was going to barrel out there to a gang of inbrel. spread backwards creeps, kick some ass, and thereby rescue Emily single-handed.

Instead, as I reached for the door handle, a hand closed on my wrist. I then had a squeak before I realized it was just bass. Go back to bed. You can hear it too, can't you? Who are they? How do they know my name? Go back to bed. I stared him down.

Well, tried to anyway. I failed. I pulled my hand free, briefly cut him. considered making a break for the back door, but instead stroked my way back to the camp. I'd barely sat down before Bass wrenched open the door and bellowed something into the night. I don't know what the fuck he said. It wasn't English or Welsh, that's all I can say for sure, but he did the trick. It was a final trailing shriek, something like hysterical laughter, and then nothing. First an eerie, dead silence, and then the normal sounds of the night crept back

here. Last waited a moment, then shut and locked the door before heading back upstairs. I whispered his name, but he didn't pause and I didn't want to push him. Didn't get much sleep after that. I'm actually starting to think. I might have made a miscalculation. That being said, I came out here to find out the truth about what happened to Emily, and I'm not going home until I've done that. No matter what, part two. I believe everything now, at least. No more of that... Was it real, or was it a breakdown? Agent Scully shipped. I've just gone full molder.

Geez. Bass has been point-blank refusing to discuss anything I've heard at night, as well as virtually keeping me on house arrest since we've been here. He did make French toast for breakfast this morning, though, so that's something. After the dishes were washed, I made my proposal for the day. He didn't even bother to reply. He just looked at me. I literally just want to take a... walk in the woods, I said, trying to keep my voice light. It's not like I haven't been out there

before. Yeah, but not alone. But I won't be alone, will I? I'll be with you? He shook his head, gesturing to my phone. You read the same thing I read here, the whole thing, and yet you still came out here and decided you wanted to go poking around in the woods and chasing strange noises at night. well when you put it like that i huffed waving this off look i came out here to yeah find out what really happened you know whatever he just stared at me for an unsettlingly long time i saw it on his face when he gave in couldn't help grinning looking back i hope it looked more grateful than smug actually by the way we headed out early he stopped me before i was I could cross the stones and asked me again if I was sure. When I said I was, he told me to kiss the

fingers on my right hand, then lay my hand flat on the stone for a few seconds. I did so without arguing or questioning, as promised. Oh, I now had many, many new questions. And off we went. I'd like to tell you, I felt a sense of foreboding or creeping dread or something. But no, honestly it started off as quite a pleasant stroll in the woods, if a bit cold. We've been going for a while, when I thought to ask him how he seemed to know so much more about the place than his cousins. Oh, me and Mikey, my brother, we've always been closer to our grandpa. He said, after a bit of prodding.

My uncle had a falling out with grandpa when Kid and Cassie were still kids, so they only saw him occasionally growing up. My dad was always his favorite, I guess, and we grew up on the same street as him. He said what he knew about this place. He learned from his father, who learned it from his father and on and all. So, go on, then. What's meant to be out here? Look, we're not meant to talk about it, especially not when we're out here.

Bass, come on. He looked at me inside. He said the toll of you first built out here, had a whole mess of kids. One day one of his younger sons ended up going missing. Everyone was out searching for him But this guy was on his own When he found this Well, hench, I guess

Huge circle of standing stones Like the ones of the house Real big ones As he was standing there Wondering how he'd never known They were on his property Something came out of the stones What?

Something, man, I don't know That's just how the story goes Anyway, he came out and told the guy he was keeping the kid, but so long as they respected the land, he and the rest of his family could keep living out here. It would even keep them safe from anyone who posed a threat to them into the bargain. It even gave him ways of dealing with its family if they ever caused a problem. We just had to stick to the deal. Well, I'd imagine running over one of his mutant babies and eating its slow-roasted flesh probably wasn't sticking to the deal. "'Ah, probably not, no.'

"'Now, I'll admit, up until this point, "'I was still torn about believing any of it. "'I got even further from belief when, as if on cue, "'I started hearing a woman sobbing quietly in the bushes ahead of us, "'slightly off to the left. "'It was actually a tiny part of me, though, "'that was so convinced it was Emily, "'it felt like my heart might blow right out of my ribs.

"'But no, I know what Emily crying sounds like, and this wasn't it. Perhaps his hand closed on my elbow, painfully tight, and he yanked me to a halt. When I turned to look at him, he put a finger to his lips. His eyes had gone huge, practically bugging out of his head.

Then, still shushing me, he gently but firmly tried to pull me back the way we'd come. At that point I made a quick, admittedly fairly stupid decision. I pulled my arm free and sprinted off from the direction of the sob. Don't ask me why I did it.

I think the part of me that didn't believe thought he was trying to trick me into going back to town. You know the thing. Take me out in the woods, tell me a scary story, have someone make some timely, spooky noises, then use it to convince me to leave. I thought if I could move quickly enough, I could catch his friend out.

So I was feeling pretty confident, and primed to start shouting. When I burst through the last few sets of branches, to find a woman crouched down, facing away from me she so hard her whole body shook with the effort. The shouts dried up in my throat as I realized the woman was stark naked

and absolutely filthy, with bones which were clearly visible through her skin. Her hair was a ragged, matted clump. Where her hands clasped her back, I could see her fingernails were black and about two inches long, tapering to a point.

Honestly, my first thought that we'd stumbled across some escapee from some psych ward living in the woods keeping people as pets that thought died pretty quickly as soon as i saw her properly she stopped sobbing and went utterly still she stood up slowly so slowly i could hear her joints crackle in the silence and as i heard it i realized it was suddenly silent no critters no birds not even the wind in the trees just dead silence except for my ragged breathing and the little click in my throat as I gulped. I started trying to back away, feeling colder than ever.

I knew I'd fucked up by then. That feeling of foreboding I'd been missing earlier hit me like a tsunami, bringing with it the sort of strangling panic I hadn't felt since seeing that police escort waiting for us in the airport last year. I don't know if I made too much noise backing up or what, but she suddenly started jittering in place, like she was having a seizure. I froze again.

And then I broke out in goosebumps because any doubt I'd had about her being human vanished when she spoke. Sometimes my dog sounds like he's trying to form actual words, and that's what this was like. It said my name, but it was like picking the relevant noises out of an animal call. He kept trying,

each time sounding a little bit clearer. And then it started turning around. I was frozen to the spot, more likely to collapse, throw up or both than make a run for it. Just then strong arms closed around my ribs from behind and hauled me backwards. I yelled, but before I could start fighting, I heard bass muttering, and then realized it was just him that he'd come after me. He turned around a few feet away, set me down and gripped my hand as we started sprinting back. to the cabin he didn't turn us around quite fast enough though so i still ended up getting the

bearish glimpse of its face now obviously i can't be sure i was off my head with terror and we were moving pretty quickly but i think its face looks wrong like a smeared oil painting anyway we were sprinting along far too fast for the conditions my face is cut to ribbons from taking too many branches to it I couldn't hear any movement behind us, at least. I thought we might be in the clear, only then I started hearing the ringing, like a tuning fork had been struck, like tinnitus. I think Emily described it pretty well, the sort of sound you feel in your back teeth. Bass must have heard it too, because he picked up the pace,

until the point I was practically flying along behind him like a kite. The sound was growing, though. not steadily. It faded in and out like a radio with rubbish reception for a while. But as we, mainly me, started getting worn out and slowing down, it started getting louder and more painful. I was pretty much spent, incapable of keeping going at that pace any longer. I gasped out Bass's name, trying to tell him to leave me and save himself. He stopped so suddenly my noodle legs sent me stumbling into his back. He didn't pause.

but turned straight around, grabbed my right wrist and slap my hand over my eyes. The hand I'd pressed to the stones earlier. The tennis had stopped immediately. I just stood there, gulping down air, waiting for something awful to happen. He didn't. Oh, pass. Here. His giant manly paw slipped into my free left hand and squeezed, reassuringly.

Whatever you do, keep your eyes closed. keep your hand over your eyes and don't react to anything. Bass, I'm freaking out. It'll be fine. You tug my hand gently. How do you know we're going the right way? Just trust me. Come on.

Well, I shuffled along after him, not seeing many other options. My hand was clamped so tightly over my face. It's a wonder I didn't burst my eyeballs. That walk was most likely the worst thing I've ever done. Bass kept hold of my free hand, gripping tight enough to bruise, and seemed surprisingly confident in leading me. That started making me paranoid after a while, though. What if it wasn't actually him?

What if something had killed him while my eyes had been closed, and now one of those smiling things was leading me off a cliff, or into a cable, worse. That's when I realized we were surrounded by voices. The thoughts I was having weren't actually my own thoughts. They were whispers in the air around me. So quiet and insidious, it felt like they were coming from inside my own head. They said, at the same time I realized I could feel things trailing lightly over my shoulders, my face plucking at the hand over my eyes.

It could have been leaves or cobwebs or, well, something else. Look at us, Anna. And to God help me, I wanted to. I wanted to be sure it really was bass holding my hand. I wanted to be sure we were still in the forest. I wanted to see what the fuck was touching me. I dug my nails into my face, pressed the heel of my hand into my eye socket, and bit back the whispers that were crying to get out.

And that's when I heard it. The other voices had been distant, wispy, nebulous things, like the wind or a song stuck in your head. But this was recognisably human. This was a voice I knew as well as my own. It sounded surprised and delighted as it called my name, and I knew who it was immediately. Emily, I ripped my hand away from my eyes instantly, turning towards her voice. There was no one there. Bass and I were stood on the lawn of the cabin, and it was late afternoon, almost dark.

Somehow it was almost dark. When I looked harder at the trees, I thought I saw a few branches swaying lightly. But Bass squeezed my hand then, bringing my attention back to him. It's true, I say in a very high-pitched voice, isn't it? It's all true. Bass just snorted. Duh. Part three. I started today ready to rip someone's face off. And I'm ending it.

Pretty depressed, actually. No, strike that. I started today bathed in terrace wet. See, I've been having nightmares since last year, which is understandable, I think. Since I've been back out here, it's just gotten worse. And last night it took the biscuit. I was one of those horribly realistic ones, too. I woke up, went downstairs, and sat in front of the fire with bass, sipping coffee.

I noticed an especially long hair sticking out of my arm, which I thought was terribly embarrassing. So I tried to pluck it. Well, the hair came out, and out, and out, until I was holding about six inches of what I suddenly realized was stitching, and then my entire forearm split open lengthways. Blood gushed out onto the rug, one big spush, like a burst water balloon, and the flesh fell open like it was on hinges. I shrieked and tried forcing it closed, or Bass just watched impassively over his coffee mug. then the skin of my hand slithered off like a loose glove and hit the coffee table with a sound I can only describe as a splot

that's when I realized there was no more blood coming out I carefully braced my forearm then let the flesh sag open again just enough to get a look inside should have been bare bone in there but it wasn't it was a dog leg somehow dry and perfectly white

The human flesh was a cover which had been stitched over the top. The human hand was really a glove, and underneath it was a fully intact dog limb. As I stared at it, horrified and bewildered, the split continued unraveling up my arm, until I woke up screaming hysterically and clutching at my shoulder. It took me a second to stop freaking out, during which I gouged a few chunks out of my arm. I just started to calm down when Bass kicked my door open and hurtled down. in, yelling questions and waving a rifle around in a manner I can only describe as worrying. I eventually got him settled down, and we spent the rest of the wee hours cutched up in my bed

together, trying to ignore the continued shrieking outside. We got up around Dawn, and that's when the shit hit the fan. See, the fact is that Emily's last post has been deleted, which is something I'd noticed and always found weird, especially since the post before it, well, it seems pretty conclusive. Her laptop was one of the things left here, and we went home, we took it with us. None of us could bear touching it in the meantime, but I got to thinking and fired off a text to my cousin Angie, giving her a vague outline of what I was looking for. Well, she found two things of interest as it happens. One appears to be Emily's actual last post, and it's. It's reasonably short so I'll get that out the way up front if you're looking for

explanations I have none if you're looking for a name we don't have one the people are old old enough to remember a time when we were the only ones here the elders share their knowledge we see everything that was is and could be all at once the trees show us be kind stay away all the rest were word-doc versions of the post she'd ended up uploading, but this was just dumped in the notepad thing. Only then there was a full word document following the last published post. This one more or less included M's note, but threw in a load of other stuff too. The toby's coming out here and getting slaughtered on mats. The stone's stopping working,

stuff that never happened, or written in a style as if someone was trying to imitate her. I had Angie check the date the post was last edited. It felt like I'd been sucker-punished. It was dated after the initial search party had come out here. Bass made the mistake of joining me on the couch as I read through what Andrew just sent me, and I turned to him straight away. Are you the one that used Emily's laptop? He froze, refusing to look at me.

And that was all the answer I needed, really. You knew about Emily's posts as far back as last year. I said slowly. You all did, didn't you? You knew exactly what had happened, and you knew it was the truth, and you let us all search around out there. What could we have said?

Fucking something, I don't know. What about the post? I mean, the last one. Well, Grandpa had Mikey write it, well, I'll try and wrap it all up, discredit it. Tell people to stay away. I don't know.

I swear, I had nothing to do with that bit. I... You're a freaking liar, I spat and stormed off outside. For a second, I thought I was going to drive right back to town, fuck everything, and just run. Next thing I know, I'm down by the nearest to the stones, with a pencil and paper, doing a rubbing of one of the symbols.

It did strike me as odd. I couldn't remember the moment I stopped wanting to get some space and decided to finally put my GCSE geography skills to use instead. And I got slightly distracted. I mean, again, some more. The symbol I was looking at was a valknut, as in the old Norse mark meant to be sacred to Odin.

Only about three inches away from it was a Celtic one. Triquetra, I think they're called. Sort of a circle triangle. Look, I'm not an expert in this. So anyway, I looked harder. It turns out they're all like it. At least all the ones I've checked are. Celtic stuff alongside Norse, alongside a lot of stuff I don't recognise, all mixed in together.

I'd been out there for hours when Bass came over to join me. I'd mostly forgotten about being pissed off at him by then, and pointed out the weirdness of this. We just shrugged. The stones were here before their house, he said. If people made them, it was well before our time. The first Tovey moved them, so they made a boundary. It used to be spread out all over the land around here. Listen, Anna, I really didn't write that last post, but I'm the one that deleted it.

Grandpa and Mike, they just wanted it to sound like some stupid story, so that's what they did. I kept thinking about it and I just didn't feel right, lying about all of it, especially after I met you. I thought she was entitled to her last words and you... couldn't tell you about it, but you were entitled to read them, if you ever found them. I stood up, brushing lichen off my hands, and looked at him. He looked so forlorn, I just couldn't help myself. All right. You're absolved on account of having saved my ass multiple times already.

Hard to hold a grudge under the circumstances. Hey, um, any other big revelations you want to revelate while we're at it? you still give me that look and my heart dropped oh jeez what else want you to be honest about something not just with me with yourself too don't answer with what you think you should say actually think about it okay why are you so dead set against going back to town i pulled a face instantly wanting to snap something about emily but reluctantly did as he asked. I suppose I'm, even with everything, I feel comfortable here, I said slowly. I felt like the words were being dredged up from way down deep. When I first got back here, I felt more like coming home and actually going home did last year. Plus, every time I seriously think about leaving, I get this like, well, I want to say, feeling of superstitious dread.

It's like how you feel bad if you smash a mirror or open an umbrella in doors. I know rationally that nothing bad will happen to me back in town. It'll be safer than here, any row. But I still feel sick whenever I think about it. It's like I can always find something else I'd rather be doing. He'd been staring at me the whole time with this look I couldn't quite place. I realized what it was then. Pity. A sort of deflated pity. And I felt a chill go down my spine. in my head, isn't he? Bass nodded. I could always just throw you in the truck and drive away.

He said, though we both knew it wouldn't be that easy. I swallowed. My throat suddenly very dry. When do you think it... Probably the first time you crossed the stones. I noticed it last year before you left, but I wasn't trying so hard then. He didn't want to draw any more attention

than it already had, especially after that diver vanished too, but... Yeah? Have you ever had to look back over a period of your life and wonder how much of it was real? Had to run back over a year's worth of making decisions and thinking thoughts and just hopping along, and then tried to figure out how much of it was you and how much of it was something other, something which had wriggled into your mind without your noticing, and gently but firmly steered you down a certain path? I let out a long breath, blinking back a sudden flood of tears, gave her rather soggy

laugh. I'm fucked then, aren't I? Like I said, I could always toss you in the truck. You trailed off, nothing more needing to be said. Whatever's out here had stopped Kit and Rice's escape. It had taken Jim and shepherded Emily back to the cabin. There's an awful lot of trees between here and civilization, and every single one could be hiding something behind it.

Yeah, I'm sorry, Bass said, sounding like he meant it. I'd hope to stop you in town. I should never let you out of my sight. You moved up here to stop me doing this, didn't you? I said, the thought suddenly occurring to me. He nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. I had a few friends keeping an eye out for you too. I really am sorry.

"'Don't be,' I said, going up on tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek. "'I appreciate the efforts. "'Now, well, it is what it is. "'It's good to know, in a way. "'There's a certain stress that goes with hope. "'I have to keep trying. "'I have to keep fighting. "'I can't give up no matter what.

"' Accepting that you're fucked no matter what you do is strangely liberating. besides which I've got one thing going for me one thing he can't take from me I started writing this so people would know what happened to Emily and the others so that if I never came back if something happened to me there'd be something to show for it all and I'm going to make good on that

I'll be here to the bitter end Bart four last night I slept better than I have for a while well that's because I've made peace with my eventual horrible demise, all because Bass and I had decided to bed-chair some more. Well, I couldn't say, probably a little of both. The dream I had this morning, though, well, at least it wasn't as awful as the dog-leg dream. In it, I was sat on a shingle beach, looking out over a small lake with an island in the centre. A little boy was stood on a wooden jetty to my left, skipping

stones. They turned to look at me as if he suddenly realised I was there. He beamed and came sprinting over to throw himself on me in a hug, babbling in a language I didn't understand. I got him by the shoulders and led him away from me, and barely managed to keep from hurling him down the beach when I got a good look at him. I can't remember why now or any details about him, only that there was something subtly wrong about him, something other, and he had Emily's eyes. That's when I heard the voice behind me, her voice.

"'He says you have to come home,' she said, and the boy nodded eagerly. I refused to turn around, but heard the shingle crunching as she walked up to kneel down beside me. She put her chin on my shoulder to whisper in my ear, and at the same time the boy turned to point out the little island, which had started to glow so brightly I could barely even look at it. "'You have to come home, Anna,' I jolted awake at that point, elbowing baths in the throat as I did. did so. You didn't seem bothered. Went straight back to sleep, actually. I pushed myself upright and sat there for a while, trying to get my breath back. That's when I realized it was quiet outside, for the first night since I've been here. Just quiet, no screaming or howling, but no eerie

stillness either. Then, so suddenly I almost wet the bed, something broke the quiet. I might not have spent a great deal of time around guns, but I've lived rural enough to know what a gun sounds like. Someone was shooting outside, and the gunfire was quickly followed by desperate screams, some very human screams. I tried shaking Bass awake, but he wasn't budging. I decided that was probably for the best, and then quickly dressed and headed outside. I didn't take the rifle with me, since I'd be more likely to break my jaw or my cold. collarbone firing wildly at a raccoon or something. And yes, I know, I headed out into the forest alone and unarmed at night. My thoughts on the matter were that I was fucked no matter what,

but that there were people out there who were still alive, who I might be able to help. Couldn't just sit in bed with my hands over my ears, could I? I scribbled a hasty note to bass, grabbed a torch and headed out. Thankfully, I remembered to do the little rituals across the boundary, kiss my fingers, patted the stone. Then I slipped out into the trees, turned the torch off, and listened. Surprising how far sound travels at night, even under the trees,

I could hear a man's voice hopping and cursing off to my right. As disconcerting as that was, I still felt like I should try to help. I picked my way closer as quietly as I could, and in case it was one of those mimic things I put my hand over the end of the torch. The intention was to make it duller, to keep it from giving me away.

It actually just made the light all reddish and organic looking, and was generally as creepy as fuck. Anyway, it wasn't a mimic. It was just a young man, probably in his mid-twenties. He had a shaved head, was wearing a huge plaid shirt, and was sobbing into the rifle he clutched to his chest, whimpering gibberish to himself. Hello? I said softly, stepping out into view.

I took a quick look around, but we seemed to be the only two there, at least for the moment. The rifle was up and pointed at my chest in an instant, the guy's tear-stained face suddenly warping into an angry grimace. Who the fuck are you? he screamed. I could barely move. You ever had a gun pointed at you? One you're pretty sure would leave you with a cartoon-sized hole through your torso. I crept outside that night ready to deal with supernatural horrors, but now there was some random hysteric holding a gun on me.

So the exact moment I realized that I might have made my peace with being kidnapped by some sort of wood spirits, but dying? Not so much. Listen, I have a cabin back there, I said quickly, keeping my voice as steady as I could. I just heard something out here that wanted to see if you were all right. "'We were hunting,' he said. His eyes were jerking about all over the place, like he couldn't bear to look directly at anything.

Me and the boys, I think he got them all. Oh, jeez, I think it got them all.' With that, he went off into another screaming fit. Most of it was garbled gibberish, but I got enough to work out that he and his friends had decided to ignore all the local legends and come out to hunt and camp on Toveyland anyway. Then he'd gone to see his friends being horribly murdered, well, at least by the sounds of it. The last thing he said, though, was perfectly clear.

You're one of them. I can tell. No, I have a cabin over there. You're not one of the frickin' tovies, he snarled, and those rolling eyes had finally picked a spot to fix on. Me. He finished up with, I recognize your voice. You bitch. you're that one that... Oh God, Simon. A hell of you done, M, I thought, even as I hastily started trying to explain the situation. Lord knows what I would have said, mind you,

especially since the guy was shrieking and wailing again by this point. He also brought up that rifle again, aiming it at my face this time, finger on the trigger. And then? He was gone. For a second, I thought that's literally what had happened, that he'd just straight up vanished.

into thin air. The gun went off somewhere in there, and I felt chips of bark rained down on my head from where the branch above me exploded into shrapnel. There was no sign of the guy. And then came the screaming. The noises he'd been making before had been horrible enough, the sounds of a man losing his grip on reality. This was worse. This was high-pitched and rabiddy, and slightly damp like there was something blocking his airway. And then came the other sounds, the ripping, the grinding, the chewing. He hadn't disappeared. He was in the bushes behind where he'd just been standing, and something had pulled him in. I might have stood there all night, praying not to be noticed, if the chewing sounds hadn't stopped suddenly.

The screams had turned into weak moans by now, and I heard something whisper, again in that gravelly dog-y-yowl of a voice. A few seconds later it followed it up with the last syllable rising into an ear-splitting shriek, like a cat being tortured. And under it I could hear the guy, screaming as thick, gurgling death screams again. Well, that was enough for me. I clapped the hand I'd touched to the stones over my eyes, heard the torch at whatever was making the noise, fuck knows why, and sprinted back towards the cabin as quickly as I could. At least I finally knew how Bass had Goddner's home at first visit to the woods. The cabin glowed like a blue,

beacon as soon as the hand was over my eyes, so brightly I could actually make out the silhouettes of the trees between me and it. Something started crashing through the trees behind me as I went, and I started letting out these big, wimpy squeals, convinced there was no way I was going to be able to outrun whatever this was. But I did. I also caught my foot on one of the stones and went sprawling flat onto the grass, frog hopping the rest of the way to the cabin. To my relief, the lights were on. Bass must have been watching for me, since as soon as I crossed the stones, he was stood on the porch with his own rifle. What was all that? He yelled as I scrambled past him, not stopping until I'd practically crawled into the fireplace. You had a load of guys from

town on your land, apparently. I gasped out. Key word in that sentence is had. Bass quickly shut the door and locked it, coming to join me on the floor. "'You went out to see some townies? "'Where else was I going to go this time of night?' "'Well, he opened his mouth to answer, "'looking down at the crumpled mess that was left of the note I'd left, "'the note including my dream about the lake and the island. "'I cocked my head.

"'You thought I'd gone to the lake? "'The one that took the diver? "'The calm had started creeping over me by then, "'like a warm blanket. "'It seems being brain-fought isn't all bad. We haven't been out of the lake since I've been here. Why? We're meant to avoid it, he said reluctantly.

We can boat on the lake if we take some precautions. Ask permission and such. But no one goes out to the island. I smiled. Well, that's where we're going next. Utovies keep a boathouse on the lake shore with a sweet little rowing boat in a kayak. I loathe kayaks, I was pretty glad when Bass started hauling the boat down the shingle.

Bass wasn't glad, about any of it. He was righteously pissed off as it happens. I can't blame him. He rode us out there, finding a landing spot on the island. He looked apprehensively up at the bank as he hauled the oars in, making it blatantly clear he didn't want to do this in the least. I didn't blame him, but in that moment I made my decision. decision. Okay, I said, standing up and slinging the rucksack we'd brought over my shoulders

before he could grab it. I underestimated the weight of it, almost ended up toppling backwards into the water, which slightly ruined the extremely competent wilderness explorer effect that I was going for, but such is life. You stay here until this evening. If I'm not back by then, go back to the cabin for the night and head straight into town in the morning. What? He grabbed my arm as I started climbing out of the boat, always dumping me in the water in the process. No, Anna, but we're... We aren't doing anything, I said, still trying to be all debonair in that, but the look on his face made me feel awful. I sat back down, taking his hands. Best, listen, I don't know if I'm coming back from this. I can't know if this is a choice I'm making

or if that's what they want me to do. But I have to do it. I can't explain it, but I do. I think it's why I came back here. I'm not going to drag you up there too. I want you to wait as long as it's safe. If I don't come back, you're going to go home, call the police, and forget it all about me, okay.

Oh, he was not pleased. I started yelling about how the whole trip was just one big, elaborate suicide attempt, how I was deliberately acting like the dumb-ass white woman in a horror movie. how I was so desperate for attention I had to get it from a monster in the woods I just sat there

and let him rant away because he clearly needed it when he finally ran out of steam I just smiled and said well I'm still going and you're still staying here he swore loud enough that it echoed all across the lake but he'd given in I could tell

because he knows same as me there's no easy way out here for me and even if I physically make it back to town, well, it's going to get me one way or another. Might as well see what this island is all about before I go right. Well, on impulse, I decided to kiss, Bass, before I handed the phone over. He's standing there now, looking adorably surprised. I might give him another one before I head off into the land where Tovey's fear to tread.

And, just in case, thanks for listening so far. it's given me something other than constant existential dread to focus on. Just remember, stay sick. Part 5. Where I lived, and I've got a lot to tell you, because I'm in hospital and I've got nothing better to do. Well, just to let you know, things are about to get very, very weird. Anyway, so I headed off into the little wood that covered the island,

all hiking gear in rucksack, which contain a first-aid kit, packed lunch and water bottle, chocolate bars, or for energy, plus one of those brilliant tinfoil blankets they used to make people in shock look like roast chickens. The walk was pretty much perfect to begin with. Even ground, not too rocky.

No dense underbrush or anything. There was a nice clear path. The surrounding trees kept the worst of the wind out, and the overhead cover let through enough sunlight to create that really nice dapple effect. I don't own a watch and Bass had my phone, so I didn't have any way of keeping track of time. Still, I'd taken a good look at the island as we paddled up, and I thought it'd take me maybe 20 minutes to walk the length of it.

I also started counting off the seconds as I went, which wasn't perfect, but at least gave me an idea of how long I'd been out there. Around the third hour of walking in a straight line, I decided to take a break. I wasn't hungry enough for lunch yet. I felt surprisingly well rested, but I still felt like having a sit down and a snack in the sunshine. The sun was directly overhead at this point. You seemed to confirm my suspicions over how long I'd been going for. I could have walked a full lap of the lake itself in three hours.

As I sat there, mulling this over and munching on a mounds bar, which it turns out is like a dark chocolate bounty. It made me feel quite homesick. I heard the flutter of wings above me. I looked up to see the first non-mee living thing I'd seen on the island, which happened to be a very large raven. It peered down at me with beady eyes, head cocked to the side. "'I want some?' I asked it, holding the bar up for it to see.

It clacked its beak, which I took as a yes, so I broke off a little chunk and chucked it a few feet away. The raven flew down and gobbled it up, and since I wasn't exactly starving, and since it felt nice having something alive, and reasonably normal around, I broke the rest of the bar into little pieces and tossed them over to these.

Once it was all gone, I took the wrapper into a side pocket of my bag and took a swig of water. Well, all gone, little man, I said, showing it my empty hands. Hope you enjoyed it. The raven cocked its head at me, clacked its beak,

and then set, in perfectly understandable human tones. Welcome home, Anna. And then it flew off down the path. Oh, cheers, you creepy little fuck. I caught after it. I think I heard something laughing in the distance. Who knows at that point?

I kept walking after that, counting out another three hours or so. This time I didn't have the benefit of the sun backing me up. Still fixed overhead, not budging the whole time. That bright noonday light filtering down somehow made it feel even worse when I started fighting the stones and bones. There were rocks lining the path at this point, similar to the markers at the cabin, though these looked older and more warm.

The markings on them, on the other hand, looked so fresh they might have been done yesterday. It was easier to see what I'd noticed on the ones at the cabin here. Spirals, valknats and orcum all sat side by side with Norse runes and Triskelions, trequitras, pentagrams, plus a whole lot of other pictograms and sigils I didn't recognize. nice. These rocks look like they might fall apart at any moment under the sheer mass of carvings. And hanging from the trees above the stones were strings laden with all manner of things, from beads and feathers to what looked like human scouts, carved antlers and horns, pebbles with holes bore through, figures woven from hair and fur and nails,

sticks carved with symbols, and bones, plenty of bones. Everything from digits to long bones to skulls, from anything you can imagine. There are plenty of human skulls present, too. Most of these had also been carved. I would probably have been freaking out at this point, but again it was like a blanket of calm had been wrapped around it. Have you ever been in the sort of shock where you can feel panic and hysteria bubbling away just below the surface,

but overlaying this is a veneer of perfect calm, keeping the hysteria locked tightly away? Well, it was like that. like someone had wrapped one of those tinfoil shock blankets around my mind. My mind looked like a roast chicken. I was so busy inspecting one particularly interesting human skull, this one had multiple gold teeth, and I didn't notice I'd left the path,

stepping over a boundary stone so I could look at the skull from the other side without touching it. I also didn't notice the sheer drop until I was already mid-air. I'd have sworn the ground was perfectly solid a second before. I landed heavily on my hands and knees, the rock sack flying forward to slam my face into the ground. Only it didn't hit the ground. I ended up headbutting another skull, which cracked under the force, driving shards of old bone into my forehead. I sat back with a whimpered cry, reaching up to pluck the splinters out, which is when I realized my hands had also been punctured here and there. Judging by the pain in my legs, they were in the same state.

I slowly looked down. Then I just as slowly got to my feet, swallowing down all the hysterical shrieks that were trying to come out. It was a pit. Maybe quite a deep one, I don't know. By the time I got there, it had been filled with so many bones so they formed a dense enough framework that I could walk across them. The pit stretched away into an impossible distance on either side of me,

though the distance from me to the far bank was only about 40 feet. It was like standing in a river of bones. Just staring at the way my blood was dripping through the gaps between the bones, except I heard a croak above my head. I looked up, noticing the branches overhead here were more densely woven, and were all leafless, bleached and dead. Sitting on this latticework was the raven. It cocked his head at me, in that unsettling human voice it said,

should probably stick to the path. We had a point. I started for the other side then, bones crunching and clicking beneath me, while overhead the branches rattled and rasped as the raven hopped along keeping pace. I kept my gaze on the far bank. I was actually starting to relax a bit

when I heard that voice from overhead again. Uh-oh. I was looking behind me, back to where my blood was still trickling. I looked too, wondering what the problem was. Then a section of the bones rose up slightly, right where my blood was. There was a second where nothing happened. Before another section rose, this one slightly closer to me.

I think the raven told me to run, but it needn't have bothered. I was away by that point. I hit the far bank and started scrambling up its sheer face, glad the earth was the right consistency for me to get my hands and feed into it. it to clamber my way back to solid ground. I had my chest over the edge, and something grabbed both my ankles and tried to haul me back down. I clung on, kicking wildly, and felt something grazed my calf. Then whatever it was, let go, and I finally made it over the edge, rolling away until I fetched up against a tree, gasping for breath. The raven croaked and flew on. Once I had my breath back,

I checked my leg, which had a slight graze on it, a few beads of blood here and there. My ankles ached, though, and there was a large chunk torn out of my trousers. I managed to limp on another hundred metres or so before I had to stop. I ate my lunch after a while, again sharing it with my creepy new friend. So what's up ahead? I asked. The whole world, it said, before flying back off the way he'd come. Very fucking helpful, I yelled after it. From there the ground started to rise, the trees thinning out.

What had been a perfectly straight path now started to wind in a spiral around a fairly steep hill. I might have been able to make a shortcut up it, but the markers were still bordering the path here, and I had learned my lesson about crossing them. So I walked, the sun directly overhead all the way, around and around, until eventually I came to the top. my mouth dropped open and i couldn't do anything but stare it was a stone circle maybe even the one that long ago tovey found while looking for his son but honestly stone circle doesn't do it justice each stone was at least ten stories tall with some even larger and some laid across the tops of others there were

so many of them too many to count the henge might have been the whole world, and every one was covered in the same symbols I'd seen over and over on my way up here. Only here the carvings were so deep I could have climbed inside. On impulse, I kissed my fingers and touched them to the nearest stone. Then I started pacing the edge, always staying outside the circle, trying to get a sense of the scale of the whole thing. I'd walk past four stones when I heard the voice in my head, the one that spoke a language I didn't understand, but which I understood perfectly all the same.

name. Welcome home, beloved, it said. Something was coming towards me from the center of the circle. It was tall, maybe twice my height, with antlers so huge it made it seem even taller. Despite that, and despite the thick covering of mouse-brown fur, it walked on two legs. I couldn't make out more details than that, though, although it couldn't have been too far away from me. It looked like it was.

It's as if the distance inside the circle didn't actually fit the already massive circumference of the thing. I shook my head. Just like that, I was angry. I mean, really angry, angrier than I've been in my life. I yelled at it. Not in a hysterical way I've been doing since I came out here, either, but commanding, authoritative. With my back straight, my head held high. You're speaking to the air of Gwynab Nud, King of Anan, and the...

total of Teg, leader of the wild hunt. I have the blood of royalty in my veins. My bones were human from the mountains, and my soul is poetry and song. I'm a part of my land, and my land is a part of me. And how dare you draw me here and try to make it otherwise? You might have claimed my sister, but you will not have me. Well, I lied to say all that came to me in a sudden flash of insight, like maybe Gwynn himself was guiding me or something. Really? I was channeling Game of Thrones super hard. Well, I didn't matter anyway.

The thing just let out a chuckle that shook the stones and said, I will see. A cheeky bastard. Wait, it added, as if it knew what I was thinking. Shearer by this point it's pretty much a certainty that it did know right. Whatever, I've never been one for being told what to do. Just as it came close enough for me to see its eyes, its luminous fog-gray eyes, I slapped the hand I'd pressed to the stone over my eyes,

took a deep breath, and leapt backwards off the hill. There was the echo of a roar in the air around me, and my ears popped so hard I screamed. It felt like I was falling for years, I was sure I was a goner, and I landed on my back so hard it drove all the air out of my chest. I lay there, struggling to catch my breath, and risked to look around. I was back at the little beach bass had left me off.

What the actual fuck, I wheezed, sitting up slowly. I noticed the raven, that same bloody giant raven watching me from the trees, and I yelled up at it. You're going to tell me what happened? The raven let out what sounded like a deep laugh before taking off across the lake. I thought not, I muttered. I struggled back to my feet and looked round for any sign of baths, massaging the spot over my right kidney where my water bottle had dug in on the landing. The sun said it was still noon, but there was no sign of him. It was just the bloody kayak and the paddle.

I cursed him the whole awful paddle back to shore. Well, actually, I cursed him the whole way back to the cabin, and that's when I started to worry. He was nowhere in sight, and neither was his truck. But the front door was unlocked. I rushed inside, yelling his name, but there was nothing. Just silence. I shrugged off the rucksack,

went sprinting around the house like a headless chicken, trying to work out what could have happened to him in the last three hours. I'm ashamed to say, I was on my third lap of the house before I realized my phone was on the kitchen counter. I switched it on and called his mobile immediately, praying he'd pick up. When I heard that cautious, but unmistakably him, Hello?

I could have cried with relief. Why did you ditch me on the island, asshole? I said, softening it with a relieved chuckle. He gasped. Anna? Is that really you? Well, yeah, I said, starting to feel slightly creeped out. Bass? Where the hell have you gone? You couldn't even wait a few hours for me. I waited. I stayed there for days waiting.

You didn't come back, so I thought, well, I mean, I thought a missing person's report, and where were you? I've just been on the island where you left me? Why? How long have I been gone? Where are you now? Well, I'm at the cabin. How long have I been gone, Bags? I'm coming out there to pick you up. Don't. move. And with that he hung up. I had some idea about how long it had taken to get out there, so I went to sit in front of the cold, empty fireplace, and just stared into it, wondering what I was going to tell him. What was I going to tell the police for that matter? I think I nodded

off somewhere in there. The next thing I knew, the door had been thrown off its hinges, sliding all the way across the cabin before it fell over, and standing there in the suddenly open doorway, beaming at me, It was my baby sister. I'd finally found Emily. Bart six. It wasn't exactly the touching family reunion I was hoping for, seeing as she'd just kicked the front door across the room. Still, she gave me her usual winning Emily smile,

then held her arms out to me for a hug, and I was more than happy to give her one. That was at least until I took three steps towards her, and I realized I recognized what she was wearing. It was torn and bloodied and far too big for her. and that's because it was what the guy who tried to shoot me the other night was wearing. She was stood there, smiling just like she always used to, wearing a dead man's clothes. And just like that, I saw her.

Really saw her, I mean. Saw the black fingernails two inches long and sharpened to fierce points. Saw the glow behind the blue of her eyes. Saw her teeth. I took one real hard look at her, and in that moment I realized what I should have known all along. She was really gone. Whatever I was looking at might be what's left of her now,

but it wasn't my baby sister. M was gone. Her forehead started creasing slightly, her big, dopey grin becoming a little strained as she noticed my hesitation. I considered making a break for the back door, but I could hear those yowling voices calling to each other out there, penning me in, leaving me no choice but to go to Emily.

I did have a choice, though, and I made it. I'm not saying it was a good choice. I turned and sprinted up the stairs, locking myself in the master bedroom, and I dragged the dressing table in front of the door, barricading myself in. Emily was barely a second behind me, and the door bounced in its frame as she hid it, yowling. I backed away to the far side of the room, shivering, fully expecting, her to start forcing her way through. Instead, she quietly called my name in a perfectly human voice.

Let me in, Anne, she said. I just want to talk to you. I just want to hug. Please, I've missed you. I wanted to put my hands over my ears, but I had a horrible suspicion I'd keep hearing her anyway. I don't think I could have handled that. Instead, I yelled for her to go away, which just made her chuckle. But she came all the way out here to see me, didn't you? It was a teasing tone to her voice, one that said she knew the real reason I was there. Please, I whispered, nearly in tears. Please just let me go home. She paused for so long I thought she might have actually left.

That's what you don't get, she said gently. This is home, Anna. It always was. Here, and the island. is what we were always looking for when we were kids. Every time we climbed a tree, every time we went sliding down a gully to see what was at the bottom, or followed the river, or shot a torch into a hole in the ground. It was all looking for this place.

For him, it was in our blood all along. I closed my eyes. That was always you, M. Never me. I only went along with it to keep you safe. then why not do the same thing now come with me anna come home i've missed you so much please come on just let me in god it sounded so much like her so much but underneath everything she said was a click click click which i realized was her nails she was tapping those wickedly sharp inky black nails on the door she spoke and the thought made me feel sick when i didn't reply she sighed heavily her

painted my big sister is such a nerd sighed fine you can wait a while he'll be here before too long and let's see you say no then who be here i said too loud panicking i thought she knew bass was coming that she was going to force me to kill him or something like she did with Jim. Turns out it was worse than that, though, because of course it was. Him, she said, chuckling. Haven't you noticed the stones? What? Oh, of course you've been away. Well, have a look out the back. The master bedroom has dual aspect windows. One side faces out over the rear veranda, the other over the turning circle out front. I looked out the back. In time to see a cluster of what appeared to be twisted, mischapen dear cougar hybrids,

rolling out one of the boundary stones away. I was about to ask Emily how they did it, when I saw it step out from the tree line, contemplating the circle. It raised its eyes to my window, its luminous, fog-gray eyes, and then, slowly, deliberately, it stepped over the boundary. I started screaming. Emily was pounding on the door, yelling that I had to calm down that everything was going to be okay. And right then, from the front of the cabin, I heard the screech of tires followed by a car horn blaring.

No, Emily shrieked. No, Anna, don't do this. Just listen to me. I'm sorry, M, I said. I wasn't sorry. I snagged up the stool that went with the dressing table and hurled it through the front window. even as the chorus of inhuman yowling went up from the back of the house, and from the other side at the bedroom door, which by now was jumping in its frame, starting to splinter.

I didn't hesitate. I just went with whatever cliched action-movie bullshit was running through my mind at that point. I grabbed the window frame and just straight vaulted through it, not even noticing the shards of glass that embedded themselves in my forearms. All I saw as I flew through was the door smashing open behind me, and the blessed side of Bass's trunk. below. I landed on the porch roof and from there heard myself into the flatbed, screaming for an utterly bewildered bass to start driving immediately. He didn't need telling twice.

As he hurtled down the road, I opened the window between the cab and the bed and slither through, landing gracelessly in the passenger seat. What the fuck was that? The big thing with Atlas, coming around from the back of the house, I think he's my new brother-in-law. He did none. just drove faster. Thank God he knew that road as well as he did. He took every corner practically on two wheels, but he hit them all perfectly. It was like being in a rally car, flying along so fast everything outside was just a blur. No wonder Bass had made it to the cabin sooner than I'd expected. His time went on, though. We both calmed down slightly. Not great for me since the drop in adrenaline meant I was really feeling the glass in my arms. We'd been on the road,

for over an hour with no sign of anything untoward when he allowed himself to ease off the gas just a little we should have known really barely five minutes after he gave a shaky laugh and told me we were going to make it i noticed him repeatedly glancing in the rearview mirror the truck was speeding up again so fast it started shaking something coming up behind us he said through gritted teeth when i asked i turned to look behind us expecting Emily to have commandeered my rental car or something. Instead, I saw him, that furry fucking abomination,

sprinting along the row behind us on all fours. He was coming up on us impossibly fast, tongue-lolling, foggy eyes fixed on me. I was about to say something, maybe to suggest throwing me out so he could save himself, especially since even though I'd seen Emily for what she really was now, and even though that had broken most of the, the spell keeping me there, I still had an awful gut feeling about leaving the place. Before I could

get a word out though, Bass screamed and wrenched the wheel so hard, I smacked my head on the window. I faced forwards in time to see Cassie, Emily's best friend and Bass's youngest cousin, standing in the middle of the road. I know why Bass's words, because at first glance she must have looked exactly like she always did. But I knew better. One look at her eyes and I knew better. I tried yanking the steering wheel back to straighten us out, even if it meant running her over. That turned out to be the worst idea of many, because I'm pretty sure that's what rolled us. The next thing I knew, I was upside down in the truck, the seatbelt pressing into what it later turned out to be a broken collarbone. I went for the seatbelt release, dumping myself headfirst onto the roof of the cab, and sending pain shooting through every inch of me.

pain so bad that for a moment I forgot where I was or why I was there. In a pretty rude reminder, the door beside me was literally ripped off its hinges, landing some twenty feet back up the road. I screamed and tried to crawl under bass to the other door, only for a huge clawed hand, covered in bristly, mouse-brown fur, to close around my throat. As it inexorably drew me outside, it started whispering to me. I couldn't make out any specific words, but the overall intention

came through clear enough. Come home. Then there was a crack, so loud I had to cover my ears. The hand released me, and I heard an horrific scream. The only way I can describe it is if a man and a cougar had fallen off a cliff while fighting, and they both realized they were going to die at the same time. A mindless shriek of rage and pain, which you've heard and felt inside your head at the same time. It faded into the distance.

and was gone. I lay there for a while, staring up at the floorboards of the truck, as a man appeared over me and started demanding to know if we were okay. I smiled at that because I knew I was never going to be okay again. I'd like to go back to Wales now, I said, and then blacked out. The next thing I knew was waking up in hospital, plugged up to every machine going, including my new best friend, the morphine drip.

total tally for my little trip turned out to be a broken arm ulna and radial wrist and collarbone two broken ankles whip lash for extremely deep lacerations to my forearms a bruised larynx ruptured eardrum and too many cuts and bruises to count many of which were infected they also told me falling off the bank onto my water bottle and traumatized my kidney like no shit doc rest of me too thanks worse than any of that though my parents are only a few minutes away now bass who was in better shape than me came to see me as soon as i was awake he planted this big over-dramatic kiss on me in front of the nurses and everything scandalous then he asked me if i wanted to talk about any of it i absolutely did not i did want to know why we were still alive though it turns out we'd crash close enough to town that the woods were only questionably tovey land so there was a bunch of people hanging around with guns, because of course they were. Also, technically, I think they were looking for those dead trespasses.

Anyway, they heard the crash and came to investigate, and then shot him right in the side of the head. Not of it seemed to slow him down, I.J. All in all, I'm glad I've written this all out, because once I've explained some version of it to the authorities, I don't think I'm ever going to mention a word of it to anyone ever again. I'm staying in touch with Bass, though, obviously. Well, I did what I came out here to do anyway. I found out what happened to Emily.

I might not entirely understand what happened to her, but at least I know. And by some miracle, I managed to keep it from happening to me, too. Bass keeps telling me how much of a miracle it was that I got out of there, but I got off the island or without succumbing to any of the stuff the other guys did. And I get that, I do. Like I said before, I never. expected to make it home at all. So to find myself free, alive, back in the world, and more or less

in one piece, it's incredible. I just hope that one day, eventually, the whispering in my head will stop. And so once again, we reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen. Now, I'd ask one small favor of you. Wherever you get your podcast wrong, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week, but I'll be back again same time, same place, and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, sweet dreams and bye-bye.