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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MoeWanders on 2024-10-14 06:19:47+00:00.
I took the day to gather my thoughts and calm myself. I’m ready to tell the rest of the story. Though I warn you: what came before was child’s play in comparison with what comes next. Read on at your own risk.
So, picking up right where I left off . . .
I aimed my flashlight opposite from the way Jack had left, shining its light through a row of trees.
And gasped.
I saw a pair of legs, poking out from behind one of the trunks.
By the style of pants, I knew at once that it was Jack.
My heart hammering in my throat, I ran over.
I rounded the tree trunk.
And relief washed over me as I found him alive and seemingly unhurt. “Jack!” I cried as I lowered myself next to him.
He didn’t respond. Though I could clearly see the rise and fall of his chest, his eyes stared listlessly up at nothing in particular. His arms were folded over his chest, hands resting right at his center.
In his hands was a bundle of sticks.
“Jack?” Tina cried. “Are you all right?”
“What’s wrong with him?” whispered Marcus.
Not only did he not reply – he didn’t even move. His eyes didn’t shift. Nothing.
“This must be part of the prank,” Tina muttered.
I scowled at her. “Weren’t you worried just now . . .” I trailed off as I recognized the confusion in her eyes. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Hell, none of us were, at that point.
“We gotta get out of here,” Marcus said.
Tina replied, “But the project . . .”
“Look,” I said, “we’ll come back for the equipment, and maybe we’ll continue with the work, but right now we need to find Jack some help.” I shook my head, grimaced. “He’s not okay.”
“How do we get him back to the truck?” Marcus asked.
Jack was a big guy, well over 6 feet tall. There was no way we’d be able to lift him all the way. “Let’s get him up and see if he’ll walk between the two of us.”
Marcus nodded and we got to it. The bundle of sticks spilled onto the forest floor as we yanked him upright. Jack was limp as we raised him up, and even once we had him between us, his legs just dragged if we started to walk.
“Jack, enough already,” Tina said. Her tone was desperate, not annoyed. “Joke’s over.”
“Damn it,” I cursed. “All right, Marcus, we’ll take one arm each and drag him. There’s not much else we can do. Tina, you guide us. Take Jack’s flashlight – the brightest one – and look for his markings. We need to get to the truck.”
She did as I asked, though she didn’t say anything. She even set down the camera she had been so diligently filming with through the night, leaving it there by the tree.
We set off. Marcus and I groaned as we pulled Jack, his legs leaving grooves in the mulch. We were facing away from Tina, so we had to manage in the dark. And that darkness felt like it was grabbing at us. Seeping into us. It’s hard to put into words, but it was an awful feeling.
The ghostly sighing of the wind seemed louder now than it had been for most of the night. I wondered what time it was. Probably 1 or 2 AM. A few hours from dawn.
The next moment was the first of the expedition that truly damaged my mind.
Marcus saw it first. He yelled in terror.
I looked across to him—
—and saw a skinny, pale figure, with limbs too long to be natural, and flesh too ropey to be human. It was standing just close enough and with just enough faint light glancing off its skin that I was sure I was seeing true.
The creature’s drooped, twisted mouth parted to let out an agonized sigh as it lifted a lanky arm toward Marcus and I.
I joined Marcus in screaming. We both tugged hard on Jack’s arms and practically sprinted toward the glow of Tina’s light.
“What happened?” she gasped, spinning to shine the light right into our eyes.
“There’s something!” Marcus shrieked. “Run!”
Was it the Woodwick Walker we had just seen? I wasn’t sure, but the fact that we had both looked right at it and seemed fine told me that it probably wasn’t. As we scurried through the woods, I kept glancing into the dark, fully expecting to see that horrid thing ambling after us.
What happened instead was an abrupt ceasing of the wind and natural din of the woods. The way the sighing breeze and shifting branches ceased to make any noise at all caused the three of us to freeze in place. Again, I felt ice in my bloodstream. Marcus and I exchanged terrified glances.
Then we heard it.
Creaking wood.
My heart raced. As the creaking grew louder, only one thought rang clear in my mind. I opened my mouth and whispered sternly to my friends . . .
“Don’t. Look. At. Him.”
Marcus clenched his eyes shut. I looked down at Jack; he was still staring idly up at the sky. I clapped my hands over his eyes, then shut my own and held my breath.
The whispering that was hidden in the creaking reached my ears, same as it had earlier that night. I strained to make sense of the whispers, but I couldn’t, even though it felt like I should have been able to make out the words.
When Tina spoke, my stomach sank.
“Oh, fuck this,” she hollered. “I’m not playing this stupid game anymore.”
“Tina, quiet,” I whispered as softly as I could manage.
She laughed. “Look at you two, with your eyes clenched shut. You’re grown men, both of you. Give me a break! There’s nothing . . .”
She paused.
“There’s nothing . . .”
While she didn’t say anything else, her breath quickened. I heard a thud and through the lids of my eyes saw shifting light: she had dropped the flashlight.
A few soul-scathing moments passed before the creaking ceased.
And when I opened my eyes, Tina was gone, though we hadn’t heard her walk away. As expected.
“It’s over, Marcus,” I quietly said.
As Marcus opened his eyes, I saw his cheeks wet with tears. “We need to leave this place,” he rasped.
“Let’s get Jack back to the truck,” I agreed. “Then . . . Then I’ll come back and find Tina.”
Marcus nodded. We got back to dragging Jack, pausing every few moments to shine the light over the trees to ensure we were going the right way. The woods were still pitch dark, and I hadn’t forgotten about the awful pale creature that had approached us. The minutes or hours that passed before we made it back to the Silverado were nightmarish.
But we did make it, finally. “Oh,” Marcus moaned, “thank god. Oh, god, thank you.” We opened the back door and grunted as we shoved Jack up in there.
Once he was securely in the truck, I turned back toward the Weeping Woods.
“I’m sorry,” Marcus said. “I’m not going back—”
“I know,” I interrupted. “Stay and watch over Jack. If he takes a turn for the worse, leave without us. Get him to a hospital. Otherwise, give me a few hours, at least. I’ll find Tina and get back.”
As I stepped back into the Weeping Woods I marveled at my own courage. I suppose that, when you’re faced with either taking on something terrifying or letting someone you care about die, the choice becomes easy. For me, at least, it was.
But god did I hate it. I felt like I was losing bits of myself as I stomped back into that loathsome place. At the edges of my vision I kept seeing pale limbs and couldn’t tell if they were just branches or actual monsters, but at that point it didn’t matter. I was pressing on regardless; there was no use in scaring myself further.
I assumed I’d find Tina laying listlessly somewhere like Jack had been. I also remembered that we found Jack right by the place where he’d first vanished. So I just followed the grooves Jack’s legs had left in the mulch, retracing our path through the woods and hoping I’d spot Tina soon.
Again, minutes or hours went by. It was impossible to tell in the woods and in the dark. I marched all the way back to our camp without finding Tina. Then I turned back and tried looking again along the same path.
It was on the return trip that I saw her legs protruding from behind a tree. I ran over, calling out to her.
She was laying there, blank eyes staring upwards, hands folded over her chest, with a bundle of sticks clutched firmly in them.
I knew it was useless, but I still tried to rouse her. “Tina? Tina, please say something. Tina, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
She didn’t reply, didn’t move.
Angrily I snatched her hand and tossed the sticks aside. “We’re getting out of here,” I whispered harshly as I lowered my arms under her back and legs and lifted her.
Dawn had finally come, so I just left the flashlight behind as I struggled back in the direction of the truck.
The pale creatures were all around me at that point, sighing in a sort of accursed chorus, ropey limbs reaching for me. A few of the pale hands actually brushed against me, the long, boney fingers running over my jacket. I ignored them and pressed on. Better this than the Walker itself, I figured.
And just as the thought crossed my mind, the sighing ceased.
Total silence blanketed the woods.
Silence, until . . .
The disquiet creaking of wood reached my ears.
It was the third time I’d faced it that night, but the first time I’d faced it alone. And that was the moment that truly ruined me. The moment that shook me so badly that it’s haunted me in all of the years since.
I fell onto my knees, setting Tina down and placing a palm over her blank eyes. Somehow, in that moment of sheer terror, I couldn’t bring myself to fully shut my own eyes. It just felt too vulnerable, I suppose.
So, as the creaking grew louder, I tilted my head down and stared at the ground between m…
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