Perhaps at one time it had been known by its proper name, decades ago when the world was a little bit lighter and belief still a fixture in everyday life, but for the last generation the people of Randolph, Maine had allowed a seed of fear to creep into their small town and had taken to calling the old forest something far darker. Wychwood.
Cheerless and sinister, it was filled with gnarled and decrepit trees, barren limbs and shadow filled paths that lead to no-where save empty and dead places. For so long the myths that circled over that thick brown wood became so prevalent that it was almost like an unseen miasma...a terror that would plague or haunt you merely by stepping foot into that overgrown underbrush. The old folk would mutter, worried about its encroachment upon their hamlet, children would use its stories to scare and frighten one another - and the students of Randolph High School - they would use it as the perfect place to test one's daring nerve. A truly dark and terrible legend.
To Samantha Harper, that was all it was...merely a legend. Nothing horrid or demented lay behind that inky black curtain of flora and with a few Coors Light on her empty stomach making her feel brave - she told her friends as much.
"You are all pussies if you think there's something haunting that place," Samantha boasted sliding from the hood of her car to glance about at the circle of her classmates. The moon was hidden, half waxed behind the shadows of thick clouds, but she could still see the scowl that passed over Jeremy Paxton's face. He tightened his fist, making the aluminum beer can inside his hand pop in protest.
"I don't mind being a pussy when it comes to the Wychwood," chimed the voice of Addison Lee. She shook her blond curls and moved in tighter to her boyfriend Matthew, wrapping his arm square around her shoulders. "That place has always given me the creeps. My older brother used to tease me about it when we were little - he said the boogeyman lived there and would drag people away and turn them into nightmares!" Addison shivered. "I was so scared I slept with my parents for five months!"
Matthew chuckled. "You're afraid of the boogeyman? Oh, Addison - that's so lame!"
"I didn't say I was now, you dick!" She laughed a little too loudly.
"So go in then!" shouted another classmate, Ava Spalding who was always quick to challenge others to feats of courage, especially since she was so against them herself. "Do it! Only fifty feet and then you can run back before the boogeyman gets you!"
There was a collection of jeers and taunts that rose up from the rest of their friends along with a chorus of parallel drunken laughter. This was nothing new. In a town as small as Randolph it had become a Saturday night tradition for about a dozen of soon to be seniors to park their cars just outside the forest's edge and waste themselves on alcohol and dares. It was always safer...they always felt some rush of pride and adrenaline coming so close to being in the Wychwood. Never in though...had they never set a single foot inside that thicket.
Addison giggled again, though a flicker of something passed over her face. "Yeah right, and get lost and my mother have to send the forestry service after me? She would kill me, I'd be in so much trouble!"
Her snickers continued, having successfully evaded the unspoken dare that was always lying just below the surface, but tonight was different. Samantha had been waiting for Jeremy to notice her for far too long, all of junior year and with the moon being slowly swallowed by the growing night's watch and the blood pounding inside her head - she thought she had finally figured it out.
"I'll go!" She stated proudly and suddenly there was a hush about them. Every face turned to look at Samantha in open mouthed surprise, eyes darting back and forth to one another. Rounding on Jeremy, Samantha flashed him a quick smirk. "You can come too...prove you're not a pussy!"
Another round of jaunts blasted out from their schoolmates and Jeremy's scowl deepened. Two guys sitting just behind him slapped him on the shoulders, pushing and edging him forward. Samantha tried to retain the aura of confidence, of seeming much braver than she suddenly felt for there was a creeping feeling of dread, a heavy uneasiness that was settling around her. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea...but was it too late to back out now?
"Alright, fine," Jeremy suddenly answered pulling himself off the car to stand next to her. "If nothing else to watch you away scared and screaming."
He was smiling at her - a flirtatious and charming smile - and all the doubts immediately flew from Samantha's head leaving a light buzzing in their wake.
"Okay Paxton," she said taking his hand and pulling hard causing him to stumble a bit. "Let's go prove ourselves better than these losers!"
Jeremy laughed and let Samantha drag him forward, all the way up to the line of trees.
"Remember," shouted Ava at their retreating backs. They could hear the grin in her voice. "Fifty feet!"
"We'll make it hundred," Jeremy yelled back. He smirked down at Samantha, whose heart gave a decided leap into her throat. There was only a brief moment's hesitation - when Wychwood slithered up, all dark and ominous to meet them that the shadow of doubt and fear clawed up Samantha's mind. Suddenly this felt...wrong. A primal uneasiness was covering her haze of judgment, but at that moment Jeremy squeezed her hand and the cater calls of her friends flooded her ears.
"Let's show them," he whispered at her through his teeth, and nodding forcefully Samantha let him lead her into the wood.
It wasn't as dark as she thought it would be - nor as terrifying. The moon had temporarily escaped its clouded prism and all that Samantha could see were the skinny white trunks of barren birch trees and messes of leafless bramble. Samantha snorted in derision. How could anyone be afraid of this pathetic forest?
"This will take no time at all," Jeremy said confidently striding before her, leaving Samantha to follow along in his wake. "Smooth sailing and then we can go back and rub it in their faces!"
Samantha smiled slightly...the alcohol buzzing in her head. He was right...this would be so simple. She glanced up to see Jeremy staring down at her with a knowing tug of the mouth.
"There are easier ways of getting me alone Sam," he said then and Samantha's face flushed hot. Blaming the beer, she stumbled a bit tripping over her feet and words. She wondered why talking was so hard whenever she was drunk.
"Whatever Paxton," she slurred, shoving him. "So full of yourself."
"Just remember it for next time...in fact I think that's more than fifty feet - let's head back and put those losers to shame! I think the beer is on them!"
Samantha agreed and feeling very sure of themselves, the pair turned on their heels, wobbling as they did and made back towards the direction from where they came.
There was something different...something demented, sick and bleak, that horrid feeling that had been growing since she started this stupid bet, came back full force and dropped on Samantha. The shadows in the forest all at once seemed longer...deeper. An eerie hush crept over the woods and through the haze of booze induced fog Samantha just knew that this was all...wrong.
Jeremy slowed then, a flicker of confusion passing over his face. His eyebrows furrowed and he turned his head this way and that, darting about like a bird.
"That's weird," Samantha heard him mumble. "The cars were over there...but I don't remember this log here...no, that way? We should have gotten out of here by now..."
"We're not lost, are we?" She asked unable to keep the quivering completely out of her voice. Jeremy scoffed and waved a hand, but Samantha saw his eyes kept staring around at the never ending birch trees.
"Humph, course not," he said. "It's back this way." He grabbed her hand and trudged off deeper into the Wychwood.
She could swear someone was following them, the sound of rustled dried leaves crunching under foot was so loud against Samantha's ears in the gloom. Her eyes snapped upwards, hoping for light, but the moon was gone - it's silver glow halted by the thickness of grey clouds. The bramble patches all looked the same - and she couldn't think straight.
Sweat covered Jeremy's hand, making it slick and hard to grasp. He was moving erratically, turning one way only to back up and try a different path - lost in the sea of trees. Samantha gulped and felt her heart hammer in her ears. They never should have done this. Something was here - someone was watching them. Samantha shivered...she was afraid. So incredibly afraid.
Jeremy had stopped - so sudden that Samantha slammed into the back of him, her breath rushing out in a burst as they wobbled messily, barely remaining on their feet.
"What - what the hell? Who are you?"
Samantha peered out from behind Jeremy's bulky shoulder, chest tight and forehead hot. She began trembling, fingers tightening on the lapel of his jacket, because there was a man standing before them. So instantly, as if he had formed right out of the abyss of shadowed trees.
"My, my, my," he simmered through grinning teeth. "Now what could two little children be doing out all alone? And lost in the woods no less..."
Samantha's legs began to shake. She had never seen this man before and everything about him...it terrified her. He was tall, much taller than she was and Jeremy as well - with skin an ashen and diluted grey and inky dark hair flushed away from a pointed cruel face. His lanky body was clothed all in black - though black wasn't even the proper color. It was darker than that. Much darker. Thin lips pulled back in a sneer over glistening teeth and his eyes - Samantha's heart dropped to settle in the pit of her stomach because they glowed. Vicious and other worldly yellow...they stared right through her. Right to the very heart of all her fears.
"Who are you calling children?" Jeremy shouted, slurring the end of his words. "Just show us the way out of here or piss off!"
Samantha couldn't open her mouth, couldn't even breathe of the fear that clutched at her throat. She watched as the man rose up his spindly long fingers to drum them across his chin, watching the pair as if they were simply toys.
"I have to say," he continued as if he hadn't heard Jeremy at all. "This is very - very exciting. For me that is...for you? Well, I imagine you must be feeling something else...fear perhaps?"
They didn't say anything. Samantha wondered if Jeremy could feel the icy grip of cold despair that this man had brought with him - as if his very arrival had plunged them into a place of shock and panic, one that they couldn't claw out of. He smiled at them again, stepping forward - slinking like a snake while they bumbled a step back.
"It doesn't matter..." the dark man grinned through the row of his straight teeth. He looked like a skeleton, with a waxy layer of skin stretched just far enough over his face to hide the hideousness that lay beneath. "Soon you won't be feeling anything at all...Well, anything but fear."
"What - what are you talking about?" Came the whispering voice of Samantha, a strain against her frightened strained chest.
"Everything is about to change," he hissed. "There will be nothing but fear and darkness and...Me. I've been planning this for so long and now...now we can begin."
Jeremy took another step back, Samantha clinging behind while the dark man closed the gap with a long stride of his own. "Begin - what?" Samantha whispered.
"The Nightmare."
There was no warning, no indication when one moment he was there…and the next he had vanished into a shadow, cackling as he dissolved like glittering dark acid. Samantha barely had time to unleash a scream before a rustling in the bramble bushes caught their attention. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think as a great multitude of horrific creatures can stalking out of the gloom – right towards them. They dripped and shimmered as if they were made out of crystalized darkness, the rustling of their skin sounded like sand but they were hauntings – ghosts with horned heads and glowing eyes. They pointed at the teenage couple, almost in excitement and at the same time Samantha let loose another piercing shriek they covered it with a wail of their own – charging forward.
They ran. Samantha in front and Jeremy shouting at her from behind. It was a blind and panicked sprint, tearing through the trees and thorned bushes without a single thought as to where they could go. Which way would lead them out? Samantha couldn't see – the moonlight had been covered, lost among the night clouds and tears blurred her vision. She felt sick and her legs ached, but she couldn't stop…they were right behind her! He was still after them!
Suddenly something hard crashed right into Samantha's back, causing her to tumble forward, crashing and sliding on the ground. She whipped her head back, hair tangling in the mud and sweat on her face, trying to make some sense of what was happening in this darkened gloom.
They had grabbed Jeremy, claws tight around his legs which had caused him to fall and slam into her. Samantha screamed, tears streaming down her face as she tried to scoot away from his flailing body. He was shouting and cursing as the monsters poured over him – their horrid little noises filling the empty air. It continued until every inch of him was covered in darkness…till she couldn't see Jeremy any longer. Samantha sobbed, chocking on her cries when the shadows suddenly moved and that man was standing before her again.
"This is what I have been waiting for," he said so calmly and smoothly, hands clasped behind his emaciated back. Samantha shook her head, rubbing the tears from her face smearing dirt across her cheeks. Her back suddenly hit the trunk of a tree and with an awful realization discovered she couldn't move any further.
"Fear," he grinned. "This world will be mine, its people will be mine. Tell me child…do you believe now?"
Samantha blinked, taken slightly aback and confused. There was a long moment, one that seemed to stretch out forever as the body of Jeremy Paxton faded away into the mess of consuming shadows, his voice etched out with a final shout and those nightmares turned to prowl towards Samantha Harper.
"Believe in what?" She quaked, even though she knew…knew exactly who he was.
"Do you believe in the boogeyman?"
His shadows rushed forward and while Samantha cried in terror, he threw his head back and laughed. He was the last thing she saw, the flash of his skeleton teeth, the blaze of his glowing eyes…before darkness consumed her. All the lights within winked and smothered out.
Over four thousand miles away, in the town of Sitka Alaska…Elsa Snow woke up screaming.
