Forest Patrol

 

I worked as a highway patrol officer on a long forest route, it was a lonely road that wound its way past a forested path. It was built back in the days when the region was heavily used for logging and mining but now it was just a scenic route for people to take when they want to break away from their realities. My partner, Mark, and I would set up at a midway point to wait for a call or someone to ask for assistance or an emergency. It was usually crazies talking about aliens and the like, so we usually braced ourselves for the reports of people talking about how they saw bigfoot crossing the road and how their cameras suddenly stopped working. It took a lot of patience to avoid getting angry and telling them to fuck right off, but we held our own and waved them away saying we will check it out only after we put in a report to let HQ know where we were. It helped as there were a couple of gas stations and towns along the route which was also where we could get something to eat and avoid the madness.

It was on one of these days when I almost died, Mark called sick and I was alone. I decided to patrol the route to avoid getting bored and while driving found 2 cars parked on the side of the road. It was not odd to see such an occurrence but what was odd is that there were no people in or around the car. I parked my car near the pair and decided to check if they needed any assistance, I radioed in the possible situation and the dispatch let me know that they will wait on my call if turns into one. I copied and continued to the cars, the first one looked abandoned and the back passenger door was open, I looked in and saw the keys were still in the ignition. The car was pinging the warning for the open door so whoever they were could not be far, I checked the second one and it was closed. I felt a sense of unease on account that there was no one around and walked to check the first car and found a bloodied hand print on the open door, I quickly radioed on a possible situation and was asked to wait for back up and emergency services. I complied with the order and stood at the front of the first car when I heard a scream from the woods.

I upholstered by pistol and made my way to the edge of the forest slowly, I called out to anyone asking if they could respond. There was only silence and I was beginning to sweat, it wasn’t hot but I could feel the fear creep up my spine. I waited at the edge of the woods and looked around hoping to see something, another scream was heard and I left all caution and ran into the woods. I ran towards the sound and called out to the person asking them to hold on, I had no clue what was going on but I wasn’t about to let someone die on my watch. The scream came again and I could feel I was getting closer, just as I reached the source the scream was cut off, like whoever was screaming suddenly stopped. I entered a clearing in the forest and was immediately surrounded by the smell of rotten meat, I almost threw up at this. It was stronger than I had ever experienced, I checked the clearing to see where the source was and all I could find was dead grass and branches. No clues as to where I was, I walked the perimeter with my left hand over my mouth to protect myself from the scent.

I heard a rustling of leaves near me and turned to check what it could be and something flew out of the bushes and hit me in the leg, I fell back from the force. It was a spear of some sort and I heard a cackling laugh from the woods, I tried to get up but the pain from the wound held me down. I began to crawl backwards and I gathered my strength and warned about my back up to whoever just attacked me. Another spear flew from the bushes and narrowly missed me, I took this opportunity and fired a few rounds at the origin area. I did not hear anything after the gunfire so I felt like I missed the attacker.

Scared of what else could be out there, I tried to remove the spear and bind the would. The pain from removing the jagged piece of wood was much worse than being hit by it and I feared that I might have punctured a vein. I used my belt to stem the bleeding and tried to limp away from the clearing, I heard another cry but this one was more aggressive and I could feel more eyes on me. Whoever it was in this place wanted me dead and I could feel the anger, just as I reached the edge of the clearing someone jumped out of the bush to my right and fell on me. I could not make them out at first so I tried to push them off while still holding on to the pistol, it was a woman and she was crying. Her face was a mess of blood, snot and saliva; I was too shaken at first but once my senses returned I tried to calm her and ask her what happened. As I was trying to do this her face turned to the right and her eyes grew large and she screamed, I turned to see a man emerge from the bush where I had shot. He was short at like 4 foot but he had a larger head with a strong jaw and I could see I had wounded him on his right shoulder and stomach. I could feel the rage emitting from his eyes as he roared at me and lunged forward, with no time to think I lifted my pistol and fired off the remaining 2 rounds hitting him on the leg which caused him to drop.

As he scrambled to stand up again I grabbed the girl and tried to run for my car. I was hampered by my foot but knew the man from the forest would be in the same situation. I heard another roar from the forest, this added the much needed jolt of adrenaline in our rush to the car. I could not say anything but run, the sounds of pursuit were now audible and the man was running. We cleared the woods and ran straight to my car where she jumped into the passenger while I took the drivers side. The pain from my leg shot back and let out a scream, the girl was looking around frantically as I tried to get me senses back. She looked at the woods and began screaming out as the man emerged from the forest holding the bloodied spear. He threw it at the car and it embedded itself in the back window. I tried to reload my pistol with shaky hands, the rounds fell from my hand and just as I picked one up I heard a roar of a rifle. I looked up and could see there was patrol car in front of mine, they had just arrived and saw the man attacking my car.

I tried to see what happened to him but promptly lost consciousness due to the bleeding from the wound. When I came to I was on stretcher being placed into an ambulance. I tried to speak but could not and when I tried to raise my hand I found that I was strapped onto the stretcher. It was 2 days later when I finally came to, in that time my wound was treated and I was moved to a private ward. I woke to find a suited man sitting on chair near the window, he was reading the newspaper and when he saw me looked up at gave a smile that did not reach his eyes.

“Good to have you back officer, sorry to hear about you accident.”

“Accident? What accident, I was attacked by some crazy in the forest, that the fuck are you talking about.”

“Look at this way, my superiors would like to keep that quiet as these are things that are above our pay grade, here is the situation. If you want to go public by all means be my guest, that will lead to you being treated like the crazies you report a lot about while losing your job and the other you sign this paper saying that you were hit by an out-of-control car. That way you get your medical cover, continued employment and finally retirement benefits. What you saw and experienced will be recorded and used to prevent other such unfortunate event from happening again.”

I signed the paper because I knew that these suits would ruin my life, I have since retired and am living a quiet life away from civilisation. I hope that this will reach someone who can expose what is actually happening in that wooded area.