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There was something in the Clovedale Woods.

Everyone had their speculations; a rabid dog, a manged animal twisted and mutilated by the chemicals that the local pharma dumped in the lake, and some even said that it was a deranged man driven insane by the deaths of his family.

But no one had ever found the truth; no one recovered the hundreds of people who went missing—anyone who dared to venture too deep in search of bodies never came out—and as the years passed, people gave up.

Not Darcy. If he found out who or what was preying on careless hikers and oblivious campers, he'd get the promotion he'd been passed over for. His days of writing pointless articles about which celebrity was dating who would be over. He'd get the bigger stories—he'd get stories like this.

As the moon climbed higher into the black, cloudless sky, Darcy stared through his parked camper van's windshield. It was dark, foggy, and silent, and the road along the tree line was empty. There weren't any insects within earshot, and the only illumination came from his headlights. Despite his determination, he was nervous; the stories alone were enough to give a grown man nightmares. But he couldn't let the folklore deter him. He was going to find out what lived in those woods.

Darcy checked his phone; the battery was charged, but he had no signal. That didn't matter, though; he didn't need a signal to take photos. He grabbed his backpack from the seat beside him and got up. He walked through the van and out the door, which he locked behind him.

Once he switched his flashlight on, he headed for the trees.

The moment he stepped into the woods, a cold breeze raced past him, whistling through the leaves and branches. Darcy shivered but continued forward; the leaflitter crunched beneath his boots, and the stench of damp soil and petrichor filled his nose.

And he could feel eyes on him.

The hairs on the back of his neck shot up, and his heart beat a little faster. He stopped and cautiously looked around, shining his light at every rock and bush which looked the slightest bit like it was moving. But there wasn't so much as a fox or rabbit in sight. There was nothing—

A twig snapped behind him, the sound cutting through the oppressive silence of the dense, foreboding forest. He swung around, and his heart pounded in his chest, a thunderous rhythm that echoed the palpable dread crawling up his spine. The beam of his flashlight tore at the darkness, revealing gnarled branches that twisted like skeletal fingers in the moonlight.

And then a sharp, agonizing bark, more like a tortured wail, shattered the eerie quiet, causing him to flinch in terror. The flashlight trembled in his grasp as he turned to face the source of the unearthly noise. As the light danced across the shadows, it revealed a grotesque scene that defied reason.

There, at the edge of the forest, stood a twisted, deformed tree stump that seemed to leer at him with malevolence. The air hung heavy with an otherworldly chill, and the ominous wind whispered through the branches like ghostly murmurs.

Suddenly, the silence was shattered once again, this time by a shrill, unnatural growl. Darcy's blood ran cold as he slowly lowered his flashlight, revealing a grotesque, hairless chihuahua with soulless eyes and a tattered pink bow.

The creature's crooked teeth gleamed in the feeble light as it stared up at him, growling, and the forest felt as if it was closing in, suffocating Darcy with a sense of impending doom.

"Toto!" came a woman's voice.

Darcy flinched again, snapping out of his horrified trance, and watched as the creature raced off into the dark.

More voices followed shortly after.

"I still can't believe you brought that rat with you," a man said.

"Leave him alone," the woman snapped back. "I couldn't just leave him with some stranger."

"No, but you could've left him back at camp," someone else said.

Flickering torchlight cast eerie shadows that writhed among the leaves and branches, luring Darcy deeper into the ominous forest, each cautious step echoing the lingering unease from his unsettling encounter with the twisted chihuahua.

As he cautiously approached the deformed tree stump, his senses heightened. Suddenly, his gaze fixated on a chilling sight—an assembly of figures standing in a small clearing. Clad in tattered camping gear, their faces obscured by darkness, they seemed like spectral wanderers. One among them clutched a map, contorting it with erratic gestures and emitting unnerving grunts that echoed through the silence of the haunted woods.

"It should be this way," the man with the map grumbled.

"You said that twenty minutes ago and we're still lost," another guy muttered, his words carrying a hint of desperation. "Let's just go back to camp, man."

Darcy, compelled by a morbid curiosity, edged a little nearer, but a twig snapped beneath his boot, a sound amplified in the haunting stillness. All eight members of the group turned with an unsettling synchronicity to look in his direction.

"Who's there?!" the woman he first heard called; she was holding the hairless dog that had almost caused him to have a heart attack.

Darcy tried to back off, but the ominous snap had betrayed his presence. One of them swiftly shined their torch on him, exposing him before he could vanish into the cover of the encroaching shadows among the trees.

"Hey!" the man yelled cautiously. "I see you out there—"

"Who?" another of the women squealed as she defensively held a taser in front of her.

With a deep, unsettling sigh, Darcy reluctantly held up his hands and slowly stepped out of the darkness.

"Who the hell are you?" the man questioned. "Why are you following us?"

Darcy shook his head, his eyes darting nervously among the scrutinizing faces. "I wasn't following you. I saw your dog and thought he was lost or something."

"Is that what you were barking at, Toto?" the girl holding the dog asked, her gaze shifting between the confused chihuahua and Darcy.

"What are you doing out here?" Darcy blurted, his question cutting through the tension like a blade. He just heard them mention a camp and assumed they must be campers.

"What are you doing out here?" the man who was still shining his torch at him sdemanded.

Darcy didn't answer; he watched as the group glanced uneasily at one another, almost as if they were waiting for one of them to speak up.

After a few tense moments, one of the men said, "We're lost."

"We are not lost!" the man holding the map insisted.

"We are lost, James!" he growled, straightening his square glasses. "We've been walking around in circles for ages!"

"Shut up, Ron! No one asked you!"

"Maybe we should just head back," one of the girls said. "I miss the fire," she added, shivering.

"We're not going back!" James exclaimed. "We came out here for answers, and we're not leaving until we've got enough to tear those rich assholes down with!"

Darcy raised an eyebrow. "You're looking for whatever's been taking people, right?"

"We need evidence," James said. "Gina's from the village that's like five minutes away," he said, nodding to the girl holding the dog.

"I came to visit my parents a few weeks ago," Gina said sadly. "But everyone was gone...just gone. No notes or anything—their cars were still in their driveways, they hadn't packed bags or anything, and there was this weird sludgy stuff all over the place, like inside the houses and leading to the forest."

"The same sludge that Britney's environmental surveyor group have taken samples of from the lake," James continued.

"The lake that Lyca Corp. is dumping chemicals and waste into," Britney, the blonde girl, said matter-of-factly.

Darcy nodded slowly. "So you think that whatever's taking all these missing people is a result of the lake?"

"Exactly," a bald man who'd been silent until now said. "We've got pictures of barrels of waste with their logo on it, but their lawyers somehow managed to convince both the court and jury that those barrels could have been planted, so we need some solid evidence."

"How does finding whatever's taking these people help you, though?" Darcy questioned. "I mean it might not even be connected to the lake."

Ron clapped his hands together and said, "See? Exactly what I said. But no one listens to me—"

"Because you're an annoying bastard," James snapped.

"Guys, come on," Britney muttered.

"You're upsetting Toto," Gina whined.

The tallest man, who had long, dirty blonde hair and a thick metal chain around his neck, sighed deeply and said, "There've been reports of a mutated animal out here. If we can get pictures, maybe even a sample of its fur or blood—which are going to be riddled with the same chemicals found in the lake—we'll have something to go on. All the noise that finding proof of what's been taking all these missing people will force Lyca Corp.'s lawyers to submit to an inspection, and when they find the same chemicals inside their facility—" he smacked his hands together, "—we got 'em."

Darcy was admittedly surprised; these guys weren't murder tourists or brainless morons. They knew what they were doing—at least it seemed so.

"Now tell us why you're here," James demanded.

"The same as you guys," Darcy answered. "Sorta. I'm a journalist. If I find proof of whatever's out here...well, it'll be good for my career. That...and the families of those who've gone missing deserve closure."

"Do you write for a major paper?" Ron questioned.

Darcy laughed nervously and dragged his hand over the back of his neck. "The Adrok Times."

"Holy shit," James chuckled.

"As in Adrok City?" another of the women asked.

"Yeah, Sam," Ron sneered.

"Wait, if you write a story about this, that'll put even more pressure on those lawyers," the long-haired man said.

Darcy laughed nervously again. "I mean...I don't write the big stories. Me coming out here and looking for this thing is my attempt at getting a promotion."

"Yeah, but they gotta publish it, right? Hundreds of people have gone missing, man," Ron said, crossing his arms.

"We'll see," Darcy said with a shrug.

Everyone then went silent.

"I'm Darcy..." he said after a few moments, glancing at everyone.

"Trent," the long-haired man said. "That's James, Ron, and Luke," he introduced, pointing to the bald man. "Gina and Toto, Britney, Sam," he added, gesturing to the brunette woman, who slowly lowered her taser. "And Kaylie." He nodded at the girl who'd been totally silent the entire time. "Britney and I are both a part of the environment surveyor team investigating the lake, and James is supposed to be our guide."

"Can't guide for shit," Ron muttered.

James gritted his teeth. "I'll literally shove you into the next fucking ditch we—"

A brittle twig snapped, its sound reverberating through the silent woods like a haunting melody.

Darcy's breath caught in his throat, and a cold shiver ran down his spine as everyone instinctively turned toward the eerie noise.

Their trembling hands fumbled for their torches, casting feeble beams of light into the impenetrable darkness surrounding them. Shadows danced strangely, playing tricks on their minds as the group strained to catch a glimpse of the unseen. Darcy, now among them, joined the desperate search, but the inky abyss revealed nothing but the gnarled fingers of ancient trees, leaves rustling like whispers, and the ghostly outlines of rocks.

Gina's voice quivered with fear as she asked, "What was that?"

Luke's eyes darted in a desperate attempt to find the source of the noise. "We ain't alone out here. I knew this was a bad idea."

"Quit whining," James grunted and pulled a taser from his pocket. "That's why I brought this."

"What's a taser gonna do?" Ron muttered.

"A lot more than your limp fists," James retorted and then glanced down at the map. "We should keep moving. You sticking with us?" he asked Darcy.

Darcy instinctively nodded. He hadn't really grasped the reality of what he was doing until now. There was something out there...and he'd be better off in a group than alone.

As they reluctantly pressed forward, uncertainty lingered in the air like an invisible spectre.

James hesitated before deciding, "The lake should be...this way." He turned towards the left.

Darcy held his phone tightly, grasping it as if it were his only defence if something horrific were to reveal itself. As he followed the group, he checked his left and right frantically, and every time he glanced over his shoulder, he expected to see something shift in the dark.

But there was nothing.

It was just him, these people, and–in his opinion–a monstrous chihuahua.

"What the hell is that smell?" Gina suddenly complained.

"Smells like...a swimming pool?" Ron sounded unsure.

"There," James said, pointing ahead. "The lake."

Darcy shifted uneasily, peering past the group. In the distance, the moonlight danced on the murky surface of the lake, shrouded in a thick fog that seemed to suffocate the air around them. Yet, as they drew nearer, the shimmering water revealed its unsettling secret. Instead of the expected silver-grey hues, a sickly green pallor tainted the lake's stillness, like the sickly hue of a festering wound.

The closer they ventured, the more oppressive the atmosphere became, as if the very air was thick with dread. A pungent odour assaulted Darcy's senses, not the natural scent of water and earth, but a harsh, chemical stench reminiscent of chlorine. It clawed at his throat and lungs, making him grimace.

As they reached the water's edge, the transformation of the surroundings became undeniable. The once verdant landscape gave way to desolation, the soil and grass fading into dark, lifeless sand that seemed to absorb all light. The nearby vegetation twisted and contorted as if in agony, their leaves withered, and their branches gnarled.

Driftwood and shells littered the shore like the remnants of some forgotten nightmare, while the water itself churned with a sickly froth, leaving behind a trail of foam that seemed to murmur of unseen horrors lurking beneath the surface.

"It's even worse up close," Sam muttered.

"All the poor animals that must have died in there," Trent said despondently.

Darcy didn't want to seem insensitive, but he didn't want to be out there longer than necessary. "So...where is this mutated animal supposed to be?"

"All the reports say it sticks close to the water, so if we follow the shore, we've got a good chance of seeing it, I think," Trent answered.

"Come on," James called. "Let's get moving."

The group began following the shore, and Darcy trailed behind them.

But that was when he heard it.

A low, rumbling breath.

Darcy's heart quickened as a sudden rustle sliced through the stillness of the forest, a sound so sharp that it cut through the very fabric of the night. He halted mid-step, muscles tensing, every nerve in his body tingling with apprehension. He turned his head towards the source of the disturbance, the movement so abrupt that it sent searing pain through his neck, yet he couldn't tear his gaze away from the darkness cloaking the trees.

His breath caught in his throat as he strained to pierce through the gloom, his eyes struggling against the oppressive darkness. A primal instinct urged him to flee, to escape the unknown that lurked just beyond his vision, yet an equally compelling curiosity told him to stand his ground, to confront whatever sinister presence lay concealed in the night.

For a moment, time seemed to hang suspended, the silence broken only by the pounding of his own heartbeat echoing in his ears. And then, as if on cue, a chill swept through the air, sending shivers racing down his spine, a cold, clammy embrace that seemed to promise unseen terrors lurking just beyond the edge of perception.

"Darcy?" came someone's voice.

He snapped out of his trance and set his eyes on the group; they'd all stopped twenty feet ahead, staring at him with confused and concerned looks on their pale faces.

Before he could answer, Toto started barking towards the treeline. Gina tried to calm him, but the hairless chihuahua wriggled out of her arms and darted into the forest.

"Toto!" the girl cried, chasing after him.

"Gina!" the group called.

Sam and Luke raced after her, and everyone else hesitated to follow.

"Why'd she have to bring that stupid fucking thing?" James growled.

"Guys!" Britney called into the trees. "Come back!"

Darcy hurried over to them, reluctant to be left alone if they decided to go after their friends.

They waited, breathing heavily as they gawped into the darkness. There was no response from those who'd run into the woods, and the longer everyone stood there waiting, the tenser the cold atmosphere grew.

"W-what do we do?" Kaylie asked.

Each of them looked to James to answer, even Darcy. He was their leader, right?

James looked conflicted. "We should just...wait. They'll—"

A shrill scream cut through the silence.

"W-what the fuck, man!" Trent exclaimed.

Darcy's muscles coiled with tension, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest, its frantic rhythm echoing the panic coursing through his veins. Another gut-wrenching scream pierced the air, tearing through the night like a jagged wound, and several horrified yells followed.

The group surrounding him flinched in unison, their faces contorted with horror, their bodies instinctively drawing closer together as if seeking refuge in each other's presence. With each passing second, their collective dread seemed to thicken the air, suffocating them in a constricting embrace of fear and uncertainty.

"W-we gotta get the hell out of here," James insisted.

"Are you fucking serious?" Ron exclaimed and flailed his arms. "We can't just leave them!"

"I'm not going in there!"

"You're the one with the damn taser; you were so confident about how it was going to protect us!" Ron insisted.

James tossed the taser at Ron. "You fucking take it," he said and then started running back the way they'd come.

"James!" Ron yelled.

"You fucking coward!" Trent shouted.

"W-we gotta go and find them, right?" Britney questioned shakily.

"We can't leave them," Ron said firmly.

Darcy wasn't sure he wanted to be a hero. He watched the four of them argue about whether they wanted to try and find their friends while he considered taking a page out of James' book. But he was out there trying to help the families of all the people who'd been lost in these woods; leaving people who were still alive and needed help would make him a hypocrite.

As much as it scared him, and as much as he didn't want to come face to face with whatever was out there, he couldn't leave Gina, Sam, and Luke to the mercy of the woods where so many people had disappeared.

And being able to say that he'd rescued people in his report would likely improve his chances of the promotion he was seeking.

"Come on," Trent said as he took a few steps towards the trees.

With trembling legs, Darcy followed him.

"Y-yeah," Kaylie said, also following. "We can't leave them out there. Screw James—he was always an asshole."

The others reluctantly agreed, and with Trent leading, they headed into the woods.

It was silent. No chirping insects, no owls or foxes. Just...silence.

Something glistened in the dark.

Like moths to a flame, the four of them were drawn towards it; Darcy hoped that it might be a sign that those who'd run into the trees were near, but it was something far more disturbing.

Cobwebs.

"Eugh," Ron groaned, peering at it.

Several more shimmers snatched Darcy's attention, and when he turned to face them, his stomach churned. He beheld the sprawling, grotesque cobwebs that enveloped the surroundings like a suffocating shroud, weaving a tapestry of darkness that seemed to pulse with malevolent energy, beckoning him to delve deeper into the eerie silence of the forest.

"Did, uh...anyone ever say what this mutated animal was?" he asked shakily.

"No," Trent replied as he wiped the web he'd just touched onto his trousers.

Before Darcy could reply, a loud scream cut through the quiet, and it was close.

"G-Gina?!" Britney called and rushed towards the sound, navigating the web-ensnared path.

"Brit, wait!" Ron called, chasing after her.

Darcy wouldn't be left alone. As they all ran after Gina, he followed.

But the further he ran, the harder it was getting to see. A thick, putrid murk engulfed the woods around him, and soon enough, it was too thick for him to follow the faint glow of the group's flashlights.

"Hey, wait!" he called out, searching and listening for any sign of them.

No one replied, and no one came back.

His heart pounded in his chest, and as he came to a halt, he spun around, trying to find them in the thickening fog.

And then he heard it. That shrieking, squealing call, sounding like a dying animal, a terrified swine. The sound circled him, followed by several more, and when a much louder, deeper call bellowed through the dark, Darcy shook his head and darted forward. He wasn't going to stick around and find out what was out there. The group was gone—they'd left him. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't his call. He had to get the hell out of there.

He ran and ran and ran, sprinting as fast as his trembling legs would carry him, deciding that no promotion could make him face whatever was lurking in these woods.

Darcy hurried past the cobweb-covered trees; he didn't know where he was going, but then a flicker of light burst through the murk. He immediately veered towards it, hoping that it would lead him either to the group or a way out of the woods...but as he got closer, he wasn't met with the tree line or the lost, confused group.

It was James.

The once-mouthy man hung silent, suspended on a tree and wrapped in thick cobwebs. His skin was pale, and his hair and face were wet with the same silvery ooze trickling from the web and the sides of the tree. How the hell had he got there? What could have tied him up like that?

Darcy wanted to keep running, but he couldn't in good conscience leave this man to die. "James?" he whispered, edging a little closer to him. He cautiously glanced around before moving even nearer. "James?" he called again, as quietly as possible.

A confused, sickly groan broke free of the man's slimy lips. He struggled to open his eyes under the weight of the ooze, and only one widened fully. "Y...you," he murmured weakly. He groaned again, and a squelching noise followed what sounded like James' stomach rumbling. Was he going to be sick?

His hands shaking, Darcy tried to break the web with his fingers, but it felt like rubber, refusing to split no matter how much force he put into it.

"H-help me," James groaned and grunted, whining like a child with a fever.

Darcy tried harder, putting his back into it, but the cobwebs didn't even splinter. "I-I don't know—it's not coming apart," he exclaimed, tugging and pulling.

James sounded like he was going to say something, but his voice was interrupted by sickly, pained groans. His body writhed like he was trying to wriggle free from the webs, and when he started thrashing, blood oozed from his mouth.

With a horrified, stifled gasp, Darcy stumbled back. He watched in utter terror as James' body contorted beneath the webs; the man's eyes rolled to the back of his head, and his blood began seeping through the cobwebs from an unseen wound.

As James' agonized wails subsided into a chilling silence, an unnerving crack echoed through the air, blending with the sickening squelch of something grotesque. Darcy's heart pounded in his chest as he watched in horror. With a final, gut-wrenching scream, James fell still, only for a nearby piercing shriek to rend the air, sending shivers down Darcy's spine. The strands of webbing around James' abdomen tore apart, unleashing a nightmarish torrent of blood-soaked, fist-sized creatures, breaking free of the man's corpse, their shrill cries filling the air as they scurried away on their eight twisted legs, vanishing into the enveloping darkness of the woods.

Darcy gagged and choked on what little vomit came up; he stumbled back and away from the creatures, which still burrowed out of the gaping hole in James' abdomen.

And then that bellowing, horrific roar cut through the murk once more.

There was nothing Darcy could do. He turned around and ran, leaping over fallen logs and dodging massive clumps of web. He didn't even stop to stare when he saw others of the group ensnared against trees; some of them were screaming, and others were already dead with the same gaping holes in their bodies that he'd witnessed on James.

But it wasn't just the group that Darcy saw. He passed the old, decaying corpses of so many other people—the people who went missing in these woods. They were everywhere...hanging from the massive cobwebs, tied to the trees, and some were even on the ground as if they'd managed to break free of their bindings and attempted to escape.

Darcy wasn't going to end up like them.

He ran for his life, panicking, panting, his heart racing, his limbs beginning to feel numb. He could see light...reflecting off the lake. He was close, getting closer and closer; hope filled him, shoving aside some of the terror; if he could just get out of the trees—

Something thick and wet wrapped around his body and pulled him back like a dog on a leash.

His desperate struggle was in vain as he was dragged down by the clammy, relentless grasp of the eerie tendrils, their slimy touch like the cold embrace of death itself. With each futile attempt to break free, his heart raced faster, his breaths coming in ragged gasps; he heard several yapping barks, and when he saw the chihuahua, he hoped that the dog was about to bite the creature in an attempt to save him. But the dog ran past, leaving Darcy to his fate, and as the tendrils tightened their grip, his resolve quickly waned, realizing escape was far from his reach.

The sinister presence behind him coiled around him like a suffocating shroud. With terror coursing through his veins, he turned to face the monstrous entity that loomed over him. Its visage, a grotesque fusion of arachnid and reptile, chilled him to the bone. It lifted him off his feet and pinned him against a tree, and as it skilfully wrapped its web around him, Darcy attempted to resist; he tried grasping the entangling rubbery silk, but his hands were glued to the bark, and his body was quickly immobilized.

He opened his mouth to scream, hoping that someone might hear him, but before a single sound could break free, the monster gripped the sides of his head with its massive fangs, and from its slime-filled maw, it propelled a thick, ooze-covered ovipositor, plunging it into Darcy's throat.

Darcy's world dissolved into a nightmare of suffocation and torment as the vile intrusion violated every fibre of his being. Frantically, he struggled against the relentless advance of the slimy appendage, his throat constricting with each agonizing moment. He gagged and convulsed, his body wracked with spasms of terror and revulsion.

The rhythmic throbbing of the ovipositor sent waves of excruciating pain coursing through him, each pulse a cruel reminder of his helplessness. With each fist-sized lump forced into his body, he felt his very essence being consumed by the relentless darkness that enveloped him.

His stomach protested against the merciless assault, straining against the confines of the suffocating web that bound him. In the midst of his agony, the taste of ooze and the sensation of his own impending demise threatened to overwhelm him.

Just as he teetered on the brink of suffocation, the monstrous entity withdrew, leaving Darcy gasping for air in a desperate bid for survival amidst the silence of the eldritch forest.

But having his breathing restored was no comfort.

Darcy's insides churned with a sickening sensation as he felt the vile creatures squirming and writhing within him, their presence growing more pronounced with each passing moment. A feverish heat consumed him, his skin prickling with a burning intensity that seemed to sear him from the inside out.

With each movement, his abdomen distended grotesquely, a writhing mass of flesh straining against its confines as the abominations inside him continued to gestate and thrive. The overwhelming urge to scream clawed at his throat, but all that escaped was a feeble groan, drowned out by the relentless cacophony of his torment.

He knew what was going to happen next; he bore witness to it just minutes ago.

He knew that no one was coming for him, and he knew that there was no escape from the webs that ensnared him.

And now he understood why nobody ever came out of Clovedale Woods. 

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