Returning

Twenty years later...

The setting sun’s glary rays burnt his eyes. It had been twenty years since he had last stepped foot in the Rockmann Forest. It was going to be a long night. Two children ran around him wearing eye patches and carrying foam swords. The boy was fairly tall for his age and had a mop of black hair on his head. The girl, only slightly shorter, had a blonde plait running down the side of her neck. They were twins, but as unalike in looks as possible.

“Des, Elsa, come help me set up the tent,” their mother called.

They stopped what they were doing and trudged over to her. Their father remained at the edge of the forest. Looking in, wondering what nightmare awaited him. He had not seen the monster that had tortured him for so long for twenty years, and hoped he would not again. 

He never wanted to come to the forest, but Katarina had always wanted to take their children camping. Despite all of his arguments, nowhere would do but the forest just on the other side of the town. He knew something awful awaited him. It had told him. But it had slipped his mind. And he was grateful.

The forest sat still, waiting patiently for its next victim to enter its dastardly clutches. No wind blew its leaves. No animals occupied its shelter. They were taken long ago. The forest was dead, and everyone knew it.

 

George bent over the tent and picked it up.

“Elsa, quick, put the metal rod underneath this,” he said loudly.

“Which one, Dad?” she asked.

George rolled his eyes as Des came to the rescue. He knocked Elsa with his shoulder and bent down over the rest of the equipment.

“The only metal one here,” he smirked.

As he squeezed it into place his father let go. It stood up straight and proud. It was the first time they’d used their five-year old tent.

Elsa crawled into it like a bullet and took the first room on the left. A quiet giggle escaped her lips as she flopped down upon the floor. As she exhaled deeply she imagined how funny it would be to see Des’s face when he saw her in that room. It was only a matter of seconds before he did. 

“Dad,” Des complained almost instantly, “I should have the big room ‘because I’m older.”

George looked into the tent and saw Elsa had already set up her sleeping bag. She’d even rolled out her brother’s in the other room just to guarantee he would sleep there.

Des crossed his arms and looked up to his father. He usually took his sons side. Des always needed to be protected. He seemed so tough, and yet so frail.

“Only by one minute,” his father finally replied, trying to stay calm and reasonable.

Des’s mouth dropped and his arms went limp.

“Only? Only one minute?”

His mother, who had been working on the back end of the tent, came around and looked her son in the eye.

“Do what your father says, young man,” she said sternly. “You can have the bigger room next time.”

This time George’s mouth dropped in the exact same manner his son’s had.

“There isn’t going to be a next time! There shouldn’t even be a this time!”

Kat crossed her arms and peered menacingly at her husband. Des could sense that she was about to give her ‘this is going to be a fun, memorable experience’ speech again and so he quietly crawled into the tent.

“Look, up until now I’ve done what you wanted. But now I want to take the kids camping. And I’d like to make it a good memory for them,” she scolded, letting her arms fall.

George nodded solemnly and watched as his wife walked towards the tent to sort out their arguing children. His inner demon began twisting his stomach into knots, urging him to break into a million pieces on the floor any second. He’d always been afraid on the inside. But he could never show it.

“You don’t know,” he whispered.

Kat turned only her head and raised one eyebrow in the same, peculiar manner she always did.

George inhaled deeply and clenched his fists. His nails dug sharply into his palms, but he felt no pain.

“You don’t know what’s in there,” he said more loudly.

Kat turned around to face him.

“Is that so?” she asked. “What’s in there then?”

George inhaled just as deeply and unclenched his fists. “It lives in there. It attacked me in there. It told me something in there.”

An apprehensive expression suddenly ran onto Katarina’s face. Blonde hair framed it like a portrait. She cocked her head slightly to the side as George worriedly licked his dry lips. She could tell something wasn’t right. Something had happened. But it was obviously not It. There was no It that tortured unknowing by passers. It was utterly impossible.

“George, honey, are you okay? Are you feeling well?” Kat finally concluded she should say.

A slap suddenly hit George in the face. Absolutely gobsmacked he stood there, staring at his concerned wife.

“You don’t believe me!” he yelled. “There is something in there and I don’t want our children anywhere near that damn forest!”

Kat replied: “So then what did it tell you?”

George raised his hands into the air in surrender and opened his mouth widely.

“I don’t remember. Don’t you think I’d have told you if I remembered?”

Kat put her left hand up to her forehead and turned in a tight circle.

“Ok, she said. “Ok. Let’s stop arguing. I won’t let the kids out of my sight and we’ll see what happens.”

 

George rolled his eyes. A sudden scream greeted his ears as he took his first step towards the tent.

“Elsa, was ist falsh?” Kat screamed at her daughter.

She always spoke in German when she was scared or extremely frustrated. She lived in Germany until she was sixteen. She was treated differently here. After having twins at nineteen everyone seemed to avoid her. She often wondered if things would have been different if she’d had stayed with her parents.

Kat and George raced into the tent to find their daughter being dragged by her foot. Des was the one pulling it.

“What do you think you’re doing?” George yelled, helping Elsa up off the ground.

Des smirked and let go of her foot as his father pulled her away.

“I was being the monster of the forest! His name is Mercury,” Desmond laughed.

Kat turned to George and frowned strictly. Now he’d ruined it; the whole camping adventure. He was just being paranoid again. It was all stories, after all.

 

The name Desmond had decided to give the monster struck George so hard he almost fell back with disbelief. How could he have been so brainless? Desmond. It had told him Desmond. He had to leave, now! He stood away from Elsa who was now staring at her brother. Desmond was in trouble.

“Kat, it told me Desmond!” George yelled without even thinking. ‘That night in the forest, it said Desmond. How could I have been so stupid?”

Kat’s jaw dropped.

Desmond looked away from Elsa and smiled.

“Awesome,” he alleged, “Mercury knows who I am.”

George shook his head at a million miles an hour.

No, this was not good. He’d named his child Desmond. This couldn’t be happening. After all these years he’d named his son the only thing that he never could.

George quickly turned his head and sprinted out of the tent, gasping for air. He looked into the forest and saw the trunks of the trees grimace at him. They had got what they wanted, and it was too late. Then out of the blue, the first time in years, a lone shadowy bird swooped in and landed on top of a rusted metal pole leaning on a slant out of the ground. There was absolutely no grass around it. It was dead. The pole was hollow and tarnished; uncared for. It reminded George of himself; a vacant object with no hope to be renewed to its glory days. If there ever were any. The bird called to George, spreading out its wings as it did so. It was threatening him, telling him what he already knew. He was in danger, and it was his own fault for not remembering.

 

Elsa snuck out of the tent and stood behind her father. She was almost as tall as his shoulders. Des was exactly that height she aspired to reach. George sensed her approach, but payed no heed to her presence. She flicked a strand of hair out of her eye and looked up to her father’s face.

 “Is there really a monster?” She questioned him.

George watched the bird still but spoke the first three words he was tempted to tell to her: “Of course not.”

It was not what he truly believed, of course. But he could not scar his daughter in such a way. She’d never leave the house again and that was not the life he wanted for her.

“Daddy,” she muttered under her breath, not daring speak another word.

George sensed her anxiety and finally turned away from the bird tormenting him.

“Yes, darling?” He said.

Elsa twiddled her fingers behind her back and looked at her toes. She did the exact same thing every time she was nervous. She got the habit from her aunt.

“Mum says that there’s no monster, but Des says there is. And its name is Mercury.”

“What’s wrong, Elsa,” George asked. He could tell now when she wanted to say something more than what she dared.

“Well, I think there is a monster because I heard it the other night after I went to bed,” she managed to say in one large breath.

George laughed without intending to. It was typical for a child to think they heard the monster they had learnt about. But, of course, it was always in their heads. There was never anything under their beds or in the closet, but then what child doesn’t get frightened by a story at some point?

“It was probably your brother,” he supposed, “He likes to play tricks on you.”

Elsa shook her head and squeezed her eyes tightly closed. He was wrong. And he knew it just as well as she did. But he couldn’t let himself admit it. It was nothing. She couldn’t be hearing it. It wasn’t after her anyway. It was Des they had to worry about.

She began to chew the inside of her lips, prohibiting herself from talking; from saying something that would upset him. It would only lead to everyone else being upset too. It always did. Once you burn the roots, the tree collapses.

She caved in to her resistance and said: “It was Claudia, Dad.”

At this, George’s face dropped. It was all so clear now. The window he’d been trying to peer through had just been wiped clean. He knew what it was now. He understood.