It seems every town has at least one location every resident knows in great detail, as if the place’s sole purpose is to produce memories that won’t let you go, be it good or bad. For some towns it’s a classic restaurant that managed to stay untouched since the mid 70s, for others it could be a simple road that sparks dozens of conspiracy theories and supernatural hauntings. For my hometown, it was a place we called the “ivy green forest.” Miles upon miles of nature in its purest form. Large lush trees, rushing streams, and wildlife running free, all of which hidden behind a large tree line bordering our town. A tree line completely swallowed by overgrown ivy vines, all twisting into one another to form sheets of emerald green that stretched from the highest branch to the lowest blade of grass. Like large theater curtains hiding away the stage set to make endless childhood memories. It was like our own fairytale forest, where our imaginations could completely take over. It gave off a sense of mystery that almost frightened us, yet even more so beckoned us…Nowadays it just may be the source of my greatest fears coming to life.
It was here where my friends and I bonded most as we created whole worlds in our heads, some of which contained storylines spanning years that were surprisingly coherent for a bunch of kids. The cherry on top of it all was “fort emerald”. A giant treehouse we had built out of scrap wood and old playground equipment. Not to mention lots of help from our parents. As we got older this “castle for the elite knights of the emerald forest” turned into a prime hangout for us to stash contraband during our high school degenerate stage of life. Many nights were spent there where we’d all just sit around and stare into the world around us, and let me tell you that forest at night time is something else, as if the place gains a consciousness of its own. It were nights spent here where our fear took the wheel, and stories of cults, monsters and murderers lurking within the forest were soon forged and spred throughout our school.
This ended up backfiring on us as it led to some unwanted attention in the form of those…out of the ordinary kids. You know the kind I’m talking about, the ones who fantasize over gore and meeting demons, that kind of shit. The worst of them was a kid named Scotty Hoppids. Granted we didn’t know how royally fucked in the head he was at first but we found out quick. He actually weaseled his way into our friend group and was considered a pretty cool guy, putting on the face of a laid back party dude. That mask would eventually slip off every now and then however and he would share a bit too much…say his fascination with internal organs, or his interest with murders involving supposed demonic possession. It was when we told these little horror stories was when it got real noticeable. The way he listened to them was like looking at a mentally deranged child who believed everything he just heard was the 100% truth and it made him absolutely ecstatic at the possibility of experiencing them first hand. Once we told him he was taking everything too seriously and letting him know it was us who made the stories up in the first place he completely flipped out, and started saying we all cheated him, and that he would prove us wrong before storming out of the fort.
At first we simply laughed it off as we occasionally spotted him late at night skulking around in a vain attempt to find the “emerald forest demon” or “the bangeler street butcher” both fictional inhabitants of the forest he was fully aware came from the minds of stoned high schoolers. This humor turned to annoyance with how often he’d come by our once secret fort…which then turned to disturbance as his attempts to make contact with these characters from late night campfire stories got more extreme. Sometimes we’d come to the fort and be met with remnants of Scotty’s failed summoning rituals, things like pentagrams painted on our treehouse walls, or weird symbols carved into chicken bones scattered about the forest floor. Sometimes though…sometimes we’d catch scotty in the act of a blood sacrifice, carving up his arm with pencil sharpener razors. When that happened we decided it had gone too far and quickly dragged his ass to his moms house and explained the situation.
She was unbothered to say the least. It was clear she had no real interest in worrying about her son’s unstable mindset, and it wasn’t long until we caught him yet again in the forest with his arms covered in blood, but this time it wasn’t his. When we got closer we could see that he had gut a local kids cat and pinned the poor thing to our fucking treehouse wall. In a fucked up way though Scotty was responsible for my current state of employment, as it lead us to calling the cops and in turn, peaked my interest in criminal justice that lead to a long reserved seat behind a detectives desk. Now after all these years this desk has called me back to that fantasy forest of my childhood.
It wasn’t exactly my job to take, simply a case of the right place at the right time. I was back in town for the week to celebrate my little sister graduating high school when all hell broke loose and I got a call from my friend Eli, one of the other founders of our little fort. Like me, Eli picked up an interest with law enforcement, however unlike me he had decided to remain local. It’s not a big town, population wise anyways and one with a very low crime rate. The local police force has maybe 10 officers total only having to deal with the occasional disgruntled drunk or rowdy teen…so when a triple homicide gets called in they take any available help.
“Sal it’s bad man…fuck it’s real bad” Was the first thing he said when I answered. Already an unsettling start to the conversation, made even more so when I managed to calm him down enough to tell me what the situation was and where exactly he needed me, only to be told three bodies were found at our old childhood hangout spot, and before I knew it I had been standing in front of the once cherished structure, now bound in overgrowth and yellow caution tape. A place once housing fond childhood memories was now the epicenter of this town’s most brutal tragedy. The dejá vu only got more disturbing as I entered the actual structure to witness the crime scene with my own eyes. Three college students, two male, one female, all maimed to the point DNA tests were required in order to identify the victims. All three bodies had been brutalized into a display of limbs and stripped bones formed into a circle. The sight alone was enough to send me into shock. I’ve dealt with some brutal stuff in my time but…fuck never something so gruesome. My shock only grew as I realized I was looking at a calling card…the calling card of one “bangeler street butcher.” The very same butcher Eli and I had made up well over a decade ago. What was not part of our fictional killer’s original M.O however was the message written in the female victim’s blood, scrawled across the floor in the center of the horrific display simply reading “welcome home.”
I certainly don’t think our fictional killer has gained physical form, frankly I’d prefer if it were some sort of paranormal phenomenon, because as of now the only lead we have is one more connected to me than I like admitting. A local who went off the grid years ago after being sent to juvie for animal abuse, and never coming back home. The same kid who took such an unhealthy obsession to our stories in the first place, one Scott Hoppids. I’m currently writing this at my new temporary office at our local station, along with a half finished bottle of my good old friend jack. I’ve been going through any files on Scotty I can find with little luck. I haven’t been able to find anything that could help, nothing I didn’t already know anyways, but I’m not gonna stop until I get to the bottom of it all. I feel this case is one that has to be placed on my shoulders, because I can’t deny the fact I played a part in creating this monster. Even if this all turns out to be a massively unsettling coincidence I can’t just up and leave knowing there’s a killer somewhere in those forests I once held so closely. According to Eli Mrs. Hoppids is still in town, so it seems we will be paying her a little visit in the morning. Not now though, I just need some time to unpack all of this…and probably the rest of this jack to cope with the fact I probably planted the seed for this all in the first place.