Chapter 39 4 new feasts

Chapter 39 4 new feasts
Chen stood in the center of the living room, her command presence visibly fracturing. She was still trying to project authority, but her hands shook as she holstered her radio for the fourth time after getting nothing but static.

"Okay," she said, voice tight with forced calm. "New plan. We don't need the road. We have GPS coordinates, compasses, and maps. We walk out, follow the coordinates directly to the nearest highway. It's only ten miles south-southeast. We can make that before dark if we move now."

"Captain…." Eli started.

"We're not staying here another night," Chen cut him off. "I don't care what you think you've experienced. Roads don't disappear. We're disoriented, that's all. The terrain is confusing us. But if we follow the instruments, and use proper navigation, we'll get out."

"It won't work," Mara said quietly.

"With respect, you're not trained in wilderness navigation. We are." Chen turned to her team. "Brooks, Park, gather emergency supplies from the truck. Food, water, first aid, flares. Rivera, how transportable is the patient?"

Marcus looked at Sienna who was still unconscious in his arms. "She needs a stretcher, and she's critical. Moving her ten miles through rough terrain…"

"We'll take turns carrying her. We don't have a choice." Chen's voice held an edge of desperation now. "We can't stay here. Whatever psychological effect this place is having, we need to get everyone away from it. Distance will help."

The original group exchanged looks. They knew how this would end. They'd tried this same plan five times. But arguing seemed pointless. The rescue team needed to learn the hard way.

Brooks and Lisa went to the truck, and came back with backpacks full of supplies. Energy bars, water bottles, medical gear, road flares, and emergency blankets. Professional equipment that gave an illusion of preparedness.

Chen organized them efficiently. "We move in a tight group. No one separates for any reason. I'll take point with the compass and GPS. Brooks, you're rear guard. Everyone stays within visual contact. Are we clear?"

Nods all around.

"And if we encounter anything unusual," Chen continued, glancing at the original group, "anything that seems... wrong, we regroup immediately. Don't engage, don't investigate. We stay together and we keep moving."

They filed out of the cabin at 4:30 PM, ten people moving with grim determination. Chen led with her GPS unit held out in front of her like a talisman. The sun was still relatively high—two and a half hours until sunset. They had time.

The forest swallowed them immediately.

One moment they were in the clearing by the cabin, the next they were surrounded by trees so dense the light dimmed by half. The temperature dropped noticeably. Their breath began to mist.

"Stay close," Chen called back. She was marking trees as they went, scratching arrows into the bark with her knife. "We're heading 155 degrees. Straight line, ten miles."

They walked. The forest floor was thick with undergrowth, making progress slow. Branches caught at their clothes, roots tried to trip them. But they pushed forward, Chen constantly checking her GPS, adjusting their heading.

After thirty minutes, Eli stopped. "These trees. We passed them before."

"No, we didn't," Chen said. "We've been walking in a straight line. Look." She showed him the compass. "Bearing hasn't changed."

"That tree." Eli pointed at a massive oak with a distinctive split trunk. "I remember it. We passed it about ten minutes ago."

"You're mistaken," Brooks said, but his voice wavered. "We haven't doubled back."

They kept walking for another twenty minutes. The forest looked identical in every direction—same density, same species, same uncanny repetition.

Lisa stopped suddenly. "Captain. Look at this."

On a tree trunk, was an arrow carved into bark. It was fresh. Chen's arrow, her mark.

"That's not possible," Chen breathed. "We've been walking straight. The compass hasn't deviated. The GPS…" She looked at the screen. "The GPS says we've traveled 1.2 miles. We should be nowhere near our starting point."

"Check the coordinates," David suggested.

Chen did, and her face went white. "We're back. The GPS says we're at the exact same coordinates we started from. But we've been walking for almost an hour. We should be…."

"Back at the cabin," Mara finished. "That's how it works. The forest loops you, makes you think you're making progress, then brings you right back."

"That's impossible," Chen said, but the words had no force.

"Let's try again," Brooks said desperately. "Different direction. West instead of south. Maybe…"

"It won't matter," Aria said quietly. "We've tried every direction. Every time, you end up back where you started."

But they tried anyway. They turned west, and walked for another forty-five minutes, but found themselves at the cabin again.

They tried north, same result.

East. Same.

By 6:15 PM, they were all exhausted, terrified, and standing once again in the clearing by the cabin. The sun was low on the horizon now. Forty-five minutes until full dark.

Chen stood very still, staring at the cabin, her GPS unit hanging limply in her hand. "This isn't possible. This violates every law of physics. Space doesn't work this way. Navigation doesn't fail this completely. There has to be…"

She stopped, and took a breath. When she spoke again, her voice was hollow. "We're trapped. Aren't we? Actually trapped."

"Yes," Mara said simply.

"How?" Chen looked at her desperately. "How is this possible?"

"We don't know. We stopped trying to understand it. We just know it is."

David was pacing, hands in his hair. "There has to be a way out. There's always a way out. We just haven't found it yet. If we…"

"Stop," Lisa said sharply. "Just stop. They've been here for nine days. Don't you think they've tried everything? We need to accept the situation and adapt."

"Adapt to what?" David's voice rose. "Being prisoners in a forest that shouldn't exist? In a place where roads disappear and space loops back on itself? How do you adapt to that?"

"By surviving," Lisa said. "By staying alive and staying sane until we figure out what's really happening here."

Chen had pulled out her radio again, pressing the button with increasingly desperate movements. "Base, this is Captain Chen. Emergency situation. Anyone, if you can hear this, we are trapped at Hollow Creek cabin. Ten people. We cannot navigate out. The terrain is... the terrain is wrong. Please respond. Please."

Only static answered.

Marcus had set Sienna down carefully against the cabin wall. He checked her vitals again, his face grim. "Her pulse is getting weaker. Temperature is down to ninety-two degrees. She's dying and I can't do anything to stop it."

"Bring her inside," Rhett said quietly. "Please. At least let her be comfortable."

They filed back into the cabin defeated, exhausted, and newly terrified. The rescue team's confidence had been stripped away. They stood in the living room, looking at the furniture pushed against doors, the boarded windows, the reality of what the original group had been living with for days.

"What happens now?" Brooks asked quietly.

"Now we prepare," Eli said. He was already moving through the cabin routine, checking locks, testing barriers. "In about thirty minutes, it's going to get dark. When it gets dark, the entity wakes up. And it's going to be worse tonight than it's ever been."

"Why?" Chen asked.

"Because there are ten of us now instead of six." Mara looked at the rescue team, and saw the fear dawning in their eyes as understanding set in. "Ten meals instead of six. It's going to attack harder, and test us more. It's hungry, and we just gave it exactly what it wanted."

"We need weapons," Lisa said, practical even in terror. "What do we have?"

They distributed what they had—the rifle, kitchen knives, and tools from the shed. The rescue team had their service weapons, but Mara knew those wouldn't matter. You couldn't shoot the entity. You could only survive it.

Chen moved to the window, and looked out at the forest growing darker. "I've been a ranger for fifteen years. I've seen a lot. Bear attacks, lost hikers, wilderness accidents, murders disguised as accidents. But this..." She stopped. "I don't know what this is."

"It's hell," Juno said flatly. "You're in hell now. Welcome."

The sun touched the horizon. The temperature dropped rapidly, unnaturally. Their breath began to mist.

Chen turned from the window, squared her shoulders. She was terrified, but she was still in command. "Okay. If we're stuck here, we defend this position. We work in shifts, we stay alert, we protect each other. Whatever comes, we face it together. Understood?"

"Understood," her team echoed, but their voices shook.

Darkness fell like a curtain being drawn. The scratching started immediately, louder than Mara had ever heard it, more urgent, more hungry.

And from somewhere in the forest came a sound that made everyone freeze. The sound of multiple voices laughing in harmony, in discord, in a chorus of madness.

Devon's voice was among them, and Theo's. And others from decades past, all laughing together.

The rescue team had come to save them.

Instead, they'd just joined the feast.

And the entity was very, very pleased.