Loose Planks For Grabby Hands

Prologue

I stopped staying in contact with him 4 years ago,

perhaps the dreadful path surrounded by the shadows of extensive oak trees are affecting my thought process. The only reason I pulled myself out of the house was my father's arrival.

After 4 years he sent a message. It seemed so absurd that I could burst out laughing.

He said he was coming to the coastal plain named "comhfhisach" near a forest by the same name which means conscious in Irish

. Immediately I called my best friends for a hike, all the three of them. Since how can I sleep through the night knowing we missed Saint Patrick's Day.

Every year we gather at an outdoor forgotten place, like this one, and watch the same old fireworks.

This year we are going to climb high.

Act 1

"Where are we going?", Senan said with his bewildered signals of innuendo. 

"First to the coastal, besides, the fireworks will start only later the evening", I replied. We crossed wooden bridges raised upward of slimy swamps, open caves and never beyond the path.

"Look! A group of Ring Kneck Ducks, with babies!" Ruarc screamed, he was so excited that he forgot we were clustered in an invisible rectangle. "Shut up! Why did we even bother taking this childish brazen, this bastard is going to blast everything to hell!", Senan couldn't hold himself anymore. Ruarc frowned and spoke "I'm the bastard here, god, astonishing animals at their natural inhabitants. Sorry I have shown inappropriate affection  but I advise you to alter your comments or I'll alter my approach!"

Diarmaid, Senan's loyal subject, always defends him, usually in this types of situations he jumps and adheres his master's decisions. Probably he isn't even listening. He is looking at something, a human? "I see someone", Diarmaid finally whispered. "What", Senan yelled. "I see a human silhouette in the woods, also it's approximately closer than before" Everyone accepted without saying a word to rearrange the group, the rectangle got smaller. We heard sticks and dry leaves rupture under a pressure of someone in a hurry. Abruptly Senan started running for his life, after him so did Diarmaid, Ruarc and I.

"There is the plane", Ruarc mentioned. The plane was busted, it was an ancient yellow and white floatplane. "The engine has been torn apart, someone wracked this plane with...vines? Are you sure this plane is your dad's?"

I wanted to believe this plane was his, yet all the baggage is flipped over and vines grew around it, assuming that vines can't grow in a day this plane isn't his. I wanted to continue investigating the area but the evidence was missing, no footprints, fabric, processed food, or other junk humans leave behind.

"Let's climb the damn hill already". We went off the path like Senan suggested, for a shortcut. No lights nor a direction to follow, we strolled in the dark woods, hoping a mountain will appear. I still hear the rupture from before, it didn't stop.

All of a sudden we heard loud moaning and groaning, followed by inhuman screams. Assuming that everyone kept going for the same reason I did, we were hypnotized by the crying voice.

"It sounds like an animal!", Ruarc started jogging to the source of the voice. As he jogged we increased our speed to match his. Few hundreds of steps later an old wooden cabin was spat out from the ground. Instead of a roof, there was a hole and the trees around the cabin were chopped off creating space for light to enter.

Ruarc already was stumbling to open with his bare hands an entrance to the cabin, his love for animals especially hurt ones was indescribable. As soon as Diarmaid arrived he helped Ruarc remove the planks to open a gap in the decayed wall of the cabin. After a little struggle, they succeeded.

 

First illustration: 

https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/snackpriced/loose-planks-for-grabby-hands

 

Act 2

Immediately Ruarc entered the wood cabin by himself, he was silent for a few tedious moments. The three of us didn't dare to think of entering the hole in the wall.

Finally, Ruarc talked, "Guys.. the sounds weren't coming from an animal, it was a human. There are even files lit under a heavy flashlight on the cupboard, they have lots of information about that, thing"

Slowly all of us assembled around the human, who lost all humanity. He was tied to a steel chair, rein equipment was scattered all around his body involving leather belts, duct tape, the same vines from before, some kind of blue liquid and a ski mask covering all of his face. It was dark but I could have sworn he had desaturated purple skin and his hands were falling off, vines were sprouting flowers which came out of his mouth and they strangled him as he screamed. All of his body hair dropped off in a pile around him, a dark tone of brown, like my hair. All the skin and the fat of his legs were pilled off, only a chunk of muscles was left. Fathers were growing around his body as of a young bird's.

"This dude's name was Neil Laognaire, he was working here, it is written in marker that he was an asshole lab assistant and a horrible boyfriend" Ruarc's words were thrown too fast for my ears to consume.  Although it caught my attention. My dad secretly worked at a lab in a cabin surrounded only by trees. "He! He was my dad!" Everyone raised their eyebrows in surprise and Ruarc said, "We need to continue reading! He isn't going to be cured by despair. maybe a cure was written somewhere" I nodded, thinking of running to a quiet place to cry at.

"Ok, don't touch the blue liquid. It was injected into the guy and I don't think we're immune. It transforms him into a plant by injecting artificial absorbing blobs into the circulation of the body, they will slowly suck all blood cells from the human and replace them with regular pine tree cells. The human's brain will stop working properly and then will dry out. Because the person is suffering he will try to hunt other humans to eat for more human cells in order to slow down the transformation and lower the pain levels. I don't think a cure was made"

Suddenly Ruarc was falling slowly onto the dirty ground, a poisonous dart hit him. The smell of the dart was of toxic acid. I looked through the hole in the roof and saw the silhouette from before. It was a lady, she wore a blue lab coat covering a dress made out of animal skin, no wonder why the animals were missing.  Her head was round as a volleyball and bald too, dark green veins pumping out on her skin and some vines were coming out of her hands, they were dancing as she could control them with her mind.

After my short speculation of the woman, I looked back, at my friends and Senan was running away from here while Diarmaid was on his knees in front of Ruarc's body. "Hey, Diarmaid we need to go now!" He listened and walked to the gap we created earlier.

I didn't wait and escaped long before he did. While he was crouching and preparing to get out of the cabin vines were moving in a swirl around his neck. He was grabbed and was raised upward. A fully transformed purple mutant was choking him. I screamed at him, trying to distract him but he was sophisticated at his prey. I knew he was gone, So we walked away. When I took a glance behind me, half of Diarmaid's body was eaten.

An escape, we wanted it so badly, however,  the way back was blocked by the purple pine trees. "Let's return to the plane, I am sure a lighter is somewhere there, my father was a heavy smoker. we can burn with it the forest and wait in the water for firefighters to rescue us" It was my only idea. "I agree, only if we will go through the woods. The trees will go through there and the main path is a lot longer"  Senan was right.

I was shaking, thinking about vines grabbing my throat.

We ran endlessly and jumped over obstacles until our hearts were shrinking from the effort. A beam of light was flashing at our eyes. There were belongings pouring out of a backpack. A diary was open and Niel Laognaire was written on the back of it. I took the diary and read it out loud with the flashlight I picked it up without asking Senan. "Entry #206- HOME. I just wrote to bonnie about my holiday. I don't know if she tru.."
"We need to go! Now!" I nodded to Senan but kept reading the diary while grabbing my father's belongings and then walking at a decent speed.

My father wasn't apart of an army, no surprise here, he wasn't shown in uniform on any photograph ever. He was excited to help earth evolve and become himself a tree god or something like that.

His final line was "I know I'm just paranoid but I can't trust anyone, even myself", weird to not trust yourself. Luckily he mentioned in the entry that he brought some firearms just in case the bald woman will betray him.

"Wait, just now I realized we already have the weapons to fight with" We stopped and I pulled a flare gun and gave a blue flamethrower to Senan from the bag. Senan and I went back to the path towards the exit, no one was there. We walked anxiously, preparing for a fight.

Yet, no enemies. When we got out of the woods we were handcuffed. "You're under arrest for starting a forest fire and kidnapping your friends, now throw your weapons down at the ground and lie down!" I looked at the forest, while I was searched. A smoke was visible from afar and sparks of flames were lighting the dark night.

She probably was a heavy smoker too.

 

Second illustration:

 https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/snackpriced/comhfhisach-woods

 

Written By Anthony Grig

For 2017 Halloween Spooktacular