Into the Woods

[Gundham]

Well, that worked out nicely. Score one for eyespots! Rebekah did make a mental note about archery human's reluctance to draw his weapon. Withholding the pepper spray had been the right call after all. That was a relief.

But, this encounter wasn't quite over yet. She took a quick breath and put her hands on her hips in an authoritative sort of way while she thought about the next phase. Getting the boys to steer clear of the foxes' nest was step one, but now she'd need to play tour guide, and take them somewhere more interesting. Luckily, Salem Woods had a pretty good assortment of interesting hollows and copses, almost all of which were populated by animals she hadn't invested months of effort into. For instance, there was a hollow in the banks of one of the eastern marshes, with a thick mat of grass and plant growth hanging over the entrance - a perfect spot for covert spying, as long as you wanted to spy exclusively on dragonflies and turtles. But it wasn't particularly ghost-y. There were some abandoned tents that got left behind every year, usually by homeless people. That seemed vaguely ghost-adjacent, but the parks service tended to scoop them up whenever they were spotted.

No, it'd be best to take them to The Hollow. It wasn't the biggest or best hollow in the Woods, but it had earned the capitalized initials by dint of being the place where a group of kids liked to gather and practice witchy sorts of rituals from time to time - or, something like that. Rebekah didn't generally pay too much attention to their activities. But they were nice enough and they respected the animals and left them alone, so if she knew when they were meeting she did her best to steer the parks staff away from wandering in on them. She was pretty sure she'd seen some chicken bones scattered around near the place - whether they were related to the rituals or just something left behind after some animal had thieved a careless picnicker's KFC, who could say? But the place definitely did have an occult vibe to it, and she figured it'd be interesting enough to make everybody forget about any noises that anybody may or may not have made. She'd just have to make sure they didn't come back there at the same time as the witchy kids did. They were nice enough, and probably didn't know any actual curses, but it was still better not to cross them.

"It's just down this way!" she said brightly, setting off and waving for the two boys to follow her. "There's a little hollow in the woods where some pretty spooky stuff happens. It's down this trail a little ways, and then we'll have to hike through trees a bit. It's kinda hard to reach, but it's totally worth it! I don't know if there's ghosts there, but if I was a ghost, that's definitely the kind of place I'd hang out! Just, uh... don't go out there during full moons, okay?"

[ViolentMedic]

“You don’t have to whip it out for no reason. I’m just saying if we see a ghost. And only one of the angry ones, like a Salem witch hunt victim or something. I mean, they weren’t real witches, obviously, but I’d be pissed if some asshole priest got me killed to enhance his position. If it’s a chill ghost, you don’t have to do anything.”

The Hollow, huh? When Fitz heard ‘don’t go there at full moons,’ what his mind told him was ‘absolutely go there on full moons.’ Though then again… going into the woods at night in general was chancy. He’d at least need to go with someone. He wouldn’t toss them in front of him and run or anything, but it was harder to make two people disappear than one.

“Coolcool. Lead the way.” Fitz trotted after Rebekah, only glancing back to see if Angelo was following. He did point the EVP reader briefly behind him, before turning it forward again as he did.

[backslash]

"Cool, yeah, I'll uh- I'll keep that in mind," Angelo said, because it was just easier to go along with Fitz's ramblings. You know what, he did hope they saw a ghost. A pissed off Salem witch trial ghost even, even though it would make more sense for them to haunt the place where they died or their old house or something instead of some random spot in the woods. The spookiest thing that probably happened out here for real was people getting together to do drugs.

He stopped short for a minute when Fitz swung the recorder back in his direction, out of reflex more than anything. But hey, he could say it was out of courtesy so that his footsteps didn't cover up whatever ghostly noises it might be picking up. "What happens during the full moon?" He asked Rebekah after they'd been walking for a couple of minutes. Again, his suspicion was drugs, but maybe there was something more exciting that went on out here.

[Gundham]

Rebekah pushed aside a thick branch, and held it out of the way so the boys could pass without getting thwacked. They were almost to The Hollow by this point, and the shrubbery was a bit thicker here. She imagined that this was one of the reasons why the group had chosen it. The harder it was to get somewhere, the less chance there was of hitchhikers stumbling in by mistake, or parks officers stumbling in on purpose.

"There's a group of kids who come here sometimes during full moons," Rebekah explained to Angelo. "I'm not super clear on what they do here, but I think it's a lot of chanting and dancing, that sort of thing. I don't join in, but if I can be around I try and keep an eye out for them, so they don't get busted by the parks people."

She turned back to Fitz, smiling confidently. "I think they do some kinds of dark magic and stuff, so if there are ghosts, they'd definitely be around there! I dunno about you, but if I was a ghost, I'd probably hang around some place like that. It's gotta be boring just hanging out being invisible all the time, so ghosts probably would enjoy sitting and watching some dancing and chanting from time to time just to keep things interesting, right?"

[ViolentMedic]

“Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to spook you,” Fitz said, when Angelo stopped at him waving the EVP around. “Don’t worry, I’ll say if you need to be quiet.”

Couldn’t very well stay silent all the time. That’d be kinda boring. Ghosts were fun, but ghost hunting with people was better if they weren’t laughing at you.

Fitz ducked under the thick branch, his height necessitating it even with Rebekah holding it back. “They might like chanting. Though at least some ghosts don’t realise they’re dead, and think that we’re the ghosts,” he said, as he nearly tripped on a rock and did an awkward hop to get over it. “But it depends on the nature of the rituals. I’d imagine it’s dangerous at night out here in either case. I got lost enough in the day. Is it your job to patrol at night?”

Fitz gazed at the ground as he followed Rebekah. Just looking for anything out of place, though he wasn’t familiar enough with the woods to be able to tell what was and wasn’t.

[backslash]

Okay honestly, Angelo could have listened to Fitz's rambling all afternoon. It was weirdly intriguing and entertaining, and Angelo was doing a good job of keeping his mouth shut so that he didn't say something that would probably come off as making fun or condescending. That part was hard, because he wanted to interject so, so badly, if only just to ask how Fitz knew that ghosts liked chanting and thought that they were alive and living people were actually ghosts.

No actually, he was going to ask. He couldn't contain himself. "How's that work? The last thing you said about ghosts, not uh, the patrolling or whatever. Like, if ghosts have a concept of ghosts, wouldn't it be easy for them to figure like... I dunno, 'hey, I got shot in the head, so I'm probably dead and this person that's running away from me is probably alive'?"

Angelo scratched the back of his head as he spoke, ruffling his hair. His archery bag caught on a tree branch while he wasn't paying attention, and he had to stop and disentangle it before continuing. "Also, how far away is this place? It's cool and all, but my parents are going to start calling if I'm out for too long after practice was supposed to have ended, and I dunno what the signal is like out here, and you know if they start calling the park rangers or whoever to come look for me, it's gonna be everybody's problem."

[Gundham]

"Huh? Oh! Don't sweat it! We're here, see?"

Rebekah turned back to the boys made a sweeping arm gesture, broadly indicating the hollow behind her. Just beyond her shabby sneakers, the ground sunk away a bit, creating a bowl-like depression in the Earth. No trees grew in the hollow itself, but broad tree trunks lined the rim around it, some of them carved with arcane-looking sigils. Gnarled roots curled onto the sloping edges of the depression, making the trees look like little kids at the zoo, grabbing the railing so they could see down into the tiger pit. The trees were curious, she thought, about what went on in The Hollow, but too afraid to get any closer. In between the trunks, thick brambles and shrubs formed a natural barrier. It was difficult to see into The Hollow from outside of it, and hard to get in, unless you used the entrance.

"Come on down, it's just this way..." Rebekah nimbly picked her way down the slope towards the bottom of the bowl, using a well-worn path where there was a dark patch of bare earth - the area where the coven kids had their fires. The ground was rutted pretty badly from all the times they'd kicked dirt over the campfire, and ash had mixed into the soil. There were small flecks of things that they'd burned, and fire-blackened bones that even the raccoons and crows wouldn't touch.

"Pretty cool, huh? I don't think any of the bones are human or anything. I think they mostly sacrifice chickens. But maybe we can find a chicken ghost! Do chickens have ghosts? If so, there must be a ton of 'em at Chik-Fil-A..."

Oh, right. Angelo had said a thing. She turned back towards him. "If you're worried about time, we don't have to stay long. I'm pretty sure my dad's wondering where I am too. He's from down south, so he's always really nervous letting me wander off alone in the woods." As she said it, she fished the phone out of her pocket and looked at the time. Oof. It was late. And according to her notifications, she'd already missed a text from him.

"Aw, man! I have to get going here pretty quick, but you guys can stick around as long as you like, or you can head back with me if you want to find the way back to the trail a bit easier. Totally up to you!"

[ViolentMedic]

“Well, ghosts are mostly made of energy. So I don’t think they’re present, like, all the time or at least can’t fully manifest,” Fitz mused as they continued along. “It’s why they like stuff like running water, because running water resonates well with that. So maybe when a ghost is here and they see us, it’s like being stuck in a dream and not seeing the flaws in the logic. Besides, you have a concept of ghosts, but if you saw a guy appear before you suddenly, you’d assume they were the ghost, right? ...Heck, maybe we did die and we’re just like walking through these woods forever because we walked into the wrong place, and we just haven’t realised. Or just one of us is a ghost. I’d put my money on Rebekah pulling a ‘and this is actually where I was murdered’ if I was going to bet on any of us.”

They’d arrived at the Hollow by then. Well, this was a fun little hole in the area. Definitely the sort of place that Fitz would ritually murder people at, if he was into that kind of thing. Though come on, who sacrifices chickens? That’s so basic, go human or go home.

“You could probably find human ghosts at Chik-Fil-A, too. Though I guess they’d go home unless they really loved those sandwiches.”

As Rebekah checked her phone and the other two discussed when they had to be home, Fitz knelt and picked up one of the bones. He held it up, turning it and trying to tell what kind of bone it was.

Yeah, looked like chicken. Just to be sure, he stuck the end into his mouth. ...Nope, that just tasted like soot.

“...Tastes a bit pork-ey for chicken,” Fitz said around it, before he took it out of his mouth and clacked his tongue, wrinkling his nose as he did so.

Ew. Alright. That’d been maybe a little too much, even for him. Still, if they could withstand that--

[backslash]

Whatever train of thought Angelo had been riding on promptly derailed and caught fire as he watched Fitz just pop a fucking burned witchcraft chicken bone or whatever the hell into his mouth.

"Wh- dude, you don't know where that's been! Or you do, but you know- that's worse!" Angelo clutched at the strap of his archery bag with both hands, much the way some southern grandma might clutch her pearls. He shot Rebekah a sidelong, wide-eyed look, as though she could possibly help him out here. Honestly he didn't know what she could do. Fitz had already done the thing, and Angelo and Rebekah were just stuck here watching him do it.

"...Okay. Okay, okay. You hungry, man? You wanna swing by Wendy's or something on the way out? We can do that, I've got cash. You don't have to eat forest bones." Angelo stopped just short of rubbing his temples in exasperation.

Funny, usually he was the one getting this kind of reaction from people.

[Gundham]

Rebekah returned Angelo's "WTF?" expression with a wide-eyed, "Hey, I dunno what to make of this either" gesture. She was pretty sure Fitz wasn't going to die from eating that. The fire had probably killed any harmful germs from the chicken itself - after all, that was the reason why early hominids had invented the concept of putting chicken into fire in the first place. There were probably some lingering germs from the forest environs, but if Fitz couldn't survive those, it was probably for the best that he wouldn't be passing on his genetic material.

"All right, well, if you guys think you can make it to Wendy's on your own, I'm gonna take off! But here, let me give you my number. If you do find any ghosts, you'd better text me!"

She gave them a cheerful goodbye wave, which was slightly diminished when she stumbled over a tree root.

Once she'd reached the exit, Rebekah pulled out her phone and texted her dad back, letting him know that she'd be home shortly - and that she definitely didn't want chicken for dinner.

((Rebekah Hayes continued elsewhere))

[ViolentMedic]

"No, dude, it's not hunger that's making me stick bones in--oh, you know what, Wendy's does sound good, though. Y'don't need to bribe me to stop eating bones, though, I can pay."

Fitz had kinda been wandering around in these woods most of the day and forgotten to bring any food. And he wasn't picking up much of a vibe from this area. No ghost chickens yet, though perhaps he'd pick up on something when he listened over the audio later.

"Yeah, I'll text if I see somethin', it'll be sick!" Fitz called after Rebekah, before waving the EVP reader slowly around the Hollow one more time.

He couldn't hear much over his stomach now rumbling, and apparently only encouraged by shoving inedible bones in his mouth. Hmm. Hope he hadn't caught a zombie virus from the bone or something.

"Yeah, I'm done. I think the ghosts are taking a sabbatical." Fitz clambered out of the Hollow again, but waited on the edge of it for Angelo. "So, Wendy's?"

Well, at least the whole bone thing hadn't scared Angelo off. +1.

((Russell "Fitz" Fitzroy continued in i can't hear the fireworks))

[backslash]

"Yeah. Wendy's. Let's rock." Angelo could have agreed to just about anything out of sheer relief. He wasn't sure what to do with Rebekah's phone number, but you know what, sure. He'd take it. Didn't hurt.

Angelo adjusted the strap of his archery bag once more to hike it further up on his shoulder where it had started to slip, and waved his other arm in the direction of the trail. "We can split it, how about that? Everyone pays for their own, all that good stuff."

It only occurred to him once they were already at the Wendy's that it might have plenty of ghosts too. Ah well.

((Angelo Lee continued elsewhere))