2017 Inklings Book Contest finalist: Carson Redifer
Today we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2017 finalist, Carson Redifer! Carson finished 7th grade this past school year. The story he submitted is called “The Strictly Forbidden Woods” We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did!
Leave a comment below on what you thought!
The Strictly Forbidden Woods
by Carson Redifer
Today was my special day. The day I’ve been looking forward to for so long. I was taking my best friend William with me to the strictly forbidden woods. At least that’s what my parents called the dark and brushy area beyond our property line.
What they didn’t know was that the strictly forbidden woods was my secret escape that allowed me to check out from reality and leave behind the pressures of homework and school. It was my escape to do and be who I wanted to be.
Today was special though. I decided to bring along my friend William and share what I discovered to be the most special place on the planet. We left early in the morning and headed straight to the woods. We had no time to waste because there was a lot of ground to cover and we had to do it before dinner.
As we made our way to the woods we veered off the beaten path to a slightly visible pathway that led to the secret hole in the brick wall that was covered in thick vines. The brick wall was taller than William and myself combined. I’m not exactly sure what it’s purpose was other than to keep people like us out.
What no other person knew is that beyond the hole in the brick wall was my secret treehouse. This is no ordinary treehouse, it’s actually made from the trees themselves. There are no wooden planks or nails holding this treehouse together but rather tree branches and leaves twisted and fused in such an unusual way that its contortions created a makeshift treehouse like no other.
As we approached the treehouse William’s eyes grew bigger and his draw dropped in astonishment. William craned his head so far back he stumbled backwards. We scaled up the tree trunk carefully. It wasn’t easy. We dug our fingernails into the tree bark for leverage as we hoisted ourselves up step by step. Once we got halfway up the tree we shimmied to the right jumping on the platform created from the trees. William was gasping deeply for air because the climb was so demanding. For me, it was just another climb up. I had been climbing this tree for at least a two years now.
As we stood in my treehouse, the only thing you could see was the tops of the trees and my house. I loved my house, it was a mansion built back in 1940 (almost 62 years ago). My great, great grandfather built it from the ground up.
I was happy William appreciated my treehouse. We arrived just in time to see the sun setting. William mumbled, “breathtaking.” He then slowly craned his neck to the right and noticed a gap in the tree canopy.
“Hey, what’s over there?” William asked.
“I don’t know. Want to check it out?” I asked.
“Why not? We’ve got two hours until dinner,” William said.
We scaled back down the tree. Well, I scaled down the tree. I can’t say much for William. He slid all the way down getting large slivers logged in his palms. You could hear him grimace and groan all the way down but he didn’t give in that he was afraid and somewhat nervous for what awaited us.
William had what I would call a not-so-smooth landing. The ground rumbled at my feet
when he hit the ground. He popped up, dusted himself off and we started our journey to the mysterious gap in the tree canopy. Funny though, in all the years I’ve been coming to my treehouse, I never noticed the gap. Did it just appear? Did I just not pay attention? Now I’m curious.
On our way there we kept noticing strange signs hidden in the leaves of the trees for three miles. Some signs said, BEWARE!, KEEP OUT!, COME IN AND PAY THE PRICE!, DEATH ROW! and IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE OTHER SIGNS, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY STUPID!
As we briskly walked and followed the signs we started to realize whoever owned this property did not want any company. Every step we took we scanned what was ahead of us and what we had just left behind. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. I knew William was nervous too.
“Hey, want to turn around? I’m getting the feeling that this isn’t a very nice place to be,” William said with a shaky voice.
“Nah, whoever lived in the woods before probably moved out long ago and never took down the signs,” I said.
We walked a bit further and I yelled, “Hey! What’s that over there?” I said, pointing forward. From what I could tell we finally made it to the gap in the trees.
“It looks like an old cabin made of wood..” William replied.
“Duh… Obviously it’s made of wood!” I said sarcastically. “Look, the door is wide open! Let’s go in. What the harm in that?”
“Go in or stay out?” I questioned.
“Stay out!” William yelled at me. I could tell now that he was scared out of his loafers.
“Too bad, we’re going in!” I said excitedly.
“Uuuuuugggghhhhhh!” William groaned.
As we carefully tiptoed in the cabin the floor creaked so loudly that we knew for sure someone would discover us.
It was dark and cold inside. Our eyes were slow to adjust to the darkness. We could feel the cold and the loneliness inside. Clearly it had not been inhabited for quite some time. We could make out the antique furniture and an old grandfather clock in the far right-hand corner. The windows were still there, but were boarded up. Every step we took we heard more glass breaking under our feet. As I looked at our feet, glass was shattered and strewn all throughout the floor and mixed with what looked like blood. It was so dark though, we weren’t sure if that was real or if our imaginations were just running wild, not to mention our adrenalin.
“DUDE!!! Check this out, quick!” William yelled from a room down the narrow, dark hallway.
“Coming!” I yelled back.
Once I got there, I noticed a little dim light pointing at the wall. As my eyes further adjusted I noticed what was on the wall. I was shocked in disbelief, took a step back, stumbled and fell to the floor with a loud thump! Whatever I did I knew that I caused a commotion.
“Dear God!” William said running to help me up. “Are you O.K?”
“No! We need to get out of here right now!” I screamed.
“Why?” William half asked and half demanded with a tone in his voice I had never heard before. I knew he was scared to death just like me.
“This place is bad news. I remember now. On the news five years ago I remember watching that a serial killer was on the loose. He killed thirty people. And to date the murderer has never been found. I have a sick sense we may be the next two victims,” I said panicking and breathing heavily.
“You picked a fine time to reminisce about the past! Hey, over there! A shadow!”
William pointed out.
“No, no, no, no!!!!!!!!” I yelled. “We are in deep, deep trouble! It’s him, it’s him! I know it!”
I yanked William out of that room as fast as I could and dragged him behind me as I ran down the hallway, out the door and into the woods. I kept running as fast as I could until I could find a tree to hide behind. Poor William, I literally dragged him by the collar the entire way.
“Ssshhhh.” I said quietly. “It was the murderer. I know it. I don’t think he saw the direction in which we ran. I only hope he can’t hear my heart pounding.”
Right after I whispered that, there was movement just beyond the bushes in front of the cabin. I could see the outline of a man dragging a deer and the sparkle of a butcher blade at least fifteen inches long. He swiftly turned in all directions clearly looking for William and I. You could tell he was irritated because we were no longer in direct sight. He turned again, walked back into the house and slammed the door.
With a heavy sigh and my heart still racing, I said, “That was too close! I think we need to stop at the police station tomorrow and tell them what we saw.
“Yeah,” William said. “Tomorrow for sure. Let’s hope we even get out of here tonight.”
“Hey, call your Mom and tell her you’re going to sleep at my house tonight. Ok?” I said.
“Ok!” William responded.
We slowly turned to walk back to my house. We did our absolute best not to have a heavy footprint with each step. As we walked back to my house not saying a word we both knew we stumbled upon something that just wasn’t right. Neither one of us spoke the entire way home. But deep down inside, I knew William and I would go back again.
“Hey boys! Where’ve you been?” My Mom asked.
“We were at a creepy old ca-” William started to say but I hit him in the arm.
Quickly I jumped in and said, “We went on a bike ride around town and went bowling. We’re exhausted and want to just go to my room.”
“Ok, you boys have fun. I’m making pizza for dinner,” my Mom said. “I’ll call you when it’s done.”
As we got into my room and shut the door behind us I said, “You almost busted us!”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to,” said William.
“It’s alright. We were both a bit rattled and caught off guard. Now let’s set-up.” I said.
After we got set up, we went downstairs and had dinner. We didn’t say much. We were both deep in thought as to what we saw and knew our curiosity would get the best of us. Deep down I knew we were going to go back.
After dinner while we were in my room we heard a loud crash and growling from the woods.
“What the heck was that!?” William said panicked as we both fought to peek our heads outside of my bedroom window.
In the far distance we saw a car lodged in a tree and on fire. After just a few seconds it exploded. It lit the sky up in a huge fireball.
“Should we check it out?” William asked.
“I think we should. Let’s gear up. My flashlights are in my closet and I’ll grab my backpack,” I said hastily.
After we got all geared up, we snuck down the back stairs so my Mom wouldn’t catch us. We slowly opened the backyard gate and headed for the strictly forbidden woods once again.
As we made our way, we followed the car tracks and beaten down brush. It led us to end where the car had crashed.
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph! There’s the car!” I exclaimed too loudly.
I could hear William gulp. “I don’t feel like dying today, dude, so like, let’s high-tail it out of here right now,” pleaded William.
“What’s the mat-” I tried to say but tripped over a rock. I was just about to land on the ground when William tripped on the same rock and fell on top of me.
At that moment, I saw the silhouette of a luminous figure about three yards away from us getting closer and closer. Then I saw the glint of the moonlight once again on the shiny butcher knife blade.
“RUNNNN!!!!!!” I yelled. “To the cabin, now!”
We ran and ran as fast as we could then just ahead we saw the cabin.
“We can make a trap in the entrance! It’s the safest way to go, if not, we’ll never see daylight again!” I yelled to William.
We barged through the front door and started pulling all of the antique furniture that was at arm’s length in front of the door to barricade us in. I remembered I had my backpack with my ten essentials, including my entrapment equipment. If there was any time for my Boy Scout skills to shine and pull me through this was as good of a time as ever.
As I took off my backpack to get out my entrapment supplies, William found a metal bucket with a brick inside. My supplies included a tripwire, a fishing line hook, a bungee cord, and a long thick rope. I put the bucket with the brick on the shelf above the entry door then I tied my fishing line hook to a tripwire and nailed it to the edges of the door frame. Fortunately a large entry rug was right where I needed it.
“Okay, here he comes. Remember, when he opens the door and the brick falls on his head and he falls on the ground, wrap the entry rug around him as fast as you can,” I said to William. Once you’ve got him folded up in the rug, I’ll tie the bungee cord and rope around him as tight as I can. Whatever you do, do not let go of him!”
As the man busted through the front door, the bucket fell releasing the brick which cracked him on the top of his head. He yelled out in pain and started to stagger throughout the room. Clearly, the brick did its job. It hit him with such a force that he lost his vision, fell and slipped into unconsciousness. He landed exactly where we needed him to, on the entry rug.
“Now!” I screamed as William and I jumped out of our hiding spot, wrapped him up in the rug and tied him up with the ropes. His body was motionless.
A few minutes later, we heard the sound of sirens closing in on us. Apparently the police had seen the plume of smoke and fire from the car crash. The police rushed the cabin and found William and I sitting atop the heaping rolled up entry rug.
We sat there motionless and speechless not sure what had truly just happened. The police hauled away the rug and took us down to the police station. It was the quietest 10 minute ride of my life. We knew we were in deep, deep trouble.
Once at the station William and I were put into separate rooms without windows, only a light, a table and two chairs. We were going to be interrogated.
As I suspected, we were both questioned by police and fortunately told the same story from when we first entered the secret hole in the brick wall.
Later that night, our Moms were allowed to come visit us at the police station. They were both teary-eyed but met us with open arms. We both received the hugs of our lives. We didn’t know at the time, but we single-handedly caught the murderer from years ago. We were heroes.
We both went home that night and laid on our beds not able to sleep. Unfortunately the next day was a school day. Heroes or not we still had to go to school.
As William and I met up in the school hallway just before lunch we were already scheming our next adventure to the strictly forbidden woods.
