The Forest Under The Veil.
Short Story : The Forest Under The Veil.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ( Horror Story)
By Debopam Rai Chaudhuri . All Copyright Reserved 2019
I enlisted in the army in 1983, I am now retired, but in the
almost 30 years that I was active I learned several things, for example, if you
think that there are no secret facilities here in our country, you are wrong.
Clearly I cannot reveal exact locations, but I can tell you
that criminal organizations are not the only ones using the forested areas to
carry out certain operations out of the public eye.
Don't think that these are complex secret facilities where
large projects are carried out. These bases, which are also in cities, serve
more than anything as headquarters for intelligence personnel.
On some occasions, the secret service has sheltered
high-ranking officials there when truly dangerous situations have arisen.
One peculiar thing that happens when one is assigned to
guard the perimeter of the bases is that encounters with certain beings tend to
occur.
The vast majority of the times they were unimportant
encounters, but there was one base in particular where the encounters were more
significant and even dangerous at times.
This base is located near the point where three states meet.
Well, back then everything related to the base in question
was coordinated by an Operations Lieutenant.
I still remember the first time I went to the site. It is
not easy to access the site, I can assure you that, and all the equipment and
weapons we carried made it even more complicated, plus we went around in
circles unnecessarily.
I had no idea where we were going or why. On that occasion,
a friend who had been there before told me to be very careful with things. I
told him that wild animals didn't scare me. He looked at me very seriously and
explained that it wasn't the animals I had to be careful of.
I didn't have any strange encounters that time. In the
following months, all the commanders at the barracks were very hard on me, it
was as if they wanted me to quit.
Well, the second time I had to go to that base we traveled
by helicopter, and that's when I understood one thing: there's no need to get
there on foot, but they do it every time a new asset has to visit the place for
the first time, and they go around in circles so that it's not easy for him to
get there on his own, in case he were to desert.
That's why they grab you by the chin before taking you a
second time.
In short, the operation is always the same, as soon as we
arrive at the checkpoint one man stays at the entrance and the rest of us
deploy 3 perimeters around the base, the first is 200 meters away, the second
is 1 kilometer away, and the third is 2 kilometers away.
There are 27 men in total who must ensure that nothing and
no one gets close to the base. Twelve are on the outer perimeter, well, the
outer perimeter is always on the move, each man maintains a distance between
himself of more than 150 meters and less than 200.
One of the times I was on the outer perimeter I had my first
encounter with something strange.
I was just about to take my position on the perimeter when I
passed by a fallen tree trunk when I noticed that there were some rather large
stones arranged in such a way that they made an almost perfect circle and in
the center there were pieces of bark and branches from the tree that was lying
down, and that was arranged in the shape of a small hut.
I stopped for a couple of seconds to look at it carefully,
then, without further ado, I continued on my way.
Another day, when I was assigned to the central perimeter,
the one that is one kilometer away, I was walking calmly through the area that
I have to cover, which is 50 square meters, when I noticed that something was
hiding among the trees.
I couldn't see him, but I could hear him, they were
footsteps. After taking the safety off my gun, I stayed still to hear better
and thus avoid unpleasant surprises.
And, after hearing a branch snap, I immediately pointed in
one direction. There was a person, or at least something very human-like,
hiding in a trunk, watching me closely.
could only see its face, it didn't seem to be very tall.
After a few seconds it stopped showing, I slowly approached ready to shoot.
When I was a few meters away a white bird flew out from behind the tree.
That shocked me. Back at base, I told my comrade about my
experience. He told me that it was one of those things that I had to be careful
of, that they seemed not to be dangerous, but if you were careless you could
suffer a brutal attack, and you might not live to tell the tale.
I asked him what those things were, he didn't know, in fact,
he said that nobody knew, that those who had seen them nicknamed them the
forest people.
I also told him about the strange hut I had found last time,
he told me that those things lived inside those huts.
I immediately thought of witches and told him so, but he
replied that it was something different, of a different nature.
That year I had to go to the base about 9 times in total, at
least 6 times I heard or saw something strange, probably related to the forest
people.
The funny thing is that nobody talks about this, not even
among ourselves. Nobody tells us that we can't talk about it. At least nobody
forbade me from doing so, which is why I agreed to tell my experiences.
But when someone tries to bring up the subject during a meal
or at any other time, it can feel like the atmosphere gets tense and no one
wants to continue the conversation, it's as if we want to pretend that nothing
strange happens in the forest.
The most that happens is that when someone says, hey, I saw
this or heard that, they respond, oh, me too. But that's all, there's no
exchange of opinions.
Later on I heard a kind of laughter many times, maybe
crying, I'm not sure, it sounded similar to a hyena, but as far as I know there
are no hyenas in that area, not even a joke.
So what I was hearing was the people in the forest. Every
now and then I would ask a friend if they had also heard the laughter, and
almost all of them said yes.
On one occasion when we went on foot, and someone was going
for the first time, we came across a rather disturbing scene.
At the foot of a tree were the remains of what had possibly
been a campfire, there were remains of clothing here and there, but what was
most striking were the chains that were around the tree.
It was easy to assume that a person, the owner of the
clothes that were lying around, had been chained to that tree, clearly not of
his own free will. Surely the people of the forest were behind it.
Fortunately I never suffered any attack, but a comrade did,
I know, because another one and I had to go look for him when he stopped
answering the radio.
We found him lying there, knocked out, it looked like he had
been hit with a stone or something. He had a terrible fracture in his
cheekbone, a piece of bone had even gone through his cheek.
He was taken by helicopter to treat his wounds, but luckily
nothing serious happened. Talking to him, he told us that the last thing he
remembers is that he heard a strange laugh and when he turned around there was
a person watching him from behind a tree trunk, and then he doesn't know what
happened.
When one thinks of forests inhabited by strange beings, the first thing that usually comes to mind is other countries, but here some of the forests serve as homes for very mysterious beings.
Copyright © 2019 Debopam Rai Chaudhuri
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, or stored in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or any other method, without the express written consent of the author. This includes, but is not limited to, publishing in any format (print or digital), translation into any language, adaptation, or any other form of distribution.
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