Over the Hill and Through the Woods

Every year millions of people head into the wilderness searching for peace, beauty, and adventure. But hidden in those same scenic landscapes are stories of violence, survival, and lives cut short. I'm Dilya DeAmbra, and on my podcast, Park Predators, I uncover the true crimes that happened in the most amazing places on Earth. Listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, listeners. I have a story I want to tell you. There was this doctor over at St. Aigeris who would kill his patients. Oh, yes, it was, Mattness. Aren't you afraid the light take away the end? I'm sorry, I didn't listen to you! I'm a trampoline. I'm a trampoline. I'm a trampoline. I have to listen to you! That trampoline, I'm a moron of it. I snared, totally lost it. He had no idea what was on those tapes. It was like a song. All he had the outcast! So gather around, gather around, and around. And listen to this. Close. My beaten down forward slid off the side of the road. A web work of tree branches and great green fronds overtook the world. Obscuring the sky, obscuring the ground, obscuring everything in a shade of slime green that made me sick. Maybe that's why it felt like I was jammed in the middle of a spinach smoothie. Just waiting for unseen blades to chew my legs into a digestible sludge. I parked the car directly behind Brock's vehicle. And even more beaten down wreckage of deflating wheels and cracked windows and passenger doors held together with duct tape and loose screws. Firefighting didn't exactly pay the bills. It only made the news. I didn't get out yet. Instead, my eyes were performing their own version of jumping jacks. First, to Brock's car. Second, to the great green forest. Then back again to the abandoned vehicle. Car. Forest. Junker. Green. Green like swamp water. Back and forth, my eyes jumped until my head began to ache. Until the seconds and minutes and hours of the daylight became more important than ever. I didn't want to be in these woods after the lights were turned off, fighting through prickler bushes and reaching vines. For what felt like the hundredth time since leaving home some two hours before, I felt for Brock's letter. Crumpled into the center cup holder. By now, the note looked like it had survived a natural disaster. Lines, like a leftover earthquake, cut through the center of Brock's handwriting. Not that it really mattered anymore. I had memorized the message by the time I left our house and drove out to these distant woods. Mary. It's taken a while. But I'm finally writing back. After all those tears you left on my doorstep. I never meant to leave you like that. But I'm back, Mary. I'm here. And I think I can glue back the pieces. We can do it together. Mary. We can be together. But I need you to trust me. I need you to meet me. And I need you to bring some things. I'll attach the directions to the bottom of this letter. But first, I need you to grab. My eyes glazed over the rest of Brock's letter. The pure unfiltered insanity was never lost on me. Even if I could forget what he was asking for. Even if I wanted to pretend like our rendezvous wasn't in the middle of some great green jungle. How could I just brush aside Brock's own handwriting? Was it really him writing? Was it really him watching as I left all those tears on his doorstep? As I cried and cried on top of his grave? Brock's note crumpled in my hand before falling back down. You don't need proof to go searching for your husband. Your dead husband. Just how you don't need proof to know that you still loved them. I'm coming. I thought. Pushing open my card door and stepping out into the foreign oxygen. I'm coming. I'm damnit if I'm not scared but Brock, if you're out there, I'll bring you home. It was crazy. I know it. But even crazier was the thought of doing nothing. Now that I was separated from the safety of my car, the forest leaned closer. I expected the stretch of unmanned land to ripple with the sounds of meeting birds. Restless cicadas. The steady drone thrown from a congregation of dragonflies zipping from plant to plant. None of these sounds existed. A silent hush held sway over the trees. Something sinister lived on the other side of that great green fence. Something hungry and silent in the waiting fresh meat. Brock was out there. The abandoned car in front of mine doubled down on this point. Somehow Brock was back from the land of the dead and the damned and his junker, told with him. I thought back to when they lowered his casket. I never saw his body. Or what became of it after the fire. Just like how I never saw what became of his rusted truck. I did a lap around the car, which had been sold after the funeral some years prior. All of the doors were locked. Their handles warm from a sun which cared little for living or dead things. Hoking my face up to the driver's side window, I spied a number of empty soda bottles and napkins tossed on the floor. On both seats the upholstery was ripped to ribbons. Greyish fuzz bubbled out in many spots. The empty soda bottles looked as if they had grown greybeards. The steering wheel and gear stick were both covered in thick cobwebs. A meaty layer of dust stuck to the dash. I pulled my head away from this tomb with four spinning wheels. My sight set back on the forest. Only it does earn our so yards from where I stood. I took a few steps before I stopped looking back at both cars one final time. Safety and only a stones throw away waved at me from the roadside. It turned back around. A minute later, the great green forest sucked to me inside with a silent slur. Brock's letter directed me once I entered the woods to walk a distance of a few football fields. Yet in which direction did he mean? And how long was a football field? Not that I was here, I realized I should have dug up more research. But all I had on me was a cell phone without service and a bag of tools with the ingredients Brock had requested. Just what did I hope to accomplish out here anyway? Was I this desperate to believe a dead heart could somehow breathe? I tried finding a path or any semblance of human construction, but nothing looked concrete. Nothing. Not a fallen tree, nor trampled path gave any sort of direction. I was feeling more and more like a fool following a fool's errand. I searched straight ahead. Bushfran's ate at my ankles, twigs crunched and munched under my feet. In every direction the trees bade me forward with twisted wooden limbs. An unseen wind licked my face as if tasting fear for the first time. I'm coming, I thought. Surprised at how calm my inner voice sounded even while fear squeezed my throat. I'm coming, Brock, and I'm going to find you. The forest sucked me deeper inside. I walked for what felt like at least an hour. But my phone argued only 15 minutes had passed since I lost sight of the road. I paused at the base of a hill, feeling my heart kick and riot in its chamber of muscle. Sweat fell in a puddle at my feet and my breath snarled like a jungle cat's. Then a flash of silver caught my attention. I bent down, rubbing away dirt clumps from the face of something smooth. Suddenly, the metal artifact shone a dull blue. And then I saw the two of us. In the picture, Brock and I were at a county fair, standing before hay bales stacked like a skyscraper. I punched the six digit passcode. The phone gurgled and warns that another errant password would be grounds for the penalty box. Trying to steady my hands, a retyped Brock's pen. It had been over three years since entering the numbers. Though I somehow remembered the right combination on my second attempt. This time the screen melted. A red 2% symbol brooted at the top like a storm cloud. I clicked the messenger app. But there was nothing. Not even a single text. Toggling back to the home screen. My fingers hit the photos app. The red battery icon clapped to 1%. I'm not sure what I expected to uncover if anything at all. My brain, like my heart, slammed at its box of fibrous muscle, leaving very little space for coherent thought. There wasn't time to sit and ponder why. Or how Brock's phone had joined the party. There just wasn't time to think. My trio of galloping organs, the brain, and heart, and fingertips punched at the phone's gallery. Then, at the last photo snapped and saved to this failing piece of tech. I couldn't make sense of it. Not because the picture was blurry. Nor due to poor lighting. Nor the wild grip handling the camera. I could have made sense of it. Because rational thought wouldn't hold up in court. The photo showed my beaten down Ford. Saddled behind Brock's own junker. A great green forest hugged the frame. And there I was, standing on the edge of the road, staring into the lens. Me is if I were center stage in a play I didn't know the lines too. Like a wrathful god. The 1% battery snapped to zero. The image of me by the roadside. A picture captured no more than half an hour ago. Cut to black. I dropped the phone. This forest. These trees. This world of shadows and dim light. None of it seemed natural. Darkness acted as a curtain. My iPhone swore the time to be a handful of minutes past noon. Yet this woodland promised a dark age. I began to think the stretch of green forest was green. Not due to chlorophyll and science. But aged skin and fermented caskets. That whatever walked amongst these woods walked without lungs. Or an oxygen mask. For the first time I actively considered turning around. Just forget about Brock and his lich. Love letter. I didn't leave though. Instead, I adjusted the backpack slung on my shoulders. And began the hike up. Over the hill. Why? Because I think we hunt for answers even when we know the truth can kill. Because even if it kills a part of you. The best part of you. That's just being human. The hilltop blossomed nearer and nearer. Fear groped at my body. Sticky sweat trailed down the nape of my neck like an unseen tongue. I crested the slope. Arriving at the cabin. In his note, Brock didn't describe the cabin. Only where to find it. This was it. No bigger than a double wide trailer. The single story hovel leaned suspiciously to its left. Its weight groaned against gravity. And you had to wonder if one mighty push of wind would shatter the home into sticks and stones and broken bones. Unlike the rest of the forest, this patch of hill was barren of any tree or bushy fern. Perhaps the owner of the leaning house feared even a single shadow might crush his home. A trail of oddly shaped footprints led straight for the front door. It stood open. Expectant. I considered calling out for Brock. Then thought the urge. Something about the footprints caught my tongue. The footprints were more pointed and flat. Almost. Both like. Unreality never felt greater than when standing outside that cabin. Behind the door. I thought I felt eyes greedily ravaged my entire body. Silence throbbed. I approached the home where a fat wooden door hung open. I didn't bother hiding my footsteps. Dirt crunched like a chewing mouth. Grass snapped under my feet. I was usually found at the bottom of a beer-stein. Stole over me. I didn't care what happened any longer. I only wanted to reach the end of this woodland scavenger hunt and hope that the treasure left for me was still my husband. I took one step into the open doorway. Immediately I swung back around choking down air. An inhuman stench, festored from within the cabin. Holding my breath, I attempted a second dive. It felt as if even my eyeballs could smell the decay. I walked down a hallway, barren of any furniture. The trees outside framed the walls. Framed the ceiling. Framed the floor. Dark, stained wood and the smell of rotting carry on. That's what held this cabin together. The hallway fed into a wide living area. There was a single cot stuffed in one corner. The swath of mismatched tables clustered the room. A number of faded and cracked windows led in the sun. Though I almost wish they hadn't. A collection of stiff, dried animals sat glazed on each of the tables. A raccoon missing its golden eyes. A brown bear with most of its fur hacked off. A male deer without any of its skin. And a female doe without a snout to sniff oncoming danger. Dozens of bird species missing beak, missing a wing, missing a heartbeat. A pot-belly pig. It's hoofs sticking straight into the air. Stiff and lifeless. Plump belly. Dicecated open to showcase a mass of intestines and oozing organs. There were more woodland carcasses stacked against the walls. Gobs of yellowing teeth stuck to the floor like peanut shells. The air in Missourone made a slaughterhouse. Seems sterile. And Brock lay on the single cot. Stuffed in one corner. He stared at me with rodent eyes. Bright gold things like leprechaun coins. A black snout creamed from his face. Jagged, mismatching teeth leared from a mouth wrinkled with bits of animal fur. His skin was a dull, leathery shade with green slashes of yarn tying each piece together. Brock. Brock. Is that you? I said the words without any control were feeling on my lips. I couldn't believe it was really him. My Brock. Alive and kicking cemetery gravel from out his shoes. The moved toward. Brock. Intending to embrace the man who had once upon a time dedicated his life to fighting fires. Heroes deserved their flowers. Not just on their gravestone. And even if he was half beast, he was still half Brock. It had to mean something. Right? It moved closer. And as I did, he began to change. It looked as if wires breathed under his animal skin. Long elastic tubes raised across Brock's face. More elongated strands blossomed on his hands and wrists. Something alive. Something shaped like electrical lines crawled beneath his skin. Pain must have fizzled through his reconfigured body. He ricocheted against the cot, thrashing and beating his hands on all parts of his borrowed skin. His nails dug like mad into the meaty underbelly of a forearm. He scratched harder. One nail slicing a slip through the height. The host of red coated worms fell from the open wound and onto the cot. More wriggled from the bleeding hole in Brock's forearm. The room was alive with the sound of slippery skin and pooling purple blood. Brock's eyes jumped to mine. Then to the backpack, hanging from my side like a forgotten gun in the midst of a shooting gallery. He opened his mouth, perhaps to shout and demand its contents. Instead, an army of beetles and pestilists flooded his tongue. A bircy crawler latched onto his lower lip dangling like a piercing. He continued to vomit insects from a throat clogged with wings. His nose and oozing black honeycomb. You know that feeling when time slows and slows and nearly stops. When it seems like the world is suspended in a pink sticky solution. A cough syrup slowness. That's how it was flinging the backpack onto the ground. Sticky time made it nearly impossible to unzip the bag. Cough syrup slowness held my hand as it plunged into the open sack. Then pulled back out slowly, so down slowly to unfurl an AED machine. Ready to kickstart a lifeless heart. Nervously, I shuffled forward. But Brock hammered his fist, then caught another cloud of gnats toward the foul upturn pick. Standing this close, you could see a delicate surgery had taken place. Should of sat now lay an empty nest of frizzled muscle. The organ lay next to a number of pinkish stained surgical tools. Without thinking, I reached for the heart. My hands growing slimy, purple, and wet. The Brock thing on the cot became quiet. Sticky time made it nearly impossible to unzip the bag. I was so excited to see the heart of insects and blood-soaked worms huddled around his body. Suckled at the exposed bits of his leathery skin, there was a smell to the place like a summer meat market. I held the heart in my hands, feeling how it was still warm. I saw the inside, with a grimace that showed all of his broken fangs. Brock gestured, sneering toward the surgical tray. Suddenly, the cabin had converted into a transplant center. And I was asked to play the role of honorary surgeon. I paused, and purple, glue dribbled between my fingers. None of this was natural. Of course not. So what the hell was I doing? You weren't really him. I whispered, more to myself than the things warming with infection. Brock, my Brock wasn't afraid to die. I can't help you. I'm sorry, I can't. I dropped the heart. It's hands tried feebly to reach, while tearing at its midsection. As if hoping it could stitch some of its humanity back inside. Those wasted arms of his wobbled two or three times before twitching, limping and falling down. I stepped away from the bed, away from this room spoiled in death, away from those sunsour eyes still shining and bright. I continued backpedaling, even as the dirt outside crunched beneath my feet, and as the air no longer tasted of leprosy. It felt like I walked backwards all the way down the hill, through the great green forest. Back, back, back, until I finally bumped against the back of my beaten down car. It wasn't until I was speeding a mile down the road that I stopped looking back, and started looking forward. It's been over a month now. No other male addressed from dead men has shown up in my postbox. Thankfully, I've asked the postman to stop leaving any pamphlets from grocery stores, especially for sales on meat. Bacon just doesn't taste the same anymore. I thought all of this was over and put to rest, but then they stumbled onto your website today. I read about the miraculous letter you received from a wife who's been dead for the better part of ten years. I read about your GoFundMe page and how you're hoping to gather enough money to make the journey. Halfway across the world to a forest I once visited to, a great green forest with a cabin tucked deep in its belly like a cancerous tumor. And I know I can't convince you to drop this fantasy. Lengths of broken heart will go to an order to regrow, to recover. Even if you believed half my story, I don't think it would dissuade you. Because the dead speak in a language we can't resist. Because even a wife that is half human is better than a wife that is fully green with tree algae. At least that's what we tell ourselves at night when the bed pillow next to us grows cold with loneliness. But there's no hope hiding inside those woods. Only the sharp smell of death. That's what I need you to believe. All the animal hides and pig organs in the world won't bring back the one you love most. You can't skin and sow a mangled heart back from the grave. But you won't believe me. I know this because I'm alive and living. And only the dead speak in words we understand. Only the dead whisper stories we care for. Why do you think funeral services claim such an awesome turnout? We're drawn to the siren song of the dead and damned. So I'll wait here and my busted down ford each morning if I have to. I'll sit in front of this great green forest anticipating your arrival. Praying I can convince you in person what I'm failing to do online. Stay away from here. Please leave a dead silent heart alone for God's sake. Be human. Please. Full Body Chills is an audio chuck production. This episode was written by Joshua Bates and read by Jenna Pinchback. This story was modified slightly for audio retelling, but you can find the original in full on our website. I think chuck would approve. Everyone's told a lie, but what happens when one lie becomes a life, a movement, a conspiracy? I'm Josh Dean, host of Camillean, and I uncover true stories of deception scams so intimate and convincing they fooled the people closest to them. These are strangers, they're lovers, friends, and trusted allies. Because the most dangerous cons don't feel like crimes, they feel personal. Listen to Camillean wherever you get your podcasts.