Dead Tree Forest (3 page)

Ray let go of the rope and told Chris to sit down. Chris sat, and Ray shrugged off his rucksack and then opened the Esky. “Beer or Mother?” he asked Brian.

“Mother, then beer,” he panted, and collapsed to the ground.

“We haven’t got a lot of drink,” Ray said, “Aside from your can of Mother, we have only a six pack of beer, a few bottles of Coke and some bottles of water.”

“And your point is?” Brian said, lying on his back.

“There’s still a long way to go before we get to the lake. And then we have to get all the way back to the van. You might want to go easy on the liquid.”

“Okay, point taken. Give me the Mother.”

“Nathan?”

“Hmmm? Oh, a Coke.”

Ray tossed the drinks to Brian and Nathan, followed by two chicken rolls. Then he sat on the grass with a can of Coke and a ham and salad roll.

He had taken a few bites of the roll, taken a few slurps of the drink, when he noticed Chris staring at him. “You hungry? Thirsty?”

Chris nodded.

“Sorry, you’ll get some food and drink once we’ve found the lake. That’s the deal.”

Chris shut his eyes and turned away.

Ray saw Brian grin; Nathan was staring at the ground, vacantly picking at blades of grass while he ate his lunch. “Hey Brian, pass me your lighter,” Nathan said.

“Why? So you can flick the flame on and off like you always do?”

Nathan shrugged. “Yeah.”

Brian sighed and with a shake of his head, pulled out his lighter. “You can have it until we’ve finished eating, or until I crave a smoke; whichever happens first. I don’t want it to run out of lighter fluid—I didn’t bring another lighter or any matches.” He tossed the lighter to his brother.

Ray thought,
Weird fuckin’ kid
, and continued eating.

* * *

“Okay, we all done?” Ray asked as he tossed his empty Coke can to the grass.

Brian flicked a half-smoked cigarette to the ground, then got to his feet; Nathan also stood up and stamped out the small fire he had lit on a dry patch of grass and had been watching trance-like for the past ten minutes while he finished his lunch.

“Okay, up you get,” Ray said and tugged on the rope.

Chris was pulled to his feet.

Brian belched. “That hit the spot,” he said, grinning lazily. “All that walking really gave me an appetite. How ‘bout you, Abo, I bet you’re hungry?”

“No,” Chris said softly.

“Maybe he had some of them witchetty grubs while we weren’t looking,” Nathan said, snorting with laughter.

Chris closed his eyes and started speaking quietly.

“What are you saying?” Ray said.

Chris continued muttering to himself as a tear slid down his cheek.

“What the fuck are you mumbling about?” Brian said and stepping forward, he punched Chris in the face.

Chris grunted. Another tear slithered down his cheek, under his chin and down his sweaty neck. He swallowed. “I don’t want to continue. I don’t want to go to the forest,” he said. “It’s a bad place. I have a bad feeling.”

“Here we go again,” Brian said. “You’re fucking going whether you want to or not.”

“I want to get as much walking done before it gets dark,” Ray said. “So come on guys, put on your packs and let’s haul arse.”

While Ray slipped on his rucksack, Brian and Nathan struggled with theirs.

“I tell ya, I’m gonna get mighty sick of this thing before the trip’s over,” Brian muttered.

Once they were all ready, Ray said to Chris, “Okay, lead the way.”

Chris didn’t move.

“I said get going. Take us to the forest. You said it was close.”

“It is close,” Chris said. “I can feel its pain.”

“Then get moving.”

“No,” Chris said.

“The fuck you mean, no?” Brian said. “Want us to cut off your balls, Abo?”

“Don’t make this hard on yourself,” Ray said. “Just do as we say, and you won’t get hurt.”

Chris laughed. “I’ll get hurt if I
do
do as you say. You all will. It doesn’t matter if you kill me—we’re all going to die anyway if we go into
Boolool Kiambram.
”

“Into what?”

“It’s the Aboriginal name for Dead Tree Forest,” Ray said. To Chris, he said: “I’ll be forced to drag you by your wrists if you don’t start walking. You’re going in there no matter what, so it’s your choice. What’ll it be?”

Chris shivered, glanced at Ray with fearful eyes, and then started walking.

“That’s more like it,” Brian said, and they all continued through the field.

They trekked through the lush open field for about ten minutes. Bell birds sung their sweet song, the wind whistled through the leaves of the surrounding woods.

Then, all at once, the world fell quiet. It was like a “mute” button had been pressed on the mountain.

Ray noticed it; Chris did too—he started looking around at the woods, grave fear etched on his face.

Nathan and Brian seemed unaware of the sudden absence of noise.

Then, rounding a bend, they saw it.

They stopped and stared at the hideous visage before them.

Brian spoke first. “Ugly fuckin’ forest.”

Ray swallowed, felt his gut tighten and his balls shrivel. “I’ll say.”

He had thought maybe the “dead tree” part was an exaggeration; that some of the trees in the forest simply weren’t as healthy as the rest. But the name was as accurate as anything Ray had ever known. Darkness hovered over the forest and radiated from its bowels like a thick black soup. But it was the trees that really gave Ray the creeps—and he didn’t unsettle easily. With their grey trunks and leafless branches, the trees looked like rows of skeletal soldiers guarding a shadowy castle.

“I’m guessing this is Dead Tree Forest,” Brian said, chuckling, but there was an underlying unease that was uncommon for Brian.

“Maybe it is haunted,” Nathan said, voice flat.

Brian turned to his brother, tattooed hands on skinny hips. “Fuckin’ creepy, yes; fuckin’ haunted, now that’s kid’s stuff.”

“Well then how do you explain all them dead trees?” Nathan asked.

There was no snideness behind Nathan’s comment; it was an innocent and perfectly reasonable question. The same question sprung to Ray’s mind, but he decided it was best not to think about the why—he just needed to concentrate on getting what he had come here for.

“Bad soil,” Brian said, and despite the fact they were surrounded by lush mountain greenery, it seemed as good an explanation as any.

“Whatever the reason, we’re going in,” Ray said, and started forward.

Chris held steady.

He was a wiry fellow, slight of build, but he was strong, determined.

Ray turned around. “Come on, don’t make it hard on yourself.” Ray saw the absolute fear radiating from Chris’s wide stare, and it unnerved him.

Brian, just about to enter the forest, stopped and looked back. “What are you afraid of? There’s nothing in there but wood and dirt.”

Chris’s chest heaved like a Li-Lo being continually inflated and deflated. “We go in, we’re never coming out.”

Brian cackled. It was a harsh sound—a ruined laugh caused by too much cigarette smoke and booze. “You’re a riot, you know that?”

“You don’t understand,” Chris said.

“I understand all right. It’s all bullshit. Tell me, have you ever been in this forest?”

Chris, already looking defeated, bowed his head and shook it gently.

“Have you ever
seen
anyone go into this forest?”

Another shake.

“Then how the fuck do you know it’s haunted? What is it you people say about a tree falling in the woods? Something about it not making a sound?”

“That’s Zen,” Ray said. “And it doesn’t matter, because we’re going in, haunted or not.”

“You don’t believe…?”

“I believe in going and getting what we came for. Now everyone stay close. We don’t wanna have to waste time searching for someone just because they’re too stupid to keep up with the group.”

“He means you, Nathan,” Brian said.

Ray continued forward, pulling on the rope with all his considerable strength.

Chris practically leapt forward. He stumbled and was only barely able to remain on his feet.

Brian followed.

Nathan trailed, hunched over from the weight of his rucksack.

When Ray stepped into the dark wasteland, it was like stepping through the doorway into another world.

The temperature immediately dropped about ten degrees and the breeze ceased, like it had been switched off. And though it was a clear day, hardly any sunlight penetrated the forest.

“Christ it’s cold in here,” Brian said. “And it stinks.”

There was an unpleasant stench in the air—like dampness and mould, coupled with something unidentifiable.

The forest was made up of a seemingly endless sea of tall straight trees; Ray figured mostly pines, due to the scaly bark on the trunks. However, there was no green in sight. It was like all pine needles and leaves had been stripped off, leaving only naked branches behind.

The forest floor was also devoid of life and colour. What should’ve been a carpet of bushes, ferns and moss-covered rocks was just flat colourless black earth with the occasional bare boulder.

No wonder it’s called Dead Tree Forest
, Ray thought.

“So,” Brian said, walking beside Ray. “Do you know how to get to the lake?”

Brian’s voice sounded flat, dead; there was no echo.

“No,” Ray said, noting how his own voice died the moment it passed by his lips. “I don’t.”

“Great, that’s just great,” Brian said. “How ‘bout you, Abo? Do you know?”

“No,” Chris said.

Brian laughed; its deadness was eerie. “Well does anyone know how big this fuckin’ forest is? I mean, we could be walking around here for days, weeks even, and never find the lake.”

“We’ll find it,” Ray said.

“How?”

Ray didn’t have an answer. How could he expect Brian to understand that it was imperative they find the lake; that he had a gut feeling they would be led to it? That somehow, he knew they would find it?

“I dunno,” Ray said. “But we’ll find it.”

“Well I say if we don’t find the lake by this time tomorrow, we turn around and get the fuck outta here.” Brian frowned, and it creased his face like a shirt in desperate need of an iron. “Say, how will we even get back?”

Ray sighed. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we ain’t exactly following a trail here, and last time I checked none of us were leaving bread crumbs. So...how will we find our way out?”

Ray gritted his teeth. He wanted Brian to shut up, to stop pummelling him with all these questions. He couldn’t think about the answers to such questions right now—all he was concerned about was getting to the lake and retrieving the treasure that lay buried within its waters. Once he had achieved that, then he’d worry about getting back.

“We’ll worry about that when we need to,” Ray said. “For now, let’s just try and find the lake.”

“Fuck that,” Brian huffed. “I wanna know how we plan on getting outta here. Shit, I’m beginning to regret coming on this trip.”

“So then why did you?” Ray said.

“You promised me treasure. Untold riches, you said. Well fuck, how could I say no to that?”

“You didn’t,” Ray reminded him.

“Yeah, well, I assumed whichever Abo we got would know all about how to get to the lake and back.”

“You know what they say about assuming,” Nathan said from behind.

“Nathan, shut the fuck up or else,” Brian growled. To Ray: “But you had to go and get us a nig-nog that doesn’t know his arsehole from his mouth.”

“No Aborigine knows this forest,” Chris said solemnly. “They know about it, how to get here, but nobody has been in the forest itself—at least, none that have come out alive. What did you expect? A tour guide?”

Brian stopped.

Ray stopped too, followed by Chris and Nathan.

“What is it?” Ray said.

“I don’t know man, I’ve suddenly got a bad feeling about this,” Brian said.

“It’s this forest,” Chris said. “You can feel Ginnumarra’s pain.”

“No, it’s called being worried about getting lost in this fuckin’ forest,” Brian said, eyeing Chris. “Are you sure you don’t know how to get to the lake?”

Chris nodded.

“Look, don’t worry about getting lost, okay?” Ray said. “We’ll be fine.”

Brian dug into his pocket and pulled out his Nokia. He flipped it open. Grimaced. “Just as I expected, no coverage.” He folded the phone and stuck it back into his pocket.

“This forest isn’t supposed to be all that large,” Ray lied. “Hell, we may even reach the lake before it gets dark.”

The truth was, nobody knew exactly how big this forest was. No one had ever surveyed the area. All Ray knew about this forest came from the accounts written by the British settlers back in the nineteenth century, and they all talked about huge stretches of forest that took days to ride through. Of course, he couldn’t tell Brian this. He just hoped Chris kept his mouth shut.

“You think we’ll get to the lake by nightfall?” Brian asked.

“It’s possible.”

Brian sighed. “Christ, this treasure better be worth it.”

“It will be,” Ray said. “It will be.”

They continued walking. As they wound through the maze of trees, it seemed to Ray that the deeper in they went, the more drained of life the trees appeared to be, their bark pale and withered. Compared with these, the trees on the edge of the forest were bursting with life.

Creepy forest
, Ray thought.
Chris was right—there is a bad feeling in here. But I have to do this; I have to get that amulet
.

His mind turned again to his wife and kids; in particular Gemma and how she had looked when he left home yesterday morning—pale and sad. He thought about what was supposed to be lying at the bottom of the lake; how, if the legends were true, it could be her salvation. It would be the treasure of all treasures.

It could also be all bullshit and then this trip would be for nothing.

Chris seemed to think the stories about why the forest was cursed and, more importantly, about the girl and the treasure she had taken with her to her watery grave were true.