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“Nope. That was my first guess, but then I noticed something on the map.” He pointed to a spot on the map a mile or so from where they were and then continued. “See this little marshy area? I bet that has something to do with it.”

He didn’t say anything more after that, and simply looked at the two women with an enigmatic grin. Caitlin rolled her eyes, and sipped on a bottle of water.

“I assume you’ll tell us more later.”

“Sure. But not yet,” he said.

An hour later, night had fallen, and the only light in the area was the warm, flickering flames of the campfire. Caitlin had bought marshmallows to toast, and Erin declined when she was offered one.
Last thing my diet needs is more sugar,
she thought, pursing her lips and watch
ing enviously as Caitlin shovel
ed more and more down her throat.

Out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly saw a light hovering in the sky, and her head jerked over to the east.

“Hey, Craig! We’ve got a ghost light!”

Craig immediately turned one of the cameras on and started filming the orb as it flickered over the trees in the distance. It was an odd bluish-purple color, and it moved slowly around in the night sky as the three colleagues rushed towards it, making sure they took the map and several flashlights with them.

“Where exactly are we going?” Erin asked, panting and trying to catch her breath as they hurried east.

“The marsh. It’s only about a mile away,” Craig replied.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the marsh, and Craig kneeled down beside the water and took a sample of it, along with some nearby mud.

“Okay, here’s my theory,” he said. “Very basically, it’s thought that ghost lights can be caused by the decay of organic materials in rivers and marshlands. I’m going to get these samples tested, and I’m willing to bet that’s what’s causing it.”

“How does that work?” asked Caitlin.

“Well, when it decays, it releases certain gases into the air, causing photon emissions, and that’s what produces the strange lights. Pretty cool, huh?”

Erin nodded as he explained it, wishing she had thought of it as a possible explanation. She had read about gases causing ghost lights years ago, but it hadn’t occurred to her in this case at all.

After filming the light for a while longer, they trudged back to their campsite and talked for a while before stamping out the fire and getting into their sleeping bags. Even as she snuggled up into hers, Erin still felt the chill of the night air, and goose bumps prickled over her skin as she rubbed her hands up and down her legs and arms, trying to keep warm.

The three of them were all sleeping in the one tent; none of them minded sharing. As her eyes closed and her mind drifted off to sleep, she was rudely awoken by Craig prodding her and whispering into her ear.

“Erin! Wake up! What the hell is that sound?”

She rubbed her eyes and sat up, and saw Craig crouched over her. Even in the dim light, she could see that his face was pale, and his forehead was lined with concern.

“What sound?” she mumbled, cocking her head to the side.

A second later, she heard it, and a chill shot down her spine as adrenaline suddenly surged through her veins, making her heart thump loudly in her chest like the fluttering wings of a trapped bird. A baby or small child was giggling not far in the distance, and her stomach lurched as her eyes met Craig’s panicked gaze again.

“Oh, shit,” she whispered. “The giggling children the Sheriff mentioned. What the hell could it be?”

“I don’t know,” he replied before gently prodding Caitlin. “Hey, Caity, wake up… quick.”

Caitlin sat up, and just as she did, all three of them heard the giggling sound, louder this time. Erin’s heart was beating so fast that she was sure it would explode out of her chest, and a second later Caitlin started to laugh.

“What’s wrong with you?” Erin hissed. “This isn’t funny.”

“Yes it is! You should see your faces right now. Oh, man… it’s hilarious,” Caitlin replied. “Listen to it again. Properly this time.”

The giggling sounded again a moment later, and Erin didn’t know what she was meant to be listening for. Caitlin sighed and pulled herself out of her sleeping bag, unzipped the tent and then beckoned the other two to follow her.

“I’m not going out there,” Craig said.

Caitlin laughed again. “Come on! I promise it’s nothing. Just follow me.”

She leaned down and grabbed a flashlight, and then led Erin and Craig towards the nearby stream before heading north alongside it. As they got closer and closer to where the waterfalls were supposed to be, the giggling subsided and became more of a gurgling sound.

“See? It’s just the water gurgling up ahead,” Caitlin said. “Apophenia. Or more specifically, pareidolia.”

“Apo-what now?” Erin asked.

“Apophenia is when our brains make patterns in data that is meaningless or random. Pareidolia is a form of apophenia where our brains see or hear something that isn’t actually there because of its insistence on creating patterns. You hear the stream gurgling, and you don’t know what it is, so your brain tries to make sense of it. And you end up thinking you are hearing something else that isn’t there.”

Caitlin paused and cleared her throat before continuing.

“Like when you think you hear the phone ringing when you are showering. The sound of the running water produces a particular background pattern which makes your brain perceive a ringing sound. In this case, the gurgling water made you think it was laughing children.”

“I suppose us already having been told that we might hear giggling children probably made it even worse,” Erin mused as her heart returned to its normal pace.

“Yep, that’s exactly right. Kinda like when you tell someone to listen for something, and then they think they really do hear it, only because they’ve been told to.”

Feeling much better now that they knew they weren’t in the midst of a real-life horror film, the group went back to the tent and got back into their sleeping bags. While Erin was no longer afraid, the nervous tension and adrenaline that had flooded through her veins had awoken something else deep inside of her; a desperate, longing urge to feel the touch of a man.

It had been almost a year since her last relationship had ended, and she hadn’t been able to find anyone since, not even for a one night stand like Caitlin so often managed to get away with. She often felt that it was her own fault for not being skinny or pretty enough to attract a man, but deep down she knew it was because she was simply lacking in confidence.
If I just knew a man was actually into me, I swear I would act differently around him. But how am I supposed to know? I can’t interpret all their signals.

As she reflected upon how long she gone without being with someone, the adrenaline in her veins gave way to a pulsing warmth which surged through her, filling her core with heated, swollen desire. She desperately wanted to touch herself, but she didn’t dare. Her friends were right next to her, and she couldn’t masturbate next to them… could she?

Tilting her head to the side, she saw Caitlin’s chest rising and falling with slow, heavy breaths, and from the other side of the tent she heard Craig already snoring. Figuring that they wouldn’t hear as long as she kept quiet, she couldn’t resist any longer, and her hands slid down over her belly and into the warm tracksuit pants she had chosen to wear to sleep.

Letting out an almost-inaudible sigh as her fingers delved between her soft pink folds, she closed her eyes and located the sensitive nub of her clitoris, stroking and rubbing ever-so-gently as more and more heat rushed through her. She had been freezing earlier, but now she was almost sweating as she played in the valley between her legs, and she inhaled deeply as she threw her head back, almost unable to wait for the relief she was seeking.

Her finger danced on her clitoris, drawing delicate little patterns over and around it that soon became faster and more urgent, and her stomach fluttered as her mind clouded with images of a faceless man with hard muscles and a thick cock, pinning her down and thrusting into her.

As she increased the pressure on her clitoris, the man in her imagination suddenly made a sound, and she realised he was no longer faceless. It was Scott, the Deputy from earlier, and in her mind’s eye, he was sweating and letting out guttural moans and pants as he moved against her.

Her body responded powerfully to the imagery, and jolts of electricity surged from the top of her spine all the way down to her lower lips. Biting her lip to stop herself from moaning and waking Caitlin and Craig, she arched her back and rubbed harder and faster.

Warm spirals of pleasure began to soar through her core as she continued to tease herself, and all of the nervous tension from the earlier scare started to melt away as she thrust her hips up into her hand. Sliding one hand further down between her thighs, she dipped a finger inside herself, delving deeply inside her tightness and biting her lip again as she felt how utterly aroused she was.

Slick warmth coated her finger as she slid it in and out, slowly but surely as she built up to a crescendo with the fingertip that was still dancing on her clitoris, and she no longer worried if anyone heard the soft, wet sounds that her body was making. The pool of bliss that was building in her core was agonizingly good, and she pictured Scott’s thick manhood plunging in and out of her again and again, stretching her and filling her more than she had ever been filled before as he moved on top of her, edging her closer and closer towards bliss.

A second later, she reached a shaky climax, and sweat trickled over her brow as she tried her hardest to stop herself from screaming with ecstasy. Her inner muscles clenched around the slippery finger that was still sliding in and out, making the tingling over and around her clitoris even wilder, and she felt another flood of wetness explode from within.

As the spasms of pleasure began to fade, she immediately felt guilty for what she had done.
Imagine if they had woken up! I wouldn’t have been able to look them in the eyes ever again,
she thought.

A smile spread across her face as she tried to push the guilt aside.
Whatever. They didn’t catch me.
Closing her eyes, she drifted off to sleep, and her dreams were filled with vivid images of the surrounding woods. In the last dream she had, she was standing by the stream near their tent. She was looking over at the dense trees on the other side of it, but her vision was obscured by a thick white mist that shrouded the area.

Through the fog, she could just make out a glowing green light… two lights, in fact, right next to each other. She somehow became acutely aware that the glowing lights were eyes, and she peered further into the mist, trying to figure out what it was staring back at her. The moon came out from behind a cloud, throwing a soft light onto the mist, and a shadowy creature emerged from it, only to lunge across the water towards her.

Before she saw what it was, she woke up, bathed in perspiration. Sunlight was peeking through the tent opening, and at the sight of that, she sat bolt upright. The zipper was undone, and Caitlin and Craig were still snoring next to her.

Her heart thudding in her chest, she climbed out of her sleeping bag and got out of the tent to see if there was any evidence of anyone else having been in the area during the night. Craig stirred in the tent and emerged a moment later to find out what was going on.

“What’s the time? And what are you doing?” he asked.

“It’s just after eight. The zipper was undone. You didn’t leave the tent in the middle of the night to do anything, did you?”

“Yeah, I needed to take a leak. But I definitely zipped it back up afterwards. Maybe it was Caitlin,” he replied.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

The unzipped tent was soon forgotten, and the group had a quick breakfast of muesli and bananas before hiking back to the car and heading back into the town center. The plan was to get Caitlin on camera interviewing some more locals, and to find out more about the shadowy, green-eyed creatures that were said to have stalked people through the forest before.

After speaking with the owner of the local hardware store, Craig and Erin felt fairly certain that the supposed creatures were either imaginary, or perhaps just wolves as the sheriff had said.

“The only thing is… there isn’t meant to be any wildlife in the forest. So why would wolves be hanging around there?” Craig asked, furrowing his brows.

“I’m not sure. It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Erin admitted. “I’m guessing if they are in there, it’s only for some of the year. Perhaps the packs move to other places depending on the season. I’ll have to look into it.”

“Mmm, yeah. Well, if there are any, we should try to catch one on camera. Set some sort of bait or whatever and see what happens.”

After a long day of interviews, the group bought some meat and materials to set up a lure for any wolves that might be lurking around, and then headed back into the forest. While the Sheriff and his Deputy had marked out several other spots to camp out at, they elected to set their tent up in the same place they had spent the previous night. They had a whole week in the town, so they figured they could spend two nights at each campsite, and by the end of the day, they were all exhausted.