Black One of Redcrook Forest

Part 1

"She came out of the woods dirty, scared and with the biggest pair of udders I have ever seen on a woman, I tell you." Patricia frowned. "It must have been at least 80 years ago if I consider you are 93 and .." The old man interrupted her. "It has been 82 years and I still remember it as if it has happened yesterday. It was a sight you do not simply forget, I assure you. She came back naked and with a barn sized rack." Patricia turned to the other girl Mia. "I think you do not need to mention this in the paper. It might be just his imagination or false memory if we consider his age." The man protested. "I may be old, but my memory is still good, young lady. She came out, all the folk gathered around her and people started asking what happened to her, she had been away for a week and we already had her for dead. But she was silent, she did not utter a word and just went back to her house and locked the door." Patricia nodded. "That was probably a post-trauma stress or something." "Not something! She had been cursed. She gave birth to a daughter three months after." "So she had been pregnant already..." "And then another baby girl and another. Seven daughters, all of them redhead and so pale they looked almost white. Something you do not see, really." Mia smiled and wrote all that down. "This sounds interesting, we can consider it a present day myth." The old man frowned again and finished his glass. "You call it myth, but it was ghastly! They all were pale and had each had one blue eye while the other was brown. Strange I tell you. There is something in the woods." Mia winked at the barman and ordered another glass of whiskey. "So if we consider that there were 7 daughters 82 years ago there is a chance some of them are still alive." The man nodded. "One of those devilish children lived nearby, I will write down the address for you." "This is very kind of you. We will mention you in our paper."

Outside the girls joined a guy in their car. He had a map in front of him and was obviously planning the trip. Patricia took her notepad and checked it. "So we can meet local sheriff, then there is the girl who saw the devil a year ago or so and we can also try to interview the devil's daughter. So what next? Did you figure out where to go in the woods?" Mike handed her the map. "The Redcrook forest is quite big and it seems not quite favourite among hikers. By the way: did you know there was an actual Redcrook village? It was located in the forest, but was abandoned after a big fire in 1892. It was here." He showed her a small place in the southern part of the forest. Patricia looked at it. "It does not seem to be so interesting. Does it have any relation to the legend of the Black one?" "None I was able to find, but the fire seems strange enough for me. Perhaps we can at least look around there." "We may, but let's not waste our time, we have only two days. I need to be back in university next week."

Someone knocked on the window. It was Pete, the second friend of theirs. He returned from local shop and brought provisions. Mia looked at the map and did not look too happy. "So how much do we need to walk to the place?" Patricia smiled. "Do not be afraid. It is just a trail in the woods, no mountains, we will get there and back in no time." Mia sighed. She was a post-doc in ethnography, not an adventurer.

The next one on the list was the sheriff. A middle age man that looked quite surprised when they asked him about the Black one. "You know, it is just a legend of the oldsters. Nobody really believes it any more. But 60, 70 years ago, it was quite different. Even my grand ma told me she saw strange things in the woods. They were afraid to go there after dark and some places they considered cursed and avoided even in daylight. I remember the legend of the Black man of the woods that steals small children and kidnaps women grand ma told me, but I suppose you heard it many times." Mia tried to look as polite as possible. "If you could tell us your version, then we can compare it with the others. We would like to publish a paper on it in Journal of American ethnography." The sheriff smiled and offered them chairs.

"About 150 years ago there was a small village in the heart of the Redcrook forest. The people there were mostly lumberjacks and hunters, strange folk that usually did not socialize much with the people from this town, they had their own customs, called the other people the outsiders and the other people were telling strange tales about them. They told tales about a dark place in the woods where silent whispers could be heard, trees were moving on their own, tales about something old dwelling there. The Redcrook folk knew about it and avoided it, but some claimed there was an old woman in the village that spoke with the whispers and offered them sacrifices to get youth and health in exchange. They rumoured she made a pact with a devil that appeared in the form of a dark man that walked the forest. Some of the outsiders became curious and spied on the forest folk. When they returned they spoke about dark places with old buildings built before the white man came to America and about dark voices they heard there, the weird unhuman voices. They claimed the old woman was a witch and was responsible for a couple of lost children from villages outside. In the end they took torches and weapons and came for the witch." Mia wrote everything down and the others grinned. It seemed she was the only one interested in the story. "Nobody knows what had happened there, but the village was burned down, many people died and the witch disappeared in the woods. Since then a couple of people saw a figure that could have been her, but if it had been her then she would had been over 150 years old at least. I myself went to the forest to the places where they claimed to had seen her and I saw nothing. Just old ruins."

Patricia asked. "One old man told us there was a kidnapped girl long time ago that returned to the town with ummm... large breasts." The sheriff chuckled. "Old Ted? It is his famous story, but nobody actually believes that. He enjoys telling it to young women and watching them blush.."
Patricia laughed on their way back to the car. "So the case of the haunted boobs is closed. Do you want to visit the supposed to be devil's daughter?" Mia frowned. "There was something about his story. I do not believe it is completely fake. Let's take a look at her, she lives nearby."
The house at the address was old and neglected. Huge tree was pressing against one of the walls and the roof was full of moss and grass. They did not expect anyone to be actually living there, but still knocked the door. To their surprise an old woman opened and looked at them with anger on her face. "What do you want? I do not buy." Patricia quickly took the lead. "We do not sell anything, old Ted told us about your mother and ..." The woman interrupted her. "The old jerk tells that to everyone who pays him a glass. It is a nonsense, now get out of my yard." Her pale face was turning red so the friends quickly left. "There is something about his story. Definitely.", Mike said. "Did you see her rack? It was huge! It hung bellow her belly. I bet.." Patricia laughed. "You do not have to tell us. We all saw that. Yes, she was quite busty. But did you notice her eyes? They were exactly as Ted said. One was blue and the other one brown. So even this part of the story was true. So what next?"

Mike frowned. "Do not want to try to speak with her. So what is next in your list? The newest witness?" Patricia checked her paper. "That is the last item in here."

It took several minutes to find the right house and then to explain what they wanted. Older woman who opened the door was obviously mother of the witness so they had to explain they are not police or FBI and they are here only to look for interesting story that may be a good example of recent American myth. The actual witness was a young girl around seventeen. She did not want to speak with them at the first, but when the mother left and they offered her fifty dollars she was much more open.

"You know I do not want to speak about it. My mum does not allow me to go to the woods.. We go there usually with my friends, because we need privacy, you know. I was there with two other friends, but they kinda left me, because they needed more privacy." Patricia smiled and tried not to roll her eyes.

"We were not far from the Redcrook ruins. We go usually there, some of the huts are still standing and we repaired one quite well, so we can hang out. So I went to the wood to umm, to bathroom, because the others you know... It was late afternoon, almost dusk and I stood at the edge of the woods and suddenly I saw a strange animal. It was as big as a cat or a small dog, but it had human face. And it was watching me. I tell you, I got goosebumps all over. Once it realized I saw it it just ran into the wood and I did not follow it, of course."

Patricia interrupted her. "But you say it was almost dark, so how can you be sure it was not a rabbit or something else." "Rabbit? It was walking on all fours, but when it stood on the hind legs it played with his hands and they were also human. It was horrifying. I turned and ran back to the hut, did not care what was going on in there and we all ran home. We are usually not afraid of the forest, but since then we never came there after dark. It is quite far, and those were maybe the worst three hours I spent in the wood." Patricia handed her the map. "Could you tell me exactly where it happened?" The girl showed a spot near the ruined village. "And I know what it was," she added triumphantly. "It was a familiar of the witch. They call him Brown Jenkin. Half human, half dog or rat. One of the old hags in the senior's home told me that." "This sounds interesting." Mia took her notepad and started writing. "Did she tell you anything more?" "She told me it was a gift from the Black man and the witch used it for errands. She also told me it is a bad omen to see it. But I guess that part was not truth. Nothing bad happened to me since then." "And what about other parts of the wood? Did you go anywhere else than the village?" "Yep, once we went to a weird place north of the village. We even saw some old rocks and walls there, but it was strange. You know the feeling you are trespassing? Like you are somewhere you should not be? We quickly left. One of our friends even lost his camera there. He did not want to return though. It was sooo strange. It was somewhere here near this gorge." Patricia drew a circle on the map. "They also say there is the house where the witch used to live, but we did not see it. It was burned down during the lynching, probably."
The girl was the last person to interview, so the friends parked the car and packed their backpacks. Mia was a bit afraid, she had never been hiking before and the prospect of spending night in a cursed forest was a bit unnerving for her. The others seemed to be quite confident and Mike even seemed to be thrilled. So she sighed and took her bag.

They decided to go to the ruined village, look around there, then maybe look deeper into the woods. It may give them a hint in which conditions the legend was conceived. "But we are going to make it in two days, right?" Mia asked when Patricia put the map into her bag. "Only one night in the burned village and then we'll go back, right?" Mike smiled. "Yes, I promise. There is nothing to be worried about. I have my military GPS, detailed map, satellite phone. There is no way to get lost in there." Pete laughed. "In the worst case I have my Colt, so we can even shoot the Brown thingie if it shows up."