The Hoia-Baciu Forest

There was three of us that night; James, Daniel and I.

We had spent an entire month planning our Holiday in the Hoia-Baciu Forest. We’ve read stories, upon stories regarding the paranormal shit that has occurred within the locality, and we somehow considered it a fascinating idea to venture out there as a camp-out experiment. I was nervous nevertheless, but it didn’t intimidate me whatsoever, and there was also three of us. Nothing could go wrong… as I thought.

It was a four hour long ride full of energy drinks, obnoxiously loud rock music, and continuous reminiscing about the stupidest of shit from the past, we were hyped, just purely pumped for the night ahead…

Daniel was a persuasive guy, and somehow managed to acquire a rifle from his Romanian buddy before we left. We were foreigners, Americans to be exact, but I didn’t mind… I felt at safer with it, especially with all the spooky shit I’ve read on the internet prior of even coming here.

5 PM

“Matt, you aright back there? You haven’t spoken since we left the highway.” James asked, sitting in the passenger seat, turning his head to face me.

I yawned, “Yeah, just really fucking tired, didn’t sleep well last night, ya’know?” Truthfully… I was tremendously anxious, but I didn’t want to seem like a pussy, so I kept my head cool, my mouth shut, and didn’t say a word about the Nightmares I had experienced that kept me up endlessly throughout the night. Regarding that, I also had a little voice in my head… saying “This is a bad fucking idea.” but, I didn’t allow this to stop me… The fear, the suspense, the thrill, the creepy stories I could one day tell my kids, It was all worth it, so I continued to be silent.

5:32 PM

“Daniel, park there.” James pointed to an open plot of land, edging the dense forest conveniently.

“Gotcha.” He acknowledged as he pulled in.

We stayed parked momentarily, debating on whether we were to deploy our camp here, or move further into the woods.

“If we put our shit here, we’ll be closer to the truck if we need to leave quickly.” Daniel insisted.

“Yeah, but what the fuck is going to happen when there’s three guys, and a gun? We’ll be fine if we went in” James argued.

They both turned, regarding me as an official tide pusher.

“We go big, or we go home, right? Let’s just go in, but close enough to the truck just in case we need to sprint back… ” I answered boldly.

They nodded in agreement, and thus we journeyed inward. I tailed behind Daniel, with the rifle holstered onto his shoulder, and an armful of supplies. I had the tent with me, and James wandered behind me with the cooler in hand, and our machetes.

Once we declared that we were far enough in, we dropped our stuff, and began unpacking the tent, and bags for the nights ahead. ‘This… this isn’t so bad.’ I thought. There was nothing frightening at all. The woods felt… like woods, nothing more, nothing less. Although, It was still day out, but I was at ease.

8 PM

Hours went by as it continued to transcend into darkness. We were beginning to run low on wood, thus James, and Daniel decided it’d be a good plan to explore the area for firewood. I volunteered to guard the camp from any wildlife, or any drunk locals that stumbled by, and wanted our shit…

The moment those two vanished from my sight… things got weird, and unsettling. I felt the chills slither up my spine as I sat there, alone on my own. I don’t know how to explain it… It’s like what primal humans felt thousands of years ago, that instinctive hunting shit that you felt whenever a predator was watching you… That’s what it felt like, and I didn’t like it. Then some… Ungodly fucking screech started laughing from within the woods. It sounded like… a human or some fucking fucked up creature mixed with another animal just laughing in a screech. I stood up, knocking the chair onto the ground behind me. Standing there, clenching my machete for dear life, aimlessly looking for the source.

I shook, breathing heavily out of fear, tears forming from my eyes. I was fucking terrified…

It kept screeching for several minutes, until it suddenly just… stopped.

James, and Daniel arrived shortly after with firewood, and a necklace that they had found while lurking around…

“Hey, got you a gift.” James laughed as he held up an old wooden cross necklace.

“Put that the fuck away!” I retorted. “Who the fuck was making that noise? Which one of you, fucks!” I shouted at both of them, stuttering in fear.

“Whoa… man, the Hell happened while we were gone?” Daniel asked, gesturing for me to lower the machete.

I started mumbling, fumbling upon words as I desperately tried to describe what I heard…

“I-Don’t… I-don’t know. It was some sort of fucking screeching… Like a human, mixed with some sort of fucking thing… It went on, and on… and on… and on… ”

James’ facial expression changed, as did Daniel’s.

“Are… you sure it wasn’t just some animal, or something, man?” James asked.

“What the fuck animal laughs like a human for several minutes straight, nonstop.” I was panicked, I was so scared… I cannot control my anger.

“I think we should just chill here instead.” Daniel suggested with an uneasy nervous smile

9 PM

We tried to laugh again, but each of us had a sense of fear installed within. We sat around the fire, talking with a calmness, a calmness that is never heard, unless something fucks with an individual mentally. We decided that we would not leave the camp without all of us together, nor without the gun with us at all times.

“James, you still have that necklace?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Yeah, it’s right here.” He replied, tugging it out of his coat pocket, gradually handing it to me.

The wood… was unlike any other. It felt unworldly to me, and the design of it didn’t resemble any other type of cross I’ve seen. It was shaped kinda fucked up, like the ends were purposely split, with weird lines engraved in it.

“Where did you even find this thing?” I asked, examining every detail upon the mysterious item. Six minutes out from here… It was next to a stack of lumber-” I stopped him mid sentence.

“The Hell do you mean a stack of lumber?” Unsettled by this… unmentioned detail. Daniel turned to him too, as if he wasn’t aware of this.

James sighed heavily, “We were out… I found the stack, and I thought it’d be easier than spending the time to find the pieces individually, so I just took it with us, along with the necklace.”

I stared at the cross, as he spoke… Noticing one eerie detail about the rope.

“Is that human hair?” I uttered looking down upon it in my hand.

“Holy shit!” Danial shouted. “Throw that thing in the fire!” I jerked up, and tossed it into the burning flames.

“What the Hell.” I crackled in fear. I began shivering, as I realized how much of a mistake this was…

12 AM

Hours went by. Tensions were high as we struggled to comprehend how fucked everything was…

We all sat from across each other, so we could see what was behind each one of us as a defensive measure. We continued drinking, hoping it would ease our anxieties, but the more we lingered, the more shit got freakier…

The woods… began whispering to us… Faintly though, like you couldn’t hear it unless you were extremely silent, but it was enough to freak us out. “Daniel, mate. You have your speaker with you, right?” James asked.

Daniel smiled “Yeah… yeah I do.” He took it from his bag, and connected it to his iPod. “Anything in particular?” He asked nervously.

“Anything.” James, and I said at the same time, hoping to drown the whispers with music.

“The fuck?” Daniel frowned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, peering over to his iPod.

“Nothing’s working on it… ” He said, frustrated.

Suddenly… The whispers began playing through the speaker, louder, and louder, damaging the speaker’s audio to the point of static, mixed with those ungodly fucking whispers…

“Shit, turn that off.” James shouted.

Daniel looked frightened beyond belief. “It won’t… stop.”

James stood up violently, and took the speaker from Daniel’s hands, and slammed it to the ground, smashing it with his stomps. “Fucking STOP!” He screamed as he began jabbing the little box with the machete, until finally rendering it destroyed… He stood there, breathing heavily, afraid, and obviously… startled.

“I think we should just go.” I spoke up.

They both looked at me. “Do you know how fucking dark it is?” James laughed nervously. “We’ll get lost trying to get out… Besides, man, There’s only a few more hours until the sun comes up… ”

12:42 AM

The firing was dying, as was our fearlessness from earlier…

“We need wood soon.” Daniel whispered in a soft voice.

James spoke up quickly. “I’ll do it… It was my fault that this shit is happening to us.”

“Whoa, that’s not a good idea.” I concluded.

“Yeah, and I also have to take a piss too. Trust me I’ll be fine… ”

Daniel held out the rifle for him to take, “If you’re going, take the rifle at least.” he urged.

James nodded, and began walking into the unknown with his flashlight beaming into the void.

1:06 AM

“Where is he?” Daniel questioned, his foot tapping anxiously against the ground with his machete in his lap.

“Yeah… He should be back… ” I speculated.

We both hollered out into the darkness repeatedly, “James!”… “James!” We both turned on our flashlights, scanning the area. “Until finally he appeared from out of the dark with a grin on his face, holding a large stack of wood in his arms.

“You alright?” I asked “You were out there for a while.”

He coughed “Got lost.”

Where’s your light at? Daniel noticed. “Tripped on a log, broke it I think.”

“Ah… get your ass over here then, the fire’s gonna die.”

He began lumbering forward with a slight limp to his step, and an monotonous stare in his eyes. He began setting the pieces of wood one by one next to the fire. Daniel and I stared at each other for a moment, then glared back at James.

“Hey, Matt. Wanna help me fix the tent, I think we didn’t put the stakes in right.” I quickly followed him, as James continued to place each wood individually upon one another with full concentration, staring… expressionless at the ground. As soon as Daniel and I were behind the tent, he began whispering, “What the fuck?”

“That’s not James.” He nervously held his hands to his head.

“It is… It has to be. He tripped, remember? He probably just fucked up his head, or he’s just stupidly drunk… ” I tried to reassure.

“Bro, do you fucking see him? That stare, the way he’s placing the wood down? James would had just plopped it on the ground without a damn.” I could see the terror in his eyes as he tried to remind calm.

“We need to get the rifle back from him.” He whispered…

“Yeah… we should.” I concurred.

We silently tip toed to the edge of the tents, and watched James…

He stood there, motionless, except for the occasional twitch to his torso… Then he began chuckling, as he stared into the endless void.

Daniel, and I stepped back quickly, and just stared at each other in utter shock.

We hesitated on what to do…

Until finally, I made the dreaded decision to speak up.

“Hey, buddy, we’re done. You alright over there.”

We heard the quick rustling of clothing, and right before us, he stood there, grinning. “Yeah, was remembering a joke.”

“Haha… Good times… ” I forced myself to smile, despite the unsettling feeling I felt within my gut.

Moments later, we all began to sit down again, forcing small talk among ourselves. Daniel and I spoke the most, as James sat there, studying us, as if for the first time.

“Hey, James, where’s your jacket?” Daniel asked.

“Dropped it when I fell.” He replied calmly with a weird, twisted grin as if he didn’t know what the emotion meant. The gun was leaning beside the log next to him. “Oh, there’s dirt on it.” Daniel proclaimed. I should… clean it. He smiled nervously.

James simply stared at him, which lingered for several seconds… until he smiled “Okay!”

5 AM

We stayed awake the entire time. Daniel and I were silent for most of the night, full alert in the tent writing notes to one another, as James proceeded to “guard” the camp outside from animals. Every thirty minutes or so, we’d hear a chuckle that lasted for several minutes, until he choked, and began making fucked up gargling sounds… We hid the machete from it in case it got any ideas to attack us…

Daniel poked his head out of the tent quietly, watching as whatever the fuck it was… twitching again, staring at the forest. We’re awake!” Daniel announced, as he emerged from the tent. It quickly stopped twitching, and began picking up wood from the ground. “Just gathering firewood.” It laughed… Almost the same identical laugh from yesterday, when I was alone. My heart sunk in my chest.

Daniel and I had began packing everything up. We sent “It” into the woods to gather up more firewood.

“What the fuck do we do? Do we take it with us?” I asked

Daniel started whispering in frustration “No, it can’t come back! It’s going to fucking kill us. Don’t you understand, it killed James, it took his body, That’s not our friend!” He turned the corner of the tent, and waved me over. “Do you see that?” gesturing to a torn up piece of cloth, stained in red.”

“What is that… ?” I asked.

“IT WAS HIS JACKET.” he shouted.

It began walking back into the campsite again with more wood, and a dead rabbit, torn to shreds, half eaten tucked within his belt. His… expressionless face coated in blood… smiled, remains of white fur, and gore entangled between his teeth.

“Got food while I was out. do you want some?” He offered.

“No thank you, James. We already ate.” I smiled.

He stood there, silently for several seconds until he replied once more with his fucked up twisted smile, and his bullshit “Okay!”

5:42 AM

Everything was packed, and ready to go… We had to find a way to distract him long enough for us to flee.

Daniel nudged me as we were leaning against the truck, watching It.

“Ideas?” He asked.

“Why not just drive off now?” I suggested.

“Because we don’t know what the fuck it can do, do you know how fast it is? If we just hop in the truck, it’ll just rush up, break the windshield, and kill us both.” He whispered.

I stood quiet momentarily, thinking of a plan to finally rid ourselves of this fucking thing…

“Hey James, we need firewood for the car, mind getting some?”

He smiled with blood stained across his sickly pale cheeks. “Sure!”

As soon as he vanished, we quickly hopped inside the truck, and began turning out of the plot that edged the forest.

We began driving slowly on the road, checking our surroundings, until It came back, standing from afar. Smiling, and ambling towards the truck.

“FUCKING. GO. DANIEL.” I shouted. He slammed his foot into the pedal accelerating down the dirt road at full force. The whispers started playing once more on the truck’s radio.

It started to run with hands to its sides, screeching as we drove away. It… smiled as it screeched, fucking smiling…

Luckily… the truck was too quick for whatever it was, but we were safe as soon as the whispers died from the radio. We finally made it out onto the highway, and began hauling ass to the nearest city. Daniel and I were safe. We never spoke of what happened to James, our friend. He really had no family, nor friends besides Daniel and I, so no one would question his disappearance… But we vowed to never return to that fucking forest again.

Never… never go to Hoia-Baciu Forest…

Sometimes, I wonder what it’s doing there… If it still has his body, twitching, and smiling as it wanders aimlessly into the dark… I wonder if it remembers our faces too…

There was three of us that night; James, Daniel and I.