She blinked away the frozen flakes, which had begun to settle on her ashen eyelashes, steadily looking at the left side of the road. She knew the marker was small and for the most part would be encased in a thick bed of snow. Still she needed to see it herself, to make sure her friends had been telling the truth. Her chunky leather boots crunched on the compacted snow, feet kept warm by layers of thick woollen socks, grey and unremarkable as pretty much all of her was. Shoulders hunched to protect herself from the wind, she let drifts pass under her uninterested gaze. Fingers tinged pale blue under her white gloves tingled; unable to keep out all of the cold. Birds soft footprints skittered across the impressionable snow and to her relief she saw a marker, no more than a post with W3 printed on it. Snow markers were not uncommon this far north, so that people could find there way home in the storms, but they were relics now; unneeded.

She stomped across the road, abandoned by nearly all traffic, no one could move about in cars now. It was too dangerous for all but tractors and not many of them came towards town; at least not this far. She had been walking for some time now and could still see the town, less than a mile away. A small smile lit her pallid lips, thin and anxious as she placed her palm gently over the old wooden marker, still firm despite its age. To think that once this had been three miles away from town, it had grown a lot since then, she doubted it was nearly as close knit or as pretty as it had been when the markers had actually been needed. Tugging off her left glove, she braved the cold and reached just below the snows tide to touch the three hollow circles. Her slate grey eyes blinked slowly, flecks of amber sparkling in them, they were only thing that drew her acknowledgment from her peers, she didn’t have a problem admitting she looked plain; uninteresting.

So they had been right; the marks were here just like they had told her they would be, she wasn’t sure if she should sigh with relief or not, the hollow circles were not a good sign. She looked for a sign of a road that lead to the forest, there had once been one here, before they had built the new road, many years before she was born. There was nothing to see, the road were there any remains, was long hidden by the snow. People did not go to this part of the forest, not like the south side that was well populated by dog walkers, old couple and young lovers the year round. It was even more packed now it was winter with tourists coming to the promised ‘Winter Wonderland’, but here nothing moved. Not a single step had been placed on the old road, not by people, not by the birds, not even by small animals, which seemed more evident in the snow than ever. She slipped her glove back on, rubbing her hands together and enjoyed the warm itch of wool against the back of her hands. She looked at the forest, the tall pines standing strait up from the smaller leafless oaks, casting dark shadows here and there, tall peaks arching to the sky.

“I wonder how long it will take to walk there.” She spoke softly, not because of the silence around her, but because that was how she always spoke. “No one thinks of being here, no one talks of it. Only a few miles from where everyone walks, I wonder why they choose not too. I hope it’s as easy to navigate as the other sides” She chuckled out a nervous cloud of steam and turned her back to the trees, she didn’t like it here, but she had to check it out before coming again. Work had decided her team was going in this side, not that she was the leader, seen as meek and mild, but this was where they were going. There were four teams, each taking a point (North, South, East and West) to reach the forests centre where they always held the Christmas party on the 17th of December before everyone left for the holiday season. There had never been four teams before, the Unit was small despite the towns increasing size and they were the largest business in the area so far. The team walk was supposed to encourage different groups to mingle, brining the co-workers together and braking down the obvious divides. She shrugged her shoulders, once more hunched against the wind and headed back to town. Her slight form barely seen in her greys and whites; making her way back home in silence once more.



It has been many years since the paths West side of the forest had been trodden, no one can quite remember why, but everyone feels it when they pass. New people look at the forest and see darkness, but people no longer believe in the old stories and go in anyway. No one seems to know why they never cross over to the West (or ever realise they don’t), at some point in there dog walk or midnight romp, they turn just enough to miss it. The trees grow tall and arch over anyone who comes near, making them feel small, unsafe. The roots reach to trip, the bare branches to snag on clothes and in the night the tall trees reach out to blot out the moon lit sky. The trees on the outer edge are not unkind, they merely warn of the peril inside. Trees packed unnaturally close try to funnel you away from the West’s centre, a labyrinth to navigate, tree limbs tangled together, pressed almost too close to pass through. All in hopes that you will not reach the central tree and not see what it holds.

In the town of Coilleford in Scotland, everyone leads a pretty normal life, 9-5 job, marriage, kids, the things that keep people happy. The inhabitants moved in to the abandoned town almost 100 years ago and it has been growing ever since. Given that it isn’t a large town, everyone knows pretty much everyone else and knows their business too. The best job in town comes from the MacSean firm, which does advertising and illustration as a freelance business to the big firms of the city. Otherwise you have things like the local shops and the candle factory, but these are not jobs anyone aspires too and sadly these jobs are the most kept. Going into the MacSean firm was a one-way ticket to success or if you were lucky, a sure fire job in the big city.

Every year the MacSean firm holds a team building outing followed by a party in the centre of the forest in an old log cabin. The outing is the highlight of the year where everyone gets to let off a little steam before Christmas and can avoid the slowly increasing number of holidaymakers. They split into four teams (the first time in doing this due to the influx of staff rather than the usual 3 teams) and go into the forest from the four compass points and walk their way to the centre through deep snow and cold conditions, stopping for a small camp fire lunch and maybe a little drink to warm them up before hitting the log cabin at about 6, just before sunset. There they spend the evening eating and drinking, before hitting the hay and walking back the following morning.

This time however it wont be quite the same, the West side team may well not make it quite before dark. Should they blunder too deep, they may waken something that has not been believed in for hundreds of years. There is a reason people were once warned to stay away from the forest and a reason why the town was once abandoned and the people of the town will soon find out.