Woodland Disturbances and Inhabitations
By Historian Shadow
Not too long ago, Doctor Bustoffson suggested to me that I
write this article. At the time I quickly agreed, not
recalling it had been a month since I actually explored
woodlands, appreciating the subtle changes that occur when
an invasive element is present. So the morning of 6/30/01,
I went out into the woods stretching from my house to
eastern Tennessee, looking for things that should be
mentioned in this article. I found numerous. I will
illustrate those, then move on to tips for survival should
you be lost or... trapped would be the nice way to put it,
in the woods. We’ll finish on methods you may test to see
if your woods are inhabited by an evil presence,
mercifully, without stepping foot in them. No squirrels
were harmed in the making of this article.
I took about a quarter-mile stroll into the woods with some
observation/destruction instruments should it become
necessary. One thing immediately came to mind. Tree
branches. If you believe the woods in question to be
inhabited, no matter what the creature, the, and I’m going
to sound like a hippy but it’s true; pure nature of the
trees will be instantly repelled just a small, small bit.
Meaning? If there has been an evil of any sort in the
woods, the tips of all surrounding tree branches will turn
up slightly. The bigger the evil energy, the greater the
upturn, and I’ve seen small/medium sized branches snap
through this. Gauge your interest in sticking around in
these woods by how many there are and how far twisted are
the tree branches.
I came back and grabbed an instrument whose origin could
not BE more unknown to me. All I know is what it clearly
demonstrates. (I’ll confess that is only known to me
because I’ve dropped it a couple times while running away.)
It’s a silver cylinder about five inches long, no wider
across than your pointer finger. Pressing the button in on
the side of it, opens the bottom of the thing, releasing
the button closes the mini-jaws. A blinking light on the
front displays what can only be described as whether or not
what has been placed inside is... well... icky. This
device, (and I’m sure if I get it to Matrin he can
duplicate it several times over) works the clearest on
smaller, broken up substances. That’s right... a dirt
sample. The light will turn green if there are no foreign
substances in the sample, based on research I did with
shoggoth residue, the tag off of my mattress, and...
well... nevermind the third. Each of the three items
registered a red light from the device. Meaning it’s not
the perfect evil detector, but this thing can detect
shoggoth bits so small I could not see them with the
binoculars I had. It’s obviously not widely available right
now, but maybe we could fix that. BTW, I found it in
Ipswich if anyone wants to hunt around for another one.
The third time, which was about an hour ago from the time
of my writing these words, I wanted to prove something once
and for all. The thought being that if something is amiss
in the woods, the natives will be the first to know about
it. No, not me, crazy-Jake and Scott’s family, the woodland
creatures. (Hey, was that a sigh, Brewer? Tsk, tsk...) I
went to the area where a Cthonian was seen a few months
ago. While the pioneer species was friggin pioneering the
whole area like nothing ever happened, the smaller buggers
avoided it like the plague. My dog was reluctant to follow
me within fifty yards of the edge of the hole. I felt
nothing unusual, despite the knowledge I was walking real
close to the place where I nearly died. Nothing. So I
returned to where a family of chipmunks had been settling,
about two-hundred yards from the site. About fifty yards
from a family of squirrels. Putting on my gloves and
sleeves (to protect myself and to not get my scent on him)
I picked out an adult male, and cradled him between my
hands. I slowly walked towards the site, all the while
monitoring the chipmunk’s reaction. Despite being carried
by a human, he seemed relatively calm. I was glad I picked
out a docile one. Surely, now that we were within a hundred
yards of the site, nothing would change about that. Ha. Not
ten more steps after I thought this, he tried to leap away,
but was stopped by me. Within fifty yards of the site, he
began to thrash around in my hands, I loosened my grip, he
bit my finger. I kept walking. That chipmunk... at
twenty-three feet away from the edge of the hole, bit me so
hard... through thick gloves... I thought he took my
fingertip with him as he nearly FLEW back to his family.
Part one confirmed.
Next, I continued walking to the site, and... had to close
my eyes. What little caked-on slime/drool that was left
from the experience was there. I poured water from my
canteen on it until it turned back into a gelatinous
liquid. I then scooped some of it into my hands, and walked
over to my dog. She backed away from me steadily until I
began walking quicker, when she arched her back and began
howling at me like I was a gigantic squirrel. I removed the
gloves, dropped them, and walked closer to her. She stood
up straight, and began wagging her tail. Mmm hmm... part
two almost confirmed.
I went back and grabbed the gloves, and nestled them
between two tree branches, out of sight of the lil’ pooch.
I got her attention, and stepped away from the gloves. At
this point I SWEAR she did a double-take. Gloves, master
over there... GLOVES?! She made a hissing noise I have
never heard from a dog before. This is where she got
squirrely. She began running circles around herself and
snapping until I gave her the command to “sic”. She bolted
in the direction of the gloves, and charged right
underneath the branches with the gloves. No effort to jump
and get them. She turned back and began chomping at air.
Confirmed. The evil left over from something like a
full-scale invasion of the woods by a foreign being lasts,
and how! Most likely manifesting itself as a fog or gel of
some sort, just beyond our vision. Therefore, animals
acting strangely, avoiding the area, should be taken as a
sign that you should be too.
Now then, should any of these signs, or signs like these
lead you to believe something is monstrously wrong with the
woods you’re in, follow these tried and true tips, and you
will have a much better chance of survival. First, if
you’re limited on ammo or not, never shoot at something if
you don’t know what it is. Well... that’s a bit
restrictive. Never shoot at something if you don’t know
it’s nature. Second, you’re going to be torn between
dangerous amounts of paranoia, making you want to just dust
the first strange thing you find, and not wanting to blow
the woods up. Remember, while the evil MUST be conquered, a
giant forest fire looks bad for SPONGE. Not... that...
I’d... know...
Next, always have a good hiding spot scoped out. A secluded
spot where you have a clean shot at whatever danger you’re
facing never hurts. Find one where anything send projected
at you and your team will be blocked by trees or rocks and
you’ve hit the jackpot. Fourth, run. I’m not kidding. There
is no situation to better improve your lungs and your
chances of survival. Run, zig zag, shoot while running,
duck, jump, run! Don’t be a squirrel. While panicking is
bad, no one said you couldn’t think about Evil Dead! Run!
If you have an abundance of household animals or there is a
known family of raccoons living near the edge of these
woods, and you have the ability to wait a bit, perhaps
overnight, AND don’t desire to be ancientevilpoop, perhaps
this is for you. As shown above, the woodland animals, the
natives to the terrain, have better senses of when
something is endangering their habitat than you could ever
have, even if you had a really powerful telescope and had
lived there your whole life. Use that to your advantage!
If there are a great number of squirrels OR birds
semi-adjusted to the presence of people in the area of the
woods, get about a pound of birdseed, or sunflower seeds.
Starting from one hundred yards away, begin sprinkling the
tasty treats in a little path no wider than a couple feet.
Make sure the amount you put at each juncture is almost
even, dumping whatever is left over at the edge of the
woods. Now, go camping. Within two hours you should either
have a ton of birds, about a dozen squirrels, or a really
silly feeling for having listened to me. Once whatever you
attracted is done feeding, go notice what is left behind.
Should be almost nothing where you began, portions of
remaining food increasing the closer you get towards the
woods. If ANY ONE of those animals TOUCHED the pile at the
edge of the woods, I’ll buy you dinner. If there is any
predator within a quarter-mile of the spot, the lesser
animals, like squirrels, through evolutionary adaption to
trickery by humans and mostly foxes and some larger
woodland predators, they will not be feeling completely
safe. As a tool of comparison, if there was a fox fifty
yards away from the food, they would nervously choke it all
down, and then bolt away from there. If there’s a cthonian
within a quarter-mile... they won’t touch the food. They’ll
look like they just saw their grandmother naked, and back
off. This is also the opportunity you could use to scoop
one of them up and perform the test mentioned above where
you walk inwards. Just... wear thicker gloves than I did.
And always remember, if there is indeed something that has
manifested itself in the woods, it’s going to mean
business, and it’s going to know the woods like it’s lived
there for thousands of years, because it probably has...
NOW you can go squirrel hunting,
Shadow
Notes: This is the *only* article on SPONGE where you can
find the word “squirrel” ten times. Okay, eleven.
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