The Mystery At Pinewood Mountain

~The Mystery at Pinewood Mountain~

It was a dark night in the sleepy neighborhood of Pinewood Mountain. A light snow was beginning to fall and Forrest watched from his window as a few people shuddered from the cold on the sidewalk below. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the empty document on his computer. He was completely out of ideas and the deadline for his new book was approaching quickly. Even his usual method of scouring the internet for ideas had proved itself fruitless. He glanced over at his clock, which read ten o'clock PM. He let out a sigh. “There’s no way I’m going to finish this in time.”

Suddenly, there was a loud banging from one of his neighbor's houses. He got up from his chair and walked over to the room’s other window, which faced the neighboring house. One of the lights were on and seemed brighter than normal. He could make out a slight silhouette, although he couldn’t quite make out what exactly it was doing. He backed away from the window and fell flat on his bed. He closed his eyes, and slowly drifted off to sleep…

Forrest awoke with an urgent look on his face - had he really done nothing productive last night? He sighed, and went over to his closet. Not bothering to change out of his clothing from the previous night, he threw on a jacket and scarf. He headed downstairs, and made a cup of french vanilla coffee. Afterwards, he walked outside. The entire neighborhood had been covered in a white blanket of snow. It was beautiful sight as the sun sparkled on the glistening white that surrounded Forrest. He walked over to his neighbor’s house, wanting to investigate what had happened the night before.

He walked up to the door, and knocked. As he had suspected, there was no answer. Walking around to the back door, he was surprised to see it hanging wide open. He opened it slowly, somewhat afraid of what might greet him on the other side. Stepping into the house, a strange smell drifted through the air.

“Hello? Is… is anyone here?” he said.

There was no response to his question. He continued on through the house, meeting an interesting sight in the kitchen. Areas of the floor were stained a deep red, and things were knocked off the counter and all over the floor. There was also what appeared to be a bloody knife on the floor. Shocked, Forrest ran back out the door in fear. Nervously, he reached into his pocket, and pulled out his phone. He dialed 9-1-1.

“Hello? Hello? My name is Forrest Rich-”

“911, what is your emergency?”

“My name is Forrest Richards, and I’d like to report a… um… a….”

“Report a what, sir? I haven’t got all day.”

“I’d like to report a… murder.”

“Can you give your location?”

“Um… 6667 Pinewood Drive…”

“We’ll spend a dispatch.”

Forrest hung up the call, and looked back into the house. A strange feeling beckoned him to go back inside, and investigate further. He stopped and thought for a moment, before finally deciding to re enter the house. This time, he walked passed the kitchen, and made his way upstairs. There was a trail of blood in the hallway, ultimately leading into the upstairs bedroom. He creaked open the bedroom’s door, and peered inside. There, lying on the bed, was a sight too horrible to describe.

Forrest backed away, and slammed the door shut. He ran back downstairs, almost slipping on the dark crimson trail that had led to the bedroom. Once downstairs, he bolted out the door, never wanting to see inside that house again. He leaned against the wall of the house, and promptly regurgitated. It was just then that the police car rolled up in front of the house. Two of the officers broke open the front door, bursting into the house. The last of the officers came around the back.

Forrest looked up at the officer. She had swaying red hair, which was a beautiful contrast to the white snow surrounding her.

“Hello? I am Detective Caroline Flare. You’re Mr. Richards, I assume?”

“Yes ma’am…”

“Good, now I just have a few questions for you.”

After the questions were over with, Forrest found himself within the confines of Caroline’s car and taken down to the precinct for further questioning. Nothing much happened on the way there, except for a bit of small talk. Forrest noted quite a few similarities between the two of them.

At last, they arrived at the police station. There were no other cars parked by the station, which seemed very strange to the two of them. Nevertheless, they entered the precinct only to find that nobody was there. Caroline left to investigate the chief's office, while Forrest sat down at one of the computers. To his surprise, the computer bolted to life once he sat down. A police database window was shown.

Curious, Forrest took hold of the mouse. Before he could even move it slightly, a profile popped up. It read Mark Ridley, chief of police in the greater Pinewood area. There was a picture to side. Mark appeared to be a stout, shrewd man, with a very stern expression. He gave off a very off-putting and intimidating vibe, which Forrest supposed had worked out well for his job. Underneath the photo, it read pronounced dead at 21:45 on the twentieth of December, two thousand fifteen.

Shocked, Forrest called over Caroline. Caroline rushed over, with a very worried expression. Forrest showed her the computer screen. Her countenance changed from worry, to sadness, and then to anger faster than the speed of light.

“Get in the car! We’re going back to that stupid house, now!”

Somewhat afraid of not following Caroline’s orders, Forrest jumped from his chair, ran out the door and finally into the car. Caroline followed suit, and hopped in. She started the engines. Forrest had never seen such a look of anger on someone’s face before. Soon, the car had left the precinct and was racing down the road. Forrest reached his hand across, and gave Caroline a swift, yet consoling pat on the back. Caroline glanced at him, with a small smile on her face.

At last they came to halting screech at the house where it all began. Caroline and Forrest ran out of the car, and into the house. Fortunately, there were signs of the other officers being there- such as the front door being busted open, and evidence markers. They ran up the stairs, and it was there that any and all signs of the officers disappeared. In fact, everything from upstairs was completely gone. There was no longer a blood trail on the floor leading to the bedroom, or any furniture at all. Almost as if there had never been anyone living there in the first place. Confused, they both entered the bedroom where the original crime scene had taken place.

Instead of furniture or even a crime scene at all, there was just an empty white room. Nothing but white, and a window. Suddenly, a black figure appeared in front of them. It looked vaguely familiar to Forrest.

“Wait a minute! This is the silhouette I saw in the window last night!” yelled Forrest.

“Ah, yes…” said the figure, “So nice of you to remember me, Forrest.”

The figure suddenly lunged at Caroline, who just barely was able to dodge.

“Run, Forrest, run!” she shouted.

The figure snapped its fingers. Forrest ran out where the door had once been, but instead of entering the hallway, he was now in the sky, falling towards the main downtown area of the city nearby Pinewood. He let out a scream, and the figure laughed. Caroline ran over and looked out over the edge of the door. “If only I had a parachute…” she thought.

Suddenly, as if summoned by her thoughts alone, two parachute bags appeared in her hands. She strapped one of the bags to her back, and dived off the edge. She straightened herself out in order to fall faster. Forrest came into view, and Caroline let go of the other parachute bag. Forrest was just barely able to grab in time, and he strapped it on. Upon pulling the cord, the parachute popped to life. Caroline’s did the same.

They landed softly on an empty street. The entire city was abandoned. There was no signs of life, other than the buildings themselves, which seemed even taller than usual. There was a strange scraping noise from behind the duo. They turned around, and were met with an alarming sight. The ground behind them was being drained of it color, and was being pulled into the sky. In fact, the sky had become nothing short of a black void. The strange figure from the white room appeared before the two.

“Doesn’t this look like fun? Why don’t you join me?” It asked.

Terrified, Forrest and Caroline ran as fast as they could. The figure began to laugh uncontrollably, and the ground started to disappear at a much faster rate. They continued running, and eventually made it to the center of the city. There they found that there was nowhere else to run, as the city was being to fly away, piece by piece, in every direction. The closed their eyes, and embraced each other, knowing that they were the last people each of them would ever see. The ground around them began to shake, and was lifted up into the black void above them.

The figure once again appeared before them.

“Aww, would you look at that. Getting sentimental, are we friends?”

It was at this that Forrest turned away from Caroline, and approached the figure. Forrest launched a fist at the figure, which, much to his surprise, landed on the figure’s face. Shocked, the figure fell back, and slumped down. Caroline promptly ran over, and gave it a strong kick. The figure suddenly stood, and rose into the air. He shot out a wave of what seemed to be black lasers, which pushed Forrest and Caroline all the way to the other side of the platform.

They were now far off the ground, and the black void was approaching quickly. The figure laughed once more, and drifted slowly to the ground. Forrest and Caroline stood, and quickly dashed towards the figure. It snapped, and the two were both paralyzed. The figure pulled back its hood, and revealed a visage resembling Forrest’s own. It then shifted and morphed into the shape of Forrest’s friend Wyatt, and then to Chief Ridley.

“Ha! What fun. Looks like we’re almost to my extra fun portal into outer space! That’s right! You’re going to die, and I’m going to watch. Along with all your other friends who joined me.”

The figure’s face changed rapidly between random people that neither Forrest nor Caroline had ever seen before until stopping once again on the chief’s face.

“Y’know, good ‘ol Ridley was the first to become one with me. It was fun being him for the past few weeks. What’s that? Impossible you say? Well-”

The sounds of strange thumping interrupted the figure. The black void was near now, and purple bolts of lightning could be seen blasting out from within it.

“Heh! Would you look at that! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun, doesn’t it?”

With that, the figure disappeared, and left Forrest and Caroline paralyzed as the small section of ground slowly entered into the void. There was nothing left they could possibly do. Forrest thought somberly of how he had never gotten the chance to finish his book and would die, here of all places, without ever having done, as he put it, anything worthwhile in his life. Caroline desperately tried to imagine life before any of the past few hours, but it seemed to have all escaped her mind. She longed to go back to how things were before…

Forrest awoke, sitting on the chair by his desk. Confused, he stole a look at his clock. Ten o'clock PM, on the dot. He sighed, knowing that there was no way he was going to finish his new book on time. He had made his deadlines much to linear. He walked downstairs, and grabbed a cup of coffee. Upon taking a sip, an idea popped into his mind. A murder mystery, with a strange horror twist... He ran back upstairs, and sat back down at his desk. He began to type vigorously, as a strange banging seemed to echo from the neighbor’s house...