The Woods

Back when I was little, around 11 years old or so, I used to visit my grandpa’s house all the time with my brother who was around 13 or so. We always were adventurous and loved going fishing with him, and exploring the gravel pit in Richmond, Maine. My brother and I always collected junk like interesting rocks and old stuff that we found, since the gravel pit was littered with old stuff (mainly trash) but that what we thought was so cool.

One day my grandpa brought us to go fishing which was fun, he stayed to watch the fishing rods, while my brother and I went to walk along the mud flats along the river since it was low tide. We dug up spots that looked interesting to us, but really didn’t find any clams or other animals.

Eventually my grandpa did not catch anything exciting and the tide was coming in because we were there for hours, so we decided to pack up and go do something else. We drove the pack to the pit, because we have to drive through it to get to our fishing spot, and decided to explore parts of the pit that we haven’t seen. We got out of my grandpa’s Jeep and started looking for trails, and things to follow. It was starting to switch from summer to fall so the days and temperature was starting to decrease, but this really didn’t bother us we were still going to explore.

We wandered around through the woods, which looked like no one had been there for thousands of years, except for the occasional metal object or broken glass we would find. A little bit of the back story is the gravel pit used to be known for a spot where Indians had passed through, so it wasn’t uncommon to come across old artifacts like coins or weapons that look like spears.

Anyway, we walked far into the woods and found a bunch of old pots, and other antique-looking household items, my brother and I immediately started sifting through the stuff that had been half buried under leaves and dirt because it had been there for so long. There was so much stuff that looked like someone could have had a “shelter” there, or someone could have dumped a bunch of junk in the woods, either way the stuff had been there for a long time. We were not expecting to find really anything, because we hadn’t found anything all day and we were starting to run out of daylight. Part of this was eerie because we were what felt like in the middle of the woods, and we had found some really old stuff that looked like it had to have been at least a hundred years old. It was cool, though kind-of creepy in a way because by that point it started to get dark. We then decided to leave because we didn’t want to get lost trying to find my grandpa’s car.    

When we got back to our house we decided to tell our parents about what we found, which they found interesting. I still to this day feel that if we went back to that spot the items would still be where we left them, or at least still be there.

A movie that is similar to my experience is “The Ritual ” by David Bruckner. “The Ritual ” is about four college students who decided to go explore the Scandinavian Wilderness because they wanted to help build on their relationships together after the death of their friend. While walking in the woods they missed a turn and wandered off into the forest, which was unfamiliar to them. They got lost in the forest of Norse legend, where they stumbled upon  a bunch of creepy ritual looking artifacts where it looked like someone once was. By this point it started to get dark and the guys turned on their phone flashlights, to stare at the creepy artifacts. A little later they had the feeling to get out of there because they felt like something, or someone was watching them. As they were leaving they started off slow only to start running when they can’t find their way back. Something sinister was also chasing them, terrorizing them on their way back. Once the college students found their way out they never wanted to go back in any woods, especially those woods ever again.

The part that my story relates to “The Ritual” is when a group of them were wandering around in the woods, and stumbling upon some old artifacts. The feeling when we stumbled upon the items might have been close to feeling when the college students found the ritual items, though their findings sounds much scarier. Both of our experiences in the woods were unexpected because we did not think that we were going to find antique things in the woods, and I bet the college students didn’t expect that either. Other than that though my story is a lot nicer because it wasn’t dark enough to use flashlights, we didn’t get lost, and nothing sinister chased us… Thankfully for all of us.

Photo on Foter.com