It was just supposed to be another camping trip, you know, like so many others we'd gone on.

The town we live in isn't huge, but it does have a lot of woodland to explore.

We live on the edge of what most people would call Appalachia.

And we had more than one weird experience out there.

Once all my friends and I walked down the familiar trails, we smelled strong and unpleasant scent.

Brian thought I must have been a bear, but I smelled bear smells before.

We'd had one winter under our back porch one year, and this was very different from the musty smell that he left when

spring came. Another time while we were camping we saw ghost lights in the woods. They were beautiful, red, blue, yellow, orange.

And though Justin was afraid of him, I felt drawn to them, wanted to see them better.

I knew better, though.

Grandma told all of us about the dangers of following the ghost lights and that assured us that we wouldn't like where they would take us.

The lands of Ferry is beautiful, but also terrible for mortals to behold.

They'd make you young for the rest of your days, though that might not be as long as you might think.

She always said, with meel grin.

We'd heard whistling and strange growls, throaty yells and strange birds, but none of it ever really scared me.

The woods had always been a friendly place, a place of

adventure, and I always look forward to my time there. I never felt uneasy

when I was within its borders as the four of us prepared to go back into

the woods for another camping expedition I was excited.

Brian's brother had told him about an old trestle bridge deep in the woods and we all wanted to see it.

It was part of the old railroad, something that hadn't run through the town in a long time.

The tracks were all still there, the old station too, but the trains had been mostly for passengers.

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