Dead Tree Forest by Brett Mcbean

“It’s freezing out here.”
    “Asking Ginnumarra for forgiveness,” Chris replied. “Pleading with her to lift the curse and save the rest of us from death.”
    With a sigh, Ray stepped over to Chris. “What the hell’s going on? What exactly is this curse?”
    Chris turned his eyes upwards. They were heavy with fear. “The same force that sucked the life out of this forest is sucking the life out of us.”
    Ray swallowed. “What do you mean?”
    “I didn’t know the exact nature of the curse. People speculated, but no one knew for sure. I’ve been listening to the spirits, trying to understand. Now, I do. Or at least, I think I do. The curse—or I should say Ginnumarra—is sucking the life from our bodies. The deeper we go into the forest, the more our life is drained from us and the older we get, until we eventually become the forest.”
    “You mean until we eventually become like the forest.”
    Chris shook his head. “ Become the forest.” He motioned with his head towards Nathan’s body.
    Ray aimed the torchlight at Nathan’s corpse.
    Or at least, where Nathan’s corpse had been.
    There was no longer a body, just a pile of clothes on the ground.
    Ray took a few moments to digest what he was seeing. “Jesus,” he whispered, and a hundred icy spiders scurried up and down his back.
    He spun the light back to Chris. “Why is this happening?”
    Chris shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but maybe it’s Ginnumarra’s way of trying to resurrect herself. Maybe she figures that by feeding on life she can be reborn. Perhaps that was the real reason for the curse. I thought it was for revenge, but maybe I was wrong.”
    “You think you can stop the curse?”
    “Her power is strong. I don’t hold much hope.”
    Ray’s shoulders slumped. He thought of Gemma. “Shit,” he muttered. He gazed at Chris, at the man he had helped kidnap. A man now looking older than his years. He was shivering and his breath fogged in quick bursts.
    “You’re freezing,” Ray said.
    Chris shrugged.
    “You know you can use the other tent. I put all of Nathan’s gear inside; you’re welcome to use it.”
    Chris nodded.
    Silence fell between them. “Look, I’m sure you hate us for what we’ve done,” Ray finally said. “And...well, shit, you gotta understand why I did what I did.” Ray took a deep breath, and it felt like ice cubes were rolling down his throat and into his lungs. “My youngest girl, Gemma, she has leukaemia. I only found out about a month ago. My wife found out a month before that, but she didn’t tell me, because...well, she didn’t think it’d do me any good. I couldn’t have done anything anyway, that’s what she said.”
    “Because you were in jail?”
    Ray, hugging himself against the cold, nodded. Then he frowned. “How’d you know?”
    Chris shrugged. “Just a hunch. What were you in for?”
    “Rape and assault with a deadly weapon. I was paroled from Barwon after seven years, for good behaviour. Anyway, my wife told me the night I was released from prison. My little girl’s got cancer. Fuck. They were doing all they could, the drugs and all that, but it wasn’t helping. I first heard about Dead Tree Forest from Sammy, an Aborigine doing time for manslaughter. I thought it was all mumbo-jumbo at the time, but when I got out of the joint and learnt of Gemma’s illness, the part about what supposedly lay at the bottom of the lake started playing on my mind, and it soon grew into an obsession. I read all I could about the legend, and every book and internet site mentioned the healing amulet that the girl supposedly had with her when she was thrown into the lake. I was desperate. I was sure it was all bogus, I thought I would never even find the forest, let alone the lake. But, I had to try. So that’s why I came down here. I knew I could never find this forest by myself, so I figured I would need a local, an Aborigine, to help me. But, knowing what I did about the legend, I knew