The Thing from Whitetail Woods

by Revenant Wings

Chapter 5 - Shadowed Memories

Iron Shield was out the door first, followed quickly by Revenant Wings and Garnet Heart, all three of them armed with spears. Revenant Wings felt panicked and wondered why Caramel would suddenly appear in the woods as though he was asleep. Where had he gone? Why was he suddenly back?

The three ponies tore across Ponyville with surprising speed. Revenant Wings took to the air and went high enough to scan over the treetops. The Whitetail Woods were mostly empty but, sure enough, there was a light-brown patch a little into the woods and just off the path looking like it had been just dropped there.

Revenant Wings dived down and galloped alongside Iron Shield. “Just inside the woods and right off the path, Captain! There’s a small patch of light brown there that may be a pony.”

“Come on!” Iron Shield said, slowing down a bit so he was behind Reveanant, letting him lead the way. “We need to pick him up and get him to the hospital if necessary.”

Revenant felt a slight feeling of déjà vu at the feeling of travelling the same path as he had earlier that morning. The evening sun cast a strange light on the Whitetail Woods; shadows lengthened, leaves turned to orange, and the grass became a darker yet more vibrant green. Thankfully, the pony wasn’t too far in.

Once they were just out of sight of Ponyville, Revenant Wings turned a sharp left off the path and hopped over a slight bush. Garnet Heart leapt over just after him and Iron Shield crashed through the bush as they followed the pegasus to the sight of the pony.

The pony was a bit smaller than Revenant Wings or Garnet Heart, covered in a caramel-brown coat with a dark brown mane and a cutie mark of three blue horseshoes. The three surveyed the fallen pony; on his right shoulder blade were two pinpricks like bite marks, but other than that he seemed to have taken no damage whatsoever. He was breathing slowly but comfortably and indeed looked like he had just fallen asleep where he was.

There were no tracks leading away from where Caramel’s body was, however, and there was little to suggest another pony had been with him not long ago. But Revenant Wings soon sighted a trio of small, dark brown hairs that looked more like coat hairs than mane hairs and picked them up, tucking them into his armor.

Iron Shield sat down and used a hoof to open up one of Caramel’s eyes. Amidst the green eye, the pupil was abnormally constricted as though he had intently been focusing on something small or had been in direct sunlight for a long while. It vibrated occasionally, making small jitters but Caramel looked hardly anywhere close to waking up.

“It’s him, alright,” Garnet Heart said. “Everything matches; the coat, the mane, the eyes, and the cutie mark. We’ve found Caramel.”

“But what’s he doing sleeping out here like this!?” Iron Shield said. “His pupils are contracted like someone shone a flashlight at him, and he’s in REM sleep.”

Revenant Wings looked over the sleeping body of Caramel. He was too focused on two things: the small hairs that he had seen on Caramel’s body and the two small red pinpricks on Caramel’s shoulder. Three days... three days... seventy two hours...

“Oh... oh my...”

Iron Shield heard his gasping. “What is it?”

“You listened to the interview tapes, right, sir?” Revenant Wings said. “Zecora had the same thing happen to her and has two pinpricks on her earlobe. They’re the same width apart, too. She was gone seventy-two hours. And now... now so has Caramel.”

Iron Shield looked strangely at Revenant Wings. “Seventy two hours gone... a set of bite marks similar to Caramel’s... We’ll need to call her over so we can measure the distance and size of the marks. But, if you’re right...”

But Iron Shield’s voice faded away and Revenant never heard what would happen if his assumption was right.

They decided to take Caramel to Ponyville Hospital. Iron Shield gently picked up Caramel and the three gently hopped back over the bush and made off down the trail to Ponyville again.

“How high profile is the case?” Garnet Heart asked.

“No one knows about it except for those who we interviewed,” Iron Shield responded. “The Apples said they would keep their silence and otherwise I don’t think the shy Fluttershy or Zecora hidden away in the Everfree would make much mention of it.”

“We should have made them promise their silence,” Revenant Wings said.

“Hindsight being twenty-twenty, we should have,” Iron Shield said as they busted out of the Whitetail Woods. “But all we can hope for now is that Ponyville’s rumors stay rumors.”

They busted into the Ponyville Hospital and ran up to the nearest nurse at the desk, a white pony with a pink mane and a red cross for a cutie mark.

“Nurse Redheart,” Iron Shield said. “We found this pony lying asleep with a bite mark on his shoulder. We need to get him into a room now and make sure he’s not poisoned or anything. Also, tell Doctor Stable that Caramel is here.”

The nurse nodded and made a quick call on her intercom. A few seconds later, two other ponies in white coats and with green face masks over their mouths came out from one of the corridors with a gurney between them. Iron Shield gently deposited Caramel onto the gurney, and the doctors wheeled the gurney around and back into the corridor before a fuss could be made.

Iron Shield turned around and looked at Revenant Wings and Garnet. “Anything more before we break up for tonight?”

Revenant removed the hairs from his armor. “I found these on Caramel. They didn’t look like they belonged to him.”

Iron Shield took them in his armor. “No, they certainly don’t,” he agreed. “We’ll take them back. If Watchful Eye is still at the station, I’ll have him bake these for five minutes then run a DNA-analysis, see if we can’t match it up with a pony somewhere.”

“Is that all, sir?”

“Yes. You two are free to head home from here, unless you have anything you need to collect from the station.”

Neither Garnet Heart nor Revenant Wings did, so they left the hospital and trundled off home.

Neither said anything more about the case until late at night when they were in bed. The window was open and the light was off, but neither of them seemed to be able to fall asleep.

“Well, the case is ‘solved’,” Revenant Wings said. “We found Caramel.”

“And yet... I’m not satisfied,” Garnet Heart added. “I feel like I should be. First real kidnapping case in a hundred years gets solved in seventy two hours. Why isn’t it as rewarding as it should be?”

“There’s too many loose ends,” Revenant suggested. “We still don’t know who did it, nor for what reason Caramel came back in three days. And there’s how he disappeared, why he disappeared at all, and what the berries have to do with it.”

Garnet hummed thoughtfully and nodded. “No perpetrator, no motive, no answers,” he agreed. “What do we do? Interview Caramel?”

“We’ll have to try,” Revenant Wings said. “But I think that’s going to go as far as it did with Zecora, if things are repeating themselves.”

The two sat in silence for a long while, with nothing but the gentle flap of their curtains and the rustling grass outside the window. It was calm and quiet and Revenant thought they had better go to sleep in case they had another long day tomorrow. He rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes, feeling heavy and tired as the excitement of the day began to wear off.

But for all his wanting to sleep, Revenant remembered something that Doctor Stable had said. “In truth, the normality of the situation scared me more than the possibility of him being hurt and his strange mad ramblings about the Whitetail Woods. It scared me because whatever fear he had vanished, as though he was never even scared to begin with.”

Revenant Wings’ eyes bolted open and he looked towards the window. His eyes managed to widen further as he leaned over and shook Garnet, who also appeared to be falling asleep.

“Garnet!” Revenant Wings yelled. “Garnet! Wake up! You’ve got to see this!”

“What is it?” Garnet mumbled sleepily. “Why you gotta be so loud?”

“Look!” Revenant Wings shouted. “Out the window!”

“Oh, what’s got you all in a twitter?” Garnet Heart mumbled. He turned around and propped himself up on the bed, looking out the window.

A moment later, his eyes too widened considerably.

Out across the small grassy plain, in the forests of the Whitetail Woods, a pair of brightly-colored eyes looked back at them from the shadows.

---

At nine o’clock the next morning, Quick Quill received a call. She went over to Captain Iron Shield’s office and spoke with him privately for about ten minutes. They talked deeply for a while before Quick Quill left and resumed her position at the front desk. Iron Shield came out, looked around, and barked.

“Revenant Wings!”

Revenant had been working on a report regarding his thoughts on one of the transcripts of an interview. But as soon as he heard the Captain bark out his name, he shuffled it to the side of his desk and got up, going over to the Captain.

“Yes, sir?” he asked.

“Come into my office,” Captain Iron Shield said simply.

Revenant Wings followed the Captain into the office and sat down across from him at the desk. The Captain was quiet for a few moments, looking over the pegasus guard sitting across from him as though measuring him up himself.

“I want to talk with you about two things,” Iron Shield said. “First off, we found no match with the hairs. But there were some other things with the DNA we found that are strange, and so we’ll be looking into that.”

Revenant Wings nodded. “Are you able to access the whole Equestrian database from here?”

“That had occurred to me,” Iron Shield said. “Canterlot and Manehattan have the full databases available to them. Perhaps we could see if it’s someone from Canterlot or Los Pegasus, but I don’t know if that’s going to be the case.”

Revenant Wings nodded again, but did not say anthing.

Iron Shield looked over some of his papers. “That being said, there is hope for finding who may have been behind Caramel’s disappearance with the hairs. We are going to have them analyzed soon, and with it we may have something as to where the perpetrator at least lives.”

Revenant Wings didn’t say anything nor moved from where he sat.

“Secondly, I have a task for you. Go to Doctor Stable at Ponyville Hospital; he is eager to see you and thank you for bringing his brother home. Then, I want you to see if you can’t speak with Caramel; he is awake and seems to be doing fine and suffers no adverse effects from his time away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do not bring the tape recorder,” Iron Shield continued. “Take a notepad and a few pencils with you to take notes. See if you can’t glean anything important from what he knows and take a few notes as to his condition.”

“...is that all, sir?”

Iron Shield sighed. “Well, not entirely.”

The white unicorn looked over the photographs of the bite area on Caramel and Zecora, which must have been taken sometime between the time Caramel went to the hospital and that morning before he came in, and sighed.

“I want to apologize,” the unicorn said. “For being harsh on you. As it turns out, we have more leads and more avenues to look at as a result of the information you and Garnet Heart gave. Understand it was not because I am angry with your work – you two have done excellently – but because I was nervous about it going on for longer than it had to.”

He took a deep breath and sighed again. “I know this isn’t over. But at least we have something to go off of. Be gentle on Caramel and see how much you can get from him, but don’t wear him out.”

“Yes, sir,” Revenant Wings said, and left the office.

Doctor Stable was very glad to see Revenant; as soon as the pegasus was shown to his office by a young orderly, Doctor Stable got up from around his desk and made to shake Revenant’s hoof, only to grab him and bring him in for a hug, which Revenant quietly accepted.

“Thank you,” Doctor Stable said quietly. “You promised me, and you did it.”

Revenant withdrew first. “How is Caramel doing?”

“He woke up at about six o’clock this morning. He was a little groggy at first, but he remembered where he was and ate a decent breakfast. We were thinking of discharging him this afternoon if his blood work comes back okay with no signs of venom.”

“So no broken bones or anything?”

“No. His eyes were very much contracted when he first woke up and alerted the nurse, but by the time he was brought something to eat and drink he seemed fine. He was very happy to see me, though he still refuses to say anything about what happened to him.”

“Well, I must admit that’s what I’m here for. With your permission, I would like to see if I could interview Caramel. No tape recorder; just a few pencils and a notepad.”

“Well, I suppose I could let you in. Come with me; he’s in Room 107.” They walked out and down the hall a short ways. “He’s been a little restless, but it’s normal so far as he’s concerned and we simply can’t let him leave bed until the results come in.”

Caramel was sitting upright when Revenant Wings and Doctor Stable came in. His green eyes were lively and alert and he seemed rather cheerful, reading a book and relaxing as though he was not just recovered from the woods after being missing for three days. He took a drink from the glass of water on his nightstand and looked up to them as they entered.

“Hey,” he said. “Have you got the blood work?”

“I’ve told you before; it’s in the lab and they’re looking at it.” Doctor Stable came over and put on a stethoscope, checking Caramel’s heartbeat. “You seem fine to me, but it’s just as a precaution.”

Caramel nodded. “Who’s the guard?”

“This is Revenant Wings. He was involved in the case of your disappearance. If you don’t mind, he wants to ask you a few questions about what happened.”

“Oh, okay.”

Doctor Stable brought over two chairs and set himself down in one while motioning for Revenant Wings to sit in the other. Revenant pulled the chair up to the bed and pulled out his notepad and a pencil and looked at Caramel.

“Don’t worry,” Revenant said. “We just want to find out where you were and what happened to you. Kidnapping and letting you sustain an injury like that is a very serious offense, and we want to try and find out who did that to you. Understand?”

Caramel nodded.

“Now, what is the last thing you remember before waking up?”

Caramel thought it over. “Well, I remember two things, actually. But one seems almost... almost like it never happened.”

“Alright. Then let’s start with the one that seems the most clear to you. What happened then?”

“I think... I think I was at the berry patch,” Caramel said, looking out the window towards the Whitetail Woods. “I wanted to collect some of them and bring them back home. I went looking around and found a rather nice patch of them, but I had left it at home.”

“If you wanted to go to the berry patch to pick them, why did you leave it at home?”

Caramel seemed to hit a roadblock in his thinking. He opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly his eyes widened and he shoved a hoof in his mouth, either because he refused to speak or didn’t even remember why. Revenant Wings made a note of this.

“Anyways,” Caramel said after a moment’s silence. “I don’t know why, but I just sat down in the middle of the berry patch. Like... like- like I was waiting for someone. It grew later, and then... everything becomes fuzzy.”

“Did someone come upon you and attack you?”

“No.” Caramel said. He shook his head. “Nothing like that at all. I just... don’t know what happened.”

“If I hadn’t checked you out,” Doctor Stable interjected, “it sounds like you had a small concussion.”

“But nothing hit me,” Caramel reiterated firmly. “I just... lost it. It kind of feels like I just suddenly fell asleep right in the middle of the berry bushes.”

“I know,” Doctor Stable said almost equally firmly. “I meant that the symptoms are like a concussion, but medically nothing happened. Your brain is working fine.”

“Then why are you questioning me? I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, and that’s it.”

Caramel does not remember what happened after entering patch. He also gets defensive when pressed, even gently, about trying to remember further events. Revenant Wings quickly scribbled into the pad before moving on.

“No matter,” he said, eager to diffuse the situation before Caramel decided he wouldn’t talk anymore. “Perhaps you’ll remember more details later. But now, let’s move on to the memory that seems hazy. Can you describe that for us?”

“What? Oh, of course.” Caramel scratched the back of his head with a hoof. “Um... well, I remember being on a ledge that looked out over some of the forest. I thought of jumping off it, but it was high enough that I thought I would hurt myself and strand myself.”

Revenant scribbled some minor details about the ledge. “Alright. What else?”

“Well, I remember being surrounded by tall rocks and the area being shaded by trees. There was a spring at one side and the water seemed to go into the rocks. There sounded like a waterfall on the other side, but the hole in the rocks was too small for a pony to crawl into. And so I was trapped on the ledge.

“But,” Caramel continued, “I didn’t feel a need to run, really. I felt calm, almost safe there. I walked about, exploring the area as though in a daze. There was no berry patch there, but there were some long patches of grass and some excellent-tasting wildflowers that I was able to eat from until I felt full and sleepy. And I drank from the spring until I wasn’t thirsty anymore; it was cool and cleaner than anything I’d tasted.”

“Could you see Ponyville if you looked out from the ledge?”

“As a mere speck in the distance,” Caramel said. “It seemed like I had travelled a long way, maybe five or six miles. There was a large stretch of the Whitetail Woods, a single home maybe just outside the woods themselves, then the sights of Ponyville.”

Revenant Wings scribbled down some quick notes on the description of the hideout in the rocks. “And what happened after you drank from the stream?”

“I felt calm and peaceful again, and especially lazy. I don’t know why, but I sat down as though waiting for something again. And then... it feels like I fell asleep again after that.”

“You don’t remember how you got up there at all?”

Caramel shook his head. “I don’t. But then, the next time I was awake, I was in the hospital.”

“Do you remember getting the bite mark on your shoulder?”

“Bite mark?” Caramel asked, clearly confused.

Caramel does not seem to remember how or where he obtained bite mark on shoulder.

Doctor Stable pulled out a small rectangular pocket mirror and held it up with his magic such that it pointed towards the mark on Caramel’s shoulder. Caramel inspected the mirror for a while before reaching up and touching the places where the pinpricks were.

“Huh...” he mused. “I don’t remember getting something like that. It doesn’t hurt, and I don’t feel sick or anything.”

“How do you feel, for that matter?” Revenant Wings asked.

“Well, mentally, I feel quite awake,” Caramel said. “But... my legs seem heavy. Like there’s a huge weight attached to them that I can’t seem to shake off. I can move them, but not very far from each other.”

He seems weakened in much the same way Zecora noted. Specifically points to back legs feeling heavy and can’t move them as much as he wants.

“Well, I suppose I only have one more question left for you and I’ll leave you alone,” Revenant Wings said. “It’s just a small one, just a few thoughts will suffice. There have been rumors of a creature that’s been lurking in the Whitetail Woods. Do you know of them or have you heard of them?”

Caramel looked somewhat amused by the question. “Rumors? Oh, about something in the Everfree Forest. You see... I started them.”

Revenant Wings and Doctor Stable looked astounded. Doctor Stable’s mouth was agape as though it was the last thing he’d expected to hear.

“You did?” Doctor Stable asked. “What... is it some sort of joke?”

“Well, it perhaps spread a bit far by accident,” Caramel replied. “I went a few days prior to the berry patch and got myself scared by something in the Whitetail Woods that was considerably larger than anything around Ponyville. I ran home that evening and told Applejack and Big Macintosh about it the next day; they must have spread it out just by talking to others.”

“But why didn’t you tell anyone...” Doctor Stable fumbled with the next word for a minute. “...you know, powerful? In-command?” He pointed to Revenant Wings. “Like... I don’t know, the guard?”

“I suppose I was just scared out of my wits,” Caramel shrugged. “Just so scared of what I saw it didn’t occur to me.”

“I suppose that brings up another question,” Revenant Wings commented. “If you knew something like that lived in there, why did you go back again a week later?”

“I like those berries,” Caramel said. “I wanted some more. I guess I must have thought it moved on and wouldn’t be there anymore.”

“Doctor Stable said you weren’t eating any of them,” Revenant Wings said. “He said you liked them before, but in the week beforehand you didn’t eat a single one.”

“Huh...” Caramel said. “Well, I know I gave some to Garnet Heart. But I wasn’t sure if I had enough to give some to others, either.”

“How come you decided you didn’t want any, though?” Revenant Wings said. “It sounded to me like you ate them pretty frequently.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I just decided I wouldn’t want some. You know how you get tired of things after too long? I... I guess I just decided to take a break from eating them all the time.”

Revenant Wings decided to take another cue from that answer. He wrote one more thing in the notebook – Frequently changes story as to why he went back to the patch when faced with contradictory evidence – then folded it up and stood up from the chair.

“Well, I had better get back to the guard’s station,” he said. “Thank you both for your time. I hope we can make a bit of progress on who or what found you in the woods. Hopefully we can give you some more information shortly.”

“It is some measure of peace already that my brother is back,” Doctor Stable said. “He can be stubborn, but I’m sure with patience and time we’ll figure it out.”

“You were one of the ones who found me in the woods?” Caramel said, looking at Revenant Wings. “Thank you. It feels like I’ve been asleep for the past three days. Hopefully I’ll get out of this funk soon enough.”

“If you think you spot that creature again,” Revenant Wings replied, “Do not be afraid to come to the guard’s station and we’ll see if we can’t figure out what it’s doing or why it’s there.” He tipped his guard’s helmet. “I’ll be seeing you two around.”

Doctor Stable followed Revenant Wings out into the hallway. Nurse Redheart was coming into the room as they left, a clipboard in her mouth.

“Thank you very much,” Doctor Stable said. “Really, I’m grateful that he’s back.”

“It’s just my job, Doctor Stable, sir,” Revenant Wings replied. “Of course, it’s one of the few kidnapping cases Ponyville has had in recent years, though I’m glad at least that Caramel was brought back safely.”

“Yes, of course,” Doctor Stable agreed. He sighed. “It’s so strange. I mean, Ponyville has many magical creatures around, so I suppose we often take for granted the fact that we don’t see them around too often.”

“It is a rather strange occurrence,” Revenant Wings said. “We’ll in all likelihood be reporting this to Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight, as well; perhaps they might have something to contribute such that this doesn’t happen again.”

“Again, thank you. That itself puts my mind at ease. Ugh, I should hate for it to happen to anyone else.” He wiped his brow with a single hoof and readjusted his glasses. “I would like for you and Garnet Heart to join us for dinner sometime as an expression of thanks.”

“Well, we’ll see where the case takes us,” Revenant Wings replied. “But I think I speak for both of us in that we both appreciate it. We’ll see what our schedules look like and perhaps find a time in the next week or two.”

“Excellent. I’m free almost any evening unless I have an emergency surgery, but those tend to be few and far betw—”

There came a very loud thump and something of a crash from inside the room, followed by Nurse Redheart gasping. Revenant Wings and Doctor Stable quickly went back into the room to see what happened.

“Oh my god!” Doctor Stable exclaimed.

Caramel was sprawled out on the floor of the room. It looked like he had tried to move but simply crashed onto the floor. Thankfully, he was only dazed and not knocked out and already seemed to be wondering what happened to him.

“It’s alright,” Caramel said. “I... what happened? I feel alright, but I can’t move my legs...”

Revenant Wings thought he saw a very good reason for that. In the confusion over Caramel’s sudden appearance and trying to get him to the hospital, hidden by the blankets during their last conversation, a glaring detail now stood out to him: Caramel’s cutie-mark was nearly faded out.