Chapter 262: Wooden Cabin (End)
Thanks to years of training—and countless games of fetch with Buddy—Everly had always maintained exceptionally accurate throwing skills.
The silver-white sphere left her palm and drew a bright arc through the air, landing precisely inside the goat-hoofed monster’s mouth.
At the same time, the button pressed by her thumb automatically sprang back. A mechanism inside the sphere was triggered. The moment it touched the inner wall of the creature’s mouth, the metal sphere silently unfolded, releasing a single violet-red electric orb from within.
Yes—“single.” At least the moment it appeared, the electric orb was small enough to be described that way.
Ever seen bacteria multiplying under a microscope?
Once exposed to the air, the violet-red electric orb began to expand like bacteria dividing—one becoming two, two becoming three, three becoming infinite. In the blink of an eye, it swelled from the size of a fingernail to that of a yoga ball, completely filling the monster’s mouth.
Arcs of electricity coiled around its surface. Deep blue, pale gold, dark red, bright violet—different colors of current flashed into existence and vanished again in an instant, illuminating the forest in bursts of blinding light.
The glowing electric sphere triggered an anomaly in the sky. Thunderclouds gathered over the forest at a visible speed.
Within just a few seconds, the clouds had grown to cover the entire sky as far as the eye could see. Inside the pitch-black mass, countless wrist-thick lightning bolts slithered like serpents.
The people standing on the staircase could hear nothing from the outside world, but even just seeing this scene filled them with overwhelming shock.
And then—the storm began.
Not ordinary lightning strikes, but a barrage of lightning like machine-gun fire. Each bolt that struck lit up the forest in a burst of white light. One after another, the flashes formed an unnatural “sun,” turning the dark woods into a place as bright as daylight.
When lightning struck the trees, their gray-white trunks instantly ignited, belching out thick plumes of smoke. When bolts crashed into the ground, gravel and soil were flung into the air, leaving behind scorched black craters. When the electric light struck the cultists who had become tree-like monsters, they couldn’t even manage a scream before their entire bodies seemed to evaporate, dissolving into a cloud of black ash that scattered onto the ground.
The goat-hoofed monster, still with the electric sphere in its mouth, became the primary target for the vast majority of the lightning strikes.
It trembled violently, roaring in agony amid the flashes of light.
At first, Everly stayed at the base of the staircase, on full alert. If the monster showed any sign of charging up the stairs, she was prepared—despite the danger of being struck by lightning herself—to grab a dead branch from the ground outside the staircase and use it to keep the creature at bay.
But she quickly realized her worry was unnecessary.
Although Everly could not hear the deafening thunder, nor the monster’s horrific howls, nor feel the tremors shaking the forest with each strike, she could still see.
She saw bolt after bolt of lightning—each thicker than an adult’s thigh—crashing down repeatedly onto the goat-hoofed monster’s body. The writhing tentacles on its surface stiffened like electrified snakes, each one going rigid before being carbonized from tip to base.
She saw the black fur on its goat legs instantly turn to ash, while clusters of tiny blisters erupted like mushrooms after rain, making its limbs resemble two grotesque bunches of grapes glistening with a nauseating sheen.
She saw the monster’s deeply furrowed body seared black by the lightning, its soft exterior first hardening into a shell. Then, as more and more bolts continued to strike—as if the entire forest had become a reservoir of stored energy—its swollen, round form began to glow from within with a deep red light.
A light that signified danger and omen.
The falling lightning grew more and more numerous, and the monster’s body shone brighter and brighter. Like a burning-hot ember, like an egg being heated in a microwave—when the energy accumulated inside it reached a critical point and exceeded what its flesh could withstand, the scythe of death finally fell.
Crack, crack.
Fine, dense fractures appeared across its surface. The next second, the entire goat-hoofed monster exploded from the inside out.
Scalding internal matter splattered violently in all directions, coating nearby trees and the ground in a sticky, disgusting mess.
If Everly hadn’t reacted in time and retreated deeper onto the staircase, she would have been hit head-on by the foul, glue-like debris spraying in through the stairway entrance.
The goat-hoofed monster was dead.
But the thunderstorm did not stop.
The world had become a giant furnace, with lightning as the coal fire and hammer forging all life within it.
Wave after wave of dense lightning struck without rest—endless, tireless, wild and relentless, tearing apart everything on the ground below.
Even with her goggles protecting her eyes, Everly still felt a burning pain in her vision. Tears of pure physiological response flowed uncontrollably down her face.
And the fear brought by the staircase was still raging.
It did not disappear. Instead, it intensified the longer they remained.
Even though reason clearly told her there was no danger nearby, the emotional fear and sense of isolation stacked layer upon layer, growing to a point where it became suffocating—enough to make one’s heart tremble and steal away one’s breath.
So scared. So scared. So scared. So scared.
I want to run. I want to run. I want to run. I want to run…
That overwhelming fear surged like a flood, drowning Everly completely.
Gasping for air, she forced her shaking legs to climb higher up the stairs. Eyes shut tight, she moved forward, and finally pressed herself against her trembling teacher and classmates—holding them tightly as they clung to one another in the storm.
At this moment, only the warmth of one another could offer her a brief sense of comfort.
……
Everly couldn’t tell how long the thunderstorm had lasted.
It was also the first time she learned that when a person’s fear reaches its absolute peak, even without a “jump scare,” their nervous system can still overload and cause them to lose consciousness.
And when she finally woke from that long, heavy sleep, it was already the next morning.
Bright sunlight poured down from above, falling onto Everly’s body and bringing a faint warmth to the cold late-autumn air.
Pressing her hands against the damp, slightly softened ground, she struggled to stand—only to find that the staircase they had used as shelter the night before had disappeared at some point.
All thirteen of them, herself included, were lying on scorched earth.
Looking around, Everly froze again.
She was met with a field of blackened wasteland.
Centered on where the thirteen of them lay, the eye could see nothing but charred soil for miles. Within a radius of about three kilometers, there was not a single intact tree left—only skeletal remains lying scattered like burnt matchsticks.
Charred branches were piled chaotically on the ground. The soft soil had turned black and cracked. A strong smell of burning filled the air, and when the cold wind blew, it carried fine black ash through the sky.
It was gone. Everything was gone.
Whether it was the terrifying goat-hoofed monster or the cultist trees with human faces and writhing tentacles—all had been reduced to nothing under the baptism of that horrific thunderstorm.
Had she not seen the collapsed altar in the distance, Everly might have believed everything from last night had been nothing more than an illusion.
Were they safe now?
Everly didn’t know.
She walked over to her unconscious companions, nudged them awake one by one, then opened her backpack and took out the satellite phone. First, she tried calling Old John.
This time, the call went through successfully. It was likely that the ritual array on the altar had been destroyed, causing the signal interference to disappear as well.
That discovery made the weight in Everly’s chest ease a little.
At the very least, being able to communicate with the outside world—and escaping “island mode”—meant they were one step closer to safety.
She briefly explained their current situation to Old John, then took out Dees’s notebook. Flipping to the very first page, she found the “office landline” written on the inside cover and asked Old John to help dial it.
She suspected the number belonged to the SAI Western Cinat State investigative division where Dees worked.
Due to current technology and cost limitations, most landlines in the U.S. were still not compatible with satellite phones. Only departments involved in emergency response—such as police stations, fire departments, and hospitals—had systems allowing landlines to connect with satellite calls. Everly wasn’t sure whether SAI’s line could receive satellite calls, so she simply delegated the task to Old John.
Old John placed the call to SAI a little after 10 a.m., and after a series of internal transfers on their end, the call finally reached Everly via satellite phone at around 3 p.m.
As expected of a government agency—the efficiency was truly impressive in a way that left people speechless.
By that time, Everly’s hiking group had already left the area devastated by the thunderstorm and was trudging forward according to GPS directions, heading toward the finish line.
It wasn’t that anyone was especially enthusiastic about hiking anymore.
After everything they had gone through—hypothermia, cultists, monsters—everyone in the group was physically and mentally exhausted. If they could, they would have gladly left this cursed forest the very next second, returned to the human world of soft beds and pillows, eaten a proper meal, drunk some wine, and collapsed onto a sofa in front of the TV.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible.
The group was still deep in the mountains. Dense forest surrounded them on all sides, and the terrain was rough and uneven—there was barely any place suitable for a helicopter to land. As a side note, the cost of helicopter rescue alone was enough to make most people hesitate.
Harriet and Ted had led hiking groups through the Black Mountains almost every year. She told everyone that when people got into trouble in the forest, even after calling for help, nearby rescue teams would still have to come on foot. By the time they met up, the remaining distance still had to be walked together. There was simply no way to avoid it.
Given that, after some discussion, the group decided that rather than waiting halfway for help to arrive, it was better to grit their teeth and finish the remaining hiking route themselves.
No one wanted to stay anywhere near the ruins of the altar for too long. After all, the lightning had struck everything indiscriminately—but who could guarantee that no lucky “cultist tree” had somehow survived? If there was a chance, it was better to put distance between themselves and that place as quickly as possible.
Moreover, once they were out of immediate danger and checked their GPS coordinates, they realized they had already completed more than half of the route. At full speed, they could reach the finish in another day or two.
Although the journey had been harrowing, looking at it from another perspective, if they could complete this hike, the experience would be dramatic enough to brag about for the rest of their lives.
Thinking of it that way, a surprising surge of strength returned to everyone’s exhausted bodies.
SAI turned out to be fairly considerate—or perhaps they were simply understaffed and couldn’t be bothered to take responsibility for feeding and housing thirteen exhausted hikers. In any case, after hearing that the group had already left the altar site, they showed no objection to their decision to move on.
“Based on your description, it’s highly likely that the Black Goat cult in the forest has been wiped out. As long as you stay careful on the rest of the route, you shouldn’t encounter them again,” the person on the line reassured Everly.
That was indeed good news.
After reassuring the victims, the person asked Everly for the coordinates of the altar. That wasn’t difficult to find—she simply checked the GPS tracking logs.
The exchange between both sides was fairly smooth. At the end of the call, the investigator gave Everly a phone number.
“The remnants of the Black Goat cult are closely connected to an organization we’ve been investigating. Our field agent will be waiting for you at the end of your hiking route. If you arrive and can’t find anyone, contact her using this number. This matter is very important—it may be related to the safety of countless lives. If necessary, we can also apply for a reward from our superiors for you…”
Everly agreed without hesitation.
Even without any reward, the group would cooperate fully. In any case, their survival this time had been largely thanks to Dees’s journal and the weather sphere. Just to return his belongings, Everly would go find SAI.
He was a remarkable hero. His name and deeds deserved to be known by everyone.