Fear the Woods (2017) s01e09 Episode Script

The vast
North American wilderness
is home to evil forces
thought only to exist
in nightmares.
But the terrible creatures
that roam here
are all too real.
Some of these horrific beings
stalking the forest
are flesh and blood.
Others exist in a space
between this world
Mom, look!
And the beyond.
Who's there!
I was kind of creeped out
a little bit.
Just wondering, you know,
what was following us.
Did it follow us back,
or did it stay there?
Ghosts feed off of
that fear energy.
He slowly started to grin
like the Joker on "Batman."
I was just kind of shocked
about it.
And when I saw it,
I immediately got scared.
The dead may be buried,
but that doesn't always mean
they are gone.
A ghost or a spirit
that finds themselves trapped,
straddling realms
between what we call the living
and the afterlife
Those that intend to stay
to stay there are fine,
and they're where
they're want to be.
But sometimes there are ones
that are trapped,
and they feel trapped.
Ghosts can get dangerous.
Michelle Lopez and her family
Husband Jason,
children Chinar
and Christopher
Head up north to a rented cabin
for a relaxing weekend.
The reason we took this trip
to the cabin
was in the summer
just to get away from the city,
get some fresh air,
some quiet time,
spend time with the kids.
We actually picked the cabin
because of its remote location.
I thought, this is perfect.
You know, there's, like,
nobody around.
It's very remote,
just surrounded by woods.
But the woods can hold
terrifying secrets
as the Lopez family
knows all too well.
Michelle and Jason
have always had
a deep interest
in the paranormal.
Both contend
ghosts walk among us.
I believe that the spirits
are here
because some of them can't,
for some reason, pass over.
Something's keeping them here.
They don't understand
they're lost here.
They don't know how to get over.
Sometimes they just need help.
Shortly after arriving
to the cottage,
they decide to head off
on a paranormal adventure.
It was a bonus to find out
that there was a cemetery
not too far away,
so we decided to go
and check it out.
Maybe we shouldn't have,
but we did.
Go over there.
I'm gonna take a picture.
Smile.
Not everyone is up
for the quest.
Like her mother,
Chinar is tuned
into the ghost world,
but it scares her.
Whenever there's a presence
of a spirit
or something paranormal around,
I can feel it.
Like, when I'm, like,
quiet and doing my own thing,
I can feel it.
My daughter, she is terrified of
anything to do
with the paranormal.
Are you coming with us?
No, I'm gonna stay back here.
Are you sure?
You never know what's out there.
Old cemetery, old spirits.
Exactly. No way.
Okay, see you later.
The family
makes its way into the woods
and quickly realizes
they are anything but deserted.
It was quiet,
and I could hear footsteps.
We thought, okay,
maybe it's just, like,
teenagers in the bushes,
like, messing around
or whatever, right?
So we were, like,
"Okay, whatever."
So we just continued to walk.
We're walking,
and we could hear it again,
so we stopped.
And I told my husband,
like, "You need to go check out
the bush over there."
Hello!
Is anybody there?!
Hello!
Hello!
He's, like, "Hello, hello!"
And he peeks around the bush,
and there was, like,
absolutely nobody there.
There's nothing.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
So I was, like,
"Okay, well, that's weird."
It wasn't even windy.
The trio carries on
and finally arrives
at their destination.
The cemetery
was in a wooded area.
It was quiet.
There was no one else around.
But this is
no ordinary cemetery.
They learn this burial spot
is steeped in tragedy.
They have a plaque there
that says, you know,
it's a mass grave
for all the cholera victims
that died in the early 1900s.
There was quite a few
children's headstones.
It was just sad, you know,
seeing all the children's
headstones there
and realizing how they suffered
and died there.
Those poor children.
Once again,
Michelle, Jason, and Christopher
get the sense
they are not alone.
I could hear the rustling
in the bushes
and footsteps of what sounded
like somebody behind us.
Mom.
You okay?
My son was, like,
hiding behind me,
and we didn't want
to have something happen to us
or anything, right.
Sometimes a ghost
will manifest involuntarily
because something about
what they're watching
has triggered them.
Those kinds of spirits
usually come from
a horrible accident,
an unexpected death,
a tragic death.
They weren't ready to go
before their time,
so they have ended up
in this in this realm.
Are you okay?
Yeah.
Someone's here.
No, there's something here.
I can feel it.
Sometimes I can feel
certain things.
I can't see them,
but I can feel them.
Jason.
So the longer that we stayed
in the graveyard,
the energy was just so much
that it was
You could just feel it
growing there.
Yeah, let's get going.
Everyone
My son and my husband
were just getting to the point
where they were starting
to really get terrified,
so we left.
We would hear something
that sounded like footsteps
behind us.
We would all stop, turn around.
There'd be nothing there.
My husband
was getting goose bumps.
My son was terrified.
We're definitely not alone.
What are you doing?
Don't turn around.
Michelle is afraid
to look behind her,
but still attempts
to find out what's there.
We kept walking.
I said, "There's something
behind us."
I told my husband,
and I told my son,
I'm, like, "Don't turn around.
I'm gonna take my camera.
I'm gonna put it on my shoulder,
and I'm just gonna
snap a photo."
I want to get out of here.
Now that she has the photo,
Michelle wants to leave
as fast as possible.
And I actually
said to my husband,
"okay, like, I think
Okay, this is enough,"
because I thought I was
literally gonna, like,
just throw up everywhere.
It is possible to suffer
a physical reaction to a spirit,
especially if the person
has a certain sensitivity,
is emphatic,
or high sense of empathy.
People like that
who are particularly sensitive
to that kind of thing
tend to pick up on
the sorrowful, angry vibes
that the spirit
might be producing.
And their night of terror
is only just beginning.
Did it follow us back,
or did it stay there?
Mom, look!
I didn't want it to be
something malevolent
that could hurt any of us.
Who's there?!
Who's there?!
A spirit
trapped between two realms
can be very dangerous
when they decide
to haunt the living.
The phenomenon of haunting
can affect people
on many levels,
not only mentally, emotionally,
and spiritually,
but also physically.
While on vacation
in the country,
Michelle and her family
Hello?!
Investigate a cemetery
they think is deserted.
It's not.
There's something here.
I can feel it.
And now Michelle is feeling
the effects of the encounter.
We decided finally just to get
the heck out of that place,
out of the cemetery.
And the whole entire time,
I felt like
I was just gonna throw up.
I want to get out of here.
When we finally
got back to the cabin,
my husband was relieved
that we were back.
When Chinar sees her mother,
she knows
something has happened.
It did not feel good.
I was extremely nauseated.
Mom, what's wrong?
I need to rest.
Well, come on, come on.
I went up to her.
And she was, like,
"I don't know.
I'm just gonna go lay down.
I'm not feeling good."
And Chinar gets
a powerful feeling
that they have company.
I need to lay down.
The reason a ghost
would follow somebody home
is to simply convey a message.
"You've been in my territory.
I know where you live,
and I'm invading yours.
Don't come back here.
This is what I can do."
I was kind of creeped out.
I didn't want it to be
something malevolent
that could hurt any of us.
Michelle's concerns about
whether something
has followed her home
are soon realized.
But then everything
started up that night.
I'm sitting there
on the computer.
My daughter was in her room,
and my son was in bed.
My daughter opened up her door.
She froze.
Mom, look!
And she screamed, like
She just, like
She points down,
and she's, like, "Look!"
And this yellow
toy construction hat
starts spinning, like,
really fast in circles.
I see the hat spinning.
Like, I was just, like, stuck,
like, I couldn't move at all.
Mom!
And it went
flying down the hall.
What's going on?
When I grabbed the hat,
I'm checking the hat over.
There's nothing on the hat.
It's just a hat.
It doesn't take batteries.
It doesn't make sound.
It doesn't make movement,
nothing.
There's nothing to worry about.
I hate it here!
She was so scared.
She was just so terrified,
and I couldn't even
calm her down.
The night continues
to get stranger.
Whatever followed them home
from the cemetery
turns its attention
to Christopher.
Everything's okay, Christopher.
Go back to bed.
Someone's knocking.
What?
Someone's knocking.
I'm, like, "Christopher,
go back to bed.
It's, like, 11:00."
"No, mom,
somebody's knocking."
I'm, like,
"What are you talking about?"
There's nothing there.
Just go back to bed.
Can't you hear them?
They're there.
But they don't
register with Jason.
Kids are tuned very differently.
They have the ability
to see spirits.
They have the ability
to feel things
that aren't there.
They have the ability
to hear things.
I'm, like, "Okay."
So I stood there, and I'm, like,
"Okay, I'm gonna wait here,
and I'm gonna see
if I can hear anything."
So I stood there.
I didn't hear a damn thing.
Like, I don't hear anything.
"You can't hear it?" he said.
He says to me.
I'm, like,
"I can't hear anything."
He's, like,
"They're knocking."
Christopher insists he can hear
someone reaching out to him.
They want me.
My husband,
he did go out the side door.
It is very dark.
You can't even see your hand
in front of your face
when you're outside.
Who's there?!
Who's there?!
There was nothing there.
It was quiet out.
You couldn't even
hear a bird or nothing.
It was just nighttime.
It was pitch black.
Who's there?!
Jason!
Jason can't see anything.
Who's there?!
But the darkness is filled
with the laughter of children.
Who's there?!
The ghost of a child
could be dangerous.
When a ghost child
were interacting
with a living child
they might find something
about the living child
that upsets them,
and they might push back.
The night is not over yet.
Mommy, mommy!
The Lopez family
went to an abandoned graveyard
to look around.
But now, something
has followed them home.
And is reaching out
to their son, Christopher.
Ghost children
tend to be attracted
to the children of the living
because they can relate.
They're more or less
the same age,
and because the ghost children
are where they are,
chances are they are confused
about where they are.
They passed away prematurely.
They're probably wondering
why no one can see them.
But this living child can.
Christopher is woken
from his sleep
and compelled
to his bedroom window.
Mommy, mommy!
Mommy!
Christopher.
Mommy.
There's two boys
playing outside.
What do you mean?
Come back to bed.
There's two boys
playing outside.
"There's two boys."
Seriously,
you need to go to sleep.
"But I could see them!"
What?
He's, like,
"They have blond hair.
There's two of them.
They have blond hair,
and I can see their shirts.
They're wearing white shirts,
but I can see
through their shirts.
Like, they're playing
with my toys."
It started to clue in
that we probably
had brought something back.
Maybe it was trying
to wake him up
because he wanted to play,
you know.
Maybe it was a child
that wanted attention.
It was lonely.
I was just hoping that
it was nothing
that was gonna harm any of us.
And I decide, "Okay,
I'm gonna get out my camera.
I'm gonna check out
all the photos that I took."
Desperate to protect her child,
Michelle decides to get to
the bottom of this encounter
with the paranormal.
And I start
going through the photos.
One of the photos
that I had taken
by the cholera mass grave,
you can clearly make out
what looks like a child
Blond hair,
squatted down on their knees,
looking down like that,
right behind the plaque.
You could see
a little blonde-haired boy,
and it looks like he's running.
You can see
his arms up like that.
Like that.
And I was, like, "Oh, my God."
The ghosts
of the cholera victims
have left the mass grave
and stalked her son to his room.
But what do they want?
They have a story to get across.
There should be no surprise
the ghosts of children
would accompany a family
that included children
amongst their brood.
The spirits come from
a horrible, unexpected,
and tragic death.
They weren't ready to go.
They have ended up
in this realm.
They have kind of a foot
in both realms,
and they're not quite sure
where they want to be
or how to get out of it.
Stay here.
Michelle knows there is only
one way to deal with a ghost.
You have to leave!
Confront it.
I'm sorry we bothered you!
And I said, "Whoever's here,
if you followed us home,
we apologize for bothering you
in any way if we did.
My son is frightened of you.
You're not welcome
in this house.
We did not invite you here.
You need to leave."
You're not welcome here!
You can't have him!
Do you hear me?
You have to go!
You have to leave now!
It's always interesting to me
to see ghosts
or earthbound spirits
that are children.
I've seen cases
where children don't know
that they're actually dead,
or they won't cross over
until someone says it's okay.
Go.
Go now.
Find peace somewhere else.
Go now.
And just like that,
the experience is over,
but it has lasting effects.
Christopher, he was shaken up,
definitely shaken up.
He was the only one
that could see them,
and nobody else could see them.
To this day, he always says
that he wants to go back.
But then when it comes down
to the time and the day to go,
he wants absolutely
nothing to do
with actually being there.
The Lopez family
left their ghosts behind,
but Rocky Elmore is about
to return to a haunted mountain
where another spirit is trapped
between this world and the next.
I've had people question me
to what I saw that night,
suggesting how I hallucinated,
or I imagined things.
I did not imagine that.
I was fully awake,
and I know what I saw.
And it was walking
right toward me.
Not all spirits
pass over to the other side.
Some are trapped here on Earth.
Ghosts feed off of
that fear energy.
They feed off of depression.
They feed off of chaos.
They like that kind of energy.
All ghosts are not bad.
There are plenty of
Of spirits
that are good-natured.
But there can be
what I can call
What you might call
evil spirits,
I call them negative spirits.
A ghost or a spirit
that finds themselves trapped,
straddling realms,
do feel a sense of torment
being in that state.
And this mountainside
is full of apparitions,
both good-natured and otherwise.
Well, it's been claimed
by the locals
that that mountain is haunted.
Border agent Rocky Elmore
has had his share
of ghostly encounters,
Such as when his partner
Luis Santiago was murdered.
In some cases,
a ghost returns
to where they died.
Santiago tried to contact Rocky
from beyond the grave.
I asked myself many times,
why would he be trying
to contact me over the radio
like that?
Was it to say goodbye?
Was it to tell me what happened?
Now Rocky has a new partner
and another tale to tell.
This story takes place
on top of Otay Mountain,
probably about a third of a mile
from a place called
Doghouse Junction.
This mountainside
has seen its share of death
for over a century.
The area has had
several aircraft crashes
Medical helicopter,
World War II airplanes.
There's just so many things
that happen up on that mountain.
We find skeletal remains
up there,
almost on a monthly basis.
We've found dead bodies.
There's a lot of death
and misery on that mountain.
Tonight,
Rocky and his partner Pat
are on the hunt for a smuggler.
Pat and I had been sent
up to the mountain.
We were the only two
anywhere near
the peak of the mountain
in Doghouse Junction.
There's times I've heard
what could have been screams
up on the mountain,
and you can't tell
if it's an animal
or if it's a person.
We didn't come up
with any footprints,
no sign for anybody.
We didn't hear anything.
Hey, I don't see anything!
Do you?
All right.
Let's head back.
The fog sweeping over that
just gave it really
a horror movie
It would have been
a perfect setting
to film a horror movie there.
The nights that we were
That we would work in the fog,
visibility is obviously
very, very difficult.
Your flashlights might
play tricks around, you know,
shadows being cast.
But typically,
you just can't see anything
until you're
right on top of something.
Heads up!
It's nothing.
We hiked
back up to our vehicles.
Got back up there,
and it's probably around
3:00 or 4:00 in the morning
at that time.
Pat said, he wanted to know
if it'd be okay
if he took about
a 15-minute nap,
and I would watch for him.
So he dozed off
for about 15 minutes,
and I watched everything.
You're gonna grab some Z's,
it's a good a time as any.
His partner dozes off.
And that's when Rocky
finally sees
that they are not
the only ones on the mountain.
In the distance,
I seen this figure coming up
out of Copper Canyon,
and it was walking right for us.
And I quickly looked over
at my partner,
and he was still sawing logs.
This figure actually seemed
to be a Border Patrol agent.
He looked like one of us
at a distance.
I thought I detected a gun belt
and things on it like that.
I thought it was
a little bit strange
because no one else
was assigned up there.
Patrol, is anyone else
out here with us?
Lots of times, you'll go into
what we would call a dead zone
where our radio communications
wouldn't work.
So we'd be literally on our own.
What exactly is Rocky chasing?
We couldn't call out for help
if something went down,
if something went bad.
The biggest danger with the fog
for a Border Patrol agent
is that, as he's walking around,
he'll get lost
because he can't
find his trails as easy.
He can't find
the landmarks as easy.
I'm starting to think that,
well, I probably should have
woke my partner up.
Obviously,
this is a little bit more
than what I thought it was.
The question is,
who or what is Rocky chasing?
I got close enough
to see his actual face.
I thought he was about
to speak to me.
Border Patrol agent Rocky Elmore
has seen someone
in the thick mountain fog.
Is it a man or something else?
The idea of spirits
scares people,
so right off the bat,
we're emitting fear.
We're emitting that energy.
And unfortunately,
that's kind of
the worst thing we can do
if there is spirit activity
because that's what
they feed off of.
Rocky is lured up the trail away
from his partner.
Finally, he gets a good look
at his target.
And as he got
a little bit closer,
it actually started to take
the form of like a military,
maybe in a jumpsuit,
some kind of utility belt
or something.
Rocky is face-to-face
with a man in uniform
who seems eerily out of place
on the mountain.
I thought, "well, I guess
it would be possible
that there could have been
a plane crash,
and nobody knew about it,
and he survived it."
But something's not right.
As he come towards me,
he was walking totally silent.
I did not hear footsteps.
Considering the terrain,
I should have heard
the footsteps.
When he got close enough
to see his actual face,
there was nothing
unusual about it
to give me any kind of clue of
what was about to happen.
Aah!
Ghosts tend to want to play with
these strangers that have
entered their world,
entered their home,
and have a bit of fun.
When he started to smile,
I also started to speak to him.
I thought he was about
to speak to me.
But within just a split second
of the smile starting,
it went much wider,
kind of
this ghoulish-type grin at me.
It was kind of like the Joker
on "Batman."
That smile went way wide.
Very, very shortly after that,
his face began to glow.
I don't know
if my brain was able
to catch up quickly enough
with what was happening.
And then he accelerated
and vanished.
The apparition is gone.
The grin he gave me
was like he was pulling
a practical joke on me.
"Gotcha. You thought
I was a real person,
and I'm only a spirit."
A ghost has its egos.
A ghost has its attitudes,
its addictions,
its sense of humor.
It still maintains
everything that it had
when it was a human being.
I don't know
what I thought at the time
or what I was feeling.
I did what we always do.
We get out the flashlight
and start looking for footprints
on the ground.
I looked all around.
But there were no footprints
for him.
And when I realized
what had really happened
and the significance of it,
fear started to sweep over me.
Come to the conclusion
it was a spirit.
Rocky's partner slept through
the whole ghostly encounter.
To this day,
I've never told him
what happened.
You just don't talk
about paranormal stuff
in law enforcement.
He doesn't know
what the phantom soldier
wanted from him, who he was,
or how long he has been
trapped on that mountain.
But it's possible
he died decades ago
when a plane crashed
during World War II.
In the case of a spirit
who finds themselves trapped,
my feeling is that
they would work on a plan
to communicate with somebody
among the living,
bring attention to themselves.
"I'm here,
please listen to me."
Rocky didn't choose to seek out
the spirit
trapped between two realms.
It came to him.
But Daniel Cumerlato
has been fascinated
by earthbound souls
since he was a child
and has always wanted
to reach out to them.
As a kid,
I always loved ghost stories.
You got to believe
that there's something,
the idea that energy exists,
So if you believe in energy,
you should be able
to believe in ghosts.
His interest in the paranormal
follows him into adulthood.
One night,
we were a little bit bored,
me and my wife at the time.
So we decided to use
a Ouija board.
All the best stories
start with a Ouija board.
The Ouija board has been given
a very bad rap over the years
because most experiences
of people using it
turn out to be negative ones.
I had set up this little
microcassette recorder
in the corner of the table.
And we were doing the session,
and I asked one question
Spirit, are you there?
And it slowly
went up to "yes."
Now, afterwards,
we listened to the microphone,
and after I asked that question,
you could hear in the microphone
another voice.
It wasn't mine.
It wasn't my wife.
It was another guy right up
against the microphone say
Yes.
That one eerie incident
sparks a lifetime of obsession
and sends Daniel
on a terrifying journey.
It's the one and only time
that I saw something
hat I couldn't explain.
Ghosts haunt the land.
Unable or unwilling to leave.
Sometimes it's impossible
to know what they want.
And other times,
it's terrifyingly clear.
There's all sorts of different
types of attachment for spirit.
I've seen spirits
that are connected to land
because they're just
very attached to it.
I don't believe that ghosts
stay in our realm for no reason.
I'm safe here,
so I'm not gonna risk
going to purgatory or hell
if I'm safe here.
But they choose to remain
straddling the realm
of what we call the living
and the afterlife.
Not only is Daniel Cumerlato
fascinated by the spirit world,
he gives tours into it,
inviting people to join in
as he explores haunted buildings
around his home
in Ontario, Canada.
A decrepit old mansion
known as the Hermitage
is one of the most popular.
What remains was built
in the 1850s
by the Leith family.
And out of all the locations
I've gone to,
it seems to have the most dark
or negative energy
that surrounds it.
The mansion
was destroyed by fire,
and the only living descendant
was forced out into the streets.
So she couldn't afford
to fix up her family's home,
but she also
didn't want to leave it.
So she actually lived in a tent
outside of the ruins,
just her
and her little crippled dog
until the day she died.
Another woman
also met a tragic end here
when her lover hung himself
in the mansion's carriage house.
She died of heartache
shortly after.
She was obviously
crushed and broken,
and that energy still remains,
especially at night.
The spirits of both these women
haunt the grounds,
united together in anguish.
We're often asked
how dangerous ghosts can get,
and what kind of harm
they can inflict when upset.
A lot of this depends on
the degree of emotion
that they
That they feel.
The lure of haunted ruins
is impossible
for some to resist,
which is why thrill seekers
flock to Daniel's tours.
The only way to describe it
is negative.
That dread or foreboding
that kind of surrounds the area.
I hope we don't have
too many nightmares, you know,
nothing too scary.
So on that evening
in the year 2006,
I had a group.
Thanks very much.
Hope you guys enjoyed the tour.
Time to go home.
I tell you,
most of it was pretty calm.
It was kind of like luring me
into a false sense of security.
Come on, you guys!
Time to go!
I noticed two people.
I didn't think anything of it.
I just assumed
they were part of the group,
and I called out to them.
I said, "It's time to go.
Please follow me."
And they ignored me.
And when I called out
the second time,
it was kind of like
they turned a bit,
and they walked
right into the woods.
It gets darker and darker
as you're heading
into the woods.
The area they walked into,
I was afraid
they could hurt themselves.
They might trip and fall.
So I started running.
And two seconds behind them,
I shine a flashlight
into those dark woods,
and there's no one there.
There's no way that I wouldn't
have heard them run away
or seen them try to run away
if they were playing
some kind of weird joke on me.
Hey!
It was almost like they just
vanished into thin air.
I'm thinking I'm starting
to go a little bit crazy
at this point.
It obviously changed
from being a little bit peeved
to being
a little bit frightened.
I felt a little bit confused
the whole time
as my brain kind of processes
through the different levels.
Could they have
silently snuck away
in the time that I came over?
Could they have
run off silently?
And as I'm checking off
all the boxes
Impossible, impossible,
impossible.
Hey!
Come on, you guys!
Come on!
So I ran after them.
And when I caught up,
when I saw it,
I immediately got scared.
Hey, let's go!
Come on!
I kind of remember
the shapes wearing dresses,
so it kind of billowed out
a little bit at the bottom.
They were the same height,
the same shape.
Really only way to describe it
as if they were
mirror images of each other.
Daniel wonders,
are these the spirits
of the two women
who died on this land?
I called out to them.
They had turned.
They had walked
into those dark woods.
I'm not sure if the energies
were trying to draw me
into the woods.
He fights an overwhelming urge
to follow the apparitions.
They disappeared
into that darkness.
It's almost like
they were merging with it.
Then it dawns on me,
I just had a ghostly experience.
That's when I took off.
Funny thing is,
I didn't tell anybody
about that experience
the night of
because I wanted
to go over it in my head.
Daniel doesn't know
why the spirits
enticed him to follow
or what horrors
they might have visited on him
if he had.
And he can't help but wonder
if they will come back for him
and what
their intentions might be.
Every single tour
that I lead there,
it crosses the back of my mind,
especially when a night
comes closer on,
the night of a full moon.
But it hasn't happened.
Spirits who are trapped
between two realms
can be dangerous
as the Lopez family found out.
They are still haunted
by the memory
of the ghostly children
that came for their son.
If people don't believe me
and tell me I'm crazy,
I just tell them that
wait until something like this
happens to you,
and then you'll really say
"You're not crazy."
Rocky is likewise
still shaken by his experience,
but won't let it
get the better of him.
We just deal so much
with blocking our emotions,
to keep fear from getting in,
because it's scary out there.
And if you let fear get in
even a little bit,
you won't get out of your truck.
So you spend a lot of time
trying to block your emotions
and keep fear at bay.