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Jefferson National Forest

Jefferson National Forest is the dense Virginia woodland that surrounds Radford, where Irene Whateley walks out of her kitchen, the town's dogs disappear, Amanda Lucky dies, and the craft of The Radford Moth is chased in The Radford Horror.
Type Location (national forest)
Aliases The woods; river forest
Region Virginia, around Radford
First appearance Radford Horror 01

Description

The forest is shadowy and thick with underbrush. Near the town the canopy is light but the undergrowth is unforgiving, dense ground cover hides tracks after about a dozen feet, and many houses sit in small enclaves surrounded by woods: walk one way and civilization is a mile off, walk another and the forest runs on for miles (Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 05). When the team searches from the highway scene, Andre says that walking straight on would take them deep into Jefferson National Forest, while walking forty-five degrees left would lead to Amanda's neighborhood (Radford Horror 05). On the route to town the team drives through the Monongahela and Jefferson National Forests, where it grows dark early under the tree cover (Radford Horror 01).

The tourist map the team uses marks the missing dogs: every house borders the woods, concentrated on the side of town where the Luckys and Whateleys live (Radford Horror 02).

Notable places within

  • The woods behind the Whateley house. The route Irene took, a clearing where Huell Kendrick tackles the astronaut, and where the craft hovered (Whateley house) (Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 06).
  • The blood tree. A low branch spattered with gore and a streak of blood dragged to the top branch of a tree, with no hair and no broken limbs (Radford Horror 05).
  • The dog skeleton site. A quarter mile from the Lucky house, the team finds a scrap of Amanda's dress on a branch and the skull and spine of a poodle-like dog, about a week old, bones cracked open and flesh gouged away. Kurt keeps the skull (Radford Horror 05).
  • The convergence near the river. Every recorded craft heading crosses in the forest near the river, where the team finds salt-like patches of strange powder but no clearing yet (Radford Horror 06).
  • The old-town church. An hour's hike into the woods, the old-town church lies in a clearing in the forest (Radford Horror 07).

History of events there

Opening images

The first cold open is a helicopter shot over Jefferson National Forest in 1992, speeding up as the dark gaps between the trees deepen, with something blue darting over the tree line (Radford Horror 01).

Irene's disappearance and the missing dogs

Irene Whateley was seen at her kitchen sink, dropped her pan, and walked straight into the woods about fifty feet away. Dick "The Biz" Baxter reads two sets of footprints, one with a heavier shoe, leading deeper into the woods before the trail is lost after about a dozen feet (Radford Horror 02).

Andrew Howard finds a thick sheriff's folder of dog complaints going back a couple of years, spiking in the last six to eight months. No dog under about 40 pounds has been taken, and no remains have ever been found (Radford Horror 02). See Radford's missing dogs. The team debates predators, perverts and dog fighting, and the Biz floats an out-of-character theory that Abe is living in the woods eating dogs (Radford Horror 02).

The cold open of Radford Horror 05 shows a woman in a bloody dress running through the woods and across a dirt road, with something passing overhead. After the autopsy the team bushwhacks through the woods. They find the blood tree and the dog skeleton, and the Biz reads the trail of blood and coyote-sized paw smears at the roadside (Radford Horror 05). The autopsy doctor later tells them the blood from the tree matches Amanda's tox report, and that both blood samples contain about five percent unidentifiable foreign matter (Radford Horror 06).

The craft chase

In Radford Horror 06, with the Biz and Howard watching from the water tower at the Alpine Lodge, Kurt Larson and Huell watch from the ground. Through Kurt's night vision scope they see a large dark shape circling 50 to 60 feet over the woods, two round shapes joined like a Venn diagram. Huell chases a figure in an Apollo 11 spacesuit into the woods and tackles him in a clearing; he turns out to be one of the Whateley boys. Something enormous descends over them. Kurt hits it with a Super Soaker filled with glow-stick fluid, which marks it for the watchers, and is blinded by a stab of pain that deals him 2 harm. The craft lifts the Whateley boy and Huell, who hangs on, above the tree line; the boy tells him "It's okay. It's worth it," and Huell loses his grip, falls through the trees and breaks an arm (Radford Horror 06). See also the Spaceman.

Appearances