The Cages

It was a fair few years ago now, back when I was in primary school. My best friend, Jacob, and I decided to explore the woods behind my house. There used to be fields there and a quarry with mine shafts. I think there are about 4 mine shafts under my house and garden according to the plan details of my house. There's a field behind mine that ends in the woods, and around the time the field was being turned over and drilled into, they were planning permission to build another set of houses over there now known as "The Hedgerows." If anyone would like to look me up on Google Earth to see the fields, or houses as they are now, my street is Richborough Drive, Westmidlands, UK.
As I was saying, we figured we would never get a chance to go there after the houses were built, so we went. I remember the mounded up dirt in a circle at one edge of the field, about 7 ft deep and full of rain water with the smell of blue clay. Beyond that, the trees started next to the Computeach building.
We picked our ways through the trees and it wasn't as dense as we first thought. It had a beautiful canopy where the sun shined through, the leaves casting the ground in vibrant green colours. As we continued climbing the hills and sliding down the ditches, the trees got older. Decay and fungi was starting to grow on them to the point there was a mushroom-like growth on a tree the size of my head. We thought it'd be best not to touch them. After saying that, I slipped going up a hill and caught the branch of a tree, and the growth burst under my hand, oozing white sap. I wiped it on my jeans and carried on.
We eventually got to another clearing and there we found two cages with a trap lock mechanism, the kind where if something walked in, the door would drop and a bolt would slot into place. The cages were over 10 ft tall by my guess. At the time I was 5'6", and Jacob was 5 ft tall. With him on my shoulders he could reach the top. We quickly got out the cage, dropped to the ground, and scanned the area. The thought had only just occurred to us: what was in those cages?
Being fairly young kids, we were thinking giant ape, "King Kong" type monsters, or maybe Bigfoot. You get the idea. The cages were rusted, the lock mechanism on one cage had near enough disintegrated. We then noticed they were covered in the plant-like growths. At this point, Jacob asked how my hand was, and I told him it was fine, just sticky. We carried on out of the clearing over the hill, and there we found a stream. The noise of the road a mere 20 - 25 feet away had ceased. All we could hear was the water. So we sat and pondered.
Something moved in he bushes to our right and we froze on the spot. A fox bounded out, gave us one look, and walked off. We let out a sigh of relief; I was expecting some grotesque creature to crash out and, well, I don't know what it'd do. But you can probably fill that part in.
We still never found out what those cages were for. and they're still there seven years later, but more sunken in on itself, and no growths on the trees. Since the houses were built, the forest has greatly receded. I still find myself looking out my window over the houses at the spot where they were and wondering, what were they for?
Category:Places
Category:Nature