CoD Modern Warfare: Horrors of Hovec Sawmill

It was Call of Duty Modern Warfare Season 3, which had just begun, and I couldn’t wait to play the new map – Hovec Sawmill.

“Not Aniyah Incursion again!” I cried as the same old boring map came up on the map rotation. I just wanted to play Hovec Sawmill. I backed out of the lobby and searched for a new one on the Season 3 moshpit playlist, which was a playlist for the new season 3 maps, but I had only got Talsik Backlot and Aniyah Incursion so far, which I had played before, but not the brand new map Hovec Sawmill. I found a new lobby, and finally it was the right map – Hovec Sawmill. Time to explore all the new routes and tricks for the new map.

I played the map and had a really great game, getting 25 kills to 7 deaths with my brand new SKS marksmen rifle and Renetti pistol secondary. It was a great new map which was exciting and had a lot of dramatic scenes as the map consisted of a sawmill which was on fire and so there was a lot of fire and smoke effects on the map which looked amazing. I finished the game and decided to watch a video about the map on youtube to see if there was any interesting facts or easter eggs I could find on the new map.

The youtube video told me a creepy fact – there was a big stream which ran all the way through the map and in one place the stream went under the little grate, and in the great was a little paper boat. This was a reference to Stephen King’s horror Movie ‘IT’ about Pennywise the Killer Clown which lived in a sewer. It was very creepy to think of the implication that there was a pennywise creature living under the map on Hovec Sawmill.

I decided to get the map up on a private game by myself so I could explore the map and see if there were any other creepy details or easter eggs that I could find like the creepy Horror Movie reference. I ran around the map, stopping to notice all the details such as the beehives and which had Russian text next to them saying ‘ FRESH HONEY ‘ as well as a secret garden area by the resteraunt that you couldn’t get inside. I was running round into the back of the map into the graveyard and I got a chill. Perhaps it was because it was such a sinister area which was creepy on such a bright and cheerful day such as was the weather on Hovec Sawmill. Or perhaps it was all the grains.

I rain around the graceyard area and saw the huge bell and suddenly had an idea – I wondered if I could make the bell ring by shooting it. I shot the bell and I laughed as it rang out like a ringing bell, this was another easter egg. This map was cool and definitely had a lot of details put into it. I walked around more of the graveyard to the little hut at the back. Suddenly I shuddered as I realized what the hut was – it was a coffin makers shop! There were coffins all around, and something even creepier I hadn’t noticed at the back of the hut. There was a table with a – body bag on it. A human body inside a corpse bag, which was buzzing with horrible flies. I felt sick. It was a horrifying easter egg, but very cool. Slowly, I walked closer until I was standing over the body bag.

Suddenly I was shocked. I saw a button prompt on the screen I hadn’t been expecting. It was the ‘open’ button prompt like when you were stood by a door – except this was for the body bag. This didn’t feel like an easter egg anymore. This felt creepy, and wrong. I pressed the X button anyway, to open it. The bag opened with an unzipping sound. I was almost sick when I saw what was inside. It was a realisticly modelled charred black corpse, that was smoking and its flesh looked like it had been horrifically burned. His eyes had melted and his skull was exposed with bone showing. I could almost smell the horrible smell of burnt human flesh. I felt sick.

Another button prompt had appeared when I had opened the body bag. This one didn’t sadly say ‘close’ which was all I wanted to do, to make the horrific burnt corpse go away and disappear. Instead this was like a weapon pick-up button prompt which showed you when there was a weapon a dead player you could pick up. This one said “Pick up Firelighters”. I gasped. The firelighters was clasped in the hand of the burned corpse – had he been the one who had started the horrible fire? I pressed the button, and my weapon switched to the firelighters which my character held out in one hand. Suddenly, everything had changed on the game. In the corner where the objective for the game was usually the objective had disappeared. I had been on team deathmatch so it said ‘eliminate the enemy team’ – but now it had changed. The objective just said BURN EVERYTHING.

This was messed up I though, but I still wanted to try the weapon of the firelighters as it was a secret weapon that I’d never seen before. I ran to the resteraunt where there was lots of wood furniture inside and used the firelighters. There was a huge flame and the furniture caught fire. It was a lot like the dragons breath shotgun flame but it didn’t come out of the barrel of a gun. Suddenly the resteraunt was on fire. I was suddenly forgotten about the creepy corpse and I had I was excited about using the cool new weapon. I ran around the town setting fire to more things. I went to all the other buildings and outside setting more fires.

Suddenly as I ran round the map I realized that unlike the fires spat out by the weapons such as the Molotov cocktail, the fires I had been starting weren’t dying after a few seconds. In fact, they were spreading. The resteraunt was now completely engulfed in fire and smoke was going everywhere and filling up the screen. The rest of the sawmill and the honey houses were also full of fire. The fire was spreading acorsss the grass. I was suddenly terrified. What had I done? I had to get away from the fire. My hands were soaking wet on the controller. I ran away from the fires, trying to get down the path by the train station but that was also now swallowed by fire. I turned around a ran back, but I couldn’t get through the sawmill which was on fire now. I wondered if perhaps the fire was only cosmetic and didn’t do any damage like the original fire on the map. But as I got closer I saw my character was taking damage.

I ran away in the only direction I had left to go – down to the graveyard. The fire had closed off all the exits. The maps sky was now pure smoke and there was red fire everywhere. I could almost feel the heat coming out of the xbox screen. Only the graveyard was safe and it was still spreading. I ran around looking for an escape from the flames but there was no way out. I was trapped for what was coming. The fire spreading pushed me back into the coffin hut. I looked around the coffin hut as the flames closed in, and suddenly I noticed something terrifying.

The burnt corpse had disappeared, leaving only the open body bag. I didn’t have time to think about it though, as I was suddenly engulfed by flames. I heard my characters voice scream out in pain in a voice line I had never heard before as my screen went red as my character took damage. My xbox fan was crazy with noise going very noisy. Suddenly a plume of black smoke emerged from my xbox. Just as my character died on screen I saw a flash inside the xbox like a spark of flame. The screen froze on the last frame of my characters life – and for a moment I saw the horrifying skull of the burnt corpse laughing out through the flames. In a flash it was gone, as a tongue of flame leapt of my xbox and set off my smoke detector, and the screen went black and the horrible image was gone. I quickly put out the fire.

After it was over I thought there must be a rational explanation for this all. Obviously this was some twisted easter egg put in by the developers. And the fire effects which I had made had been bugged out and didn’t disappear which had been very intensive on the hardware and caused my xbox to overheat and set fire. It seemed like an impossibly creepy co-incidence, but I couldn’t get the horrible image out of my head. I checked all the other social media to see if anybody had experienced this creepy bug. There was only one tweet, about someone who had found the firelighter weapon just a few hours before me. They never tweeted again. I shivered when I found out. I did buy another new xbox eventually, but I decided not to buy Modern Warfare again, out of fear of what I might see if I loaded that game up again.