Ominous Forest

Aliases: none Status: Major

The Ominous Forest is the most connected location across both volumes — the place where Chuy, the cannabis crops, the Kush creatures, the grave, the redneck conflicts, the vampire compound, rescues, and the Emperor’s landing all converge. Its edge connects to urban streets and the dispensary; it is not, for the record, established as Dealer property. The whole forest is not theirs. Some of what happens in it is, and the rest just happens near them.

Description

A large forest at the edge of the urban streets, within working distance of Mr. Dealer’s Dispensary and, by extension, Mrs. Dealer’s Edibles Factory. It reads as wild country pressed against civilization: cannabis clearings, burial ground, and — at the east end — a vampire compound, all sharing the same treeline. Uncle Hank’s “black hole/Bermuda Triangle” description is a characterization of how hard the forest is to navigate, not evidence of an astrophysical object. People get lost in it. That is the whole phenomenon.

Cannabis clearings

The forest’s clearings grow cannabis — Chuy’s territory in Volume 01, and the site of the Kush creatures’ presence. Volume 02 adds forest-derived Earth/other-planet hybrid plants to the picture, a related cultivation thread whose exact lineage the text keeps distinct from the original crops. The clearings are where the forest’s two economies meet: agriculture and everything agriculture attracts.

Burial sites

The forest holds the saga’s graves. In Volume 01, a hole dug for Killian ends up receiving Dos Santos instead — the forest’s most efficient reuse of a burial plot. Volume 02 recalls that burial, then describes a freshly dug hostage grave. These are two holes the text does not establish as identical: the earlier grave and the fresh one are separate facts until the story says otherwise, and it does not.

East-end vampire compound

At the forest’s east end sits the redneck vampire compound: Nagan’s settlement, the site of feeding negotiations, a scouting mission, and an assault the crew has to talk its way out of. Its later fate is unresolved — and Nagan’s dead telephone line does not establish that the coven was destroyed. A dead line is a dead line. The compound’s story ends, for now, with uncertainty.

Role in Volume 01

• Nature Sucks: First appearance — Chuy, the cannabis crops, the Kush creatures, and the forest’s general policy of swallowing people who enter it.
• The burial arc: The hole dug for Killian becomes Dos Santos’ grave, giving the forest its first permanent resident of the unwilling kind.

Role in Volume 02

• Of Rednecks and Vampires: The compound arc — scouting, negotiations, the assault, and the tank drone watching it all.
• The Return of Dos Santos: The earlier burial is recalled, and the freshly dug hostage grave enters the record.
• The Emperor of the Universe: The Emperor lands in the forest, because of course he does — the one place in the setting where everything converges.

Notes

• The whole forest is not established as owned by the Dealers. Its edge connects to the dispensary; ownership of the forest itself is unestablished.
• Hank’s “black hole/Bermuda Triangle” is a navigation characterization, not proof of an astrophysical object.
• The Volume 01 grave (dug for Killian, used for Dos Santos) and the Volume 02 freshly dug hostage grave are not established as the same hole.
• Nagan’s dead telephone line does not establish that his coven was destroyed.