Horror Story

[Gildarts]

While the group of eight had known on some level, the news hadn’t really sunk in. Death? What even was that? A word, a philosophy of lack of life. An incomprehensible end. What Em could see of their faces in the dim mist, were expressions, gaunt with shock and fatigue while their worried brows were sleek with fear-borne sweat.

“Dead?” Johnson whimpered before his sorrow turned to red-hot, misled anger in all its glory, his voice shouted as it fought against devastation, “DEAD?! HOW COULD YOU LET HER DIE OUT THERE? YOU WEREN’T JUST CLASSMATES, YOU WERE FRIENDS! YOU WERE-”

He’d started shaking Em violently by the shoulders and she’d become no more than a glorified bobblehead, his grip was tight on her upper arms until Mitchel had pulled him off of her, “Leave her alone.” Johnson and Claire had been a rumored thing. He was on the football team with a scholarship and she had been aiming for valedictorian.

“It… I saw a… And it… Ate her.” Em stuttered, still dizzy after her shake, as her voice drooped and her eyes fell away into the far off distance of her own haunted memories. Dark images kept flashing of incomplete shadows, claws, jaws, the intense spark of those venomous and glowing eyes. Pieces to an image that her mind couldn’t bear to put all together. But she knew the whole picture, it would take longer than a lifetime to forget the relentless, unrepentant horror.

“It? So like a bear or something? Come on Emily, what did you see?” Mitchel urged her gently.

“Y-you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Hell, I barely even believe my own eyes…” She continued to look away from her classmates, wondering how this terror had even happened. Wondering who she was, to have run from it and feeling the helplessness cold in her veins. The dread, the shame, the mourning. Survivor’s guilt. She had never known it, but it was enough to churn her stomach and create a terrible state of true self-loathing. She had to snap out of this grotesque mess.

“What was it Em, say it,” Mitch ushered as the stir of the eight others grew unsettled and more fearful than before.

“I-I really don’t…” Emily looked up at them however, and knew that it would dishonor Claire’s name if she didn’t speak exactly what she’d seen. She’d had been enough self-pity, for a moment’s emotion could last a lifetime. Em cleared her voice and spoke concisely, “It was a werewolf.”

“Those don’t exist,” Alex was quick to snap.

“Does the blood on my shirt lie? Because it isn’t mine!” Emily’s voice cracked with the soft sizzling of sorrow. “I ran because there was nothing else I could do, the blow was one that would have ended her quickly.”

“Maybe you were… Maybe you didn’t see it right,” Mitch offered, “Maybe it was just a really big wolf and…”

“It isn’t shock and it wasn’t a wolf, my father taught me how to hunt, I know different species of wolves, coyotes from bears, the truth in the monster that I just saw,” Em’s voice had hardened with determination, “But we need to be strong, because we aren’t safe anymore, we don’t know where we are, and we need to focus because we don’t want the same thing that killed her to find us too. Let’s all get through this. Now, pull out your phones and see if any one of you have service, next, does anyone have anything that could be used as a weapon or tool, even just a pencil? Because, guys, we aren’t in Kansas anymore.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” Johnson fell to the ground, quaking in his Adidas shoes and while Emily didn’t notice any direct tears pouring from his eyes, just an overture of panic that had him rocking forward and backward. “This isn’t real, this can’t be real, this isn’t real…”

"This has got to be a joke, right? Just one big prank?" Trisha voiced and then announced louder, "Okay, you can show us the cameras, it isn't funny."

"It isn't a joke, do you see any cameras?" Alex extended his hand, "Plus, this isn't a set, I've worked in theatrics for years, the moss growing on that tree is real, there's even dew on it. The plants you smell, everything is real, and before you say we were relocated to this shitshow in the middle of the woods, do you even remember blacking out? This would be too elaborate for the technology we have today, it's twenty ten, not twenty seventy five. We have a ways to go before this could even be plausible for entertainment. No, you may want to hang onto that denial, but I'm pretty sure that won't keep us alive. If what Emily said is right, there's a monster. Or more than one, and it'll slowly pick us off if we don't proceed with caution. Remember every horror movie you've ever watched, and don't do anything that would cause you to breathe your last. Mistakes aren't an option. Not now, not anymore."

Things were getting real.


Other than Johnson, everyone else continued to do as she asked, searched their bodies for anything at all. If this was real, they probably realized there was little chance of survival, even if it wasn’t real, they were stranded in this dark abysmal land and mommy and daddy weren’t coming to save them. No one knew where they were. They were lost and alone, no roads in sight to follow home, no rivers to remind them that life was still churning and possible. Nothing but darkness and absent silence devoid of landmarks and the air chilled with fear and the ghost of death. Heartbeats filled their ears and a pale blue glow reflected on the shiny sheen of their faces. Conclusive answers would soon find them, whether they liked it or not.

“No service,” Mitch said.

“Me either,” Alex whispered.

“Damn,” Trisha agreed and universal nods bobbed in the dim light.

At that point, Emily took a headcount. Who was left? Who had arrived with them, even if they didn’t know where they were? To Emily’s left there was Mitchel, Johnson, Trisha, and Jamal, on the far side of the makeshift five inch fire they’d put together on rather soggy wood were the other four, Kat, Alex, Merrel, and Linny. The fire wouldn’t last much longer, if you listened closely, you could hear the sizzle and bubbling of the fire hissing against water, creating small wisps of cloudy steam that merely mixed with the same fog that surrounded them.

Not that Emily intended on sticking around with that thing probably hot on her scent and lapping its tongue around its muzzle, eager for seconds on that tasty meal it had feasted on. Appetizers only egged more food, and here they all were, the main course. If they stuck together, stuck their heads together, maybe they could all pull through this.

“Does anyone have anything that could be used as a tool?” Mitch reiterated.

They had ‘arrived’ here with next to nothing. They patted their pockets, but Emily sized everyone up and knew this was going to be a tough night. “Who lit the fire?” she inquired, the importance was more than she could let on.

“Alex did,” Mitch confirmed and she nodded in response.

“How?” Em turned to him.

“My lighter,” he held it out. While he had done a shit job with the fire, he had done something, and it was nearly impossible to light wet wood on fire without a blowtorch or gasoline. Given the circumstances, he’d done well.

“I have a pencil,” Trisha held it out triumphantly as she fished in her purse for anything else that could be of use.

“Does anyone have any food on them?” Emily, it seemed, would be the head of their survival operation. Not of choice, but while she’d witnessed the monster with her own eyes, she was the only one who knew how very literal the graveness of the situation was.

“Chocolate bar,” Trisha smiled embarrassment filling her flushed cheeks.

“Half a pack of gum,” Jamal turned out his pockets.

Mitch spoke up, “Johnson has a Clif Bar.” His friend was still panicking on the ground and looking far too closely at the blood on Emily’s shirt.

She rolled her eyes and walked over to him. He didn’t acknowledge her existence, “Listen, I know she was your girlfriend but you need to pull yourself out of this if you want to live, you understand?” But her words fell on deaf ears, so she aimed for his cheek and slapped him with the palm of her hand.

Johnson jolted himself out of it, narrowed his eyes and nearly snarled as he grabbed her wrist which was still completing its momentum. Then he released, realizing she’d done him a favor. “Thanks,” he muttered and while he remained on the ground, he was much more interested in surviving this with his life.

Em strolled away from him quickly, getting back to seeing how things would go. Her eyes grazed each and every one of them, “Alex, take off your belt, it can be used as a whip, or something.” Jamal who was also wearing a belt, did the same. “Girls, if you find any rocks, fill your purses with them and if you don’t feel comfortable swinging it at whatever might come at you, give them to one of the guys… If there are even any rocks around in this friggin’ wasteland.”

Emily looked around, her haste was mostly disguised by the after effects of fear, however, it still showed as she paced ten feet past the fire, and and twenty feet back across. Mostly plain trees, grim looking, gray and pale. It was time to start breaking branches.

“We can’t stay here, it’s far too close to where it...” she warned the others. Vivid flashes of the beast’s snarls invaded her mind and she was reminded of the feeling of hot blood splattering her shirt. Live blood. It had a name, once. Claire. She couldn’t bear to look down at her white shirt turned crimson. She was sure there was a little bit of splatter on her face too. Emily dabbed her sleeve with some saliva and tried to rub off the places where she’d felt the blood hardening. Well, she didn’t have a compact on her, so she had to guess about where the deep crimson droplets were. She’d missed a few to say the least, across her cheek and chin.

Self defense was a priority in this hellhole where staying alive would be a mixture of chance, luck, fate, and the ability to run. Mostly, their lives would rely on their ability to run.