Horror Story

[Gildarts]

It was perhaps the worst horrors you could imagine, and then some. To put yourself between death, and still have life stolen away from your very clutches- your own hands! This grief was just a fraction of what Alex was feeling now. He’d just lost his sister and it was mainly his fault. Had he been able to get her up sooner, she’d still be alive. Why did this curse of a swamp have to rip her out of his very hands?

In a lifetime’s flash, he saw it all. The picture of them together on their parent’s fireplace came to life, he was just a boy, four or five years old when they first went sledding, that sledding had evolved to baseball, and somehow, since it was a small town, she had been allowed to play on the boy’s baseball team, and she’d been a better hitter and pitcher than him. The kids laughed, but he always told them she’d go to the big leagues and that he was happy for her. That didn’t ever happen, simply because she’d gotten a knee injury and couldn’t run after that, probably why the swamp had won moments ago.

Death had taken no pity on his sister. Tch. He spat out the sorrow overflowing at his eyes and clouding his ears distastefully. How could he escape this pain? It was agony that wrenched his insides with sorrow. Merrel’s face was ghost white and he’d jumped into the waist-high water with Alex, patting a hand on his shoulder, hoping it wouldn’t get worse. Hoping the thought Why didn’t the swamp take you instead? didn’t cross his mind, maybe it would’ve stopped, as it had for his sister, instead of her. One choice, that’s all it would’ve taken and his sister could’ve been alive his arm wouldn’t have been thrown out and too weak to pull her in. One choice and he could only blame himself. Maybe, should have, could have, would have... Life would’ve been different, but the true horror was, our choices define us, and the future we’re condemned to live in.

Alex wasn’t like that, he was not tempted to fall into that trap, he was a pure hearted man who never shifted the blame, though he did have survivor's guilt, “Why didn’t it take me instead? WHY? Oh why God? How’m I gonna tell my mom? Merrel, what am I gonna do? My mom, she’s gonna...”

“Let’s get a move on, Alex, we’ll remember her, she’ll live on through us, if we let her,” Merrel tried to be inspired, but he’d merely paraphrased words he’d once read in a book. “There was no way we could’ve known it would’ve stopped after she drowned in there.”

Merrel was right, but Alex shook his head, “No, I don’t want to.. Want to… Leave her.” He sniffled, “Linny, come back!”

But that wasn’t how wishes worked. People didn’t just come back from the dead, and he knew it, so why did he wish it so hard that it burned in his heart? His fist splashed at the still water helplessly, “Take me instead!!!”

“My… Mom… And…” He sniffled and sobbed some more and now Merrel was the strong one.

“Come on Alex, let’s get out of here before that happens again, you don’t want your mom to lose you both in one day,” Alex’s feet began to follow Merrel,“There you go. I’ll lead the way. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Meanwhile

Emily inhaled a breath, the mist was gone, somehow, some sort of wind or something had sucked it away, however, their visibility was still really terrible, swamps were flat, and it seemed like she was in a thicket, before when the fog was still there, she’d bumped into tree after tree (or their branches) but now, she couldn’t see where she was going because she was swamped with trees. Most of them were dead too, or dying. No life was on them, they were constantly living in a dormant winter, not that leaves would have been able to catch much sun from this place anyway.

“Mitch, oh my god, I thought the swamp had gotten you,” the words sprouted from her mouth before she could fully translate them.

“Same to you,” he said and Kat’s feminine figure and Jamal’s tall and dark body-type both appeared behind him.

“Wow, I’m so glad you’re safe, sheesh, I was scared shitless and it’s nearly dark, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, were you guys together the whole time?” Emily asked.

“Just about, but I think the others got lost, I doubt we’ll have service enough to even try and call them but it can’t hurt to know how much time has passed since we lost them,” Mitch chimed in and pulled out his phone to check the clock.

“Okay, do you guys want to continue heading straight or do you want to wait and see if we can find the others?” Emily asked, hoping for a democratic solution to their dilemma.

Mitch blinked, Kat stared at her, and it was Jamal who finally spoke, “If they are lost, us standing here in the dark isn’t going to help them find us, if the swamp is as big as we can guess it is, we should look for higher ground, I think leaving markers on the trees and scattering them might help them too. They’ll know the shirt if we choose someone who’s wearing a distinguished one that they’ll remember.”

It was a good call, and Emily thanked him for that. It also, however, could bring the monster that they (or more likely she) was trying to outrun, back to them, but they were separated, and if it was going to find them, it would do it with or without the markers. “So who has the best shirt?” Em smiled and looked around.

Mitch’s shirt was a barren gray, nothing distinguished about it, you couldn’t see it from over ten yards unless you were really looking, Jamal had a plaid shirt on, which would likely be their best pick, it was red and at the very least, would catch their eye. Emily’s shirt was white with their college’s symbol on it, but ripped up, the symbol wouldn’t be able to be identified. White was a distinguished color too, but it also could be anyone’s trail marker. Lastly, Kat was smiling and excited to see that she too had a bland shirt, it was an all black v-neck, hardly noticeable and would hardly catch their eye if it was torn up, on her though, with a push-up bra, she would’ve caught any man’s eye.

“Guess it’s me,” he said and pulled off his shirt without bothering to unbutton it. Overhead it came, revealing his well-cut ebony abdomen. He was on the track team, and ran constantly, his body was fit, and Kat turned to Emily, concealing the blush that rose on her cheeks in reference to Jamal. Emily hadn’t known about Kat’s crush until then, but it was rather cute considering their dismal situation. Maybe some good could come of it yet, after all, he was shirtless now.

“I’m going to do a headcount while Jamal tosses up his mark, remember, we don’t know how far we’re going so we might need your shirt for many strips. We’ll have to resort to mine if we run out.” Em stated clearly.

While Jamal didn’t say it out loud, his expression, catching Emily with a whip of Kat’s fury was, That wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to us today.

Together, they were Emily, Mitch, Jamal, and Kat. They were missing Johnson, Alex, Merrel, and Linny. Oh and Trisha too. Hopefully they were all together, and not off on their own. There was power in groups, power enough to at least keep them level headed than desperate. “We’re missing six, the odds are high, if no one got mixed up in the fog that they’ll find our trail. In the dark it’ll be more difficult for them, but this is the best we’ve got. So, shall we go?”

“Let’s call out to them a few more times,” Kat said, worried about her friend Linny.

“I agree,” Mitch said.

“If we all call out at the same time, it might be louder, want to choose a name?” Emily said.

“Alex, short and two strong sounds at the beginning and end,” Jamal stated. Em nodded and together, on three, the group shouted.

“ALEX!”

“Let’s get a bit louder, and all face separate directions,” Emily added.

“Okay. One, two, three…”

”ALEX!”

“Quick, listen for a reply,” Emily said in a hushed tone. They tried again, and again. They waited ten minutes, and nothing, so they had to get a move on.

Walking forward, straight, was senseless, but they didn’t have much of a choice. Iphones hadn’t really been invented yet, and Razor flip-phones were all the rage, and not many college kids carried a compass on them daily, they barely remembered to eat breakfast.

Emily’s stomach growled and she blinked, blushing and hoping no one had heard her, Jamal asked her, “You’re hungry too? My metabolism is so fast, even after I get done a huge extra large pizza, an hour later and I’m starving, so I feel you there. Also, how often should I er… Leave a piece? You seem to know all about this stuff?”

“I don’t know that much, just what my dad taught me about getting lost in the woods. Try and leave it within eyesight of the other one, especially the first few, though to be honest, they could find our trail in the middle of it, or at night, or in the fog and not know where to go. Or not at all, there was a thicket back there and it was a maze. Uh, back to your answer, based on how staggered the trees are becoming, maybe at least every fifty feet.” she surmised.

“Got it.” Jamal said with a nod, and added in some comic relief, “I know it sucks, but at least you’re not shirtless in front of your classmates.”

“You’ll be in your underwear next, and the cure to stage fright will have not gotten any more effective,” she smiled in return to his kindness, even though it hadn’t been very effective, it was the thought that counted in the end.

“Uh, Em?” Kat said, “I have to ask you something.”

She had been within earshot, Great, now Kat is going to think I like Jamal, which, while it wasn’t the case, wasn’t what Emily had the time for thinking about, she wanted them to get out of this alive.

“Uh, can I ask you something in private?” Kat murmured quietly.

“Sure, but we aren’t separating again, look what happened, we’re six short.” Emily said in a calculative voice.

“Got it,” and she whispered in Emily’s ear.

“Oh, well, I wish we could’ve asked Trish, her handbag was the biggest and she seemed the most suited for this type of thing, but lemme see what I have,” Emily checked her satchel, which she’d started filling with rocks until she wasn’t able to find anymore, plus, it was pretty heavy.

In her satchel she fished out what she’d condensed as supplies to one of her pockets. There was a pen (not even a pencil!) her serviceless phone, and like, whatever else that wasn’t very useful. She wish she’d packed some food, but she had this class right after when she usually went to lunch, and yeah, that was that, no need for food. Now, though, she was starving, she didn't have a pad or tampon for Kat to borrow. And nightfall approached.