Hello!
This is my attempt at a short horror story. I'm not as good at prose as I'd like to be but practice makes perfect. Enjoy, critique, and read while listening to scary music in the background. That might help with the ambiance. Thanks!
A blood
moon was lying just above the silhouetted tree line, dangerously red against
the indigo sky, scanning the New England Coast with disinterest. A slight south-eastern breeze blew warm and
wet across the hills and in between the quiet forests and valleys. Late June had transformed the area into a
lush landscape full of life and wonder and secrets.
This very night the forest was
moving. The moon had called out all the
monsters and the haunts and the specters.
Big hairy beasts appeared from the air, wavering and shifting and then
taking definite form before tromping out around the forest floors. Unearthly lights faded and glided in a choreographed
ballet, burning red and yellow and green and blue. Moans and sighs ran from the lips of the
trees. Leaves rustled against the
wind. Twigs snapped. Faces materialized.
The hills and mountains came alive
with supernatural activity but the blood moon turned away. Instead, it fixed its gaze upon a handful of
small creatures in a clearing. A small fire was burning and four young students
were camping out, enjoying a summer road trip.
They had stolen beers from home and cracked them open, throwing the
empty bottles on the ground and reaching for more. Drunk, they tried to tell horror stories but
couldn’t keep straight faces. They
couldn’t even see each other. The tent
lay in its package in the back of the truck.
All that really mattered was where the beer cooler was and how hot
Sophia and Jessica were.
Owen was the first to notice the
blood moon. He tore his eyes away from
the mesmerizing flames to look at the sky.
It was really dark. He couldn’t
really see anything. The moon had a red
tint. That was weird. He was definitely hallucinating. What was in his drink? He took another sip and stared at the flames
and Jessica on the other side of them.
Andrew was blacking out
already. He had been going heavy since
they pulled up to their camping spot that evening. There was no doubt that he would forget
everything come morning except that he’d had too much, for which the legendary
hangover he would have constantly reminding him until late in the afternoon. Andrew was the first to hear the noises. He flicked his head in the general direction
of the whispers but didn’t pay too much attention because they weren’t nearly
important as the front flip he was going to do to impress Sophia.
Jessica and Sophia were too busily
giggling at the boys’ antics to see the bushes that were moving even when there
wasn’t wind. Sophia laughed and clapped
gleefully when Andrew fell on his face.
Jessica batted her eyes in what she thought was a seductive manner as
Owen undressed her with his eyes. The
whispers grew louder. The bushes rustled
more vigorously. The blood moon watched
on in interest. There was no time left
for them.
As time passed, Owen began to recognize
the movement behind Jessica as unnatural.
He raised his eyes and was about to say something to Jessica when she
suddenly shot up and screamed. Owen’s
head was ripped off in the jaws of a shaggy gray monster, eight feet tall with
a gaping mouth from which dangled Owen from the neck up. His lifeless body froze in its spot on the
log before toppling over into a pool of its own blood.
Jessica and Sophia shrieked and
Andrew stared in sheer horror at the monster and its devastation. The girls
took off in the direction of the truck, grabbing at each other and scrabbling
for the keys, wrenching their necks around in sharp jerks. The monster had followed them and was quickly
gaining speed. Jessica screamed as, for
the second time tonight, she watched a close friend mutilated. Sophia was torn from her grasp, shrieking and
writhing. The monster had her bottom
half in his sharp-toothed mouth when dozens of orbs of light began tugging at
her arms and torso and hair. Sophia was
still alive and screaming in terror and pain.
Tears ran freely from her shocked eyes and then she was ripped in half,
vertebrae and intestines raining around Jessica.
Jessica was crying hysterically as
she pulled herself away from the graphic scene and sprinted to the truck. She yanked the door open and fumbled as she
shoved the keys into the ignition.
Miraculously, it started the first time.
Jessica gunned the gas before she remembered to put the truck in
drive. With a great lurch forward, she
hurtled the truck blindly toward where she thought the road was. The sound of powerful wings beating at the
air caused her to look up, an action she immediately regretted.
What looked like a dead,
half-rotten vulture with leathery wings was bearing down upon the truck from
behind. Jessica sobbed hopelessly as she
veered around trees and caught air from unexpected bumps and branches. The sound of talons on metal added to the
hysteria. Talon marks on the roof of the
truck were drawn, stopped, and then the beast landed on the hood and stared her
down through the windshield. It opened
its ugly beak and screeched, its tongue flapping ungraciously. A crack appeared in the windshield, which it
seemed to study before screeching again.
Jessica was pushing the truck far
past its capacity, going 80 amidst the trees and faster when she thought she
saw a break. She thought that she could
see the road just ahead and floored it.
She was going upwards of 110 mph when she hit the tree. The airbag exploded from the windshield. The entire front end of the car was compacted
to less than half of its original size.
Some of the engine had been pushed so far back, parts had penetrated the
dash and, by extension, Jessica’s stomach.
Amazingly, she was still conscious; she was conscious enough to see the
vulture-thing hop towards her and lower its head. It looked at her for a few moments before
leaning in to rip off some flesh from her arm.
Jessica could only whimper. Her
head was tilted unnaturally and she was bleeding out from her stomach, but she
felt it as the beast slowly ate its way up her arm and to her face. She finally blacked out just before she saw
it stare her right in the eyes and lean its cruel beak forward.
Andrew heard Sophia’s body ripped
in half and the huge, squealing crash that was Jessica’s demise shortly
after. He hadn’t moved an inch since
Owen’s head had been unceremoniously removed and eaten. The adrenaline pumping through his body had
sobered him up fast. His eyes were wide
and empty as the blood moon fairly glowed with satisfaction at the night’s
entertainment. The monster that had been
picking its teeth clean with a splintered bone from Sophia’s shin now turned to
him. It glared for a moment before
surging forward, mouth gaping, claws extended, hair thrown back.
Andrew couldn’t move as it moved
closer. His feet were rooted. Only his head rotated up as the towering
monster soared closer. It stopped inches
in front of him and roared in his face.
Andrew closed his eyes against the reek of blood and flesh which he knew
used to belong to his friend. Then it
closed its mouth, hiding its many teeth and it began to pace around him,
sniffing him, nudging him with its nose and claws, tugging agonizingly at
Andrew’s clothes. But through all this,
Andrew couldn’t move.
The blood moon watched and knew
that this would be the one. This human
that wouldn’t move would make it through the night. Just luck that the one night the blood moon
called out the haunts and spooks, they would meet one of them. They had the blood of a warlock and the
spirit of a shaman. They were rarer than
the ghosts the moon played with. The
blood moon shone even more brightly as it looked down with increased interest.
Andrew didn’t know what the moon
knew. All he knew is that he was
scared. He closed his eyes so tightly he
began to see lights. Finally, his hind
brain kicked in and he threw back his head and howled a single, lingering
shriek of terror and desperation. Then
he collapsed, unconscious.
A faint light shone around Andrew’s
crumpled body before it gathered and emerged as a vaguely humanoid form. The pacing monster now stumbled away from the
newcomer, but it wasn’t fast enough. The
being lifted its arm and the monster was thrown against a tree. The monster scrabbled around for its feet
before making a hasty retreat into the forest.
The newcomer threw his arms out and back in a smooth, sweeping motion
and the forest erupted. Sounds of heavy
beasts hitting trees and each other and loud snaps as they disappeared into
rippling air echoed from every direction.
Wisps and specters hissed into non-existence. Leaves and trees shuddered visibly and roots
twisted uncomfortably in the presence of such raw power.
The being remained motionless, arms
out in a T, palms facing out, until the final hisses and snaps and rustles disappeared. The blood moon watched on in amazement. Awe turned to panic and fear as the powerful
figure then turned and tipped its face up to the sky. The blood moon could sense its unseeing
gaze. A single palm extended towards the
moon and, with extraordinary power, began to drain its light. The blood moon fought and resisted, but it
could feel its strength waning. Slowly,
very slowly, the moon was darkening and the being grew brighter and brighter,
so bright that it would blind the naked eye.
In a matter of minutes, the moon was gone and the forest was lit by the
unearthly light, with a red tint, from the unremarkable campsite in the woods.
The light-being lowered its palm
and stood motionless for hours. Nothing
moved in the forest that night. Nothing
moved in the valley, in the hills, in the sky, in the lakes, or in the
ocean. The blood moon was gone,
eradicated by the being that lurked inside the unconscious boy. Just a few minutes before sunrise, as the sky
was getting lighter, the being turned and dimmed its radiance. It walked back over to Andrew and sank inside
of him. The forest breathed again.
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