Tag: Horror

A Spring Hike

November 1st, 2021

Septimus Decimus Gradus

Emilia took in the scent of the mountain dew as her feet gently nuzzled into the dirt path. Jonathan, a young boy with angelic blonde hair, bobbed happily alongside her. His blue toy plane serpentined through the air as he simulated the sound of a jet engine.

“Nothing better than a morning hike in the hills, don’t you think, Jonathan?” Emilia asked. The twenty-something glanced over her shoulder and extended a hand.

“I think you’re right,” Jonathan’s little voice chirped as he placed his hand into hers. My jet has never been so high before! So close to where it belongs!

The tweeting of birds and whispers of the sweet breezes accompanied the false engine rumblings. Emilia focused on the former, filled with the peace offered by the serene sounds. They told her she was home here in the gentle regions of Oregon. The natural beauty of the lush mountains always won out over more exotic spring break locales. And instead of spending on an expensive vacation, she was saving. How could she pass up the opportunity to be paid to hike on these beautiful trails and practice working with children? The scenery is gorgeous. It’s building her career. It’s good for the soul. And she was being paid to experience it all. Can spring break be better spent than this?

Lost in thought, she bumped into a log. Startled, she turned quickly to locate Jonathan. After she found him next to her but closer to the walled side of the trail she turned her attention back to the log. It extended from the wall of dirt on their left to the open air on their right, branches dangling over the cliffside.

“Alright, I’ll have to help you over this tree, but stay away from the edge once you’re across, okay? Wait for me. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

He smiled at her as she hoisted him up and over the log. She let him slip his hand out of her grip as he landed securely on the other side. Her heart fluttered with anxiety as she relinquished control over him, over his safety. He was alone then, the steep edge mere steps away.

“Wait for me, buddy, okay?” She was surprised at the quiver in her voice, which overruled the faint, self-assuring smile on her lips. I should’ve turned us around… giving up on the log. Too late. She hurdled the dewey log as quickly as possible, scooping his little hand into hers even as she landed back onto the dirt. She sighed in relief. Ah, we’re fine anyway. And it’s such a great view from the observation deck. It’d be a shame to be thwarted by a log.

They continued to walk along the path. When it began to widen Emilia let Jonathan walk independently, though she remained between him and the edge.

Jonathan felt the air grow cooler. They were higher, closer to home! He made excited zooming noises as the jet gained speed. He picked up the pace of his little legs, coming a little close to—

“—Jonathan!” Emilia was frantic. “Get away from the edge!” She lunged behind him and snatched his shoulder, hard. His loose grip on the airplane was broken by the jarring catch. It tumbled through the air, bounced on a rock near the edge, then plummeted over the cliffside. No!

“Oh, my God! Don’t ever do something like that again, you scared me to death!” Emilia’s eyes were wide. She guided Jonathan away from the edge, keeping an arm wrapped across his chest.

“My plane!” Jonathan squawked.

“Jonathan,” Emilia turned him around to face her as she knelt. Her heart was pounding. “Y-you can’t go running so close to the edge.”

“My plane, I dropped it,” his big eyes began to water.

“You could’ve tripped or something… you can’t get that close ever again.” She stuttered as she added, “I told you it’s very steep, okay? From now on, stay on this side of me.” He sniffled, not offering an answer. But what about the plane? His cheeks flushed, growing hot.

She stood and began walking with him, her hand tight on his shoulder. When her thumping heart receded from her ears, Emilia began to think more clearly. She began to wonder.

“We’ve been up this trail before and I’ve never had a problem with you. Why would you do that today?”

He wiped his tears away and his soft face angled into a scowl. “I want my plane back,” he huffed defiantly. Oh, she thought, pausing the walk and putting a hand on either shoulder, he must’ve dropped it. That’s why he was running by the edge!

“Jonathan, I know you’re upset that you lost your plane. But you can’t rush over to the edge to save it. Your safety is more important than that toy. You wouldn’t run out into the street to get a ball, right?”

“No,” he sputtered.

“Right, same thing here.”

No… no, he thought, looking over his shoulder. You threw it over the edge, not me. “Can I have my plane back now?”

“I can’t get your plane right now, but we will look for it on our way home. Can you be patient and wait ’til then for me? Come on, we’re almost to the deck.”

Who cares, if the jet isn’t with us? It wanted to be home! Don’t you know that? He had waited a year to bring it to the observation deck. So, why would you throw it over the edge, into the dirt? Airplanes do not belong in the dirt on the bottom of the mountain, because airplanes go in the air. That’s why it’s called an airplane. Don’t you know anything?

“You’re mean!” He snapped his head back to face her. “Let me go!” Jonathan began to squirm, pushing at Emilia’s arms.

“No, Jonathan! Not until you show me you can behave! Come on now, we were having a good time, weren’t we?”

“No! You killed my plane! You killed it!”

“Jonathan, it’s not dead. We’ll get it later, okay?” He was secure in her grasp. He’ll calm down in a minute, I just have to hold on for now.

“No, go get it!”

“Ouch!” Emilia exclaimed, yanking her right hand off his shoulder. She shook her hand in the crisp air; it stung with heat. His dark shirt is soaking up the sun. Capitalizing on her distraction, Jonathan ran toward the edge of the path, toward the blue jet. “Jonathan!”

Emilia reached out to snatch him up again, but he stopped before she could reach him. She hesitated, opting for a more diplomatic approach.

“Hey, Jonathan, remember what I said about the edge? It’s dangerous, right?”

She walked closer to him. He was breathing heavily. He was shaking. She, too, was doing both of these things. Her heart raced as before, thudding in her ears.

“Hey,” she said when she reached him, “come on. We’ll walk down to go get it.”

“No!” He yelled. His voice was not little, it was thunderous. “Get it now!”

He turned violently, grasping her forearms and squeezing hard. He bent his body as if to force her toward the edge, but he was too weak to make her budge. Emilia twisted her arms out, breaking his grip, and grabbed around his elbows. She guided him a step away from the edge. I’ve never seen him so pissed off! “Hey, Jonathan, relax, okay?”

Emilia, easily overpowering the boy, pressed him away from the edge. Resisting, he crept backwards, battering at her to break her grip. Tears streamed down Jonathan’s face as it grew redder.

Suddenly the tears on his cheeks dried, leaving salt stains that Emilia didn’t notice. He squealed in frustration, flexing his whole body, then stopped resisting her grip. Emilia relaxed. Sensing this, Jonathan shoved his arms up from under hers, knocking her grip away. As his arms returned to his sides the skin fell away like soot shaken from a scorched log. Stunned, Emilia gaped as the flesh likewise withered. She yelped and stumbled back, then caught herself. The edge!

Emilia turned and bolted toward the downed trunk. But Jonathan snatched her arm with his fleshless hand, spinning her to face him as if she weighed nothing. Whatever remained of his flesh was ashen and floating away in the wind. His coal black bones groaned as they grew in length, shrouded by a shadowy aura.

Emilia stared into the yellow eyes of the towering figure. She tried to grab him as her mouth fell open, but her hands burned wherever they landed. Her vocal cords shook with pleading, but his ears were closed tight. He swatted her arms away and spun her around so they were both staring into the open sky. With his claw cupping her nape he marched her forward.

“Go get it, now!” He hoisted her off her feet and projected her over the edge with such force as to empty her lungs of breath. The bellow quaked, “bring it home!”

She fell screaming with no voice.
Forest 3-A Revisited

February 1st, 2021

Tertius Gradus

The time had come for the evening stroll. Spring walks through his private wood were the most heavenly experience he believed could occur while on the broken world. The soothing smell of blossoming flowers, of lush new leaves, clean air being ushered in by the joyous season always enveloped him on morning and evening trips. The evening, he was sure, elevated the experience; something about a day’s worth of sunshine brushing down on the forest gave it an extra liveliness; instead of the rigid and dewy hours after the night, the evening hour offered a clean, relaxing satisfaction after a long day’s work. The animals seemed to enjoy the later day as well. Birds chip cheerily all around him, squirrels chase each other with incredible speed, leaping from branch to branch with supernatural precision. Turkeys would cross the trails, eyeing him, gurgling at him, and fluttering their feathers at him. Now and again, he would encounter a small mammal, like a skunk or a porcupine, who always left him alone after a few moments of fraternal stares. More often, a rabbit would come across his path; the excitable little rodents always leapt away and disappeared into the brush immediately.

This day, he set out nearer to the close of his dinner than usual, giving himself extra time to enjoy the sights and sounds of his woods. He had worked hard to purchase his forest, labored and finessed his way through multiple corporate ladders for many long years to assure his ideal retirement. Secluded, calm, and natural. He knew as he aged, some of the natural aspects of his early retirement would need to be phased out. Wood cannot be cut by an eighty-year old, hunts cannot be dragged by an eighty-year old, his own body, eventually, would need help cleaning itself. The second retirement, a return to infantile dependency, may yet be enjoyable. He had a plan for it. But it would not begin to compare to the idyllic position in which he currently finds himself. On the trail, alone, free, and with a full belly.

Curiously, being about a quarter of the way down his typical route, he has not heard any songs from the finches or buntings that typically fill the air with their lovely little tunes. No matter, the gentle rustling of young leaves in the breeze is a sound that offers his mind ease. The vibrant forest, the soft breeze, and the whispering leaves are hypnotic enough on their own. He smiles, closes his eyes for a moment, and carries on, taking a deep breath of the evening air which he loves so much.

His nose is filled with a pungent odor. Recoiling and instinctively grasping at his throat as if he’d been choked, his eyes snap open and he looks around. Collecting himself, he examines a few bushes more closely. Stepping off the trail towards one, he notices a furry little body laying there, not reacting to his approach. The stench is present. Changing his angle, he finally determines that this little skunk is dead. The old man sets a glove over his hand. The body looks intact enough to be moved without falling to pieces. It certainly smells fresh, too. He picks it up, respectfully, and carries it some way into the woods, gently laying it to rest away from his walking trail, hoping that the stench will be diminished by morning.

Returning to the trail, removing his glove, and happy to be back on his way, he waits a while before taking another sniff of his surroundings. The sweet spring air should set his mind at—no! He gags, frustrated at the odor that clings to the woods. He looks around again, not finding any carcasses to blame. Pondering for a moment, his concentration is broken when he glances up at the sky. The vibrant blue of early-evening has evaporated, giving way to an orange, now yellowing, now graying late-evening, now dusking color. This should not be the case. He decides to turn around and head home. He must’ve travelled further than he thought after he disposed of the skunk. But, then, why the stench?

Suddenly the air around him seizes him in its grasp, binding him in biting cold wind, like a snowless winter gale. He shivers, then stumbles forward. The forest is no longer vibrant; the color is being drained out of the saplings, the tree trunks, the mosses, the flowers. The color, as the sun flees into the night, is soaked into the object to which it belongs and replaced with shades of gray. He looks into the sky. Black clouds with gray streaks swirl above him. These are the most charismatic storm clouds he has ever encountered, and they are brewing like a sinister stew in a witch’s pot. He picks up his pace and runs headlong into the stench. It sets upon him, stubborn before the chilling breeze that wraps itself over him. Instead of being reduced by the wind, it stuffs itself into his nose and mouth like acrid, fat fingers groping into his skull. Even his ears and eyes protest before the invasive odor. The putrid stench is worse than before, worse than a rank carcass, worse than burning flesh, worse than the decay of a battlefield, worse than any scent the natural world, worse than any scent man, can dream of rendering.

He begins to jog as the scent burns into his eyes, as the blackness of night mocks his vision. He flicks on his flashlight, catching glimpses of his trail in the pale light, creating skeletons of the trees shrouded in coal blackness.

Then the world goes dark again.

Stumbling forward, he mashes at the flashlight, desperate to set the battery straight. But he realizes he is not blinking.

His eyes have been forced shut.

He can’t breath.

He must reach his home.

He produces a pocket knife.

He sets the blade upon his eyelid.

He screams as blood rushes down his cheek, offering a warmth with a twisted welcome that fights against the blistering cold air.

Then the other.

He wipes the blood away,

and is yet blind.

Concerned no longer with the insurmountable pain in his eyes, he gasps and breathes heavy, fast breaths, pulling the stench in and forcing it out as if he’d just run a marathon. Within his chest, the foul air rips at his organs and thrashes like an alligator with its prey. The sensation alone nauseates the man. Forcing the stench out is no relief; the stench burns his throat on the way up, eating at his esophagus like acid, dragging behind it bile, which he ejects with every breath. It joins the blood from his severed eyelids that cascades over his chin.

He stumbles to his feet, clinging desperately to the flashlight, tumbling himself forward. His head begins to imagine that he must be nearing the cabin, he must be nearing the cabin. At any moment, he’ll bump into it.

His arms reject the prospect. They touch nothing but the ground as he collapses, unable to trick his lungs into accepting the unnatural air any longer. The ground is cold and clammy, like a cement basement floor. The flashlight falls out of his hand.

He begins to crawl forward, then allows his body to drop to the ground entirely. He retreats within himself, offering his body as a sacrifice if only his mind be spared.

But the odor is not contented with his body. It begins to pester at his consciousness. It consumes him, dominates his thoughts. He falls back so far that he is no longer uncomfortable—he no longer knows what the word means. He no longer feels the pain of the eyelids that once were. His organs no longer burn. He is not concerned with his breath, he has forgotten the place in which he lives. He withdraws further, forgetting everything. Unlearning everything. Now he does not think. There are no thoughts, but there is not nothing.

For there is something.

An emotion, a single emotion which has devoured his body, has seized his mind, and which is now penetrating his soul itself, inducting his soul into its own essence.

And the emotion is

Tag: Horror

A Spring Hike

Septimus Decimus Gradus

Forest 3-A Revisited

Tertius Gradus