WhiteScratch

An Unthinkable Darkness

I brush off the feeling that Grayson has planned something terrible as we walk straight into the complete darkness. As soon as we cross the border the air is ice cold and it starts to numb my fingers instantly. It's pitch dark around us. So dark that I can't even see my own hand inches away from my face and the whispering has seemed to disappear into thin air. I get lighted headed and start to fall out but Jake catches me before I can  fall the ground. 
"Are you ok?" He whispers to me. 
"No. I have that feeling that I had when we crossed home's border. Like some of my strength has been taken away from me. Something is very wrong with this place." I whisper back. 
"Do we have a flashlight or something?" Grayson shouts back at us. I get startled from his loud voice and say in a shaky voice, "Yes. Jake does." I can feel him squeeze my hand before I hear him rustle through his bag looking for his flashlight. The sound stops and I feel him take my hand again as he switches on the flashlight. I get sick at the sight that stands before us. Bodies. Hundreds of them lying on the ground in awkward positions. Limbs folded under the torso, heads cocked back, pure white eyes and the palest skin I'd ever seen. You can see veins popping out under the skin and some have their tongues hanging out. We all stand frozen at this horrifying sight. Grayson is the first to break the deathly still atmosphere and eerie silence.
"All dead. For a long time." I try to look at something other than the ground but there is nothing else to look at. Just pitch darkness. Jake shines his light around reveling no buildings, no paved roads or streets, no light sources. Just the dirt ground that lies beneath us, littered with bodies of all ages. I can feel my voice has stiffened as I try to speak. 
"How-Where did all of them come from?" Jake pulls me into a tight hug which I am grateful for sense it is the only heat source I have. We all take a few steps forward as we try to step between the bodies unsuccessfully. There are just too many to avoid so we end up walking across them like they're a path of some sort. The feeling of nausea overtakes me at the sound of their bones breaking and skin cracking beneath our feet. I start to shiver immensely as it seems to just get colder. The air becomes more quiet and still as we walk on, giving me a horrible feeling. After we've walked a mile or so, I start to see a faint, orange glow in the distance which stops me in my tracks. 
"Do you guys see that?" I ask, pointing ahead. They both nod their heads and I look at Jake. He squeezes my hand and starts walking toward the direction of the light. The closer we get, the better I can see the image. The light is coming from a fire of which a man, maybe in his late twenties, is tending to. He looks very much like the bodies surrounding us except for the fact that he's alive. Once we are only a few feet away from him, he jerks his head towards us in a style that makes me jump. 
"Um, Hi sir." Grayson says. The man only responds with a death stare directed towards me. I clear my throat and say, "We are a long way from home. What happened here?" He laughs as though he is completely insane and starts mumbling, "No escape. Only death. Only death." He continues to say the same thing over and over again like a broken record. He then stands up, repeating the same phrase, and starts to walk toward me on his ankles like he was drunk or something. I start to shake out of fear as my breathing starts to get heavier the closer and closer he gets. Jake swings me behind him and stands his ground until the man is right up in his face. The man spits blood into Jake's face and says again, "No escape. Only death. Only death." before he collapses to the ground, dead. We all stand there, completely frozen in utter fear and disbelief. Again, a deathly stillness and eerie quiet fall over the place. A few minutes go by with nothing being said and no one moving a muscle. But then I hear something. At first it sounds like hissing but then it clears out to the whispering again. I hear the same phrase "No escape. Only death. Only death." echo through this hellish place. As the phrase fills the area, fills my ears, penetrating itself into my head, I feel a hand grab my ankle and then sudden silence again. My heart rate quickens as I nudge Jake with my elbow giving him a look that told him to point the flashlight down at my ankle. He nods and does so slowly. I look down as the light illuminates the situation. A girl, early thirties with greasy, strand like hair holds my ankle. Her eyes are open to a horrifying wideness, white as snow and her mouth hangs open giving the appearance of a broken jaw. She lies there, appearing dead but as her grip tightens to cut off the circulation in my foot, I can tell she's not dead. She then reaches for my other ankle, doing the same thing and I fall to the ground with her, unable to stand. Jake swiftly but smoothly picks me up immediately and her hands drop to the ground. Grayson comes closer to us as we stare at her, waiting for what was going to happen next. She jerks up to a sitting position and then every other body in this place follows her lead. She then stands up, quite awkwardly, standing on her ankles like the man had done and every single body follows her again, standing the exact same way. We three start to back up but bump into the bodies standing behind us. We stand frozen as the woman rushes up to me and takes my face in her hands.
"Too young. Too precious. Too healthy to die." She says into my ear in a rough whisper. She then backs up and looks at the boys, moving in a way that is inhuman like she is possessed. She shouts to her colleagues, "No escape. Only death. Only death." they then echo her over and over again. She says it alone this time in a sinister voice. "No escape. Only death. Only death." and then she lets out an ear splitting scream that has mine, Jake's, and Grayson's ears bleeding. They all bend over into a crawling position and start to quickly crawl toward us in a way that is straight out of a horror movie.