A Collection of Short Horror Stories

16

TLDR: "Now be careful, that circle of rock salt is the only thing keeping them out." The priest said, welcoming my group into his refuge.

"Sea salt," I clarified. I relished the priest's twisted expression as realisation dawned upon him.

The sinking sun dyed the forest a bloody red. The intermittent rustling of the leaves and the crunching beneath their boots accompanied the spooked lost hikers. Every second spent in the forest with only trees at every turn weighed down heavily in their hearts. Despite wearing thick jackets, the wind blew their exposed faces cold.

The nerves of the shivering young teenager trudging behind the group of four snapped under the pressure with the onset of the moon.

Pointing in the face of the only woman in the group, Jake shouted. "It's all your fault!"

Laila's eyes widened at the unwarranted tantrum directed at her. She shrieked back in bewilderment. "How is it my fault?!"

"If you didn't try to snatch Ali's phone, it wouldn't have fallen off the cliff! It's almost nightfall and we're still fucking lost in the middle of fucking nowhere!"

"Oh boo hoo, as if that was my fault! If he had a tighter grip on his phone, it wouldn't have dropped in the first place! Blame his skinny little bean pole you call an arm!"

"You bitch!"

The blood rushed to their head and they started throwing fists; Pulling at each other's hair and leaving bloody scratches on the other's face, they were a step away from rolling across the dirt.

"Break it up!"

Chrystian bellowed as he ran to restrain his female companion while Ali rushed to hold back the hot-blooded teenager.

"Get off of me you big oaf! As if I would take a snotty little brat who just came out of his mother's womb seriously." Laila shrugged off her companion and promptly groomed her messy hair.

"Sorry." Chrystian apologised with his head bowed.

Jake, who was insulted again, struggled against Ali to throttle her one more time.

"Say that one more time you old hag!"

"Jake! Stop it! It's not worth it!"

"Old hag?!"

"Miss Laila, he's just a young boy." Chrystian reminded.

Laila frowned and vented her irritation onto Chrystian instead.

"That bitch fucking insulted you! Who the fuck is she to badmouth you! It was because of your kindness that you agreed to help her out, otherwise she would've still been lost in the middle of fucking nowhere. Yet now she dares to push the blame onto you when it was her bloody fault in the first place?! Plus, she's not even a smidgen sorry for what she did!"

Ali bit his lip and slapped Jake hard across the face. Jake's head snapped from the force and he froze from the shock.

"Listen to me, okay?"

Jake stroked his swelling cheek and sullenly nodded.

"We still have no way of telling where we are now, we're losing daylight fast, and we still have no shelter. To top it off, you guys were making a racket which would attract wild beasts to us. You realise how dangerous our situation is now right?"

Jake nodded again.

"So, save your energy and don't start any more fights. Can you do that for me?"

Jake nodded once more.