The Assorted Chapters

Lured

A sidewalk stretched far down, with an empty road to the left and a black pointed metal gate to the right, the gate separating the sidewalk from the dark woods. Lenard and Willow were strolling down this empty sidewalk with Max, their German Shepherd, who had been tugging on his leash ahead of them as he followed a squirrel on the other side of the gate from them.

"Easy boy," Lenard murmured and gently tugged back on the leash.

"Let's cross. I hate walking by these woods," Willow, a petite woman, said to Lenard while walking arm-to-arm close to the tall man for a feeling of safety. He gave her an agreeing nod and turned towards the street before being harshly yanked back and slammed against the gate when Max found the opportunity to dart through the broken opening between two of the gates and into the woods.

"god dammit, Max!" Lenard snapped and picked himself up. "Babe, he ran into the woods!" Willow exclaimed, cupping her hands around her mouth, a worried tone in her voice. "It's alright. Stay here while I go look for him," he said as he dashed after the Shepherd. As he entered the woods, the light faded, and he was now in a dim, quiet place.

"Max!" He called out as he wandered through the dead environment, his voice echoing throughout. Lenard was not easily scared, but the more he observed, the more his arm hairs began to rise. The slim trees that stood bone straight, some curved, bent, and completely broken in half, and the scent of wild animal odors that lingered in the still air was among the things he noticed about the atmosphere.

He scrunched his face and continued through the woods in search of the Shepherd. "Max!" he yelled once more before hearing the dog bark somewhere in the distance. He rushed over in the direction of the nonstop barking but slowed down when suddenly, the barking came to an abrupt stop. He was now creeping through the painful silence, hoping that no hungry animal was stalking him within the woods.

After catching a glimpse of what looked to be a dog in the distance, he squinted his eyes, scanning the area after it quickly ran off somewhere, before he heard its bark continue again, now picking up his pace towards it.

His barks became louder, indicating that he was on the right track, but now Lenard was faced with an issue. He found himself at the top of a steep slope leading deeper into the woods. For a moment, he wondered if it was even worth trying to get down, but he found it in himself to do so. "This damn dog," he muttered as he carefully took a step down.

It was almost instantly after he stepped that he lost his balance and tumbled down the slope, slamming into rocks and branches along the way. Finally, he slammed into a tree which helped him come to a painful stop.

~~~~~~~~~

Willow anxiously paced back and forth while she waited for the two to emerge from the woods but then came to a halt once she heard the sound of metal clanking against metal. She stared into the woods as it grew louder and louder until all of a sudden, Max came running out, panting.

"Max!" She exclaimed, relieved to see he was all right, and knelt on one knee to rub his head and back. Though she was relieved to see Max again, Lenard was still missing. Looking up, she glanced around the woods to see if he was possibly following Max, but no one was to be seen, causing her anxious feelings to resurface.

~~~~~~~~~

Lenard limped to his feet, clutching his left arm to relieve the sharp pain that had been shooting through it. "Fuck," he exclaimed as he lifted his sleeve and saw blood pour down his forearm from a long wound. Something must've sliced him as he tumbled. The pain was burning and his body ached, but he was determined to find Max, so he kept walking until he found himself a few meters away from a broken cabin that appeared to be old and forgotten about, where the barking continued from.

As much as he didn't want to, he cautiously approached the cabin, thinking about willow and how broken she would be if something bad were to happen to Max. Once he reached the base of the rotted wooden stairs, he carefully walked up and pushed open the already-cracked open door that creaked as he did.

Then, the barking stopped.

A large amount of dust that filled the air which was revealed by the sunlight shining through the holes in the roof was the first thing he noticed upon entering. Next being The torn furniture in the living room that was no cleaner than the wooden walls, which were stained with an unknown liquid. The living room floor was covered in broken glass and wood from the roof and creaked with every careful step the man took. "Jesus," he mumbled at the sight of what looked like a tornado had run through.

"Max boy. Come here," Lenard called out in a small voice and lightly clapped his hands together to signal the Shepherd but stopped when He heard a thud and it start to whimper from behind a broken door next to the living room.

He fixed his gaze in that direction before slowly approaching the door, the whimpering becoming faster and louder as he came closer.

"Max?"

Now standing right in front of the door, he slowly pushed it open and it creaked as he did and to his surprise, he was met with a bedroom just as ruined as the living room with no sign of the dog.

"What?" he wondered aloud to himself. He stood there, baffled, trying to comprehend what had just happened. He knew what he was hearing was true and that he wasn't insane, but he was now beginning to question that. The feeling of warm blood running down his arm snapped him out of his confusion and reminded him to get moving, which he did.

He turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw a tall, hunched-over humanoid figure looming over him with a wide-open mouth that stretched to each side of its face and revealed sharp rows of teeth,  thick saliva oozing out. Its eyes were bloodshot and huge, with two black dots for pupils that stared right into his and its skin that looked as if it were melting away was riddled with burns and scars from its head to its massive clawed feet. Paralyzed from fear, Lenard stood there with a pale face and wide-eyed staring up at the creature as it released a saliva-spitting snarl at him.

He took a large gulp of nothing and stepped back before being quickly grabbed by the face and thrown back against the bedroom wall, falling on top of the filthy mattress, his wound now gushing blood. "AH!" he yelped as the creature grabbed his leg, but in an instant, he struck it in the face with his other foot, causing it to let out an ear-splitting screech.

Lenard now had a brief window of chance to jump up and dash out of the room, which he did. He hurried towards the front door and got his hand on the doorknob, but he wasn't fast enough as the creature chased him down and threw him into the kitchen.

"BANG!" went the dirty dishes on the counter, which had been thrown everywhere after Lenard's body slammed into them. He lay there slumped over and aching on the kitchen floor as the creature lunged straight for him with a ferocious kick, but he dodged the attack by throwing himself out of the way just in time. The kick was so powerful that the creature's foot easily smashed through the lower cabinet.

As he tried to crawl away from the creature, Lenard's heart was racing so fast that it hurt, and his breathing was labored, but he let out a hoarse scream after being tightly grabbed by his ankle and hauled out of the kitchen, through the living room, and down a hall to a doorway leading to a dark basement, small broken pieces of wood splintering his face as they went. Fighting for his life, he managed to grab the doorway's edge, but this was useless because it only delayed what was to come.

Desperate, the creature screeched at him and pulled harder, but the man's grip remained firm until the extreme force caused his fingernails to lift up and rip right off his fingers. His grip loosened and he was now finally dragged down the staircase, hitting his head on each stair on his way into the depths of the darkness.