Short Scary Stories

The Evil Of The Exsor.

If there's anything I've learned from my experience with the Exsor, it's that I'm not afraid of monsters.

Monsters that roar, ghosts that shriek, and demons that howl... none of that scares neither me nor anybody else. No, the true pedestal that all of these manifestations of chaos are built upon is the unknown. That true horror is the basis of all fear. It is that entity that lurks within the darkest regions of the night, that cold hand brushing down your back when nobody's around, that blur out of the corner of your eye. It is that which you always imagine is behind you, ready to strike as soon as you become away of its presence.

The worst part is not knowing what it looks like, and that is what makes them unknown. We put faces on our fears because it makes them real; because it makes them less scary and brings them closer to our understanding, but that onething that remains invisible and faceless... that terror comes from our imaginations.

That terror comes from us, but sometimes in the most hellish situations... that terror comes from something else.

I cannot even begin to describe the creature, nor do I want to. The very sight of the abomination made my mind begin to unravel, and I was forced to look away before it could claim my very sanity as it had claimed so many others before. In fact, I immediately vomited at first sight of the monster. I now believe the insanity that lurks in its presence is due to an aura of sorts because I can clearly remember being around it and feeling tense and terrified when I was in its presence. I can also remember what little of it I actually saw without feeling any effects, aside from the sickness I feel whenever I think back to that dreadful evening.

It was a fresh, cool October evening when I first got the call from Gavin. It was the first warm evening in quite a while, and I took advantage of the change from the frigid temperatures to spend my evening outside, reading a mystery novel in a chair on my back porch. As the sun began to set, the quiet serenity of dusk was shattered when a shrill ring erupted from inside my house. I immediately recognized it as the phone, and I hurried inside to see who it was. Delighted to see that it was from a close friend of mine, someone I hadn't spoken to in a few weeks, I quickly swept up the phone and answered.

Professor Gavin Thomas, the man on the other end of the phone, was an archaeologist who had recently returned from an excavation. He had called me in a frantic hysteria before he left to travel to the dig site, claiming that it was the greatest opportunity of his life. The excavation, he told me, was of a town from the 1800's that had been buried when an earthquake caused a chain reaction that sank the town and buried it beneath an avalanche. He said that a man representing a wealthy benefactor had approached him after work one evening and asked for him to join the excavation crew as the head archaeologist.

The benefactor had given Gavin all kinds of information about the dig site to get him excited, and Gavin accepted the offer to join the crew. Gavin said that such a find was unprecedented, and he couldn't believe his luck that he would get to witness the excavation firsthand. I wished him well before his departure, and hadn't expected to hear from him for over six months. An entire buried town would be quite the time-consuming project... or so I thought.

Now, almost three months after he had left, I was confused to see that he was calling me. I answered the phone and hesitantly greeted him.

"Hello? Gavin?"

"Devon!" Gavin sounded like he was bursting with excitement, but I detected an edge to his voice... was that nervousness...?

"Why are you back so soon? Did the excavation of that town end early?"

"You could say that," Gavin replied. "Look, I need you to come over here, to my house."

"The sun is setting. It's almost night."