Spring Park

(2)

Is it on? Yes? I need to learn how to turn this thing on. Anyway, where did I leave off. Oh yeah, after the first encounter with the beasts from Spring Park. The second story I have is from when I was 8, about a year later from the previous incident, my parents decided that the only way for us to get over our fear of Spring Park, was for us to go into the woods and have a picnic. It was a bright, sunny day when we marched off into the woods with a picnic basket and a towel. We sat in the peaceful meadow, eating sandwiches. It was completely silent besides the chirps of the birds. I had to put food into Aaron's hands so he could eat it. All of the sudden, it happened. I could hear the difference immediately. There was nothing. The birds had stopped chirping. I didn't bring it up, because it was one more reason for people to say I was crazy. Aaron leaned over to me and whispered into my ear if I had heard the strange change in the animals nature. I nodded. "What a beautiful day it is. Wouldn't you agree?" My dad said. "Yes. The trees are quite beautiful." Aaron said sarcastically. My dad laughed. I watched the tree line for any monsters, but saw none. The trees seemed to stare back at me, but there was no movement. And then, we all heard it. Humming. I don't remember what they were humming, but I know it was childish. "Do you hear that?" My mother asked. "I'll go check it out." My dad said bravely, getting up and walking off into the woods. After about twenty minutes of nothing but the growing sound of the humming. Seemingly sensing our fear, my mother said "let's go look for him. If we don't find him, we'll go home and I'll call someone to find him." She quickly packed up all of our picnicking supplies and then picked it up and grabbed Aaron's hand to guide him. I could tell she was trying to look brave and strong, but she was afraid. We walked through the forest, trying our best to move away from the sound. In a few minutes, we were lost. My mom took us in a random direction and we walked for about thirty minutes until my mother realized that we were back at the place we started at. My mother started yelling into the woods for someone to help us, but help did not come. The humming quickly gained on us, and my mother began practically dragging us. She eventually stopped running, and pushed me and Aaron forward. "Just keep running, I'll catch up later." She said. I pulled Aaron by the arm and we continued running through the woods. I could almost see the boundary of the woods when I felt someone grab me by my throat. It was a lady. Very tall and wearing a lamb mask. She had an axe in one hand, and me in the other. She stopped humming and all was silent. Aaron didn't run, he just sat there on the ground and stared down at the floor. She pushed me onto the ground and raised her bloody axe above her head. She was wearing a dark blue dress covered in white flowers which had splatters of blood on her. The axe began to come down, but she stopped, the color draining from her face, and then she dropped her axe and moved her hands to her chest. A large tree branch stabbed through her. The large creature put her into its stomach and she was consumed by roots and vines. The creature was some sort of tree monster, What do you call them? Ents? Yeah, an ent. It had no face and stood at least ten feet tall and had large stumps for legs and it's arms reached to the ground, it's fingers started at where it's knees were and the fingers were long and sharp. All the limbs were skinny at the base and grew on size until it got to its fingers which then shrank into needle like fingernails. It was wrapped in vines and had heads on its body. A mouth began to form on its face, and it began making a soft screeching sound. The birds flew to it, and I could hear the rush of footsteps running away from us. A few seconds later, Aaron collapsed to the ground, but I didn't. Probably because I can't sleep. It look at me and then its mouth sealed shut, and it picked us up and and it took us to the edge of the forest, reopened its mouth and created another screech, a lot louder. It softly put us down and then stomped away into the woods, disappearing into the trees and becoming one with them. I lay next to Aaron who I could hear sleeping. Within forty minutes of us laying there, I heard police sirens and and police cars drove up as well as ambulances. The people across the street came out of their house and I watched their kid stare at us as he always did. "So, when did you first see them lying here?" The officer asked them. "About fourth minutes ago, I just saw them lying here on the ground. I don't know what happened to them." The police said something over the radio and then people came over and took us to the hospital. It took us about three days until we had recovered and the police had finished questioning us. It was determined another mysterious murder of Spring Park. They found their bodies, my parents bodies, in the woods. My dad had walked away from us, and then he had his head chopped off by the crazy axe lady, and then the crazy axe lady threw her axe at my mothers back, which paralyzed her, and she bled to death. I thought I had it bad then, but when I thought about it, Aaron had it worse. He had double no parents. No real parents, and now his adopted parents were dead. None of our friends would let us live with them, and people moved into our house and gave us what little stuff we had. After a while of searching for somewhere to live, we finally gave up. That's when we met Delma. She came up to us, and asked us if we needed somewhere to stay, she told us about how she knew how much it sucked to not have any guardians and offered to take care of us until we could take care of ourselves. She was pale, tall, and had scarlet red hair that went down to her shoulders. She, like many of my other friends, wore the same clothes everyday. She had bags under her eyes, but I later learned that insomnia isn't only caused by my sleep deprivation illness. She wore a brown plaid flannel and a brown dirty coat which she kept unbuttoned. She wore black shorts and brown boots that had purple laces. She had scars that traced up her arms and legs, and had a red tattoo on her neck of a gas mask with some symbols below them. We didn't have anywhere else to go, so we had to go with her. She lived in this old shack on the edge of the town. Her and Mallory lived out there, and Mallory constantly cut the trees down around their house to protect them from the forest. Mallory was different than anyone else in the town. They smelled nice and wore different clothes everyday. They had black short hair and tan freckled skin. They had a pentagram etched into their shoulder. I touched it a few times while I lived with them, and I could feel that it was indeed cuts into their shoulder. They didn't fear showing off their marks, Mallory would wear sleeveless shirts and Delma wouldn't wear any necklaces so that nothing covered the symbols and image on the back of her neck. I believe that the house was Mallory's, but I don't know. I don't even know if the house is still there. It was overtaken by trees years ago. Anyway, continuing with the story. Delma led us to her house, and immediately showed us where we'd sleep, told us where any emergency weapons and first aid kits were, and she showed us a tour of the kitchen. She then told me that we'd eat dinner when Mallory came home, and the she'd tell us the rules of the house. Delma worked at a diner and Mallory smelled fire wood which they got from the trees in which they cut down. Delma told me and Aaron that if we helped around the house and kept he place in order and out of anarchy, then we'd get allowance. When Mallory got home, Delma excitedly told them that we'd be staying with them, and then she served dinner and we ate in silence besides the occasional question from Mallory. I wondered why they lived alone on a hill on the far edge of town, but I think they were just childhood friends who didn't like interacting with the world around them. After we had finished eating dinner, Delma quickly listed off at least a hundred rules about going out, staying in, bed times, waking up times, and other stuff like that. She then led us to our beds and tucked us in. She sat with us until we fell asleep, and then asked me about two hours later why I wasn't going to sleep. I told her that I can't sleep. Ever. "Oh." She said. "Do you take medicine or something? Do I need to pick something up for you?" She asked. I told her that I did take medicine, but I had medicine. She searched my bag and then pulled the pill bottle out of it and began reading it. She took two pills out of the container, and poured me a glass of water. I took the pills and then phased out. I came to about an hour later to what I thought was the sound of digging, but I shook it off and laid there until morning. About two hours later, the digging stopped, and I heard the front door open. I pulled the covers over my head to make it look like I was sleeping. I couldn't see who had come back inside, but they went into another room of the house and then that was it. Later, I asked Delma about it, and she said she'd look into it, but for now, we should go play with our friends. She told us that we'd have to be back by lunch. I guided Aaron into town. We'd go to the same place every time, the candy store. Thinking back on it, I'm 100% sure it was just a gas station or something because we'd only get gummy bears or something like that. On our way out, we saw something that is eternally burnt into my mind. Now, I've seen my fair share of dead bodies and gore and stuff like that, but seeing that scared my 8 year old mind. What happened was that a man ran out into the street, from the direction of the woods. I immediately recognized him as that guy no one likes, but I've forgotten his name. I think he was an arsonist because he had been arrested once for setting his house and his neighbors house on fire. He ran into the street with the back of his head completely blown off. There were two clean holes straight through his head where his eyes should have been. His fingers were cracked and broken and he was covered from head to toe in cuts. He ran right up to us and grabbed me and started screaming at us that the forest was angry that we had escaped and that he had to endure the punishment that was meant for us. He deserved it. One time, he lit the only school we have in town on fire. Almost killed someone, got close, but luckily not close enough. After about five shocking minutes of him screaming at us, he collapsed to the ground and died. The police came later and took his body to wherever they took bodies that weren't going to be buried or cremated. He didn't have a funeral, no one cared about him. His parents left the town when he was 17, leaving their house with him. He was a terrible person and deserved whatever happened to him in that forest,  but it is still traumatizing for a man who shouldn't have still been alive to grab you and shake you and yell at you that what happened to them should have happened to you. It's safe to say that we didn't leave Delma's and Mallory's house for a few days. The forest was angry, and we were boxed in.