Devil's Gateway

Chapter Five

The smell of crisp morning air washed over me as I shut the door behind me. Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath of the glorious scent. I could smell the honey suckles off in the distance. The scent of sweet flowers adoring the ground. My eyes envisioned the droplets of dew rolling off the petals of flowers. I heard the birds singing their chorus sweetly up in the trees. The warmth of the sun's rays kissing my skin.

I let out a sigh of relief. I had made it out.

I'm coming home, Allison.

I opened my eyes, finding myself in a heavily wooded area. Trees stretched higher than my eyes could see with their brown trunks. The canopy above consisted of thick leaves blanketed the sunlight, letting only small beams peek through to provide light to the floor below. Tall lanky grass stood about mid-knee length. A light fog rose from the ground, drifting in the direction of the wind.

No birds sang. Leaves rustled overhead as the branches below sounded eerily like a mallet hitting the plates of a xylophone.

I hadn't escaped. The house had lulled me into a false sense of serenity for a moment. It knew what I wanted and dangled it in front of me like a mouse in front of a cat.

What danger awaited me next? Would a crazed axe murderer be waiting behind a tree trunk? Or maybe a mutated bear hungry for a bite of freshly seasoned Trevor lurked in the distance?

My heart picked up speed once again. I'm surprised the damn thing still worked after everything I had experienced thus far. I must have reeled it out of the crimson ocean on my ascent.

Anticipation snaked its way into my stomach, settling heavy as a stone. My breathing increased slightly.

With a shaking limb, I took a step forward, expecting my foot to be swallowed by the earth. Thankfully, it landed with a muffled crunch on the ground below. My brown stained shoes carried forward into the woods. The deeper I traveled, the darker it became.

A loud snap sounded underneath my shoe, snatching my attention. I glanced down, expecting a branch. Instead, a beige colored bone laid in two beneath my sole. It was a long bone—a femur most likely—belonging to a human. Small indentations lay imbedded along the bone. They appeared to be small scratches or bite marks. The rounded end of the bone was jagged, looking like a saw blade had been ran back and forth on it repeatedly.

I held back a gasp, frightened that I may bring whatever creature that had done this straight to my location. I peeked around at the endless wave of trees. The fog had risen level to my chest now.

A low hiss echoed from tree to tree up above in the canopy. My eyes darted upwards, trying to find the source of the noise. Pinpointing the beast seemed impossible. Wind whipped the hiss in every direction.

Knowing that I would be a sitting duck, I raced behind a tree for coverage. A heavy object made the branches cry out from the weight. The creature moved at a heightened speed, reaching the location I had just been at in seconds.

The hiss sounded again— this time feet away. Peeking out from behind the mossy bark, I watched the creature descend from the branches above. A spider, about the size of a small building, crept down from above on a silky part of its web. Thick black hairs covered the spider's body. Eight long legs stretched from one tree trunk to the other as the spider lowered to the forest floor bed. Its eyes were a bright red, illuminating the shady area below.

I could see the crimson sea while staring into the beast's eyes. My irises glued—hypnotized almost—to the beast's gaze. A trance fell over me as the web-spinning siren spun me into it's carefully crafted trap.