The Trunk

The Trunk by Kannon Scott

The Trunk       

The Boy knew he wasn't supposed to leave his home after dark. It was a mistake.
   The Man had tapped on his bedroom window and asked to play as he has done many times before. "All of my friends have been dying to see you," the Man exclaimed, time after time.
   The boy wanted to go out and play with the Man very badly, but his parents told him not to play with strangers.
   The boy could see the Man's eyes glowing in the moonlight. One was a blood red; the other was piercingly yellow.
   This night, he had reluctantly accepted the Man's request.
   The Man had led him to a place far far away and now he can't find his way back home.
   He now lies, weeping silently, in the trunk of a hollowed-out tree. He doesn’t know how he got here.
   He cries out for his mama and his daddy, thinking for some childish reason they will hear him.
   The Man had led him across the creepy forest for what seemed like an hour and when they arrived at the hollowed-out tree trunk; the Man told the boy to sit tight and stay here while he left to bring back a few of his buddies. "We will all have a glorious playdate together" the Man had told the boy.
   The boy felt something slimy splat upon his crown. He squealed like a girl when it started squirming about. Another slimy creature fell on lap, then another on his foot, then another on his left arm. During one single moment, multiple slimy creatures started landing on and around the boy as if he were a target for an airstrike.
   The boy screeches like a hyena and busts out of the entrance of the tree and shakes all of the slimy creatures away from him. A few crawled down his shirt and pants so he quickly strips them off, and throws them to the forest floor.
   A rustle of leaves to the left,
(probably a lion)
a branch breaks to the right,
(definitely a hungry tiger)
a snapping noise from behind,
(a bear?)
a giggle, from the hollowed-out tree trunk
(MOM? DAD?)
   The boy extends his arm down to grab his garments only to find a pile of leaves, branches, and acorns.
   The boy felt a long bony finger rap at his spine three times, followed by a giggle only a child or a truly insane man could have.
   He spun around with a loud yelp, expecting to see the man standing there with his demonic buddies about to pounce on him like a cat.
   The boy blinked when he saw his clothes lying in a heap on the forest floor right where he had took them off.
   He started to snatch them up when he noticed the outline of a figure was inside them. He groaned when he realized it was the skeletal remains of a boy not much older than he was.
   The skeleton began to flail it's bony arms in all eight directions. It then made a deep moaning sound and cocked it's head straight towards the boy.
   The boy bellowed out, and started back for the hollowed-out tree trunk.
   It was gone.
   In the blink of an eye, the boy found himself in the middle of a vast corn field with nothing but corn stalks rising high above the boy's head in any direction you could look. Not left, not right, not forward, not backward.
   A skeletal hand grasped his right shoulder from behind and the boy squealed.
   Without thinking, the boy picked a direction to run in, and started up like a motorcycle.
   He ran and sprinted and dashed and raced for what seemed like a few hours. Stalks of corn smacked him in the face.
   He collapsed in a heap among the corn, and started wailing.
   He wailed for his mama and his daddy. He wailed to go home and sleep in the bed with both of his parents. He wailed and bellowed and cried and weeped. 
   He suddenly stops his crying fit as the sound of footsteps begins to crunch toward him.
   Crunch, crunch, cru—
   He yelped as he felt a prickle under the skin of his back.
   Some microscopic beast started to crawl up his side. Another microscopic beast began to crawl up his neck, toward his cheek. Hundreds of microscopic beasts began to infest the boy and crawl in his mouth and his ears and his nostrils.
   The boy froze in terror and assumed his potential early death had come upon him.
   The last thing he saw was the Man's glowing eyes peering down at him from above.
   He shut his eyes tightly while the microscopic beasts burrowed under his skin and ate away at his flesh.
   A tear drop left his right eye and trickled down his cheek, leaving a small stream of water streaked across his face.
   At the moment he would have died, he opened his eyes and found himself back in the hollowed-out tree trunk as if all of the microscopic beasts, the slimy creatures, the endless fields, and the skeletal corpse had all been a bad dream.
   The boy wept for his parents even more than before.
   He eventually found enough courage to leave the hollowed-out tree trunk.
   He wanted to find his home before the man and his posse found him first.
   He picked a direction and started across the forest with a purpose.
   The moment he started walking it began to sprinkle rain.
   Drip, drop, dribble,
(it's just the rain)
splat, split, SPLASH
(just the RAIN!)
KABOOM, KAPOW, KACHOW
(JUST THE—)
   The rain quickly became thicker, heavier, it even smelled differently than it did. It smelled like blood. It was blood.
Blood-rain.
   The blood-rain clogged up the boy's mouth and nostrils to where he couldn't breath. It covered his eyes to where all he saw was red. It filled his ears.
   He desperately tried to wipe away the blood out of his eyes, but only smeared even more blood into them.
   He tried to take a breath, but only achieved of gagging on the blood clogged up into his throat and nostrils.
   He flailed his arms out desperately, hugging every tree he came across.
   The boy stopped and fell to the ground before him. Giving all his hope away to the blood-rain.
   He heard giggles and footsteps of either children or truly, honestly, insanely, demonic men reciting some cultish chant while running in circles around his blood-soaked body.
   He shut his eyes tightly, and waited to die.
   When he opened his eyes, however he found himself back inside the hollowed-out tree trunk. There was no trace of blood, no trace of demons, and no trace of harm on his body.
   Paranoia began overwhelming him.
   A giggle,
(I've truly gone mad)
a laugh,
(God please help me)
a cackle
(HELP ME PLEASE OH GOD HELP ME PLEASE)
   The world around the boy began to morph like clay into what looked like a small log cabin. His surroundings then morphed once more into the mouth of a large cavern.
   The boy began to walk into the cavern as if he were in a deep trance with no return.
   He saw an eerie red light, deep within the dark cavern.
   The boy started for the light like a moth would. As he started towards it, a loud boom arose from behind him.
   Boom!
(Was that—)
Boom!
(Oh please god that was—)
BOOM!
(OH DEAR GOD  DON'T TELL ME THOSE WERE—)
BOOM!
(FOOTSTEPS!?)
   A deep, demonic chuckle came from the direction of the footsteps.
   The boy sprinted for the eerie red glow at the end of the corridor, the giant monster gaining closely behind.
   He comes across a wide ledge in the cavern floor which sank to the core of the Earth. The only way across was a wooden railroad only an ancient cart miners used drove across.
   The boy began to cross the splintered railroad with the monster following close behind.
   He was inches away from the other ledge when he heard a snap! 
   The railroad began falling apart into millions of tiny pieces which caused the boy to fall to his doom.
   He blinked, then found himself splashing into the bulls-eye of a vast lake, during a terrible thunder storm.
   He began to take on water quickly. He started crying for help, shrieking even.
   He inhaled a scoop of water and began to cough wildly.
   Something lurking in the water grabbed his left foot and began to pull him under. As his head was sinking below the deep surface of the lake, someone grabbed his wrist, and began to yank him back up.
   The first thing the boy saw, was a small fishing boat bobbing up and down on the surface of the dreary lake. He cocked his head up a little and saw the Man with one blood red eye and one piercing yellow eye somehow heaving him onto the boat.
   "I told you to STAY!" The Man exclaimed.
   The boy screamed and closed his eyes tighter than ever before.
   When he opened them, he found himself back at the hollowed-out tree trunk.
   The boy left the trunk once more.
   Everything around him changed in the blink of an eye as if it was never there.
   The boy stood at the front door of a tiny cabin in the dead center of a grove of trees. He opened the old wooden door, and reluctantly started in.
   The tiny log cabin had a pair of cracked windows on each of it's four sides. There was a warm fire burning in the fireplace. A cozy bed sat in the far left corner.
   An ancient phone sat atop the nightstand beside the bed.
Rrrrriiiiiiiiinnnnnggggggggg!
(This isn't happening)
Ring! Ring! RING!
(NOT HAPPENING)
RING! RING!! RING!!!
(THIS ISN'T POSSIBLE)
   The boy picked the phone up, and put it against his ear.
   A deep, scratchy voice announced,"WE'RE HERE!"
   The door slammed shut behind him, locking the terrified boy inside the tiny cabin.
   He dropped the phone, and started banging at the wooden door with his fists until blood began to spray from them.
   He gave up on the door, and turned to one window and tried to open it when a man with a pair of blood red, glowing eyes, and wearing a hood pressed his face up against the window.
   In the blink of an eye all of the windows in the cabin inhabited a man with a hood and red glowing eyes peering inside the cabin like the boy was a zoo animal.
   They were chanting some cultish ritual which the boy couldn't understand.
   "El día de satanás ha llegado."
   The boy backed away from the windows and crouched down in the center of the cabin, putting his his hands over his eyes.
   "El día de satanás ha llegado."
  He put his head between his legs and waited for the end.
   "El día de satanás ha llegado."
   A knock came on the door
(This isn't real)
the door handle started to turn
(THIS ISN't POSSIBLE)
the door opened
(LEAVE ME ALONE)
   The man with one blood red eye and one piercing yellow eye walked into the tiny cabin.
   "I told you to STAY!" The Man exclaimed.
   As the man said this, a loud boom came from above.
   The man screamed as the roof of the cabin began to fall inward. It struck him and pinned him to the ground so he could not move.
   His head was protruded out from under the section of the roof which collapsed on him so the boy kicked it with a hard force.
   "NONE OF THIS IS REAL!" The boy shrieked.
   The remaining section of the roof began to collapse on top of him.
   The boy tried to escape through a window, but he couldn't get any open.
   The roof continued to slowly fall inward, trapping the boy within the confinements of the tiny log cabin forever.
   He said a prayer.
   The boy woke up in the hollowed-out tree trunk once again.
   He saw the skeleton of himself laying on the ground next to the trunk.
   He watched as the man with one blood red eye and one piercing yellow eye walked up from behind, not noticing the ghost standing in front of him, and threw the corpse into the hollowed-out tree trunk. Where it would stay, forever.


Excerpt from a small town newspaper:

BREAKING NEWS- multiple young boys have been found dead, each in a different location. One boy was found at the bottom of Carter's Lake, another was found in the Davidsons' corn field, a third body was found deep inside the cave on top of the Scotts' hill. A fourth body has been found lying inside the bed of a collapsed cabin in the forest.
   Another boy claims he escaped the so-called  psychopathic maniac. He claims he didn't see the man himself, but he could make out the man had one blood red eye and one piercing yellow eye.
   One boy, however is still missing.
   If you have any idea who this maniac is, or where he is hiding, please, we beg you, turn him in immediately.
   Witnesses claim to have smelled something like rotting meat near a hollowed-out tree trunk...