The Woods

Chapter 11

"The first man in the photo was my father. The second man was the man who cut my arm." I slowly looked towards my arm and stared. I flipped over both of the photos to see a date and year on it but they were both scribbled out. I looked over at Jordan, he was trembling as if in fear. He wasn't facing me but I knew something was bothering him. I got concerned so I decided to ask him if he was okay.

"Hey, Jordan? Uh-are you okay? What's wrong?" I slowly began to get up from the floor and never, not even for a second took my eyes off him. He turned around, this all felt all too similar. After he had turned around I fell back to the ground. He looked exactly like the police officer from the day before. As he came over to me, twitching and shaking with every step, started to lean over and get really close to my face. He then started to scream,

"Death! Death! Death! You can't escape this! I will get you! I will get you! I don't care how many people I have to kill before I can finally get to you!" His voice wasn't his. It was darker, much darker than what I have ever heard in my entire life.

Now I was the one trembling in fear. I stared into his darkness filled eyes until the door opened. He turned his head around

"I don't know what's wrong with him! Help me!" He screamed to Shannon's mother. I looked back at his eyes, blue as the sky on a sunny day like they had been when I met him. Her jaw dropped like a snake's unhinged jaw. She ran over to me and felt my forehead.

"Brian, it's me Veronica, Shannon's mother." I had heard what she had said until her voice started to fade away. "He's burning up. We have to bring him downstairs. Let's go." She demanded. I didn't react to anything that was going on around me. I was just in total shock. I stared at them both, looking at one of them and then the other. The kept talking but I could only hear their muffled voices. The tried to get me off the floor but I refused to get up. My legs felt like they had been broken a thousand times, over and over again. I tried to make them let go of my arms so I could see if there were anything near my legs causing the pain.

"Stop it, it's no use. I can't get up. My legs are hurt." I looked up at both of them. The entire time, just, this annoying ring is all I heard. When they talked I could still only hear muffled voices, until another voice started to speak, it was clear and what it said echoed in my mind. It was the second voice I had heard coming from my TV before Shannon's death. It said,
"Sorry I wasn't there. I'll be there next time."

I looked down at my legs, I yanked up the pants that was covering them. Black and blue. My legs were covered in hand prints that were left in bruises. I touched my legs with my icy cold hands. I was frightened by the fact that it could do this and I wouldn't know about what he had done for a couple of minutes. I could finally start hearing their voices again.

"Brian! What happened to you? We have to take him to his mother right now!" Jordan demanded. I forced myself with all the power that I had to get up. I, also with the help of Veronica and Jordan, finally got up. Veronica was holding my left arm and Jordan was holding my right arm just in case I started to fall down. We slowly walked up the bedroom door to leave. We walked to the end of the hall where the stairs began. At the bottom was Shannon, I stopped walking. I started to cry when I saw her. Her mouth was wired shut, her clothes were covered in blood, and she looked scared. Did she know she was dead?

"Shannon? What are you doing here?" I asked without hesitation. She was shaking, her eyes opened up wide when she saw me. She started to point at something that I couldn't see from where I saw standing. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. I started to hear footsteps, they got louder with every step. It was the man-thing that had cut my arm not that many days ago. Shannon disappeared into thin air before he could get to her. Shannon's mother and Jordan started to tug at my arms. They wanted to go down the stairs. I refused to move from the top step.

"Brian, come on. We have to take you to your mom." Jordan started to get mad at me. They were both on the step in front of me, tugging at my arms. He slowly walked up the steps toward Jordan, Veronica, and I. His face was pointing towards the ground. I don't think Shannon's mother or Jordan could see him. They stopped tugging at my arms and turned their heads to the bottom of the steps. The man made a nasty large growl and looked up. There was blood covering all of his face and an ugly, evil, almost devil-ish smile started to form on his face. He raised his hand up to his face and smeared his hand across his face. After he did this he extended his arm towards the wall and wiped it on the walls as he started to walk up the stairs quicker and quicker. Veronica and Jordan were looking everywhere on the stairs because they couldn't see him, but I could. I told them where he was and that we had to get to safety. We ran down the hallway to a closet. We're going to hide in a closet? Yeah, sure. We're totally not going to die. I thought that if I was going to die, why not have my last thoughts be sarcastic?

Veronica pulled the door, almost all the way closed. She asked me to be look out since only I could see him. He slowly walked into each room and then the next. Jordan was quietly asking me question about the man. I answered each of them as Veronica was working hard trying to open up the entrance of the attic. The man was approaching one of the last doors when Veronica opened the entrance. After the man was out of sight, I closed the door and we started to head into the attic. First Jordan went up, then me, and then Veronica. When we were all up in the attic she put the cover over the entrance, it was pitch black in the room. The man finally got the closet and opened the door. We were all so afraid that we all actually stopped breathing at the same time and held our breaths. It was a long minute before we heard the door slam and footsteps fading. We all were panting and I got out of the attic. I did a sweep through of the place to make sure he was gone. I told them to stay in the attic because it could be dangerous. When I went back to the closet they came down and we started to walk to my house. When she opened the front door, I immediately felt dread and sorrow. I told them that I could walk myself home. Jordan walked out after me to go back to his house. I slowly walked so that by the time he finished running to his house, I would still have to walk half of the way.

I asked "What is it that you want?" as I stared at my feet. They were everywhere and they stared at me where ever I was. When I walked past them, they turned just to keep staring me in the face. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them. I refused to look at them in the eyes because One of them (a wise ass one) answered,

"We want what we can't have!" His voice changed and got more angrier towards the end of the sentence. He continued, "You see, once he kills you one of us can finally have what we truly want. And I am going to make sure that the 'one of us' I was talking about will be me!" He was the only one who moved from where he was standing. He followed me, first he was walking and then he started to run behind me. I ran until I thought my legs were actually going to break and until I couldn't breathe. I opened my front door and slammed it behind me. When I was in my house I looked out of the window next to the door to see the guy who was talking before, now knocking on the door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "What?" I asked as I opened the door.

"Do you know where my mommy is?" A little girl asked. The white area around her red eyes were black. I felt like screaming but I knew that if I did, she would probably murder me. I stared at her because I had heard about demonic entities changing into different shapes. I started to slowly close my door until I heard what she said next.

"I asked you, do you know where my mommy is?" She screamed in a horrifying demonic voice. I slammed the door shut, locked it, and ran to my basement. I told nobody I had a basement because my mom kept all of her decorations for holidays and she didn't want them to break. I sat down in the corner behind a large standing Santa. My mother was agnostic but my father was a christian. I started to whimper when I started to hear footsteps walk closer and closer to my basement door. It stopped and I calmed down. There were no sounds for what I thought was 20 minutes. After that silence, I heard the door creak open and I lost some hope and faith. I saw, from where I was sitting, the shadow of the little girl from the front porch. I heard her run down the stairs, she laughed, and then she started to walk towards me.