La Llorona- The Curse of the Valley

4

As Bo walked through the door the boys looked up nervously from the table. Glenn, Matt's dad was there. Finally, he was able to see the boys in the light. The darkness of the trail only allowed him to see them in varying shades of grey and the darkness covered the severity. He could make out general things like a ripped shirt, frightened faces and a bloody nose. But, when he saw them at the dinner table in living color it became more real. Matt's shirt was torn just below his chest and he had painful looking scratch marks that ran down his stomach. Blood had seeped from the scratches into Matt's shirt in the front and back. Both boys were dirty and still visibly shaken. They were pale white and neither would eat. Jack had a piece of blood soaked, rolled up paper towel hanging from his nose. His face had smaller thinner scratches on both cheeks and one right next to his eye. His wife was looking at him in disbelief, shaking her head. "Did you get her?" Jack asked.

"No, but I did find a pretty scary looking raccoon." He was downplaying it trying to get the boys to relax and not be so scared. Jack and Matt shot each other a look assuring each other that what they saw was not a racoon. "I saw where you scrambled out onto the trail and scurried away. I looked around and I found the missing piece of Matt's shirt hanging from a branch and these" He dug into his pocket and removed Jack's glasses and handed them to him. "A couple feet from the lake. Can you guys tell me what happened?"

The boys explained it just how they saw it. From the sound of a woman crying, to wanting to go see who it was. They explained the creeping and crawling through the underbrush and branches and the how the woman crept up and mocked them before attacking them. Jack was emphatic about her saying something over and over but he couldn't remember what it was. Just that it wasn't English he knew that. Maybe Spanish, but he couldn't remember what she was saying. Matt agreed that it wasn't English and that whatever it was scared the crap out of him and then she clearly said "I found you!" Matt said that when he turned and was face to face with her, she looked real but didn't seem to have eyes and that it looked like she was crying tears of blood and then she lunged at him. He fought her off as best he could but she wouldn't let go of his shirt. Then it tore away and that was when he was able to get out of there.

Had it not been for the voice that he heard screaming something in Spanish Bo doubted that he would have believed them. He was still skeptical to an extent but he knew something out of the ordinary had taken place. He could tell by how scared the kids were. "Well? What the hell do we do?" Emma, Jack's mom asked. She looked frightened and confused. So did Glenn.

"Well I guess we should report it to the police." Glenn stood from his seat gently insisting. Bo was nodding in agreement.

"Maybe we will just leave out the missing eyes and bloody tears."

"Yeah, that would be best." Emma whispered to the men as they walked away from the kids at the table "What's important is that we let them know that someone attacked our kids and they should find the ..."

"Maybe it was some older kids playing a joke on them?" Glenn thought aloud trying to make sense of everything that he heard. The adults had walked to a separate room to confer with one another.

"I don't know. I did hear a woman's voice saying something in Spanish as I was walking up the trail. Then they came barreling around the bend like they just saw the Devil himself." Glenn looked concerned.

"Maybe it was kids in a costume and they played some Spanish woman on a bluetooth speaker. I know something scared them to death." Glenn paused trying to think how it could be possible "And with all the commotion and fear maybe they think they saw all that stuff. I don't know, the mind can play tricks on a person when they are scared." Emma nodded and stepped from the room to call 911.

"I guess that makes sense. I don't know what the hell happened. I'm just glad that they got away and didn't get really hurt or kidnapped."

"What did you hear the woman say?" Glenn asked as Emma came back in the room

"They are on their way."

"I'm not sure. I thought I would remember it and now I can't. It sounded like 'me' something."

"Dad?" Jack called from the other room.

"Yeah, buddy what's up?"

"Where did you find my glasses?" He came into the room and tilted his head slightly. It was what he did when he didn't understand something or when something doesn't make sense. He looked really confused.

"They were a couple of feet from the water. I walked the bank of the lake and didn't see anyone. Just a raccoon standing by the water which startled me. When I turned to come home, I took one step and heard a snap. I'm guessing that's when the lens popped out."

"Dad, we never made it out of the trees. She came at us while we were coming from the trail to the lake. I wasn't by the water, like... at all. My glasses came off as I was trying to get out of the branches and stuff." Silence filled the room. Jack had just made the point that he wanted them to get. That there was something really wrong and unexplainable that happened to them. The adults quietly looked at one another.

"The raccoon?" Glenn asked to no one in particular. It was more of a statement, but even he wasn't convinced. It's too coincidental. But the other explanation was just as crazy, so Bo put it out there.

"So you think that the crazy lady, that had no eyes, found your glasses and dropped them by the lake?" It sounded ridiculous. Point made.

"Dad I don't know. I just know that I wasn't by the lake. I was still in the woods when they came off of me. She scratched Matt and ripped his shirt. What if she was reaching for me and scratched me while she grabbed my glasses? I thought it was a branch that got them and scratched me but it happened so fast and I panicked. Dad, I don't know how to explain what the heck happened. I just know that it happened." And with that he turned and walked back to Matt and the kitchen table.

The police had been told that there was a lady that attacked the kids in the Valley. She was wearing a long white dress and may have been speaking Spanish. Bo had mentioned that he heard the voice but couldn't remember what it had said. They showed him the scratch marks on Matt's chest and stomach and Jack's face. They mentioned their theory of a prank and offered a few suggestions of neighborhood kids, but said they had no proof. The boys wanted to tell the officer about the no eyes, bloody tears and the creepy evil sounding voice, but, they were told not to because their parents wanted the officer to believe them and actually go look to see what happened. The policeman went to the Valley and searched the trees. He had come back with the piece of Matt's shirt and that was it. He asked around the neighborhood if anyone had seen anything and let them know that two young boys were attacked there. There was legitimate concern from the older kids in the area. Nobody had seen or heard anything. It was a mystery. A report would be filed and at the very least, if it was the older kids, the word would get out that the police were now involved and that usually was enough to scare kids. However, this was no kid.