Monday, August 3, 2009

Middleschool horror story project- did it scare you?

It was private property, but kids used to trespass there all the time. But no one ever trespassed there any more. Not since that kid vanished, not since all of those scary stories and rumors rushed from there in a tidal wave of fear and confusion.





We had never thought twice about the spillway. It never occurred to us to even go there, that was, until we were warned not to.





Jake’s mom told us that we could play anywhere but there. We knew about the kid who vanished there, without a trace. But there was nothing supernatural about it. They could’ve been kidnapped or had fallen in the river. I didn’t understand why his mother believed all of those rumors, I assumed that was why she didn’t want us to go there.





We ran outside, Jake, his sister Mari and I. Mari spread her arms and ran about, imitating an airplane. Jake looked down on her. I laughed and watched.


We stayed close to the house and played for a short while. I was the one who cut the fun short.





“Let’s go to the waterway.” I said.





There was a silence, their young eyes staring wide.





“…Ok,” said Jake after a long pause, covering his fear. He began to walk down the long dirt path. Mari followed obediently, and I picked up my pace to lead the way.





“Aren’t we not allowed?” asked Mari nervously as the spillway came into view.





“No, it’s fine,” I said. The air became very still, yet the leaves stirred and rustled slightly; pulled by tiny invisible strings of air. We climbed over the fence; Jake helped Mari make it over.





The hill behind the fence was steep, weeds and dirt descended into jagged rocks and water.





“This place isn’t scary at all!” bluffed Jake, slipping down the steep muddy path carved down the hill. Small, worn down footprints were already in the mud. Where they the child’s? Or some other trespasser’s? Mari and I followed behind him. We were filled with nervous excitement, perhaps feeling more enjoyment than fear, and fearing breaking the rules more than the place itself. As we reached the stream, we took off our shoes, jumped from rock to rock, playfully dipping our toes into the freezing water and overreacting to the sudden change in temperature. Soon we forgot that anyone had ever vanished there.





Jake stood on one of the lager rocks, beating his chest and crying out a jungle call. Mari laughed and laughed.





“Ok, ok, it wasn’t that funny!” shouted Jake from atop of his rock. Mari continued to laugh. I wondered if she was trying to annoy her brother. She just wouldn’t stop.





Mari continued to laugh for another minute, and Jake was getting angry.





“Shut up!” he yelled.





I glanced at Mari, not really annoyed but puzzled. Then I noticed something odd. She had a troubled look on her face, as if she thought something was wrong, as if she couldn’t control her laughing. Then I noticed that as time passed, her laugh became louder and more hysterical, it began shaking her so hard that she had trouble keeping her balance upon the rock.





“STOP LAUGHING!” Jake called out angrily. He jumped off of his rock and marched angrily to her. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. She continued to laugh; it was no use. Jake sighed and let go; but as he let go, she began to fall backwards, not regaining her balance. It happened quicker than any of us could help.





All we could do was watch as the event unfolded, paralyzed, eyes wide, hearts nearly stopped. It happened so fast, yet it felt excruciatingly slow.





Mari’s thin dark hair flew forward as her delicate body fell the opposite direction. As her body met the ground, she bounced back and then settled, her limbs splayed lifelessly across the ground. White, pointed growths shot through her body like bamboo shoots, their tips stained with blood, her clothes dyed red. Her eyes were half open and rolled back into her head. Just when we thought she was dead; she lifted her head as far as her pinned-down body would let her. She opened her mouth and continued to laugh weakly, the spikes moving in and out as her chest expanded and contracted. Each laugh sounded bubbly and liquid as blood gushed from her mouth. And every small laugh was weaker than the last, and soon they died away completely. Her head fell back harshly against the ground, creating a halo of slick, gooey blood around her head. She had died.





“Ahh…AHHHHHHH!” Jake screamed miserably, running blindly up the hill, slipping and scrambling to his feet. He screamed an agonizing, piercing scream that sounded as if he himself were dying. I still couldn’t move, for I was petrified.





I looked up the hill in a daze, averting my eyes from Mari’s corpse. Jake was at the top of the hill, but he seemed to be clawing and fighting the air, as if some invisible thing were standing in his way. I had to run. I had to run. Why couldn’t I run?





“What are you?!” Jake cried, thrashing at the nothingness. Suddenly he was cut short as a huge, gaping hole grew through his back, blood and insides pouring like waterfalls, multiple holes spontaneously emerging through his soft body in all directions until he became a pulp, and fell lifelessly down the hill, head first.





I have to get out. Why couldn’t I get out? My eyes were wide, my heartbeat so hard and pounding that it felt like it would burst. Jake’s headfirst body crashed into the rocks with a sharp cracking noise, his limbs bending in strange directions, his eyes were as wide as mine. Tears rolled down my cheeks, I crouched into an upright fetal position and shook violently.





“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no” I murmured.





Suddenly, my head lifted up on its own, forcing me to look forward. I couldn’t control it.





It was a grotesque deer-like creature, with massive, deformed antlers that had grown in a gnarled mass; hundreds of points and branches of the antlers intertwined and stuck out like blades. The monster’s face was long and bone white, resembling a skull more than a face. It was oddly human-like, yet not, and it had no eyes, just a shadowy suggestion of an eye on the right side of its face. Its body was much larger than a deer- hairy, bulky yet awkward and thin, bony and stiff, almost zombie-like, with gashes and flesh exposed all over. It smelled like death, looked like death. It looked almost unreal, as if it were a nightmare.





“Who are you?” I asked shakily.





“I am you,” said the beast. Its voice was Mari’s.

Middleschool horror story project- did it scare you?
lol this is pretty interesting but be much better in some ways



insurance

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