That dark road home - a short story
Starting a weird day
There was this old house in a small patch of forest where my friends and I cut through to get to school. We never thought much of it as we entered this forest to get to the other side which was the entrance of the school. The edge of the forest actually boarders a small area of townhouses and we always felt safe cutting through. This short cut saves us about thirty minutes of travel time since we had no car. We had class at five so we had to cut through the forest since we were going to be late. That was when we cut a little bit further from our normal path, deeper into the forest where we saw this old house. It was apparently abandoned from what it looked like from the outside. There were graffiti all over the walls and parts of the house was actually peeling off. We paid it no mind and continue on our way. A bit further into our trek to school there was a small sign that was barely legible, we stepped on it to rub the dirt away with our shoe and on it said "Trespassers will be shot". We thought it was left in that area a long time ago when the land belong to a private owner. That land had been owned by the government for a long while now, so we laughed about it and even felt bad for those that might not have seen that sign back when it was in effect. So we got out of the forest at the other end and we were able to get to class with a few laughs but was still a bit spooked by what we seen in there that day. After a few hours we had completely forgotten about what we had seen and continued on with our class schedule until about eight thirty. After that we met in the cafeteria to walk home again the same way we came in. That was when we remembered what we had seen in there, but because we figured that there were four of us we should be alright unless someone did come out somewhere waving a gun around. We started walking towards the opening of the fence close by the forest line. The school was surrounded by a heavy duty fence to keep people out, but there were a few cuts that allowed us out as well, hence we were able to get in without scaling the fence.
After we were through the fence and about twenty five yards into the forest we took out the flashlights that we always carried around for our travel. These flashlights were more like spot lights so it would have been more adequate it was more like a flood light. If only standing lamps were portable. The way we found our path was through markings we had left when we first started using this shortcut, and the markings were easy to see because they were all reflective tape. We all talked and laughed as we were walking and all of a sudden, one of my friend said he thought he saw something towards our front right side. No one else seen or heard anything so we started making comments about a possibility that he could see dead people or the unknown. But that was all fun and jokes, when out of the blue we all heard a crunching sound and that was in the direction that was recently said. Our initial thoughts were that other students were also using this way to get home, but odd thing was there were no lights. Unless they had infravision or something since the forest was pitch dark that night. It was always a single crunch which meant that it was just one person or whatever it was out there, or at least that was what we hoped for. Another good reason to not buy cheap flashlight was that it was only able to give us light about eight feet in front of us and unfortunately we all had cheap lights.
In front of us we saw a pile of branches and leaves, and the path seemed to close up to a very narrow path just to pass a couple of trees. We had to walk one behind the other in order to get through which we never did since the time we kept cutting through this forest. So we figured it was just a coincidence that it was all happening that day. Part of it was probably because we were frightened and scared already. We continued to hear noises but now it seemed to have taken a turn towards us as it was getting louder. We tried to be prepared for whatever that was. Earlier we saw that sign and we thought that maybe there was someone that was still wandering the area thinking we were trespassing and wanted to spook us. Well the only thought I was having was how was I going to explain this to my parents if this psycho decided to shoot us, but that thought fled as quick as it came in because that would be my last concern. And then we saw some lights from the streets about a hundred yards away, very faint but it was visible, some comfort was instilled into us. That comfort was banished when we felt a rain of pebbles came down at us. Then we started thinking we might have walked into some trap someone set up, but why??? So we covered up and moved a little faster till' whatever that was following us decided to jump across our flashlight lid area. Then we thought it was just to prove to us that someone or something was out there and possibly to slow us down. But we were pretty busy trying not to fall to notice it much but we noticed it as it had intended. All the lights we had now all pointed to our left because we heard a sound to that direction and we saw a head move by real quick. The reason we saw this was because its skin was as white as paper. And it was that moment that we decided to digest whatever we saw and figure it out later on because being eaten on our way home from school was not what we were looking for. I was hoping that this thing only had a small mouth and would have issues eating us, but if there were more? Let’s not think about that yet... Now we were at the fences of the townhouse area where some of us resided, but the feeling of comfort was a distant thought. We looked back as we felt we might or will be out of this craziness that had enveloped us for our time within the woods. As we stared into the dark, that face was about a hundred paces away and was just looking straight at us. We stared but there was a sudden feeling of anxiousness and sadness that was overwhelming, it was as if it was enjoying this whole crazy chase. Maybe it had no intentions of hurting anyone but we were not about to run back there with open arms for hugs and kisses. The distance to the end of our trip was not a long one but that trip felt like hours even though it was just about twenty minutes. We talked about this among ourselves the next morning and kept it a secret, anyone else that might have known it might think we were either making stories or not sane. We continued to use that path for a while but only during the daytime, because when night time comes we just took the bus home or had someone pick us up. We always watched horror movies and ended up with questions like why the hell would you go back in there if you know there is something out there, and we felt that this was something similar to that. And also those movies taught us to not make the same mistakes from what we have seen. But we do plan to check it out one day and that day might be a day to remember.
I'll put more up later on but this was just something for fun, thanks for reading please comment.