Another of my stories

The Skeptics Curse
By Stormi Donnelly

In the dark, in a small town, where people bed down early. It is not really a good idea to walk the back roads alone. Even for a man of reasonable strength and self-sufficiency. Nevertheless, for Mathew, when ever he was unable to fall asleep or relax at night that is just what he did. He would walk, lazily dragging his feet along the rutted dirt roads. One wrong placement of foot and you could break you leg clean in half. He had come close a time or two no doubt. Even still, he was very conscious of his surroundings. Very alert at all times when off on his own. Where there were no streetlights, or houses for nearly a mile in each direction, he had to be cautious. Mathew was more concerned with the wild animals he could hear howling and scratching in the dark than a violent person coming upon him. That's just not something you would think to fear in an area such as this. The kids stayed away from these roads. Now, the air was thin and cold, most of those animals were hibernating, so there was nothing to fear at all out there. Everyone in town was afraid of the woods. This one section in particular. Rumors of satanic cults, and buried bodies filled there conversations about this place, so near to where he lived. How horribly terrific it would be he thought so many times, to be walking down this dusty road and happen upon one of these legends in progress. He chuckled softly to himself at the thought every time. He often wandered threw these woods in the light of the day. He had never believed in any of those stories, not even when he was young. Though as most people know, just as there are thing we can see in the day that cannot be seen in the dark, the same is true for the night. The light of the moon dose reveal things not seen by the sun. He decided to take a walk threw the woods that night. In the same area, he usually went in the daytime. He felt urged to do so. He almost heard someone calling to him, from inside his head. Mathew had a restless spirit. Most likely that was the reason he had difficulty finding his way into sleep. He moved about by touch, he felt the trees, the rough bark. The ground softened as he walked. It was freezing cold out now, mid January. When you have adrenaline, pumping threw you as you embark on an adventure such as this, you do not notice the weather. Suddenly Mathew felt something sharp make contact with the toe of his shoe. He gasped as he tumbled to the ground. His knee slammed down onto a stone slab. He felt around with his hands, it was huge. How could he have not seen this before? It was bigger than three of him. He rolled over on his side and tried to straighten out his leg. He felt the warmth and wetness on the blood on his jeans. He held his leg out with his hands he was bleeding rather excessively. He let out a deep sigh and attempted to stand. He placed one hand on the stone slab and the other on the tree next to it. As he pulled himself up, he heard a strange sound. A sound like the combination of rustling bushes and digging threw loses soil and rock. Not with a shovel, more like an animal clawing at the dirt and bushes. He pulled himself up quickly. He stood up on one foot gripping the tree. He stood and listened as the sound grew. He stepped off the stone slab and attempted to hobble to the next tree. Suddenly he felt the ground rustle beneath him. He leaped forward grabbing in haste for the next tree. A few jumps that are more forceful and he made it to the edge of the street. Now the moon coming out from behind the clouds shown down threw the leafless trees onto the shaky ground. Mathew stopped at the street and looked back. He vaguely saw something stirring in the dead leaves on the ground. He stood and stared at the feeble movement. He blinked the cold stinging wind from his eyes as they watered immensely. His eyes widened as the figure became clearer. “Is that…?” he thought to himself. “What the hell is that?” he said softly to himself. He gasped deeply realizing his eyes were not deceiving him. It was a human hand reaching out from the very piece of earth he had just been standing on. He was frozen, his whole body, he just could not move. He just stared in horror. He held his breath until he realized that he was not breathing. He saw the arm pull further out of the ground, grabbing and fumbling for something to grab. Just in front of it, he saw another hand emerge. He gasped in fright and ran stumbling down the road. He thought about stopping at the Johnson’s house, knowing that it was much closer. However, he decided against it, mainly because he figured they would hear his ranting and think he was crazy. Therefore, he decided to keep going until he got to his back door. He opened the door and half collapsed inside kicking the door shut. He climbed up on the couch and looked down at his blood soaked pant leg. He remembered the legends of those woods, the rumors he had so readily dismissed as campfire stories. At least that is how he had heard them, on camping trips with his family and friends. He remembered his uncle Curtis telling him as a teenager that the cult that used to worship Satan and hold there rituals in those woods had kidnapped and killed many people. They had drained them of there blood and drank it and bathed in it as part of there dark workings. Moreover, that those bodies buried there still thirsted for the blood that had been stolen from them. Had his blood woken them up? The same bodies that had been in the ground for over fifty years? Could they still be there? Zombies? It cannot be true, can it? Would they not be skeletons? Whatever the reason he knew, he must remember what his uncle had told him. Curtis was a true believer in the supernatural, superstitions, and local legends. Mathew often joked about him, but so did everyone else. And now every detail that he had shrugged off as a way for adults to keep kids out of the woods, had to be dug up from the depths of his mind. It was all true, or he must treat it as such, for it was all he had to go on. He knew he had heard that they favored young women, girls, and babies in there rituals. Virgins and beauties. They would stalk them as a panther would stalk a gazelle. Then in the dead of night, they would pluck them from there homes in the village that was there before it was his home town, never to be heard from again. It was also there way to kill anyone who got in there way or stumbled upon there secrets. He hurriedly discarded his bloody jeans in the fireplace, locked up the house, washed, and bandaged his wound. He turned off all the lights and sat at the kitchen table watching for any movement at all. Mathew sat, watched, and wished he had not been such a skeptic throughout his life. It was surely biting him in the ass now. He tried to remember more of the stories. He thought about sitting around that campfire. Stories about men with hooks for hands, and escaped mental patients. They were all running together now. He thought about how it all had happened, him bleeding and then they arose. They seemed to have the nature of eternal guardians of that place. Could it have been one of there alters that he fell on? He knew that the cult had been massacred and driven out by an angry mob. After thirty years of taking people from the village. No one believed that there were people in those woods that could be capable of such things. He sat up straight and began to blink rapidly, he saw someone. Someone was walking towards his house. Indeed, it was what appeared to be a young girl, fifteen years old or so. When she came into the light of his carport her skin appeared grayish blue, her lips were purple, as if she was frozen. Her eyes were as black at the night sky, as was her hair. He looked at the ground where she was standing. There were a few small drops of blood on his drive way. He had left a trail straight to his back door. She walked slowly, but gracefully, not stiff and jerky as he expected. She was dressed in a long white gown. She was almost beautiful, sort of mesmerizing. You could tell she had been beautiful at one time. As she approached the house, he saw that she was holding something in her arms. He leaned close to the window it was… a baby. Also bluish in color and barely moving. He became nauseated and filled with dread by the site of this. He watched as another figure emerged from the darkness, and another. He moved from the window into the shadow of the corner. He watched as the first girl approached the kitchen window and appeared to sniff at it. She stood there motionless. He went to his bedroom window. And saw another young woman, maybe twenty years old. She looked so much like the first girl. It was hard for him to look away. He ran to the bathroom window, he gasped as he peered out. It was Courtney, the Johnson’s daughter. Only not like, he had ever seen her; she looked like them now, cold, blue, and soulless. He ran to the living room and peeked between the shades, he saw Courtney’s parents, Mr. & Mrs. Johnson. They were all… dead. Mathew sat in the Living room floor. The more he looked at them, the harder it was for him to look away. They were captivating, but they where there to kill him. This he knew for sure. He could hear the scratching at the windows. His house was surrounded; he was in a state of shock and panic. He covered his ears and closed his eyes and tried to think of a plan. He decided that his only chance was to go to the front door where there was only one of them and try to run to his car. He stood at the door for a moment. All at once, he flung the door open and ran for his car. The first girl he had seen turned her head in a quick sharp motion noticing the movement. They all flocked towards him, moving much faster now. Mathew got to his car and jerked on the handle, LOCKED? NO! How could he have forgotten the keys? It was them, the tricks there faces played on his mind. He yelled for help as he was surrounded. He swung his fists as they closed in on him. Something inside him made him feel as though he was not fighting them off as hard as he could. But why? “There beauty was there curse and you woke them.” Mathew heard in his mind. Instead of his life flashing before his eyes as he thought it would. He thought only about events pertaining to the way he was about to die. He had always walked alone at night. He felt as if he had been lead into the woods. He felt as if they wanted him more than others. As he screamed from the pain of his flesh being torn away from his arm he thought of the death of that baby he had seen threw his window, and how it was people like him who had caused it. All of it. Non-believers.