On His Way Home

“The bite of conscience, like the bite of a dog into a stone, is a stupidity.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

          Kyle wasn’t sure what the noise was. It sounded like he hit something, and it felt like it too. He stopped the car quickly and looked in his rear view mirror. He thought he saw something, movement behind his car, but he wasn’t sure. It was near sundown out on a lonely road that he often traveled to go from home to work and back home. He had seen deer out here. He was worried he hit one and so decided to take a look.
          With a flashlight in his hand, Kyle searched the area. There was no sign of anything having been struck by the vehicle. He shined the light down the road and over the grass. Still nothing. Then movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned the flashlight and aimed it into the forest.
          He saw a creature running off into the forest. It seemed to limp off into the distance, and he was worried that was what he had hit. It ran on four legs, with a smooth body and what looked to be small antlers. It had to be a deer, but he had seen none today.
          He quickly ran after it, worried that something was wrong with the animal. It looked back a few times nervously. It was slower than him, obviously injured some how, but that still didn’t stop it from running. He followed it deeper into the cold forest, watching it dart around trees and through underbrush.
          Kyle stopped abruptly. Something new loomed before him. A rock formation, man-made, of some kind of ancient design laid with forgotten symbols was what greeted him. It was like a ring, mostly rocks as big as a head on the ground, with three large monoliths in the back.
          In the center he saw the deer laying with its head raised slightly. It looked hurt, sad and scared, but there was no blood or noticeable wounds. It glowed with an almost pale and heavenly glimmer from the setting sun. “It’s all right,” Kyle tried to assure the beast as he walked closer. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
          Kyle reached out to touch the animal, to comfort it with his hand, but no sooner had he done so did the creature disappear out of his sight. He had no time to ponder this as suddenly the ground within the stone ring began to sink. Thick brown vines slashed upward wildly. They wrapped around Kyle so quickly and tightly that he didn’t even have time to respond.
          He was immediately pulled into the hole, the ground already covering his squirming body. He screamed, shouted, moaned and cried, but nothing in the forest heard him. The last thing he saw were the stones glowing around him almost like a sparkling smile. Then everything grew dark.




Entry for:

ID: 1063687   (Rated: 18+) A Flicker of Madness  Now open! Weekly supernatural flash fiction contest with a monthly grand prize winner! by AliceNgoreland