Town

“Ahhh!” she jumped at the shadow.

“Hey, it’s only me.” her teammate looked on smiling as he saw her scared, “You easily get scared?”
“Do you want to get easily knocked over.” she was livid.
“Hey cut that out!”
“You cut it! This place is as creepy as a coffin and you are roaming around like it’s a funhouse.” she sighed, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude with you but really I’ve been to a lot of places and this takes the cake. It’s a genuine authentic ghost town.”
“Hey, I’m sorry too but what did the Old man mean when he said feelings don’t ebb out?” he asked her as he took out his camera.
“I don’t know I thought he was as prehistoric as this place is.”

“Hey...” the young man looked odd, “What’s that flicker?”
“Could be the sun.”

“It’s so grey here. It rained hard here for long Phia.”

“Yeah, but James, it could get better.”

“The Old man is here.”

“What — uh Mister. What are you doing here?”

Phia asked the old gentleman as he looked sullenly at them, “Aren’t you kids done yet?”

“Man, we just got here.” James looked impatient, “We’ll be done by the day is over.”

“What are you doing here?” Phia questioned again, “I thought this place was mostly off-limits?”

“It is.” the old man looked grim, “To outsiders.” seeing Phia and James look glum he continued, “I grew up here you know.”

“Hey that’s great!” Phia looked happy, “Why don’t you —”

“I ain’t talking for no college show.”

And the old man left taking a deserted sidestreet before they could say something, “Will he be ok?” Phia sounded worried.

“He definitely seems to know his way around the place.” James snorted.

“Still, we got to watch out for him.” Phia looks uncertain, “I don’t like the vibes he’s giving. Meeting him strangely in that cafe and he being aloof but ok with giving us info it just rubs wrong.”

“Yeah, y’r right.” James looked on, “Why don’t we go to the square?”

“The square?”
“Yeah and shoot the video there?”
“Yeah ok.”

As they walked both felt an odd sense of harmony as though the town was still alive. James coughed uncomfortably in some intervals and Phia looked around. There was no trust because something felt wrong.

As they approached the square a monument of some steel carriage was surrounded by some bricks. James readied his camera as Phia took out the microphone.

“Ready?” James signaled.

Phia signaled back and started, “Welcome to College Curious Bites I’m your host Phia and today during summer break we decided to research the Town of Oldfoal a small community that was hit hard by a heavy flood thirty or forty years ago. The whole town perished except a few survivors who have migrated to other places. The town has been preserved as a sort of historical landmark. They say it was hard to find many bodies as they seem to have been washed away with the flood. And the old town quietly —”

James suddenly dropped his camera with a ghastly look on his face. Before Phia can tell him anything a hand touched her shoulder, gently, “Dear, what are you doing?” an old lady’s voice.

As she turned around her eyes grew wide. There was a flesh eaten face with white hair and the hand on her shoulder was skeletal. “Oh my God!” Phia pushed the woman away and soon the square was bustling with what seemed to be people. Flesh eaten. Dry blooded. Dry limbed. Limb detached. And James ran for Phia, “Let’s get out of here!”

“No!” the old lady screeched and jumped on James whose stomach she started biting and ripping while eating the flesh. James screams were drowned as other un-dead ran to him screaming, “Food! Food!”

And Phia watched in horror as James arms were ripped and one of the cannibals was eating his heart. Phia started running as she ran she could hear the howls behind her and as she was nearing the exit the old man came forward, “Where are you going?”

“Please! Please!” Phia was hysterical, “They! They —”

“Are my friends. Are my brood.” the old man smiled as Phia realized that he wanted them to come, “They come out on rainy days. You know death by flood and everything.” he kept on smiling, “They usually get hungry too.”

Before Phia could say anything the hands grabbed her screaming, “Food!Food!”

The two men from the sanitorium came to the town and saw the old man smiling blissfully. The sun was out.

“Here you are again.” one of the men got hold of him, “C’mon time to go home.”
“I am home.”
“No, you are not.” the man got him in restraints.

The other looked at an odd thing at the ground and approached it, “I wonder whose backpack this is.”

[822 words]