Story Cafe

The Path


“When I had journeyed half of our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray”
- Dante, The Inferno, Canto I, lines 1-3

“Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world”
- Shakespeare

Part One: Halloween

You may not believe what I am going to tell you, but it is true, and I
am not crazy. Crazy people can't remember details; I remember all of
the details of that day. It was such a long time ago, I'm an old man
now, I can't remember anything lately but I can recall certain images
in my mind, like a half buried scrapbook. The first thing that comes
to my mind is that it was a cool autumn day, the trees streaked with
color and the sun irradiating the beauty of the afternoon. The leaves
dances slowly in the wind, trailing endlessly around them like crooked
dancers. It was close to Halloween, at that point in time, it was my
favorite holiday of the year.
I loved the jack-o-lanterns that lit up the night, their eyes always
looked so real and animate and they seemed to sneer at me as I walked
by them. It was magical; it was like the whole world was alive on that
night, only that night, seeing the little children prance by me, all
dressed up in their little outfits waiting to be scared. That what
it’s all about, isn’t it? Just waiting to be scared, and on
Halloween everyone not only wants to be scared, they want to be
horrified. That’s what I used to love about it, everyone shared the
same macabre interests and I did not feel alone in my pursuits of
darker things.
I was seventeen at the time, and as always, I was excited at the prospect of entering upon a night of
endless horrors. At that time, I only had one good friend, Joe
McAllister, a fellow horror aficionado, who was my age. In the past
years, we would steal R-rated DVD’s from the local video store (I
would sneak out with them, there was no equipment available to account
for the theft, it was a small town) our Halloween night would be
filled with images from the films we had watched together, John
Carpenter’s Halloween, The Shining, Carrie, from a very early age I
was always spoon fed images of horror. But, as I got older, the movies
did not fill the void that began to grow in me.
I wanted more, craved it, I needed to be frightened down to my bones,
scared, and the movies simply were not doing the trick anymore. That
was when something was suggested to me, it didn’t seem like a big
deal, after all I was getting older and I needed something more. We
were sitting in Joey’s basement, the pale light from a single lamp
cast a dim glow within the room, it snaked it way over the furniture
and supplanted the darkness that was hanging in the room, and it was
not so much light as it was a thin misty haze that barely enveloped
the two of us. He was smoking a joint and the smoke seemed to
intertwine with the lamp’s light, curling and bending around its
beams, seeming to levitate in the air before it slowly dissipated.

So, he said, what do you want to do, steal a couple of DVD’s again?

No, I said, I want to see something for real, something that will
really scare the s*** out of me

What do you mean; you want to see something for real?

I want to feel fear, taste it, I’m tired of watching bulls*** movies
on the TV

I think I might know somewhere we could go

Where?

Well, there is this path in the woods near here, it’s really
overgrown but I think we can manage to find it

What’s so scary about that?

No one goes back there anymore, it’s practically abandoned.

I really don’t see the point in doing this, but if you think it’s
scary I’ll go for it

You never see the point in anything, come on, let’s get going

So I followed him, I realized I would follow him to hell if he wanted
me to go with him, I was that attached, that dependent. It wasn’t a
sexual attraction but it might as well have been, it was as if we were
one being. Our thoughts seemed to be somehow interconnected, our
beings intertwined and every thought had to pass through each of our
collective consciousness’s in order to come into fruition.

We walked slowly at first, as if each step was somehow an action that
demanded an intense amount of concentration, a deliberate process. The
street we were on was deserted, it was late and the best way I can
describe it was an absolute stillness. Every atom, every fiber stood
unmoving on that night. The moon hung pale and full in the sky, the
leaves rustled quietly with each gust of the cold evening wind and all
of the houses we past were silent, everyone tucked away for the night.
The only sounds were our own footprints, echoing through the darkness
with each step.

So, Joe said, you see that new girl at school

No, what about her?

She’s got nice tits; he was smirking when he said this

What about the rest of her? I asked

Decent, he said, maybe a five or six

So, what is so special about this place you are going to show me?

Well, he said, a couple of years ago a group of young kids, ya know,
local school children decided it would be interesting to go explore
this particular forest. And they went running along together in a big
group prancing and laughing like children do. They ran holding their
plastic pumpkin trick-or-treat bowls, dressed up as little red riding
hood or whatever. They ran into the woods, ya see, and they were
excited at first because they thought it was cool and scary. Well,
after a while they got lost and obviously they were beginning to get
pretty scared. Some of the real the real little ones were probably
crying at that point. Well, at that point something must have
happened, they must have found something or whatever, no is sure of
exactly what went down but it is common knowledge that our group of
school children never returned home. Then, as you can guess, the
parents began to worry, mothers with tears running down their faces
picked up a phone with trembling hands to call the police. They
probably talked in a hushed panicked tone demanding to know where
their babies were. Well, the police eventually launched a search party
to look for the missing children and they ventured into the forest and
found absolutely nothing. No sign of the children anywhere, until one
officer found something he found to be curious, a small trail, like an
indentation in the ground, ya know grass pressed down, branches
snapped in nearby trees, kinda liked something had been dragged a
considerable distance. Well, he followed said trail and found, get
this, a plastic pumpkin bowl, the one the kids were using to trick or
treat with. Naturally he went over to pick it up, ya know, investigate
it. And he picked it up, gingerly at first, kinda stroking it with his
fingers, he picked it up and it was really f***ing heavy. Well,
naturally he looked inside and it was filled to the top with blood,
dark red, a thick sticky mass of it. The poor guy dropped
the blood-filled bucket and ran like a f***ing girl. He ran and told
the rest of his cop buddies and they went to investigate it next. They
found the bucket and the first thing they realized was that their was
a s***load of blood on the ground from the bucket being dropped and
the next instant one cop shouted hey look over here! And they all ran
over and they found a finger, a f***ing finger, pale as marble just
laying there. And on it was a purple plastic ring, the kind you get
from a gumball machine. Later, one of the mother's identified it as
her little girls, i think her name was Annie or something and that was
that. No further investigation it just ended, they held a memorial
service for the missing children, some people cried and hugged each
other, some even cursed God. The point is nothing else happened, the
cops won't talk about it, almost as if they are scared to or
something. Anyways, that’s where we're going to explore tonight, the
f***ing path in the woods where all those little kids went missing.

That's pretty f***ed up

Yeah, no s***, that’s why were going there, isn't that what you wanted to be scared?

Yeah, but if that really happened, its nothing I want to be a part of

Don't be such a pussy he said, you've watched all those scary movies and you've been fine, there's probably nothing there anyways

Still, I said, it just doesn't seem right

We continued walking until the edge of a thick woods, trees densely packed together, some bare branches exposed to the moonlight, which only seemed to emphasize their cold, dead appearance. I looked at Joe, trembling slightly, for a cold breeze rustled the leaves and slowly moved the branches of the trees. Looking at that forest, I could not help but think of The Inferno, "abandon all hope ye who enter here." It was like I was entering the first circle of Dante's hell, the trees yawned and gaped at me, smirking as I went by, I could feel there cold branches lightly caressing my back. All I could hear was the crunch of dry twigs and damp leaves beneath my feet, click, clack, click, clack. I looked at Joe, at that moment, seeing his face streaked with the blackness of night, his tense features, I felt in love with him. Maybe it was blind fear, maybe it was something else, to this day I don't know, whatever it was, it felt very good.

It seemed as if we passed an endless amount of trees, it was as if we had been walking for miles aimlessly, I had this persistent image that we would become completely lost, trailing endlessly in circles until we slowly died of starvation. We eventually stopped because I had the overwhelming urge to piss, I stood urinating while Joe stood a considerable distance away, I heard a noise, it was like a faint scratching accompanied with ragged breathing. Something was watching us, salivating, licking its lips, waiting to devour us. It reminded me of a story my father told me when I was little, about Hansel and Grettle, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to mark their path, only to discover a candy house and a witch that wanted to eat the two of them. That is how I felt, except we had no trail of breadcrumbs, and I feared that something worse than a witch was following us. Something dark, slimy, something that skulked along the sewers, the only noise its slow deliberate breathing. It would hide in your closet, or under your bed, waiting until your parents went to bed and the lights were turned off, covering you in blackness. Then it would crawl close to your face, so you could smell its breath, the odor of s*** and rotting lettuce, then it would sink its teeth into your neck, laughing as you screamed and screamed, until there was nothing left of you, until you were inside of it completely.

Come on, Joe said, stop pissing and lets go

All right, just wait a second, I zipped up and joined him. He was standing, looking at something that I couldn't quite see.

Check this out, he said

Check what out?

Look, and he held it up in the light for me to see, it was one of those police barriers. The bright yellow kinds that are used to cordon off crime scenes. In bold lettering you could still make out the POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.

s***, Joe said, this must be where those kids were found

I'm not really comfortable with this, I said; let’s get the hell out of here

No, he said you wanted to see this place and that’s what were going to do

I don't know man it just doesn't feel right, when I said I wanted to be scared I didn't mean like this

I couldn't say anything else, I simply stood there, looking at confines of the trees twisting and bending around me in some sort of macabre dance, constricting me, suffocating me, I couldn't move.

I stood there, taking in the darkness that surrounded me, feeling it pulsating, the inner spirit of Halloween, the dark, the unknown, the mysterious presences that surrounded me. I slowly began to look around, noticing the thick roots of the trees bursting out of the ground like ragged firehouses.

I began to walk

I heard the same incessant tapping as before, except it was growing louder, swelling and bursting the confines of the fragile forest with its increasing intensity.

Taptaptaptaptaptap

I felt hot breath on the side of my face, it smelled dark and rotting, like something left in the darkest corner of your cellar for months to fester and mold.

I lost sight of Joe; at one moment I saw him directly in front of me, and the next the darkness seemed to envelope like a black shroud. I began to shout his name and all I heard was my own echo bouncing back at me. I was gradually increasing my speed until I broke into a full sprint. I screamed his name, over and over again. I was running so fast that the trees were nothing more than shapeless blurs.

I fell

I fell right on my face, my foot caught in a thick root and my mouth tasting a combination of thick dirt and dry twigs. I scrambled to my feet and looked around

I saw Joe

He was standing several feet in front of me, he was facing the opposite direction and all I could see was the outline of his small frame. I ran over to him

Joe I said, Joe what the hell are you doing?

I grabbed his shoulder and quickly turned him around

Joe what are you doing?

He didn’t respond he simply held up his arm for me

I had eyes but I did not see

It took a few crucial seconds for my brain to register what I was seeing, Joe was holding up his arm, or what was left of it. His hand was missing; it was as if someone had wrenched it free of his arm. A pale and jagged piece of bone was jutting out and a thin jet of blood squirted onto my shirt, dampening it slightly.

I must have lost it on the way here he said, it just fell off or something

Whoops!!! Clumsy me! he said

Man, what the hell are you doing, I shrieked

It was then he began to smile, it was a twisted sneer, as if all of the humanity had been sapped out of him. He started to laugh, it was a low devilish chuckle;

Ha ha, you know I can put it back on right?

Joe, I said, what the f***-

I started hearing the tapping again, only now it sounded more like footsteps, a slow laboring walk. It wanted me to know that it was coming; it wanted me to hear it. As the sound grew closer, I could hear the distinctive sound of CLAWS scraping against the nearby trees, like fingernails on a chalkboard. Joe collapsed into my arms, and I held him, hugged him, a dead weight supported by trembling hands. His blood began to seep further onto my shirt and pants; it was wet and dark, and slightly sticky. It warmed me slightly as more of his fluid poured itself out onto me. I was scared beyond any reasonable description, the thin walls of sanity that supported my psyche began to crumble at that point, I just couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. My friend, my one true friend, was lying in my arms slowly bleeding out and laughing throughout the entire process.

I began to drag him, the footsteps grew even closer, perhaps teen feet from me and I could make out was a faint shape silhouetted against the blackness of night. It was wide and tall, taller than anything I’ve ever seen and it looked as if it was staring directly at me, through me.

It was laughing too

It was an inhuman chuckle, slow and deliberate, sounding as if it was choked with rotting seaweed. It grew closer and I could make out the ragged and stinking clothes that it was wearing, all gray and discolored, clothing left in a cellar full of moths to rot and decay. Its legs were rotted and strand of dark flesh were straddling bleach white bones.

Your friend is going to taste good tonight it crooned, I already took part of him and he didn’t seem to mind

It was then that it stepped into the pale glow of the moon directly in front of me, the sight of its face broke the fear induced trance I was in and I began to drag Joe in backwards, my feet scraping against the wet ground, my bare arms were being scratched by the many branches that were prodding and tearing at me. The forest was growing closer in an attempt to block my escape. Branches were intertwining with the thick trunks of the trees and as hard as I tried, as hard as I screamed, I couldn’t move any further.

I looked into its face, it was a bottomless black pit, and everything terrible that ever occurred in the universe was reflected in that moving mass of dark and putrid flesh. It did not have eyes, or any facial features that I could recognize. It was undulating mass with a single opening filled with a litany of sharp and tiny teeth and that was all I could make out. Something like the thing I saw that day, defied explanation. It went against the natural order of things; my world up to that point had been neatly organized into rows. What I saw that day killed a part of me. Half of my mind collapsed, imploding in on itself in one swift blow. It reminded me of a story I had seen on the news, a man, middle class and church going, murdered his two neighbors and buried them under his skating rink in his backyard. A few weeks later, as the ice began to melt, someone noticed a sharp foul smelling odor coming from this man’s house. The authorities were eventually called, and one of them went out back and noticed two dark shapes underneath the melting ice. He called some of his fellow officers over and the group of them began to dig, clawing away at the chunks of melting ice and snow until their hands fell on something that felt cold and stiff, two dead bodies. The reporter said they were perfectly preserved, like two eternal dolls. Reports also indicated that the man brought his daughter out to skate over the corpses when winter was still in full swing. How someone who appeared perfectly sane, someone who seemed to be an essentially good person, could do this to a fellow human being confounded me. It did not make any sense, just as what I was seeing now defied explanation. It disrupted the natural order of things, turned the world upside down. God made the world so everything was interconnected, but this creature I was seeing now, it was as if He had forgotten something. He f***ed up because what I was seeing in front of me insulted everything that He had ever created.

Do you know what he tasted like? It said

I bet you’d like to know

(it licked)
(its lips)

He’s so warm and sweet, so crunchy and tender

I was still staring in that black pit of nothingness when Joe muttered to me

Leave me, he said, run

No, I said, surprised by my sudden courage and resolve

I will never leave you

Don’t be stupid, he said, you have a better chance of getting out of here (cough) than me

I gripped his hand, and I looked into his pale face, beautifully symmetry like the crest of a marvelous bird. Tears were streaming down both of our faces, and that which represented our sorrow slowly traversed its way down my cheek and landed onto his face. We were one. I hoisted Joe to his feet yet again and proceeded to continue dragging him backwards.

LEAVE ME he shouted

No, I responded I (love) need you and can’t afford to leave you behind

I was basically hugging him at that point, dragging him away from the terrible fate that awaited us, prolonging the inevitable. I was holding him and everything was frozen in time at that moment. A clawed hand, cold and scaly, burst through my world and shattered what was left of my fragile existence.

Its sharp curled claws burst through Joe’s chest; blood oozed and seeped onto my clothing, a scarlet explosion. Some of his guts landed onto me, they were dark and wet, like raw meat or chicken and I was covered in it. His once beautiful chest, a gaping hole, the clawed hand was intertwined with the now visible organs in Joe’s torn open abdomen. The thing was gripping my chest as well and I ran.

This time I did not stop; I did look back, however.

The creature was holding Joe in such a position that his face was turned towards me, his eyes, once aqua blue pools of vitality were now rolled up in his head all I could see were the whites of them in the pale moonlight. One ragged claw was clamped around the cusp of Joe’s ear while the other was gripping and tearing at his auburn hair. The veins in his pale neck began to tear, and blood seeped out of the open wounds. There was a dry ripping sound as Joe’s head was slowly separated from his body in one swift pull. The creature was holding it and leering at me. Blood dripped from the severed neck and I turned away and sprinted, the trees seemed to let me pass, as if they enjoyed watching the gruesome spectacle and wanted me to be a part of it too. The bare branches of the trees scraped and clawed against me as I ran by them, no stay don't leave, they seemed to be saying to me, we'll miss you. It was then I saw a thin pulsating sliver of light at the far ends of the woods. It was merely a dim yellow crevice but I galloped towards the warms radiations and I was quickly engulfed in its pale glow. I burst past the branches that I was once intertwined in and I stood in the middle of the gravel road that I had entered in what seemed like decades earlier with my friend who was now (dead) lost to me forever.

My world was spinning and spinning and I could do nothing to stop it. The edge of the woods and the trees that encompassed it contorted and cavorted in a rapid cycle that did not seem to end. I put my left hand to my temple and cried silently to myself, choked sobs that could not adequately express the unfathomable amount of pain I was in. I then wrapped my arms around myself and curled up on the ground like a babe in a mother’s womb. The wind whistled softly, it was the only thing that seemed to comfort me that night.



“Death is not the worst that can happen to men.”
- Plato, The Laws

Part two: The Awakening

I saw tiny specks of light first, dancing, twisting, and bending before my eyes. They were thin pulsating crystals, the light that encompassed them seemed to vibrate, slowly at first but it gradually increased in intensity. There were four of these glowing beams and as they were vibrating they began to dance around one another in a rapid seemingly never ending cycle. They spun faster and faster until the crystals became nothing more than yellow blurs, putrid puddles of sickly light that stung my eyes and caused thin trickles of tears to traverse their way down my cheeks. The light grew brighter, like hot sheets of metal, I could feel my eyes melting and I clawed desperately at my face. I tried futilely to shield myself but I felt warm liquid bubbling and stinging my hands. Black specks gradually encompassed my vision, multiplying rapidly they combined with the pale glow of the yellow light and formed a sickly canvas of alternating color. I screamed and screamed but it was as if I had no voice, it was lost in the multitude of flashing colors that lay before me. I writhed, twisting and turning but I just couldn’t save myself. When I smelled the sweet aroma of burning flesh, and my eyes were nothing more than bleeding, and burned out cores, I

Woke up(!)

Kid, what the hell are you doing? You’re not supposed to be back here.