Outnumbered
I would like to consider this my first Macro story. And it's a very short one. It may also be incomplete, to a degree.
I originally intended this to be a longer story. But after I wrote the first part, I felt a sense of accomplishment with how it ended, like it felt appropriate. I got half way through the next part before I just stopped, thinking that the ending to the first part felt adequate. Should I continue it?
Anyway, without giving out too much (hard enough since the story only took about an hour to write), I'll just say a bunch of human campers in the woods get more than they bargained for. Cliche description, but it works.
14.
That's how many there were.
1.
That's how many are left.
A nice camping trip. Spring break. That's all there was to it. A great getaway from studies; from nagging parents and clingy mates, to the great outdoors with no worries at all.
I think that far back, surrounded by the warmth of the fire in front of me and the shrouds of darkness and chirps of what may be fear. The forests of Redding are remarkable at this time of night. Truth be told, spending time alone in relaxing environments can soothe the soul.
Being alone . . . eats away at my soul.
I am alone. As I entered the forest, we were alone.
. . .
. . . No, I'm wrong. I'm not alone. If I was, if we were, I wouldn't be thinking I won't last the night. I know she's looking for me, if she's not watching, waiting, already.
How the hell could this be happening?! We--. . . I was just an innocent being, looking to have a good time. All I wanted was to have fun with my friends, have no worries about school, about family, about anything at all.
There's a saying: "A friend in need is a friend indeed." I can't help but feel I'm at fault. I wasn't the one to look into a wet dark mouth or be crushed under a giant foot or . . . or . . .
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING?! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!
Is this some kind of punishment? For possibly traveling farther than intended into the landscape of the mountains and dew-covered greens? We simply wanted to explore. There has never been some kind of phenomenon like this or similar warnings here in Redding, CA, or anywhere for that matter. Others need to be warned.
In just a few hours, things turned into Hell. It was late, definitely past midnight and the bonfire was blazing. We started making s'mores and roasting hotdogs over the fire. Two of our comrades left the group to blatantly go make out and we didn't care. We just talked and talked, laughed and laughed, no worries at all.
We were laughing so hard we almost didn't notice it. A slight tremor in the ground, a slight shake that didn't even last half a second. One of my buddies, Pat was his name, seemed to stop laughing and look around, me joining him. After not feeling and hearing anything else, we joined back in with the group's merriment.
It didn't last long. What was soon to follow were slow and steady rhythmic thumps that appeared barely acknowledgeable, slowly increasing in sound and vibrations.
That got everyone's attention. All was quiet . . . then the thumps became more vibrant. The sonic booms, what they might as well have been called, echoed in increased sound. The ground rattled with each boom, increasing in activity, and height for each body that surrounded the fire. Whatever birds that surrounded us had clearly left, their chirps barely noticeable in the distance.
This wasn't an earthquake at all, I could clearly tell. What of the others who thought the same it didn't matter. We were all freaking out, some of us petrified in our seated position, others frantically moving, hoping that would stop the shakes in any way.
And that's what happened. The ground stopped shaking, the sky was quiet, nothing. It was as if our prayers had been answered with how sudden everything stopped. In front of me there was hugging, constant looking around, both sitting and standing, and I felt like I wanted to vomit. That's when we all agreed to get the hell out of there. Some started packing, shoving whatever they could into their sacks. I was doing the same when I noticed others looking to the side of the woods. I knew for what purpose . . .
"I'll go get them," I volunteered and already headed beyond the darkly shrouded trees, trying to put sense together as to why I just did that. I was blind to the fact I may be heading towards the epicenter of what just caused all of that.
"VINCE. CLARA." I hollered what must have been for at least five minutes. We all saw them head in this direction, and the path, limited to what I could see in the darkness, appeared pretty linear. Where the hell were they?
"VINCE. CLA--" I stumbled and fell flat on my face. What I had fallen into was a hole that was at least two feet deep, and it just kept going as I lay perfectly flat from the fall. It wasn't the pain in my knees that registered first, but rather what my face was in. They were obviously clothes, but if that wasn't suspicious and odd enough, they felt completely wet.
The darkness wasn't helping in the least as I stood up to get a closer look at what exactly I was in. I took out my phone and with the remainder of what was left of the battery I pointed the light towards the ground. What I saw made me induce vomiting right there.
It was definitely Vince and Clara. What was left of them, anyway. Their bodies were completely smooched; imploded into what looked like two big wads of road kill. It became apparent what the wetness was. And that it was all over me; the smell completely attacking my nostrils and making me want to vomit again. My mind was telling me to stop looking at the corpses and run back to warn the others. That we had to leave this very moment, or else we would become corpses ourselves.
However, there was something very odd about the hole. My feet were already heading back the way I came, but from what I could see there appeared to be another smaller hole indented deeper into the ground at the end of the much bigger hole. And where I fell there was another deeper hole as well, only it was much wider than the one at the end. But what really threw me off, as if corpses weren't enough, was that there were also smaller, but still rather deep holes right before all of it. It looked like there were four of those holes but it was hard to tell. I was already running back, hoping whatever happened to my two buddies wouldn't happen to me.
That's when I heard it. That's when I heard the screaming. The horrible blood-curdling screams of my friends and the . . . laughing? Someone was laughing. One of the bitches seemed to be enjoying herself while everyone else was screaming bloody murder. Murder! Oh, God, she did it. But . . . that makes no sense. Everyone was there when Vince and Clara left, when all this craziness happened.
As I get closer to the campground, that's when I recognize the laughter. Or rather, don't recognize it. It doesn't belong to any of them, and, how could I not realize (probably because of my fear-induced state), the laughter just bellows beyond belief.
"Well, well. What tasty morsels do we have here?" The screaming once again commenced after she said that.
What tasty . . . what tasty what? I would have thought what this person's problem was, had I not again noticed how loud she was. She definitely wasn't screaming it. The tone sounded completely normal, albeit almost seductively, like she was speaking regularly. If volume sounding like something through a loudspeaker was normal.
The clearing was in my sight. I held back before I could completely enter the campground. I wanted to hide myself from what was going on while getting a clear view. I still heard their screams, but they were now above me. No logical person can make sense out of how that is possible. Obviously I would have looked up, but what I was looking at would make my eyes hard to pry away from . . .
It was feet! A giant pair of feet! The bonfire illuminating the ground made that clear. But the feet . . . they were covered in fur. Black fur to be exact. And each foot, which was at least fifteen, maybe twenty feet long, ended in four toes, as opposed to five, each ending with an extended claw that looked like it could spear a man cleanly.
Fur?! Claws?! These weren't feet. These were paws! The screaming, which hadn't stopped since I got there, finally drew my attention upwards. The black fur suddenly transformed into a lighter shade of brown and orange, all attached to what appeared to be slender legs that went up to the sky. The fire was doing its best to light the environment, but limitations to the creature's astounding height were too much.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Four toes. Those four small holes. That one big hole. Vince and Clara. Dear lord. That was a footprint back there. No. Though those feet almost looked identical to a human's, they aren't. It was a pawprint. A huge one. I instantly recalled how bumpy the path appeared to be on the way back to the campsite . . . and beforehand on the way to the corpses. How the booms and shakes increased and then just stopped. That one distant vibration before the rest soon followed. Why Clara's and Vince's pawprint appeared to be the only intentional deep hole.
It was there the whole time! And it saw me leave the group!
That monster holds eleven victims, but it knows there's one more. I want to start running as far away as possible, as far away as I can from this demon. But my damn conscious, I can't just leave them, even though I know it's hopeless. I have to get some help. I don't know who would help me. By this point I know I'm just looking for a reason to leave without making it appear like abandonment.
The monster begins to lift her right paw, and her legs appear to start tilting to the left. I don't know what the hell she's doing but my mind is set elsewhere. I walk backwards slowly with the intent to go get some type of help. I take three steps and stop dead in my tracks. A cold shiver is sent up my spine. I just backed into something I know wasn't there before. . .
"Don't think I forgot about you, Sweetie."