I Lived

A few years ago in Southern Nevada, my friends, George and Michael and I went exploring in a very large part of the woods. The Woods where made up of several trees that were close together. We'd explored these woods many times, but never made it too far past the old dried up pond. One summer night, we decided to throw caution to the wind and keep exploring. The vastness of the woods seemed vivid, and the depth seemed as though it had no end. Finally after what seemed like hours of walking, we came upon an old, weathered old house. The door of house was rotted and cracked and outside of the porch area was a greenish table that had a strange animal on it. It seemed as though the animal had been cleaned of meat.

One of my friends had the courage to take a second glance at the rotted home.

"Come on, let's go in." He said sharply.

I took a second look at the house. As I looked in the window of the house, I caught a glimpse of a silhouette near the corner of my eye and noticed a small stone embedded in ground. It read "John Calvin's Home" with a picture of him on it.

"You guys go on, I'm going home." I said quietly

"C'mon man, it'll be awesome." George replied excitedly

"No, man. I don't have a good feeling about this place" I retorted

"Dude just-" Michael insisted while trying to pull my arm closer towards the house.

"I said no!" I shouted cynically, tugging my shirt sleeve away. I tried to calm down. "Look man, we're too far into these woods to call anyone. I'm heading back"

"Suit yourself..." Michael stated as they walked towards the door of the old house.

I walked back towards the entrance of the woods as I thought of my decision.

"Don't drag yourself into that." I thought "At lease you're out of danger"

Days pass after the venturing inside the woods and I decide to call George.

"Please leave a message after the beep..." the answering machine stated.

"Hey, yeah dude it's me. I was wondering what you found at the house." I calmly said "I'm actually going to go down there myself tonight. Meet me up over there when you get this."

I ended the call, grabbed my backpack, put on some protective boots, and headed towards the woods. As I entered the woods, I tried to recall the place were we were before. I passed through old trash that people neglected to pick up and finally caught the site of the house.

"I'm still not very sure about this." I thought as I trailed towards the house slowly. There was a slight breeze that passed through my side. I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I reached the side of the house and peered through the window. There was a small bed and nothing out of the ordinary. The breeze got stronger as I approached the backyard.

I peered into the back and saw tables of tools surrounded by dead animals.

"What in the hell?" I thought as I looked around.

I noticed ropes that trailed into trees that were in an odd formation; they seemed to be covering up more of the backyard. I looked behind me to see if anyone was watching and I ran towards the formation. As I scurried towards the tree, I had stepped on a rope that had seemed to trigger. I looked at the rope moving swiftly under my feet and realized it was a snare. It was too late to move and the rope caught on towards my feet.

"Damn it!" I yelled as the rope knocked me over.

I slid upwards on the tree, hitting every branch in site. My feet were firmly caught inside the loop of the rope.

"I'm going to die" I thought.

As I was going upwards on towards the tree, the rope dragged me off and my body flew off of the tree. I closed my eyes and hung there, dangling from the grip of the ropes. My backpack nearly slid off because of the impact.

As I opened my eyes, nothing but red seemed to fill the ground. Around me, I saw nothing but rotted corpses of animals and humans. Their bodies all had incisions or some sort of cut around their bodies. They hung as I was, dangling from either their paws, or feet. On the floor I spotted a large bucket filled with the organs of some of the bodies that were cut deep enough.

"Oh my god..." I thought as I hung, unable to wiggle free.

The shock was getting towards me.

"I need to get off!" I screamed in my mind "Now"

I remembered I was wearing boots. I lifted with all of my core strength to untie my boots. As I undid the knots, I felt my foot slipping off and I braced myself for impact. I fell onto the floor and the blood from the organs splashed onto my clothes.

"Son of a -" My voice trailed of as I notice two bodies above me that hadn't seemed rotted. My eyes began to water.

"Michael and George," I whispered " No"

I stared at their bodies when a loud voice boomed from the distance.

"Hey you little shit!" the voice yelled "You should be dead"

I swiftly glanced around trying to find an area to run. I decided to take my chances and run towards the side of the house. As I ran off, an object flew past me and caught onto a tree.

"A Cleaver!?" I thought

I ran as fast as I could towards the exit and peered back. The silhouette appeared in my mind from a few days ago. I knew it had to be that figure. I didn't want to be sure. The shock of all of the bodies was stuck in my mind.

A few days later, I decided to pass by the woods, but in the entrance was surrounded with police vehicles, along with other Medical vehicles, but no people. I peered into the exit and I flinch as someone touched my shoulder.

"Hey there buddy" a voice said.

I looked back and it was a tall, husky man.

"Hey man! Look what they did here." I said calmly "Looks like this guy isn't escaping for what he did."

I looked back into the woods, and I remembered something odd. I looked back at the man.

"Hey, do I know you?" I asked "You look familiar."

"Well, I don't know, I think I've seen you around my home" He said softly, while taking out an object from his back pocket.

"My name is John Calvin." He sharply retorted "You damn well should have died."