Dead Woods

The Scare
Summer was coming to a close, so my friends and I wanted to hang out as much as we could before being busy with schoolwork. Myself, along with 5 others, decided to go to my friend Tyler's house to spend the night and play Slender, a game about the infamous Slender Man.

After a couple hours of scary fun and jokes, we decided to further scare ourselves by going into the woods. Tyler lived near our school, and behind it was a path that the cross country team practiced on; it had no lights on the path, and no house were nearby. We traveled there by the railroad tracks, since that was the quickest way, then we'd cut through an opening into the woods.

As you can imagine, there are many rumors shrouding the woods, as there are with most; violent, homeless people living there, the spirits of those who died near the woods or tracks, haunting it restlessly, feeling an urge to kill as a means of releasing anger, just about anything from fiction to non-fiction.

Despite this, we thought it'd be fun for the sake of being scared, and figured with six people total, we'd be more than able to defend ourselves. We only had two flashlights, so it was pretty hard to see, but we managed down the tracks slowly. We had heard noises in the treeline on either side; sounds of sticks being snapped or objects(probably rocks) being tossed or thrown. We stopped and huddled together, shined our flashlights into the treelines, but could see nothing, could hear nothing except for one or two people discussing what they think made the sounds.

Into the Woods


We kept on, and finally found the opening; reluctantly we went into the woods, huddle[d together so we could keep a close eye on each other and stay close to the flashlights. We had seen markings on the trees in what looked to be red paint, while most of us knew that some trees were marked for cross country practice, these markings shared no resemblance to the ones along the path.

The wording was improper, usually illegible, some were even drawings of what looked to be people. We didn't question it for too long, it was obvious the only thing on everyone's mind was if whatever they heard before would eventually find them, and what it would be.

We saw lights in the distant from the school, but decided to turn away from them, lost in thought and discussion. Our fear had lightened, and we were having fun now just talking and joking. Unfortunately, that liveliness died pretty quick when we heard something run alongside us through the trees. We were all in a dead silence, looking around, listening for the sounds again, but heard nothing. We joked some more to lighten the mood, and eventually came back around to the school. We had made it through the woods, well almost.

Consequences
Two of our friends told us to wait back while they went ahead, no doubt to try to scare us. We didn't listen and left the woods shortly after they left, but didn't see them in the large field. We all knew they were trying to scare us, but just for shits and giggles I decided to go back to where we left the woods, and saw someone moving behind a hill, I just saw their head, but when I tried to get closer, they ran back into the woods.

Finally, my phone vibrated, and I saw that one of them was calling me, so I answered and, in a panic, my friend told me to go into the woods again, then hung up. I went back to the school to tell everyone else what was going on, and they followed me back, and we all went in. I called for them, but got no response. I tripped over something and fell kind of hard, looking back at what I had tripped on, I saw the body of my friend, his face shaved nearly off, his hair completely gone.

Blood pooled from his head along with multiple wounds scattering his body. I backed away and yelled, but didn't get up; I was scared, wasn't thinking straight. Tyler came over and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the body; he came around to get me up and took me away. We heard another yell, a bloodcurdling one, like someone was in pain. We ran towards the sound to find the two others who had entered the woods with us. One was dead, the other alive, a man gutting him, another, a woman wearing a long, tattered dress soaked with blood, taking out his eyes.

His screams were too much, I didn't try to help, didn't even grab Tyler, I just ran, fast, back towards the school. Hanging in my path was the other who had gone ahead of us. A rope was tied around his neck, his legs were missing and where his eyes should have been were bundles of leaves. I had to keep going, I had to run, so I did.

Her Love
I ran towards the school, hoping I wouldn't be chased, but all I heard were voices all around me, voices yelling, voices laughing, some just talking. I tried to ignore them, but only because I recognized them, they were the voices of my friends. I ran by the school, and noticed a light coming through one of the windows, a blue light from the SmartBoard. I stopped and looked in the room, and saw a man sitting at one of the desks, rocking back and forth, fiddling with something in his hands, something I couldn't see. I kept running until I was out of energy, which wasn't too much further. I didn't hear anything behind me, I stopped hearing voices. I sat down and closed my eyes, trying to think about what just happened.

It was a dream, I'd just wake up and be in my house, but when I opened my eyes what I saw wasn't my ceiling. I saw a person looming over me, his face nearly gone, the same way my friend's face was, but it wasn't him. He had shackles around his wrists and ankles, short chains connected to them. He had something with him, a stick or a pipe, something blunt.

He whispered, "I hate having to do this, but she loves it. I must do it for her, she loves it, she loves me when I kill. She promised that if I loved others for her, she'd love me in return."

I tried to crawl back, but before I could he bashed my leg with the object he had, and broke my leg. I tried not to yell, but when he broke the other one I couldn't help it. He wrapped his hands around my wrists and dragged me back into the woods, back into the horror.