Rusted

My life’s been a downward spiral for the past few years. My friend died, I’m broke and living with my parents, and my grandpa, who’s taken care of me since I was 3, recently passed. Maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad if my friend hadn’t gone into that damn barn and approached that thing. It all started about four years ago, back when I loved to exercise. I would head to the gym in the morning, take a hike at noon, and head to yoga sometime before five o’clock. That one day though, on one of my hikes, I came across an unfamiliar fork in the road. I was confused because I had hiked up and down this trail before but never came across this. It led to an old, rusty barn, it’s most notable feature being a large hole in the wall. I looked at that hole and could’ve sworn I saw something in there. I saw something large, but extremely thin. After seeing it, I bolted back down the trail to town. I tried not to think about it for a few days but I couldn’t get the image out of my head. I decided to tell my friends about it and, boy, they were all over it. My closest friend, Baron, was all in on finding out what it was. He found everything he could to answer the question of what it was. Nothing helped explain what the thing was. He found wendigos, Bannicks, even the boogeyman. Nothing even came close to looking like what I had seen. He became obsessed with the thing, finding any and all clues that could hint towards what it is. Finally, he asked me to take him on the trail on which I had first seen it. Looking back on this, it was obvious that that was a horrible idea, but I said yes, nonetheless. Baron and I went on the trail, looking for that one fork in the road. After about an hour down the trail, we finally found it. He said he would just look at it from a distance until our other friends Shelby and Brian could arrive. I shouldn’t have believed him. He bolted down the track destined to find out what it was, and I tried to stop it but, no, he was determined. I stayed back because I didn’t know what that thing was, and frankly, I didn’t want to know because it could’ve been extremely hostile. About 5 minutes passed and Shelby and Brian show up with shotguns. It turned out that they wanted to know as well but were planning on at least bringing a way of fighting back in with us. We walked in through the hole, with only a few steps proving the floor wouldn’t allow any form of stealth. The first step I cringed, hearing the loud creak, knowing our presence has most likely been acknowledged by the creature. We continued on, into the dark house, every small creak feeling as loud as a jet engine. We approached a door to the basement. Assuming the monster would be in there, all 3 of us hesitated. Shelby stood up, trying to be fearless, but I felt her fear, almost as if it were radiating off her. We found shattered plates and dolls down there, but a quick inspection of the walls revealed “So tired. Can’t sleep.” written everywhere in some reddish-brown substance. We checked every nook and cranny that we could find, but nothing else of interest nothing was in there. Before we could search anywhere else, we could hear some liquid dripping against the floor. We couldn’t see what it was, but with every drop we heard a quiet thump. thump thump thump Right above our heads, I can remember it so vividly. Every drop our breathing was getting louder. Every thump, Brian looked like he was closer to a heart attack. Every drop, Shelby felt more and more like puking. Every thump, I was closer and closer to crying. Every drop it seemed like we were breaking more and more and then it just… stopped. Silence hit. Not a single sound could be heard throughout the house. You could hear a pin drop….. Suddenly, upstairs, we heard a loud thump and a cry for help. We immediately ran up the stairs looking for Baron, Shelby, taking the lead, Brian and I, trying to keep up. Once we got up into the second floor, we checked each, and every room. Nothing was found, not a body, not a monster, nothing. There is one thing every room had in common, however. In each room, anything metal was covered in rust. Bed frames, pipes, etc. I didn’t get a good look at it and kept going, searching every room as fast as possible. We were about to check the bathroom until we heard something from the stairs. It was a thump for every stair, we turned and ran to the stairs to see what happened. I got to the stairs first and paused. It was Baron. His body was at the bottom, a large gash down his back. The gash was covered in some dry, flakey, substance, but when I tried to brush it away, thinking it was dust. It wouldn’t move. It seemed like it was part of his skin. I looked up the stairs to see it. The thing I had seen from before. Tall, slim, but now I could see something. It looked human, but it had dry, leathery skin, and bright yellow eyes. It was almost skeletal and had long blades for arms, covered with rust. I pumped my shotgun and shot it. The thing fell to the ground for a few seconds but got on all fours and lunged down the stairs at me. It was at the bottom in the time it took me to pump again and barely missed my neck as I jumped backwards. Before I could take another shot, he knocked my gun out of my hands. I fell to the floor trying to dodge his attacks. Shelby shouted at it, getting his attention. I guess he didn’t see me as a threat anymore because he immediately went to go attack Shelby and Brian. I leaped over to my shotgun and aimed at the creature, but I couldn’t take the shot, they were still there and me shooting would risk their lives. I ran over and kicked it in the back of the knees to try and force it away from them. He turned back and swung at me, giving a me a large gash in the lower part of my chest. Thankfully he didn’t hit anything important, just a cut. Shelby took a swing at the back of his head while Brian went over to see if Baron was still breathing. The creature once again swung, and gave Shelby a huge cut down her arm, rendering it useless, and knocking her back. Seeing this as my opportunity, I shot the creature directly in the back of his leg. It gave the most ear-piercing, thunderous screech imaginable. Before it could recover, I gave it another hole in it’s other leg, with another scream of pain. Thankfully the leg approach got rid of the thing’s biggest weapon, it’s speed. I smacked it to the ground and delivered one final shot to the side of it’s head. I assume it died, it went limp and had a giant hole where most of it’s head used to be. Unless that thing’s last name was Voorheese, it wasn’t coming back. I ran over to Baron’s body. He didn’t make it, the cut went all the way through. It turns out the flakey substance on our wounds was rust. We don’t know how the creature did it, so it had to be some kind of supernatural ability. We called the paramedics and ran down the path to meet them. They took Shelby and I in and ambulance while Brian led them down the path to Baron. By the time he got there, though, Baron was gone. The house was gone. The fork in the road was gone. We recovered pretty quickly, and my cut ended up only giving me a mild itchy feeling for a couple of days. The most confusing part was Baron seemed to have never existed in the eyes of everyone around us, no one knew who he was, even other friends who had previously met him. I don’t know what to do with the stress at this point. The more and more I think the more the stress hits me. I haven't left the house for a couple of weeks now. I've been getting sick. I have some kind of skin problem causing me to become tanner than my current lifestyle would suggest, jaundice, and sleeping is essentially impossible at this point. I should really head to bed, but nothing’s been working. The thoughts going through my head… I feel like I’m going crazy. I need sleep. I can’t sleep The pils dont work. i can’t take it. the rust the blood his face the ey es it  s so ha rd imjust   s  o t   I  r e  d  ca   n  t  s l e e p