It Screams

By: Sage of the Forlorn Path

Disgusting. Humid, unmoving, and under just the right pressure from the bloated storm clouds, the air felt viscous and fetid, like drinking from a stagnant puddle in a dusty crawl space. The moisture clung to the man’s skin, finding every bit of dirt and filth and huddling around it like a growing fungus. Even after showering the previous night, the humidity made him feel like he was glazed with a paste of dried sweat and dead skin. His hands felt like they had been running through unwashed hair, left greasy and clammy. At the moment, a bar of soap and some running water would bring him more joy than a stack of gold bricks.

The man was out in the woods of northern Maine, having just moved to the area and wanting to familiarize himself with the land. It was late autumn, and a sky of black clouds had just sprayed the forest with a thin drizzle before he left his home. The unfamiliar trees around him were blackened by the moisture, their obsidian bark visible through the webbing of moss that cocooned them. Mist hung above the damp ground unchallenged, not even the slightest breeze present to dispel it. The woods were silent, every creature hiding. Even the drops of water on the pine trees stubbornly clung to their needles, as if afraid of falling and breaking the silence. Above the man’s head, the branches of the trees, strong with age, wove a net to try and keep the forest floor eclipsed in darkness. But down below, the effects of time could be seen. Every tree limb within his vision was dead, starved of sunlight. The jagged spires remained extended, reaching out despite their wood now rotting.

The man was no novice to the wilderness. As a Mainer, he had been around trees all his life. But he had never before stood in a forest like this. It felt… primeval, an ancient bastion that existed beyond the laws of man or God, indifferent to the passing eons, as if suspended in its own pocket of time. It felt like he was the first to walk through these woods in, perhaps, ever. This was a level of solitude that chilled him, for it was the farthest he had ever been from civilization, but there was more to it than that. He felt like he had entered a realm that was not truly part of nature. Whether it be in a steaming jungle or a lifeless desert, he would feel more at home, more in tune with the world, than he was here.

He came out of the woods and into a field, glad to escape the shadows of the trees. He looked up at the sky, at the dark clouds that claimed dominion over the land and refused the light of the sun. There were only a couple hours left of sunlight, he needed to head home. These woods chilled his blood during the day, he didn’t dare remain outside during the night. But he stayed at that spot, at the very edge of the field, looking back into the darkness of the trees on the other side. He wanted to get home, he wanted to get home and lock his doors, cover his windows, and hide beneath the covers until the weather cleared, but his mind wouldn’t let him move from that spot. It was like he was trying to remember something or figure out a problem, and moving at all would disrupt his focus.

There was something his subconscious wanted him to realize. He was surrounded by variables, all of which had come together to create something, but what? The weather, the light, the moisture, the temperature, the time of year, they all culminated in something, something that some part of him was aware of and recognized. A shiver rippled through his skin as he figured it out. In essence, he knew that if something bad was going to happen, it was going to happen here and ''now. ''

This spot, this very second, it was like a darkness was gathering and would manifest into some incarnation of tragedy. He knew that anything could happen, that any number of unspeakable horrors could take place in the darkness of these trees and the world would never know, as if the blood of a million people could be shed in this forest and the light of sun would never shine on even a drop. Would he trip and sprain his ankle? Was a rabid animal going to tear his throat out? Would some deranged killer bury a rusty knife in his back? Or would something that existed outside of human knowledge occur? Something bad was going to happen, he knew it. This place was cursed.

His whole body shook but he could not take a step, paralyzed by a fear that he didn’t understand. Movement shook him from his trance. He saw it in the trees across the field. There was no wind, the air as still as the breath in a corpse’s lungs, but the spindly branches swayed and bent. There was something there, he could see it, but he did not need eyes to see it. It was invisible to the gelatin spheres with their quivering irises, but his mind’s eye could see it, like he was looking through an image etched in glass. Even when he blinked, he could see it in the darkness, seeing it with the eyes of his soul. And he could see it looking back at him.

A new fear took him, a terror that he had never felt before but dwarfed every life experience. It was an older terror, something more than simply instinctive. It was primordial, it was universal, born from a knowledge that was written in even the most undeveloped strand of DNA. This thing, whatever it was that he was looking at it, existed in total opposition to life itself. Its identity was that of a blasphemous sentience that did not belong in this world. Even the bacteria in the man’s gut shivered in revulsion to this thing’s presence. Had they the ability, they would be wailing like infants during a thunderstorm. They felt it, just as he did, that whatever thing was, its existence was wrong.

From his racing heart and seething pressure, blood began to run from the man’s  nose, and when the first drop fell from his lip, the creature snapped him out of his stupor with a noise. It was a bloodcurdling scream, a woman’s, like she was being stabbed with a rusty knife. The voice echoed through the wilderness, sounding so purely human, but the fact that the beast had made such a sound terrified the man beyond words. Shaken by that scream, he turned and ran back into the woods, sprinting harder and faster than ever in his life. Almost as soon as he started running, he could sense it behind him, chasing him like a hungry predator. It did not leave rhythmic footfalls, rather, it would spontaneously thrash through the fallen leaves and underbrush, as if falling in and out of sync with reality as it moved. But every minute or so, it would give another bone-rattling scream, as if the man was running from someone being gruesomely murdered.

There was no clear path in the man’s mind. Adrenaline had robbed him of any sort of mental map leading him back to his home. Instead, he was simply reacting to the ground in front of him, going wherever looked like he could easily cross. He avoided anything that could slow him down or drain his strength, aiming only for open areas and going downhill. To the man, the trees around him didn’t feel mindlessly incapable of understanding what was going on. Rather, they felt utterly indifferent, as if turning away eyes that they didn’t have, bystanders to the nightmare he was trapped in. His vision was hindered by tears in his eyes. In the presence of this abomination, all courage and mental fortitude built from experiences in his life had been erased, leaving him crying like an abandoned child.

He could feel the malice in the entity, a mix of sadistic hunger and bottomless hatred. It did not breathe, but he still felt breath on the back of his neck. The man did not want to die, not by the hands of this thing. He no longer feared death, as long as it was anywhere but here.

Running along the edge of a steep hillside, his foot slipped on the wet leaves on the ground. He fell, rolling down the cliff without any way of stopping himself. He hit multiple trees as he slid, beating and bloodying him but unable to overcome his inertia and save him. Finally, he reached the bottom and landed in a creek. His forehead struck an exposed stone, cutting his face and leaving him disoriented, but fear wouldn’t let him rest. He forced himself to his feet and scrambled up the other side. Once upon stable footing, he resumed running. His face was covered in blood and the frigid water of the creak was carried in every fiber of his clothes, but he continued running.

He no longer knew if the beast was still after him. Rather, his rattled brain sensed it everywhere. Even if it were to scream in his ear, he wouldn’t hear it over his own racing heart. His breathing was haggard, his lungs feeling like they were filled with broken glass, and his steps were unbalanced and awkward. His body was at its limits, but fear pushed him forward. He lost track of time as he ran, the forest around him never-ending, every tree looking exactly like the ones around it. Finally, his strength gave out and he collapsed. Cold and exhaustion had left him half dead, but the fear within him wouldn’t let him lose consciousness.

Finally, his heart slowed just enough for him to hear another scream. It sounded like someone was being slaughtered in a horror movie, but it was off in the distance. Had he escaped the beast? Had it lost track of him? That small glimmer of hope restored some of his reasoning. His head injury still muddled his thoughts, but he was beginning to think clearly. He slowly pushed himself up, checking his surroundings. The sky was darkening, and soon he would be totally blind. But even in the shadows of the woods, he saw something unusually large and dark. It didn’t look natural. Wait, was that a house?

A few sparks of energy crackled in him, some of his stamina restored with hope acting as a crutch for his exhausted body. He forced himself back onto his feet and staggered closer. He was right, it was a house, built on a hillside. But the closer he got, the less it made sense. It was a two-story house, but it looked dilapidated and there were no power lines. It had a front porch with an overhanging roof and two forward-facing windows on the second floor, making it almost look like a skull with its mouth hanging open. He had no idea how long ago it was built, but judging from the rickety pickup truck parked next to it, it was old. There were no signs of life from what he could see, no lights or noise, but there was something on the windows.

The man shivered, not from the autumn air or his wet clothes, but from the realization that the windows were splashed with blood. On the left, second-floor window, a lone handprint was pressed into the blood. What truly scared the man was how small the handprint was. Had the people here been killed by what was chasing him? Or was it something else altogether? Forget it, once he got to a place with service, he’d call the cops and let them figure it out. He limped over to the truck. It was even older than he was, but judging by the amount of leaves and pine needles strewn across it, it had been sitting in that spot for only a few days. However, upon searching the cab, he couldn’t find any keys. There was only one place they could be.

The man looked at the house and shuddered. Whatever had happened in there, he didn’t want to see it, but he had no choice. He grabbed an old flashlight from the glove compartment and stepped onto the front porch. Up close, this place looked like it had been made completely by hand, probably without even power tools. The man knocked on the door and heard nothing inside. With a deep breath to give himself strength, he turned the rusted doorknob and wooden slab swung open. He stepped inside and shined the flashlight on the interior of the house, feeling himself getting sick from the sight. The first floor of the house was a single room, the floor littered with several bodies and various pieces of others. In this sealed house, the metallic stench of their shed blood was overpowering, along with the heinous odor of voided bowels and the vapors of decay.

All of the furniture in the house was made of carved wood from the forest and either animal hides or some kind of fabric and stuffing from a bygone era. The walls were lined with shelves, each decorated with leather-bound books and various pieces of animals, either mummified or preserved in mason jars. The man shined his flashlight on the floor and shuddered. A pentagram had been painted with blood, with a candle stationed at each corner. In the center was a ball of fur, likely a dead animal.

Revulsion overtook the man, but he was too terrified to give in to squeamishness. He shut and locked the door behind him and covered the windows with mud made from the ashes from the fireplace, to make sure his pursuer didn’t see the light he was carrying. With as little physical contact as possible, he checked the bodies for the keys to the truck, but came up empty. He then searched the rest of the first floor, including the colonial-style kitchen.

Night had fallen and he gave up. Even if he did find the keys to the truck, he didn’t want to be out there in the darkness. It would be better to wait until morning, hopefully when there would be sunlight. Resigned to his fate, the man went to work on building a fire in the stone hearth. With some dusty matches and dry firewood stacked by the door, he managed to get a fire going. After the day he had, the warmth and light of the fire was a comfort beyond words. Upon feeling the heat on his hands and face, it was like the exhaustion and chill he had been ignoring until now enveloped him. Now he could dry his clothes and warm himself up. But the fire also made him nervous. What if the beast smelled the smoke and came here? What if some of the light managed to pass through the windows or door?

He sat there for a long while, simply staring into the flames. Even without a refrigerator, the kitchen held some preserved food, but he wasn’t even in the mood for eating. Despite his exhaustion, it was hard for him to work up an appetite when surrounded by corpses and forced to bask in their stench. Upstairs, there were probably beds for him to sleep in, but he didn’t dare go up there. He didn’t want to leave the warmth and security of the fire. He didn’t want touch the filthy sheets that these backwoods savages slept in. And most of all, he didn’t want to find the remains of whoever left that small handprint on the upstairs window. He would be content to simply sleep on the floor by the fire, if he could even sleep at all.

His thoughts always drifted back to the dead bodies surrounding him. What the Hell were these people doing? What kind of evil rituals were they into? That pentagram, had they used it to summon the beast from the woods? Was that animal in the center a sacrifice? From the looks of it, whatever they summoned, it turned on them. Just what on Earth had they unleashed?

TAK

TAK

TAK

His blood turning to cold slurry, the man spun around and looked to the windows. There, out on the porch, something was tapping on the glass. Even through the ash smeared across the window, he could see it, a shadow darker than the night itself. It had found him. He scrambled to his feet just as the door burst open. It stood there, staring at him. All of the fear that the man had felt before came rushing back, his body shivering and tears falling from his eyes. No, please, anything but this. He didn’t want to die here, for this house to be his tomb.

The beast rushed towards him, and before the man could move, he felt himself cut. He felt his flesh torn and his blood spilling out. He screamed in pain and terror and fell to the floor. With his life fading, he stared at the horror standing over him. Before closing his eyes, the beast screamed, its voice sounding exactly like his own.