The Children Entry 2

Entry 2
I have managed to elude The Children for now, so here is the continuation of my first encounter.

I noticed something was off about my daughter's bedroom, but couldn't put my finger on it. I had guessed that it was another bout of paranoia, but I soon found out it was something much worse. A smile cracked my face as I watched my daughter slumber, and I had entered her bedroom to admire how adorable Lindsey was. However, as I approached my child, I took note of a strange, dark liquid splashed against her pillow. I furrowed my brow in befuddlement as I carressed my child's head, feeling the liquid caked onto her hair. I had held my hand closer to my face to get a better look, and was shocked to see a dark red glistening against my hand. I swear I almost vomitted as I discovered my daughter's blood was literally on my hands! I managed to stifle my gag reflex before realizing what was so wrong with this scene- other than my daughter's head wound.

I turned my head to face the closet doorway, my heart dropping into my stomach. Lindsey had always had the childish fear of monsters hiding in her closet, so I was tasked with the fatherly duty of doing a "monster check" every night. I had, in fact, done my duty earlier that night; but I feared that I may have done so too soon. A dark curiosity swam through my head as I slowly stepped toward the door, feeling my heartbeat quicken with every step. My hand seemed to reach out for the doorknob on its own while I spectated outside of my body. I watched myself grasped the knob, my palms clammy with a sudden breakout of sweat, then slowly turn and pull open the door. What I saw next haunts my dreams to this day.

There, in the far corner of my daughter's closet, lay her beheaded corpse in a bloodied heap. I could see a gaping hole in her chest where her heart had once lied and the remnants of a lung. Additionally, her limbs had been devoured almost entirely, leaving only the bones of her elbows and knees to drip whatever blood remained in the torso. To say the least, I did nothing to keep my last meal from coming back up. After releasing my innards from their domain, I wiped the excess from my mouth and turned back to look at my daughter's head laying on her pillow, disgusted by the knowledge that nothing was beneath those bedsheets. I closed the closet door behind me while I tried to refrain from sobbing next to my daughter's body as I returned to my little boy's bedroom, expecting the worst. I didn't bother being quiet as I entered his room, stepped to his bed, and held my child tightly. To my astonisment, he sleepily wrapped his arms around my neck and whispered,"D-daddy...why are you waking me up when it's still dark out?".

You can not fathom the happiness I felt as I heard my son's voice in my ear and replied with,"Sorry, son, but you need to sleep with Mommy and Daddy tonight, okay?".

"Okay...",he answered, rubbing his eye as I carried him off to my wife and I's room. Although I was beaming with joy at the moment, the fact that whomever or whatever killed Lindsey was still lurking around was a lead block in my brain. I sped towards my bedroom door, quickly opening it and slamming it shut with my back- I was not going to take any chances on a murder/cannibal sneaking up behind me. My wife awoke with a start, not expecting such a loud bang in the middle of the night. I quickly handed Jonny to her, turned the nightstand light on, and began rummaging through the dimly lit counter for my gun- a 9 mm Sig Sauer that I had owned since I had turned twenty-one.

"Honey, what the hell are you doing?!," Anne questio

ned me with fear in her eyes,"and where is Lindsey?"

"I can't explain," I replied as I found the gun beneath an old copy of Reader's Digest,"...just keep quiet."

Anne opened her mouth to speak but realized arguing with me now served no purpose, so she kept her mouth pursed in a disapproving glare. Jonny looked up to me with his innocent, blue eyes and smiled.

"Good luck, Daddy..."

"Thank you, son," I replied before cocking the gun and leaving the bedroom, locking the door behind me. I kept my firearm straight ahead of me, quickly scanning my house from room to room until I was in the spacious living room that formed the entrance of the house. I kept my back to the wall as I reached for the lightswitch and flipped it to the ON position, illuminating my surroundings. Suddenly, a dog-sized shadow scurries away from me and I only manage to fire a single round, abraising its hind leg. I cursed under my breath as I approach where the bullet hit the opposite wall, disappointed that I had missed the strange creature. Thankfully, I had hurt it enough for it to bleed and leave a trail, so I quickly followed the path of blood to its source, turning on the lights as I continued onward.

I found myself back in front of Lindsey's bedroom, the trail going past the doorway and into the closet. I sighed and slowly neared the door, once again spectating from the outside. As I watched myself opening the door again, I tensed up and tightened my grip on my Sig Sauer tightening as I prepared for a confrontation. I was amazed to find that the bizarre thing was huddled next to what remained of Lindsey, cuddling it as if it were a child hiding behind its parent. I stared at this strange scene bef

ore aiming down the sights of my gun, then pulling the trigger until I heard the soft click of the empty clip. I sighed and approached the fresh corpse, noticing the strange features of this creature. Despite the lack of light, I could easily see the wide mouth with its sharp, yellowing teeth that hauntingly glowed through the dark. The mouth seemed to be the monster's only facial features for I could not make out any eyes, nose, nor ears which made me ponder how it sensed the world around it. Echolocation, perhaps?, I thought to myself before taking note of the murdering beast's frail body and short stature. No wonder it hadn't attacked me head-on, and went for my child instead. The "Child" also had a rather daunting set of claws with four that measured at about a foot long on each hand. This, I concluded, was how it was able to behead Lindsey so cleanly.

I left the room once and for all that night, then headed back to my bedroom to let my family know everything was alright. When I reached the hallway on the opposite side of my room, I stopped in my tracks in shock. My vision becoming cloudy and my stomach churning with fear.  The door was wide open.  I ran through the hallway at break-neck speed, dropping the empty pistol on the floor without realizing it, then stopped as I saw the second horror of this night.

My wife, Anne, was sprawled on the floor with her face in the carpet and a familiar dark-red fluid pooling around her. Meanwhile, I could hear Jonny groaning in agony in our bathroom, a heavy trail of his innocent blood caked on the carpet and making the tiles slippery with his plasma. I went to my wife

first and nudged her shoulder whispering,"Honey...honey are you alright!?," but not getting a response. I turned her body over and gasped in terror at the expression she was making: her face was sliced on both cheeks and stretched out to make a horrid, wicked grin. Her teeth had been pulled out and left her looking like some nightmarish grandmother from Hell, but her eyes seemed to be full of fright and sadness. I could have sworn I saw a single tear trickle down the groove of my Anne's left cheek, but perhaps I mistook it for my own. I remember closing my wife's eyelids shut, hanging my head sorrowfully, and wishing I were dead alongside her. As I stood up to walk away, I noticed the gaping hole in her chest where her loving heart had once beat.

I trudged to the bathroom, my son's pleas for his parents echoing against the walls of my heart and soul. I saw him huddled against the bathtub, holding his entrails to his stomach in a futile hope of returning them to their proper place. I knew I wouldn't have too long before he died, so I made my words short while holding back my tears and forcing a smile. I clutched my little boy's shoulders, kissed his forehead, and whispered my final words to Jonny.

"I love you, son"

"I..l-l-ove you too...Daddy," my son replied as he wheezed and choked on his own blood. His eyes slowly lost their liveliness and his eyes fluttered to a close- my son was dead. I sighed and left the bedroom, closing the door behind me like with Lindsey's room. nIt had become obvious to me that there was more than one of these "Children" in the house, since there was no way the first one could have done so much damage in such short amount of time. I strode to the kitchen and quickly swiped a large butcher knife from the butcher block, and clutched it tightly in my right hand. Hatred pulsed through my veins as I s

tormed throughout the house, cursing those bizarre demons and daring them to come for me now. After about ten minutes of my enraged hollering, I saw movement in the shadows of the living room. I grinned deviously as I quickly stepped towards the darkness, madness clouding my judgement and rage controlling my actions; I was dying to shove that knife down those monsters' throats.

Two Children emerged slowly from the eerie black, their voices between a growl and a deep chortle, and grinned up at me. Their backs were hunched and their claws dragged against the tile, making long and deep cuts into the floor. I smirked as I readied myself for a brawl when I realized the Children's "laughter" was also coming from behind me. I turned to face this new threat and found myself face-to-face with three



more of those demonic kids, each sporting a hideous, grotesque grin on their near blank faces. As my mind returned to its former clarity, I cursed myself for ever thinking I could take these monsters on with just a knife! I looked to my left and right, seeing more Children coming from both directions and helping the others surround me. I stared at each one of those disgusting fucks' faces, my stomach churning in disgust as I saw the indents where their eyes had once been and the small holes on the sides of their heads that were their ears.

Suddenly, a wave of vomit had shot out from my mouth and formed a puddle at my feet, allowing me to be reacquainted with my breakfast last tuesday. My breathing began to slow down, growing heavier with each inhale, and my vision became cloudy. Pretty soon I found myself on all fours, trying to distinguish one Child from the other as they drew closer to me. Their claws and gnashing teeth seemed dangerously close, but every time I swung the knife at them my arm seemed to phase right through their eternally scarred flesh. Just as I was losing consciousness, I saw the Children reaching out for me only to be knocked back by some incredible force, sending them flying until they smashed against the walls. Shocked by such a brutal blow to their ranks, the Children immediately retreated from whatever divine entity had chosen to save my life that night. I attempted to catch a glimpse of my savior, but my vision had once again blurred and remained so until I finally blacked out.

I awoke in a moderately-sized home with granite floors, concrete walls, and one window that had a curtain draped in front of it. Ahead of me was a television with a pair of bunny ear antennae on its head; it was set to a non-local news station that was currently talking about a fundraiser. I found myself sitting on a plain, wooden chair with a flashlight in my left hand. I looked at my right and saw that the ratio 10:29 was written in my palm with a black marker. This confused me, but I ignored it while I explored the rest of the building. It seemed to be a mother-in-law suite, however, the home it was supposed to be with was nowhere in sight; I suspected it was down the winding dirt road that led from the suite's driveway. There was a clock just above the door that read ''10:06. ''It was still daylight out, so it was obviously in the morning. This time made me look at my right hand and realize that it wasn't a ratio, but a ''time. ''Question was: What happens at 10:29?

Setting aside this bridge to cross later, I inspected my surroundings further and found an old Dell laptop with Windows XP installed; the soft hum it made assured me it was already booted up. I opened the lid and looked at the timestamp in the corner of the taskbar to discover it had been almost a week since the events at home! A swarm of questions buzzed around in my mind as I tried to remember my whereabouts for the past five days:

What happened?

How did I get here?

Who helped me?

WHY me?!

Sadly, I couldn't come up with a logical conclusion for any of my questions, so I began searching through computer's files for some clues. Strangely, the computer had almost none of its basic functions! There was an Aol Instant Messenger program downloaded and pinned onto the desktop along with a Microsoft Word document and an older version of Internet Explorer. Other than these three programs, the laptop was incapable of anything else; even Minesweeper had been erased from the Dell's memory banks! I decided to open the Word document and was prompted for a "product key", but skipped the step and sent MS Word into "compatibility mode". This left me incapable of editing the document, or even copying the text that was written already. After the document had finished loading, I became confused by its contents.

Written in bold-faced capital letters, the document reads as follows:

 THE RULES

 ​
 * 1) DONT GO OUT AT NIGHT
 * 2) BUY CANDLES. LOTS OF THEM
 * 3) KEEP THE WINDOW COVERED
 * 4) TURN OFF ELECTRONICS AFTER 8 PM
 * 5) === DONT GO IN THE FOREST!!!! ===

To say the least, this frightened me. However, I made a note to remember these rules due to the fact that in a situation like this, rules like these could save your life. I close the program and close the computer, glancing at the clock; it was 10:28. I stood there in that empty hollow room for what seemed to be the longest sixty seconds of my life. Finally, just as the clock struck the scheduled time and I waited a few moments more.

Just as I was questioning my time hypothesis, the news anchors began discussing the gruesome murders of a family in my town. At first I was unsure of why my house was being shown, but soon reminded myself of the dreadful horror I had suffered the week before. I could not watch the newscast because I was crying so much, but I could certainly hear it when they mentioned me as a suspect! I grabbed the television and shook it as if it were a person going mad,"I'M NOT THE KILLER YOU FOOLS!," I exclaimed,"IT WAS THE CHILDREN! THE CHILDREN!!". I don't care to say how long I kept this up, but it lasted much longer than I would like to admit.

After the anchorwoman finished her story, I turned the television off, not wanting to listen to anything but my own thoughts. I curled into a corner of the far wall, clutching my head between my knees as I rambled on and on about my innocence, wishing someone could help me, and wanting to be with my family. Around three o' clock, I found that I had dried myself of tears. Eventually, my nerves returned to me and I ventured down the dirt path in hopes of finding civilization. Not much of civilization was there, however, excluding a small "ma and pa" candle shop and a few houses similar to mine down the road. On my return to the concrete fortress that was my new domain, I stopped by the candle shop in order to obey rule #2. The man that greeted me appeared to be in his mid-sixties and was named Jerry Sterndrum. His wife, Martha, came from a back room to introduce herself to me before returning to whatever business needed her attention.

I lied to John that I had just moved here from out-of-state and had lost all of my luggage and money on the flight over from New Hampshire. Thankfully, the man had no obvious fore-knowledge of what a New Hampshirian accent sounded like, so he bought my story without any questioning. He offered me ten candles and a pack of matches for free as a welcoming gift, then explained that I was being much more sociable than my neighbors down the road. I simply smiled, thanked him for the compliment, then went on my way to the "fortress" with my bag of candles.

Once I arrived, I set the candles up around the house and began illuminating the doorway, under the window, and every corner of the house. Once that had been accomplished, I went on the laptop in search of blogging websites, needing to spread my story. I found this wiki and decided that this would be where my story is recorded.

We're almost caught up, friends...may this tale not end just yet.

Signed,

Richard X. Ferdinand