| "What the hell?" Amy exclaimed when her car began to splutter and jerk. She pulled it over to the side of the road onto a gravel covered area, and the engine gave up, dieing with a soft cough. Amy hit the steering wheel in frustration. "This is just great," she growled at the dashboard. "I'm stuck out in the middle of nowhere, and it's going to be dark soon. Anyone care for a scary movie?" With a twist of her thin lips, she opened the car door, unfolded her long legs and got out. She strode around to the front of the car and opened the hood. Peering at the engine, she couldn't see anything wrong. There damn well better not be anything, she thought. I bought this car brand new only two days ago! Then, she caught sight of something stuck in the fan belt. Reaching in very carefully to avoid hot car parts, she pulled it out and looked at it. It was a shiny black feather, it's edges unruffled by being in the belt. She frowned at it a moment before tossing it onto the ground behind her. "Great. Now, I'm going to be late for Jay's graduation. Man, she's going to be so mad at me," Amy said as she slammed the hood down. "Damn car." She went back over to the driver's side door and leaned in to grab her cell phone from her purse. She pressed the "Talk" button and heard nothing. She dialed her home number and still heard nothing - not even the static of an open line. With a growl of rising ire, she turned the useless device off and bent to grab her purse. Stuffing the phone inside the purse, Amy locked the car doors, pulled her keys from the ignition and slammed her car door closed. Slinging her purse onto one plump shoulder, she headed down the road. "Any minute now, some crazed maniac is going to jump out at me wearing a hockey mask and carrying a chainsaw," Amy muttered, and a shiver of fear skittered down her spine. Her thin lips twisted again. "Good going girl, scare the beejeebers out of yourself why don't you?" She stopped and looked down both ends of the highway. Nothing moved. It was as if she'd been caught in a moment of time, all alone. A glance overhead showed her the sun was setting behind the trees flanking both sides of the road. The trees, a mix of pine, oak and cedar, were set back from the road roughly five feet, but in places, some meandered almost up to the blacktop. Walking past these dark, silent sentinels once more, Amy was relieved to see a side road cutting through the trees off to her left. It was a real road even if it was a dirt one. "Cool! Maybe there's a house or something down this way," Amy said to herself. She turned off onto the side road and after only a quarter mile, she began to notice how little the road was used. The road was rutted, full of potholes and nearly choked by tall weeds in most places. Amy had to walk around the weeds to keep from getting burrs on her. Walking was rough, and her wearing heels didn't help much. Amy was passing a huge oak tree when she heard a raucous sound. It startled her because other than the soft sounds on insects, everything had been quiet. Now, she gasped and nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked around wildly, her heart pounding in her chest. She spotted a raven in the lower limbs of the huge oak off to her left. The bird itself was huge too. Like Poe's raven, Amy thought, ice sluicing down her back. She scooped up a rock from off the ground and threw it at the bird. "You stupid bird! You scared the crap out of me!" she yelled at it, hugging herself in her growing uneasiness. The raven flew off, and Amy saw a flash of gold as it did so, falling. Curious, she walked over to the oak to see where it had fallen. She found a gold ring caught in the juncture of two small branches, and she pried it loose. It was a small ring, plain and barely big enough to fit on her pinky finger. Amy was a big girl and not many rings fit her anyway so she wasn't bothered by this. Oh well, she thought, pocketing the ring, and she continued on her way again. At the end of the road, Amy found a small abandoned house. It was one-story with a slightly pitched roof and paint nearly peeled off. Windows stared back blankly in the gathering gloom. A porch, rickety and tilted, framed the front door. Carefully, she climbed up the steps and crossed the little porch to the door. Trying the doorknob, she found it unlocked, and she eased the weathered door open. It creaked on its rusted hinges setting Amy's teeth on edge and jangling her nerves. Cautiously, she stepped into the front room. Everything was covered in dust an least an inch thick. Moving slowly through the dimly lit rooms, Amy checked out the one bedroom house, scared of what she might find. All she did find was some candles in the bedroom, and she quickly lit them with the lighter she carried in her purse. This would be a good time to start smoking, she thought to herself as she headed back to the livingroom with her three newfound sources of light. She put one candle on an end table and carried the rest into the kitchen. Putting the remaining candles on a counter, she opened up the back door. The sun was down, but the sky wasn't fully dark yet. Amy had enough light to see the tall weeds and the rusted lawn furniture in the back yard. She spotted a small shed not far from the house, and curiosity tugged at her. "In for a penny, in for a pound I guess," she muttered, and she headed over to the decrepit thing. She poked around the building, wading through thigh high grass and weeds, and she hoped not to get bit by a snake while she looked for the door. At one point, turning a corner, she fell flat on her face. Sprawling in the grass, she lay still for a moment to catch her breath. Then, she looked back to see what she'd fallen over. She let out a scream, the sound ripping from her throat even as she felt frozen in place. She'd fallen over a bare leg. The skin, thankfully still intact, was black and covered in dirt. With trembling hands, Amy managed to push herself up into a sitting position, her eyes never leaving the limb. "Oh my god!" she breathed, aghast. As ice formed in her veins, Amy's eyes travelled up the barely clad body once hidden in the high weeds. They got to the shoulders of what was obviously a female and went no further. Amy frowned. Something looked wrong and in the fading light, it was hard to tell what it was. She got up and inched closer, bent over so she could see better. Then, her hand flew to her mouth, and she fought the urge to vomit as bile rose up to burn her throat. Where a head should have been was only a bloody stump. To her horror, Amy realized the blood was still fresh. It was even oozing a little still. A sound behind her made her whirl around, and Amy screamed again, a loud, piercing cry that seemed to echo back at her from the trees, mocking her terror. A man, holding a bloody axe in his hands, leered at her from the opposite corner of the shed. Dressed in flannels and covered in fresh blood, he was a walking nightmare. Amy fels a fist wrap around her heart and squeeze. She screamed again. The sound seemed to galvanize the man, and he lurched forward, headed for her. A white cat came streaking out of nowhere, and it flashed between Amy and the maniac. The snow white feline leapt up at the murderer's face, hissing and spitting angrily. The man roared in pain and surprise, lowering the axe to bat at the cat. Amy took this as her cue. She turned and ran away as fast as she could, losing her shoes along the way. "This way!" a little girl's voice called from the trees. Amy caught sight of a little black girl dressed in white beckoning to her from the tree line, and she turned to run in her direction. Her fear clouded mind never thought to question what the girl was doing in the woods alone with a mad man about. Amy heard the cat yowl in pain and anger as she reached the tree line. The little girl had disappeared but before Amy could look for her, she heard the man yell. She screamed and started running faster, dodging trees and ducking under branches. The forest seemed alive in the quickly fading light. The trees loomed up out of the dark, blocking her path and forcing her to turn aside again and again. Their naked branches reached for her like grasping fingers, snagging her clothes and catching in her hair. Sobbing in fear, Amy ran on blindly, her arms raised to ward her face. "This way! Hurry!" the little girl called from somewhere ahead of her. Amy caught a glimpse of the girl's white dress, and she darted after her. A stitch began in her side, and her strength began to flag. A crashing noise behind her let her know the axe weilding killer was now following close behind her. Somehow, she found it in her to put on a fresh burst of speed. Suddenly, she broke through the trees and found her car directly in front of her, on the side of the road where she'd left it. The driver side door was open, but she didn't care. She dove inside and dug her car keys out of her purse where she'd thrown them. She jammed the correct key into the ignition, leaning over to slam the door shut at the same time. "Please start!" she begged. "Please!" Happily, the car started right up. Amy put it into gear and looked up to find her maniacal pursuer standing in front of her vehicle. Without a second thought, she shoved the gas pedal to the floorboards. The car shot forward, slamming into the man. He flew over the hood of the car and hit the windshield, cracking it. Amy jerked the steeringwheel to the right, and his body rolled off to the side. Amy ran over him once and then, she headed down the highway without stopping to see what happened to him. Several days later, after Jay's graduation went off without a hitch, Amy picked up a local newspaper while she waited for her windshield to be replaced. An article caught her eye, and she sat down to read it. "Man Killed in Hit and Run Accident Discovered to be a Murderer," the headline read. The article went on to talk about how the highway patrol officers came upon the dead man one afternoon. It was apparent he'd been hit by a car from the condition of his body. However, there was too much blood on him to be just his. Once the paramedics arrived, the officers were free to search the area further. An axe, covered in dried blood was found not far from the dead man, the article continued, while paramedics noted scratches on the man's face - made by both a cat and a person. In the treeline, the officers found a bloody white cat cowering from them. When they tried to catch it, thinking it had made the scratches on the deceased, the animal lead them on a merry chase through the woods. Here, they found evidence of another chase and another dead body. The second body had not yet been identified, but the officers were certain it belonged to that of a missing girl reported to have been abducted two months prior. She'd been beheaded, and officers were still searching for the missing body part where the body had been found behind the shed of an abandoned house just off the highway. A sketch of the girl was included in the articles, and Amy froze. The sketch was of a lovely little black girl dressed all in white - the same girl Amy had been following in the woods that night. The End |
| One Scary Night |
 |
 |
| Copyright 1999-2008 B. Griffin unless otherwise noted. Use of any of the materials found herein is subject to the terms stated or written permission. Address any questions to musesstudent@yahoo.com |