It was a normal day, walking around with my friend through the woods when we stumbled upon a town… or, what was left of the town. Nothing but destroyed buildings and dust. There were no people in sight. We decided to look around through the crumbling buildings, ignoring the sign that said “go back.” And another saying “enter at your own risk.”
We began finding normal little things like tattered stuffed animals and discarded clothes, crumbled furniture frames and, strangely, a few human bones. I picked up one of the bones, examining it since one day I wanted to investigate crime scenes for my career. I looked over the remains, realizing they weren’t very old, clearly the body they had come from had just recently finished decaying. Being a bit shook up I tossed the bone back to the pile it was found in, looking around again. My friend found a military container with some weapons in it. That was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Rifles and hand guns, grenades and knives, all laid together in the dark green box. We even found a few vests with some ammunition in them, a few helmets and radios. We checked to see if the radios worked but nothing happened.
It started to get dark so we decided to head back home. How had we not even known this town existed? When did all this happen? How did it just happen to this one area? Anyway, we started walking back the way we came, but we didn’t end up at home. We ended up back in the destroyed town. We must have walked in a circle on accident, I thought. We tried again, heading back towards home, but it happened again. Right back in that same crumbling town. We started to freak out a bit after the third time of trying to get home and ending up back where we started. By now it was completely dark, we had no other choice than to wait till morning to try to get back home. Both of our phones couldn’t get any service where we were, and my phone was about to die anyway. We got settled in one of the crumbling homes, hoping it didn’t start raining. I looked up when I thought I saw a light, getting up and going over to see if another person was here, but nothing. Guess I was seeing things.
I don’t know what time it was, all I know is it was super dark with no lights. I woke up sometime that night and looked over at a shadow, thinking it was how the moon was shining against something, but no..a man, I think. A man stood there in a gas mask and a military like uniform but it was torn and tattered. I jumped up from where I was laying, asking the man who he was and where we were, but I didn’t get a response. Since it was dark it took me a moment to realize he had my friend. He had her by her neck, holding her up where her feet couldn’t reach the ground, but it looked like he was hardly even holding her up. This man was tall..really tall, wide shoulders. I panicked when I seen him holding my friend, yelling at him to put her down, but he didn’t. He tilted his head, or mask, whatever. His other hand reached to grab my friend’s arm, tearing it clean off her body. She screamed in agony as I screamed in terror, frozen where I was as I watched the blood leak from her in the dim moon light. The man made a sound, almost like..laughter? He was laughing. I looked over and seen the weapons box from earlier, grabbing a hand gun and shooting him. It didn’t do anything. Steam leaked from the bullet hole. What is this man? He isn’t human. What is this? The man snapped my friends neck to finish her off, then coming after me. I grabbed a knife out of the box as I started to run, still holding the gun in my other hand. I looked behind me but I didn’t see the man. I hid behind a tree in the connecting woods that led us to the town. Just when I thought I got away, there he was. A low deep growl came from the mask, gloved hands reaching for me as I screamed. I stabbed his arm with the knife I had, and again, nothing but steam, but it slowed him down a bit, so I ran again. I got into a building that was less destroyed than the others, hiding in a closet. I could hear the growls and horrifying laughter outside, panicking, my heart felt like it was going to explode. After a while it all finally got silent, so I opened the closet door to see if it was safe to run again. When I opened the door sunlight came through one of the dilapidated windows. Does he not like sunlight? I guess he’s only around at night.
By now I knew my friend was dead, so u ran back into the woods that led us here to begin with. This time I actually ended up back in my town. Night was what trapped us there. Night is when he arrives. He comes out for fun when the sun leaves. Whatever you do, never, ever, go into the woods when the sun is going down.