I live in a little neighborhood called Shadowman Creek. There are a couple of other houses in the neighborhood. The closest place to mine belongs to my neighbor Jason. Jason and I are good friends. Next to his house is Angie’s house, and next to her is Henry’s house. Around our area are heavy woods. When I get off work, I enjoy hiking through these woods.
After a week of overtime, I was more than excited to be in the fresh air of the woods. The air in the woods is usually very damp and gloomy, but today, it was very crisp and dry. The trees drowned out the light because they still had most of the leaves on them, even though it was mid-autumn. The fallen leaves were dry enough to crunch loudly, even though the path of the woods was wet in most places. The birds had been chirping loudly, and I saw more animals than average for most of my hike. I wanted to keep walking, but I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost 10:30 P.M. I almost yelped. I had been hiking since 6:00 P.M. and thought I had only been hiking for an hour or two. Because of the trees, I couldn’t really tell that the forest was getting dark. It was like being in a room with the lights off, and the only light was coming from a window on the wall with cloth shades over the window. Imagine that. I had turned to walk back home when I saw the silhouette of a tall man, running across the path I was walking on. I jumped back, shouting in shock. But as quick as it came, it was gone.
The silhouette had left a very deep set of footprints. I felt the prints to make sure that I wasn’t insane. The dirt trail was packed. Either the silhouette was really heavy or it was pushing off the ground with a force immense enough to make the dirt as hard as a rock. I wasn’t thrilled to find out which though. I started my long trek back home. After a couple of minutes of walking, I found a tree, not just a small tree, mind you, but a massive tree, just lying on the ground. It looked like there were scratch marks in the tree. I couldn’t tell if it was just the bark or not, so I looked up, trying to see if I could potentially climb up it. No footholds. My next best plan was to walk around it. This would have been a great plan during the day, but at night, when you can barely see your hand in front of you, this probably wasn’t the best plan. I pulled out my phone. No wifi. You know, looking back, I shouldn’t have pulled out my phone in the first place. I’m in the middle of nowhere. Why would I have wifi? Then out of nowhere, I heard voices. I looked around, hoping that I would be able to see who was talking. The thick woods, combined with the almost inky atmosphere, made it impossible to see even a yard in the woods. The voices had a strange accent so I couldn’t tell what accent they had. It appeared like 2 people were having a discussion.
“Hey, big tree eh?”
“Yeah, I’m surprised you managed to chop that down.”
“It pays to sharpen tools, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“Oi partner, you still have that lantern, don’t you?”
“Sure I do, otherwise how would we still be here?”
“I’m glad you have that, you know why?”
“Because of them 10-foot demons?”
“Exactly, pardner. WE CANNOT COME INTO CONTACT WITH ONE OF THEM DEMONS!”
“You really shouldn’t be yelling. They can hear us, and the lantern is dying.”
They kept talking like this for a while, then they started acting tense and less casual than before. Here’s what I can remember. The first voice started panicking about the lantern dying and started yelling at the second voice to grab twigs. I could make out them both desperately running around and pulling twigs and branches off trees. Then all of a sudden all the noises stopped. One of the voices said in a dead, monotone voice, like a computer, say, “It’s too late.” The second voice said “What… No. NO NOT NOW, NOT NOW” A quick scream echoed through the forest. It sounded like a heavy object ramming into a lighter object. Then, I felt something fall on the ground with a thud. Something started smashing the other thing into the ground with snaps, which I prayed were sticks. Then, I managed to hear something being dragged into the forest. Slowly, the sounds were getting further away. I had wasted another half hour just listening to the men speak. All of a sudden, a voice shouted, “You good?”
I smiled. It was my neighbor Jason! He said that I didn’t come home the time I usually had, so he waited for me, and when he noticed I hadn’t come home, he grabbed some rope and came looking for me. With his rope, I managed to get over the tree. We started walking home when we noticed the shadow of a tall man standing in the path behind us. We both gave each other a glance. The man started running at us. We both didn’t hesitate to start running towards home. We were right to the exit of the woods when the man reached out to Jason. When the man moved his arm, his bones cracked audibly. He grabbed Jason by his shirt collar and pulled him back. I stopped running and turned around, to try to rescue Jason. I just started to sprint when someone yelled, “GET INSIDE.” It was Angie and Henry. They both were armed and seemed like they were waiting for this to happen. I turned around and tried telling them that it got Jason, but they told me not to, when I wouldn’t cooperate with them, they hit me in the head with a bat or something. I awoke in my bed with a throbbing headache. I saw that the police were by Jason’s house. They said that someone called them because an animal had taken him away in the night. After that incident, I’ve stopped hiking in the woods, and sometimes I hear his voice at night. And I have to go now, someone’s at my front door, and it’s getting dark.