That Night Outside of Town by J.F. David

It’s damn near the middle of the night, and the four of us are wandering through the woods looking for horrors mentioned in rumors. That’s how most of the news reports start, isn’t it? ‘Four missing teenagers found mutilated in the woods,’ well, that’s how it would normally be – but Mark had a gun.

The lights from our flashlights drifted through the trees as we searched for, well, anything. Light from the stars above lacked the strength to reach the forest floor, and the moon hadn’t yet risen into the sunless night sky. We followed deer trails as best as we could, but when those stopped being reliable, Austin would take point and guide us through more coherent parts of the forest.

Coherency out here was a joke, we may as well be the hunt for bears, rabid deer, and skin walkers – all of which could probably see better under this dark blanket than the rest of us with these flashlights.

Symphonies of the forest rose and fell as each creature took its turn to sing their harmonies and solos through the dark. Bugs chirped on their beats, and owls called out their deep, resonating groans to each other.

I took stock of our lights dancing around in the dark, a performance watched by souls out of sight of us, and I noticed one of them missing.

Spooked, I quickly turned around and accidentally shone my light in Teagan’s face.

Her hands quickly balled into fists and she wedged her forest green eyes shut as she stopped in place.

“Ra-aine!” She whined, “that’s pretty freaking rude!”

“Whatever,” her flashlight was still on, “I’m trying to see something.”

She and I were about as prepared for this walk in the woods as each other. She had a pair of denim shorts on, while I had black leggings. While I had favored leg coverage over arms with my gray halter top, she favored arm coverage with a cropped white hoodie with a bright yellow sunflower in the center of the chest.

I peeked around her at Mark, who had his flash light pointed at Teagan’s ass.

He noticed me, and grimaced a smile while he turned his light off.

I scoffed, “Ugh! Mark, you freaking perv.”

Austin slowed his pace to a stop.

“What’s the holdup back there?” His voice rumbled.

“Oh come on,” Mark said with a snide tone, “I’m just making sure our assets are all safe.”

“You do that by—” Teagan turned around to face him. Her body language sagged, and I could imagine her cringing. “I just got what you said, and you’re not funny, Mark.”

I glanced down at Teagan’s ass with my own flashlight. Mark was out of line for the continued gesture, but I didn’t blame him for it happening.

He put the flashlight under his chin, and the bright white light cast harsh shadows over his face. The brown of his eyes turned to honey, and his rose petal mop of red ginger hair was a bright fire in the illumination.

“How do I do that Teagan?” He asked in a mocking tone.

She huffed out a frustrated breath and got into his face. “You do that, by keeping an eye on our surroundings.” She explained to him like he was five. “You can’t do that by looking at me, alright?”

“You have a cute ass,” he mocked her.

She pushed him back in a quick motion, “Oh my gawd, did you hear anything I just said? Do you understand, Mark?”

“You may have to say it again.”

“Ugh!” She wheeled around and looked past me, “Austin, can you say or do anything to make this absolute fishtank of a boy understand what I’m trying to tell him?”

Our tall forest leader shrugged his shoulders, the shape of his gray hood flattened in the motion. “I wanna be where he is right now.”

“What?” I asked.

“He’s got a better view than me.”

“Yes!” Mark pumped a fist, “finally some validation from the man I love.”

“Anything for you home-boy.”

“Oh my gawd,” Teagan groaned, “I don’t need any ass validation, I need you idiots to keep it safe, okay? Because I ain’t about to be on the news dead in the woods, then people on Twitter share our dumbass death article saying some shit like ‘typical white people activities,’ okay? I’m not about to go out that way.”

It was so quiet, even the crickets and birds of the night joined our awkward silence.

Mark started singing quietly to himself. “Teagan likes to stand on business, because business is what she likes…”

“Shut up Mark,” she turned and pointed at him.

Something disturbed the fallen leaves in the distance, and each of our flashlights simultaneously turned about-face in the direction of the sound.

“What was that?” I asked the rest of the group.

Wet noises stabbed and smacked in haunting harmony with the creaking of a branch above.

Austin raised his light to the lower tree branches above us.

“It’s an owl,” he told us in the driest tone he could put on.

“What?” Teagan asked.

“It’s eating a mouse or something.”

“Austin…” She spoke slowly, “that’s in the tree, what was in the leaves?”

Austin lowered his light to the ground, then moved it back up to where the owl was tearing apart the mouse or other small creature.

“He tore its head off,” he said, like he was giving his order at a coffee drive through, but I was like, eighty percent sure he had never been to one. “And the head fell.”

Teagan gagged, “Ew… that’s, that’s okay, that’s gross… no thank you.”

“Let’s keep going,” Austin said as he turned around and started walking deeper into the quiet woods.

“WHAT?” Her green eyes were as wide as the absent full moon, what phase of the moon was it supposed to be tonight? “No! No… alright, as soon as we find one thing paranormal or spooky, we are turning our asses around and going back to town!” She raised her hand with her first finger pointed out.

“Oh calm down curly,” Mark lightly grabbed her shoulders and turned her around to follow Austin. “The night is still young, and we ain’t quitting because of the natural cycles of nature.”

She pushed his hands off of her.

“Markus I swear,” she turned back to him, “if you do anything to me, I will take the force of nature that will quickly and fearfully fall out of my ass, and I will shove it down your throat.”

The ginger haired kid chuckled, and I shined my light to my face and gave him a condescending glare.

“She has experience you know,” Austin called out from the front.

“With what? Shoving shit down people’s throats?”

Teagan gagged again, “You asshole! Why did you have to say it like that?”

“Well what else are you supposed to say?”

“Anything but that you half assed doorknob,” she pointed at her temples. “Do you even know how to think?”

“Ugghh, gawd,” Mark groaned, “Austin? Daddy? Help me?”

“Oh it’s okay buddy, you aren’t the dumbest asshole in the world,” Austin cooed as he swept his light back and forth through the gray barks of thin trees.

“Thanks man, it means a lot.”

“You better hope he doesn't die soon though, but for now you’ve got that going for you.”

“Nice,” Mark pumped his fist, “I’m not on the bottom.”

“Oh Markie, just you wait,” Austin’s clothes were so dirty. I thought I could see dust shifting off of them with every lumbering step he took.

“Wait?” His joking tone was gone, “what do you mean by that, man?”

I noticed Teagan relax, but there was hesitation in her posture that made me think she was still expecting the worst from the boys.

“Don’t worry about it,” Austin said with slight sarcasm in his voice, “it’s something that’s not very PG-Thirteen of me, so it probably won’t happen in the first place.”

“That gives me no comfort at all, man.”

“It shouldn’t, and I was lying, you have a clip in the gun, that’s why it weighs that much.”

Mark didn’t respond to that, I’m not sure I would have either. Yes, Austin is good at making sure we’re all safe, but I forget how often he reminds us of our mortality – in the most unsettling ways.

A putrid smell hit my nose and mouth, and my eyes watered at the infected air.

Everyone else was affected as well. Teagan doubled over and puked again, and Mark pinched his nose while coughing up a storm. Austin only grimaced, and he roved his light around looking for the cause of the horrid stench.

A year ago, we were all on Mark’s parents’ land at the same time they were getting their septic tank cleaned out. He was the oldest of eight, and his mom had been fighting to get the kids to be eating healthier. In the wake of the healthy eating, the refuse of the septic tank smelled like digested death; and the gross odor around us made Mark’s septic tank seem like a bed of roses compared to the hell we breathed in.

The smell pinched up against the top of my nose, and the air scraped against my tongue in disruptive ways.

Austin swiveled his light around, and he leveled the bright beam off to the side of us.

Mark and I turned to look, shining our own lights in the same place as Austin’s.

Teagan crouched down to her knees in a violent coughing fit, her dry heaves were the only noises echoing off of the trees surrounding us.

Bright red retinas reflected back at us from the creature we discovered. It had the head of a deer skull sticking out of an everchanging morass of dirt and shit, the wings of flies reflected the lights of our flashlights. Shit covered heads of humans bobbed in and out of the mass of its body, and entire shelves of dirt and refuse sagged off of it onto the ground.

“What the hell?” Mark muttered as he quickly took out the gun, making sure everything was ready on the large pistol.

Each of its heads began to whisper different sentences, and sweaty chills scratched down my spine for it.

Flies crawled in and out of their mouths despite the movements.

“Is anyone else hearing their names from the shit mouths?” Austin asked us.

“Not until now,” Mark answered.

I was hearing it too, its wet voices growling out my name in awkward rhythms and varying emotion. Its tones ranged from fear to anger, depression to happiness, and in other spectrums I didn’t know how to comprehend.

“Austin? Do I shoot it?”

“I mean, if you wanna.” The tall boy answered.

“Austin, that doesn’t help a damn thing!”

“Oh come on, you’re the one with the gun,” Austin teased him, “you can make the big boy decisions here.”

One of the shit heads on the creature gagged, and then it puked out several hundred spiders and centipedes onto the forest floor. The bugs spread out like water from a bucket, crawling over each other in mad frenzies.

“Eh, go ahead and shoot,” Austin chided.

“Are you sure?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Austin raised his voice at the smaller, red headed boy.

Mark screamed as he unloaded the clip of bullets into the creature.

The explosions from the gunshots slammed their abrasive, low shockwaves from the gun stuck my ears harder than I expected.

My hands quickly reached up to plug my ears, and I screamed at the loud stimulation around me.

The bullets struck the creature nearly a dozen times. Each shot was like shooting a bag of sand in how the dirt and shit sprayed in every direction.

Mark emptied the clip, then put his own hand to his ear with a grimace.

If the creature said anything else, the ringing in my ears was too loud for it to make any new purchase in my rattled brain.

The pile of shit that made up its body was filled with bullet holes the size of my head, and its own heads fell to the ground with bowling ball-like thuds that sent pulses through the ground.

Its deer skull head sagged to the side, and the red its eyes were reflecting faded to black as it clattered to the ground.

Mark raised both of his arms with victorious fists.

“WOO! We did it!” A wary smile tried to stretch over his face with shaking steps.

“Is anyone going to check on Teagan?” Austin asked, he kept his flashlight focused on the broken, shitty body of the creature Mark had killed.

Both Mark and I panned our lights down to where Teagan was laying in a fetal position on the ground, surrounded by glossy splatters of bile. She trembled like she was cold, but the lingering odor in the air reminded me of one of her biggest weaknesses.

“Are you okay Teagan?” I was the first to bend down and check on her.

Even through the smell of shit in the air, the bright and putrid smell of vomit was strong enough to pierce through the shitty air and into my nose.

She didn’t respond.

“Oh my gawd,” Mark exasperated behind me, “is she having a panic attack or something?”

“Mark, I will replace your heart with an entire water treatment plant,” Austin lowered his voice, “stop being an asshole and help the damn girl!”

Mark groaned, “Teagan likes to stand on business—”

“Don’t,” Austin pointed at him, “this is serious Mark, do you want me to leave you to the wolves tonight? Be a goddam man and help the girl!”

“She’s covered in puke!”

“She will remember your help for the rest of her pretty little life bud,” Austin bent down and spoke in a condescending tone, “pick up that ass you think is so fine and we’ll get all of our asses out of here!”

Mark didn’t have anything else to say about that, and I was trying to roll her over to where she would be easier to pick up.

He gagged as he picked her up in a bridal style position.

A frustrated breath escaped Mark’s throat as he trudged forward.

“Is it bad that I’m getting a hard on while doing this?” Mark asked through grit teeth.

“Um, what?” I asked as I moved my light around the woods, hoping nothing else was going to jump out at us and call our names.

“Mark, I’m going to need you to stop being a dumbass for the rest of the night, okay?” Austin prodded.

“Do you even remember the way out of here dude?”

“Uh yeah?” Austin answered, as if Mark was stupid, and I wasn’t about to argue with him about that. “Just keep up, and we’ll be out of here in as little time as it took to get here, alight?”

“Fine…”

“If you’re good, and she still likes you enough, then maybe, just maybe, she’ll let you give her a bath or something. But that’s a maybe dude.”

“Really?”

“Hell no, you were an ass to her, she won’t want to see you again for at least thirteen days.”

“That’s a little specific,” I told Austin.

“I can just tell, don’t question it.”

Low rumbling filled the air, and Austin and I pointed our flashlights to the sky.

I didn’t realize it earlier, but clouds filled the air, blocking the stars above with their presence.

“Didn’t know that was coming,” Austin commented, “which is concerning.”

“What do you mean?” Mark asked. His joking tone had dwindled away with every word he spoke, and annoyance took up space in his words with the situation he found himself in.

It was his own fault anyway, he was the one who was an asshole, and now he’s getting shit on by Austin for it. I don’t blame Austin for any of this, all of us were just reacting to Mark in the first place; even me, while I was trying to keep my mouth shut and focus on the spooky shit that we might see.

Now, I wish I had never gone.

I’m glad that shitty creature never had the presence of mind to attack us, or maybe it never got that far in the first place.

Raindrops ticked and tacked on the leaves both above and below.

I loved the smell of rain, and I breathed in a deep breath out of instinctual affection for the gentle force of nature.

To my dismay, an odor of metal and old fish hit my nostrils. I put my hand out to catch a rain drop, and several drips of bright red blood drummed on my pale skin.

My blood ran cold as I tried to figure out what was happening.

I looked to Austin, who was just as confused as I was.

“Guys, I feel gross,” Mark complained.

Did this happen because we killed the shit monster?

Its death was the trigger for the apocalypse, is that what all of this was?

How were we supposed to know that?

Flashes of pink tinted lightning filled the dark red sky, and the pounding thunder roared shortly after.

The blood rain came down harder, and my heart raced in our hesitation.

“Keep moving?” I asked Austin.

“Gonna have to.”

I nodded, and I was aware of the blood pouring into my hair and soaking into my clothes. Periods were bad enough when it was my own blood massing up my clothes, this was a nightmare coming to fruition.

A massive column of lightning pillared on the horizon, and all of our focus was caught by it.

Confusion fogged my mind while I tried to process what was going on.

Silhouettes of squishy blood clots fell around the lightning pillar, and massive, mangled body parts casted abstract shadows through the falling blood.

With that, confusion left my mind.

In its place, fear took its cords and bound my brain in tight knots. The paralyzing sensation spread to my body as I froze in shock of what I was looking at.

We could all see each other without our flashlights now. Mark and I looked to Austin for direction.

Austin’s wide eyes looked up at the lightning pillar with body parts falling around it, then surveyed the blood covered trees around us.

He met both Mark and I in our eyes, and he ran in the opposite direction of the lightning and gore.

We followed.