Get off my Property

It was a cold and gloomy afternoon as the sun dipped behind the clouds like someone had dimmed the lights.

My brother, Landon and I had decided to climb over our fence to go explore the endless imaginative forest that laid beyond our property line. A short walk straight ahead sat an old abandoned shack with tattered, broken hinges, paint chipping from its frame and shattered windows with the glass crystallizing several places amongst the dirt floor.

A couple yards to the right of the shack was a huge outdoor like oven made from brick and mortar with a walk in hole on one side. When you stepped in, you’d find yourself standing on top of a huge grill with a small hole atop the Teepee of bricks, assuming that’s where the smoke came out. We never knew what it was used for, but we decided to deem it the place for human sacrifices. Funny how some kids when playing pretend they envision pirates and making others walk the plank, but when we played pretend it was more like we’re morbid pessimistic native americans, trying not to get caught and cooked alive. Some imagination that was. Yikes…

We had gone over to play at the shack many times before, but had never built up enough courage to take a peek inside until this day. We took note of the fact that it was very dark in there even with the broken out windows. We then proceeded to keep playing outside of the shack, neither one of us was too fond of the dark.

We began playing our go to little native american family imagination. After a hard day of work, he would always come in to the house where I’d be like, “Here’s your stew” and it would be a small little bowl made out of bark with mud, grass and leaves mixed into it along with some broken up tiny sticks for seasoning. He’d always say something like, “ Oh my, it’s delicious!” And then he’d put it back into the stew bucket so I wouldnt have to make it again.

Growing up my brother and I had always been fascinated by stories about native americans and how they survived. We thought they were awesome and I haven’t since been proved otherwise.

It wasn’t long after we had started playing, we had both heard the most unnerving sound. We were outside and the sound had appeared to have come from the inside of the shack. The sound was a faint audible screech, but also like a whisper...and then it gradually became a louder echo increased into what sounded like a grumpy old man yelling, “Get off my Property!” And, “You’re going to Hell!” Over and over again. It sounded frantic and agitated.

We knew no one lived there and we didn’t see anyone, the guy who had lived there many years ago, his death was still under an open case mystery, but the strange man yelling had startled me so much that I had dropped all the spices for our stew! Landon and I seemed frozen in place, unable to move for fear we had done something wrong. We heard the man yell one more time before a gunshot was fired through the air. I felt all the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.

Landon and I didn’t spare anymore time looking around before we started racing towards the fence. Dead Silence seemed to follow, no birds were chirping or wind was blowing until we heard someone running after us, as soon as we heard footsteps that weren’t ours pounding against the leaves, we began running even faster. We looked back over our shoulders and to both our astonishment there was no one there, absolutely no one and yet the leaves on the ground were moving towards us. We looked at each other with terror drawn all over our faces and screamed, “Ruuuun!!”

We made it to the fence and I practically jumped over the ten foot fence. Heck, I don’t even remember climbing it. I helped my brother down from the fence and we ran straight up the hill and into the back sliding glass door of our house. We locked it and watched the scene unfold from the window, but it was hard to watch especially when no one appeared to be there.

A few minutes passed by and no noises or any sign of movements coming from behind the window, Landon lost interest and went to go do something else. I stayed there, watching for another minute or two before I saw something weird.

A man was standing on the other side of the fence. I didn’t see him at first, no instead I had achieved the privilege of watching him reveal himself slowly from out of the shadows. I saw his feet appear first and then the rest of him just slowly unfolded, looking like mist as he revealed himself one fragment at a time until he was fully there.

I could see right through him and immediately I felt a shiver go down my spine. Yet, his features were very detailed. Intricately detailed to be exact. He appeared to be over 9 feet tall, almost as tall as the fence. His clothes were all ragged and torn. His eyes a jet black and not to mention he was bald. His skin looked like it was sunken in and deteriorated as if he had drowned, but still had managed to stay intact even after weeks of remaining underwater. His hands were just nubs as he pressed himself up against the gate, resting his deformed head on top of it while looking around at our yard.

My breath got hitched in my throat whilst watching. I was afraid he would hear me if I breathed even though I was inside. While this odd man materialized into the scene before me, I heard a loud crash come from upstairs and immediately I turned around to hear Landon yelling from upstairs that everything was okay. I turned back around to gaze out of the window again and the tall man was gone. I scrunched my face up against the sliding door to see if I could see better. No way was I going to open up that door not even for just a peek.

Suddenly there was another face pressing up against my face. I screamed and I kept screaming as the tall man creature whatever the heck it was materializes right in front of me! He was staring at me with his black beady eyes, looking straight into my soul. I had fallen back on the ground, absolutely terrified. Cowering, I managed to look up at his face and his mouth was protruded into a large inhumanly shaped hole with ghastly pointy sharp teeth jutting around every side of his mouth. There was no nose, just his scary eyes and huge mouth just gaping down at me through the sliding door. I could see his breath on the glass, as I watched him morph into a huge arachnid with a deformed human head. He just continued to sit there and gawk at me through the glass for several minutes.

Abruptly as he had appeared, he suddenly scurried away from the back door and rounded the corner. Horrified as I watched him scurry away on his enormous eight legged spider body. I could see him pass the windows to the side of our house. I thought to myself was he leaving? Or what was he doing?

My eyes grew wide as I realized he was heading for the unlocked front door! “Oh my gosh no!” I screamed as I panicked and ran to the front door, hoping to get there in time. I didn’t have time to lock it, but I could feel him pushing against the door. He was able to open it only a little bit each time he pushed, that is until his legs started coming through…I screamed again as I made a run to the bathroom behind the corner. I was able to see the creature right behind me with its mouth agape in the mirror. Slam! I had managed to locked the door in time, all the while his legs trying to catch me underneath the doorway. I started crying because I didn’t know what to do. Eventually I curled up, a mess on the bathroom floor.

I waited in there for what seemed like hours avoiding an inevitable death it had seemed like. I was in denial, come on. Just kidding, nah, I was just being a coward.

I heard knocking on the bathroom door every once in a while. It was either my mom or my dad or my brother asking how much longer I would be in there. I even heard babies crying every once in a while along with strangulated screams followed by ensuing laughter that did not sound human. I had also taken into account that when I had gone into the bathroom all the lights had been on in our house, yet looking under the door it was pitch black. When I would hear the knocks, I would ask who it was and it would sound like my family members, but then I’d ask if it was really them and their voices were just replaced by a faint muffled laughter…which to my dismay was definitely not reassuring whatsoever. Whatever it was, it was definitely waiting for me to come out and boy was it patient…or so I had thought.

After what had seemed like a couple more hours, I had realized there had been no more knocking and I hadn’t detected any movement at all from outside the door. Even looking under the door, it had still appeared to be 100% dark.

I was sitting by the door when I noticed on the other side of the bathroom, the bathtub faucet had turned on right as I had heard the sound of the plug being closed. I went over to try and turn it off, but it was impossible. It wouldn’t shut off. I watched as the bathtub filled up with water, cold water and then right when I thought it was going to start flooding it stopped and turned off. I started hearing splashing noises coming from under the water and some bubbles would appear on top. I cautiously walked back towards the door, crouching down onto the ground as I just watched. I didn’t see anything, just heard noises coming up from the water. All of a sudden long black tendrils broke out of the plug at the bottom of the tub.

Spider legs came out and wrapped around my legs roughly pulling me forward, I sprang to grab hold of the hand towel holder protruding from the wall for support. Screaming, I lost my grip and tried to hang onto anything I could get a grasp onto, but to no avail. The long black tendrils tightened its grip around my entire body as I plunged into the tub, fully emerged under the cold water.

I tried to scream but It was muffled by the water entering my lungs. I tried to pull myself out of the tub as I frantically reached for the side with one free hand, but it wasn’t working. Nothing was working. I even tried kicking my feet, but couldn’t.

I felt the spider legs squeeze me tighter and then all of a sudden my hand went numb and I couldn’t wiggle my fingers. I opened my eyes under the water as I put my hand in front of my face.

I screamed out, thrashing even more, I felt my whole body starting to convulse… I was about to have a seizure.. my entire hand was gone. It was profusely bleeding where my hand was supposed to be. It was just like those movies where someone gets a limb removed and it starts squirting out blood. I thought that stuff was fake, but it actually happens or happened. Above my arm was the creatures head and I could see my fingers protruding from his ghastly mouth as he continued chewing. I could hear him chewing my hand from under the water as the bath water had turned blood red. His face utterly emotionless.

On the verge of passing out from pure horror, I felt as the monster continued to eat me limb from limb. I felt every ounce of pain as he ate me alive and eventually gave into the water that had encased my lungs as I blacked out into oblivion.

I woke up, sweating profusely as I looked around. I checked my limbs including my hand, they were still intact. Phew. I was in my bedroom and the sunlight had just appeared beyond the horizon, casting through my window. I went into the kitchen, still a bit confused and shaken up from last nights horrors. It had felt so real.

My dad was making pancakes while my mom and brother were playing tic tac toe, sitting at the dining table, waiting for breakfast. My dad looked up from flipping pancakes and as he mistakenly dropped one on the floor, said,” Oh Hey Kiddo, want a pancake? Hope you had a good nights sleep!” With a smile. I said, “Um yeah and sure I’d like a pancake.” My mom mentioned, “Don’t use the bathroom quite yet honey I have to clean it.” Everything had seemed to be back to normal.

I went back to my room to get dressed for the day. I had picked out an outfit and gotten dressed. I decided to sneak into the bathroom just to brush my hair real quick, she wouldn’t notice right. After all it would just take a second.

I opened the door and to my dismay, the bathtub was covered in blood... my blood. I turned towards the mirror and saw that I was in fact a Spider Monster. I screamed and ran out to the dining room. My dad looked back up at me, but instead now he had black eyes. I looked to my mom and my brother, there eyes were black as well. My dad said, “ Sorry Honey it’s easier if you don’t look at your reflection.. you know to help with the facade of feeling normal… until ya know you get used to it.” Eyes wide and speechless. My mom said, “Sorry honey, but we died.” Ripping the bandaid right off with no room for easing the thought in. Ezra then said, “ Yeah, welcome to hell and it’s all because we played on an old dead guys property.