Something In The Valley

The year is 2011, the sun had just gracefully set over the hills of Hollow's Valley, a small group of friends had hiked into the deep center of it's forests. As night had begun to fall they shared good memories, funny stories, and drinks together around their fire. Despite the claims and rumors of the horrid 'thing' that lives in the shadows of the hills and thrives through the forests at night. Daniel, the oldest of the three, was the most skeptical. The view and ambience of the valley was strikingly gorgeous and well known throughout the state of Kansas, which is why it was his idea to camp there. Though his friends were quite the opposite: superstitious, and cautious peoples. Yet somehow, he'd convinced Carl and Axel to go, through logic and reassurance. When they first arrived, they were as superstitious as ever, but now they'd mellowed out through the comfort of one another's company and the positive vibes of their memories. Hours and hours went by as their stories slowly became darker and meant to scare one another.

"Jesus, can you imagine? Some fuckin' I don't know- seven foot thing just comes charging at us out of nowhere?" Alex asked with a surprised tone at Daniel's story.

"Bro stop saying shit like that man! I know it ain't real but now it feels like something's ready to pounce on me" Carl scolded. David broke the tension with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Good lord, it's always just been rumors, stories" he rolled his eyes. An unsettling silence came over the forest in the absence of conversation, sending chills down their spines. Alex, the most cautious, began to slowly look around the trees. The whipping flames of the fire started a show of dancing shadows around them. Carl broke the silence and tried to challenge Daniel's logic and realism with a stern tone.

"Daniel, listen. You do realize the situation YOU put us in right? Alone, in the center of the valley's forest, and the first people to come camping here in decades? You don't believe what they put in the papers? 'family of four mysteriously disappear'." Daniel angrily replied

"because decades ago, they printed shit like that to get the public to read more before fraudulent press or whatever became a thing." Alex turned his attention from the trees to Daniel, raising his eyebrows and hands dramatically.

"Really? why don't you think anyone's been down here since 1962? Hmm? Couldn't be a bear, cougar, or anything' like that. What IS down here that caused people to stay away for almost five decades?" he continued his argument.

"Just- fucking change the subject. It's clearly not helping any of our worries. Or go to bed! Then it'll be over before you know it!" Daniel asked, and replied with a strong sense of sarcasm.

"Hell. No." Alex quickly interjected before standing and raising his hands, gesturing 'he was out'. "You're damned if you think im sleeping here, I- you know what, I'm hiking back." He sternly stated as he began on the trail they took down there.

"No you're not" Daniel unbelievingly stated. Alex had no reply other than a middle finger over his shoulder. "God, we just couldn't have a sleep over huh Daniel?" Carl rhetorically asked as he stormed off to find Alex with Daniel, rolling his eyes.

Over an hour later Daniel genuinely began to worry as he shakily checked his watch. Carl was close to bursting with anxiety, he couldn't even bring himself to say anything. Within seconds of checking his watch once more, they heard distant branches cracking, a blood curdling scream, and a sickening inhuman roar. Carl and Daniel's hearts began to race, and so did they in the direction of the noise. Both of them hyperventilating and as if their minds were in sync, both telling them: 'whatever "it" is, its going to kill you.'

"GO! GO!" Alex yelled out to them as he came running toward them, covered in cuts, blood, and mandible like bite marks. As Alex reached them, they turned to see what he was running from and in their horror, it wasn't an animal, wasn't human. In the mere seconds they were able to grasp a glimpse of it, it felt like an eternity as they observed it's movements, it's skin-like armored figure, it's pale flesh glowed from the bioluminescent orange crevices between its plated body. It screeched a bloodlust filled growl as its torso opened like a side-ways mouth, its serrated ribs revealing like massive fangs, mimicking the four mandibles on it's face. It looked like a mutated, seven foot man, with it's jaw ripped off and replaced by drool drenched, clicking halves of lower jaw bones. Alex continued in his survival and adrenaline driven, Olympic sprint, Daniel followed suit. But as Daniel looked over his shoulder at Carl, he was frozen in fear, he called out to him but Carl was tuned out of the world in a lock downed fear. Daniel and Alex kept running, knowing if they turned back they'd all be it's next meal. Silent tears began streaming down Daniels cheeks as he couldn't help but look back as his first childhood friend since primary school was brutally mauled, dismembered, and disemboweled. The monster tore through his friend like paper, causing Daniel to finally close his eyes as tight as he could and force himself to run faster..

"Several days ago, police sent out a search party upon request of a group of teenagers parents to Hollow Valley's forest. The three boys were all found, dead. Beyond mutilated, dismembered, disemboweled and barely recognizable, with several mandible-like bite marks. Bodily fluids and tissue strung about the forest in a 20 meter radius." The spokeswoman for the First Edition News in the city of Hollow Kansas reported just outside the valley. "The national guard has been alerted and is currently restricting all access to the valley until further notice. City hall has come to mutually agree that whatever has been lurking in the dark of the valley..is not any kind of animal, nor human.