a horror story.

*Graphic/disturbing subject matter.*
*Reader discretion is advised.*
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I awaken, sitting up in a cold sweat, relieved It was over; that, the entire last decade was just a really bad dream, that is… until somebody barged into my room.

“My… room?”, I thought to myself, for the walls were bare, and cried emptiness.

“You’re gonna be late for work”, said the stranger as they tossed me a sheathed machete; my reflexes quick as the muscle memory of my right arm, catches such in hand.

“Work?”, I express puzzlingly.

“At the ol’ (blank) next to what used be a grocery store?”, responded the stranger. They were some big grizzled Tahitian looking man; you’d be intimidated by their presence at first sight, but their energy was a welcoming one.

“Come on–those flesh eaters aren’t goin’ to kill themselves!”, he said with a chuckle.

I became confused, even more so, “flesh… eaters?”, I mouthed to myself taking in a whiff that just now hits me, as it was an overwhelming stench, of death and decay. The light of the suns rays, beams through an isolated window, prompts one to look out; upon doing so, are you greeted by the image of people, at least, what looked like people… as far as the eye can see.

“What’s all those people doing–they’re just standing down there…”, down-there, as I’d been several stories up, like that of my childhood home.

To which the grizzled man replied with a snicker, “whatchu got? Amnesia? Man–them aren’t people–“, he says, his entire demeanor shifts to a less than playful tone. I could see from the corner of my right eye, while both of his were trained unto me; my gaze became transfixed upon the massive crowd of “them”, motionless, like an army of statues.

“They’re just standing there, it’s, like–“, suddenly I was interrupted by the banging upon the window by the grizzled mans weathered looking fist, of his left hand.

He shouted, “up here–you flesh eating fuckheads!”, with such eccentric candor.

Them. They… became twitchy and, with virtually no hesitation, did they storm towards the direction of the sound, no thought, seemingly no reason, just… running. I’d only been a few stories up so, I could clearly see the madness in their eyes. They trampled anyone else who’d been in their way, countless heads being crushed under foot, by those who happened to move a bit faster.

“What… are they–why–,” I was unable to complete a thought, as my thinking process became deranged with morbid intrigue, my mind swallowed into the frenzied bloodied abyss, of what looked to be a mild tsunami, of crimson.

Trampled bodies, or whatever remained, lie within the river of carnage below.

“Those…”, soft but emotionally began the grizzled man, “…are not people.”

Flash forward to a running me.

But, what am I running from?

I look around and see… them.

They’re closing in.

From a distance, where, they resemble the size of ants. A small towns worth, it seemed. I could feel the ground subtly quake beneath me, as I ran. I kept running despite how far they were; something in my mind told me they never tire.

“They, never… tire”, I mouthed, as subliminal imagery of a woman carrying a child ran from one of these things. Legend has it, of a woman who ran literally miles to protect her daughter from one of them, so long, to the point, that, the beast that was once a person, in process of chasing the poor woman, did their legs literally give out from under them, as they’d been badly rotted and in a state beyond decomposition it seemed.

She was but a mere fifty yards from the building I first found myself waking up in earlier, before she collapsed and died from exhaustion.

Legend also has it, her daughter, from the tender age of twelve quickly adapted, and took the fight against these monsters; all while making the building the safe haven it is today.

How I ended up here, from there, is unbeknownst to me.

I hear faint splashing, accompanied by the subtle murmuring of people up ahead.

This could go either way.

Suddenly, I also hear fidgeting within the thick forestry surrounding me, and I knew I was a goner; those things, they make no sound.

No clicking, no groans, growls, nothing.

They’re completely mute.

The only sound you’ll hear, is that of their footsteps, your screams, if you’re even able to do that, and the squelching of ones own flesh when they proceed to tear you apart…

“Stop right there hombre–not another move.”, commanded what looked be a giant talking bush. Looking closer, it’d been a person, dressed in a ghillie suit, holding a suppressed fully automatic rifle.

Raising my hands in the air, heaving in, and exchanging great bouts of such, I couldn’t tell if I should be relieved or even more so worried.

“Just where, in the fuck are you coming from, just who, in the ever loving fuck, are you–how’re you still alive when in plain sight like this?”, authoritatively questioned the individual, the voice sounded like that of a womans.

My hands tremble in the air, as my adrenaline had been at an all time high, as did my voice upon responding.

“Umm–look, I… I’d like to uhhh, participate in this impromptu interview bu-but those… things are closing in–”

I feel the barrel firmly shoved against the back of my left knee, “–then you’d better get to answering if you wanna maintain the ability to even walk.”, she ferociously expressed.

“I don’t know-I don’t know-I DON’T FUCKING KNOW! One minute I was waking up in some building–relatively safe, the next, I’m out here, running. Not knowing why, only armed with fear and stamina–I bet you could guess which I’m just about out of.”, I smugly responded, my lungs feeling as though they were going to collapse.

“I don’t believe you.”, she says, digging the barrel firmer into the crook behind of my left knee.

“Easy there sweet cakes–can’t you see? We’ve been blessed, with a guest.”, expressed another voice, it was as if the forest itself were speaking, that is, until I see yet another giant bush move about, then another and another, until I’d been surrounded by at least a dozen ghillie suited individuals.

“I told you never to fucking call me that again.”, she says, voice gentle but hardened by a lingering, yet forgotten anger, an anger that hadn’t forgotten about her.

The person removed their ghillie mask, revealing a charming, unctuous looking man, clean shaven, suave, and eloquently spoken.

“My apologies–old habits die hard.”, he said with a reassuring smile. “I didn’t mean to call you that, it just… slipped.”, expressed the clean cut man with a mild chuckle.

I felt the gun barrels tension release from behind my knee, as the ghillie suited woman began making her way back within the mans ghillie suited formation.

“Say it again–you’ll be slipping on your own blood.”, she declared as she fell back and at ease.

The man closed his eyes, looking down then slightly upwards, with a big closed mouthed grin, opening them as he looked at me, “that’s why I love her”, he expressed with a laugh.

“But–really… just what in god almighty, ARE you doing out here? Hell of a time to go for a jog, wouldn’t you agree?”, beckoned the suspiciously friendly man, with a smile.

“–wholeheartedly. Look, can we maybe continue this later? Like, I don’t know, somewhere, you know, a little less on the verge of being swarmed by those… things?”, I facetiously request.

Suddenly…

“Hey–cap? You feel that?”, questioned one of the many ghillie suited members. I know I sure as hell did.

The unmasked man, referred to as simply “cap” began inquisitively staring at the ground, he took off his right glove, proceeding to slowly place his bare palm softly against the ground.

He looked at me, then his fellow survivors, “we need to move. Now.”, he stoically expressed, his demeanor, completely poker faced as his disappears behind his ghillie mask. They all take off ahead of him, the cap, as he motions for me to come along. I looked behind me once more, and I could now see them clear enough to make out their faces.

Many horribly disfigured and unrecognizable, and those that still had somewhat of an identifiable face, were completely blank.

Vacant of any and all expression.

Yet their incessant charging towards us, was being done with a vengeance; the only thing slowing them down was the thick brush underfoot from the forests ground, and the trampling of those, too slow to keep up. The excessive humidity and heat, made the stink of death, their rancid bodies that carried their decay, all the more profound.

I took off in the direction of the ghillie suited group and I ran a few yards behind them, kept doing so, until I ran into one of the ghillie suited survivors, falling to the ground in the process.

“Wha–why’d we stop!?”, looking up, I panically exclaimed, to which my question was answered with the barrel of a rifle, slowly being inserted into my mouth.

The ghillie suited survivor, motioned ‘silence’ with their left index finger to their lips, slowly removing the suppressed barrel from out my mouth. The ghillie suited survivors crouched down, then began speaking in sign language. It was then that I, yet again, heard a faint splash, and if I heard it, the ghillie suits must have to, which means…

Very swiftly, the ghillie suits dropped down, army crawling upon the forest floor towards the sound just over the horizon, I looked over and saw another group of survivors; most of which looked to be a family, hanging about a small, nearby river. There’d been two children, where, the water meets land; one of them had on waterwings. A few adults, three of them men, two of them women.

“It’s been a long time since I’d seen such a harmonious sight…”, I thought, of such was very short lived, as the sound of a gun shot rang off in the air, fired by the cap; I knew it to be him, for his mask was removed.

He smiles, “just wanted to get your attention, as I’d like to sincerely apologize ahead of time, for what I’m about to do, but god knows in his heart, that I am not an evil man–just felt the least I can do is offer my condolences is all.”,

He says with such conviction and sincerity, yet the picture perfect survivors, they weren’t convinced, the fear in the eyes, they told me so.

All of a sudden, the cap, places his hand up to his mouth and lets out an ear shattering whistle.

“Just for good measure–I consider myself a thorough individual”, he says, just before placing his ghillie mask back on and continuing forward; away from the river, with his ghillie suited survivors in tow.

“What was the po–”

“Get down!”, whispered one of the ghillies, as they pushed me to the plant abundant ground, cloaking me within their ghillie suit; it was her.

They all did the same, as those blank faced monsters thrashed through the thick forestry, descending unto the family of survivors, the two children crying tears of terror, watching as the only adults in their lives proceeded to be torn open and ripped apart, one of the men having numerous hands pull open his back, savagely tearing into such, his stomach looked to have said numerous hands pushing against the skin of his belly from within, causing him to vomit chunks of his own torn internal organs, such a fate inevitably claiming them all, the last to go was the water wing adorned child.

He couldn’t of been no older than six. His face was scrunched from crying tears of terror as those… things, now turned their attention onto him, they all crowded him in the river as he tried to swim away, yet I knew, his resistance, was futile.

His screams only drew more of them to his very position, which the ghillies used as a distraction to make their escape to safer environment; screams that were blood curdling, I started in the direction of the ghillie suited survivors, until, all of a sudden…

…the childs screaming stopped.

I looked back once more, and was met with the disfigured face of his, eyes completely devoid of feeling, as those things rapidly swam downstream, dragging with them, the child, that was no longer child nor a person, but now, one of them.

His eyes, dead, grayish white, as they were now, completely, without pigment, just like the rest of ‘them’, his eyes… they never deterred their gaze from mine…