Written by
S.K.SAINI
- Chapter 1 -
Witness
It is a stormy night on the 15th of January, 2005; everyone is soundly sleeping, cats were marauding happily down the street, wondering around curiously near the neighbour’s houses and three girls (me included) were strutting along the outskirts of Hector. Coming back from a friend’s party and heading towards home, Kate Hampton, Juliet Singer and I were talking amongst ourselves. Thinking back I realized that after this night, all our lives were changed forever and there was no going back from it.
Kate Hampton is my best friend. We have known each other for almost our whole life. She has blonde, long hair which ends at the small of her back, and when you look at her baby blue eyes they pierce right through your body. For looks, Kate is pretty, but sometimes the acne on her face demolishes the prettiness. But I don’t care about that. Kate and I have this sisterly bond, we both know straight away whether either one of us are in trouble or sad. She is the nicest person you could ever meet. She is one of those friends who would come over straight away when you become sick; she is one of those friends who would see through to the end of the day that you’d get better.
Juliet Singer is my other friend. She isn’t as close to me as Kate is, but she is good person. She is the only one who would help make decisions that impact our friendship. Sometimes Juliet has an anger problem, and she always takes it out on other people. Horrible I know, but she is basically the tough one of our trio. She has an older sister and her parents fight a lot. My mum doesn’t really like Juliet coming over as much because she was afraid that she might influence me into drugs or something. Juliet isn’t anything like Kate. Unlike Kate who would come over and help you, Juliet will be the kind of person who will tell you to get over it and suck it up. There was a reason why I wasn’t as close to her as Kate, a reason why were didn’t really bond with each other as much, because Juliet liked to say what she thought with no regard to the persons feelings or emotions. She is a very direct and controlling person. Maybe the reason we became friends in the first place, is because she is honest, and honesty is a good thing my opinion, even if it can be vicious.
We are walking silently now, and my heart is smashing into my chest. I look around me, and see only trees and houses. I try not to look up at the sky. I hate the dark. I just hate it. Maybe because I know what’s out there in the dark, things that can get to you before you can even react. I am a paranormal freak. I love reading about mysterious and scary mythical creatures and ghosts. I guess the consequences resulted in my phobia of the dark. You never know what’s out there. Just watching. Waiting. Great, now I’m paranoid. That’s what I get for letting my mind do all the thinking.
We are still walking down the street when a roll of thunder sounded. Kate stopped walking and looked up in fright. Juliet and I both stopped when we realized that she wasn’t with us.
“What the hell was that? Was that thunder?” She looked at me and Juliet with her eyes wide open. Juliet and I looked at each other. Kate has a phobia of thunder. We both nodded and started dragging Kate along as we started up walking along the sidewalk. Another crash of thunder filled the quiet night, followed by a streak of lightning which hit nearby power lines. Suddenly it became very dark and I didn’t like it at all. Shit.
This time it was me who looked around in fright, and because I have a phobia of the dark, I panicked even more. I grabbed a hold on Kate’s shirt.
“I can’t see anything! It’s too dark!” I cried out in fear. Kate pulled my hands away from her shirt and calmed me down softly. She was still trembling from before. Juliet just rolled her eyes at me. So much for helping me.
“You don’t have to be scared, we’re with you, and nothing is going to hap-“
Kate’s words were cut off by the sound of running footsteps near the trees. “What the hell was that?” whispered Kate fearfully, as she looked at me and Juliet once again with wide, shocked eyes. She jumped at basically anything, and always caused the rest of us to freak out a little.
“It-It sounds like someone running,” I said, I tried to comfort her a little, but my own heart was racing nonetheless. It’s just someone running, right? What else could it be?
“It’s coming this way!” hissed Juliet quietly.
We all held our breath, our hearts pumping and beating so fast you’d think we ran a marathon. I felt Kate stiffen beside me in panic.
The footsteps were getting louder. I was more terrified because I couldn’t see anything and the thunder and lightning seemed to make my phobia worse.
Juliet screamed and I think my heart almost failed, not to mention the height in which we all jumped in the air.
“Piss off Harley!” screamed Juliet angrily, as she pushed a laughing Harley Groves out of her way.
Harley Groves is in the same year level as us. He is the type of guy, who wanted to be hated by everyone, and so he annoyed everybody with his brainless and lame made up jokes, his irritating voice and sleazy gestures. Even though he brought it on himself, I kind of felt sorry for him. And by kind of I mean such a tiny feeling that it doesn’t even register that I’m feeling like that.
Did I mention he was a complete sleaze bag?
Harley burst out laughing, his crooked teeth visible as his mouth opened wide with laughter. The idiot tried to scare us and won. Kate and I were pulling Juliet back to stop her from beating the crap out of Harley. At one point Kate accidently let go of her arm but quickly grabbed it again. Harley jumped back from Juliet playfully.
“I’m surprised you haven’t been put on a leash, Singer. You need to be tied up,” teased Harley as he came closer and closer to a fuming Juliet, who was starting to go red in the face from seething anger.
“Shut up Harley!” I yelled angrily while still trying to restrain a fuming Juliet.
“Although the fantasy of you being tied up is actually better than I thought it would be,” Juliet growled and tried to claw Kate and I, as she tried freeing herself to attack Harley. But Harley ran away laughing uncontrollably because he knew that he stirred up the raging animal in Juliet.
“Juliet!” I panted, as Kate and I were struggling with a scratching and angry Juliet. “Stop it! You’re stooping down to his level!” This last line stopped Juliet, and after a few seconds of calmness, when Kate and I thought it was safe to unhand Juliet, we let her go carefully. She whipped around to face us angrily, her eyes piercing with accusation and hatred.
“Why the fuck did you two grab me for?” Kate and I looked at each other like that wasn’t the easiest question in the world.
“We grabbed you because you would’ve attacked Harley,” Kate said even more angrily, mainly because Juliet had sweared at us. Juliet turned to Kate, I could see the anger etched in the lines of her face, and I wondered at this point why I became friends with Juliet. She is such an angry person, I had no idea how I became friends with her in the first place.
“Whose side are you on Kate?” seethed Juliet angrily. “Are you on Harley’s side?” Kate stammered, but I jumped in to save her. Kate never really did well in fights. I turned to Juliet angrily.
“How can you talk to your own friend like that? We are not on anyone’s side. Yes he was in the wrong with what he said, but you are also in the wrong when you tried to attack him. That makes you no better than he is,” Juliet fumed even more, but we all froze in shock as a sickening scream shattered the conversation to silence.
“What was that?” whispered Juliet to Kate and me fearfully.
“I think that sounded a lot like Harley don’t you think?” I said to Juliet and Kate, also at the same time trying to hear the screaming phenomenon again. Kate nodded in agreement.
“I think it –“ But Kate was cut off by Juliet who quickly shushed her.
“Shhh! Can you hear that?” All three of us suddenly became quiet, and sure enough the same scream was heard, but this time it was moving further away. Juliet started running and stupidly, Kate and I instantly did the same. We ran along the road, our loud running footsteps scraped the pavement as we ran faster and faster, the sound of the scream was getting closer and closer and my heart was thumping in my chest it hurt. It was still too dark to see, but with the help of dim streetlights, I was following Juliet and Kate. As we ran across the road, we headed to Denway Park. The sound of the scream had to be here, I wondered in my head while running and nearly tripping over at the same time. The sound of the scream was so close, we all halted in our steps with shock at what we saw.
In the night we could barely see, a black hooded figure kneeling over something, sucking noises coming from its black hood, like it was eating something, I knew then that the creature was eating someone. The person was making gargling and choking noises. My gut was pulled back and I suddenly felt sick in the stomach. Suddenly the person became quiet. I turned my face away and took a big gulp of air to take the queasiness away. Kate accidently stood on a twig making the black hooded creature look up from his prey and look in our direction. We all froze, trying not to move. I think my heart stopped for that moment. It just kept looking at our direction as if it couldn’t see us. Luckily for us it didn’t seem to see anything, and after what felt like forever, the creature went back to devouring the poor soul who was lying helplessly on the ground.
I felt my heart start beating again; it was beating frantically against my chest. I looked at Kate’s face, it was filled with horror and shock, and Juliet’s face seemed to be a bit sick. The three of us stayed halted in the same place, unable to move, afraid it would actually see us this time.
When the creature finished, it stood up. It was as tall as a full grown man, we all kept silently still, not even breathing, afraid the creature was going to find us too, but all it did was open its black cape, with hands I couldn’t see, and to our uttermost horror, sprouted black wings. It protruded from its thick body, and with the wings flapping so powerfully, it flew off from the ground and into the clouds.
The three of us waited for a couple of minutes in case the creature came back, but when it didn’t we all slowly headed cautiously to where the dead mass lay gruesomely mangled on the Park ground. We all gasped in shock as we reached the body. Judging from its hair, and mangled face, it was indeed Harley Groves, the lifeless body lay still and silent. Kate burst into loud tears and Juliet quickly took her away from the body, telling her to shut up at the same time. I didn’t follow them, but I did move closer to the body because something had caught my eye. I didn’t go too close however, but the body was laid in an awkward angle, his stomach was ripped wide open and all the insides were nearly, completely eaten away, leaving chunks of intestine and possibly other organs lying on his body and on the ground.
Shit. I covered my mouth with my sleeve, afraid at the thought that I might chuck up all over the dead body. I don’t know why I did it but I started examining his face, with my sleeve still on my mouth.
The skin was viciously ripped apart at the forehead down to the nose. The only way I could identify Harley was because of his unique stud which was now dangling from what was left of his lip. My eyes remained on Harley’s mangled face, studying every tear that was used to be his skin. It seemed like the creature has claws. I could see the muscles through the torn skin. There was a bleeding hole where his left eye used to be. His right eye was torn open, and a white fluid was seeping out of what was left of his eye.
I looked further down near his stomach area where his chewed up organs lay on the ground. I gulped back a bit of vomit and moved my face away from the body to breathe. After a couple of minutes when my stomach settled down, I turned back to the body. I over-looked the intestines and looked at the gaping hole in what used to be Harley’s stomach. Nearly everything was gone. It was like the creature had sucked out nearly everything of his insides, spilling out bits of flesh around the body.
As I was gawking at Harley’s open stomach, something else caught my eye. Something solid was protruding out of his left jacket pocket and curiosity got the best of me as usual. I pulled my sleeves up further and made sure my hand was covered; I reached into his left pocket and pulled out a small black bag. I examined it carefully and instantly knew what it was. The hex bag was the size of my palm, it had white string tied tightly around it and an unusual aroma was coming from the bag. The smell wasn’t strong, but it was sifting through my nose, making my stomach lurch again. My gut suddenly had a bad feeling and I knew that this hex bag meant no good. But nevertheless I carefully got a spare plastic bag from my purse and put the hex bag into it. I shoved the plastic bag into my own bag and continued to examine the body. I know I shouldn’t be doing it, but for some reason a feeling was telling me I had to.
I got up, unable to look at the body again. I looked up at the sky, it was still overcast and dark, and my brain went into panic mode once again. Calm down, I comforted myself as I looked away from the sky. I have bigger problems than the dark right now. Yeah, real comforting Selena, that’s real helpful right now.
Near the bushes, Kate and Juliet were standing near the trees, watching me look at something on the ground.
“How can she even go near the body?” sobbed Kate quietly. Juliet patted her back once and quickly took her arm away.
“She can handle these kinds of things. We can’t,” whispered Juliet resentfully.
“What the hell was that thing?” said Kate, whose voice was getting louder by every word. Juliet shushed her and looked to where I was.
After I finished, I got up and went to Kate and Juliet who were huddled by the bushes.
“Are you done?” Juliet said quietly. I nodded speechless. Kate was listening attentively. “What happened?”
I looked at them, all the clues and evidence that was stuck in my mind, it felt so terrible I didn’t want to say it. I gulped back tears that were finally trying to come out.
“From the looks of it, Harley was chased down and fatally attacked like we saw,” Kate looked worryingly at Juliet. But Juliet’s stern look still didn’t change.
“How do you know he was chased down? You can’t conclude a hypothesis just from looking at the body,”
“From what we heard it was pretty obvious. I wasn’t only looking at the body. Follow me,” I showed Kate and Juliet a fine patch of green grass near Harley’s body. “Have a look closely, you can barely see it but you’ll see footprints,”
Kate and Juliet leaned in close where the grass was. You had to lean in pretty close to see because there was no moonlight and sure enough, there was a one set of footprints that was imprinted in the grass, but there was something wrong.
“The footprints are like one foot away from the body,” said Kate, who was still half sobbing. “How is that?” Juliet realized what Kate was on about and turned to me for answers.
“Well Sherlock Holmes, what do you think?” I gave Juliet a dirty look; I always hated it when Juliet called me Sherlock Holmes, she made it like I was some kind of crazy person that loves playing detective all the time, which wasn’t true of course.
“I realized it when I was walking back to you guys actually. I think that the creature was chasing after Harley, grabbed him while it was still flying and killed him right there,” I indicted the bloody mass that lay on the ground two feet away from us. I wiped tears that were slowly coming out of my eyes.
“What makes you think he was running?” asked Kate fearfully, as she deliberately avoided looking at Harley’s dead corpse. I showed them the footprints again; clearly you could see that the footprints were far away from each other.
“The footsteps are far apart from each other. When we walk, the footsteps are closer together. But when you are running, your footsteps have a larger gap between them. Then there is a large break where his footsteps and body are,” I quickly wiped away more tears. “Because the creature can fly, we can only assume it must’ve grabbed him. Plus you know what we heard before this happened. If it were flying at you, you’d run too,” We all looked at the dead, eaten corpse of Harley Groves.
Also, I was wondering, if I was to make an official facebook page of my author name (which includes everything in my blog), will people join it? I'm afraid they won't, so I was wondering, should I do it? Also what did you think of my chapter? Will it make people want more? Thanks. :D Please pass this blog to everyone you know. :D
