Last part! Sorry it's a little longer than the rest, I just wanted to finish posting the story. The whole post is pretty rough in my opinion, and I can't say I'm pleased with it, so please say whatever comes to mind and tear it up! Thanks for reading!
*Rated 18 for violence
Monster, part five
This wasn’t her first time hiking; she was always outdoors if she could help it. Ever since she was a little girl, she had loved the verdant grass, the wonderfully blue skies, the animals. As she walked briskly along the trail now, her ponytail bobbing along in time with her bouncy steps, she inhaled the clean air.
Nothing like a little excursion to forget about life’s less enjoyable aspects.
She smiled as a bird flew gracefully across her path. It was getting steeper now, and the road was less clear. No real challenge for her, though. She stepped nimbly along, until her foot was arrested by a yell that pierced the air.
She froze, wondering whether she had imagined it, but then another one sounded, and she hurried closer to the source. “Who’s there?” she called.
Another yell, and she sprinted towards it. She burst into a small clearing a ways off the trail and gasped.
A man was there, armed with several different guns. He was on the ground, clawing wildly at his skin. There were scratches all over his arms. She backed up, wondering whether he was a maniac. She felt for her bottle of Mace and gripped it reassuringly.
He screamed in agony, and she noticed his skin had a dark hue. His eyes were wide with fright or pain, and they locked onto her face.
She stared back at him, watching in horror as blood dripped from his mouth. He rasped something, and she shook her head, scared. “I don’t understand you.”
He raised a shaking, purplish hand and made a gun with it, then pointed at his head.
“Someone tried to kill you?” she asked, glancing around and half expecting someone to come rushing towards her with a gun.
The man shook his head and shakily pointed to a gun that was laying a little ways away from him. She stepped forward hesitantly and gently picked it up.
“You want this?” she asked, coming closer. He gave one short nod, and she knelt down beside him, handing it to him.
But he grabbed the nozzle and aimed it at his head. She shrieked and let go. The gun fell next to him, and his spastic hand released the barrel.
“What is the matter?” she cried, tears of fear and tension running down her cheeks.
The man didn’t answer her. Instead, his eyes bulged and his pupils seemed to dilate until there was nothing left but a rim of white around the black circle. She squealed in horror and backed away, picking up the gun.
“Stay away from me!” she cried, her hands shaking.
An ear-splitting scream left the man’s mouth, and she covered her ears, sobbing. His skin suddenly ripped and the noise intensified, until suddenly his head seemed to literally pop off of his shoulders with an awful tearing, cracking noise. The screech was cut off and she stared in horror as the rest of the body burst, revealing a large, black, almost human-shaped creature standing there. She couldn’t move; could only watch as the creature doubled over and gagged. A whitish thing fell out of its mouth in a puddle of spittle and slime, and she saw a maggoty creature flipping on the ground.
A horrified shriek left her and the black thing turned to her. It advanced, and she lifted the gun that had been the man’s. She pulled the trigger and it blasted the thing in front of her.
“Stay away!” she screamed, backing away wildly and trying to fire again. “You monster!”
The thing only came closer, and batted the gun out of her hands. She turned to run, but it grabbed her by the back of her neck and dragged her back into the clearing, where it dropped her on the ground. She tried to rise, but it struck her with its hand and she fell back, unconscious.
The monster gently lifted the maggot-like creature and placed it on her face, opening her mouth as wide as it would go. The maggot undulated like a caterpillar as it went in and slid smoothly down her throat. The black creature released her mouth, satisfied that its job was done. Soon, she would wake, thinking nothing was wrong with her. She wouldn’t realize that she had a young one inside of her, controlling her to kill other people without her ever remembering doing the deed. It would worm its way through her mouth so it could bite through the skulls and suck down the brains, those things that allowed it to form into a human-like creature and finally be released from its host.
The creature looked almost distastefully at its former host, now in pieces. He had killed its mother when it had just been a pupa itself. When he had fainted, it had crawled over and slithered into him, knowing that it would later have its revenge on him. Now he was dead; a chunk of skin containing an eyeball stared up at it. With something that could be called contempt, the monster stepped on it, crushing it completely. Then it left the clearing.
As the afternoon sun waned, she awoke. Sitting up groggily, she glanced around her. A foggy memory of something bad lurked in the recesses of her mind, but she couldn’t remember anything aside from walking merrily along the trail. As she looked, her eyes fell upon several spots of blood on the ground and trees, and she gasped in horror.
I wonder what happened.
With a shudder, she stood and backed away. Once she reached the trail, she started down it hurriedly. I’m never coming back here, she promised. Too many weird things; and what an awful dream I had. There was something terrifying, I remember. She reached the end of the trail and got into her car. As she started the engine, she glanced back at the forest trail. There was some aura of horror surrounding that place; she could feel it. But she couldn’t remember anything definite, and only one word rose in her mind as her dream flitted consciously around her mind.
Monster.
