Guidlines

ELEVEN

Darkness replaced by darkness, flecks of brown wood dotted throughout clouds of black. Tasha has fled away into the dark,  her direction became untraceable split seconds after her last noisy trample through the underbrush. Izzy collapsed against me. holding my shoulders, huge beneath her arms. My weight to much for her to handle. The only way we would move on was for me to pick myself up. I could hear her voice begging me to move, to get up. Body and mind seperaring into two separate beings. My brain yelling to run while my body forced me still, keeping me flat against the cold earth.
Something heavy and hard slams against my ribcage, Jordan's face, heavy and hard, identical to his foot now being pulled away from my ribcage. His voice reached my ears, mear seconds later.
"Get the fuck up" his voice too had twisted into somthing unnatural, something I'd never heard escape from him before, he screams at me again, this time my mind and body working together to lift me up. My vision still broken but getting clearer. Colours and shapes now coming in to a existence. A dark figure lay yards from me unmoving, I didn't need to see it's face to know it was Clay.
Izzy now clutching him her fingers against his neck. She lets out a scream confirming his leaving of the earthly plane.
Again Izzy was slamming against my body, this time pushing me towards the direction she thought Tasha had gone.
"We need to get help" I tell her pulling away, there would be someone at the front desk, the old lady. There would be a working phone where we could call the police. Izzy and Jordan should know this to but for some reason it wasn't reaching their minds.
"We have to find Dalles and the others" she says.
"Theres no fucking way im leaving Kian here, not a chamce in hell" Jordan adds shoving my shoulder as he makes his way past me still scrubbing at his eyes. I debate fighting them, forcing them to turn back, until Sharla jumps to the front of my mind, she was out here somewhere. In the dark surrounded by trees and noises. The cold air stinging her cheeks.
The temperature was dropping quickly, who idea was it to come to a stupid cabin at the end of summer. It shouldn't be this cold. Somthing told me the chill in the air was a premonition of the darkness surrounding tonight and the horrors that were still waiting out there in the night.
It felt like forever until somthing happened. A small whimper echoing from the bushes a hundred yards from us. For a momment none of us moved. Too stunned to venture any further. The sound was almost inhuman.   A bird crying with the last of its lung power.
"Go!" Izzy whispers stepping behind me like a shield. Jordan had to stepped forward to act as a kind of barrier between Izzy and the noise from the bushes. It was dark. I could bearly see my hand stretched out before me. I would have to get close to the bushes if I had any chance in seeing what they hid.
I take my first step in silence, my second the same. My third brakes a twig, impossible for me to say. Screams circle me from the front and from behind it was unclear which one had started the chain reaction but Jordan had begun to scream and without noticing my mouth was wide. High pitched sounds escaping from it. Tasha's body slams against my chest, before my arms can catch her she bounces backwards crashing against the ground with a wine landing in a feral position in the ground begging for help.
"Tasha, it Grayson" I say. Instantly her cries end and she's on her feet wrapping her arms around me. Izzy and Jordan come up from behind each giving their hands in sympathy or support, which one wasn't entirely clear.
Now that the pain had subsided in my eyes they started adjusting to the dark. I could make out the path leading to the lake and decided to venture on. The forest was vast, a maze in the day light. At Night it was impossible to find your way around yet somehow we where.
Suddenly out of nowhere a small beam of light burst into view down by the lake, near the end of the path, where the dock ended and the actual lake began. Bound and gagged inside of a canoe Gen lay sobbing unable to move, a lump the size and colour of a plum protruding from her forehead.
"Gen" Tasha screams, pushing away from me, the ringing in my ears lasting longer than one would think natural.
By the time it happened it was too late to do anything. It happened within a second. A single blink of the eye and it could of been missed. Tasha's face smashed against the dirt tripping over an invisible line. Setting off a chain reaction. None of us noticed the electric wireing wrapped around her body leading up connecting to the round exposed light mains above her. Two of the wooden beams supporting the dock collapse bellownthe canoe dropping it and Gen into the water bellow. The flash of light forced my arm to my eyes. Then came the sound, the sharp vibrating zap of electric making contact with the water.
The bulb shattering, sending shards of glass across the water. Tasha's voiced filled the air. A banshee in the night.
"I don't know what going on" Jordan says taking lead to see the water. He turns unable to look at the scene in front of him.
"We need to find someone to help" I say
"We can't leave them here" Izzy says
"If we stay we are all going to die" I tell them stepping away.
"We are already dead" Tasha says almost an unhearable whisper. She takes off cannon balling into water killing herself. Screams once again filled the air from Izzy. She yells for Dalles taking off into the woods disappearing from sight. Jordan grabs me and we follow her voice through the dark.
"We can't just leave them there" ibtell Jordan but he isn't listening. Instead he pulls me. A death grip around my arm.
" your friends your girlfriend is out there do you really want to leave them here to be killed by who ever attacked us" he says his voice loud in my ear. He releases hid grip to leave me to make my decision. To my surprise I keep moving deeper in the forest following a girl who had fallen silent. Time had begun to lose it's meaning. I didn't know how long we had been walking. How how long it had been since Izzy last shouted out for Dalles. For all I knew we had passed her. The man who attacked us could have found her wondering around on her own and taken her out, snapping her neck silently without her even knowing he was there.
The thought of her body laying in the leaf litter fades away as her silhouette appears from behind a tree.
"Izzy, No!" Jordan yells lunging forward unable to reach her. The snap of metal reaches my ears a second before Izzy's screams, no normal screams. These were the screams of pain, a blinding white pain that couldn't be explained by words. The silhouette now crouched low to the ground screaming in agony. We fell beside her simulationusly. A large metal cage had clamped itself around her ankle. The filthy nails of a homemade bear trap skewering deep into her skin and bone. Droplets of blood seeping out of the edges. Jordan pulls at the metal frame causing rosy liquid to squirt outwards as the jagged nail gouge the flesh around them. Izzy fills the forest with her screams again.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, shit" Jordan says pulling his hands away, his eyes puffy with tears.
"What do we do Grayson" he says, eyes shining in the rays of moonlight. My brain hurt. We had to get her ankle out of the trap. Removing a spring loaded trap that clamped shut every time it was pried open wasnt going to be easy. Now disturbed the blood puddled out around the trap soaking into the earth. The bottom of the contraption burried into the ground to deep to dig up in a hurry but none the less I tell Jordan to start digging into the ground. The layer of blood that had collected on the ground felt like slime on my hands, dirt under my fingernails scraping away handful after handful of dirt from around the trap.
"This is taking to long" Jordan says, Izzy had lain back moaning.
"Okay, give me your belt" I tell him also removing the jumper from my body. I wrap his belt around her leg just bellow the knee pulling it as tight as will go. Giving her my jumper to bite down on.
"We have to open the trap, I'll pull it open, as soon as I do. You have to pull her okay" I tell him. Jordan moves to Izzy's head grabbing the underside of her arms  ready to pull like his life depended on it.
"Okay, 3"
"2"
"1" I cram my fingers into the gap between the teeth using my foot to stretch the jaws open, a couple of nails sink into the sole of my shoe slightly stabbing into the hidden skin inside.
"Pull" I scream to Jordan, when her ankle comes away I let go. The teeth on the other side of the mouth burry into my shoe holding it tight. I almost don't hear the muffled screams coming from Izzy as I unlase my shoe removing my foot. Jordan had moved to hold the belt tight stopping the blood from pouring out of the puncture holes.
"Help me pick her up" I ask him, hooking her left arm over my shoulders and Jordan doing the same. It was hard to tell, but her skin had changed, growing pale like all of the blood had left her body leaving her an empty vassal.
A small clearing sat ahead Jordan giving it a once over for any traps that could give us another nasty surprise then sitting Izzy down to give her leg a once over. The blood was still coming out of her quickly and the bone was twisted at a horrible angle. Broken I thought finding out two thick stick laying on the ground using them to straighten out the leg. Jordan gave me back my jumper which I use to keep the sticks in place pulling the arms tight.
"We should take her back to the cabin" I ask more than say, nobody argues so we begin the trip back to the cabin. There would be somthing there to help her. A first aid kit. Water. It took 20 minutes of limping until the warm lights of the cabin came into view.
"Watch out" Izzy says forcing us to stop just before my bare foot lands on a long row of nails. We help her over and sit her down on the swing chair on the wooden patio.
Jordan heads inside to find a first aid kit while I get a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
A loud thud pulls my attention back to the front door.
"What was that" Jordan says reappearing florescent green bag in hand. A silver cross printed on the front of the bag. Together we make our way back on to the porch. Izzy had been sent backwards against the wooden wall, a long metal arrow shot through The middle of her head pinning her against the wall. Her eyes still twitching, in wordable sounds coming from her slightly parted lips.
Jordan hits the ground hard, the sight of another dead friend taking his consciousness. My eyes prickled with tears I feel my heart sink into my stomach. Shouts echo out of the woods. Silohouttes appear quickly forming into running figures, a limping Kian falling behind Sharla a dozen lunges ahead of him. In the back Dalles came through the bushes his slightly over weight figure keeping him behind. He punches at leaves moving them from his face before they make contact. His eyes land on Izzy's body, now still. He pauses for a second taking it in. A second to long. A hooded figure appears behind bring a long spiked pole down into the crease of his neck. 10 inches deep rendering him still. His eyes flutter and his legs give way sending him to the floor. I grab Jordan's legs and drag him inside of the cabin keeping my eyes fixed on the figure stepping forward slowly making his way towards the cabin. Sharla roles through the door tripping over Jordan's unconsious body. Kian came in next jumping on top of Jordan, yelling his name.
My body slams against the door slamming it shut behind them.
The figure bangs against the door. Ominous and calling. Not really trying to brake in but making his presence known.
"What the hell is going on" Sharla screams like a crazed lunatic smacking her hands against her head in a blind panic.
"Is that blood" she screams again pointing at the brain matter sprayed against the wall.
"What the fuck" she screams a finale time before losing her breath and falling to the ground beside Jordan. Leaving me alone with Kian, holding his shoulder grinding his teeth from the pain.