This little piece of fiction was written a long while ago and was inspired by an actual event. The vast majority of this story is just fiction, however… I did go out one night with two others and attempt to check out a local legend and we did have a camera with us. It turned out to be absolutely nothing, but the seed for this story was already planted in my mind. I decided to write it in a style that is actually different from my general writing style. I wanted to capture more of the horrific and lend a sense of urgency to the descriptions. I’m still not sure how I feel about this story, but I did enjoy writing it.
—–
I found myself having a difficult time breathing as I came to the crest of the hill. I cursed myself for parking so far away from my destination. I was walking in a parking lot, completely devoid of anything except for cold and perfectly shaped parking blocks. I saw ahead another hill, but this one was much smaller. There were woods to my right, but I was certain that they were not the section I was looking for. The trees were on a hill far too steep to have unmarked graves.
As I approached the second hill I began to feel nervous. I knew in my head that it was stupid of me to go investigating like this alone. I kept telling myself that it was all right because it was daylight and I was just checking out the scene. I topped the hill and came upon a field that was likely used for soccer and other outdoor sports. I saw the woods on my right and in the distance straight ahead of me as well.
My feelings of discomfort increased. The loathsome quietness of the field enveloped my senses and wrapped me in a shroud of paranoia. My steps became more cautious and I found myself peering suspiciously into the trees. Their trunks were crowded together in a conspiratorial huddle and the branches of each damnable one swayed beckoningly in a light breeze that I swear I could not feel. The whispers of the few remaining leaves that were tinged with autumn splendor told secrets barely audible and too awful for mortals’ ears to behold.
I found, as I walked further, a discarded golf ball. I picked it up and fidgeted with it playfully while I kept a nervous eye on the gruesome woodlands around me. I tossed the ball into the distance and the woods ahead seemed to swallow it whole. It disappeared into the maw of the cursed woods. I quickened my steps to approach where I had last seen the ball, at the edge of the trees.
Hateful weeds grew and choked at the infernal trees that swished lightly in the afternoon sun. I could hear the eldritch voices better now and the terrible implications crept into the forefront of my mind. The thoughts skulked past my rational thinking and clogged my senses with the awful hellish whisperings of the dead. I knew then that I had found the right place.
That is when I heard deep within the woods the sound of a breaking branch. The crack resonated through the field and I felt suddenly very small and alone. The loathsome quiet of the woods resumed and not even the damnable trees dared to break the unspoken covenant of silence. Ice flows ran through my veins and my lungs ballooned as I tried to grapple with the horror of the quiet abomination.
I tried to walk away from the edge of the woods. I knew the graveyard was near, but it would have to wait. I began walking backward, not wanting to turn my back on the vile woods. I almost stumbled and reluctantly turned around to walk forward. The paranoia increased and I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder to see what was coming up behind me. I was having visions of dogs, dark dogs hiding behind the trees and salivating. I was having visions of deformed people walking numbly across the field toward me. Chills ran over every inch of my body all the way across the field, and then… it stopped.
I began to remember a passage I read in a book while I was in college. It was when my interest in the occult really took off. I was reading a passage from the Book of Cōtha. It was a very ancient text that had been painstakingly translated into English. It spoke about Q’Raph Tuka and his minions.
*
“In the time of the return of the Devourer, they will shamble. Those that see more than they should, will be touched by Q’Raph Tuka and the dogs of death will walk with them as they shamble and prepare the world for his coming.”
*
I dismissed the visions and recollections almost entirely. Whatever was happening, I was letting my imagination run away with me.
My feelings of fear diminished, but I could feel the presence of something right behind me. It was trying to convince me that everything was fine and there was no reason for worry. I kept checking behind me, but I foolishly bought into the scam. I walked, just as the thing wanted me to do, and I stepped into my car and drove away. For the time being I felt naively safe.
Hours later, I found myself at a friend’s house. There was a small, but determined party going on, and I felt that this would help me cope with the events of the day. We sat around and told filthy jokes and drank. It was a good time, but I was still feeling worried and suspicious about what had happened earlier.
I was drinking beer and trying not to think about all that happened earlier that afternoon. The day had been cruel and I suspected that the night would be crueler by far unless I could drink myself into forgetting. The trick didn’t work as I had expected. The only thing gained from my consumption of alcohol was that the fear was now a dizzying and confused fear, with parts of my memory missing, and parts made up on the spot. I eventually passed out on the couch.
My dreams that night were haunted by the abominable monstrosities in the woods. My mind was still trying to bend around the horrible revelations brought to me. I could only thank the stars above that my frail human brain could simply not comprehend what had been revealed to me that night. I slept as hushed voices, carried on some vile and faint wind, crept into my ears. As the night rode wickedly on, forbidden atrocities were being related to my dreaming mind. What horrible effect that would have, I could not have known.
Morning came with an uncomfortable exuberance. The sunrise came in through the windows and danced heavy across my eyelids. I was aware of my hangover before I was even full awake. It would seem that the only thing I managed to forget the night before was how susceptible I can be to the aftereffects of strong beer. It would be another week before I dared set foot toward those woods again.
***
It was Friday, near the end of October. A close friend of mine who shared my appreciation of the dead (though not on the same level) agreed to accompany me on my next outing. My friend, Edward Glenn, and I had both extensively studied the occult while we were in college. For Edward it was always more of a hobby he could discuss at parties, but for me, it was genuine passion. To my surprise, my wife also showed interest and chose to go the next time as well. I had borrowed a video camera to record the events closely. My friend, my wife, and myself drove out to the spot that had caused me so much distress in past week.
It was already dark by the time we arrived. We had three flashlights between us, plus the light on the camera. As we walked across the field, the same feelings of dread entered us all. Edward gave me a concerned look, but said nothing. My wife, Haley, walked between Edward and myself from the car to the field. Crossing the field, Haley pointed out the soccer goals in an attempt to make the situation seem less grim. Edward nodded and kept walking; he was strangely quiet through the entire crossing.
I could scarcely see the trees, for which I was thankful. In fact I could see little through the camera at all. Mostly I walked with it pointing ahead, but not actually looking through it. I had hoped that it was picking up much more than I was seeing through it. If not, then it may have been a waste.
Once we reached the edge of the woods where I had heard the branch breaking, we did one last gear check and entered the woods. Edward went in first, followed by Haley, and finally by myself. Once we were in the woods, I could see more through the camera, likely because there was less open space. I kept my eye to the camera as we climbed down a steep incline made of fallen tree branches and exposed roots. It was a hideously perfect staircase leading into the blackness of the nighttime forest. The steps were far too faultless to be accidental, far too convenient to avoid.
The trees loomed all around us, jutting out of the ground at strange and unnatural angles. The branches wove in and out of each other as if they were part of some vile living tapestry of nightmares. Many of the leaves had already fallen and the skeletal trees stood stark and black against dark night sky. The unseen roots buried beneath the tainted soil of that unholy woodland grasped for each of us slowly, to join and capture us in their circle. We were doomed, and we had no clue about it other than the random paranoia that plagued our senses.
I allowed Edward and Haley to lead since I could not see as well through the lens of the camera. We followed a barely visible path between the horrible trees that lead deeper into the forest labyrinth. No one spoke and we covered ground in silence, none of us daring to break it. I thought back to when I had first decided to seek this hidden cemetery not too long ago.
An acquaintance of mine had first related the story some weeks prior and my fascination had grown with each passing day as I fully considered the idea of checking it out myself. I knew I was no expert in this field, but curiosity had done me in.
I remember sitting while Beth told me of the old mental institution that had stood on that ground so long ago, where now a community college spread its wings. The Dorchester Asylum was designed to be a groundbreaking study in insanity. This was around the 1920’s, and no such institution really existed in this part ofVirginia. The whole plan was not so much to cure or treat the insane, but to secretly experiment with them to find out exactly what was wrong with them. This was a barbarous process, and many died and were buried in pauper’s graves in a local cemetery. There was one area that dealt with some particularly disturbing individuals. They had all contracted a physical illness that was increasing their delusional mental state.
Edward stopped in his tracks. “Over there,” he whispered as he pointed frantically with his flashlight on up ahead and to the left. There appeared to be a clearing in the distance. We started to change our direction to head toward the clearing when a rustling of leaves caused a brief, but serious, panic. We all began half-whispering, half-shouting expletives as we fearfully hunched down and turned our lights off. Haley hushed us both down and turned her light on directly where we heard the noise. There was nothing there. There were no more noises and no more hellish forest whispers from the foul denizens of that hated woodland. We all caught our breath and continued toward the clearing.
Beth had told me that her great grandfather had worked there doing janitorial work. He heard about the diseased patients that had been isolated while cleaning outside of the administrative office. He heard that it was causing their flesh to deteriorate and their mindset to worsen. Where once was insanity that may have been cured, was now simple and animalistic mentalities with even worse mental problems and less moral conscience. They no longer distinguished between right and wrong on any level. There were five of them, and they would not survive the week.
We came upon the clearing fairly suddenly after crossing a fallen tree. It was larger than we had anticipated, but empty of anything that resembled a marker. The ground was thick with weeds and rotted fallen trunks. We covered the area carefully but found nothing but empty bottles of beer and the remains of a fire. We pawed through the ashes to find something, but turned up nothings worth noting. Edward looked around and motioned for us to continue elsewhere.
Beth’s great grandfather had been assigned to help bury the five patients once they died. Him and one other man were paid generously to bury them and never speak of it to anyone. They walked deep into the woods and found a clearing. They dug a grave for each one and found large stones to mark each one, out of respect.
Some months later, Dorchester Asylum was closed for good when several of the patients escaped and committed a grisly crime. Unbelievably, seven men escaped from the prison one night during the summer of 1928. They walked through the night and came upon a young woman stranded by the roadside. They beat, raped, and disemboweled her by the road. That morning a traveler drove by and saw her body on the hood of her car, the escaped patients asleep, some in the car, some on the side of the road.
She was the daughter of Paul Holbrook, a powerful man on the city council. The asylum was shut down in a matter of weeks. The identities of the five and the location of the graves would remain a secret, for the time being. The seven men were all killed.
Edward grabbed me by the arm as I visibly shuddered at the thought of that awful crime. It made me think about the barely audible whispers that had been haunting my dreams for the past week. What was going on? I knew that some revelation was being related to my subconscious mind, but what was it? I was feeling obsessed and paranoid, and it did little to calm my fraying nerves. Edward and Haley looked at me, concerned and quiet.
I told them that I was fine, never mind me, just wondering where this supposed gravesite was. We walked on, again in silence. The only sound, that of the leaves beneath our feet, fallen and forgotten.
Haley stopped us in our tracks. She pointed off to the left with her flashlight. There was another clearing. We were standing on a vague path in the middle of the woods, a rotted stump three feet high in front of us. We all walked cautiously to the clearing, which was close by, but hard to see into due to the closeness of the awful trees.
It would have been beneficial to give up, to have just forgotten all about the graves, the story, and just went home and enjoyed the rest of our lives. It would have been the smart thing to do, the rational thing to do. We were, however, fully wrapped in the forest’s desire. It was hopeless.
The clearing was an almost perfect circle, twenty feet from edge to edge of the detestable site. It was devoid of any vegetation, and the soil was unnaturally moist, not muddy. There was nothing there, nothing except five large stones.
As we stepped into the clearing I could feel the damp ground gripping my boots with every step. We all held onto to each other as we walked because the earth was pulling hard at our feet and making balance difficult. The stones were all a grey white color, rounded and oblong, with no immediately discernable features. They were all arranged in a circle in the clearing. I approached the stones, with their presumed graves meeting near the center of the loathsome circle.
I reached out to touch one and found it utterly cold, not just to the touch, but also through my entire being and to its core, cold. I jerked my hand back. Haley must have seen the look of fear on my face. She grabbed me and pulled me away from the stone and gave me a pleading look. Edward, who was busy examining the soil a little closer, also looked up. Haley begged me to call this off, that there was something horrible and unnatural in that place. Edward sided with her, stating that the soil was moistened with a viscous fluid that he was certain was not natural or explicable. I almost relented, almost.
I explained that we had come too far and had seen too much to just turn back. I thought it would be a good idea to at least get some good footage of each stone and of the soil that seemed to cause so much alarm. Reluctantly, and with the guarantee that we would leave soon, they agreed. We taped a bit of each stone, all around them, up close and distant.
Finally we began shooting footage of the ground. It seemed silly at first, but the soil kept sucking us into it. It was black, not even a little brown, and felt almost slimy to the touch. Haley screamed. I turned and she was all the way up to her ankles in the muck. Edward and I rushed over to pull her out. It was no use, she was being pulled and soon we were too. In the struggle I dropped the camera. We tried to pull ourselves toward the stones, so we could use them to pull ourselves out. We could scarcely move, and what little we managed, worsened our state.
The black soil was slimy and grainy. As we tried to maneuver toward the outer rim of the clearing, we were slowly swallowed up. I could feel the cold wetness of the dirt creeping up my pant legs. We were all three hysterical, and tried whatever wild movements we could to get to the edge of the clearing. With each passing moment we found ourselves deeper. My legs were gone, and soon after my chest was in danger of being covered.
Slowly we sank into the grotesque earth, we found ourselves up to our necks. Haley kept praying and reminding me how much she loved me. Edward was in tears, knowing he would never again lay his eyes on his wife or his child. I tried desperately to comfort them between my screams for help. Suddenly we heard a rustling nearby.
Our fears forgotten, we all began shouting for attention and rescue. We thought for sure that some strangers out in the woods that night had heard our screams and had come to save us. Our flashlights were long gone, save one, which was still floating nearby on top of the foul soil. Its dimming beam of light caught movement in the trees. We all strained our eyes to see what was coming. My heart sank as I heard a low growl and remembered my earlier vision of the dogs.
The first figure shambled into view, deformed and rotted, moaning. Four others and five large black dogs followed it. Haley began to scream again. I shuddered in horror, unable to make a sound, unable to comfort my companions any longer. One dog ran forward, past me and tore into Edward’s face. His screams and shrieks of pain too much for a friend to bear. It only lasted a few moments and he was gone. Another dog walked over casually and joined the first in its meal.
Two other dogs attacked my dear wife Haley. I tried so hard to get up; I tried so hard to struggle against the impossible earth. Its weight crushing me against my resistance, I writhed and yelled. I spat and cursed at them, not caring any longer about my own fate. I watched as my wife went silent, and her head stopped thrashing about. I watched as the two dogs sat down in lazy comfort to finish eating.
I looked at the mangled faces of the dead before me. The skin on their heads was tattered and barely clinging to shards of bone. Their clothes were covered in a black layer of filth and slime. Their faces held no expressions, no hints to their motive or mood. They moved in and stared at me.
The fifth dog began walking toward me. He was growling when he approached my head. He barked once and I could feel the heat of his breath on my skin long after I felt his first lunge tearing the flesh from my screaming face.
- ©1999 Jeremy Bethel
