This is a Roma Gray Trick-or-Treat Thriller. Enjoy!
“Here we are,” announced Danny. He skidded his bike to a stop and in one fluid motion leapt off, allowing the bike to fall with a clatter to the dying, yellow grass. He could hardly wait to see the expressions on his friends’ faces. He knew they’d be thrilled.
“What? I don’t get it,” asked Kerry, stopping his own bike but remaining firmly planted on the seat. His freckled face scrunched up in displeasure while his icy-blue eyes reproached Danny. “A clump of trees and blackberry bushes? We rode our bikes for nearly an hour for this?”
Danny grunted, expressing his disappointment.
“It’s a thicket,” he retorted sharply. “My uncle and I spotted it when we were driving around last weekend. He wouldn’t let me go in there, but I knew—well, I thought I knew—you guys would want to check it out.”
Vince rode his bike toward the other two, still huffing and puffing from the long ride, his extra pounds, as always, tiring him out quickly. Trying to hide how far he had fallen behind, Vince pedaled hard at the end and came in fast. Then, in an overly dramatic gesture, he slid his bike sideways at Kerry, spraying gravel and dirt at his friend’s feet.
“Hey!” yelled back Kerry, flinching and raising his hands in a defensive move, small pebbles bouncing against his jeans and pinging off of his bike.
“Shut up, Kerry, I think it’s cool,” announced Vince defiantly as he dropped his bike with a loud clang next to Danny’s bike.
Kerry’s frown intensified.
Danny smugly smiled back at Kerry and said, “So, are you going to be the wet blanket here today? You know the rules: Wet blanket has to be a slave to the others for a week.”
Vince released a wicked laugh, rubbing his hands together in a show of eager anticipation.
“That means you have to hold open a door and bow as we walk in,” Vince began, ticking off the duties on his fingers, “and then you have to wear my mom’s apron to the skate park…”
“What? No way!” exclaimed Kerry, neighing back in his bike seat like a frightened horse.
“BWHahaHAhaha!” Vince raised and lowered the tone in his voice in an attempt to make this second laugh sound more evil than the first. A sadistic gleam flickered in his mischievous, brown eyes. “Club rules…and I have far worse things than that in mind…”
Kerry groaned and said, “Ok, ok. I’m in, geez, I’m so sick and tired of all these stupid club rules…”
The others shot him a dirty look, and he gulped hard. Being grumpy was another violation of the club rules. Kerry was sinking fast.
With a forced smile on his face, Kerry quickly added, “I mean…cool. Yeah, yeah, this…this will be fun!”
Vince and Danny simultaneously crossed their arms and glared back at him, unhappy with his unconvincing performance.
Kerry turned a little pale. “No really guys, I’m on board. Let’s do this!”
Vince and Danny locked eyes, silently communicating their judgement on Kerry’s behavior. Several seconds passed, and then a few more, all the while Kerry visibly sweated their decision. Finally, Vince and Danny each returned a short nod, satisfied that they had made their point. Kerry gave a sigh of relief and got off his bike, carefully using his kick stand to keep the bike upright. He then fastidiously brushed the dirt and gravel off of his shoes and pants.
“Should we hide the bikes?” asked Vince, his gaze shifting back to the winding, country road. “If your uncle drives by, looking for you maybe, and sees your bike…”
Danny let out a small squeak. “I hadn’t thought of that. Grab them up, and let’s stash them.”
After moving their bikes behind a clump of rhododendrons, the boys followed an old gravel path up to a bramble of blackberry bushes where a hole leading into the thicket beckoned them. The boys stood in awe as they peered cautiously inside. Very little light filtered into the dark recesses of the thicket, revealing only a few ghostly, twisted shapes of what Danny presumed to be trees. From the menacing gloom, the hum of unseen insects grew unnaturally loud.
“You know, it’s Labor day,” said Kerry suddenly.
“So?” asked Danny, expecting another complaint. Probably scared he’ll get leaves in his hair…
“So, we’re having a BBQ at the house. I…I don’t want to be late. My mom might come looking for me, and she’d be furious if she knew I went in there.”
“She won’t find you in there,” laughed Danny. “No one knows we’re here.”
Kerry cleared his throat and pointed into the hole. “Is that a spider web? I’m allergic to spider bites. All insect bites, actually…”
“Wet blanket,” the two other boys instantly repeated in unison.
Kerry froze. Club rules were, if two member called you a name in unison three times, you must be penalized. He snapped his mouth shut, his lips disappearing into a thin line.
“Come on, let’s do this,” said Vince, his voice growing eager. “Man, that place looks freaky!”
With Danny leading the way, one by one the boys climbed through the opening, emitting a few yelps as the blackberry bushes caught their clothes and prickly thorns scratched their skin. After a few uncomfortable moments, the three emerged on the other side. Danny blinked hard while his eyes adjusted to the dim light, but when his vision began to sharpen, he was left speechless.
It was like entering an alien world.
The dense tree canopy, which was already changing to autumn colors, painted the thicket a ghastly yellowish-gray hue. The color reminded Danny of old photographs his grandmother kept in boxes up in her attic, and the thick dust motes which glittered and danced like pixie dust around them only reinforced this mental image.
“Kerry was right about the spiders,” muttered Vince. “Big time.”
Danny nodded. Everywhere it seemed, spider webs hung thickly off the ivy covered trees, each one speckled with indistinguishable bugs. Many small saplings, he noted, had long since died, no doubt a result of the lack of sunlight and the relentless ivy which had a strangle hold on nearly everything.
Danny looked over to Kerry, expecting him to complain about the spiders, but he said nothing. Instead, the silence was broken by Vince who let out a ragged cough.
Finally, clearing his throat, Vince muttered, “It smells really bad in here.”
Danny had to agree. The combination of decaying vegetation, stagnate water, and lack of ventilation had made the air thick and heavy. The smell reminded him of the reptile cage at the zoo.
“Wet blanket,” snickered Kerry.
Vince narrowed his eyes in aggravation.
“Come on, let’s look around,” said Danny, forging ahead.
The boys stepped carefully, the ivy, dead ferns, and fallen leaves making it difficult to see the rocks underneath. Danny could hear the gravel path crunching under their feet as they continued into the thicket and wondered if it led to something. He received his answer sooner than he expected; the boys rounded a massive hedge of blackberry bushes and abruptly stopped, shocked by the unexpected discovery.
“Look at that!” said Kerry.
Before them stood a two-story house. It looked ancient, with broken windows, rain gutters hanging down, and ivy climbing all the way up the walls and onto the roof. Gray steaks of dirt and mold ran down the sides of the formerly white house like tear stains.
Movement caught Danny’s eyes, and his gaze shot to a window on the second floor. His heart skipped a beat as he saw one of the lace curtains in the window shift from right to left. Focusing hard on the window now, he watched to see if he could make out an outline of a hand. He did not see a hand or anything else that would imply that someone was in the room watching them. The curtain also remained perfectly still now, forcing Danny to second guess what he thought he saw.
Is it possible this weird place is making me imagine things? He wondered.
Danny glanced at the other two. Their expressions reflected one of curious wonder as they continued to examine the rest of the house. They clearly had not seen anything.
“That looks like the haunted house we visited last Halloween,” said Kerry excitedly, now caught up in the moment of discovery. A happy smile stretched across his face, a rare occurrence for the perpetually uptight and frightened boy. Danny did not think he had ever seen Kerry smile like this before.
“Do you think someone lives in there?” asked Vince.
Kerry shook his head. “Nah, don’t be stupid. This was obviously abandoned a long time ago. There’s no way for a car to even get in here. Who could possibly live here?”
“I’m not stupid, I was just asking, geez…” grumbled Vince, but their find was far too thrilling for him to sulk for long. A second later his face lit up, and he said, “Let’s go in!”
Kerry and Vince took off toward the house’s front porch in a dead run. Danny did not follow; instead, he looked back up at the window. He saw no movement, no face in the window, no suspicious anything. He briefly glanced back down to Vince and Kerry. They had not noticed that he had fallen behind yet, but they would soon. He had to make a decision.
Should I tell them? His eyes flitted between the window and his friends. What do I do? Could someone be up there or was it just my imagination?
“Danny?” called Vince.
Time was up.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” said Danny, running to catch up. He refused to be like Kerry, worrying about spiders and about his mom finding out he spent the day in a creepy thicket. Danny knew he was tougher than that.
No one is up there, he told himself. Why would anyone be there? No, we’re alone.
The front steps groaned loudly under the combined weight of the three boys. They stopped at the heavy front door, which lay open about a foot. Vince reached out to the door handle, but jerked back his hand as they all heard a creak somewhere on the other side of the door.
The thing that made the curtain move upstairs—whatever it was—has come down stairs to confront us! Danny thought to himself. Any minute, any second, whatever lives in the house is going to burst through the door and attack us!
Danny automatically took a couple steps back, yet still found that he could not say anything to the others. What if he was wrong? They would say he had turned coward. How would he ever live it down? Coming here was his idea, after all.
“You…you said no one lived here..,” Vince asked, glancing at Kerry.
Kerry seized the opportunity to become the brave one in the group, no doubt to compensate for his earlier ‘wet blanket’ moment. He puffed up his chest, and waved his hands as though presenting the decay and blight surrounding them. “Look around. Who could live here?”
“But…but that sound…”
You have to tell them, Danny thought to himself. Tell them about the curtains moving upstairs! But still, the words would not come.
“The windows are open and a few even broken,” continued Kerry. “It was probably just a squirrel.”
“Sounded kind of big…”
Kerry groaned in frustration. “Then it was a raccoon. Come on, a human couldn’t live here. How obvious does it have to be?”
And with that, Kerry grabbed the door handle and pushed it in. The decayed door creaked and moaned in protest. Danny’s entire body clenched up at the sound; whoever was hiding inside would come for them for sure now. But nothing leaped out at them, and the room beyond the door was dark, silent and still. Kerry laughed and Vince joined in. Danny, however, remained silent, his rattled nerves not allowing any other reaction, as he followed the other two boys through the entrance.
Inside the house, it smelled even worse than it did outside, and the faint light from the windows failed to illuminate the many dark corners within the massive living room. Danny momentarily wondered what was hiding in those corners, but shook away the thought, trying to reign in his fear.
“You see?” said Kerry, pointing to a trail of animal footprints left behind in the thick layer of dirt on the wood floor. “A raccoon. Told you.”
The footprints led onto an area rug in the center of the room, where it looked like the raccoon got into a scuffle with another animal. Danny examined the marks on the ground closely.
“No blood,” he said, looking at the carpet, next to an ornate white column where the main fight seemed to have taken place.
“Must be love,” snickered Vince, making kissing noises in the air.
Kerry laughed, but not Danny. Where were the footprints of the two animals leaving the fight? For that matter, he did not understand why there was only one set of footprints leading onto the rug. His gaze followed the column up to the ceiling, and he discovered a large hole.
Vince snickered once more and pointed to the hole in the ceiling. “The love nest. Best to leave them alone. Don’t want to intrude. Raccoons can get nasty when they are…eh-hem…interrupted.”
Again the boys laughed uproariously, and this time Danny joined in, more in relief than anything.
So that was what I saw moving upstairs! He thought. Raccoons or squirrels…I can live with that.
The boys spread out, examining the strange living room. From what Danny could tell, this was a pretty fancy house at one time, but not anymore. Everything in the room was in a state of decay. There was nothing salvageable, nothing that was not blackened with years of collected dust or did not stink of rot and mold. The entire interior was completely disgusting.
A pity, thought Danny. We can’t even turn this place into a club house. Even my mom couldn’t clean up this place!
“How long do you think the house has been empty?” asked Danny.
“Years and years and years,” answered Kerry. “I doubt anyone even knows its back here. The thicket has hidden the entire house.”
Just then, from upstairs, a high pitched howl suddenly assaulted their ears, and all three boys jumped in fright. The howl grew louder and louder, building to teeth shattering levels until it finally ended in a shrill scream. Then…silence.
“What in the hell?” asked Vince, alarmed.
“Was that an animal being attacked?” asked Danny. “Those…those two raccoons again?”
“No man, that was a ghost!” cried out Kerry. “A real, live ghost!”
Danny did not like this idea—he did not like it all. The truth was, Danny was terrified of ghosts and did not even like going to the phony Halloween haunted houses. Without thinking, he automatically snapped back, “Ah, stop being such a baby! There’s no such thing as a ghost, so cut it out!”
Kerry, looking hurt and angry, no doubt for being called both a baby and a wet blanket all in one day, yelled back, “No, you prove it. Go upstairs. I dare you. I double dare you!”
A sinister smile formed on Vince’s face, telling Danny that he going to support Kerry on this.
Sure enough, Vince said, “I triple dare you!”
Horrified, Danny just stared back at them. By club rules, a triple dare could not be turned down. He had to go up the stairs now.
And the last thing he wanted to do was go up those stairs.
Danny turned and looked at the staircase. The sound was gone now, but a chill still ran up his spine. What could have made a noise like that? He could not even begin to imagine. It certainly was not the wind. The trees blocked any breeze from flowing in the thicket.
Get over it, he told himself. The guys are watching you, you have to do this!
“Fine,” said Danny, forcing his words to remain steady and calm. “Doesn’t bother me none.”
Determined to prove he was not scared, Danny started up the stairs. He reached for the banister and found that it swayed heavily under his grip. He paused, deciding maybe he should not touch it after all. Starting again, he stepped carefully on the first step. It protested loudly, and for a few terrifying seconds, he thought it would give way. The step fortunately held, and Danny carefully continued his climb, weaving his way between animal droppings and split wood.
Half way up the stairs, the howl came once more, raising the hair on the back of his neck. Fear taking over, he turned and looked down at the other boys. Both shook their heads no and pointed to the second floor.
“My good friends,” grumbled Danny, anger pushing out the fear. He turned and marched angrily up the remaining stairs.
On reaching the second floor landing he paused, taking in the ominous sight. A long hallway stretched out in front of him. The doors were closed on both sides, save for one partially opened door at the end of the hall. The partially open door provided the only illumination, a dim shaft of dingy, yellow sunlight which stretched out a just a few inches across the filthy, red carpet. The oppressive darkness and lack of air made the hallway feel like a tomb.
Danny stood there for a long moment. Why was that door open when all of the other doors were closed? It was as though someone had left it open on purpose…as though someone was inviting him…luring him to the end of the hall.
The words he had spoken earlier suddenly crossed his mind: “No one knows we’re here.”
If someone grabbed us—a serial killor or even some perv—we’d be at the guy’s mercy!
He heard a series of loud thumps down stairs, making Danny jump, followed by his two friends yelling his name, “Danny!”
Danny cringed. Club rules. If two club members stomp their feet and yell your name, sentencing for a club violation was about to be pronounced.
“Alright! Alright!” yelled back Danny charging forward. “I’m checking it out. Just give me a sec!”
Perfect, thought Danny. At very least the serial killer and/or perv will know my name now. I’d hate to waste time on introductions…
Danny felt waves of emotions as he walked past the closed doors, first anger at his friends, then self-pity, then regret at forming the club to begin with. Finally, as he reached the open door, full blown terror gripping him once more.
He looked back at the other doors behind him, and a disturbing thought entered his mind.
What if the killer is behind one of those doors instead, waiting to cut off my escape?
Danny involuntarily shuttered. If that was the case, he was already trapped.
Cautiously, he peered through the two-inch gap left by the partially-opened door. From this vantage point, he could not see much other than then the open window. He paused for a moment to listen. He thought he picked up a slight movement in the room, but he could not be sure. He was so scared at this point he could have easily imagined it.
You can’t stand here forever, he told himself.
With a trembling hand, Danny pushed the door the rest of the way open. The door moved easier than he had expected, and it crashed open with a bang. Danny jumped and yelped, unprepared for the loud noise or for the light from the window that struck him square in the face. It was a fairly dim light, but in contrast to the nearly pitch black hallway, it still made his eyes burn. He blinked repeatedly and shielded his face with his hand, all the while, trying to slow down his racing heart.
“Danny!” yelled the boys from downstairs, no doubt reacting to the loud noise. For a second, he almost called back to say he was ok. Then he decided he liked the idea of them being scared for him…maybe he would just let them make the same scary walk upstairs. They deserved a taste of their own medicine. And with that, Danny decided not to reply.
The pain in his eyes from the light decreased, and he slowly lowered his hand, allowing him to see the entire room. Danny’s breath caught in his throat as his entire attention zeroed in on something lying on the floor.
It was a dead body.
He stared at it, wondering if his eyes were somehow playing a trick on him. It was one thing to let your imagination run away with you, thinking you are surrounded by ghosts or serial killers, but it was another to find an actual dead body. Shock froze him in place for several long seconds, but soon, curiosity took over, and he approached the prone figure.
“Hey, guys, get up here!” he called out, forgetting his decision to remain silent. “You’ve got to see this!”
The body was that of a man in a wife-beater shirt and sweat pants, the color of both unidentifiable under the thick layer of dust. Danny could not tell much about him. He had clearly been dead for a long time.
I guess I don’t have to worry about the murderer still being around, thought Danny. He’d be long gone by now.
It occurred to Danny, though, that he could not tell how the man died, murder or otherwise. The body was decayed and desiccated with very little left over after the maggots had eaten their fill. Even the maggots were long gone, probably eaten by the spiders who had spun thick webs over nearly everything in the room.
“Cool!” muttered Danny. “Wait until the guys see this!”
And then he heard a noise, somewhere close behind him, something that sounded like the scrambling of feet across the wood floor. With a sharp exhalation, he leapt to his feet, and whirled around.
Two fat raccoons ran out from behind a large chair, scrambled across the room, and climbed through the open window. After his heart started working again, Danny began to laugh.
“So it was true love!” Danny said, relieved. “Damn, I hate to tell Kerry he was right…”
Danny turned to face the door and scowled.
On that topic, where are they? Kerry and Vince should have been up here by now.
Despite Danny calling out to his friends, they had not followed him up, probably suspecting that Danny was plotting a practical joke.
Not a bad idea, he thought to himself, a wicked smile forming on his lips. But how to get them up here?
Danny tossed around a few ideas for several seconds, delighting in the sadistic imagery dancing through his mind. A giggle escaped his lips, but then it abruptly cut short. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up—He was being watched. He did not know why he knew this, he just knew. He turned around and saw…a blank wall.
“Stop it, Danny,” he growled at himself. “You’re just freaking yourself out again, and you know it.”
Yet the feeling persisted. Eventually his eyes moved down to the floor, and a pair of glowing, red eyes greeted him.
Danny smiled and knelt down to better examine the thing that had been spying on him. A small, white mouse curiously stared back at him, clearly unafraid of humans.
“Hi there, little guy,” said Danny in a soft voice, still stunned that the mouse had not run away. A thought then entered his mind, and he frowned. “You’re an albino mouse. One of my teachers once told me that you rarely find albino mice in the wild, usually only in pet stores. Were you this guy’s pet?”
He glanced around the room and noticed several large, unrecognizable square and rectangular objects hiding under the dust and spider webs. Danny moved toward them, narrowing his eyes. On closer examination he realized they were aquariums. One was lying sideways on the floor. Inside this tank was a small, exercise wheel. For a moment, he examined the tank and the location of the man.
“I bet he had a heart attack and knocked your home over, didn’t he?” asked Danny. The mouse curiously titled his head to one side, but not surprisingly, it did not answer. “Then, it looks like maybe he crawled over here, got the door open, but didn’t make it to wherever he left his phone. Lucky for you, he knocked your cage over. You would have starved.”
The mouse, appearing to grow bored with the conversation, skittered off into the room and behind a much larger glass aquarium. Danny stood up and walked toward it, all the while examining the other aquariums scattered around the room. All of the lids were popped off as though the residents of the aquariums had escaped. Danny was glad. It was one thing to see a dead man on the floor, but a dead bunny or guinea pig would have been too upsetting.
As he reached the large aquarium, he spotted a label stuck to the glass. The writing was faded, so Danny leaned down to get a better look.
Danny abruptly gasped and fell backwards onto the hard, dirty floor. The label read very clearly, ‘King Cobra’.
And now he knew how the man died.
“Oh shit! Oh shit!” he cried out, struggling to his feet. “I’ve got to tell the others!”
As he ran for the door, he focused all of his attention on escaping, trying not to look into the shadows. In his mind he saw the snake coming out, slithering after him, it’s fangs poised for a bite that would leave him dead just like the man on the floor.
As he exited the room, he slammed the door shut, plunging the hallway into darkness. Danny groaned. It was a stupid mistake.
Why would I think the snake was still in there? He wondered. That guy died years ago. The snake couldn’t have survived in that room all that time.
Yet, even knowing this, he was not brave enough to open the door again. Instead, he fumbled forward in the dark down the hall as fast as he could. Finally, he reached the stair landing, but then he skidded to a stop. He blinked hard at what he saw below.
It was Vince; he was lying on the floor face down, right at the bottom of the stairs.
“Vi…Vince?” asked Danny in a halting voice.
The only answer he received was a loud thumping noise beyond his field of vision. It was so strange; he could not place it. But…it sounded like some kind of struggle.
Had Vince been bitten by the cobra and now Kerry was fighting with it?
“Kerry? Kerry?” Called out Danny. But once again, no answer.
As panic began to reach peak levels, reason took hold. Danny huffed and shook his head. If the cobra was down there, Kerry would be screaming his head off. If the cobra was not down there, Kerry would have been kneeling next to Vince to help or rushing up the stairs to get Danny. Either way, Kerry’s silence and absence made no sense at all. Nope, this just was not ringing true.
The guys are playing a joke on me!
He did not know what Kerry was doing, no doubt Danny had interrupted him while setting up some part of the prank, but whatever it was, he didn’t care. They needed to get serious and get out of there.
“Damn it, guys, that’s not funny!” yelled Danny, moving quickly down the stairs.
Vince still did not move, and the thumping continued. When Danny reached the bottom of the stairs he was ready to ream the guys. Instead, he froze in place, his mind unable to process what he was seeing.
Danny finally saw Kerry, and he was definitely not playing around. He was on the floor, flopping back and forth with a huge python wrapped around him.
“Danny!” gasped Kerry in a weak, raspy voice, turning his eyes toward his friend.
This was a terrible mistake. That brief second that he hesitated in his struggle to call out to Danny gave the snake the final advantage it needed. The muscles of the snake contracted with a vicious jerk, and Danny heard the air in Kerry’s lungs push out from the tight embrace, accompanied by the unsettling sound of multiple bones in his body snapping. Then the boy’s face turned blue, wide frightened eyes staring out at Danny.
“Kerry!” yelled Danny.
He needed a weapon and noticed a baseball bat lying on the floor between Vince and the couch. Vince was still just lying there, face down and unmoving. For the briefest moment, Danny wondered, Did the snake attack him first? But he had no time to consider this further. Kerry was dying! He quickly reached down to grab the bat, and as he did so, out from the end table appeared the king cobra.
For the briefest moment, they locked eyes. The cobra’s amber eyes were fierce and its hood was extended in a show of aggression. Danny held still, thinking perhaps if he did not move the snake would leave—unfortunately, it did not. The snake lunged forward and clamped down on Danny’s wrist, its needle-like fangs sinking deep into his flesh.
Danny screamed and fell forward, darkness taking over before he even hit the floor.
***
Time passed. Swirls of pain and nausea spread through Danny’s mind and body, but for how long he did not know. As awareness returned, his eyes fluttered open. His lungs begged for oxygen, and he tried to gasp, only to discover his body refused to respond. He managed to suck in a small amount of air, but it was not enough, not even close to being enough. As the searing pain passed through his chest, one thought entered his mind:
I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! Oh, god, I’m dying!
Under him was Vince, who lay stiff and unmoving. Danny then realized his friend had already passed, no doubt the cobra’s earlier victim.
It was my idea to come here, thought Danny. Vince is dead and I’m dying…all because I wanted to see the thicket.
With some effort, he looked out in the middle of the room and was shocked to see Kerry staring back at him. He was free of the snake!
“Get…help..,” said Danny, his voice merely a whisper.
But Kerry did not move, he only groaned and sniffled, his lower jaw hanging open at an unnatural angle. Something looked wrong about his body too. And his eyes—they were a mixture of terror and a desperate pleading. It took Danny a second to realize why Kerry was not moving. His entire body was broken. Every bone had been crushed into a million pieces by the snake’s cruel embrace.
A wet blanket, thought Danny. We called him that and now his body…his body is just as limp as a wet blanket. That’s what he is now…just like we said…
Kerry should not still be alive nor should Danny, but they both were. They stared at each other, neither able to speak. Suddenly, Kerry’s entire body jerked and with it the horrific expression on his face seemed to amplify. Danny looked down at his friend’s feet.
The snake was in the process of swallowing Kerry. His feet and lower legs were deep inside of the creature. And Kerry could not do anything to save himself; his body was completely smashed.
Another jerk and more of Kerry’s legs disappeared into the snake. Kerry let out a raspy cry, his broken jaw preventing him from truly expressing his terror.
“Kerry!” gasped Danny.
And then there was no more as Danny went into respiratory failure. No more thought, no more fear, no more pain. For Danny, the battle was over.
***
Kerry saw the light go out in Danny’s eyes, and a stream of tears rolled down his cheeks. He had lost his two best friends…as well as his only chance to escape.
Mom, Dad! He mentally called out, knowing they would never come.
Thinking back to earlier in the day when the boys first arrived, he recalled how scared he had been of going into the thicket. He had been afraid of bugs getting in his hair, or spiders biting him, or some creepy homeless guy grabbing them…but this…this was far worse than anything he could have ever imagined. If only he could get his body to move, if only he could fight back…but his body was limp and useless.
Kerry closed his eyes and prayed, “Please, dear God, help me! Let my parents find me! Let someone, anyone, find me! Please, oh God, please!”
But he knew his prayers would not be answered. Danny had said it himself: ‘No one knows we’re here’.
For hours, Kerry endured his terrible fate. Inch by inch, piece by piece, everything he was slipping further inside of the snake. He wished himself to die, wished for the end to come quickly, to die from his injuries rather than to experience this horror. The unrelenting tightness as the snake’s body constricted and slowly crushed him within itself was agony beyond anything he would have thought possible. The misery grew worse with each passing second, and the seconds went on and on and on, the passage of time as cruel as the creature consuming him.
The dim light from outside faded and the darkness of night fell. Crickets outside chirped and bull frogs called out for a mate, and yet still, Kerry’s torment continued.
The python moved up his legs…over his hips…up his stomach…and all the while, Kerry’s dislocated jaw hung open, groans of misery mixing in with desperate sobs were the only sounds to escape. The endless stream of tears eventually disappeared, his eyes drying out from the lengthy ordeal.
The yellow light of dawn eventually touched the upper edges of the living room window as the snake’s jaws reached Kerry’s chest. At that moment, the air in his lungs was violently pushed out, which finally, mercifully, extinguishing the young boy’s life.
***
(Six years later)
Police Sergeant Eric Green stared at the picture of the missing children. Danny Richards, Vince Cole, Kerry Anderson, Angie Thomas, Lynette Fields, Chrissy Vogel, Lindsey Salt, and Pauline Iverson. He sighed, shook his head, and sipped his coffee. His partner, Amy Sandberg, dropped an envelope on top of the pile of photographs and sat down next to him.
“The latest victims are Enrique Salizar and Josè Lopez,” said Amy. “Just like the rest, no clues. The kids were friends, hanging out together on their bikes. No sign of them, and no sign of the bikes.”
“Always the same,” said Eric, leaning back in his chair. “Usually two or three kids at a time. What kind of child abductor takes on multiple kids at once? And the guy never moves on. It’s an unusual pattern.”
“It’s a long shot, but there’s this small thicket outside of town we’re looking into right now. Just a few acres or more, but the perp could be hiding in there.”
Eric leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face.
“What?” asked Amy, putting down her coffee.
Eric shrugged. “In my old neighborhood we had this thicket, small, like the one you’re talking about. Every kid in the neighborhood loved to go there and explore.” He let out a small laugh. “It was like it had a siren call for anyone under the age of 13. We loved that place.” Eric shook his head, happy childhood memories momentarily flooding his mind. “Who did you send out?”
“Romero and Davis,” Amy said, and then looked down at her cell phone and frowned. “Huh…they haven’t reported in, and they’re about forty minutes over due. That’s odd.”
About the Author:
Roma Gray writes what she refers to as “Trick-or-Treat Thrillers”, stories with a spooky, creepy, Halloween feel to them.
She currently has five published books: Gray Shadows Under a Harvest Moon (short story collection), The Hunted Tribe: Declaration of War (novel), Celebration of Horror 1 (short story collection), Jurassic Jackaroo: Jasper’s Junction (novel) and Haunted House Harbor: Humanity’s Hope (novel). In addition to this, she has edited eight anthologies and has published approximately 20 short stories.
Roma lives in a haunted house in Oregon with her black cat, Chihuahua, and parrot.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #9 ‘No One Knows We’re Here’ by Roma Gray – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
