Among Us They Come, C.E. Vance [the reading list book txt] 📗

of hideous spirits rushing from the darkness and grasping him with their cold dead fingers sent shivers coursing through his body. With those thoughts, his heart started thrashing even harder in his chest.

 

Then he saw it. A glowing orb of light was coming toward him from the cemetery, and through the distance, he could hear voices.

 

Zachary's mind began to scream with terror, urging him to run, but he couldn't. He was frozen in fear.

 

His breath became heavier, and a searing pain rushed through his chest while the light came closer, and closer, until it was just yards away.

 

Then he heard voices calling out! "Zachary! Zachary! Is that you"?

 

With the pain continuing to pound in his chest, his eyes rolled toward the heavens.

 

Zachary fell in a heap upon the ground, and the last breath heaved from his chest.

 

Moving faster, the light was now upon him and two voices rang out in unison. "Zachary! Are you okay"?

 

Jumping off the old rickety wagon, and grabbing the lantern, Gil, and Mark, the town's gravediggers, having just finished burying another unfortunate soul, were on their way back to town when they saw a shadowy figure standing in the road. Both figured it was more than likely Zachary, the area's newest resident, because he just lived a piece further up the road.

 

Now it was obvious that their assumption was right, holding the lantern close, they stood over the huddled mass lying dead at their feet. 

 

"What do you supposed happened?" inquired Mark.

 

"Who knows?" Gil answered. "I reckon when it's time for a man to meet his maker it doesn't matter where he's at".

 

"I guess we had better load him up into the wagon and get him back to town", Mark said.

 

Both men set about the task and headed back to town.

 

The next day, Mark and Gil returned to the clearing to bury the body of Zachary. With no money or known family, his body would be laid to rest with the other unfortunates.

 

Eventually, the last shovelful of dirt was tossed upon the newest pauper's grave, without a hymn or a prayer.

 

The sun was just beginning to set over the hill's rise, and the two grave diggers headed back toward town, and the night ushered in.

 

Surfacing from beneath the ground a white mist hovered with eyes of pitch. A gaping mouth formed of blackness, hideously screamed, Zachary realizing, he was now part of the horror that he had feared.  He was a forgotten soul abandoned and forgotten in an unmarked pauper's grave, and he was angry at the world.

 

"Revenge would fall upon all who traveled alone by night".

 

As Zachary looked around, the other specters from the pauper's graves began to rise.

 

C.E.Vance

 

The End

The Clearing in the Woods

 

In the fall of night, beneath the shimmer of stars and brightest moon, the whispers call.

 

 Inside the woodland haven in a setting away from the trodden trail, a chill, arriving with evening's sunset, begins to envelope the cabin. 

 

Placing another log inside the fireplace, Joseph slowly leans back in the old creaky rocking chair, trying to ignore the faint whispering voices, seeming to imamate from just outside the cabin's walls.

 

"Surely it's just a low gale rushing through the tree branches," thinking to himself.    "That's the only thing that it could be. Either that, or I'm becoming touched."

 

Living alone in the woods, often times created peculiarities, which a person became accustomed to.  Hearing noises, such as bumps, rustlings, or other sounds outside the cabin was usually just a rush of wind; it might also be a deer or raccoon meandering about. Even unexpected wails, some shrieking like the devil's own, could be accounted for. Those types of unearthly bellows, more or less, were attributed to a screeching owl or coyote howling in a distant hollow. 

 

The voices, however, were unsettling to say the least. Closely listening, he could almost distinguish actual words in the low breathy whisperings. They hissed, with an eerie forebodingness, unlike any utterance that he was familiar with that could be produced by a whoosh of wind. "Yet, he thought, that's all it could be."

 

Lost in the transition of thoughts, the reach of darkness began to consume the cabin, overtaking the flicker of light emanating from the fireplace. Taking notice of the encroachment of night into the room, Joseph arose from the rickety rocking chair, and lit the oil lamp atop the lone table in the corner of the room. As he adjusted the flame, his quarters illuminated with a relaxing glow, inundating the room's darkest shadows with a shower of amber light. 

 

Making his way back to the rocker, thoughts of the past sat down beside him, and began reminiscing in a constant flow of pictures; scenes that haunted his every waking hour.

 

Joseph hadn't always lived alone. His wife of three years, Sarah, had disappeared the better part of a year ago. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and he considered himself to be the luckiest man in the world to have found her.

 

During her daily routine, before darkness had settled across the valley, she always collected the water pail from the kitchen, and headed off toward the nearby stream to fill it. Even with his daily insistence that he accompany her, she always maintained, the walk alone through the woods brought solace to her spirit.

 

"A person needs time to themselves" he reckoned. So he always gave way to her wishes. During this particular instance though, she didn't return.

 

Taking up a lantern, after Sarah failed to return to the cabin in a reasonable amount of time, Joseph set out to find her, and he searched relentlessly through the night, calling her name constantly, while desperately praying beneath his breath, begging for her safety. With morning light, he abandoned his search long enough to enlist help from his neighbors, and the local townsfolk.

 

Continuing the search for days afterwards, with the assistance of others, no signs were ever found of Sarah. It was as if she had stepped off the face of the earth. 

 

However, the search did bring about a grisly discovery. While looking for Joseph's wife, some of the searchers stumbled upon the body of the old woman that lived in a nearby hovel. She was the area's outcast, who locals say practiced witchery in the clearing where she was found.

 

Recounting their stories, many testified that they had happened upon her during evening hours while returning home from hunting, and had witnessed her reciting incantations, calling upon ungodly forces to do her bidding. Fearing for their safety, all that repeated the tale, hurriedly made their way back to their homes, and prayed for their deliverance from the evil that they had seen. One to each also shared the same forethought, that no sane person would ever dare confront the old woman about her communion with the devil. To tempt the wrath of evil befalling oneself or one's family would be foolish.

 

All their fears could be put to rest now, because she lay in a heap inside the clearing. Her body bearing multiple slashes and stab wounds to her torso, with what appeared to be buckets of dried blood absorbed by the rags she wore. The remaining splatters covered the immediate surrounding's grass and vegetation. It was a scene that caused the stoutest of men to become unsteady on their feet.   

 

Looking about, the horrid scene created an obvious conclusion to those having the misfortune to view it. This was the handiwork of a madman; perhaps someone who had crossed the old woman, and was overcome by fear, thinking about the spells or curses this abomination of mankind had perhaps placed upon him or his loved ones. With a rage of fear and vengeance, he sought out and destroyed the venomous viper. Who could harbor an ounce of malice toward the person if that was the case?

 

Then there were some that speculated otherwise. Their thoughts and words were, "perhaps it was just a random murder, committed by a roving fiend. It wouldn't have been the first time someone was killed, just to satisfy some monster's bloodlust."

 

"God forbid that was the fate passed upon Joseph's wife, Sarah", was the murmurings among others. A few even suggested that maybe she had been kidnapped, and carried away to a fate worse than the death of the old woman.

 

Joseph refused to believe any of the suppositions at first, but after feverously searching the woods for more than a week, he resided himself to hope. That's all he had left.

 

The search began to taper by the locals after days of finding nothing, and eventually subsided, although Joseph clung to his hope, and searched daily for his love.

 

To the local residents, the death of the old woman was of no consequence. Being afraid of the evil that surely tainted her, no one would touch her body and give it a proper burial. After several days though, it became general knowledge that her body had disappeared. Most surmised that coyotes had probably feasted on it. Being steadfast in their lack of concern, everyone was just thankful to be rid of the scourge.

 

Joseph was familiar with the stories of the old woman's witchery, and like most people, he avoided going near her shanty, or the clearing, where she practiced her witchery when he was out hunting. He wanted no dealings with anyone that was in league with the devil. So Joseph left the old woman to herself, and was thankful that she did likewise toward him. 

 

Moving the rocker closer to the crackling fire, the evening chill seemed to be steadily engulfing him as the sound of whispers continued to announce their presence outside the cabin door, becoming more prevalent as the evening progressed.

 

Then unmistakably, he heard his name. "Joseph"!

 

Startled, he jumped from the rocker, and peered into every corner of the room, but all he saw was the lamp's soft glow, and flickering from the fireplace upon the walls. Yet he was sure he had heard his name called.

 

Regaining his composure, Joseph eased back into the rocker and listened, trying to verify that he had actually heard his name called, but the voices had ceased. "Perhaps I'm just overwrought," he thought. "I've overdone the chores today, and I'm just tired".

 

Basking in the warmth from the fireplace, and the voices no longer taunting, Joseph started to drift in and out of consciousness, until sleep finally overcame him, and he found himself immersed in a dream.

n his arms he held her, as if to never let her go. This was the woman he loved with all his heart and soul, his beautiful Sarah. Her hair was colored like riches of gold, and her eyes glistened with stars. With purest of skin, her features were born of an angel, soft and smooth to the touch. Sarah was perfection at its finest.

 

She had settled in town a few years ago, just a short time after he had carved out his tract in the woods. Finding employment as a house girl, Joseph soon learned of her arrival, and after seeing her, he started courting her that very same evening.  Within a month, to his complete disbelief, but