#WritcoStoryPrompt11



The village was eerie even by the day. Stories of horror revolved around it. But nothing deterred my friends and me to explore it on that moonless, winter night…

One thing is for sure, students are fearless, especially when they decide to study anthropology and urban legends. Of course, Jack, Lilly, Zoe and I had to explore this particular village.

Chapel town was a cute and small farming town. Used to grow corn, wheat and all the people would need to eat all year long. But the villagers needed a more sustainable and money making business to expand and develop. They decided to enter the cotton and linen trade. The production was small at first, but soon enough they were able to sell for a high price. As it is never enough, the production got too big to sell as raw materials. The town decided to use the left over from the harvest to make fabrics then clothes. This part of the production was first used for the villagers, then leftovers were sold for high profits. The town expansion was quick, faster than the nearby towns. This must have sparked jealousy and envy. The quality was implacable, and the towns people worked as one for the sake of the community, sharing equally. Buyers came from far away and paid good money. Until, during a winter night, a customer noticed something odd. People were walking in their pajamas, half-naked, they looked puzzled, as if their mind were blank. Some of them walked toward the woods, entered and disappeared. At some point, people woke up from this strange state, looked at each others, shaking from the cold. No one talked, they just went back to their homes. The customer tried to talk to them, but they just looked at him strangely, said nothing and kept walking back. The customer was staying at the mayor's house. They had a young daughter, a beautiful thing, smart and elegant who knew how to make precise and divine embroidery. She was one of the lost persons. As he had in mind to marry her, he ran after her, but never found her. When he came back to the house, her parents were warming up in front of the chimney. He told them that she disappeared! But all the parents did was asking who he might be talking about. The mother had a gentle smile when she told him that she never had a daughter. The customer was very clear when he said that, of all the people who got into the wood, none of them ever came back.
The strangest thing was, all the people who disappeared were forgotten, even by their own mothers.

This happened many times, and nearby town spread the word about the strange events. Then came the time when the town people weren't enough to harvest and keep the business alive. They tried to ask for help, to hire from other farms. But no one wanted to work with them.
Of course, the business went down, buyers stopped coming long ago. Food got low, and something terrible happened. One day, a pastor decided to come visit Chapel Town's pastor. He heard strange rumors and was very concerned. He couldn't find anyone. He knocked on doors, called and shouted. The place looked empty, but he couldn't take away the feeling of being watched. Finally, he reached the chapel, and ran away, as if the devil himself was after him. Lucky enough to have a horse, he was able to escape. As he told later, he never looked back while running or riding, but he knew, he knew they were after him. What he saw in the chapel made him loose his faith. He kept saying, "How can there be a god? What kind of god would let his emissary on earth get eaten alive by his own people?"He told his superior that the pastor was sitting in front of the cross, and he was smiling while feeding his own intestines to the people. Unrolling the tube, he looked up and saw his friend, he smiled at him and waved, happy to see him. The sheriff went to see for himself. Not alone of course, many men went. They found five persons in the church, dead. Clearly they resorted to cannibalism. Of the other bodies? None were found.

More stories and rumors appeared, especially in recent years. With the rise of social media, this kind of sites are prey to people looking for "scary" activities and film themselves in hope to go viral. Sadly, a good percentage of them never came back alive or simply vanished.

During one of the classes, the students had to choose a "haunted place" and write an essay. The rules were simple, it had to be a local place, at maximal one hour road trip. The students needed to gather testimony and "proof" of paranormal activities OR prove there is no such things and come up with a ratio Al explanation. They had to dig all the informations they could find and use them. In the case of Chapel Town, the events took place in 1845 to 1870.The archive was kept, and we had no trouble to find all kind of certificates. We chose to focus on the mayor, his family and the pastor. Then make a chronology of the events, focusing on the most disturbing ones.

The essay was almost complete, we wanted to have recent photos and test our theories. After all, there is no better proof than being a witness themselves.

The town was well hidden. This area was still superstitious, and the town was never erased from the map. But they did hide the roads and made sure to take down all signs pointing in that direction. Eventually Google map found it. That's when the place became famous. After a kid found about it in a library's book and decided to go see for himself. The poor kid came back with impressive human bite marks and a horrifying story. He ended up in a psychiatric ward and the county was unable to prevent the media from spreading the news.

We arrived around 1 PM and started to unload the truck. We could stay only one night, so we had to be precise and efficient. Due to the incidents, a patrol could come anytime to make sure no one was playing here. We had to set up cameras and microphones. We chose to hide some near the woods, in town, in some houses, the chapel and to stay in the mayor's house for the night. A total of 25 cameras outside and 10 inside the mayor's house. Zoe's dad owned a rental shop and was nice enough to let us "try" the material before selling it. Making sure it really works you know.

The plan was simple, all cameras had an autonomy of approximately 20 hours. We would do a few rounds during the night. Sleep two at a time but ALWAYS stick together. Enough horror movies made us understand the importance of NOT dividing the group. All cameras had sensors and we had a live feed on a laptop, as well as generator to keep the battery full. To be honest we expected the sensor to go off often, as foxes, badger and skunk were common in this area. A few friends stayed in a motel about 15 minutes drive away from our location, in case something bad happened. Lilly got this idea thinking the crimes could have been committed by some deranged people using the town story to unleash their "creativity."

It took us a few hours to put everything to the right place, connect all to the laptop and check the sensors. By the time we were done, the sun had been setting down. We hid the truck in case of a patrol and headed to the house. All the cameras were infrared and even without the moon shining on us we could see what was happening. It made us happy to know we didn't have to go out, unless... something really strange happening on camera would force us to make a move.

Jack decided he was too excited to sleep right away and after eating our dinner Jack and Lilly took the first round. They woke us up after 2 hours. Nothing had happened and it was past eleven. Lilly told us to keep an eye on camera 12. She saw a few deers and couldn't stop telling us how cute they were. We sat down, covered up and took some coffee. We saw the deers of course, and a few other animals. At 1 AM we changed and again a bit before 3 AM. Zoe and I tried to keep awake, thinking this was all for nothing. When something got my attention on the screen. A white flash. Too fast for the sensor to recognize it. I told Zoe but she told me she saw nothing. We watched more closely, and soon enough the phenomenon appeared again. A quick flash of pure white light. Then again. We woke up the other two and told them to come take a look. The strange ballet woke them up instantly. There was no way to understand what was happening outside. Jack suggested it might be snowing, and some snowflakes could have this effect. He almost convinced us when Lilly had to cover her mouth to stop a scream from escaping her lips. On camera 4, there was a face. Right at the bottom, looking straight at the camera. The little girl was wearing XIX's century clothes. She was all white and had two holes for eyes. It was like she could see us. Suddenly she smiled, a mouth so wide, deforming her face. She ran toward the camera faster than a human being could. And she looked right into the lense. When all we could see was her empty orbit, the camera went off.

We saw more and more of those light and a few more cameras went off. We saw at least 10 other of those people and they were heading towards us. Jack was the first one to move, he took one of our cases and used it to block the entrance. We had few broken windows and an upstairs but strangely he thought about blocking the door. Zoe was in chock, she was muttering some strange words, her eyes looked empty. Lilly was looking through some notes, and I tried to remember why this creature didn't sound familiar.

Jack came back to us, terrified.
"Guys! The door, I blocked it but, before that I made sure it was well closed but I think I couldn't open it at all..."

"What do you mean? Is the lock frozen or something? There is no key. We had no way to lock the door."Lilly didn't even look at him, still searching for an answer, for something similar in one of the testimonials.

"That's not all, the broken windows, there is no need to secure them, I couldn't pass my hand through them."

We all looked at him, and seeing he was serious, I decided to go check for myself. I realize how scared I am when my hand refuses to move, scared one of those creatures could grab it. Jack comes next to me and sends his hand right in the windows and I hear a "bang", soft but still, there was clearly no way to exit. Jack proceeds with the next window, and the result is the same.

"there are no more stairs... so I cannot make sure nothing is up there or can't enter. But we are trapped."

"We sat on the windows today! I remember being half in and half out! I was taking selfies!" Zoe was holding her cover so tight her hand's joint were white.

"I found something," said Lilly. "There is a tale of something similar. It's the testimony of Matthew Douglas, the first boy who came here to film, the first one we know about at least... He had human bite mark on his body and was telling stories about white people who slide like snow."Lilly looked at us, scared.

10 minutes later most of the camera were off. We had about six left outside. The nearest ones. The thought of our friends playing tricks on us crossed out minds but they knew what this project. Meant to us and wouldn't have jeopardized a year of research. And what we saw and kept seeing wasn't human. Lilly kept her eyes on the mayor's house cameras. Scared to see white shadows through them. Jack was still exploring the room. It was wide but at least a single room with wooden pillars. The rooms used to be upstairs and the kitchen was part of the main room.

There was no sounds outside, not even the wind. It felt like the whole world went silent. Somehow it seemed impossible to hear our own breathing. Jack came back to us and said he found a trap, in the kitchen, but it was too heavy for him to open it alone. I went with Jack and we forced it open. We didn't know what was below or if some creatures could get in through there. With the torch we saw stairs, and a sort of path. I went to get the girls and decide with them what would be best.

We all agreed the house was dangerous now. Only 4 camera left outside. Whatever it was, it was getting closer and it was better to move before they reached us.

Lilly took the laptop, and Zoe another torch. I took my cellphone and called our friends. Begging them to call for help, to call the police.

The path was humid and cold. Even with the torches we couldn't see the end of the tunnel, sometimes there was a locked door. But so far there was no exit. We walked. for what seemed to be an eternity. Lilly told us all the outside cameras were off and she saw some white light through the windows of the mayor's house. But somehow they couldn't pass the windows.

One of the doors opened, the large and heavy metallic door was noisy, old and in a poor state. We looked inside, making the ut wasn't the exit. There was some storage system and stairs. Next to it there was a number and a name.

"Those are underground passages! They seem to reach every house! We need to find the map and look for the house closest to the truck and get out of here!"

While Lilly looked at the map and tried to figure how many house were left, we took some photos. There was a few cans on the floor, Mountain dews... Of course the place had already been checked, But no one mentioned it.

"Found it. We need to pass 10 more doors and exit, we will be 5 minutes away from the truck!"

We hurried to that door and found it locked. Then it was time to go back and try each door until one finally opened. Jack tried each door, just in case. Telling us that this way, we would know how far we had to go back. Zoe was strangely quiet, I decided to check on her.
"Guys... Wait, where is Zoe?"
Jack looked at me as if I was crazy until the light from his torch could not spot Zoe.
"For fuck sake! Where is she? When did she leave?"
"She took the photos of the stairs, then started to walk with us..." )I panicked.
We went back quickly, Jack was angry, until he saw the camera on the floor. He took it and noticed it was tainted with blood. Lilly watched the cameras and I checked the room, Jack looked at the video.
"Oh no... No no no. Guys, we need to run!"
The video was chocking. A creature appeared behind Zoe, smiling. She opened an enormous mouth and grabbed her. Zoe opened her mouth but there was no sound. The creature was eating her, biting hard to removing big chuncks of flesh and clothes. Then she grabbed Zoe tighter and both disappeared.The creature was amazingly quick and she ran backward faster than the wind, holding Zoe, dead.

We hurried back to door we were looking for. Jack was checking the doors much quicker. Soon he found an open one, but got attacked as soon as he opened it. A creature grabbed him and devoured his whole head. We tried to scream but no sound escaped our lips. It was freaking cold and silent. The creature kept eating Jack, silently. We ran and managed to reach the door. We opened it carefully, tears in our eyes. Sure one of us would die here. But nothing. This room was empty of creatures. Lilly had closed the laptop and there was no way to know if the mayor's house was full of them by now. Or if they were pursuing us.

The stairs were in a bad shape but we reached the inside of the house. We decided to hold hands and run for our lives. Our run made noise, a comforting noise in this silent place. We ran as fast as we could. Close to the car the sound stopped. We were still running and yet, no sound. I felt Lilly's hand holding tighter and I felt something trying to grab my feet as I've reached the truck. I opened the door we kept unlocked for safety and jump inside. I felt some resistance from Lilly. I turned around to bring her inside and saw a creature holding onto her, eating her left leg.

I use all my strength to bring her into the truck. I was ready to kick the creature but when I finally got lilly inside, the creature vanished, that thing disappeared like a ball of snow on hitting a wall.

We closed the door and started the engine. On the road we met two police cars and our friends. They took Lilly with one patrol and drove her to the clinic, one of my friend had to drive the truck while I had to sit with the police.

They asked about the others and we I told them all I knew, all I saw. The drive to the station was cold, I was thinking about the families, how to tell them their kids died eaten by creatures?

At the police station they recommended me to get a lawyer, as if I was a criminal.
"We saw the video of your friend Zoe. You are done for! What kind of sick person would do that?"The officer was yelling at me.
"What is going on? What do you mean??"
"On the video we see you eating your friend! There is no way to deny it!"
I tried to tell them again what happened and to ask Lilly.
"She died in the car you sick fuck! She didn't even reach the hospital, what did you do to her? WHERE... IS... HER... LEG?"
I couldn't believe them and they showed me the video, I felt sick to my stomach, seeing myself eating Zoe.

As I kept claiming my innocence, they sent me to a psychiatrist to prove I was playing a game and knew exactly what I had done. But the verdict came different. The Dr decided that I was suffering from some sort of mental condition that prevented me from remembering the real events, and because of it I was deemed unable to respond to the atrocity I supposedly committed. They sent me to high security psychiatric ward, and tried to make me see the truth. Many years later I am still there, unable to escape, my dreams are haunted by those creatures, by my first contact with the unknown. Unable to warn anyone and dreaming of people getting trapped and eaten.

© Nogh(Challier_Melody)