Four Short And Scary Tales, Page 3

  DEATH WORM

  “Wooo,” Mike said to himself as he took a sip from his bottle. He looked down at the clear glass, which felt slightly cool in the palm of his hand, as he savored the taste of the amber colored liquid inside.

  He snuck a peek at Amy. She was busy, laughing away with Jocelyn, their heads thrown back in delight. They were most likely gossiping about some new girl back up at the school that didn’t realize how huge of a mistake it was to pair a purple scarf with white pants, but Mike wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying.

  She looked so beautiful tonight, through the soft light of the fire. The smoke lazily drifted up towards the sky, perfectly framing her gorgeous face. Even the moon seemed to compliment her, offering praise by shining its soft light over her already stunning eyes. Nothing else in the desert even came close to her level of loveliness.

  “You’re beautiful like a clothing catalogue girl,” he said softly to himself, barely above a whisper. He was lost in his thoughts, his eyes smiling at her. He didn’t realize that Amy and Jocelyn were suddenly staring back at him, eyebrows raised at the glazed over look in his eyes.

  “Clothing catalogue girl? You never fail to leave me in awe,” Jocelyn said, laughing out loud as Amy’s cheeks grew as red as the tomato sauce that was served over their pasta at dinner.

  “Shut up, punk,” Mike snapped, embarrassed, as his dream world shattered into pieces. He scooped up a handful of sand and flung the pile of tiny, gritty missiles at her, accidentally catching Amy with a bit of friendly fire.

  “Whoa! Sorry, Amy,” Mike said as he stood up, leapt over the fire like a salmon jumping up a bright orange river, and began to brush the sand out of her cashew colored hair.

  “That’s alright,” Amy said back to Mike, her cheeks growing even rosier as his fingers ran through her hair.

  Amy secretly thought Mike was rather dashing, though she would never tell him that. Clearly Amy was nowhere near pretty enough for Mike, the football playing, 4.0 G.P.A.ing, model U.N.ing man. She was just the plain girl who loved to paint. She was too vanilla ice cream, and he was clearly Rocky Road.

  Amy looked up as Mike finished getting all the sand out of her hair, and met his gaze. His eyes were greener than the little leaves on the end of strawberries and they mesmerized her. They stared intently at each other for a few moments, neither saying a word.

  “Well, I’m getting another drink before I throw up,” Jocelyn exclaimed. “Dear lord, I have never seen anything so pitiful.” She stood up and brushed the sand from the bottom of her shorts.

  She then walked around the fire and dodged a cactus as she made her way towards her dirty SUV. The sand crunched beneath her flip-flops like bubble wrap.

  TSSS.

  Jocelyn’s neck snapped to the left and she froze in her tracks as the sound met her ears.

  “Is someone there?” Jocelyn called out as she scrunched her eyes up, trying to peer through the silky dark of the night. The fire’s warming light didn’t quite shine all the way to the vehicle, so she was having trouble seeing very far beyond it.

  Must have been a snake or a scorpion or something, Jocelyn thought to herself. Satisfied at her explanation, she continued on to her vehicle.

  Her keys jingled like Christmas bells as she pulled them from her pocket. With a faint click, she slid the key into the lock and turned it to the left as she opened her door.

  “DO YOU GUYS NEED MORE TO DRINK?” she called out loudly towards the fire.

  No one answered back.

  “HELLO?” she yelled again.

  After a few moments of no response, she shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Oh well, more for me,” she said to herself as she placed her keys back into her pocket and reached across the center console, grabbing an armful of bottles out of their colorful cardboard container.

  Balancing like a circus man on one foot, she slammed the vehicle door shut with her free foot. She didn’t bother to lock it.

  Who would honestly try and steal it anyway? She thought to herself. They were in the middle of nowhere.

  TSSS.

  Jocelyn jumped at the returning sound and two of the bottles rolled out of her arms, crashing to the ground and shattering. Lukewarm liquid cascaded over her painted toes.

  “Damn snakes,” Jocelyn said to herself, frustrated, as she looked down and to make sure no broken glass was in her flip-flop.

  She quickly scanned the ground and bushes to make sure there wasn’t a serpent lying in wait to ambush her. Satiated, she quickly walked back to the fire, looking one last time over her shoulder to make sure something didn’t jump out at her from behind a cactus.

  “You guys should watch out, I’m pretty sure I heard a snake back there by the car,” Jocelyn said as she plopped down on the ground next to the fire. She let the bottles in her arms roll gently out onto the sand like mini logs. She then picked one up and opened it with the palm of her hand, a tiny hiss meeting their ears. She threw the bottle cap over her shoulder into the dark.

  “Serious? I hate snakes,” Amy said to Jocelyn. Mike and Amy had decided to sit very close beside each other in Jocelyn’s brief absence.

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure Mike wont let any harm come to you,” Jocelyn said, acknowledging the fact that they now seemed to be attached at the hip. “Drink, tiger?” She picked up a bottle and brandished it like a small, glass sword in Mike’s direction.

  “Sure,” Mike said, holding one hand up and open. Jocelyn tossed the bottle over to him and he caught it swiftly, wrapping his fingers around it like a squid.

  “So what happened while I was gone? Did you kiss?” Jocelyn teased as she took a small sip from her bottle.

  “Nothing happened,” Mike said, a mighty grin spread across his face.

  TSSS.

  “What was that?” Amy immediately asked, turning around and peering into the dark behind her.

  “That’s the sound I heard back by the car,” Jocelyn said suspiciously, her eyes narrowing.

  “It sounded like it was right behind me,” Amy said, a slight note of fear gripping her voice. She reached over and squeezed Mike’s hand tight in hers.

  TSSS.

  This time the sound came from beyond the fire.

  “Mike, please go check it out,” Jocelyn said, slightly nervous, as she got up and sat next to her two friends.

  “Yeah, no problem,” Mike said as he stood up and brushed the sand from his pants with one hand. He gave Amy one last reassuring squeeze before letting her hand go.

  He stooped down and picked up a large stick from the sand. Swinging it bravely in front of him like a Viking axe, he stepped out into the night.

  After a few minutes of searching, Mike returned with nothing but the stick in his hands, much to the relief of the girls.

  “I didn’t see anything. Whatever it was, it must have left,” he said as he stood in front of the fire and let his stick drop down into it. The flames reached up and greedily consumed the wood, giving it some much needed energy.

  CRRRAAAAACK.

  The girls leapt to their feet and shot behind Mike, cowering, as the large cactus that stood behind where they sat split down the middle. It looked as if some invisible sword had cleaved it in two.

  With a mighty thud, the two pieces fell hard to the ground. An inky black hole winked from where the cactus once stood.

  Mike started laughing as Amy and Jocelyn both let out a high-pitched Banshee scream, too scared to move.

  “It was only the cactus,” Mike smiled as he turned around to face them. “That’s what the sound must have been! The cactus was so dried out it broke in half.”

  Jocelyn turned her head around and exhaled, letting out a relieved snicker.

  “It was only a cactus? I feel stupid,” Jocelyn said with a smile.

  “I don’t know, Mike,” Amy said timidly. “When have you ever heard of a cactus just breaking in half?”

  Suddenly, in a flash of crimson, what l
ooked like a gigantic, moving intestine streaked out of the hole and onto the sand in front of the trio. The nearest end of the creature opened to reveal rows of dripping, serrated yellow teeth that looked like a garbage disposal. With an ear splitting shriek, it launched into the air and landed on Jocelyn’s side, sinking its steak knife teeth deep into her flesh. The creature slithered back towards the hole, dragging Jocelyn across the ground.

  “HELP ME!!” she cried out. Her hands began frantically sifting through the sand, trying to grab onto anything, but all she felt was dead cactus needles and dried scorpion corpses.

  “JOCELYN!!” Amy screamed as she scrambled to try and grab one of her hands before the monster took her back down the hole. Mike, eyes wide, ran over to help as well, but it was too late. With a sickening pop, Jocelyn bent in half at the middle and was dragged instantly down the hole.

  They stared at each other in silence for a few moments, trying to digest what they just saw.

  Finally, Mike broke the silence, “What the hell was that?!”

  “I don’t know,” Amy said, her voice shaking. “We have to get out of here though, get to the police or something.” Tears streaked down her face.

  “Jocelyn had the car keys,” Mike said, cursing to himself as he realized they would have to figure a different way out. He gripped Amy’s shoulders as he noticed her tears.

  “It’ll be ok. We’ll just have to walk back,” he said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “It isn’t too far. Just stick beside me.”

  “She’s gone, Mike… ” Amy cried as her voice went out. The tears stung her face like little wet daggers. She began to shake slightly.

  “Look at me, Amy. We can’t panic now. We need to get out of here before that thing comes back,” Mike said, staring into her shimmering eyes.

  “Mmmhmm,” Amy said, wiping the tears from her eyes and nodding in agreement.

  Suddenly, the creature’s horrifying shriek again rang out again through the warm, desert night. Mike’s head snapped towards the sound and he saw the blood red monster slithering towards them, its mouth open wide. Bits of Jocelyn’s clothes hung limply from its shark like teeth.

  “RUN!” Mike screamed as he grabbed Amy’s hand and took off into the desert.

  Their feet pounded hard like drums against the ground as they ran. He didn’t care what direction they ran, as long as they placed distance between themselves and the thing.

  After running for what seemed like miles, Mike stopped, his chest heaving up and down.

  “I…can’t…breath… ” Amy gasped as she tried to catch her breath. She clutched her side and tried to focus on slowly breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.

  Mike looked up at the stars twinkling down at him. They looked so safe up in the sky, away from whatever it was that was chasing them. Maybe that’s where whatever’s chasing us came from, he thought to himself. Monsters aren’t real, after all.

  He then looked back at Amy. Even in the dark, with her tear streaked, dirty face and the thought of escaping death lingering behind her eyes, she was still the most beautiful thing in the desert.

  “I wonder how far-- ” But Mike didn’t finish his sentence. With another glass shattering squeal, the creature exploded out of the sand in a cloud of dust and hurled itself at him. Completely blindsided, he was tackled to the ground.

  Amy let out a scream, and could only watch in terror as the monster pinned Mike to the ground. It opened its mouth wide and let out a loud hiss.

  Mike stared deep into its mouth. Its teeth went back as far as he could see, and its breath smelled worse than a dump filled with rotten eggs.

  “Get out of here, Amy!” he yelled with one final look at her. With a disgusting squelch the creature spit a corrosive yellow liquid all over him. He howled in pain and struggled for a few minutes as smoke rose slowly upward from his burning skin.

  Amy didn’t stick around to see him die as she took off blindly into the night.

  “HELP!!” she yelled out to no one, beginning to panic and looking frantically over her shoulder. She screamed as she saw the creature was pursuing her again, diving in and out of the sand as if it were a dolphin swimming through the ocean.

  There must be more than one, she thought to herself in horror as the image of one of the things devouring Mike crept into her mind.

  Amy whimpered as she turned back around to see where she was going. She ran straight into a cactus and tumbled hard into the dirt.

  “Why, why,” she sobbed as she picked herself up, trying to run as her strength slowly failed. Looking back again, she saw the thing was getting closer to her.

  Weeping, she tried to speed up to no avail. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw the monster was nearly directly behind her. With a snap that sounded like a circuit board had just fried, the creature discharged a volt of electricity like a slithery eel and struck Amy square in the small of her back.

  Her legs seized up as she, no longer able to control her muscles, fell right onto her face on the ground. She quickly grabbed up handfuls of sand and rolled onto her back. Letting out another scream, she threw the sand in the monster’s direction in desperation, hoping it would stop it. It didn’t.

  She stared up in utter fear, unable to speak, as the monster slinked slowly over and on top of her. It moved like it knew its prey had nowhere left to run.

  TSSS.

  It opened its mouth wide and hissed. The monster’s teeth eagerly dripped with saliva, hungry for Amy. Her eyes widened as she silently stared into the creature’s gaping maw.

  With one final screech, the creature spit its corrosive saliva all over her. Her pained screams rang out through the desert for a few seconds.

  Silence followed.

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