Chapter 5
“We need to get the fuck out of here.” Dan mumbles under his breath as he grabs his back pack lying on the ground next to the destroyed tent. Tim was still standing there with the tape recorder in his hands. Dan is still mumbling and frantically packing what he could find.
Few minutes pass and Dan was already packed- he wasn’t going to stay any longer he was out of here and nothing would hold him back. The darkness of the forest alone had seemed to try and snuff out the flashlights as Tim stared at that recording. He then had the weirdest need to turn the camera back on and update the people who would watch this in the future, if he did make it out alive. Hell even then he felt if he can’t get out alive at least he can warn those who will eventually find this tape and save hundreds of others knowing he might be condemned to suffer the same fate as those who traveled on devil’s trail before him.
He aims his flashlight at the camera which was surprisingly still on the tri-pod. He grabbed the camera on its tri-pod and stood it up in front of him and a couple of thick trees in the back ground. He swallows his fear and tries to keep a straight face in front of the camera and turns it on and presses record button.
He looks into the camera and speaks.
“Hello, I am Timothy Wilson, I hiked up here to Devil’s trail with my brother Daniel Wilson and we have been here for only one night so far.” He looked into the camera and realized that he had a camera light on top of it. He reaches for the top light and turns it on. The shining light nearly blinds him until his vision adjusts, then he continues.
“We received an email from an unknown email address telling us of the paranormal activity here in Mount Lemon. First off – to whoever sent us that email-“ he smiles wickedly with displeasure-“ -I hope you’re happy-“
He looks over at Dan who was frantically and without delay packing Tim’s pack for him. He begins to cry. He knows very well he will die and soon as he stares into the camera once more revealing tears running down his filthy cheeks. Dan ignores Tim, runs behind him and retrieves all the equipment that was on the ground and not in use by Tim and runs back to the back packs by the tent. Obviously Dan wasn’t focused on whatever was around him but only on the fact that he was just as screwed as Tim was and they needed to get out.
“-I love you mom, dad, everyone that even gave a shit about us. And I am sorry for my arrogance and everything that I have done wrong. I just-“ He pauses. “I don’t want to die-“he looks down and wipes his tears with his sleeve of his shirt. “But I already know I will-“ He looks down and sobs silently for a small minute or two then he returns back to his normal stable self to explain the situation as he sniffles hard. He looks to the camera and speaks again.
“It was believed that ghosts haunted this place on a certain schedule: Once at sundown, twice around midnight, and three times at dawn. I might have been knocked out the second time midnight came around and-“ he looks at his digital watch and pressed a button to light up the screen revealing it to be 4:00 Pm.
“-we have a rough hour before me and Dan die or see the most terrifying thing imaginable.”
“Do. Not. Come here. –Whatever you do ignore the stupid legend just don’t come here- this place will destroy you… I am already half way there. And from the looks of it-“ He stares at Dan rocking back and forth and looking with intense paranoia at his surroundings, he was sweating like a pig and shaking like a madman, almost without coherent thought as to what he was doing a minute ago. “-Dan is there too.” He says with a final shudder. He turns back to the camera.
“So for the last time this is T&D Paranormal, saying goodbye.” He reaches for the camera’s record button and stops it.
“You ready?” Dan says standing only a foot away from Tim. Tim is startled as before him is the image of Dan with a slit throat once more. “Fucking Christ!-“ Tim falls back on his ass and wipes his eyes of the dirt mixed with tears on his cheeks.
Dan reaches his hand for Tim but Tim refuses. “Tim it’s me, listen we have to get out of here!” Tim opens his eyes to see Dan back to normal again. Tim sighs and grabs his hand and is lifted from the ground next to Dan who carried a red pack on his back and hands Tim the blue one. Tim reluctantly grabs the back pack and straps it on to his person. “Let’s ditch the camera – I have a feeling we won’t be using it anymore.” Dan just nods in agreement almost as if he could care less about the camera- he was calm but the eeriness of his calmness seemed rather chilling. He seemed to have been the one with the personality disorder- now making him react differently with each passing second. “Dan are you okay?” Tim asks him feeling rather uneasy in the presence of Dan.
“Yeah. Just –need to get… out of here.” He stumbles on his words and draws a deep breath and exhales violently. “Let’s just get out of here.” Tim says and the two were off leaving the camera behind. Time held his pocket flashlight and Dan held his FLIR cam with a light atop of it.
The two hike up what seems like miles of dirt road that was called the Devil’s Trail. Past the darkness of the trees blocking out the moonlight, the darkness appears to be crippling and causing Dan to stop every few minutes because he was either too tired or he felt too sick to continue. Tim was persistent on getting out- what was going to be a week-long trip turned into a death sentence and neither one of them felt like being on death row for long.
Tim was ahead of Dan, he was a bit more eager than Dan to get out of there. But as the two traveled Tim couldn’t help but think about what was wrong with Dan. What had happened to him, he may have been seeing things but even he wasn’t suffering this much fatigue or sickness as much as Dan had been. Maybe the ghosts had set him off in some way or maybe these ghosts weren’t even ghosts at all.
Of course it wasn’t a ghost. Tim had seen enough live exorcism videos and horror films to know that demons were very real and that growling noise he heard in the recorder was definitely demonic. No doubt about it. But wasn’t he just fooling himself. Was this whole demon thing just a bad horror movie playing in his head? Who knows all he cared about was getting off this godforsaken trail- Lord knows why they called it The Devil’s Trail, now Dan and Tim knew as well.
After at least an hour’s worth of traveling Tim was starting to realize that something was wrong. They have been traveling to the exit of Devil’s Trail for about an hour now from the campsite when it had originally had taken only twenty minutes to go from the entrance to the camp; plus Dan hadn’t stopped in a while so it couldn’t have been that of which held them back for long. He wanted to keep going but he felt as if the matter was pointless- would he still travel well after two hours? Maybe Three?
“Stop!” He stopped in his tracks and dropped his pack to turn to Dan who had already began to sit down feeling tired and frustrated. “What? Why did we stop?” Dan asked breathlessly. Tim looks down at Dan and looks back to the path they just traveled- the camp was out of sight and when he quickly turn around he sees that the path to the exit seemed nearly infinite. Neither camp nor exit was visible- just a trench of dark wood trees that spread out above him feeling as if they were closing in, narrowing his vision and crushing him alive. “We have been traveling for nearly an hour we should have reached the fucking start of the trail by now!” he yells at that direction of where the trail started- or finished? He didn’t know, both ways looked the same- filled with crippling darkness and cold.
Then Dan started to giggle, almost chuckle at Tim’s frustration.
Tim while still staring at the direction of the beginning or end of the trail had heard this strange laughter and slowly listened as Dan continued to laugh behind his back. Dan’s chuckle turned into a slow deep maniacal laughter. His voice beginning to warp and Tim’s stomach beginning to churn. “Oh shit.” He says to himself. He starts to look at his digital watch only to see it was glowing on its own and the digital numbers were changing rapidly it was like the watch was going crazy until suddenly the watch stops at six am. From behind him he hears Dan breathing but it was an abnormal kind of breathing, as if he was someone else.
“Leaving so early?” Dan asks, though Tim had a perfectly good idea that this wasn’t Dan speaking. Tim quickly turns around and see’s Dan sitting down. Quickly he pulls out his flashlight and shines it at Dan. Only to reveal Dan staring up at Tim with his throat slit wide open spilling a waterfall of blood and with dark, pitch-black eyes, and a cruel unusual grin.
“We still have so much more to show you…” He laughs heartily and loudly as if combining roaring with laughter.
Tim wasted no time made a run for it. He dashed violently for the starting of the trail for he knew that he was being chased down by Dan- his now possessed brother. He left everything- the pack his brother- just up and left. He knew his brother was gone and that there was only a small sliver of hope left for him.
The only thing he kept on him was his precious flashlight. Despite everything he had just seen he still held a deep fear of the dark. He couldn’t help but swear under his breath as he ran hastily up the mountain’s trail. Hi heart pounded with intensity almost fueling his need to run; for if he so much as rested for a second he was dead. The sad truth was he was never getting out and there was a very slim chance that he will ever get away from Dan.
Dan however was running, after him as well only it wasn’t Dan; what lies inside him now is merely darkness, an unnecessary evil added to the mix. A mix of hate, evil, and unholy power. This all dawned to Tim that there was no order of hauntings, just a bunch of fucked up hauntings that toyed with your mind. Of course the email was right on establishing a schedule but the only bullshit part was the number of times these things happened- thus explaining why there was no coverage on the other two hauntings rather than the first one with the blue orbs- the filmmakers must have died attempting to film it. And Tim felt like he was next on the long list of paranormal assholes about to be consumed by the trail.
“YOU CANNOT RUN MUCH LONGER!” yelled the now possessed Dan from afar. But Tim didn’t care he just kept running and running.
“SOONER OR LATER- WE ARE ALL CONSUMED BY THE TRAIL!” He shouted with a loud roaring laugh. Tim continued to run. Until…
Out of the dirt of the trail hands started to shoot up from the ground. Tim though startled tries to ignore the hands. Each one attempting to grab Tim and drag him down. He jumps doges and even runs at different directions and is still unable to escape the hands erupting from the ground. Each hand seemed to be missing some flesh and showed some bone, but more than all of them were a pale sickly greyish color. The hands soon multiplied- more and more had risen from the ground. Tim was heaving gasping for breath. He couldn’t do it anymore he just couldn’t run. He was growing weak almost about to pass out. He begins to slow down unintentionally and one hand has finally gotten ahold of his pant leg. He panics, yells even for help though he knows none will come. and before he knows it he is being covered by these hands shooting from the ground and pulled into the ground. The dirt pressing on his face with immense pressure and pain. He yells louder and louder for he knows that he was going to die. “NO NO PLEASE PLEASE!!!” He yells in panic at the edge of tears. “NO, GOD- WHY? PLEASE!!” But it is too late his entire body is covered by the hands and darkness swallows him whole. Ironic and almost tragic it is to die in the very fabric of your worst fear. Death by darkness.
Unfortunately for Tim- he isn’t dead. These things weren’t done with him just yet.
CHAPTER 6
“Noo!” he shouts as he is not pulled into the ground but is pushed right back out of the muddy landscape. He slowly rises from the dirt covered in it from head to toe. He coughs and spits and gasps for air as he sits up to catch his breath. “What the hell?” He asks himself as he coughs one more time. A few seconds pass and he looks up only to find that he is back at the campground once more. He panics as he stares at the shredded tent and the surprising change of lighting. Few of the trees had lit torches held onto the bodies of the trees. The place looked as if a ritual of some sort was about to go down. Tim begins to hyperventilate as he notices that the trail that he just walked was no longer there. Once again there was only forest-no trail and it seemed that he wasn’t going to escape just by going through miles and miles of trees. After al how far can he get without being sucked back here by those things? Hell how can anyone get far with these woods being so thick and dark.
Either way he was dead.
He quickly strands up and mumbles to himself in cold sweat. “No, no, no; this is impossible- no.” Though it was impossible, it had just happened there was no denying reality at this point. He turns around to see his camera-still on its tri-pod and playing some of the footage taken earlier. He was shocked and even scared that this footage started playing on its own. He was even more terrified to think that maybe this didn’t play by itself. Maybe Dan- or at least what was now inside Dan- had played the footage and hid somewhere before Tim and come up from the ground.
“D-Dan?” He stuttered in fear.
“Dan, What’s wrong?”
Tim said on the playback of the camera. Tim recognizes what this was and slowly makes his way to the camera in front of him. And just like that his heart drops as he looks closely at the camera to see the part where he was choking on nothingness as the red orbs surrounded both him and Dan on the camera.
He watches as he gasping for air in the midst of the red light.
“Am I- dying?”
“No-“ Just as Dan’s deep voice is cut off and the camera shuts down, Tim is greeted by another voice.
“-But you will be.” Dan says from behind Tim. He then swings his arm and sends Tim flying across the camp. Tim lands on his arm upon the dirt ground almost breaking it. He screams in pain and looks toward Dan- his eyes wide with fear. Dan’s eyes however, were dark and black with evil. To Tim’s surprise the open slash in his throat wasn’t there. What had happened? Did Dan heal all of the sudden or was he just screwing with Tim’s mind at first? Oh well who cares now was the time for escape.
Tim quickly tries but fails at lifting himself from the ground. The pain in his left arm was too great, “Give up now Tim- while you still have the chance.” Dan says in his normal voice smiling wickedly as he walks mockingly toward Tim. “No, go away, please!” he pleads but it is too late, Dan grabs Tim’s broken arm and pulls it behind Dan’s back. Tim yells and even cries in sheer agony as his already broken arm is being twisted and contorted in this cruel position.
“Say hi to the camera, Tim.” Dan says to Tim. Tim kept thinking that it can’t get any worse than this; Dan even when possessed cannot be this cruel or hateful. But sadly to say this was not the end of it. Dan lifts Tim by the same arm, dislocating it beyond repair. The bone is now piercing through the skin and even breaking more and more each second. Tim was on the brink of wishing for death, death though sudden and as bad as it sounds could stop this pain. He could end it right here, all he would have to do was ask for it.
“Please, please, just kill me.” He begs, wishing for death to take him there. His bone sticks out from his elbow like a knife and practically exits the broken limb leaving that part of the arm without this piece of the puzzle. “No you want that-oh you twisted son of a bitch! I thought you knew better?” Dan said as he shifts his grip to hang on to Tim’s shirt and to grab onto his forearm. “Don’t you see?- Death will take all the fun out of eating- your soul!” Dan yells as he separates Tim from his broken arm permanently leaving a bloody stump on Tim’s left side bleeding nonstop. Dan laughs wickedly as he drops Tim who now bleeds to his death, lying on his back facing evil itself-living within Dan. It was now Tim’s impression that Dan no longer existed- that he was gone and now there was this thing staring at him with his deep dark eyes and wicked grin.
Dan crouches down above Tim who could do nothing but wait for death to come. “You know, I didn’t know what was more stupid: you thinking that you were come out of this alive? Or you believing you were going to be famous for this stupid ghost hunting shit?” Tim groans, extending his other arm grabbing at dirt and trying to move his left stub that was bleeding uncontrollably. “What’s wrong brother? Miss ol’ lefty?” Dan laughs while Tim puts his last bit of strength into this final act of defense.
“You are NOT my brother!”
Tim yells as he grabs hold of the piece of bone that slipped away earlier and directs the sharpest end at Dan’s throat. In one swift motion Dan’s throat is slit open and blood from his neck runs down his chest and even splatters upon Tim’s face. Dan’s expressionless eyes turn back to normal again as the dark dissipates from his eyes. Dan gasps hard and long before he looks down at his brother.
“Dan?” Tim asks while dropping the bone onto the ground; for there was a feeling of hope- hope in which his brother was still alive inside.
But it was too late for hope. Blood has been spilt only to dry up once more. And as the sun rose up on the horizon shining through branches of the dark forest of Devil’s Trail Dan could only speak these words:
“I-I’m, s-s-sorry…” He collapses and lands next to Tim on his left in a puddle of Tim’s blood, and soon to be mixed with his blood as well. “I’m sorry too-“He says weakly, unable to speak anymore words. Not to mention the fact that his breaths were limited. He only had time to admire that the camera was there on the tri-pod aimed directly at the two dying boys.
Tim thought to himself, that his dreams to be a ghost hunter really were stupid. Honestly who would want to end up like this someday? Dying on a dirt trail next to your once-possessed brother? A trail named only after Lucifer himself. This was no way to die but at least, he thought, at least he could find peace in knowing that his brother was free of evil’s grip. He looks up and stares at the sky now starting to turn a shade of purple and orange almost like a reversed sunset.
Well this was nice. Who said death couldn’t be beautiful, or at least have a beautiful setting?
At the sight of the sky he could feel himself slipping away, his vision grows dimmer and his breaths become shallow.
At least we tried. He thought.
God, if only we have lived to tell others- then Dan and I would have been set for life. Doing what we loved and making money by doing it.
That would have been great.
Minutes pass as he is drawing closer to death and lays there in silence. Dan has been long since dead, Tim was only taking so long because his blood had clotted some of his veins releasing blood into his arm. He endures what was a slow, silent, painful, but peaceful death.
At least we got it all on tape.
He moves his eyes toward the camera fading in and out of his vision, until before his eyes the camera disappears into thin air.
END.
Hells Reject 