The Dark: Chapter Eight

The trees shudder in the chill of the night. Towering above you like tall eerie sentinels. Their wind rustled leaves giving the illusion that they are indulging in a secret to which you are not privy to.
As the old cracked leather creaks beneath you, you shift in your seat to get a better look out the window. The moon is full and bright casting everything in an unearthly bluish light.
You appear to be at the edge of a wood. The nose of your car sniffing at its feet. How you got there you have no idea. The last thing you remember is getting into the car to go to the police station. To go and turn yourself in. but after that...nothing. Nothing but this place- at the edge of the woods. You cant help but feel you have been here before. That it holds a certain importance. A certain hold over you. You dont know how but you cant shake the feeling that this place has somehow left its smudgy fingerprint on the surface of your pitiful existence.
Reaching for the door you step out of the car not bothering to close the door behind you. You take a few steps towards the darkness of the woods, the knarled roots of the nearest tree hard under foot. you suddenly stop, however, as if you have just hit an invisible barrier. Your breath begins to come in short ragged gasps. The palms of your hands sweaty. your throat cardboard dry. You suddenly know where you are. The realisation horrifies you.
Why would you come back here?
Then as if deciding that you are privy to their secrets afterall, the trees themselves seem to answer you. As one. As if it is the spirit of the forest itself answering you. And this alone horrifies you ten times more than the realisation of where you are. Because that can mean only one of two things. that one- you are completely out of your mind or two- all of this is absolutely real. The latter certainly being the scarier of the two.
Refusing to play into your paranoia, you decide to get the hell out of there. Turning, you are about to head back to the car when something stops you. Something isnt right. It takes you a moment to place your finger on it. and then it hits you. you had left the door of your car open. Youre sure of it. You would bank your life savings on it. But unless your mind is playing tricks on you it is now closed. your eyes travel up the closed door to the open window. you feel your blood freeze in your veins.Your breath condense right there in your throat. There is someone sitting behind the wheel.
Blinking several times you make a vain attempt to will whoever it is sitting behind the wheel of your car out of it. You have no such luck. If anything, whoever or whatver it is seems to sense that you are watching them. Slowly but with the gravity of a planet, the person turns to face you. You feel your legs turn to jelly beneath you. Stumbling a few feet backwards you struggle to keep you feet under you. Its Him. Youre as certain of it as you are that you have ten fingers and ten toes.Its the eyes. Glowing as red as rubies formed in the very fires of Hell itself. Only one question belittles your conclusion: How?
Suddenly, a violent wind kicks up, clawing savagely at your clothes, tearing leaves from the surrounding trees, sucking the very breath from your lungs. and then the voice of the forest speaks. A wispy wraith that almost passes over your ears in incomprehension.
"He's waiting for you."
You glance up at the trees. At the knarled fingers of their ancient branches. Then, after a moment, beyond them, at the sky. It is rolling with dark, mean looking clouds. Clouds that threaten rain. That not only threaten rain but promise it.
Your eyes fall back to earth. back to your car.
To your empty car. With its driver side door open.
Just as you left it.
You take a step towards your car but think the better of it. He's waiting for you. God knows he's not one to toy with. Its better you find out what He wants.
And with that decision set in stone in your mind, you turn on your heels and face the woods. The dark, menacing, soul swallowing woods. The wind, changing direction, pushes at your back, urging you fowards.
Unable to disobey, unable to ignore, you take a step forwards. then another. Then another. Before long the wood has swallowed you. There is no longer any escape. There is only one direction to take.
The moon, penetrating the thick canopy above you in shards, lights your path in glimses. A thick root here, a puddle of water there. Making your procession easier but only by a fraction. You trip a number of times but somehow manage to keep your feet under you. All the while the wood has become a muted hush. As if holding its breath in quiet anticipation.
And then you see it. Just as you left it.
It is an old structure. Probably more than fifty years. Even though, it still appears sturdy, strong and if given some time and attention; inhabitable.
The old cabin sits in the middle of a small clearing. The area immediately surrounding it is strewn with gravel, discarded sticks deemed unworthy to serve as firewood by some long gone hiker as well as a number of small to medium sized boulders.
The gravel crunches under you as you cautiously make your way across the clearing to the foot of the porch steps.
The warped old wood creaks under foot as you take the first step up to the cabin. As you take the second step there is another creak. This one, however, is deeper and more prolonged. And comes from above and in front of you rather from beneath you.
You look up from your feet and find the door of the cabin swinging inwards. Opening up on a darkness that you have no words to explain. No words to describe.
You pause. But only for a second. Then gathering your wits about you, you climb up the rest of the stairs, walk across the porch and stop in front of the open doorway.
Peering into the cabin you see nothing. Then taking a deep breath you cross the thresh hold, the door of the cabin closing behind you with a deep and prolonged creak.