Clara

The paths are long and lifeless. I didn't feel alive or even real while I walked there. My breathes were hard, the air smelled bad, my vision felt blurred and I started cooking up a fever. I have been in there for so long. But how long? I had no idea. Everything for some reason is starting to feel like it's getting worse. I have only encountered one more dog creature, nothing more.

I drug my bar behind me. It made a gruff noise as I drug it through the dirt. My eyes felt clouded and I was tired. My mouth hung open a little while I stared wide eyed at the ground. I looked up and around me, at the stiff stones poking out of the ground. I noticed more blood stains and darker tints to the stained areas. I felt my heart pounding and I was starting to sweat.

I started to run fast. I didn't hear anything, but it felt so much like I was being watched. I was waiting for my phone to make that noise I had heard each time I had been attacked, but it sat sound in my pocket. It was getting darker where I was headed. A fence and gate was up ahead of me. No more light poles or torches though. I reached into my jacket and pulled out my miniature flashlight. I shown it ahead of me and onto the fence. I reached it and it was locked.

I grabbed the bars between my hands and shook it. Nothing happened except the loud annoying squeeking the gate made. I pressed my face up against the bars and looked down what lay behind it. I couldn't see anything, it was too foggy. I took my bar and sliced it against the gate. It didn't budge and only made the bar shake, and shake my arm and make me dizzy.

I dropped down on my butt and sat on the path in front of the gate. I layed my flashlight and my weapon next to me. I wrapped my hands around my head.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the rusty key I had found. Would it really work?

I got up and looked for the lock. I found it and the key slid into the hole perfectly. I twisted it and it clicked. I put the key back in pocket and retreived my weapon and flashlight. When I turned back to the gate, it was wide open.

There wasn't any wind. I took a breath and walked past the fence. Nothing changed, except the area seemed to be foggier. I saw a dim light up ahead, so I headed towards that.

The air chilled, and I was headed down a hill. I kept walking and came to a huge opening in the fence leading up a hill into a forest. I stopped and looked around. There was a light pole next to the gate. I saw another light coming from the hill. They looked like headlights.

The atmosphere felt warm suddenly. I tightened the grip on my bar. A hand grabbed my shoulder.

I tossed myself around and swung the bar behind me as hard as I could. I hit something about twice my size and it fell back.

"AAAGGOOWWWW!" I turned around and saw a tall man screaming and holding his stomach.

"AHHH!" I started screaming and dropped my weapon. He quit and whined a little, and then fell on his knees. My image of him came into my view.

My eyes widened and I quit yelling. I put my hand barely over and close to my chin. "Ah!" I ran over to him and leaned next to him. "Henry!" I could hardly speak or let out what I wanted to say. So much to explain and tell him, but I didn't know where to start or what to do.

He moaned and fell on his hands. He rubbed his stomach but didn't quit the groaning. "Oww... why did you do that?" I stood up and looked up at the car.

"Why did you sneak up on me?" I yelled at him. I noticed my voice was weaker and cracking easy. He shook his head.

"I just saw you.. I guess I wasn't thinking about the freaking you out part..." He pushed himself off the ground and straightened his shirt out in front of him. A dark red stain was spread across the middle of it.

"I know." I stilled stared at his shirt. He let go of it and looked about the graveyard.

He moved his arms in a shruggish way. "Well, here I am again." I stared at him and he stared at me. "You know... remember when I told you? At Randy Lou's?"

I still stared at him. "Yes." The way it came out made me sound like I was ill. Although I wouldn't deny it. I was getting horrible headaches and my eyes felt like they were about to pop. I was continuously off and on getting fevers. I wasn't hungry or thirsty; but I was tired as hell and finding less and less reasons to still stay alive. "Am I dying?"

Henry turned and glanced at me. "What?" It wasn't supposed to be out loud, but that's what happened. I wondered if I have been talking to myself while I've been here. Obviously there was no one else around me to tell me I was. But now Henry was.

"Where am I?" I asked him. He seemed either worried or thought I was crazy. Which, I thought he was crazy, so I didn't really care if he thought I was.

"A place where the dead play actions of the living." He shrugged.

"Hell?" I had been referring back to the conversation we had at the bar.

He nodded and oddly enough gave a cocky smile. "Basically." I didn't smile, but my mouth was still hanging open and my eyes felt like they were drooping. My hair was dirty and some of it was pasted against my face with sweat. I looked terrible, no wonder he was worried.

"What do I do? How do we get out!" I ran over to him and grabbed him by the shirt. I shook him but I didn't move him much, he was much bigger than me and I was half way dead as it was. He grabbed my arms and looked over me. I felt myself crying and squeezed my hands into weak fists. My nails were digging into my palms. He didn't say anything, and all I could hear was my pitiful crying. No bugs, no animals, not anything. Just my crying. All I could see was blurr, and Henry's shirt. The graveyard was still shrouded in it's fogg and nothing was happening. "Doesn't anyone care? Don't they feel sorry for me?" I started crying harder there, and Henry looked down at me.

"That's why I'm here, Clara." Even if I had of looked at him I wouldn't have been able to tell it was even him. He looked down at the ground below us. I grabbed his hand and leaned my head against his chest. He let me and I felt myself crying even harder, if it was possible. I felt him pull me. "Come on, Clara. Let's try and get out.."

I heard my phone in my pocket. I heard a voice first, it sounded like a girl talking and screaming at me. She screamed my name almost five times throughout her yells, but I couldn't understand any of the words she was saying. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the phone. The voice grew deep and said something too misty to make out. There was a pause after that and my phone started to make the loud, continuous annoying beep. The moaning and groaning came next.

Henry grabbed his head and looked around. "Damnit...!" He rubbed it. "What's going on...!" I stared at him and quickly back at the phone. I looked around. What was coming for me now?

I heard a footstep behind us. I swung myself around and flew my flashlight beam in the direction. It's essence shown on what it was.

A man stood there. He was twice the size of Henry, and his body was bulky. He looked like he was seven feet tall. His shoulders were wide and supported his tiny head in the middle. He was as pale as he could possibly be, and he was missing his right eyeball. He held a giant machete in his right left arm. It was soaked and dyed with blood. He tried to say something, but it came out in mumbles and chunks of blood began to roll from his lips.

I grasped the bar in my hands as tight as I could. I had dropped the flashlight and my phone was resting safe in my jacket. Henry was next to me and ran his hands near his pockets. His eyes grew wide and he looked at the man in fear. "I left my gun in the car!"

I glanced at him quickly but my attention was soon refocused back on the monster. "You have a gun!" I was a bit exasperated and scared at the same time. Now I had to fight this thing with this stupid bar. I could barely cause Henry more damage than the cut I gave him.

He snatched the bar out of my hands and stared at the beast. He used his freehand to point towards the hill. "That's my car! The gun's in there! Go!" I hesitated but he yelled harder and louder. The moment I ran from the scene, the monster must have thought of it as a threat. It started to run after me.

Henry ran close to him before he had time to attack me. I kept running and got out the gate. I heard the beast moaning and the bar slicing through the air. I had to hurry, it wouldn't be enough to kill the monster. I had to get the gun before Henry ran out of energy.

I finally reached the edge of the hill and started climbing up it. I heard moans from a distance, but it wasn't the beast I saw and it definately wasn't Henry. I ignored it and continued to climb up the hill. It was steep, and the only thing holding the car there was the tree. One wrong move in the car and I'd probally be killed inside it rolling down the slope.

I was able to pull myself up with the level of the car, and I crawled over to it. I don't think I was strong enough to anything more. I pulled myself gently inside the front seat, trying my best not to disturb the car's balance. The were no lights on the inside, but I saw a flashlight on the floorboard. I grabbed it and rolled back onto the front seat. The car creaked and jerked. It threw me forward and I hit the wheel. I layed there still until the car quieted and quit moving.

I switched the flashlight on and the beam flew ahead of me. A silver shine caught my attention and I reached for it. It felt cold in my hand and I knew it was the gun. I almost felt like laughing from joy. I ran my hands over it and closed my eyes. I could feel tears escaping them.

My mood rapidly changed when I heard the deep moan above my head. I just realized my phone had been screaming when I neared the car, but I was too eager and had ignored it. I slowly lifted my head up and looked above me.

I stared into the eyes of a pale man with dark black circles around his eyes. The eyes had no color and his lips were chipped and white. He groaned and threw his head towards me. I screamed and felt my finger squeeze the trigger. I heard the shot and felt blood splatter across me and the car seats. I cried and pushed myself out of backwards.

I stumbled, but got away fast enough before I heard my phone go insane again. I heard the same moan come from the car.

I quit wasting time and rolled back down to the graveyard. It hurt, but it was the quickest and ironically safest way down. When I stumbled back into the graveyard entrance it came to my surprise that Henry and the creature were no longer there.

"H-Henry?" No answer came from around me. I looked around but saw nothing. I heard the car making loud bangs. It started losing it's balance and falling. I knew it was the strange creature inside, so I ran back deep into the graveyard where I had come from.

It was dark and I no longer had my flashlight. All I had was my phone and the gun. I felt better with the gun, but I had to use it wisely. I only had so many bullets, and I didn't know what Henry did with the extras. I wasn't going to look through his possessed car either.

I kept running. Things were quiet, but that's not how they would last.

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