Marysvale (3 page)

MARYSVALE

By

Jared Southwick

www.jaredsouthwick.com

Copyright © 2010 Jared Southwick.
All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

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the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons
,
living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.

Illustrations by Bradley O.
Fullmer

Cover design by Design Publishing
Group

Library of Congress Control Number
(LCCN): 2010932686

ebook ISBN-13:
978-0-9845882-2-0

This book is also available in
print.

Hardback ISBN-13:
978-0-9845882-0-6

G
REAT
torrents of hot, humid wind roared through the
dark woods, whipping up dust and debris. Try as he might, the young
boy kept getting dirt in his eyes, while branches ripped at his
clothes and scratched at his face.
Ten-year-olds don’t get
scared
—or so he kept telling himself. Tears poured freely down
his cheeks, as pangs of fear seized him. The sky swirled and
churned with black, ominous clouds. They hung low over the treetops
like a heavy blanket, withholding their rain and smothering the
forest. Jagged streaks of lightning split the air with deafening
cracks and rolling thunder. Everything looked the same. The north
looked just as it did to the south, and both equally resembled the
east and west. Even though it was noontime, the clouds had grown so
thick that it felt well past eventide.

A faint sound touched his
ears.

Was that a growl?
He
worried.

It was hard to tell over the deafening
storm. His mind conjured up all kinds of ferocious beasts that
surely lurked in the shadows, behind dense foliage and thick tree
trunks—monsters he had fought countless times before in the safety
of his own home and imagination.

There it is again!
His heart
stopped and he froze, afraid to move.

What is it? Where is it coming
from?

He closed his eyes and strained his
ears, listening intently. There, carried faintly on the wind was
the sound.

Tepidly, he moved forward and listened
again.

That’s no monster. It sounds
like…singing?

Blindly, he fought the wind. With arms
up to protect his face from the thrashing branches, he continued to
push his way through the woods toward the sound.

It has to be human,
he
thought. Encouraged, he plowed on.

Finally, the clouds burst. Sheets of
rain drenched the ground, making it slippery and
treacherous.

The song grew louder.

Almost there.

He wiped the stinging moisture from his
face with a sleeve. In doing so, he failed to see the root that
snagged his foot. Falling in the mud with a splat, he half slid,
half tumbled down a small hill.

As he came to a rest, lightning cracked
overhead. The song was right there.

Not a song,
he realized.
It’s chanting.

He wiped the mud from his face and
looked up, finding himself at the edge of a clearing. Before him,
black-hooded figures, adorned in robes with silvery runes, swayed
in a tight circular pattern as they chanted around a…

He couldn’t believe what he saw. His
breath escaped in a small cry, drowned in a clap of
thunder.

The figures didn’t hear him; but the
monster did.

Its hulking, hairy form towered above
the cloaked people; the lower half obscured by the circle of bodies
surrounding it.

The boy poised to run; but the
monster’s black eyes locked on his, momentarily transfixing him.
They were wide, searching eyes—like those of a trapped
animal.

Could it be afraid?
wondered
the boy.

The chanting grew louder, reaching a
fevered pitch. The monster’s eyes rolled back in its head, exposing
only the whites. The figures stopped their movement. One of them
raised a blood-drenched dagger high above his head and shouted
something in a strange language.

A dark, unnatural fear gripped the
boy—the terror of some unnamed, ancient evil. He scrambled back,
flight being his only thought. The monster bellowed a deafening
roar, exposing teeth as long as hunting knives.

The boy screamed!

This time, he was heard.

Cloaked heads snapped around, searching
for the source of the disturbance. Anger flashed across their faces
as the boy stumbled back into the forest, desperate to flee the
scene.

The figure holding the dagger pointed
it at the retreating child and gave a blood-curdling yell.
Instantly, two others gave chase.

T
HE
woods blurred as we flew by. Fading sunlight
trickled through a canopy of oak, hickory, and maple trees towering
above, igniting the woods in a sea of gold. The first of the autumn
leaves blazed in their respective reds and yellows, as if in homage
to the primordial sun they worshiped. The most devout of these
early wayfarers had already begun their pilgrimage to the ground,
only to be kicked up and violently expelled in our wake. They
swirled angrily behind us, in their own little whirlpools of wind,
as we ran for our lives.