Fall

The white crept through the trees making everything seem colder than it actually was. The ground was soft from all of the moisture and each blade of uncut grass had a little drop of dew resting atop its stalk. The few remaining leaves that were on the nearly bare tall oak trees were losing their battle against the gusting wind that swirled amongst the branches.

The stable off in distance was open, although I am sure I closed it last night. I walked towards it and as I got closer I thought to myself that I need to paint it again as it has been years since I put on a fresh coat. The paint had begun chipping away years ago, but I had more important things to attend to: the sudden death of all of my animals, the tragic accident where I nearly lost my life, and the fire.

I grabbed the sliding door by the handle and closed it, but when I grabbed for the lock to secure it again I noticed that it was gone. I reopened the door and entered the dark room that once housed five beautiful Tiger Horses; all five living up to the Spanish conformation and not one having the affliction of having a rat tail, which is acceptable for the breed, but thankfully not common.

I reached for the light switch to my left, but it didnt work. As I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness I began to get the feeling that I wasnt alone. Fearing that someone else was near I moved away from the door so that I wasnt so easily seen. I crouched to the ground and slowly regained my sight.

Remebering that I kept a flashlight on my desk I quietly made my way to the other side of the stable while still crouching. The creaking noise made by the boards of the floor that I crossed over was masked by the creaking of the entire stable as the wind hit it. I felt my feet stick to the ground in a few places, but I assumed it was due to the rain from the previous day.

Upon reaching my desk I stood up and then sat down in my chair. I tried turning on my desk lamp, but much like before it didnt work. I opened the second drawer from the top on the lefthand side of my desk and went through it until I felt the flashlight. I turned it on and gave it a few good shakes. Finally I had some light, although it was fairly dim from years of not being used. While this light was hardly visible, Im lucky to have any light at all.

I stand up and focus the light on the floor which I just crawled over, only to find that what I thought was normal moisture from the previous days rain was not water at all. Clearly I had crawled through pools of blood.

I focused the dim light on the closest pool of blood and followed the trail it left on the wooden floor. The trail led to two dirty, formerly black dress shoes that led to a pair of dingy gray dress pants. I quickly brought the light up to where the head of this body should be and saw a quiet, yet screaming face whose eyes had been ripped out.

I jumped backwards and while doing so noticed that this body wasnt the only one in the room. I moved the light quickly all over the place, left, right, behind me and up and saw that there were bodies hanging from all over the place, all of them quietly screaming and missing their eyes.

The lights in the room came flashing on, allowing me to see that every inch of the wall was covered with bodies and the fluids that the oozed from them. Each corpse was hung from the wall by a hook that protruded from each body's chest cavity.

Just as quickly as the lights came on, they went off again. I made a dash for the door that was still open, but as I got close to it a dark shadow stepped in front of the doorway. I stopped and yelled, "WHO ARE YOU," but before I could get an answer I felt a cold shiver go down my spine and I was suddenly on the floor.

I was on my side, facing the door and the light, but I couldnt move, I couldnt speak, I could just see.

The wind from outside stopped, but I still couldnt hear anything.

The shadow moved closer and then nothing.

Nothing.