Note: Last night was prompt night at Write On. The prompt I chose was to write a spooky story to tell around a campfire. I was a bit low on inspiration and built off a scene painted on the wall at Harvest Time. The scene is shown in the picture. Thanks for reading.
Mia’s steps fell in an even pattern that made it feel like her journey had backing percussion complete with the consistent shake of maracas with the way the gravel crunched under her Nikes. She hummed Taylor Swift songs and daydreamed about Justin Bieber. A truck passed, an old Dodge, probably from the 40s, so small that Mia thought the monster-sized extended-cab Ford that her dad drove probably could eat it. She imagined a huge mouth opening in the grill of her dad’s truck between the headlights with long shiny chrome teeth pointed razor sharp and dripping with motor oil gnashing down on the little old Dodge, the metal twisting and glass shattering like a scream.
“You’re twisted,” Mia’s friend Kate would have said if she heard Mia’s thoughts.
Mia wished Kate were with her, heck she wished anyone was with her, even her little brother Tommy. This long walk through the country had been a challenge placed in front of her by her mother.
“You sit around too much staring at some screen with those damn things in your ears,” her mother said just an hour earlier. “Go for a walk, it’s a nice day.”
“Fine,” Mia decided to shut her mother up and walked right out of the house. Her family lived miles from anything remotely considered a town, so even after an hour, she was still definitely in the middle of nowhere. She had turned right on her road at the end of their lane, then cut across Mr. Stern’s pasture, stopping to pet his gelding, something she did on a daily basis anyways. Then she discovered a winding dirt path that cut between a thicket of trees before finding this long gravel road. To be truthful, she wasn’t entirely sure where she was. She thought she could turn around and find her way home, but something kept her feet moving forward. Yes, it would be nice to have someone beside her saying, “Hey, let’s go back.”
Ahead she could see that that the road came to a dead end at a white fence. In the middle was a gate, and beside the gate was a lamp post.
“That’s weird,” she said aloud just to hear a voice, even if it was her own. “You don’t see a lot of lampposts in the middle of the country.”
Hanging from the lamp post was a sign, on it in plain black letters was 623 Roman Road. Beyond the fence there was nothing. Not a house. Or a Trailer. The only signs of life were an old red bike leaning against the fence with flat tires and a cardinal sitting atop one of the posts. Everything about the scene was so still that if she were in a museum, she would have thought it a painting with purple and red wildflowers growing over the bottom cross beam of the fence for a splash of color.
“Kind of a stupid place for such a nice fence,” she said. She looked beyond and she could make out fields and trees, but it all appeared a little distorted, kind of like when she put on her prescription glasses on while already wearing her contacts.
“HELLO!” She called, hearing the echo that came from the other side.
She touched the gate’s handle, but couldn’t muster the courage to open it. It’d be trespassing, after all. She wasn’t a goodie, goodie, but she knew better than to just waltz onto someone else’s property. Country folk owned guns and they know how to use them. That was her dad’s voice in her head. Barf.
“This is silly.” She spun around, took two steps then nearly jumped out of her skin when the voice called from behind.
“Hello.”
It was a boy, maybe a year or two older than her, wearing bibs and a straw hat. The skin below the denim was tanned a golden brown, his eyes were the same color, and his lips had just the right amount mischief in their curl. She felt herself blush even as she registered that something about him wasn’t right.
“Hi.” She responded trying to pinpoint what it was about him.
“I’m Puck,” he said. “Like in the Shakespeare play.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but the teenage girl in her couldn’t believe this dreamboat was talking to her. She chased that nonsense out of her head. What was wrong here?
“I’m Mia.”
“I like that name,” he grinned. “You want to come on this side of the fence.”
“What’s on that side?”
He grinned wider.
“Well, me, for one.” And as if gravity were contributing to his cause, the strap of his bibs fell down his arm, revealing more of his muscular shoulder. She heard her voice agreeing but her brain was numbed studying his smooth skin.
“All you have to do is open the gate,” he said.
“Can’t you?”
“No, no, you have to open it. That’s the rules.”
“The rules?” her hand was on the cold metal of the gate latch again. “What rules.”
He grinned but didn’t answer. This close to him, she noticed how flat he seemed, like he didn’t have any dimensions. How could that be? She wanted to touch his face, feel his arms, they were like the oil paintings on her parent’s wall. So vibrant, so real, but yet not quite.
She pushed on the gate, her eyes lost in his, but as she did, she felt a tug on her finger tips, like someone was pulling her fingers. A pit fell in her stomach, and she thought about the bike with the flat tires. That had been someone else’s bike, and someone else had found this fence and this gate and was seduced into opening it, and never came out. All that’s left of them is that bike.
“No,” she whispered, pulling the gate shut.
Fire burned behind Puck’s eyes. A brilliant flash, like a supernova. She fell backwards, as his skin melted away revealing a hideous green and purple beast with two heads with forked tongues. She hit the gravel, her head bouncing of the hard stone, and everything went dark.
Something wet crossed her face, and she lunged upward, meeting the eyes of the beast: Mr. Stern’s gelding, its tongue drooping from its mouth. She was beneath a tree in the pasture. Clearly, she had fell asleep instead of walking on. It had all been a dream. When she stood, she thought she saw the white fence in the distance, but she didn’t look twice. Instead, she ran home. Staring at a screen was ten times safer than walking in her neighborhood.
