beneath. His eyes fixed on the ground as his head bobbed on his noodle of a neck.
Boom. Crash.
Branches were ripped from the trunks of the pines, the green needles filling the air about the shadowy form as it’s heavy footfalls pounded on the ground. Forcing its way through the forest, anything in its way was pulverized into powder.
Boom.
His feet starting to churn in an attempt to run, Scott’s feet sunk into the deep snow, wrenching him out of Harry’s grip. Landing face first in the packed powder, he closed his eyes tightly, pushing back the ice crystals that burned like fire against his bare eyeballs as he tried to get his arms beneath to push himself back up.
Boom!
“Get up!” Harry screamed. He whirled and grabbed Scott by the back of the shirt, dragging him along the ground as he watched the foliage behind them exploding in a cloud of green and white. He could see the black form in the center of the shrapnel, those eyes glowing like embers as they locked onto him.
Boom!
Bracing his hands against the frozen earth beneath the mat of snow, Scott dragged his legs under him and he was at least on all fours. Fighting against the wrenching on his shirt, he stumbled to his feet, lurching forward of his own volition.
Boom!
Harry let go of the sweatshirt, glancing back just long enough to ensure that Scott was on his feet. Turning back to the winding course through the irregularly spaced trunks, he barely had enough time to force his eyes shut as he ran straight into the low lying branch. The rough bark tore at the skin on his forehead, splitting it wide in a series on scrapes, the skin around it turning purple. The swelling began at impact.
Boom!
His feet flew out from beneath him as the next thing to land would be his shoulders as he watched his feet rise up into view against the dark canopy of the trees above. The back of his head slammed into the snow, which plumed into the air around him as his back crashed to the earth as well. Flopping helplessly at the ends of his flailing legs, his feet were the last to come crashing down.
Boom!
Scott scrambled onto his hands and knees by Harry, trying to slip his hands beneath Harry’s shoulders and hips, in hopes of, even in his severely weakened state, picking him up to carry him from the grove.
Boom!
The ground shuddered beneath them as Scott fought in vain to raise Harry from the ground as he rolled from side to side trying to regain the wind that had been forced from his suddenly collapsed lungs. It felt as though the earth was going to open wide and swallow them as it trembled beneath the thunderous footfalls that were now nearly upon them.
Boom!
The crashing was right behind him now, the echoing footfalls no more than a few feet from his turned back now. He could feel the cold breath of whatever it was that was following them raise the hackles on the back of his neck. The ferocious wind that ripped through the air, seeming to originate from the very core of their stalker, gusted painfully from behind, carrying with it the shrapnel from the leveled forest.
Boom!
Clenching his fists at his sides, Scott stared down at Harry briefly. His clenched eyes finally opened as his rolling stopped, that first wonderfully cold inhalation filling his lungs from the finally gasp. Knowing that there was nothing he could do for his new found friend other than watch him breath, Scott summoned the swell of adrenaline that pumped up from his chest, spilling out through his vessels into every corner of his being. His chest began to pound in anticipation. His bared teeth curled back his tightly sewn lips, his breath bursting from his nostrils like a wild bull.
Boom!
His legs tensed as he prepared to leap to his feet. His fingernails pressed crescents into his palms as his pulse throbbed within his tightly closed fists. He just needed it to get a little closer. Just a little more….
Boom!
Leaping to his feet, he whirled around. Facing the direction where the booming had come from, he led with his right, swinging it in a huge arc with all of the might that he could muster. It whistled through the air, landing on nothing but the thin night air as he stumbled forward, losing his balance. Toppling into the snow, he hopped back to his feet as soon as he hit the cold surface. His head snapped from one side to the other as he sought to gain a glimpse of whatever had been there only a second before.
But there was nothing there.
“My son,” a deep voice whispered along the breeze that streamed through the forest, swirling about them for a moment before finally being absorbed by the darkness.
“Where…?” Scott stammered as he whirled, trying to find the figure that had been right on their heels only a moment prior. It had sounded so massive, how could it have just vanished without a sound?
There was a loud crashing in the underbrush to the right as Scott whirled in time to catch the flash of the eyes of a large buck as it bounded through the foliage, its enormous rack of antlers blending in with the criss- crossing mass of tangled branches above it. Its eyes flashed like two yellow lights, their image lingering against the night as there was but a flash from the white patch on its hind end as it bounded off into the night.
“Are you all right?” Scott asked, turning as he noticed that Harry was now sitting up, sucking in the crisp air as though he had never done so before.
“Yeah,” he wheezed, take one long inhalation before allowing a long, thin sigh to creep from his lips, his shoulders finally settling into a slouch.
Scott caught movement from the top of his eyes and immediately looked up. There was a darkened shape hovering in midair against the line of trees in front of them.
“Help me,” a wispy voice whispered as the object dangling in midair came into focus.
It was a skull.
The flesh had been ripped from the exposed bone, severed muscles and tendons dangling from where they connected to the red stained skull. Two barren black holes stared at them from the center of the dripping face, the blood flowing in streams down the exposed bone, welling atop the stone cut cheek bones before falling in long lines to the snow.
“Please,” the apparition mouthed, its jaw clicking with the movement. “Help me.”
Scott stared at it, fighting his trembling legs as they wanted nothing more then to burst into a sprint, carrying him as far away from there as they possibly could. Slowly, a dark outline of a human form appeared beneath the skull, barely standing out from the darkened night. Perhaps he had at first mistaken it for one of the trunks of the trees that lined his view, or perhaps it hadn’t been there at all, but slowly it came into focus, barely discernible against the blackness that seemed to emanate from it, rather than from the night.
Tattered strands of fabric blew like tendrils from the form along the light breeze that had changed directions unnaturally so that now it was blowing right into his face. Two fiery embers peered forth from the blackness that surrounded the face beneath the shroud, burning straight through him with their blazing stare. A long arm extended from the form’s shoulder straight up into the floating skull, the hand disappearing within.
“Help me,” the meek voice cried again, the hand making the mouth of the skull move.
Scott just stared at the skull, which merely mouthed the words that floated on the sap- tinged air.
A loud, cackling laugh burst past the cracked lips of the figure that finally lowered the skull and turned it so that he could look into the hollow sockets where the eyes had only recently been. More laughter ensued as he moved his hand beneath the bone, causing the hinged jaw to open and close.
Even in the darkness and without being able to make out more than the outline of the shape, Scott knew that it was Matt.
“Help me Obi Wan Kenobi,” Matt uttered through the cackling, amusing himself with the lifeless skull. “You are my only hope.”
Laughter boomed from the core of the shadow as Scott was helpless to do anything more than watch.
