The Demon Wolf - Chapter 31：Lake Luxury

The rest of the day Red watching TV, unable to stop herself from occasionally glancing out the window to look for anything that could be hiding in the trees. When Jerard and Randy finally get home, the sun is already starting to set. Dinner is made and is filled with nothing but tense silence. As Red lays in bed, she’s filled with a sour mixture of excitement and worry.

The next morning is again filled with a tense air as they all quietly eat their breakfast, none of them wanting to say something to the others.

“…So, what time are we going to the haunted trail?” Red asks, finally breaking the silence.

“We, uh, haven’t really thought about it. Probably whenever it gets dark after dinner” Jerard replies.

“Could we go at around eight?”

“Eight? That’s a bit early, will it be that dark by then?”

“It most definitely will be,” Randy answers, “Eight sounds like a good time, we should be home a bit past nine afterwards, depending on the lines. If we go later the lines will get much longer,”

“Welp, eight is is then,” Jerard states.

The conversation dies with those words, and they all continue to eat breakfast. Jerard and Randy leave for work once more, Red all alone in the house again. With today being the day they go do the haunted trail, Red decides to put on her costume to distract herself. She goes up to her room and grabs the bag and changes into it. Seeing herself in the mirror dressed in a witch gown fills her with the sudden urge to twirl in a circle. She does so, the bottom of the gown flying up and swirling around her before coming back down to a rest. She does again in the other direction, laughing a bit as she watches her gown fall back down once more.

The rest of the day she spends walking around the house, being either paranoid or twirling in front of a mirror while TV shows play on the TV in the background. Before she knows it Jerard and Randy get home, having no luck finding anything suspicious.

“It ain’t Halloween yet Red,” Randy says as they come inside and see her, “What are you doing in your costume already?”

“I was thinking we could wear them to the haunted trail,”

“Well since this is your first one, why the hell not?” And with that Randy heads to his room to put on his hotdog costume. Red turns to Jerard.

“Where’s it at?” Jerard asks, knowing she won’t take no for an answer now.

Red runs over to a cabinet in the hallway and pulls out the bag with his knight costume. She hands it to him and he heads upstairs. He soon comes down, now in the full set of foamy armor as Randy comes out dressed as a giant hotdog. They all eat dinner, and soon the sun starts to set as it reaches seven-thirty.

“Where’s the place at?” Jerard asks as he grabs his keys.

“Northern side of town, we should be able to see it from the diner,”

“Got the tickets Red?”

“Right here,”

“Alright, let’s get going,”

They all leave the house, two glowing white dots in the darkness of the forest behind them watching. The eyes disappear as Jerard, Randy, and Red get into Jerard’s truck. They drive to town, heading north towards the diner. As the diner comes into view they see some lights far off on the edge of town along with a giant inflatable pumpkin. They drive to the edge of town, parking in a large dirt field to the left of the road where other cars are parked nearby, further north is where the giant inflatable pumpkin is, sitting next to a large orange archway. The right leg of the archway is actually a booth where someone is selling tickets.

Quite a lot of people are already here, a line starting at the archway stretching a couple yards. They get in the back of the line and wait, looking at all the other people. Though most of them are in ordinary clothes, some people are in costumes. The line soon starts to move forward and they get closer to the gates, hearing some spooky ambient noises with eerie howling and ghoulish screams coming from speakers. As they near the archway they start to hear someone speaking.

“Please step all the way over the line, make room for everyone!” A man’s voice shouts. Reaching the archway, a woman takes their tickets and they walk to the other side where a large group of people are all staring at someone. Only a handful of people behind them are let in before a small chain is put up in the middle of the archway as a warning to not cross it. They walk up to the edge of the group and finally see the person they’re all staring at. It’s John, dressed up in a torn up hoodie and jeans. Very realistic make-up on him makes it look like he has a large bleeding scratch on the side of his face, and dirt on his forehead. Some leaves stick out from his hair that’s going in every direction. He looks like he’s been in a car accident.

“That’s the guy,” Jerard mutters to Randy.

“Welcome everyone!” John exclaims to the group, “My name’s John, and I’ll be your guide through the woods. I hope your drive here wasn’t as bad as mine,” He tells everyone, a couple people in the group chuckling, “Now, how many of you are as excited for this as I am?”

“Wooh!” The majority of the group exclaim.

“Great, then let’s get going,” And with that he walks to towards a dirt trail leading into the woods, however he stops and turns around, “Just a little word of precaution first though. There’s been a lot of, weird stuff happening around here, you all haven’t happened to have seen glowing eyes at all have you?” Suddenly, behind a tree a couple yards away, something leans out into view, glowing white eyes. John notices everyone staring at the forest behind him.

“What?” John asks before turning around, the eyes disappearing, “Was there a deer or something?”

“Eyes,” Someone in the group replies.

“Where?”

“They were just over,” They reply, pointing into the woods, a bit left of the trail. John looks again, turning back to them with a look of suspicion and concern on his face.

“Okay…let’s get going then, shall we?” He says with a nervous smile as he pulls out a flashlight and turns it on, “Make sure you stay on trail, don’t wander off, and stick close together now,” The group slowly filters into the medium sized trail, Randy and Jerard hurrying to get to the front, almost dragging Red along. Wooden poles, about three feet tall line the sides of the path with wires tied in between to act as a sort of fence to keep people on the trail.

“Oh hey, you two were at the Halloween store earlier this week, right?,” John asks with a smile as they catch up to him.

“Yeah,” Jerard replies, the dog scent from the supermarket appearing and attacking his nose.

“Thought I recognized you guys,” He turns back around and continues leading the group down the trail, the town soon becoming hidden by the trees, nothing but moonlight and John’s flashlight providing any sort of vision. Everyone jumps when they hear tires screeching and large blaring lights suddenly appearing from within the woods. The lights quickly turn to the left before suddenly turning off as the group hears a car crash in the distance. There’s lot of chatter in the group.

“Holy shit that scared me,”

“Haha, you scaredy cat,”

“Already off to a great start,”

“Did you see that?”

“What, the lights?”

“No, it looked like, a skull, right before the lights turned off,”

“What else are they going to have?”

“We haven’t even gotten to the building yet and I’m already terrified,”

As the group continues on, they see some lights further down the trail, some smoke flying up through the branches. They come across a small clearing in the woods where a jeep sits, crashed into a tree. A corpse lays in the driver’s seat, their face buried in a blood-stained airbag. One of the back wheels of the jeep, which is slightly lifted in the air from a large twist in the car, rotates slowly. Smoke emits from the crushed hood of the jeep. John looks around, the actor whose suppose to be there nowhere in sight. A very faint scent of sage wafts through the air, but it soon fades away.

The group continues on, walking through more forest, coming across a smaller clearing where some creepy looking symbols are drawn on the ground, made of what looks like blood. John notices that the actors for this scene aren’t here either. Continuing on, they reach a massive clearing in the woods, making a wobbly oval shape, where a giant lake takes up most of the space. The large two story mansion from the photos sits not too far on the far end of the lake. Everyone in the group gets excited and scared.

“This is where it gets really scary,”

“I’m already freaking out from that car wreck and satanic symbols,”

“Satanic?” Randy mutters, “Those are just random scribbles, they would have needed to be retarded to use real symbols,”

“Wow dude, did you see those eyes, they were near the mansion,”

“Dude stop trying to freak me out, it’s just another prop like the ones at the beginning of the trail,”

“Man, that place looks scary. Is it actually abandoned?”

“It’s normally open for summers, but it hasn’t been for awhile,”

“I’m getting the chills just looking at it,”

The sounds of everyone’s feet is the only sound for seemingly miles, the forest dead quiet around them. As they make it halfway to the mansion, they hear screaming coming from the building.

“I think I see the next group starting to catch up,” John states, “Let’s pick up the pace a bit,” And he starts walking a bit faster, the group following. They reach the mansion, where they hear more screaming and the sound of something getting knocked over. They walk around to the back doors which are made of glass and can see something large running around inside. More screams can be heard, and everyone jumps when blood suddenly sprays onto the glass doors.

“It seems we have an unexpected visitor,” John states as he glances at the doors, the blood running down them, “Please, stay right here and I’ll be right back, I need to go check on something,” And with that he heads inside, the group filling up with conversations.

“Is this part of the tour?”

“Have you never been to a Haunted Willows Trail? There’s always stuff like this, helps add to the immersion,”

“What about all that screaming, that didn’t sound like a speaker,”

“It’s not suppose to sound like it’s coming from a speaker,”

“Do you think, those symbols brought something here?”

“This is freaky man, I’m telling you I saw something moving to this place,”

“Dude, relax,”

The group goes silent when they see something flying towards the glass doors. They quickly back out of the way as John goes flying through them, the glass shattering. He tumbles a bit before coming to a stop, quickly getting up. Everyone sees his eyes glowing yellow, his pupils thin and feral like a wolf’s. He wipes off some blood on his face from a new cut that wasn’t there before, his nails longer and sharp like claws now. He stares at the group who stares back at him. He goes to speak but he’s cut off by an inhuman screech coming from inside.

Everyone turns to see a tall, thin, pale creature standing in the middle of the mansion’s lobby. Its whole body is inhumanely thin, it’s bones easily visible, its rib cage almost twice as wide as its torso. It’s easily over six feet tall. Its long arms that go down below its waistline are connected to hands with elongated fingers, all tipped with claws about a foot long each. Its skeletal legs are attached to feet that arch up like an animal’s, long claws where its toes should be. Blood stains its right claws and parts of its right side. Its head looks more like a skull, sharp teeth lining its exposed jaws. It stares down at all the people and John with dark, empty, soulless, sockets where its eyes should be.