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moonlightsmasquerade · 3 months ago

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Monsters in Mayweather: In The Woods Somewhere

CW: Mild Body Horror, Death

An ordinary camping trip Matt Hill and his father went on turned into a waking nightmare.

Run…

Don’t let it catch you

A ringing analog alarm clock blared and Matt Hill’s eyes snapped open. He grumbled, picking up the clock and turning it off, taking in the silence for a moment. Whenever he had a nightmare he would feel clammy and his heart would beat fast, like now, unlike many times before though the memory of the dream faded. He could only remember running from something. Now wasn’t the time to worry about dreams, now he had to worry about the real nightmare: getting out of bed. Matt sat up and stretched, letting out a sigh. He still felt tired. He stood up and dug through his dresser drawers, picking up a long sleeved shirt and jeans to change into for school.

“Matt!” his mother’s voice called out.

“Coming!” he called back, changing into his clothes and grabbing a hairbrush, brushing through his red hair, picking out tangles, and let his long bangs fall over his face, completely covering one of his eyes. He walked down the stairs to the dining room, his little sister quietly eating cereal while his mother handed him some toast and his lunch bag.

“Your father’s going to pick you up from school today, so don’t go to the bus stop, oh, and tell Cyrus not to wait for you.” she said. He nodded and took a bite of his toast.

“Don’t forget they’re also doing baseball tryouts next week, put it on your calendar so you can remember to go this time, it's on Wednesday. ” his mother said, Matt cringed slightly, he hoped she had forgotten about that.

“I might be busy.” He muttered, keeping his eyes on his food to avoid his mom’s gaze.

“With what?”

“Ms Diaz asked if I could help with her lawn after school next Wednesday." He replied. This wasn’t true, she hadn’t asked, he was planning on asking her if he could, if he was doing work then his mom would stop asking him to try out for something he had no interest in.

“But an extracurricular would be good for you,” his mother started, this hadn’t been the first time she had tried to get him to sign up for something he had zero interest in. Matt had learned to tune it out and let her talk about how he could make more friends (he had plenty of those), and he should participate in a sport, lots of young men enjoyed sports (he found them boring).

“You’re not bothering him with that again are you?” His father's voice chimed in as he walked down the stairs. He smoothed his work clothes, wearing a tidy button up shirt and plain trousers, completely plain save for the gold cross necklace around his neck.

“Matt has plenty on his plate right now.” His tone was lighthearted, and he gave Matt a quick pat on the shoulder. Matt took quite a lot of his fathers traits, the most obvious was their shared red hair, though his father kept it short.

"We'll talk about it later then." his mother replied, she handed his father his lunch bag. Matt quickly finished the rest of the toast and grabbed his backpack, ready to get out of the house.

“Alright let's go,” he said, “Bye Selena.” he ruffled his little sister's hair, receiving a laugh and a “Bye bye!” He was about to leave through the front door when his mother stopped him, “Wait,” she tucked Matt’s loose bangs behind his ear,

“There we go, now we can see your face.” She smiled and Matt said a quick “Bye!” and walked out, waving to his mother and then his father, who waved back before he got into his car and drove off. Matt headed to Cyrus’ house, which luckily wasn’t a long walk as they lived two houses down from Matt’s. He stopped as soon as he got there, staying at the end of the sidewalk and watching as Cyrus and their mother stepped out. Cyrus in their usual letterman jacket was pushing some of their windswept brown hair out of their eyes. Ms. Diaz handed them their bookbag, and hugged them once they got it on.

“Have a good day honey! Stay safe! You too Matt!” She said as she waved goodbye to both. Cyrus gave an enthusiastic wave back while Matt just raised and lowered his hand.

“Thanks Mama!” “Bye Ms. Diaz!” both said at the same time. The two continued on their walk to the bus stop at the end of their street, a handful of other teens hung out by the spot. As soon as he and Cyrus arrived at their spot Matt shook his hair out, letting the bangs fall back over his eye. He let out a long sigh.

“The day’s barely started and you already look exhausted.” Cyrus teased.

“I slept like shit and had an awful dream,” Matt groaned, “I wish I was back in bed.”

“That sucks, do you remember what happened in it?”

“I… I don’t remember, I just remember it freaked me out.” Matt replied.

“My dream was lame, I literally had the ‘dream up a day at school’ one, so I wake up and realize that the day isn’t over and I have to do it all over again.” Cyrus exaggerated a sigh and threw their arms down, Matt stifled a small laugh. The bus arrived shortly after, and the two boarded, starting their school day.

…

The day felt like it was never going to end, Cyrus Diaz was thankful it was finally lunchtime. They bought their lunch and scanned the cafeteria, unable to spy Matt’s mop of red hair in the sea of teens. So they headed towards the bathrooms, the bathrooms were next to the back entrance, which after double checking no teachers were nearby, Cyrus snuck through and headed towards the football field nearby, and underneath the bleachers. They spotted Matt sitting underneath, legs crossed and bag lunch in front of him. He hadn’t seen them yet, Cyrus grinned before speaking.

“Matthais Hill, you should be in the cafeteria!” Cyrus put on a faux authoritative voice, causing a small jump from Matt who looked over and relaxed when he realized who it was.

“I ought to give you a detention for this!” Cyrus continued as they walked over and sat next to him, receiving an eye roll from Matt.

“You’re a dork.” he said

Cyrus let out a small laugh, then began eating their food, and noticed Matt only picking slightly at his. It was easy to tell when Matt was bothered by something, his whole demeanor would change. This coupled with the fact he only sat under the bleachers when he didn’t feel like socializing with the crowd, it made Cyrus wonder.

“You seemed kinda miffed, is anything wrong?” They asked, hearing him let out a sigh.

“No… it was just my mom,” he let out a disgruntled sigh, “I thought she was over telling me what I should be doing with my free time, but then she goes on about trying baseball again.”

“Baseball? The last time you played baseball you were 5 and you spent the whole game counting the ants on the ground.” Cyrus said before taking a bite of cafeteria pizza.

“I counted 137.” Matt replied like it was an achievement, Cyrus nearly choked on their food to stifle a laugh.

“You can remember how many ants you counted on the ground, but you can’t remember half of your algebra equations. Glad you have your priorities.” They teased. Matt giggled, and his demeanor changed again, looking relaxed. Mission accomplished, Cyrus thought to themself, they hated to see him upset. The two ate their food, trading their desserts, Cyrus giving Matt their packaged cake and Matt handing them his apple slices.

“I wish they’d stop giving us coffee cake, it's so gross.” Cyrus commented.

“Coffee cake is so good though.” Matt replied.

Cyrus made a sound mimicking an incorrect buzzer before saying “Wrong”

“Anyhoo, are you free this weekend?” Cyrus clicked open the tab of their soda and sipped it while waiting for Matt’s reply.

“Oh shoot, no, Dad’s taking me camping in the woods.” he said, “Don’t wait for me at the bus today, he’s picking me up so we can head out early tonight.” he added, Cyrus’s eyes got wide.

“Whoa!” They cried “You’re so lucky!” Cyrus said, Matt let out a small giggle at his friend's overexcitement.

“It’s just camping, we’re not going anywhere crazy amazing.” Matt replied.

“I know but I’d love to do something like that, my mom would never let me go out in the forest.” Cyrus said.

“I’m kinda nervous, I’ve never really camped in the woods, just the backyard.” Matt said, starting to pick at the skin of his hand.

“Well, the woods are like a huge backyard, with more trees, and animals… like bears!” Cyrus motioned their hands like claws. Matt laughed at Cyrus’ attempt to be scary,

“I thought you were trying to make me feel better?” he said, his tone lighthearted. The two finished their lunch in their spot before sneaking back to the cafeteria, as if they hadn’t run off, and parted ways to their next class.

To Matt the rest of the day started to fly by, his mind was focusing less on minor annoyances and was now focused towards the trip, he and his father always had similar interests, both enjoyed the outdoors quite a bit, before their trips consisted of fishing in a nearby lake or birdwatching in the park. Matt always appreciated them, enjoying the quiet of nature. He started to feel more excited as the day went, and even though the excitement mixed with the nervous knots in his stomach he wasn’t going to let that deter him.

The last bell rang. Matt walked out of the school building, waved goodbye to Cyrus, who was jogging towards the bus stop, and headed towards the front of the school where his father’s car was waiting. After exchanging “hellos” with his dad, he leaned his head against the window, feeling his eyelids get heavy. He closed them and then…

…

You have to run!

Run!

RUN!

R U N!

Matt’s eyes snapped open again, He had dozed off, and felt his heart beating fast.

“Hey sleepyhead.” his father said. The radio was on, but the volume was low, so it didn’t overpower his father’s words.

“I didn’t get to hear about your day yet since you took a little nap, how was it?” he said.

“It was alright I guess, kinda boring.” Matt replied, stretching his arms.

“Nothing interesting?”

“Nah, just a normal day.” Matt replied.

“Your mother mentioned Ms. Diaz asked you for lawn help but when I mentioned it to her this afternoon she said she hadn’t.” His dad said.

Matt swallowed a lump in his throat, he didn’t look at his dad, but he could feel the Tell me why did you lie to your mom? Look he was giving him.

“Oops, must have gotten mixed up.” he mumbled

“Now listen, I know you don’t like your mother’s suggestions, but she’ll listen if you just talk to her about it.” his dad said in a reassuring tone.

“Hm.” Matt replied. He stared out of the window watching as houses were slowly replaced by tall trees as they drove by.

“I mean she used to think it was odd I liked painting! She always said she never met a man who thought painting was a good time. She sure changed her mind when we had to paint the nursery.” his dad chuckled, “Point is, a conversation is better than white lies, she always comes around eventually.” his father said. Matt nodded, and felt relieved the conversation was over.

“So, how’s Cyrus?” his father asked.

“Oh they’re doing good… They wished they could come with us when I told them about the trip.” Matt said.

“We’ll have to invite hi- them next time.” his father said with a smile.

Matt scanned the trees they passed by as he and father continued idle conversation, with Matt occasionally looking at the paper map to double check the route. He watched as over the horizon, a tall hill, with a church sat atop came into view. The church had a name once. Matt knew that much from school, remembering the lesson on Mayweather’s history, the records for the original name were long gone and lost to history. Everyone now knew it as the Church on Black Oak Hill, named for the forest that surrounded the town, and its tallest hill. He looked at the stone structure, spying the rusted iron gates behind it that housed graves from years and years ago. It looked out of place completely surrounded by trees and so far from civilization.

“Can’t believe that old place is still up.” his father commented.

“Why don’t they tear it down, no one goes there anyway.” Matt muttered.

“Well it’s a piece of history, it’s the oldest building in town, lots of people would wanna keep it around.”

Matt wondered who would enjoy going to a dusty creepy church, it was bad enough going into a normal one… to him at least.

“Y’know when I was a youngin’, kids would dare each other to go up to the doors to try to open it. The police had to put a fence around it to stop it after a kid went missing.” Matt’s eyes widened at his father’s statement, he turned to look at his dad,

“Someone went missing?”

“Mmhm. Trevor Davidson, nice kid, but he was a bit of a pushover. His friends dared him to go up and try to open the doors, he never came back down. Half the town searched but no one could ever find him.”

“Oh…”

“That’s one of the reasons you never let peer pressure get to you Matt.” his father added at the end of his statement, and Matt felt like his unease started to rise again, he shifted in the seat and started to pick the skin of his hands.

After a car ride that felt like an eternity they arrived at Black Oak’s Campsite, parking in the lot near the areas, Matt carried the food and the sleeping bags, and looked out into the forest as his father gathered the tent. Matt could still see the top of that church even from there. He decided he would try not to think about it, he’d just have to shift anxious thoughts away and focus on hanging out with his dad.

The area was a wide circular space surrounded by trees, with a fire pit and few picnic tables, and no one else was there that weekend. They set up the tent and ate packaged sandwiches for their dinner. They settled in for the evening and slept, much to Matt's relief he didn’t experience any night terrors, and woke up feeling better about the day, which he and his father mostly spent birdwatching and walking on the nearby trails. Though as the day went on, Matt began to feel like he was being watched, though he didn’t mention this to his father, he thought he had to be overreacting, as there was no one else near them. Then evening came again.

Matt couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling, he laid awake in the tent, listening to the sound of the wind whistling through the trees. He thought about the missing kid again, his mind beginning to spiral into all the possible horrible outcomes. No, no! Stop it, nothing is going to happen. He thought to himself and attempted to reassure himself of his safety, and in pausing he took a moment to listen to the outside again.

The wind stopped. There was no sound, at all. Matt sat up, and listened intently, waiting for any sound to come back. The only thing he could hear was his own shaky breaths. Then there was a whistle, but not the whistle the wind makes when it blows through the trees.

A person was whistling

He listened to the whistling, it sounded like it was getting closer. It dawned on Matt that he could only hear the whistling, and nothing else, no leaves crunching, nothing. Matt shook slightly, but reached towards the zipper of the tent.

“Matt?” He heard his father’s groggy voice pipe up, Matt jumped slightly and turned to his dad.

“I-I think someone’s outside.” He said, his father sat up, more alert now that he heard Matt’s frightened voice, his father put his glasses back on and watched Matt motion a “sh” with his hand. The whistling hadn’t stopped.

“How strange.” His father replied,

The whistling suddenly shifted to a hum, a low voice humming a tune that came closer and closer to the tent. His father looked perturbed,

“This could be someone’s bad idea of a joke.” His dad whispered, and grabbed a flashlight, the two stepping out of the tent to look. There was a silhouette of a person, quite far away, but that was the source of the hum. His father called out to the dark shape, it was hard to see it, even with the flashlight pointed towards him. Matt squinted his eyes slightly, the shape was still getting closer,

“Hello?”

Matt didn’t look away from the shape, it was moving in a strange way. Matt could barely see it but could make out its motions, it looked almost like it was swaying.

“Hey, we don't want trouble.” his father’s voice attempted to sound brave, but there was a twinge of fear, he was nervously rubbing a thumb over his cross necklace.

It moved again, lifting up its head this time. Matt saw two shining white dots for eyes.

The hum rumbled, losing its rhythmic tone, and now was replaced with a laugh. The “person” unfurled, the white eyes moving higher as the torso elongated, gangly arms swaying at its side as its long legs took a step closer. It continued to laugh, with a grin of stark white teeth shining through the dark like its eyes. Matt felt frozen until he realized his father was speaking to him,

“Run.”

“W-What?”

“Matt, run!” His father grabbed his arm, “Run!” Both began to sprint away, the tall man following behind them, laughing.

The two ran away from the campsite, through the woods, Matt couldn’t tell where they were going, his father dropped the flashlight and they were running through the dark blindly. Branches and bushes hit his arms and legs as they ran. Matt’s father stumbled, falling forward. Matt turned to help his father up when the tall figure started to get closer. Matt cried out, his father shouted, “Run! Get help!”

“But-”

“Go!”

The monster grabbed his father's leg and began to pull him towards it. As much as Matt wanted to help, he listened to his fathers last words to him. He turned and ran. His heart beating hard against his chest. Matt didn’t dare turn back, even when he heard the screams. They got quieter and quieter as he ran further and further with tears streaming down his face and the cold burning his cheeks. He stared ahead, there was a light, a streetlight, if there was a streetlight there had to be a road.

A road meant help, he could get help.

He continued sprinting, breathing heavily, his chest burning but he was determined to find help. As he scrambled out of the wood and ran onto the road he realized it wasn’t an asphalt road, it was gravel, leading up a hill.

The church sat atop it.

He needed to hide, if he didn’t, this thing would kill him too. That seemed to be the only option in his panicked mind, he ran as fast as he could up the hill, ignoring the burning pain in his body, adrenaline was the only thing that was keeping Matt from collapsing from exhaustion.

Matt ran up to the doors, there was a lock, he yanked at it, but it didn’t budge. He decided to go through a window instead. He looked on the ground, picking up one of the larger stones and turned to face the window, prepared to throw it through the glass.

Several faces looked back at him.

He screamed.

The faces screamed, some attempting to mock his voice, some screams devolved into ghastly laughter as the faces twisted into horrible smiles and stared with eyes that were glassy, ghostly, some who had pitch black and others a deep bloody red. Their smiling mouths full of sharp teeth. Some continued tp mock his screams and some spoke the words "Open" over and over. Matt turned to run, only to face the monster chasing him, with those bright white pupils staring back at him.

“Go ahead, open the door.” the tall shadow man said in his creaky raspy voice.

Matt screamed again, this time picking up the stone and throwing it at the monster's head. Sprinting away when he heard it connect and the man let out a shriek. As he ran Matt stumbled, falling forward and tumbling down the gravelly road, pebbles flying up, some cutting against his skin. He looked up briefly and saw the monster was still at the top of the hill. He staggered up and ran down the gravel road until it turned to asphalt, and kept running until he saw headlights, car headlights. He headed towards them, waved his arms over his head, screaming the words help over and over.

…

The Mayweather Police Station was on alert, a call came in, a driver had found a kid screaming, running, talking about how something chased him and his father, and now his father was dead. They sent a car out, and confirmed the worst. The young man waited inside of a plain room, he was told to wait by the officers who had gone out.

A woman with curly dark brown hair entered the room. As she entered she pushed up red framed glasses, the rest of her outfit was nothing like the other officers, instead of a uniform she wore a simple suit. She sat down across from him, she looked at the young man with pale skin and red hair falling over his eyes.

“Can you give me your name?” She asked, her voice was soft, and gentle.

“M-Matt, Matt Hill.” he replied in a scratchy voice, his throat still hurt from screaming.

“Hi Matt, I’m Detective Phillips, would you mind if I asked you some questions?”

The kid picked at the skin of his hands, nodding at her words. His eyes were still red from crying, and he shook ever so slightly.

“Alright, what were you doing out in the woods?”

“Camping, we were camping.” his voice cracked.

“Did you see who attacked you?” She asked, he paused for a while.

“Y-Yes”

“Do you recall anything about them? Did you see what they looked like?”

His eyes still didn’t look at her, he instead looked to the side. She tried to read his expression, he looked like he wanted to say something but refused.

“You can tell me, I just want to know what you saw, I want to find who did this so I can bring them to justice, okay?” She said,

“Y-You’ll believe me?” he asked, she nodded, he stayed quiet for a bit before speaking up again.

“I-It wasn’t a human.”

“What?” Her eyes widened, not expecting him to reply with that.

“It looked like a person, but it-it wasn’t I-I.” He stammered, “It was in shadow, it was like it was made of shadows. It was so tall, as tall as the trees. It smiled at me… but… I-I can’t remember its face. I just remember that awful smile.” Matt’s eyes stared ahead, wide with fright as he spoke.

“I-Is there anything else you can remember, hair color? Or what he was wearing? Do you think he was someone your dad knew?” the detective asked, unsure what to make of what he said.

Matt shook his head, “No… no…I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” he continued to mumble ‘sorry’ until he started to cry again. For a moment the woman let her professionalism slip, taking the boy’s hand,

“I’m sorry, I can’t imagine the pain you’re going through.” she said. He continued to sob for a moment until he started speaking again.

“It chased me.” he stammered again through shaky breaths, “It chased me to the church and there was- was-” He stopped speaking again, and hung his head low.

“It’s okay,” she tried to reassure him, “You answered everything I needed.” She was lying, there had been more, but seeing the teen in distress made her stop. Besides, she reasoned to herself, it would be easier to speak with him when he was in a better emotional state. She opened the door for him and took him to the front, where another officer, a man with short red hair and a police uniform waited.

“I’ll come back to talk with you again soon. Officer Howell here will take you home now okay?” she said. Matt nodded, following behind the other officer to his car.

…

Cyrus sat up in bed upon hearing the sound of their mother walking briskly from her room, they quietly got up and followed behind her as she headed for the living room, looking out of the side window. It was barely morning, and they wondered why she was up at such an hour.

“Oh no.” They heard her say with a gasp. They peered over her shoulder out the window and saw a police car parked at the driveway to Matt’s house. Cyrus couldn’t stifle their own gasp at seeing Matt exit the car. Their mother took a quick glance at them, opening her mouth and closing it, deciding against telling them to go back to bed. Cyrus stood next to their mother and watched through the window. A lump formed in their throat. They couldn’t see Mr. Hill, and they knew Matt went on the trip with his dad. They watched Matt walk to the door with an officer, seeing Ms. Hill open the door, her face then turning from frightened to absolute anguish. She wrapped her arms around her son and brought him in.

…

“Is there anything? Any news?” the shaky sorrow filled voice of Ms. Hill asked the detective.

“We’ve collected all the evidence at the scene, we’re going to do everything we can Ms. Hill, we will find out who did this.”

Detective Phillips kept her word about coming back, she spoke mainly to Matt and his mother, explaining what they had found and asking additional questions to both about anything that might give her a lead. Though Matt stayed quiet, his mother mainly spoke to the detective.

“I’m sorry, Matt hasn’t been doing well, I know you might have questions for him.”

“It’s alright, he can talk to us when he’s ready, your family has been through enough.” she replied before looking at the young man. He looked terrible, he had bloodshot eyes with dark circles like he hadn’t been sleeping.

“Matt, I mean it, if you remember anything, or need anything, you can come to the station, and I’ll help.” she said, he nodded, his mother turned to head back inside. Matt moved to follow her and shut the door when he heard the detective speak up.

“Oh Matt, one more thing.”

Detective Phillips took the boy's hand and pressed something into it. Matt looked and realized she had given him his father’s cross necklace. He looked back up at her, and she put a finger to her lips. Giving a slight side eye to the police car she came in, another officer inside. She wasn’t supposed to be giving him this. He guessed it was supposed to be in evidence, but felt quite a lot of relief that she gave it back to him. He gave a small nod and put his hand clenched tightly around it in his pocket. He watched her head to the police car in the driveway, pulled away and drove, he finally went back in and shut the door, taking the necklace out of his pocket and slipping it around his neck.

#monsters in mayweather #matt hill #cyrus diaz #ruby phillips #original story #my writing #original characters #horror #horror story #original horror story

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