David grabbed his phone, swiss army knife and a solar powered phone charger, hugged his mom, and went out to play with his friends. Maria, Rafi and Jarek already waited for him to get out.
After quick greetings and a few secret handshakes, they went to test their mettle against scary places.
A coin toss decided that Maria was to go first. David would include the coin toss in a lot of decisions lately, mainly because he wanted to show off his cool coin.
Well, who wouldn’t? David didn’t show it to the history teacher in fear of it being confiscated, but it was still an old coin, apparently made of real silver!
They arrived at the first place. The oak “Kristoph”. The venerable tree, and a natural monument was estimated to be at least eleven hundred years old. There was a ton of stories about it, but most of them were just folk tales from before this area was a part of the city.
The real reason for young people to go there, was of course the hole under it. The cavern was said to be inhabited by generations of bears for centuries, but with the rise of the nearby human population, they stopped using the place.
Nevertheless, it was still dark, moist, and according to older kids, there were ghosts of people eaten by the bears haunting it.
Maria hesitated to go in alone, but didn’t chicken out. No flashlight was used, and when everyone went in to check, her mark was there, scribbled with a pencil on a flat rock.
Next, it was Jarek’s turn. The abandoned property with lots of unruly vegetation and among it, a lone shed.
There was no way he would come there during the night, but during the day, there was no problem.
He left his mark, made his way back, and, after inspecting the site, everyone moved on to the next place.
The abandoned mental hospital was a tough one. David was mighty glad it wasn’t him that had to waltz in there and scribble something. Thankfully, Rafi was the one that got it, (courtesy of David’s lucky coin), so David breathed a sigh of relief, and kicked back.
Almost an hour went past before Rafi went back, but his mission was successful. They went in, with flashlights and everything, and confirmed his achievement.
It was getting late, but there was only one location remaining, and David was the only one who didn’t prove he had balls.
Now, he was supposed to come back home in a timely manner, but everyone decided there was no issue with getting to the abandoned house, the last place they wanted to visit.
It was getting a bit dark, but there was no way David would ever admit to being scared, so he went in, not even using his phones’ flashlight.
The basement was dark like crap, but that wouldn’t repel him. He didn’t want to admit it even to himself, but he wanted to impress Maria. And everyone. It’s not like he would ever want to impress her specifically, no way that would ever be the case.
He took out his swiss army knife to mark the wall, but changed his mind. After all, if there was ever any time to do something cool, it was now!
He twirled his coin, and marked the wall with silver.
His mark was something he found in the local library, on a piece of paper left inside a book.
The wall creaked, and started moving.]
“What the…”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
David wanted to call his friends, but reconsidered.
‘What if it’ll vanish before they come here? They’ll think I called them because I’m scared.’
He decided to leave another mark, beyond the wall. He entered the place, and looked around. Still dark like all shits.
He turned on the flashlight function of his phone, and proceeded to come forward.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps to his left. He turned his flashlight to face the sound, and almost fell to his ass.
A humanoid figure stinking of spoiled meat came swiping at him!
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck!”
He ran forward, not paying attention to anything but getting away from the thing.
‘A Fucking blasted shitty zombie!’
He passed another one. And another. It seemed like they were drawn to him like moths to a lamp.
‘A lamp!’
He turned off his flashlight. David was for once glad his phone was a model with a separate button just for this, if it wasn’t for this, he would have to fiddle with a screen.
The zombies were no longer coming straight at him, as far as he could tell. They were still searching, but they got completely confused once he held his breath and went still. Thankfully, they passed him and went on to search elsewhere before he could run out of air.
David started to breathe through his mouth for additional stealth, and sneaked back to the place he came from.
‘It seems I’m screwed right up, huh?’
The wall was no longer opened.
He reached for his pocket, but the coin was no longer there..
‘Guess that’s that for my luck.’
He started scribbling his sign with a screwdriver function of his swiss army knife, but even after two tries, it didn’t work.
‘Guess it has to be silver, huh?’
He would turn on the flashlight and find his coin, but it would get him discovered. Instead, he decided the way out would be up.
‘Wherever there is a “Inside” there has to be “Outside”. Let’s try getting the heck out of here.’
He went back to the zombies. The plan was to sneak out from right under their rotten noses. There was no way they would be capable of sniffing him out with how much they stank themselves, so the only thing he had to be aware of was their sight and the hearing.
It didn’t seem like they had a perfect night vision, nor was their hearing especially sharp, or they would have come when he was scratching the wall with his screwdriver.
‘Alright, I’ve got this.’
He recalled the games of hide and seek, and the sneak up games he played with his friends.
But the right way to escape this situation wasn’t in thinking about Maria. (Erm… His friends. Why would he think about Maria?)
Instead, David thought of the person that sometimes played with them, and gave them some tips.
Aunt Valeria had a way of hiding in plain sight despite being huge, and was stupidly quiet when she wanted to, even if normally her knees popped like they were trying to announce the end of the world.
Also, there was no hiding from her when she played for real.
‘Alright, how was it? Be mindful of your surroundings, only make noise if there is even more noise to conceal it, watch where you put your feet, and don’t breathe like you are having an asthma attack. I’ve got this shit.’
He started moving up the stairs again. The zombie was there, unmoving.
‘Sorry, could you start making some noise for me?’
This time luck was on David’s side, as he quickly found a stone, or a piece of brick. Hard to say, it was so dark he could barely see his own hands.
He moved extremely slowly to the side of the entrance to the basement he just left, and thrown a stone down the stairs.
The nearby zombie headed for the noise. Just when it stepped on the stairs, David front - kicked it in the ass, sending the brain muncher down.
“BLERGHHTEGHHH!!!”
‘Thank you for the noise.’
David moved away from the entrance right on time. Three more zombies came right after the noise, that is, down the stairs.
They all started frantically searching the corridor, but David was no longer there, as he made it to the next room. The trick with a piece of rubble worked again, but since there was no more stairs, it worked on only one zombie.
The next rooms David defeated simply by waiting, as the next zombies caught the sound of the commotion, and moved to search for its source.
But the source simply waited for the undead to pass by, and moved through the building until he arrived at the exit.
It was dark outside already, but at least David was no longer in a deathtrap. He ran for it, and saw a canal instead of a street. Fortunately, sidewalks were normal.
What wasn’t so fortunate, was his hasty retreat and attention of more undead he gained through it. It was good he noticed a group of skeletons passing by, and froze before they saw him.
He looked around for a hideout, and saw a bridge. It looked like it was constructed in a way, that left a piece of sidewalk under it, essentially creating a shelf covered by the bridge.
‘Let’s hide the crap away.’
He waited for the skeletons to pass by, and slowly made his way to the bridge. Fortunately, there was nothing bad under it.
Covered by the shadows, David hid away, and did his best impression of a dead body. As we all now, the best way to fall asleep is to pretend to be sleeping already, so unexpectedly, he drifted off to the land of dreams.
Though they were nightmares.
