Horror / Into the Swamp

The muddy, thick water was still below the rotted trees, the top of which seemed to block out the night sky.  Haunting sounds rang through the darkness of the swamp, as the fog swept over the dreary land, setting an uncomforting mood. The ground was almost pure mud, mold covered the majority of it. A certain sick feel lived inside the swamp, which had no name. No human lived within 10 miles of it, and hardly anyone ever went in, for there was no purpose. Few animals lived in the area near regular land.
                        Riley Black stumbled into this setting clutching a shotgun in his right hand and his injured right shoulder in his left hand. On his back was a carry on bag filled with $500,000, shotgun shells, and a flashlight. He limped, feeling as if he was too dizzy to continue, and he was going to collapse. A couple dozen yards in, he reached a dreary, cold body of water, and on the muddy banks of which sat an old, wooden ferry boat. It looked as if it wasn’t able to stay afloat in the water. It creaked in an uncomfortable manner as Black put his left foot in. He sat down slowly, grabbed the oar, and set off. The wood on the boat, much like the trees in the swamp, was dead and rotted. He could barely see through the fog, but none the less, the oar continued to make it’s way slowly through the muggy waters. He glanced up at the the tree tops as the boat skimmed through the water.
                        Crows soared furiously through the foggy air, screaming at one another. His concentration was broken by a small tug on the oar. He looked down at the water. Moments passed. Nothing. Just as he started to continue, a figure leaped out of the water and clutched to the side of the ferry boat. Black looked over at what was trying to climb on to the boat. His body went still as he stared into the face of a decomposed, human-like creature. It’s face was rotted away and boney, with green, dead skin. It’s teeth were clearly visible through it’s almost absent mouth. It’s right eye was popped out more so than the left, and it’s nose was just dead skin that wrapped tighly around the nose bone. It had a small amount of grey hair atop it’s head. It made it’s way onto the boat, revealing a skeleton like figure bundled up in old clothes much like a bum would wear. It gave a loud, horrifying, high-pitched shriek as it lunged toward Black. He snapped out of his trance and quickly grabbed the shotgun. He aimed and fired, hitting it right between the eyes. The creature fell off the boat and sank back into the water. He put the gun down and stared at the spot the monster had just stood.
                        Sweat dripped down his face, and he breathed uncontrollably. “I heard a gunshot over there!” said a voice from the entrance of the swamp. “Aw Christ. How’d they track me?” he thought. He picked up the oar and paddled as fast as he could. Within minutes, he reached the opposite bank. He hopped out of the boat and into the mud, which was about four inches deep. Gathering his stuff together, he looked around , thinking about his direction. He walked a a bit aways further. “You lost?” said a woman’s voice. Black turned to see a smiling old woman in a sundress and hat. Both the items she was wearing were covered in a flower covered pattern, which definately didn’t match  the place she wasin. Black’s temper quickly came into play, for he was greatly impatient at the moment, but before he could say anything, she interuptted him. “The cabin your lookin’ for is just o’er that direction” said the woman pointing, then she turned and walked down a muddy path. Black turned to see an old cabin. “That was not there before. Who ar-”. She was gone. “That’s impossible!”, He thought, frantically looking around the path she had traveled. He stood there for a moment before shaking it off and heading towards the cabin.

                      Earlier that day, in the City Diner in a small town in Louisiana, Jackie Randle sat waiting and enjoying his burger. Randle was a tall, pale guy with a ragged look to him. His old, paint covered Pantera shirt and ripped jeans didn’t say much about him. He finished his food and leaned back. “I hope this guy Hanley’s bringin’ is good. He obviously sucks at arrivin’ on time, I don’t think he’s that responsable to pull somethin’ off like this.” he thought. Just then, a man in jeans and a plad shirt walked in to the quiet lttle diner. He was a regular sized guy, handsome face and combed back hair. He looked like a dirty man. one who cared little about hygene. It looked like he wasn’t sure about what he was doing. He had certain nervousness about him.
                 Randle looked up, “Guess you’re the guy I’m lookin’ for?”. The man show a toothy grin said,”I guess so. You Jackie Randle?”. Randle nodded and stuck his hand out. The man shook his hand pleasently and sat at the opposite seat in the booth. “You gonna order anything? You Hungry?”, asked Randle. Almost insantly the man replied, “No. I’m just here to get the plan together. Nothing else.” Randle hesitated before nodding. “Where’s Hanley?” asked the man, who for some reason seemed to be getting impatient. “He’ll meet us there,”
                They sat there for an hour going over notes.  Randle said, starting to wrap it up,” So let’s go over the plan, Hanley’ll walk into the bank, gun in pocket, and sit in the waiting area. You’ll walk in and go up to the tellar farthest from the front door. That’s when I walk in and and immediatly take out the security gaurds. You stick up that tellar there and tell ‘em to open the vault. Hanley’ll come into play if anyone trys to get near us, in which he’ll pick off the gaurd or whoever’s tryin’ to be a hero. We’ll improvise after we get out of there, but Hanley’s bringing his car and he’s got an old cabin out in a swamp about a half an hour from here. You got it?”
                The man nodded and asked “We’re supposed to be there in twenty minutes. I got the guns in my trunk and we can walk from here, it’s only three blocks.” Randle gave a thumbs up. “Man, this guy’s weird, but he seems to know what he’s doing. I’m not gonna question Hanley. This guy- wait what’s his name?” He thought. “Excuse me, uh, guy?” Randle said catching up with him,”What’s you’re name? We’ve been talking for like an hour and I still don’t know”. The sharply dressed man hesitated, then looked up ,”Black. Riley Black.”

                The fog seemed to grow thicker, and Black knew it was only a matter of time before those cops found him. He immediatly went to the corner of the two story cabin’s first floor and sat down. He sat down and pulled out a pocket knife. He took a long breath before sinking it into the hole in his right shoulder. He let out a silent scream as blood seeped out and down his arm, and within ten seconds, the bloody bullet fell to the filthy cabin floor. He then cut off part of his shirt and wrapped it around the already festering wound. He checked the bag to make sure the goods were still there and he quickly yanked up the shotgun and went up the stairs. There were four empty bedrooms upstairs, all of which had the same feel as the swamp.
                The cabin was hundreds of years old and hadn’t been inhabited for about fifty years. He stood at the broken window and waited for about ten minutes before the two cops found the cabin. One stayed outside and and the other quietly went in. Black squinted and pointed the end of the shotgun out the window and and picked the cop off. The bullet went into his heart. Black quickly turned to the bedroom door and waited for cop two to come rollin’ through the door. Since he had shot the other cop, cop two was surely on his way. As soon as he came through the door, he was on the ground and bleeding from the neck. Black walked over to the dying man and looked down at him. He raised the gun, aimed, looked away, and fired. Blood was now all over the walls of the little bedroom.
                        Black wiped the blood off his face and sat in the far corner of the room near a closet. The closet was locked and Black was a little too shooken up to go looking around in the old house. Darkness wasn’t far off, the fog was still holding strong. He began to get dizzy, his head started to wobble. He passed out right there in the corner.
                ”Wake up!” Black heard the voice of Hanley. He blinked a few times before looking across the room. There stood Randle and Hanley. They had a lantern with them and two guns, and that was about it. “What’s wrong with you?”, yelled Hanley,”Killing the cops and not disposing of the bodies or their boat! You and Randle go fix it, now!” Black stood up, anger boiling inside of him,”Why in God’s name would you ever choose this swamp? I had a zombie-thing leap outta the water like Jason, I saw a ghost woman just walkin’ around in the swamp, I- I’m freakin’ out here!”
            Hanley, looking annoyed, said “You’re just a little worked up. Now do what I said.” Black moved towards the dooor and turned around. “Watch him!” said Black and he walked out of the room. Hanley looked greatly confused.
                      Randle and Black walked down the stairs. Black noticed that they had hung lanterns up in nearly ever room of the cabin, including the backdoor where the cop came through. They walked out that same backdoor and stopped. “Black, I’ll go do somethin’ with the boat, you go do somethin’ with Robocop over near the tree.” He watched Randle walk into the black with his lantern. He fished for his flashlight in his front pocket and proceeded out of the lantern’s light. He walked over to the cop’s body, but stop after almost stepping on a dead rabbit. He looked down and studied it. It’s flesh was half gone and it was missing a back leg. He got a bit closer and squinted. The rabbit’s body twitched! He jumped slightly back, but then felt kinda stupid. Just then, the rabbit began to twitch violently, then it stopped. It rose up on it’s three remaining legs. Black backed up and followed the rabbit with the light, and he watched as it hopped over to the cop’s body. It paused for a moment before looking at Black and then grabbing the cop’s collar by the mouth and somehow dragging it far off into the woods. Black stood there in absolute shock.
                 The moment was then broken by Randle’s screaming. Black quickly ran over to the water bank to see all three boats and Randle sinking rapidly in the mud. Black lunged forward to grab his hand, but was stopped as the mud began to move, as if something was crawling through it. Suddenly, a figure of mud began to form from the ground up. It stood, pure mud, about ten feet tall. It had no facial features, it was just a basic human-like shape. It looked up at the moon and a mouth began to open up, letting out a peircing howl. Black shot at the mud monster, but the bullets did nothing but get lost in the figure. It looked down and let it’s body fall on Randle and the boats, all of them disappearing, drowning in the deep, deep mud. Then, the muddy waterside returned to how it was before any soul had touched. It regained it’s normal shape. The swamp grew silent. The fog stopped dead in the air.
                Black stood in one spot, trying to collect his thoughts. He looked up at the spot where Randle met his demise. His eyes grew wide at what was now happening. He screamed as the water began to move, as figures arose. Creatures, much like the one Black dealt with on the ferry boat, limped out of the water. The creatures caught site of Black and headed in his direction. They all very much resembled his ferry boat friend. Rotted flesh, bolging eyes, skeleton figures. Moaning. Dazed. They were zombies.
                        He turned and ran toward the cabin as fast as he could manage to move. He began to slow down when he heard the voice of a woman singing. A dreary, beautiful voice filling the air. He couldn’t make out the words. He looked over to the area of the sound, where he saw the woman in the sundress slowly walking and singing. She stopped and turned to him. His spine began to shake and the hair on his body stood up. She smiled for a moment, before her now transparent body began to quiver and fall to the ground. Her flesh began to fpeel away from her bones, leaving a skeleton in a sundress lying in am pile flesh. Then within a split second, it disappeared.
                He hesitated and continued towards the cabin. “Hanley we gotta get outta here now!” He said running up the stairs. He ran into the room, but was stopped at the sight of the the corpse of the cop feeding off of Hanley. “Man, Hanley, I told you to watch him.” He said raising the shotgun. The corpse looked up at him. It had not yet rotted like the other zombies, but it still had those menacing bolging eyes. It hissed at him, right before taking a bullet to the forehead. He walked over to Hanley’s body and put a bullet in it’s head before it could change into one of those things.
                 He peered out the window. The zombies stumbled toward the back door and into the cabin. He decided to wait out night and swim, seeing as how all three boats were under water. He’d sit in his corner of the room and pick off whatever came through that door. He had enough ammo to take down hundreds of them, and he had all the time in the world.

* * *

                           The 1978 corvette flew down the road. So fast the cop cruisers barely kept up. Randle sat in the passenger seat, turning around after every reload to shoot at the cop cars through the shattered back window. Black sat in the back doing the same while Hanley drove. “Where’s the swamp?” Black asked reaching for more ammo. “Well, I didn’t think they’d keep up like this, so one of you two has to get the loot and tuck and roll at the next sharp turn. The swamp entrance is marked by a tree with a red spray painted X. Get in the swamp, there’s two ferry boats. Take one across the water, cause that only way to get to and back from the otherside, and get to the cabin. It’s about a ten minute walk from the opposite bank.” Hanley said quickly. Black sighed “I’ll do i-” but was interupted when a bullet hit him in the shoulder. He grabbed his arm and fell below the window. “They got me! They got me bad!”. He looked down at his arm, which was pouring blood everywhere. He moaned in pain looked up a the ceiling of the car.
                 “Can you still do this?” asked Hanley. “Yeah, yeah, just give me a second!” he cried still looking at the ceiling. “We don’t have a second! We’re turning now!” yelled Hanley. “Ok!” Black responded as he struggled up to the broken back window. Randle tossed him the bag with the money and Black grabbed his gun. They turned in an area where trees blocked the cops view of them, and vice versa. “It’s now or never” he thought, and he lept from the back of the car, rolling into a ditch on the side of the road.

                                                                                                                   *   *   *

Riley Black sat in the corner of the abandoned swamp cabin, picking off every zombie that poked it’s head through the door. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was a mess, and he’d sat in that corner for the past few hours, just shooting. The amount of them calmed down, eventually, there were none coming through the bedroom doorway. He sat for a minute before rising and walking to the window. Daylight was soon coming. He walked to the doorway and looked down the steps. Nothing. He walked outside. Nothing was there. It was if everything had stopped.
                He walked over to the side of the water. “You’re gonna die in here, Riley, but it’s you’re only chance.” he muttured to himself. He put the shotgun in the bag, trigger out, and slung it on his back. He took the longest breath he ever took and dived in the water. It was about a ten minute boat ride, so he knew he;d be swimming for awhile. He swam for ten minutes without any truoble.
                The sudden hault of all these horrid events worried him, but this peace didn’t last for long. In an instant, the sky melted into pitch black, and with the already hard to see through fog, he felt lost within the middle of the water. He stopped and doggy paddled to keep afloat. He looked around frantically in the dark, until his eyes stopped upon a light in the fog. He waited for a moment, as an empty ferry baot with a lantern on the pole float towards him.
                 “This is the swamp playin’ tricks on me.” He thought “But once again, no choice at all.” He pulled himself up on the boat and looked around. Nothing strange. He grabbed the oar and paddled faster than he’d ever paddled before. He came within sight of the bank he first entered the water on. He remained very alert, looking around at everything in his path. He reached land, grabbed the lantern, and quickly fled throughthe swamp. “This is way to easy of an escape.” he thought in fear.
                 He reached the entrance of the swamp and for the first time in about twelve hours, he smiled. He was yards from freedom of the horrific events that took place here. Suddenly, his foot was caught on something. He quickly glanced down to see a hand breaking through the Earth and clutching tightly to his ankle. He tried to shake free but the grip was too strong. He reached for the shotgun in his bag, but he had no ammo left.
                He paniced. He looked around as zombies began to pour onto the path. They edged closer. He fell backwards onto the ground. Three of them pin him down, while one of them opened it’s decayed mouth. “The swamp loves to play tricks on me,” he thought, “it put me so close to freedom, and just took it away with whatever evil has resided in this place. Sick, twisted games these waters play.”. This was the final thought of Riley black before the creatures that pinned him down began to drag his feasted corpse back into the darkness. Back into the waters. Back into the swamp.

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