It was a cool spring day. Me and my friends Gabe and Hunter were on our way to our "headquarters" as we called it, just a hangout that us teenage kids like to find. But first some details about us.
We were younger than we are now. I'm twenty-three as of today. I was fifteen, Gabe was also fifteen and Hunter was six-teen. We were all Sophomores at Tall Hills High school. A small school, small town. Everyone here practically knew each other.
But that's enough with that, on to what happened that day, fucking hell if you ask me. And pardon all the details, it's all important. Our hangout was an old rundown warehouse which was also in town. The was to get to it was a set of tracks next to Hunters house. It had a huge yard, at least seven acres. On the edge of the yard was a tall chain linked fence about eight foot tall give or take. I could climb over to the other side if needed but I'd rather not, there are spikes on the top formed by the wire of the fence that were fairly large. The yard was also cluttered. A shit ton of garbage and scraps everywhere, and the kind of tall grass that cuts you as you walk through it. There's also a tower we could get in from a ladder about fifteen feet in the air.
As we approached the warehouse everything seemed dead, no cars even crossing the tracks at the crossings down the way. We found our little hole in the fence and crawl through. On the other side we observed our surroundings and even got chills. We've been here plenty of times, but this time seemed a bit different. But we had just brushed it off knowing the fact we come here all the damn time, and we would only be here enough time to smoke a few joints.
"Where should we go?" Gabe muttered.
"How about the tower?" Hunter mentions pointing west in it's direction.
We agreed and headed over, still seemed dead though. No sounds except for a crow that had flew out from the warehouse. We arrive at the tower to find the ladder broke, like really broke. It had been smashed into several pieces. But we knew that other kids came over here to fuck around too so we just assumed that was the case. We turn around and make our way to a small hole broke out of a piece of plywood covering a open window of the warehouse and crawl in. I was first like always, I'm the thinnest so it was just faster to get the lights on. Which that was something that amazed us, the lights worked! The warehouse is about the size of a football field wide and long on the inside. The whole thing is wide open with nothing in it except for 2 small rooms one of which had an upstairs.
After I had made it in I made my way to a small light coming from a room where the light switches were, I more so jogged than walked because of the feeling I got from this place. The small room also had a locked door which goes outside, I unlocked it for the others before I got the lights. And the lights... I flipped the switch, but they did not come on.
Hunter and Gabe finally come through the door and they also try the light switch.
"They're not working." I notified them.
"Damn well what now." Gabe questioned.
"We fucking burn down that's what." Hunter replied pulling out his pot.
After a few stories and jokes were passed around we started to notice there was a noise in the warehouse somewhere. Which was odd because it was always dead silent inside. So we investigate. Pulling out our phone lights we walked around separated, also only half way through the joints so we continued to smoke while looking. After a bit of searching we couldn't find anything, but we didn't check the small room with the second floor. I proceeded towards the room and as I got closer it had started to stink, like feces and death. The sound had also gotten louder as I got closer so I called the other two over to me.
"What is it?" Gabe whispered to me.
"I have no idea, but this shit is really starting to scare me." I replied pausing between words to listen.
We all pull out a pocket knife that we carried given we were just like any other teenage boy just to be safe. Knifes in hand and senses going crazy from recent events and smoking.
The room had a large doorway, about ten foot tall and ten foot wide. It also had a board covering the whole entrance except for a corner of it that had been tore up it seemed. White hair covered the hole and area around it.
"Let's go in." Hunter said seeming to not worry as much as me and Gabe.
He began to move the board causing a bit of noise... But not to long after, we heard a terrible ear splitting shriek like none I've ever heard. We take off running, Gabe dropping his knife in the process but that was the least of his worries. We hastily made our way out the small opening, I went through last.. As I was going through I could hear the huge board falling over the wind from it had sent a wave of stench, it had smelled like hundreds of dead bodies were rotting.
The three of us ran, we ran to the tower forgetting about the broken ladder. We decided that since it was closer than the exit which was on the complete opposite side of the yard that we would have a better chance of escaping. And giving the fact it was so bright out we had thought it wouldn't come out in the open if it were some animal of predatory instinct... But we were wrong
It burst through the small hole getting cuts and splinters probably in the process but it seemed to not phase it. This thing, It looked like something out of a high definition grade A horror film. It was stocky and walked on all four legs, it's fur was white and patched, bald spots everywhere. It's eyes were a pale blue or even grey I couldn't tell with the distance but I could at least see, it's eyes were huge. It had the head shape of a dog mixed with an alligator. Long, curved fangs. There was this thick brown substance coming from it's mouth, probably drool. It was like the puke you get after a night of to much Jaegermeister.
It shrieked again spraying it's drool everywhere. We take off to the one other exit we know off. A old train set of train tracks that runs along the other ones but separated by trees, like a natural tunnel. And we couldn't go through the trees because they were thick and full of the ones with huge thorns like nails. The tracks were also elevated, part of the yard went under these ones. There were small cell like rooms under it with one wall missing to get in. The wood around the tracks were rotted too, put to much pressure on it and you're falling down and breaking something.We go on them a lot because for one there are tree branches we use for balance. Secondly we never have creatures from fucking hell chasing us.
We hurry our way down them as we hear the beast crawling up to the tracks. Woof is breaking behind us as it keeps slipping off the rail and hitting the rotted wood with it's feet. Within twenty seconds of it hitting the tracks it catches up, it grabs for my foot and barely misses and slices my calf clean open.
"Motherfucker!" I yell as I turn back and stab it in it's side, I almost lost my balance in the process. It yelps almost like a dog then howls. From the inside of the warehouse we hear several more howls. Our hearts sank after that. We keep moving and so does the creature but it is moving significantly slower due to it's deep wound.
We hear a loud crash from behind us, I peek over my shoulder to find that the creature had fallen through the rotted out wood. Unable to get back up it scurried back to the warehouse where we seen several more of those things. Some smaller ones too, pops or what ever you'd want to call the things offspring...
We only ever mentioned this day one other time. Because Hunter mentioned that he had seen one of those things on his back porch. We thought nothing of it considering it was night and he lived practically across from their home.But just six days later he came up missing... His window smashed out, everything all over the floor showed signs of an obvious struggle. The damn things found him and took him. Blood everywhere in his room, everywhere.. And I knew it was them bastards to because on a sharp piece of his broken window was some white hair...
Two years went by. Me and Gabe were really quiet now. We weren't so shook up by the death anymore but at the sheer fact that we couldn't do a damn thing about it. But Gabe on the other hand eventually decided we could. He keeps insisting we go back there with our hunting 22.'s. I denied him several times and he finally stopped... But not because he gave up, but because he went alone by himself without telling anybody. He thought revenge would settle his anger.
He went "missing" as the paper said. And it still bothered me, I couldn't speak up or fucking anything at that matter. But I knew...
I'm recording this now to tell the world of what had happened. Because I know I won't have another chance. They're here. I hear them outside snarling and growling, scratching at my house and throwing themselves into my door. I'm upstairs, it's three in the morning. My door is barricaded with a shelf and my bed.. They may have taken my friends but I won't let them take me.
This is Justin signing off... I always wanted to say that...
"Well what do you make of this Rick?" The first responder questioned detective Rick James after playing the audio recorder found at the crime scene.
"I honestly don't know. Either those are really good sound effects and we have a few faked deaths here or an over exaggerated wild animal attack." Rick spoke calmly from dealing with even weirder cases than he thought this one to be.
"Seems pretty far fetched, perhaps he was just going crazy about his pals deaths." The first responder replied insisting there was no animal like that around Tall Hills.
"We will just have to wait for lab results on that hair you said was all over, seems to match up with what the boy was talking about." Rick said as he looked around scanning the area.
"What about the body?" he continued.
"It's not here, he must have hung himself because there is a rope hanging from the ceiling fan in his room but it snapped. There are drag marks left by blood but it stops so he probably ran out of blood. It all seems to be up in his room." The first responder points to Justin's room.
"You keep searching, I'm going to check out the warehouse." Rick commanded the first responder as he headed towards his car.
The detective drove to the tracks where the warehouse was, he recalled working the case of Hunter's disappearance and could recall how to get there. He pulls around to the front gate and slips through instead of sneaking around, he doesn't have to worry much about cops. He approached the door and being a detective he was carrying a lock pick, he took it out and unlocked the door, stepping inside. As soon as he cleared the door was of the small room which the door lead into he could already smell the death from inside. He tried the lights to see if they were still malfunctioning, they didn't do a thing. He drawled his gun out of fear... He felt a presence. He noticed the board and door way through a beam of light coming from a hole in the ceiling. He approached it but soon froze in his steps, excepting his death.. All around him he started to hear the patting sound of many things trotting around him followed by a howl and several shrieks.
