The Last Words

One morning my family and I went to my grandparent’s house in Mississauga. My sister and I always used to play in their large backyard which overlooked a sprawling ravine. I was especially excited today because my sister and I had planned a hike down the ravine before lunch. The climb down was quite a bit more difficult than I had expected due to the steep hillside, but my sister, being three years older, seemed to make short work of it. Once we reached the bottom we were off into the woods.

It was only a minute or two before we came across an old rundown hut. It looked as if someone had been squatting in it years earlier. We slowly approached the front door and I got a bit of a glimpse inside. Everything was dirty and mouldy and looked as if it had been long abandoned. Without warning my sister loudly yelled out “We have to leave. Now!”. The sheer panic in her voice was enough for me to not even give it a second thought. We quickly turned away from the hut and started to run. I barely got one step in before I saw it. In plain view there was a pile of severed limbs from the elbows and knees down. I could barely comprehend what I was seeing or how I had only just now noticed such a horrible monstrosity. Every little remnant of skin had been savagely torn away revealing the rotting wet flesh beneath it, all stacked in a disturbingly neat pile against an old mossy maple tree. I stood in shock starring at the tidy pile of torn limbs for what seemed like hours. Eventually my sister frantically tapped my arm in horror. She was starring terrified at a second tree to our left which was covered in all of the missing skin. Tightly stretched over the bark and nailed into place as if trying to give the tree a second skin. It was then that we both heard the sharply clear whisper, “They’ll never find you“.

I instantly felt the urge to scream at the feeling of absolute terror as we started running as fast as we could towards the steep incline of the ravine edge. I used my hands as extra momentum against the steep terrain. My sister was quite a ways ahead of me. After running for what seemed like forever I could hear my mom’s cheery voice laughing and joking with my grandparents in the backyard. I saw my sister disappear over the sharp crest of the hillside. I could hear her screaming to my mom and hear them both realizing that I hadn’t made it to the top yet.

I was just able to see into the back yard, see my mom running towards me, and it happened. I slipped at the edge of yard and started to slide back. I had only missed my mothers outstretched hand by mere inches. I had almost stopped myself sliding as my foot caught on something and I tumbled. I couldn’t even feel the pain of rolling through the sharp brush on the hillside as I was being overcome by the fear of where I was falling to. As I tumbled I repeatedly caught glimpses of the tattered old hut. I noticed a faint figure of a large man covered in dark blood creeping ever closer to the bottom of the hill’s edge. This was it. I was going to land directly at his feet. With a final grasp at a tree branch I hit the ground with an bone shattering thud. Then nothing… Only darkness.

I could feel my body shiver in a piercing sweat. I took me quite a while to realize that I was in my bed, so frightened that I literally could not move. I could still feel the nightmare man’s intense stare as I tried to regain my composure. I laid perfectly still with my eyes shut as tightly as I could clench them. And out of the darkness in the same sharp crisp whisper, I heard, “They’ll never find you”.

Credit To – Matt Pamenter