Chapter 8 Hallucinations
Last chapter some character revealed they may no more about the Snallygaster than they let on.
Franklin hammered the spike into the ground. It took a good couple of whacks before it was nice and deep. He looked over his shoulder at Chris and Kirstin. They had their spikes nailed into the ground already, but were struggling to put the tent poles up. They tried to get the tent to stand up for the third time. Their blue and green tent only stayed up for a few seconds, before collapsing when a gust of wind blew it down. Franklin smiled as the two struggled with the tent.
“ Want some help,” Franklin offered.
“ No , I got this,” Chris said.
Franklin stopped pitching his tent, and watched his brother try and figure out what went wrong. It felt like he had stepped back in time. Went back to a place before he had enlisted, before he had seen the dark side of the world. Being out in their old stomping grounds made him remember a time when he had no worries. It was just him, his brother, a few cans of beer, and no care in the world.
“ Remember all the girls we would bring up here?” Franklin asked. He thought about every girl he had brought here. One time in his senior year he had brought this foreign exchange student up to the spot. He couldn’t recall her name, but he remembered she had jet black hair, piercing brown eyes, a curvy body, and ample cleavage that got all the guys at school heart rates up. She would always just smile, thinking the boys were just being nice. She had no idea what they were really thinking. He had brought her out to this very spot, and by the end of the day he was sucking face with that exotic beauty.
“ You mean all the girls you brought up here,” Chris never had Franklin charisma in high school. He rarely scored with a girl long enough to bring them to the spot.
“ You brought a few too. What about that girl? What was her name?” Franklin tapped the side of his head with his finger, trying to remember the girl's name. “ I think it was Chrissy. You know the girl. Had a flat chest, but a nice ass. I think you two could have gotten it on if you had worked up the nerve to make a move on her.”
“ Chrissy wasn’t that interested. We were just friends,” Chris said.
Franklin scoffed, “ Sure, I guess you are still using that excuse.”
“ What makes you so sure that she was into him?” Kirstin asked. Chris gave her a quizzical look, like he was silently asking her why wouldn’t a girl be into him.
“ She hung around with him alot,” Franklin said.
“ So, a girl cannot hang out with a guy. She could have just wanted to be friends with him.”
“ That is what I have been trying to tell him,” Chris said.
Franklin shook his head. For the first time in a long time he felt himself smiling on the inside. Not just a little bit, but a whole lot.
“ No, no, nah dah, Chrissy was into you. I would try to talk to her, and she always had to ask about you. Also whenever you two were together she always had her hands wrapped around you every chance she got.”
“ She” Chris could not come up with an explanation.“ Ok, maybe Chrissy had a bit of a crush on me. You did not always do better. What about that one girl ,Gia, you know the one with the anger management problem. The one that stalked you after breaking up with you.”
Franklin chuckled, “ I cannot forget her. I feel that time she punched me when I decided to confront her. I told her we were done, and deleted her from my contacts after she begged me not to. I called her insane and she gave me a nice bruise between mine eyes. I sometimes still think I can feel where she hit me. It is like a phantom limb type of thing.”
“ How many girls did you two bring up here?” Kirstin asked. She found it hard to believe that Chris brought many women out to the campgrounds in high school. He was sweet, cute, and sometimes funny. She had seen Chris try to get girls before they started dating. He would go up to some girl at a club looking all tense and nervous. He looked like he was a socially awkward guy with no clue about what to do. Like Franklin said, he got some girls, but mostly he ended up floundering. Now that he had her, he seemed more confident in talking to women on a friend basis.
“ He did not catch to many fish,” Franklin said.
“ Hey, I might not have been the best fisherman, but I still got the best catch of all,” Chris looked at Kirstin as he said it. He leaned in and gave Kirstin a kiss. A long, passionate kiss.
Franklin smiled, one day he might find his own catch, but right now he was just waiting to get back on his feet. Make sure he still had his head on straight before trying to catch anything.
Suddenly the dirt rose up from the ground, and molded into the form of a human being with flesh that looked like it was rotting. The figure had no eyes, and was wearing a military uniform that had the name Keller pinned to it. There was a submachine gun strung over his shoulders, and a pistol holstered to his side. Worms stuck out of his face. Made the figure look like it had bits of little, wiggling hairs sticking out all over his body. Right smack in the middle of the figure's forehead was a bullet hole.
Franklin stared at the figure with wide eye horror. His hand began to tremble uncontrollably.. He recognized the name Keller. Keller had been part of his squad in the army.
“ What” Franklin's voice quivered. The apparition just stood there. Looking at him.
“ I didn’t say anything,” he heard Chris say, but he just ignored it. He was paying attention to the walking deadman in front of him.
“ Retreat!” Keller's corpse ordered in a raspy voice. It sounded like death was talking directly to Franklin.
“ Retreat? Why retreat?” Franklin asked.
“ Retreat? Retreat from what?” He heard Kirstin ask. She sounded worried.
“ Retreat,” Keller corpse said again.
Crud, forgot about taking my meds. It dawned on Franklin that he forgot to take his medicine before they left. He had been too busy packing up for the trip. What he was seeing was one of his more horrifying episodes.
“ Retreat,” Keller corpse repeated
“ Why do you keep on saying retreat? Why!” Franklin cried out.
“ Retreat” Keller 's corpse kept on repeating as it reached out its ugly looking hand. Keller's fingers were all messed up. Two were missing, the rest were twisted in other directions.
“ Retreat!” the corpse said again.
Franklin closed his eyes. That was the best he could do when dealing with some of his hallucinations. Just try to shut it all out.
He kept on hearing Keller's voice in his head. It kept on repeating the word retreat. Only now Keller was starting to say it faster. Kelller's corpse kept on repeating the word, “ Retreat” over and over. Franklin felt like his brain had some sort of mental racetrack inside of it. Cars were going around in circles, repeatedly going around and around.
“ CUT IT OUT! I AM SORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING! CUT IT THE HELL OUT!” Franklin screamed. He was holding his hands over his ears, and started rocking back and forth gently. He could not take much more of it.
“ Retreat!” Keller's corpse repeated again.
“ NO! NO! NO!. I NEED THIS TRIP. NO HALLUCINATION IS GOING TO GET IN THE WAY OF IT!” Franklin cried out. He could feel tears running down his cheek. He tried desperately hard to shut the Keller hallucination out, but he couldn't do it.
“ Retreat!” Keller yelled once more. Suddenly, Keller's corpse blew up. His pink guts were blown sky high, and landed all over the place. Franklin stared in horror. What had happened to Keller, had just happened again. Feeling like he couldn’t do anything, Franklin just curled up into a rock formation on the ground. He held his knees close to his chest.
“ He just, he was just gone. I couldn’t do anything. I did not know it was there,” Franklin
Chris ran over to him.
“ Franklin!” he heard Chris yell, but it sounded distant. He heard Chris say something, but he was too busy watching the chaos. He just kept on watching Keller's corpse getting blown up over and over again. Franklin dard to open his eyes. Keller's corpse was gone.
Chris gently rubbed his back, “ Nothing happened bro, it was all in your mind.
“ Yeah, it was just a hallucination,” Franklin said. His hand stopped trembling, and his heart beat slowed down.
“ Hey, did you take your medicine before we left?” Chris asked.
“ Sorry, I forgot to.”
“ That’s alright. We’ll all just have to make sure you take your medicine each day from now on,” Chris said as he rubbed his brother back.
“ It should have been me. I kept on seeing this soldier getting blown up, and it should have been me,” Franklin whimpered. Keller had died while out on patrol with him. They had gone to assist some soldiers. Franklin should have gone ahead of Keller, but the truth was being the newest soldier he was starting to freak out. Being the braver of the two, Keller had gone ahead of him. He had tripped a mine planted on the road. In the next few seconds there had been a deafening BOOM, and Keller insides where all over the place.
Chris sat beside him, rubbing his back as he cried.
The entire forest was dead calm. No wind blowing. Not even the birds were chirping. Tyler walked slowly through the forest, taking photos of deciduous trees that rose high above him. Occasionally he would step on a twig, and hear it snap! The noise made him twitch. He was expecting to turn around, only to come face to face with something like a black bear, or a bobcat.
So far he hadn’t seen any animals. When he first started trekking for the day, he was able to at least see some birds. Even got some nice shots of a yellow bellied sap sucker, a type of woodpecker with a stout bill, and vertical white patches on its wing. They would suck up sticky tree sap, and all the bugs caught in it. That was what the one he found had been doing when he had used his camera to observe it without scaring it.
He kept on walking. He looked around, making sure to be aware of his surroundings, remembering to watch his footing. He already ran into two rattlesnakes. One had been hiding under a rock, and another he had seen crossing his path.
An old, metallic stench assaulted his nose. It was strong enough to make his eyes water. Tyler was experienced enough outdoorsman to recognize the smell of a very dead animal when it was around. . Tyler, curious about the source of the stench, followed his nose until he came upon a deflated coyote carcass. There were weird looking teeth marks that formed a circle on different parts of the coyote's body.
Tyler looked at the peculiar carcass. He had seen dead animals ranging from roadkill, to other animal food, but not once he had seen a corpse that looked so deflated. He also did not understand why the teeth marks formed small circles. It was like whatever bit into the coyote had a vacuum for a mouth.
Tyler took only two photos. He knew he needed to get away from the spot. Animals did not like it when people got close to their food. The c corpse told him that whatever had done the coyote in would be a deadly force to tangle with.
Eeeeeeee! A loud screech that sounded like nails scraping against a chalkboard pierced his ears. Tyler looked up. The sun was bright, making it difficult to see. He could make out a shape flying toward him.
Just a bird. Tyler shaded his eyes with his hand so he could see it better. He still could barely make out the figure. As it got closer, the figure seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. It was flying right toward him!
Tyler spun around, and made a dash for it. He dove between the trees. Twigs snapped beneath his feet as he ran. He did not hear anything, but he did not bother to stop to see if anything was following him. He weaved between the trees. Luckily for him, years of hiking had helped build up his endurance and kept him in decent shape.
He came to a stop, huffing and puffing from the all out sprint. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead. He looked up. The tree canopy was so close together now that it blocked his view of the sky. He could only see bits and pieces of blue sky through the branches. Whatever he saw didn’t appear to have followed him.
“That had to be a bird,”Tyler muttered under his breath. He took out the water bottle he been carrying with him, and took a sip. For a brief moment, cold water went down his throat. He then took out his revolver, and checked the cylinder to make sure it was loaded. Doing so brought him little comfort. It helped him to know that he was not completely defenseless if whatever he saw ever came back for him, but sometimes he wished he had more than a handgun.
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