Pre-Ramble

Hello Everybody, well, here it is.. My FIRST attempt at a REAL full-length story. I decided I might as well let everybody in the world see it, so please make any comments on it, and I PROMISE I will update it regularly!!! So check back every week or two. But please if you are going to leave comments, leave only suggestions and constructive criticism. - James

Excuse the cheesy start but it will be changed when I am finished writing the story. All of my stories that go anywhere start like this... Well, Here it is...

Post note (First Day of writing 9:45) I think this is going to be a better movie than book. Too much dialogue.

Post note (Nov 19 12:15pm) I decided instead of labeling chapters I will label them installments, and break them down into chapters at a later date

Post note (March 17 11:05 am) Just realized that the post notes are kind of dumb. Also they are more like pre-notes since they are before the story....

"Let's see, I've got my backpack, flashlight, a bag of chips, beer... I guess that's about everything. What? Oh yeah almost forgot, a warm jacket. Thanks. Well, I guess I'm gonna get going now, this is gonna be a long night. What do you mean 'am I sure'? Of course I am sure. I've always wanted to go backpacking over night. And this will be the last Friday the 13th until winter. Okay, I'll be careful. Don't worry, I'll call you tommorrow night. Alright catch ya later. Hey! Hold up. Hook me up with that friend of yours, what was her name? That's right, Jenny. See if she wants to do something Sunday, alright? Thanks, I'll owe you one. Later."
As he hung up the phone, the doorbell rang.
"Be right there!" He ran to the mirror to fix his hair. "Coming!"
He ran down the stairs, and opened the door.
"Hey Bryan, what's up? Man, I got some good news and some bad news. What do you want to hear first?"
"How about the good news?"
"Alright, you know that girl I've been trying to get to go out with me? Well, she finally gave in!"
"So what's the bad news?"
"Well, she sort of wants to go out tonight, and her parents are out of town for the night, so..."
"So you want to break our plans for tonight right?"
"If you wouldn't mind too much."
"Thats cool. I would do the same if I were you. I'll call you when I get back to see how it went."
"You mean you're going anyways?"
"What, you think I'm some kind of whimp like you? You always forget, I'm not the one who gets freaked easy."
"Whatever, well, I'm on my way out, and hey, I don't want to have to go and find your sorry butt tommorrow, so don't go getting yourself lost. Later"
"Alright, later Al"
"Later."

Ring. Ring. Ring.
"Hello, Bryan's Car... talk to me."
"What's up Bryan?"
"Hey, Al! What's wrong?"
"Dude! I just heard on the news that it might rain tonight!"
"Yeah, and we all know how great those stupid weather reporters are, huh? You aren't talking me out of going, now I have got to pay attention to the road, later!"
"Well, don't say I didn't try! Bye!"
"Bye"
As Bryan hangs up the phone, he takes a minute to look at the woods he is driving through. He notices that he is surrounded by very tall redwoods, and not much else. The woods stand tall, and look very eerie in the light of the full moon. As he keeps driving, he sees the faint markings of a trodden down path on the side of the road. "This must be it!"
He pulls his car over to the side of the road, and turns off the car. After he sits in a solemn silence for a few minutes, he finally opens the door, and gets out of the car. He puts on a jacket, grabs his backpack, makes sure he has his keys, and then locks up the car.
As he looks at the long dark path before him, nervous thoughts start to clutter his mind. Suddenly he is unsure of his decision to go on regardless of what his friends might say. He can't help but shake the thought that looms just out of his mind's reach. The thought that he will never make it back to his car if he starts to walk up that path.

"Well, here goes," Bryan says to himself as he turns on his flashlight and shines it around him. He starts up the path, determined to keep going no matter how scared he gets. As he looks around, in to the trees, he realizes how many different areas there are where something could be lurking in the shadows. As he keeps walking he hears something up ahead. He stops and turns off his flashlight. He can barely even make out anything but shapes with only the dim light of the moon, that has made its way through the trees to the forest floor to see by. As he looks around he sees a shadow moving around through the trees. Quickly Bryan turns on the flashlight, and shines it in the direction of the shadow. The first thing Bryan notices is the pair of eyes staring back at him. Bryan's eyes are stuck, staring into the pair of eyes in the beam of his flashlight. Finally Bryan breaks the stare and looks at the creature's body. As he moves the flashlight slowly, he notices the large long snout of the animal, he moves the flashlight up higher and breaks into a fierce sweat as he sees a pair of gigantic horns, topping off this creature, that is standing over 6 feet high. He moves the light down, expecting the worst, and notices a light brown and white hairy chest, leading down to two hoofed legs standing atop a tree stump.
Then Bryan laughs at himself as he realizes how stupid he has been. How could he have been so scared of this gentle deer. As he shines his light away from the deer, it bows its head down to the ground and procedes to eat the grass that is growing up from the forest floor in little patches.

"Amy, turn on the news for a minute!" Al shouted
"Okay, but why?"
"Just want to see the weather report really quick"
"Now lets go to Dave Barnes with the weather forecast, Dave? Thank you Cindy, in weather tonight, there is a huge storm moving in to the mountains, which is sure to set off some mud-slides, and road closures by late tonight, while on the coast things should not be as bad until tommorrow afternoon, that's all for tonights forecast, back to you Cindy!... "
"Oh @#%$!" Al yelled as he ran for the phone
"Whats wrong?"
"I gotta call Bryan, and hope he is still in his car... He is hiking in the mountains tonight. I knew something would go wrong if he was up there by himself. Stupid Bryan's probably did this just to annoy me. @#%#*^, no answer! I gotta go get him!"
"I'll go with you if you want..."
"That'd be great!"

His heart still racing, Bryan starts back up the path, humming the song he woke up to on the radio that morning, name of song here. After he has been walking for what seems like 10 miles, he realizes that it is definitely time for a beer. "Anyone want a beer?" He yells as he takes off his backpack and sits it down on the ground. Just as Bryan stars to unzip it, the thought of an old horror movie comes to his mind. Quickly, Bryan looks behind him to make sure nothing is there. As he turns around he notices something coming down the path toward him. Through the dim light he can make out a giant humanesque shape of something running towards him about 20 yards back. Quickly Bryan pucks up his flashlight & turns it on. Nothing happens. He looks at the flashlight to see what is wrong, then tries it again, flipping the switch off and on, off and on, but nothing happens. Quickly Bryan takes a look up toward the direction of the thing that is moving towards him. It is now only 10 yards away, and still coming.
"Hello? Who are you? What do you want?" Bryan yells
No answer.
Without thinking Bryan drops his flashlight and starts running. As Bryan is running down the path he starts to hear the thing getting closer. He takes a chance to look back over his shoulder. The thing has gained nearly half the ground and is not much more than 15 feet behind him. He turns back to look forward, and pushes himself to run as fast as he can. As he is running he notices the clouds moving in over the moon, fully engulfing him in almost complete darkness. Up ahead he sees a flash of light. He keeps running and notices a light flashing in the same spot. Suddenly it hits him that the light is not flashing, the trees just keep blocking his view. Quickly Bryan heads in the direction of the light, and looks over his shoulder again, seeing the creature less than ten feet away from him now.

"There it is!"
Al and Amy had just rounded the corner, and saw Bryan's car on the side of the road.
"He probably hasn't gone too far yet, knowing him, he should be taking a beer break right about now.

The breathing of the creature gets louder as Bryan feels that he is getting too tired to push himself any further. He pulls up every last ounce of energy he has left, and makes a final dash towards the light. As he draws nearer he realizes that the light is just the moon reflecting off the window of a small little shack reminiscent of a mobile home. As he realizes this, he knows that he will not have time to knock on the door. At the last minute he makes a jump, with his arms out to protect his head, and crashes through the window, and on to the floor, just missing the sofa that was sitting against the wall, just under the window.

"Did you hear that?" Amy shouted as she heard the far off echoing sound of breaking glass. "Yeah, it sounds like it came from over there. Let's hurry."

Slowly Brian starts to move, the sharp pain in his right arm over-powering his attempts to push himself up. Quickly, Bryan looks back at the window to see if there is anything outside. Finally, Bryan is able to pull himself off of the floor, and walks over to the window. Just as e gets there he hears something at the front door. Realizing that it must be the owners, he quickly walks over to the door.
Just as he unlocks the door, it comes flying in at him with a huge impacting force, knocking him to the floor.
Franticly Bryan pulls himself along the floor, getting as far away from the door as possible.
"Wait I can explain, I just-" Bryan manages to get out, interupted by the horrible site that had just crept inside the room.
"HELP!!!!" Bryan screamed at the top of his lungs, "HELP M-" His last word was cut off as the creature lunged, and ripped at his throat. With razor-sharp claws.

"HELP, HELP M-" Bryan's words echoed theough the night, finding their way directly toward the ears of his friends. They stopped dead in their tracks.
"Oh no, what... could have... happened?" Amy asked, emotions running strong. "You don't think.." She couldn't bare to even think of anything that could have happened.
"Maybe he just... fell." Al said, uncertainty filling his voice enough that Amy could tell he didn't really believe what he just said. "You go back to the car, I'm gonna go see what happened, I don't think you would want to see any blood if he had broken his leg or anything."
"But," She paused, "Fine." She headed back to the car.
Al continued on up the path, running as fast a his legs would take him. As he approached the house, he could see the moon reflecting off the few sharp edges of glass that remained in the window. As he neared he could see the front door, splintered, and wide open. Carefully he walked up to the front door, and looked in. The sight that laid before him made him sick to his stomach. There was Bryan's body, surrounded by blood, his head only hanging on by the skin in the back of his neck.

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