Status: Active
Black Demon
Petrified
"Kristen....uh...Kristen." Ashley's voice was cracked and dry.
"Lord help us." I said to myself. The man started walking toward us and I could feel Egypt’s urge to leave, but he waited for me to say so. When I stared at the black man, I saw the red eyes that we saw on Navajo road. I didn’t want to stick around anymore.
"Ashley! RUN!" Ashley didnt give it a second thought. We turned our horses to the field and kicked them into a run. Our horses did as we asked and took off like a bat out of hell. "Please Lord! Please." I prayed for safety. When we thought we lost him, we slowed our horses into a walk to give them a break. They still seemed tense. "Do you think we lost them?" Ashley said between breaths. I only gave a shrug. We walked a while when suddenly, Egypt spooked again. I feared he found us and was afraid to even look around for this guy. "What's wrong Egypt?" I asked him, begging for an answer and hoping he was just being weird. He was looking to the right and I laughed when I saw what he spooked at. It was an old couch that was shredded up and it looked odd. He was so tense that everything was making him jumpy.
We galloped back to the ranch because we both wanted to go home. When we got back, we told my mom and Neila what happened.
"A man In a black cloak with red eyes? Are you joking?" Neila was concerned and you could tell by the tone in her voice.
"No! We saw him and he could be anywhere." Ashley told Neila. Neila paced back and forth for a while and then looked around to see where I was. "Kristen, are you ok?" She walked over to me and touched my knee. When I felt the hand I screamed and jumped. "Kristen relax, it's just me."
"Neila. It was the scariest thing you could ever see! He is following us!" I said. But that was all I could say. Neila took her hand away from my knee and walked to Egypt’s head. His eyes were wide and his nostrils were flared. I finally was able to release the reins and dismount Egypt. "I'm going to untack him." I said and led Egypt to the hitching rail. I untightened the cinch and slid the saddle and pad off his back. When the cool November air hit his sweaty back, steam started rolling off it. I brushed his back with a soft bristled brush until the sweat was almost gone. After awhile, Egypt took his first deep breath and relaxed some. When I was almost finished grooming Egypt, Ashley came up with Eclipse and began untacking her as well. Eclipse was relaxed and half asleep, but Ashley was far from relaxed or tired. I could see the fright in her eyes. Her pupils were huge and she was sweating. I waited for her to finish before I went to put Egypt back in his stall for the day. It only took Ashley 5 minutes to completely get Eclipse groomed and after she was done, we put the tack boxes away and led the horses back to their stall. We didn't say anything to one another, but every few seconds I glanced at Ashley and she looked petrified. We led the horses into their enclosures, slipped their halters off their heads and headed back to my mom and Neila.
"Be careful going home ok? I'll see you tomorrow." Neila said as we headed for the car. The whole car ride home was silent and it seemed like if anyone said anything, one of us would hit the roof. When we pulled into the driveway of my house, Ashley opened the door and ran into the house and I followed closely behind. Once my mom came in the door, we locked it and went into my room.
“They are still jumpy I see.” Dad said. My dad is 5’10”, with black hair and brown eyes. He can be very sarcastic most of the time, but since we told him about this evil guy, he’s been very concerned.
I invited Ashley to stay the night and she gladly accepted. It took a while, but at 9:00 p.m. we forgot about what happened and started laughing and playing games again like nothing had happened.
“Hey mom and dad! Watch what Ashley can do! Ok go.” I said as I pulled Ashley in the kitchen. She squatted down, slid her feet outward and started walking. “She looks like a duck!” I said and started laughing. My mom and dad laughed and then Ashley and I slid out of the kitchen and went back into my room.
“Hey Ashley?” I asked once I shut the door behind me.
“Yeah?” She answered hesitantly.
“Do you think that thing out there is going to find us and kill us?”
Ashley looked at me with wide eyes and then chuckled. “I don’t think we have to worry about him anymore. I bet it’s just a person in a costume that is trying to scare us since I almost killed him!”
“Then how did it know where we were? I mean, come on, what are the odds that this person thing knew we would go on a trail we had never been down before? It’s impossible! Wait! Unless it’s a mind reader and when we decided to change our trail it went too! That has to be it!”
“A mind reader? Please. That is almost saying that there are actually psychics or vampires out there. You’re just freaking out.”
“I just have a feeling that this thing is really out to get us.”
“Just don’t worry about it. If you keep thinking about it, your imagination is going to start running wild and you’re going to think you see it everywhere you look. You’re going to start jumping at your own shadow if you aren’t careful. “
“Ash, what if I do stop thinking about it and forget the bad feeling I have and then it does come back and we get killed?”
Ashley thought about it for a moment and then smiled. “Just stop thinking about it O.K.?”
That was the last time we said anything about it.
“Ashley! What are you doing you dork?” I asked. Ashley had a marker in her hand and she was drawing on my closet door.
“You’ll see.” She answered and I heard a small chuckle that was so low I think she didn’t want me to hear it. When she moved away from the closet, I turned pale.
“Do I even want to know?” I asked as I looked at the drawing that looked like a tree/horse
“It’s Egypt.” She pointed and smiled.
“What’s Egypt?”
“The drawing! It’s Egypt. Can’t you tell?”
“I thought it was a tree/horse. You are usually really good at drawing. Why doesn’t this look good?”
“I couldn’t erase because it’s a permanent marker and I couldn’t erase the 5th leg. Sorry.” Ashley turned and looked at me and a horrific look crossed her face. “Kristen? You O.K.?”
“Did you just say ‘Permanent’”? I asked and adjusted my position to from a cross-legged sit to a knee sit.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Ashley! What the hell? Why would you use a PERMANENT marker! Couldn’t you use a dry erase?”
Ashley turned pale and tears started streaming down her face. She hated when I yelled at her, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Oh gees, don’t cry Ashley. I didn’t mean to yell. Oh wait, YES I DID!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh gees. Its O.K. We’ll just get some paint and paint over it. I didn’t know you were that naïve.”
Ashley sat back and looked at me weird. “This is me we’re talking about! I get excited over sitting on 2 phone books to drive for crying out loud!”
I started laughing hysterically when she said that. I completely forgot about how excited she was this morning. “Oh yeah. Duh!”
After that, we couldn’t stop laughing, and when we did, all we had to do was look at one another and we would start busting up. After 10 minutes of nothing but laughing, I noticed an eerie silence in the house. I stood up immediately and started for my door.
“Kristen, what’s wrong?” Ashley asked, nervously.
“Something isn’t right. It’s too quiet.”
“Maybe everyone went to bed.”
“It’s only 9:30 Ashley. It’s the weekend. No one goes to bed at 9:30 on weekends.”
“Well, what if something is wrong? Do you really want to go out and check?”
“Yes.”
Ashley took a deep breath and stood up. “I’m coming with you then.”
“Why? If something is wrong, I know what you’ll do!”
Ashley placed her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Oh yeah? What would I do then?”
“You’ll scream and run.”
Ashley laughed. “You’re right. But you would too if it was a flying bug!”
Ashley followed behind me when I left the room. I checked my sister’s rooms first too see if she was there and she wasn’t. She liked collecting swords so I picked up a sharp dagger she had hanging on the wall from the Lord of the Rings movie.
When I left my sister’s room, I heard a crash and a scream.
“Would you be quiet?” I scolded Ashley.
“The crash wasn’t me. The scream was.”
I turned around and took a deep breath, then continued walking forward. No one was in the living room or in any other room so I decided to go outside.
“Uh, Kristen. I don’t want to go out there.” Ashley said when I started to open the door.
“Fine. Stay in the dark house by yourself then. I’ll be back.” I started walking out the door when I felt something cling to my shirt. “Knew you’d come.” Ashley didn’t say anything; she didn’t even shut the door behind her.
“Kristen, it’s dark!” Ashley said out loud and something shushed her.
“What was that?” I jumped sideways and Ashley fell as she lost her grip on my shirt.
“That wasn’t you?”
“Do you think I would have jumped if it was?”
I stretched out my hand for Ashley to grab and she shook her head.
“Fine, I’m going to go find out what shushed you and you just stay there on the ground in the dark.” Ashley jumped up quickly and ran to my side.
“You have to stop saying that. It scares me.”
“You wanted to come, so now you have to stick with me or go back in the house.”
Ashley didn’t say anything else. She just grabbed my shirt and walked with me.
“Would you girls be quiet?” A high voice came from above us.
Ashley screamed and dug her head into the smalls of my back.
I looked up to the sky, “God?” I asked.
“Yeah Kristen. This is God! I want you and Ashley to look at the roof and tell me what you see.” The voice, which I thought was God, said.
When I turned to the roof, Amanda, my sister, Steven, my brother and my mom and dad were on the roof.
“What in the world are you guys doing up there?” I yelled.
“We could ask you the same thing. Why do you have Amanda’s dagger?” Dad asked.
“No reason. We’re coming up.” I grabbed Ashley’s arm and helped get on the roof from the ladder, and then I came up after her. “What are you guys looking at?”
“There are police down the street and we have a better view up here.” Mom answered.
“Why?” Ashley asked inquisitively.
“Something is on their roof. You can kind of see it. The police have been trying to get it off for a while. It looks like a person.
“Something on the roof?” Ashley hesitantly asked and moved herself a little closer to me.
“Yeah, but all we can see is a black figure.” Mom replied and then adjusted herself to an upright sitting position so she could see well.
“Black figure?” Both Ashley and I said in unison. “We’re going inside!” Ashley quickly moved down the ladder, but I just jumped from the roof and landed onto the hood of my dads work truck. Ashley jumped down from the ladder when she was close enough to the ground and I jumped from the hood of the truck and we both ran back into the house. Once we ran into my room, I slammed the door and attempted to take a deep breath.
“Kristen. You don’t think it’s him do you?” Ashley hesitantly asked when she could breathe.
“Him who?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“The black thing. Do you think that it’s it?”
“No! No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be…could it?”
Ashley didn’t answer. She just shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Let’s get ready for bed.”
I glanced at the clock and realized it was 10:00. We were silent as we dressed for bed and it was so quiet that we didn’t even hear my mom come in the room until she said our names.
“Ashley, Kristen. He’s gone.” Mom said loudly and both Ashley and I jumped.
“You scared us! Where did he go?” Ashley asked while I got Ashley’s bed ready; That is, if you could call it a bed, she liked to sleep on the rug I had in my room.
“I dunno. One minute he was there, the next, he was gone. I think he just ducked into the shadows and jumped off the roof. Anyway, get some sleep girls. Tomorrow is a big day for both of y’all. Night.” Mom shut the door quietly and Ashley turned her head slowly and looked at me with petrified eyes.
"Lord help us." I said to myself. The man started walking toward us and I could feel Egypt’s urge to leave, but he waited for me to say so. When I stared at the black man, I saw the red eyes that we saw on Navajo road. I didn’t want to stick around anymore.
"Ashley! RUN!" Ashley didnt give it a second thought. We turned our horses to the field and kicked them into a run. Our horses did as we asked and took off like a bat out of hell. "Please Lord! Please." I prayed for safety. When we thought we lost him, we slowed our horses into a walk to give them a break. They still seemed tense. "Do you think we lost them?" Ashley said between breaths. I only gave a shrug. We walked a while when suddenly, Egypt spooked again. I feared he found us and was afraid to even look around for this guy. "What's wrong Egypt?" I asked him, begging for an answer and hoping he was just being weird. He was looking to the right and I laughed when I saw what he spooked at. It was an old couch that was shredded up and it looked odd. He was so tense that everything was making him jumpy.
We galloped back to the ranch because we both wanted to go home. When we got back, we told my mom and Neila what happened.
"A man In a black cloak with red eyes? Are you joking?" Neila was concerned and you could tell by the tone in her voice.
"No! We saw him and he could be anywhere." Ashley told Neila. Neila paced back and forth for a while and then looked around to see where I was. "Kristen, are you ok?" She walked over to me and touched my knee. When I felt the hand I screamed and jumped. "Kristen relax, it's just me."
"Neila. It was the scariest thing you could ever see! He is following us!" I said. But that was all I could say. Neila took her hand away from my knee and walked to Egypt’s head. His eyes were wide and his nostrils were flared. I finally was able to release the reins and dismount Egypt. "I'm going to untack him." I said and led Egypt to the hitching rail. I untightened the cinch and slid the saddle and pad off his back. When the cool November air hit his sweaty back, steam started rolling off it. I brushed his back with a soft bristled brush until the sweat was almost gone. After awhile, Egypt took his first deep breath and relaxed some. When I was almost finished grooming Egypt, Ashley came up with Eclipse and began untacking her as well. Eclipse was relaxed and half asleep, but Ashley was far from relaxed or tired. I could see the fright in her eyes. Her pupils were huge and she was sweating. I waited for her to finish before I went to put Egypt back in his stall for the day. It only took Ashley 5 minutes to completely get Eclipse groomed and after she was done, we put the tack boxes away and led the horses back to their stall. We didn't say anything to one another, but every few seconds I glanced at Ashley and she looked petrified. We led the horses into their enclosures, slipped their halters off their heads and headed back to my mom and Neila.
"Be careful going home ok? I'll see you tomorrow." Neila said as we headed for the car. The whole car ride home was silent and it seemed like if anyone said anything, one of us would hit the roof. When we pulled into the driveway of my house, Ashley opened the door and ran into the house and I followed closely behind. Once my mom came in the door, we locked it and went into my room.
“They are still jumpy I see.” Dad said. My dad is 5’10”, with black hair and brown eyes. He can be very sarcastic most of the time, but since we told him about this evil guy, he’s been very concerned.
I invited Ashley to stay the night and she gladly accepted. It took a while, but at 9:00 p.m. we forgot about what happened and started laughing and playing games again like nothing had happened.
“Hey mom and dad! Watch what Ashley can do! Ok go.” I said as I pulled Ashley in the kitchen. She squatted down, slid her feet outward and started walking. “She looks like a duck!” I said and started laughing. My mom and dad laughed and then Ashley and I slid out of the kitchen and went back into my room.
“Hey Ashley?” I asked once I shut the door behind me.
“Yeah?” She answered hesitantly.
“Do you think that thing out there is going to find us and kill us?”
Ashley looked at me with wide eyes and then chuckled. “I don’t think we have to worry about him anymore. I bet it’s just a person in a costume that is trying to scare us since I almost killed him!”
“Then how did it know where we were? I mean, come on, what are the odds that this person thing knew we would go on a trail we had never been down before? It’s impossible! Wait! Unless it’s a mind reader and when we decided to change our trail it went too! That has to be it!”
“A mind reader? Please. That is almost saying that there are actually psychics or vampires out there. You’re just freaking out.”
“I just have a feeling that this thing is really out to get us.”
“Just don’t worry about it. If you keep thinking about it, your imagination is going to start running wild and you’re going to think you see it everywhere you look. You’re going to start jumping at your own shadow if you aren’t careful. “
“Ash, what if I do stop thinking about it and forget the bad feeling I have and then it does come back and we get killed?”
Ashley thought about it for a moment and then smiled. “Just stop thinking about it O.K.?”
That was the last time we said anything about it.
“Ashley! What are you doing you dork?” I asked. Ashley had a marker in her hand and she was drawing on my closet door.
“You’ll see.” She answered and I heard a small chuckle that was so low I think she didn’t want me to hear it. When she moved away from the closet, I turned pale.
“Do I even want to know?” I asked as I looked at the drawing that looked like a tree/horse
“It’s Egypt.” She pointed and smiled.
“What’s Egypt?”
“The drawing! It’s Egypt. Can’t you tell?”
“I thought it was a tree/horse. You are usually really good at drawing. Why doesn’t this look good?”
“I couldn’t erase because it’s a permanent marker and I couldn’t erase the 5th leg. Sorry.” Ashley turned and looked at me and a horrific look crossed her face. “Kristen? You O.K.?”
“Did you just say ‘Permanent’”? I asked and adjusted my position to from a cross-legged sit to a knee sit.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Ashley! What the hell? Why would you use a PERMANENT marker! Couldn’t you use a dry erase?”
Ashley turned pale and tears started streaming down her face. She hated when I yelled at her, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Oh gees, don’t cry Ashley. I didn’t mean to yell. Oh wait, YES I DID!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh gees. Its O.K. We’ll just get some paint and paint over it. I didn’t know you were that naïve.”
Ashley sat back and looked at me weird. “This is me we’re talking about! I get excited over sitting on 2 phone books to drive for crying out loud!”
I started laughing hysterically when she said that. I completely forgot about how excited she was this morning. “Oh yeah. Duh!”
After that, we couldn’t stop laughing, and when we did, all we had to do was look at one another and we would start busting up. After 10 minutes of nothing but laughing, I noticed an eerie silence in the house. I stood up immediately and started for my door.
“Kristen, what’s wrong?” Ashley asked, nervously.
“Something isn’t right. It’s too quiet.”
“Maybe everyone went to bed.”
“It’s only 9:30 Ashley. It’s the weekend. No one goes to bed at 9:30 on weekends.”
“Well, what if something is wrong? Do you really want to go out and check?”
“Yes.”
Ashley took a deep breath and stood up. “I’m coming with you then.”
“Why? If something is wrong, I know what you’ll do!”
Ashley placed her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Oh yeah? What would I do then?”
“You’ll scream and run.”
Ashley laughed. “You’re right. But you would too if it was a flying bug!”
Ashley followed behind me when I left the room. I checked my sister’s rooms first too see if she was there and she wasn’t. She liked collecting swords so I picked up a sharp dagger she had hanging on the wall from the Lord of the Rings movie.
When I left my sister’s room, I heard a crash and a scream.
“Would you be quiet?” I scolded Ashley.
“The crash wasn’t me. The scream was.”
I turned around and took a deep breath, then continued walking forward. No one was in the living room or in any other room so I decided to go outside.
“Uh, Kristen. I don’t want to go out there.” Ashley said when I started to open the door.
“Fine. Stay in the dark house by yourself then. I’ll be back.” I started walking out the door when I felt something cling to my shirt. “Knew you’d come.” Ashley didn’t say anything; she didn’t even shut the door behind her.
“Kristen, it’s dark!” Ashley said out loud and something shushed her.
“What was that?” I jumped sideways and Ashley fell as she lost her grip on my shirt.
“That wasn’t you?”
“Do you think I would have jumped if it was?”
I stretched out my hand for Ashley to grab and she shook her head.
“Fine, I’m going to go find out what shushed you and you just stay there on the ground in the dark.” Ashley jumped up quickly and ran to my side.
“You have to stop saying that. It scares me.”
“You wanted to come, so now you have to stick with me or go back in the house.”
Ashley didn’t say anything else. She just grabbed my shirt and walked with me.
“Would you girls be quiet?” A high voice came from above us.
Ashley screamed and dug her head into the smalls of my back.
I looked up to the sky, “God?” I asked.
“Yeah Kristen. This is God! I want you and Ashley to look at the roof and tell me what you see.” The voice, which I thought was God, said.
When I turned to the roof, Amanda, my sister, Steven, my brother and my mom and dad were on the roof.
“What in the world are you guys doing up there?” I yelled.
“We could ask you the same thing. Why do you have Amanda’s dagger?” Dad asked.
“No reason. We’re coming up.” I grabbed Ashley’s arm and helped get on the roof from the ladder, and then I came up after her. “What are you guys looking at?”
“There are police down the street and we have a better view up here.” Mom answered.
“Why?” Ashley asked inquisitively.
“Something is on their roof. You can kind of see it. The police have been trying to get it off for a while. It looks like a person.
“Something on the roof?” Ashley hesitantly asked and moved herself a little closer to me.
“Yeah, but all we can see is a black figure.” Mom replied and then adjusted herself to an upright sitting position so she could see well.
“Black figure?” Both Ashley and I said in unison. “We’re going inside!” Ashley quickly moved down the ladder, but I just jumped from the roof and landed onto the hood of my dads work truck. Ashley jumped down from the ladder when she was close enough to the ground and I jumped from the hood of the truck and we both ran back into the house. Once we ran into my room, I slammed the door and attempted to take a deep breath.
“Kristen. You don’t think it’s him do you?” Ashley hesitantly asked when she could breathe.
“Him who?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“The black thing. Do you think that it’s it?”
“No! No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be…could it?”
Ashley didn’t answer. She just shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Let’s get ready for bed.”
I glanced at the clock and realized it was 10:00. We were silent as we dressed for bed and it was so quiet that we didn’t even hear my mom come in the room until she said our names.
“Ashley, Kristen. He’s gone.” Mom said loudly and both Ashley and I jumped.
“You scared us! Where did he go?” Ashley asked while I got Ashley’s bed ready; That is, if you could call it a bed, she liked to sleep on the rug I had in my room.
“I dunno. One minute he was there, the next, he was gone. I think he just ducked into the shadows and jumped off the roof. Anyway, get some sleep girls. Tomorrow is a big day for both of y’all. Night.” Mom shut the door quietly and Ashley turned her head slowly and looked at me with petrified eyes.
♠ ♠ ♠
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