“Short cut”
There is a friend of mine. You can call him a pen friend. His name is William Bunsburry. He resides in Melbourne, Australia. He is passionate about horror books and movies. William can spend hours in libraries seeking for a good horror book and days in video libraries searching for a horrible, weird, horror movie DVDs. I know only this much and yup one thing more he is 35.One day when we were chatting, he shared an incidence, which he encountered, with me. The incidence I am going to share with you.. Its my kind request that- whomsoever is reading this please, please, please try to imagine what you are reading.It was December 1996.Temperature was below 0ºC.William was relaxing at his place on the cozy chair in front of fireplace with a cup of coffee in one hand and newspaper in other.Suddenly he saw something in newspaper so exciting for him that his eyebrows jumped, mouth left opened, and eyes get widened. There was a horror movie in Rialto Cinema. Rialto is famous for the horrible horror movies it plays. Today he was free and not going to miss the movie. The show was going to end late night. As he was alone in his flat and he also likes to be, so there was no problem returning late at night.He quickly got up from the cozy chair, left the coffee mug half filled,just put up an army overcoat and rushed towards Rialto cinema ignoring the weather which was getting bad to worse.Well! He was in time for the show. He was so much involved in the movie that once he really put his finger between his teeth and then shouted weirdly.Being very much loner, he pretty much disliked crowds. When show ended,he refused to give up his seat in Rialto until the auditorium was totally quiet and people free.When all was quiet, he stood up, shrugged on his heavy army surplus great coat and sauntered happily up the empty aisle. Walking through the warmed foyer at a casual place, he politely bade the pretty young bubblegum chewing girl cashier a genial Good Night. She reciprocated with a quick and practiced glossy red lipsticked smile before dismissing him completely and forever from her thoughts.As he stepped out, a blustery wind blew fierce and cold in his face as he looked up, noting a moonless solemn sky heavily overcast with angry ink black clouds weighty and pregnant with rain.William was feeling very lucky this day, as there was no crowd on roads. For him only the dim yellow-red lights of houses and posters HAPPY CHRISTMAS, hanging on shops was welcoming him to pass through. Walking happily he calculated that his home is quiet far from the place he was at that time.Heedful of a potential downpour and subsequent unwelcome drenching-William quickly pulled on a pair of gray woolen gloves, rammed his hands deep into his greatcoat pockets and set off at a fair speed in direction of his home.As he did so, the freezing wind keen and biting, whistled spitefully past his exposed and vulnerable ears making them oddly numb but at the same time, aching painfully. Being a great believer in Thoughts shortens journeys Bunsburry began to think, conjuring up mental images of whatever gave him most pleasure.Plodding mechanically along he began to think of his cherished books,which he has read and which he had to read. Thinking deeply of most pleasurous things he made an unconscious turn out of Casablanca road and into Goose lane. Even the raw weather was temporarily forgotten as he savoured thoughts of the tales he'd read and those he'd yet to read. William had but two true passions in his solitary life and they were;books and movies.But, only of a certain type! Horror!!!!!! The film he'd just witnessed at the Rialto was - to the more discerning cinema goer - nothing less than awful as well as being a complete and utter waste of time and money But not to William Bunsburry BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE DEMON gripped and enthralled him from start to finish. In fact, during some of the more graphically gruesome scenes, he was literally on the edge of his seat, eyes wide and unblinking,taking in every gory detail of torn flesh and crunching bones! So involved was he, both physically and mentally, he never once heard the sporadic, ribald, and somewhat foul-mouthed comments, yelled out by a group of high spirited youngsters sat just three rows down from his position. When he came to his senses he realized that he was half way down the goose lane and was making a turn into the cemetery walk, aptly named as it did run up to and through, the town cemetery.. During daylight hours, William found the Walk to be a pleasantly peaceful and extremely convenient short cut home. But, when darkness fell and invisible owls hooted eerily from within the darkened branches of the tree-lined graveyard path, Bunsburry couldn't help but visualize the murky cemetery to be simply swarming with vampires, over run by zombies, and literally teeming with all manner of vile flesh eating creatures. Despite common sense telling him that such creatures did not truly exist, William was still fearful of his somewhat over amplified and ghastly visions and thus found himself utterly incapable of summoning up the requisite courage to make use of the Cemetery Walk short cut and so tended to avoid it like the plague! The numbing weather appeared to grow even colder as William approached the corner of Cemetery Walk; the fierce cutting wind seeming able to penetrate his bulky khaki greatcoat with consummate ease, nipping at his flesh and causing his tall, angular frame to shiver and shake uncontrollably. Dismally, he paused on the corner, stamping his frozen feet and flailing his arms about like a demented windmill. Sighing heavily, William contemplated the long freezing walk still ahead of him. To get home by his normal night- time route, he would obviously have to circumnavigate the cemetery. That would mean walking a half a mile further down Goose Lane, then aright turn into Fircone Road, another half mile before turning right again into Valley Avenue and then, yet another half mile before the left turn into Jeremiah Close. The idea of walking another mile and a half in such bitterly cold weather did not bode well with William, as he stood on the corner, sniffing and shivering violently. The only alternative was, of course, the shorter, half mile Cemetery Walk route, which would cut his journey time significantly. That route,however, also did not bode well. It did not bode well at all!!!! Under normal nocturnal circumstances, William would never have considered taking the short cut - not in a million years. But the climate was so intense and severe and his body so ached with cold he was at least, (on this one occasion), prepared to weigh up the options. It now came down to choices and decisions. A case of which of the two was the lesser evil? Taking the lengthier route and remaining in a state of refrigeration for a longer period? Or taking the shorter, albeit terrifying, route through the cheerless, unlit graveyard? Bending his thin body forward, William peered indecisively along the foot-path of Cemetery Walk, through the open rusting iron graveyard gate sat the obscure and somewhat forbidding path he would have to take should he choose the short cut.He entered the cemetery with full cautious. Folding his arms protectively across his bony chest, he turned and looked along the well- lit and somewhat comforting Goose Lane as the Arctic wind increased its onslaught and began to bite more harshly and hungrily at his body. Unbearable as this icy weather was, William knew there could really be only one choice of route for him... The long one! The graveyard was a definite... no - no!Thinking that he will know be more earlier at his place he happily sped towards his home He was just about halfway across Cemetery Walk when the dusky,painfully swollen clouds above him finally ruptured and it began to pour heavily with cascading streams of ice- cold rain. William halted his homeward advance and stood, in utter dejection and disbelief, as voluminous drops of water smacked viciously against the road and painfully upon his bare, balding head. He could have just about put up with the cold. But icy rain as well!Shit, no! With a sinking heart, William had to concede that fate had almost certainly intervened and a choice of route had more or less been denied him. Logic dictated that there was really only one possible route he could take now! A route where spreading green leafed branches extended from tall trees and arched across a path forming a natural canopy. The one route that would afford him at least some protection against the threatening lightning and huge water droplets. The short cut along Cemetery Walk!!! Despite the fact that the cemetery gates he'd just passed through were no more than a few paces away and could be easily reached and exited within seconds, William immediately began to feel horribly vulnerable and therefore wasted no time in scanning, with wide staring eyes, (and a generous portion of nervous trepidation), the gloomy, and distinctly sinister, leafy tunneled path that lay before him. He didn't like the look of it. He didn't like the look of it at all. Not one little bit! What if there really were flesh eating, blood sucking zombies, skulking in the shadows or crouching behind the gnarled and muscular trunks of the trees? Christ!!! They could be watching him now. Watching and waiting. Willing him to foolishly enter their domain. Hungrily craving his flesh and his blood. He was sorely tempted to remain where he was. After all, he reasoned, the trees afforded adequate shelter and, rather than risk a terrifying and potentially dangerous journey through the fearsome graveyard, he could wait out the rain storm and then resume his journey home-wards along the comparative safety of Goose Lane. But it was on the cards that the brutal downpour would last out this cruel and bitter night and he was, even now, seriously chilled to the bone and shivering furiously. If he could just find the courage within himself to ignore the fact that he was in this shadowy necropolis of the dead. If he could just listen to the voice of reason and convince himself that zombies and vampires did not actually exist. If he could just concentrate his thoughts on pleasant and normal everyday matters - such as his boring shelf fillers job at the local hypermarket - then, with luck, he just might make it through unscathed. Of course, that was a helluva lot of 'if's' Without the thunderous roar of the rain, the cemetery had instantaneously become ominously silent. Deathly quiet! ! He didn't like this quiet. It was eerie and, well, intimidating; threatening... Frightening!!! Only tonight in BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE DEMON there had been just such a scene. William shuddered involuntarily and swallowed a hard painful lump as a rather revolting and gruesome part of the film, apropos dead people crawling from their mist covered graves and subsequently devouring a young man alive, clawed its way into his mind. It was, at this moment in time, and considering his situation, a review he could well have done without! After all here he was, alone in a dark and dismal graveyard surrounded by, he gulped, dead people! Granted, he couldn't see them, hidden as they were by six feet of earth, but even so, a multitude of the deceased were definitely,incontrovertibly sharing this graveyard with him! His lips moved in silent prayer as near to breaking point, he hesitantly followed a bend in the path. And, to his utter and joyful relief, he saw salvation beckoning in the form of the exit gates some two hundred meters distant. And beyond the gates? Beyond the gates his home, the cozy chair, the half left coffee mug,and in excitation the thrown newspaper. How utterly stupid he'd been. There was absolutely nothing to fear in a graveyard! Dead people couldn't really move, and even if they could,they'd have one helluva job shifting six feet of earth without the aid of a shovel, now wouldn't they? He kicked at the mist boyishly as he walked, watching it undulate like rippling waves on a silver sea. Oh yes, his cup of confidence was now truly over flowing Content with this brave and assertive action, he strode manfully toward the gates. It was when he was some fifty or sixty yards short of the exit that he thought he saw something moving, disturbing the mist close to the last tree on his right. He was just about opposite the last tree on his right, when his foot connected with a soft object lying unseen beneath the mist. William's heart grew legs and jumped with fright as a ghastly moaning sound drifted up from the depths of the mist. Should he stand perfectly still and silent in the hope that what ever was making that God awful noise would simply just go away and leave him alone? Or should he make an escape attempt? It was a heart-stopping wail that decided him.Summoning up a little courage that left with him, he'd managed only two soundless paces and was halfway through his third when the icy wind abruptly whipped up the mist forcing it to scurry from the path like a thing possessed. With terror-stricken eyes he beheld a hideous skeletal thing draped in a saggy & wrinkled gray skin. Blood red malignant eyes glowered hungrily at him from dark sunken sockets whilst it wheezily disgorged a putrid yellow and viscous substance from its vile, thin lipped mouth. Worst of all, William observed, with heart stopping horror, it's foul bony animated fingers were slowly moving toward him. Frozen with fear, William's mind had the opportunity of recording every revolting detail before the mist returned and all but hid the loathsome creature from his sight. Never had he known such throat tightening terror. Never had he been so intensely afraid. He was convinced now that it could only be a matter of seconds before the creature was upon him, tearing his living flesh as under. He'd barely decided to cut and run when, to his utter shock, he felt the deathly cold touch of bony fingers snaking around then tightly gripping his left ankle. Screaming in terror, he instinctively stamped his left foot hard down on to the arm of the hellish abomination that held him. A deafening howl of pain and rage shattered the peaceful stillness of the graveyard as William felt the awful skeletal fingers loosen. Seizing his chance, he forcibly wrenched his ankle away and bolted hysterically towards the exit gates as fast as his excrement filled shorts and terrified legs would allow, screaming at the top of his voice. Behind him, in the graveyard, the mist stirred as a very pale and extremely intoxicated Claude Cap-stick, the 69 year old resident grave digger and well-known whisky lover, hauled himself up and sat, wrapped in his old, wrinkled, and loose fitting dark gray raincoat nursing a painfully bruised left arm. Vigorously rubbing a red and sunken, drink sodden eye with a thin bony finger he angrily muttered to himself that a man, particularly one of his advancing years, ought to be allowed to throw up in peace without having his arm stamped on by some sodding maniac like that one running out of the cemetery gates making enough noise to wake the bleeding dead!
October 26, 2007 at 1:31 pm
hi there
the story was real good ,
you wrote it yourself ???
it was too cool man
keep it up
March 30, 2008 at 1:10 pm
hey you just give me a copy(photo copy) of this story .
it’s too big yaar!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i’ll read this when i free………
abhi ise padne k liye time nahi hai