If you ever come across a clearing in Yellow Maple Wood, RUN : Scary Stories – Short Horror Story

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I used to go walking in Yellow Maple Wood virtually every weekend during the four years I lived in the adjacent town. Not until I’d moved away and reflected on all my time spent in that forest did I realize I’d never actually encountered any animals there. Not a deer, squirrel, hell, even single bird chirping came to mind. It was seemingly lifeless. I guess you just don’t tend to think about the things you don’t see.

While the woodland lacked in residents, it certainly wasn’t bereft of visitors. As a matter of fact swathes of people frequented it much like I did. Strangers smiled and waved on the slender paths weaving through the densely packed trees. Of all places, that was where I met my girlfriend Mary. From that early spring day on, our relationship blossomed like the forest itself.

Fall was when we loved wandering in it the most. As light would fade and the cold returned, the foliage turned vivid gold and illuminated the woods from the inside out. Strolling hand in hand as the leaves floated downward lazily around us felt like bliss if there ever was such a thing.

It was Mary who’d noticed the strange marking on a tree one chilly afternoon in an unfamiliar area. Squiggly letters, etched into the bark, were barely legible:

DON’T FOLLOW THE MOANING. BEWARE OF HE WHO LURKS.

We’d wanted to show our friends that maple to spook them, but attempts at locating it again had proved futile. It was uncanny, and made for a good story, but we thought nothing of it.

A few weeks thereafter, we heard the moaning ourselves, low and irregular, yet clear in the air. That was on our last walk. I remember my tingling skin, and Mary’s dumbstruck look.

“We have to know,” she pleaded despite my wincing.

Being clueless idiots, we tried tracking the noise, all the while drifting ever deeper in the undergrowth. Pinpointing the source was time-consuming, but eventually the moaning began loudening. Slowly, we reached a clearing foreign to me, coming to a standstill at its edge.

Before us were two feet that made ours look like pieces of fucking Lego. They were pointing at us, and whatever they belonged to towered well above the tree tops. As I peered up through the dwindling canopy barely shielding us, I could just about make out something that in some ways resembled a giant hairless man, standing stark naked out in the glade.

It hadn’t seen us, its beady eyes instead staring blankly into the distance. Its hands hung limply from the ends of spindly arms, suspended close to the ground, brushing the tall grass below.

My heart raced and Mary’s hand crushed mine.

The moaning was unbearable. Revolting. Shrill and laced with a concoction of smacking, slurping and awful crunching. When I squinted I saw its jaw grinding from side to side, and a pair of bare, human legs dangling from its mouth.

They were smeared with viscous red.

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