Unbinding the Demon

Cemetery Rendezvous

The sound of my heeled knee high gothic boots softly clicked against the cracked asphalt, as I timidly walked down the dark forested road. The crescent moon was barely even a visible sliver hanging lowly in the starry obsidian sky, offering little light to illuminate my path. My tiny dim flashlight hardly lit up the the waving trees and and falling leaves around me, making me grateful each time I passed a lighted house. 

I peered into the dark forest beside me, and seriously considered going to a psychiatrist to check and see if I had a mild form of schizophrenia or something. It felt like someone or something was lurking in there, following beside me, as if the shadows of the forest were whispering my name. Gnarled naked branches waved in the howling wind, like eldritch fingers beckoning me into their harsh skeletal embrace. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, as I pulled my long black jacket tighter around myself and picked up my pace. My destination was only a ten minute walk from where I lived, yet the feeling that I was being very closely watched and followed was almost suffocating. 

Get a fucking grip you neurotic ninny!

A tall pointy cast iron fence suddenly came into view. The sound of my clicking footsteps turned into the crunching and rustling of crispy decaying leaves, as I turned off the road and approached the tall eerie gates. I glanced up and read the iron sign that arched across the entrance that had "Sycamore Valley Cemetery" welded into it. The odoriferous rusted iron was bent in a few places and had cracked in others. I put my flashlight in my mouth and began to strenuously tug on the cold unmoving bars. 

Dammit! It's locked!        

I huffed, and slumped against the gate. Maybe I should just wait until Ashton gets here? Out of habit, I went to reach for my phone to distract myself as I waited, but then remembered that I'd apparently lost it almost a week ago at the club. A cold breeze hit my face and sent a shiver up my spine, as I warily glanced around in the dark. I was surprised that Ashton had suggested we meet like this. Ever since the kidnapping attempt he'd been overbearingly protective of me. He didn't want me going anywhere alone, and seemed to have a weird sixth sense for finding my location whenever I did. 

My gaze suddenly shot over to a very dark area by the fence. I got a strange unsettling feeling that I was being called over there by some unseen entity. I stared in a trance-like state into the darkness for a minute, and then realized that I was actually looking at a hole in the fence, just big enough for me to squeeze through. So, I straightened myself up, and gingerly walked over. My jacket got caught on a piece of jagged iron as I ducked down and slipped through to the other side. 

"Come on, you dumbass jacket!" I yanked it free and continued on my way.

The pale blotchy trunks of old barren sycamore trees drearily loomed throughout the graveyard. The bodeful call of a great horned owl hooted from above. I looked up and saw it's small silhouette perched on one of the thick twisted boughs, like a little feathered devil against the night sky. My steps cut through the wispy phantasmal mist that slowly slithered across the dark ground, weaving it's way between the old abandoned crumbling tombstones. Smells of upturned soil and decaying leaves filled my nose, as I inhaled a long nervous breath.

Once I got near the back of the cemetery, the light of my flash light suddenly flickered and then went completely out. "Stupid worthless thing!" I grumbled under my breath as I smacked it a few times, then angrily through it off into the distance.  

A chilling breeze wrapped around me, and eerily swirled the rustling leaves in a circle around my body. My paranoid gaze became glued to the dark forested treeline in front of me. The familiar feeling of unseen eyes leering at me filled my veins with sudden fear. There's no one there, you're just going crazy! My breath hitched at the overwhelming sense of a malevolent presence before me. I took a step back and grabbed a hold of an untended gravestone behind me.