Old Murderdolls Stories

Close Your Eyes & Settle

◇Chapter One: Eyeless◇

North Carolina really did have a beautiful landscape, Joey reflected as he wandered aimlessly down an old worn path. He had no idea where exactly he was going, and it was beginning to get dark so there should have been a sense of hurry, but it wasn't bothering him yet. It was more than an hour later, when the sun was low in the sky and behind the trees where it was no longer visible to him, that Joey finally stopped walking. Snapped out of his fairy tale world, he stared wide-eyed around him and wondered where he was and how far away he was from he and his mother's new home. There was no telling; there was no telling which direction it was, much less how far away he was from it. He was no boy scout; he couldn't read moss and stars. He started walking again, hoping that maybe, eventually, he'd come across a house that could possibly point him the right way.

An owl hooted at him as it swooped down over his head and he gasped loudly, swatting it away even though it hadn't touched him. He shuddered and looked up at the sky. It was still red, a bright, delicious red that looked much like the leaves that adorned the trees. Fall was quickly approaching and he was glad for the hoodie sweater he had tied around his waist because he was sure it would be getting cool as soon as the sun went all the way down. It felt alright at the moment, though it was no thanks to his mesh shirt that seemed to make him feel even colder than he would without sleeves.

He took a wrong turn somewhere because while he was contemplating other possible fashions for himself, he ran into a tree. A prickly limb scratched the side of his face and he hissed, bringing his hand up to touch it. A wetness streaked across his hand as he wiped it and he knew he was bleeding. He took a few steps back and looked back up at the sky, which was now almost completely black. It was cloudy and he couldn't see the moon yet, but there were definitely no stars. Even if he had known how to use the stars to get back home, there was no way he could do that when there was nothing to guide him. He wasn't really afraid of the dark itself, but he was afraid of what came out in the dark.

He walked slowly, but even so, when the toe of his boot struck something hard, he hit the ground, falling on his hands and knees. A soft exhale of breath that ended with a whimper came at the pain of his knee colliding with whatever hard surface that had tripped him. Through the fog that accompanied the moonlight and therefore didn't help his sight a whole lot, he looked down and realized with a gasp that he was sprawled over a tombstone. He jumped backward off the grave and fell right into a body that was standing behind him. He shrieked and jerked himself around, staring at the zombie-like creature before him with an open mouth.

"Who the hell are you?" the zombie asked in a very non-zombie-like voice that made Joey believe it was a boy rather than a monster. Through the beams of moonlight that were slivered through the trees and the fog that was thickening by the minute, there wasn't much to back up his assumption, but he could always hope.

Feeling vulnerable, Joey got defensive. He brought himself up to his full height, but didn't quite match the other's. "Joey," he said quietly, so quietly that he almost couldn't hear himself over the vibrant thundering of his heart. Another owl hooted loudly and he winced. "I need to get back to my house. Are you… Do you know your way around so that maybe you can help me?"

"Yeah, I know the way around, but you're a long way from home, trust me." He stepped forward and pushed Joey lightly on the shoulder. "Come on and you can stay with me, I guess. You shouldn't walk the woods by yourself at night." He walked off in one direction, obviously expecting Joey to follow.

Joey did follow, mostly because he was afraid to spend the night under a tree somewhere. He was also wary of axe-murderers, but figured that he'd die one way or another, so there was really no reason to avoid it. After all, that was what life was about: living, not sidestepping new opportunities. If he'd run into some crazy old hermit-type person who'd tried to kill him right when they met, now that was a different story entirely, but the boy he was following back to God-knew-where seemed harmless enough from what little Joey could decipher of him.