[ i listened to this song and thought about this book and the lyrics kinda fits, too. ]
Carl left for a piss somewhere amidst the trees and out of his paranoia Ron was close, very close, to ask him if he could tag along, but then he decided against it since that would just be really odd. Even for him.
The forest was quiet, just the soft bouncing of leaves in the wind made the only movements in the enclosed space and the very sound of the wind moving it was all he could hear.
Ron held himself as he shot glances into all directions, flinches whenever a bird would make any noise in the bushes and almost had a heart attack when a stick fell out of one spectacularly huge tree standing one feet away from him, and thought Ron was about to lean against exactly that one, he changed his mind in an instant and made a invisible barricade between himself and the tree, taking a couple steps backwards.
There was nothing to be scared of, just a short walk through the woods with a quick pee break on Carl's account.
Ron squirmed and walked circles into the ground, trying his nerves to calm down but all the infinite waiting did to him was increase it.
It was like all the nightmares stored in his head found a way out and turned the forest into something haunted, gloomy with all its shadows and crippled trees. The roots didn't seem to grow right, swivelled in weird angles at the ground and trees sported sickly-green leaves, rendered in brown that crackled in the hot breeze. It wasn't even fall, the leaves just gave that impression to it.
But then, after around twenty, Ron found peace by a tree as he leaned with his back against it, trying to breath regularly which was hard in the humidity of the air that seemed to collect water inside his lungs vessels.
Carl is gonna come back and we'll leave the forrest in no time, don't worry. just keep your chill. Ron tried to reassure himself. The voice at the store was nothing more than an imagination, just the result of his paranoia shinning through. Yes, it was exactly that, nothing more.
A smile wrestled itself over Ron's lips at his own stupidity, but as he looked up it washed off slowly. He didn't notice it at first because it looked like a regular shadow, but as he kept his gaze fixated on it the black matter next to a tree seemed to gain in size in front of his very eyes.
It looked like a normal shadow, up until it sprouted out of the tree and wreathed it in a dark blanket. Coating it from up down till it was erased from the forest.
Ron pushed himself off the tree he was leaning against and stumbled a few steps, planning on running to Carl no matter how weird it would be to crash into him mid pissing but as he made it towards the path he left, he bumped into Carl.
"Everything good?" Carl faltered, zipping up his pants with a confused look over his face.
Ron's mind was swimming and it didn't help the words that ran his mouth, twisted around his tongue into utter nonsense "Th-we, uh-- have to-- monster!"
Carl pulled his eyebrows together and studied Ron's face before his eye jumped to the right and widened as it saw something behind Ron from over his shoulder.
"Shit-- run!" He yelled, but they were already running, battering the forest floor with their worn shoes and working distance between them and the black matter that gained in size rapidly and it seemed to eat away from the landscape wherever it spread out.
It was a terrifying view and Ron had to contain himself not to look back and have a glance at the floating hole in the space.
"What the frick's that!??" Ron yelled between heavy breaths
"Shut up 'n run!" Carl bayed, switching from overgrown ground to the footpath between straight lines of birch trees that someone must've planted there a long time ago.
Ron followed his lead, not looking at the ground as he was focused on not ramming his face against the low hanging branches that seemed to sag from the weight that the many leaves put onto them.
It was stressful, his whole body trembled and with each steps he could feel his knees turn more and more into kool-aid as if his panic beat the strength out of them and turned them into soft, wobbly masses of meat without bones to support them.
And then, he couldn't contain himself anymore. He stole a glance over his shoulder. And with his heart squeezing into itself, he knew that what was behind them wasn't something he wanted to see, he knew it before his eyes could fully comprehend what was happening there and then.
The black matter had stretched out, in a short timespan of as little as ten seconds, into something so huge and enormous that looked like half of the earth was gone, one piece disconnected from the other and cut out like snippet of a magazine. A black gash, nothing more, only jagged teeth of sky and forrest were visible through sections of the jet black and was receding more and more into it with every second. The worst though; it kept closing in on them and distance grew short.
Ron's lips fell apart and jaw hinged open, a soundless scream erupted from his mouth and in the next moment he faced the ground as he felt something gripping onto his ankle and pull him off balance.
The pressure around his ankle lifted as quickly as it had appeared and Ron tried to scramble back onto his feet before the black matter could feed off him, but as he shifted around he noticed black goo on his pants, soaking into the material like ink.
"Carl!" he managed to croak.
Footsteps scraped against the choppy ground and soon Carl was by his side, throwing himself on his knees to the soil. "Got you,"
He looked him up for a second before his hands started moving in quick sentences. He pulled the fabric away from Ron's skin and without questioning what had happened, he pulled out a small pocket knife and started tearing into the denim avoiding any skin contact with the substance.
The black matter was only two feet away now and Carl's motions grew faster, strokes so harshly Ron almost feared he was going to cut the skin by his ankle. He dragged the blade in zigzag, ripping it viciously and fraying the denim along the way he sawed it.
With a last cut the hem of his pants were off and flew away where it sunk into the ground, turned black and sunk even farther into the ground till it was nothing more than another hole.
But Ron had no time left watching this weird phenomenon happening, because Carl shoved him back on his feet and forced him into a high-tempo sprint.
At first the branches swiped their faces faintly, but then as the trail drew thinner and the trees grew closer together, they practically hit them one after the other and Ron had to close eyes to avoid getting poked by them in the eyeball.
The devouring of the world happened quietly, indeed the world actually seemed to go quieter in general because with every eaten off inch, noises drowned into silence and left was the echoes of footsteps escaping from the demise.
Running blindly, they didn't notice when the forest ended up until the branches quit beating their faces and the ground got easier to walk upon.
Ron's eyes flew open, after he briefly wiped his hands over them to remove any dirt and insects that caught on to them. And there it was, The Ferris wheel far aloft the sky, among the blinding sun was the first thing they saw as they stormed out of the woods and as their gaze fell downwards they sighted a shiny gate which gleamed with a new found brilliance.
Painted in white as if freshly varnished and polished, no scabrous vines, no rust, just a perfectly intact gate with a perfectly intact wall towering in front of them.
Ron was so stunned from the new sight that he stopped altogether but Carl pulled him after him and hurled him towards the gate which he read 'Lost Jollity' from, engraved into it in fancy and oldschool cursive letters.
They didn't stop running, not even when they were close enough and so they crashed into the gate with a loud rattling sound and before the black matter could touch them, Carl pressed with all his might against the handle and drove the gate open. Ron fell inside on the funfair grounds and Carl slid the gates close shut by the end.
A noise signalled to Ron that Carl had let himself slump next to him. They were a mess of heavy breathing, and sweaty bodies. Catching his breath seeming near impossible for Ron in that moment, the shock still sitting on his shoulder and the world started spinning around him.
"We made it" Carl gasped.
Ron couldn't bring himself to voice his agreement and so he just nodded, the back of his head rubbed against the gravel.
A cool breeze ran over his hot skin and dried the sweat on top of it, he couldn't believe that they didn't end up being eaten by whatever that was. And he couldn't bring himself to do anything else than lay there because his body was growing to the ground.