The Clearing in the Woods

“Hey, Leon, are you heading home already?” Leon turned away from the door to look at his friend, Gary.

        “Um yeah, I was just gonna go home and study for Ms. Smith’s test tomorrow.”

Leon wasn’t the type to stick around after school with his friends, whether it was to grab a snack at old man Davey’s, to go to the roller rink on Harley street, or even just walk around the school track for a bit. As much as he loved his friends, he was usually too worn out to do anything else after school ended.

“You gonna go to Kyle’s party tomorrow night? It starts at 7:00.”

“Well, I was thinking about it, I don’t usually go to parties but I heard Mary was going. Maybe I’ll go.”

“Groovy! I’ll see you there!”

        Gary walked to the back doors to join his friends on the track, as Leon continued to the woods

        Leon had picked up a habit of walking home through the woods after school. He never could come up with a reason as to why he just started doing it one day and kept it up. The sound of the trees, the calmness, and the scenery was what really drew him towards this forest. On the path he took, there was a narrow river to his left behind a few trees, and to his right were miles of trees and mossy fallen logs. Sometimes, if he were quiet enough, he could see a deer in the distance.

        He really enjoyed the peace and quiet of the woods. Leon was a generally quiet kid. Still social and talkative with his friends, but every once in awhile liked to be by himself.

                He trudged down the leafy path with his head hung low and his hand shoved snugly in his winter jacket pockets. The beaten coat hung tightly to his shoulders like a warm embrace. It reminded him of his father, who left when Leon’s mother had confessed she was 3 months pregnant with Leon, and it was the only item he left behind with her. She didn't talk about it much.

This particular day was a bit cloudy, it looked like it might rain. Leon was more than fine with this, he enjoyed looking at the clouds as much as he liked looking at a blue sky. He decided to go a different way than his usual shortcut.

        This time, after passing the usual rock at the corner of the path, he crossed over through the path and over a small hill that would eventually lead to a clearing where he could perfectly see the rainy clouds.

Leon had never gone this way before, so he didn’t know where it would lead out; if it would lead to the same direction as his usual path or if he would get lost. If that were the case, he’d just retrace his steps and head back on his usual path.

        This way was just as scenic as the usual path. Leon struggled a bit to get through all the blackberry bushes and tree stumps, it was clear that no one came through this way. Leon only knew of it from looking through the trees at the clearing and seeing the light shining through the roof of the woods from afar. Leon had to climb and clamber over rocks and stumps to get through, but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t in any rush.

        As he approached the clearing, Leon noticed something. A skull of some sort of animal. Maybe a deer or coyote skull. He walked over and picked it up

“Oh, cool, I can show this to Gary! He’ll sure get a kick out of-”

He looked up from the skull at his surroundings.

“..This…”

        When Leon actually observed the clearing, the first thing he noticed was the grass and the plants around him. They were all dead. Rotting. Decaying. The grass was grey and dead and any other plant around was shriveled up. There were more than just the one skull he found. There were animal skulls spread all around the area. They were all different animals.

        Leon stepped into the dead grass and looked around more. It seemed that the farther he walked down this pathway the more dead and decayed plants he saw. Leon pulled his father’s coat closer to his skin feeling comfort in its warmth.  The clearing was in a sort of L-shape, at the corner of the clearing there was a large, twisted tree that looked as if it would come alive and attack Leon. He started to walk around the tree to where the smell was the strongest. He turned the corner and stopped dead in his tracks.

        “Oh, my god.”

At the end of the clearing was a tall, dead tree, and in front of it on the ground was a familiar symbol. A pentagram. Hanging from the trees by a brown rope were skulls. Human skulls. Some of them were covered in blood. As he walked closer, Leon could see bones on the ground inside the pentagram. There were scattered pages and books all over the ground, drawings with strange symbols on them and books with the pages torn out of them.

        Leon picked up one of the books and observed it. Or, at least, he tried to. It was written in a completely unfamiliar language, with some notes on the side in English that didn’t make much sense anyway. As he continued to flip through the book, he noticed that there were bloodstains on some of the pages, and some were torn a bit. He dropped the book and continued looking around.

        He continued on through the ritual-site. Leon had only just taken a second to process where he was, he was still in a state of shock from the skulls and the dead plants and the blood. As the realization began to sink in, Leo got a chill down his spine and suddenly felt ill. He got the striking feeling that he wasn’t alone. A sudden rush of anxiety hit him like a brick wall.

        He began to look around frantically, looking for the source of his sudden feeling of dread. He didn’t have to look for long.

        In the woods behind the occult site, he saw a tall, dark figure. Not like a human, not even remotely. It looked as if its limbs were made of long, sharp, thin branches, and its face… its face was indescribable. The face was something that made Leon feel numb. He couldn’t move. Its eyes were cloudy and unblinking. Its teeth were like daggers hanging from what seemed like its mouth. It slowly raised its arm to point at Leon with its sharp, knife-like fingers. Leon couldn’t think at this point. He could only follow his current instinct.

        Leon ran like hell.

Leon’s feet stomped heavily against the soggy grass. His first instinct was to run from whatever that thing was. He was also unaware of whether it was chasing him or not, not daring to look behind him to see. hoping and praying it wasn’t.

Rain slowly trickling down his cool cheeks and purple lips. Adrenalin fueled the young boy to continue running at the speed he was going. His fathers’ coat was now wet as it hung to him. Leon had never been this scared in his life. Even when he had asked his girlfriend (his first girlfriend) on a date. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live a happy life,  get married, have some kids, and die of old age. Right now was not the time to die. That’s why he used everything in him to run as fast as possible.

The face was ingrained in his mind. It almost brought him to tears thinking about the wretched deformed head, if you could even call it a head. Its limbs too. The only way to describe them was that of sharp sticks poking out from its torso. This thing was far from human. Leon was so close to the edge of the forest, only a little more to go.  

Throwing the door open he rushes past his mother and up the stairs. The only thing going through his head was wondering if he had died and this was his personal hell.  All these thoughts were making his head hurt. He needed to sleep. Trying to pretend this never happened. But, whenever Leon closed his eyes he saw those things eyes, his sunken face, and that damn clearing. This must be a dream. He couldn’t accept it as anything else. Eventually falling asleep he dreamed about that horrendous creature all night. It was too much to deal with.

Leon jolted awake. The last image he saw was flowing through his brain. It was that... “thing’s” face. Throwing himself off his bed and into the desk chair he drew its face. Every last detail.

As the night slowly went on, Leon’s back wall slowly became filled with drawings, encyclopedia pages, notes, and pages from the books he found, all to just find out what the hell was going on in that clearing. He sat at his desk, leaning on one hand, tapping his pencil. He was trying to remember and draw what that thing looked like. He finally came up with something. Something similar, but not exactly accurate. Leon couldn’t remember the face as clearly as he could remember the feeling.

        Leon sighed and turned in his chair towards his beauro. He looked at the clock, which read, “3:16.” His eyes then rested on a picture of him and his mother at disneyland when he was 6. The picture took his mind off of the creature for a minute and he began thinking about it. He thought about how happy his mom looked in the picture.

Leon’s mother, Claudia, had raised Leon alone. Leon’s father left before he was born. Despite not having much of a father figure, Leon had it pretty good growing up. His mom treated him well, took him places, bought him things, kept him relatively happy. Even though she had a hard time with work, she did everything she could to keep her son happy.

Leon then looked over to his jacket hanging off of his bed. His dad’s old jacket. Leon never got to meet his dad, he had only seen pictures of him and his mother. His mom never even told him about his dad, so he didn’t know much about him still. He wore the jacket just to feel closer to his dad, wherever he was. Leon got sad whenever he thought about him.

He snapped out of it and went back to his drawing. “Eyes, eyes… what did its eyes look like?” He brought himself back to the moment he saw it. Even just thinking about it gave him chills.At this point, he was contemplating whether or not it really happened or if it was some sort of fever dream. He remembered the eyes. It had eyes. Bright, cloudy orbs that seemed to float in front of its head. Leon scribbled in some empty circles where its eyes would be. He sat back in his chair and looked at his finished product.

“That’s it.” He said to himself. After staring at it for a while and contemplating everything he thought he saw, his mind eased into nothingness and he dozed off in his chair.

Leon awoke again from a nightmare. He looked over at the clock on his bedside bureau. 7:30. He just barely had enough time to get ready for school. He looked around his room before grabbing his father's jacket and threw it on over his yester-clothes. He grabbed his bag and started rushing down the stairs towards the door; the latest he ever left for school was, in fact, 7:30. Throwing himself onto his bike Leon let his mind wander.

Leon still loved his father even though he had never met him. At the same time, though, he despised him. He despised his dad for leaving him and not watching him grow. The man had missed all of his birthdays, the time he learned to ride a bike, his first girlfriend. There was always a hope in the back of Leon's head that maybe one day that he would randomly show up at the front door. It confused him as to why he would leave. Why would he just leave his 3-month pregananant girlfriend? If his girlfriend were ever pregnant, Leon could never find it in his heart to leave her.