Vision, The

The Vision

An Original Story by Chris Richards

Of course, it would have to happen to her.
Stuck in the middle of nowhere, having strayed off the planned route,
Rachel Merriman sighed and struck another match, holding it close to
the map, it's incandescent brightness illuminating the intricate
symbols and lines, casting merry shadows across the yellowing
paper.
It was almost three hours since she'd seen another member of her
group, another living soul in fact and with the daylight starting to
fade she felt a little knot of worry start to form in her
stomach.
It was only recently that she'd taken up rambling. Ever since Sam, her
husband, had moved out she'd been looking for something to focus her
mind on and joining some of her work colleagues on these short weekend
breaks seemed like an ideal, if temporary, solution.
She'd not meant to wander away from the others, but she'd been in a
world of her own that afternoon, thinking of the way Sam had just
walked away from twelve years of marriage, telling her he no longer
loved her, that he'd found somebody else. and before she knew it she
was alone and lost.
In more ways than one.
Checking her watch she cursed to see that the battery had failed and
the hands were frozen on 12.20.
Could things possibly get any worse ?
It was then she felt the cold rain start to fall down all around
her.
"I don't believe this." She muttered, quickly starting towards a large
clump of trees that she hoped would offer her some sort of refuge until
the rain stopped.
If she didn't have so many hang ups about mobile phones then she would
have been able to rummage through her back pack and call for
assistance, but as it was she'd had to resort to shouting at the top of
her voice in the vain hope that somebody would hear her.
She wondered how long it would be before her friends really noticed
she was missing and would assemble a search party to come and look for
her.
With darkness quickly approaching she guessed they might not even
start out until the morning and fear twisted the knot in her stomach
even tighter.
"I've got to find some proper shelter." She thought to herself,
realising that up to now she'd not seen a single building since leaving
the guest house all those hours ago.
But, as though gifted by some miracle, she saw something through the
trees, almost hidden away by the long, leave laden branches. As she got
closer she quickly saw that it was an old church that appeared to have
been abandoned long ago. It was built of stone and seemed to have most
of it's windows intact, but it had obviously not been visited in quite
some time, the shrubbery all around it manically overgrown.
Without hesitating Rachel lunged forward, the distant sound of thunder
rumbling behind her and to her relief she found that the main door was
unlocked and she easily gained access.
Not surprisingly darkness and musty air greeted her within, but eager
to get into the dry she stepped inside, banging the door shut behind
her. Feeling for her matches once more, she struck one and moved
forward, finding a table on which some large white candles sat and
picking one up she lit the wick and smiled as her surroundings suddenly
became more illuminated.
The interior of the church was much like any other, rows of pews
neatly set out with a gangway leading down to the altar, but there was
something unusual to the left hand side of the mahogany pulpit, a life
size, beautifully crafted, recreation of Christ on the cross.
The detail was simply unbelievable, the way the thorns cut deep into
his skull, the colour tone of his skin. Rachel found herself
mesmerised, never really a religious person, she stared in wonderment
at the sight before her, casually reaching up a hand to touch a cheek
Without warning, the figure's eyes shot open and a voice boomed out
from the depths of Hell itself.
"HELP ME !" 'Christ' said. "PLEASE HELP ME !!"
Rachel fell backwards with shock, the room suddenly spinning.
"Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!!" She wailed, fearing
for her sanity, looking up to see the figure glaring down at her, it's
body jerking, unable to free itself from the ropes that bound it's legs
together and the nails that pierced it's hands, holding it
crucified.
It's voice softened slightly.
"Please help, it's been so long....."
Rachel tried her best to regain some kind of composure, concentrating
on stopping the shakes which swept over her body, wave after wave like
a negative orgasm.
"H-how ?" She whispered.
"Feed them."
"What do you mean feed them ?" She asked, confused even further. "Feed
who ?"
The figure smiled and it's eyes changed to burning balls of
fire.
"MY DISCIPLES !" It said with a gleeful smile.
It was then that she heard the shuffling all around her and she turned
to the shadows seeing hundreds of pale faces emerging from the dark,
dead souls dragging their half-decomposed bodies behind them.
"FEED THEM ALL !"
Even as she could feel her flesh being pulled from her body, piece by
piece, she knew she could do nothing but scream and high above her
somebody sat there watching, laughing.

The End

Copyright: Chris Richards 2001

Please mail comments - exciterxl@yahoo.co.uk