The Pits (part 2)

The three turned to head back down the trails. They had made it to the park furthest from where they parked their car, and it would be a long walk back in the dark. The trails on which they were walking—and had walked several times before—connected three parks, and seemed more windy and complicated to navigate at night than they did during the day. Many parts of the trails went in circles, while the rest snaked their way through the dense forest, with only the main trail being paved.

            Max wasn’t very good with silence. It always made him feel awkward, but he didn’t have anything to say at the moment, and apparently neither did Gio or Simon. However, there were things that he wanted to say to both of his friends since they would be going off to start their lives in a few weeks. But Simon and Gio saw him as the strong one in the group. Maybe not physically, but emotionally and psychologically. And Max worried that they wouldn’t see him the same way if he mentioned how much they meant to him, and how much he’d miss them. Or in the very least, he didn’t want to make Simon cry.

            Lost in thought, he didn’t notice that Simon had stopped, and Max walked into Simon’s back.

            “What?” Max asked? “Why’d you stop walking?”

            “You guys are probably gonna hate me for pointing it out, but…” Simon pointed down the hill to a group of people standing in a circle, all an arm’s length apart, around a small fire. They were wearing all black: Hoodies, pants, gloves, boots, and some were even wearing ski masks. One of the people was walking clockwise around the circle of people pouring a small amount of liquid on their heads, but Simon couldn’t tell what it was as they were too far away. Another person, also clad all in black, was walking counterclockwise sprinkling everyone with what looked like salt where the other person was pouring the liquid.

            Gio looked at Max with a look of concern. And Gio’s never concerned. They weren’t sure what the should do, but Gio was the more street smart of the three. He put a finger up to his lips to signal that Max should stay quiet. Max nodded, and went to whisper in Simon’s hear not to make any noise. He looked into Max’s eye with even more fear than he’d shown when Gio was still beating him up. He looked like he was about to cry, and Max couldn’t help but feel bad for him.

            “Crap…” Gio mumbled under his breath. And nearly a second later, a large branch from a tree behind them fell onto the trail making a louder noise than he would have liked. He, Simon, and Max turned to look at the fallen branch that startled them so much they instinctively crouched a bit. When they returned their attention to the people below them they were startled a bit more when they realized they were all looking up at them. They had all completely stopped moving; frozen like mannequins.

            Simon nearly screamed out loud. When he looked back at them, he realized that the people who weren’t wearing masks didn’t seem to have faces. Well, sort of. They had faces, but they were distorted; fuzzy and slightly warped. Looking at them caused a chill to go down his spine that continued through his arms and legs. While blinking the tears away, Simon noticed their faces had suddenly returned to normal, and entertained the idea that he was just so scared that he’d hallucinated.

            The stalemate was broken by one of the men in the circle who took off his ski mask. “You don’t have to be afraid of us,” he offered.

            “We’re not,” Gio said lowering his already deep voice. His face displayed a look of indifference, but the pounding in his chest threatened to destroy his “tough guy” façade.

            The man smiled and pointed to Simon, “He sure seems afraid to me.”

            Max nudged Simon, who blushed a deep red and thanked every god he could think of that they weren’t closer to the fire where they’d see the embarrassment on his face. But that same thought confused him.

            “How can you see us? It’s dark up here, and…the fire…your eyes…” Simon stammered.

            “We see everything, my child,” the man smiled again, and this time, so did the rest of his group.

            Max had had enough, “No one calls random people they’ve never met before ‘my child.’ Let’s go, guys.” That last part, he whispered to his friends. These people were the stuff of nightmares, and Max had enough of those already. More would just be overkill.