Chapter One

What would you do if you woke up in history class and realized that the whole town had beeen abandoned

and it looks like it has been for hundreds of years…

 

My name is Declan Peterson. I’m 18 years old, well, I think I’m 18. That’s how old I was when all of this started. Let me back up and explain. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear, the following story is true.

It all happened on the last day of school before Christmas break, my senior year of high school.

The day started out pretty normal. My mom banging on my bedroom door, hollering something about me being late for school and that if I wasn’t ready to leave in ten minutes I’d have to walk. She always threatened that, but its 0 weather out, she‘d never follow through.

School was uneventful. My right arm started itching pretty bad during math class. I pulled up my sleeve and noticed I had two weird bug bites on my arm. They were side by side, and super swollen. It seemed a little odd, it gets so cold in Maine in the middle of December that bugs are practically extinct.

Maybe I got bed bugs or something.

But I don’t have bites anywhere but my wrist, which is weird.

History class is where it all went down. Mr. Larkin was lecturing on the black plague. I don’t know why it takes a whole class. People died. It was scary. I didn’t really care. He was so old that he probably lived through the actually black plague.

Well, at some point during class I nodded off, which I did, at least 3 times a week in that class.

No matter how many times I fell asleep, I always woke up when the bell rang, but apparently this time I didn’t.

When I woke up, the lights were off, the room was empty, and it was dark outside, which really irked me. Was Mr. Larkin really that annoyed that I slept through his class that he just left me there after everyone went home? That’s a low blow Mr. Larkin, a really low blow.

This is where things got really weird. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed some things in the room looked askew. The white board was half hanging off the wall, and several desks were over turned.

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I got up to turn on the light to see what had happened, but the light wouldn’t turn on. What is going on?

I zipped up my coat and headed for home. As soon as I walked outside, I knew something was wrong. It wasn’t cold. It was hot. And it’s never really hot in Maine. It gets warm, but not hot.

The bites on my arms are itching again, but when I glance at my arm, the bites aren’t even there anymore.

I start walking home and everything is silent. There’s no breeze rustling the leaves of the trees. There’s nothing. Just silence.

But it gets worse. As I pass the town square, the buildings look completely abandoned. Like no one had been there in years and years. Rooves were caved in and trees were growing through the holes. The pavement was cracked in places and completely overgrown in others. I have no idea what happened here. I just slept through history class, how could so much have happened in such a short time? How long was I really asleep?

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I get back to my house, and it looks like the rest of the town. Windows were shattered, the lawn was overgrown, and the roof had holes in it. Both our cars are there, but they’re covered in rust and vines.

Our mailbox was missing the box part, leaving just a wooden post at the end of the driveway.

I have to pull away several long thorny vines from the doorway just to get myself into the house.

“Mom? Dad?” I whisper into the darkness. I don’t know why I felt the need to whisper, but after all the silence, anything louder feels off wrong.

But it’s not silent in my house. I hear a rustling from upstairs. There’s someone in my room. I can hear them pacing, their steps are muffled, but every few steps the floor creaks. I try the light switch by the front door, but as expected, nothing happens.

I drop my bag on the dusty floor and move toward the stairs.

“Mom?” I’m still whispering. Something is off. More off than it already was. I don’t feel good about this.

I didn’t encounter another living soul my entire walk home, but there’s someone in my room. It doesn’t make sense.

I stop outside my door, hand on the knob. I take a deep breath. I must be insane for going in here. Every horror movie I see ends with the characters dying after going in the creepy room. But I need to know what is going on here and something tells me the answer lies behind that door.

I open the door, slowly. The hinges scream like a banshee in labor, they never did that before.

I peer into the darkness and see a slight figure standing in the middle of the room. I was sure it was a woman, she wore a long dress but I couldn’t make out much more. She moves slightly.

“Mom?” I ask one more time. But it wasn’t my mom.

Read Chapter Two HERE