Apples With a Dash of Monsters

(This is a collaborative story with my friend Wei Hello!, it’s the same story told from two different perspectives. They aren’t exactly the same, but they follow the same storyline.)

My hands were shaking on the wheel. Although I’ve driven a golf cart countless times before, it still terrified me. Nobody else knew this, of course. Like I was going to tell Jerry that I was afraid of driving. He was practically getting driving lessons already. I pulled up very carefully in front of Jerry’s front door, and he was sitting on the steps waiting for me. He was on his phone and apparently didn't see a bright lime green golf cart park meters away from him. 

“Uh… Jerry? Hello?'' I asked tentatively. I was just the tiniest bit late, but Jerry was very impatient and would probably get mad at me for being-

“Two minutes and thirty-five seconds late! I expected better of you Carson,”

“Well SORRY.”

“Come on, let’s go already!”

He got up and stepped into the seat next to me.

“Okay, first stop, The Apple Orchard!” I announced, carefully driving along the suburban road towards the apple orchard. I had been there many times before so I had practically memorized the route. Jerry was still grumpy that I was late, but he got a little more excited as we hit the road.

“We're going to pick some apples, we're going to make some pie! Were going to pick some apples and we’re to make apple pie.'' not to don't toot my own horn, but I am very good at writing tunes. 

“Hey, Jerry! We're almost there! See! It's the sign!” The entrance to the orchard had an old wooden archway going over the main entrance for cars, and on it was a sign that said, ‘WELCOME TO THE BEST ORCHARD FARM YOU’LL EVER SEE!’ or at least I assume it said that it now looked more like, ‘WFICCNE TC IHF BECT URLHARD FAYN UCI’LI EUFR SEF!’

“Are we there yet?” Jerry asked, taking his hands off his ears... wait was he not listening to my amazing song this whole time? Rude. 

“We‘re entering the farm, you just missed the sign, I looked over my shoulder trying to see the sign again.

“CARSON WATCH OUT YOU’RE ABOUT TO RUN INTO A-”

Tree. I ran straight into a tree. 

“Well… the good news is that we’d finished our apple picking for today!” I said after I winced at the sound of apples hitting the roof of my dad's golf cart. “Bad news is that they gave this golf cart a bunch of dents.'' I tried revving up the golf cart again hopefully, but nothing. “Other bad news is that we are now stranded in this apple orchard with no other humans around to help us.” I opened the golf cart door and stepped out, surveying the damage.

“Well, not NO humans around, there is that cottage a little way away from here,”

“What are you talking about? Wait… you don’t mean,” and I swear I heard thunderclaps in the distance, “LARRY’S HUT?” I for one thought it very dramatic (though I do wish his name was Gary or something spooky like that. Larry is kind of lame), but Jerry rolled his eyes and said,

“OH come on, you don't really believe those stories, do you?”

“Uh, yeah? Larry’s hut is the most known story in Paranoice!”

“Well, I’ve never heard it.” Jerry crossed his arms, and so I began to tell him the legendary story of Larry’s Hut.

It started on a leisurely Thursday morning, not unlike this one when Larry decided to go apple picking by himself in his Uncle’s apple orchard. His uncle was away on a holiday, and so Larry took his chance to get some free apples from his orchard. It was told that he picked two basketfuls of apples before he heard it, a voice calling out to him-

“Oh come on, a voice? really?” 

“SHH! Just let me tell the story! As I was saying, a voice was calling out to him,”

It was saying his name, over and over again. Larry, Larry, Larry, came to the voice. Larry was curious and reckless, so he tried to find the source of the voice, and he came upon an old cottage that was overgrown with vines. Larry hadn’t seen this the last time he’s been to his uncle's orchard, so he entered it. And he never came out again. Later it was told that his uncle had died within the day he had returned to his orchard.

“That,” Jerry started, “was the most RIDICULOUS thing I’ve ever heard! There is no way that’s true.”

“Come on! You can't go there!”

“It’ll be fine.”

“That’s what Larry thought!”

Jerry snorted. “Larry. What type of scary story has a guy named LARRY as the main character?”

“This one!”

“Whatever, I’m going.” And with that, Jerry ran off from the direction we came, into the mostly deserted road that we came from.

“Ok. What do I do now?” I thought out loud. I started examining the damage to the golf cart. I shivered as a chilly breeze whooshed past me. I was wearing only one jacket since it was only October 1st, but now I was regretting wearing something warmer, especially since I was stuck here now.

“Hello, what are you doing?”

I jumped and turned around. What I saw stopped me dead in my tracks. There in front of me stood the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. 

She seemed only a few years older than me, but she seemed perfect. She had long, glossy black hair that was slightly wavy and ran down to her waist. She was taller than me, but not so much so that she loomed over me. She was wearing a long-sleeved white dress that went all the way down to her ankles. She had peachy lips and a small nose. The only thing that was slightly unnerving was her eyes. You would say that they were green, but they were bordering on yellow, and her pupils seemed to dilate and contract so they looked like they were constantly shifting. I was suspicious, what was a beautiful lady doing in an apple orchard all by herself? 

“Are you okay? You seem to be having some trouble there?” And just like that, all my suspicions were gone. Her voice sounded like flowing golden honey. I felt myself just staring at her for a few moments.

“Oh, silly me! You must be Carson!” It didn’t strike me as strange that she knew my name, of course, she knew my name. And I should be following her as she turned and walked away from me. Wait, what? No! I shouldn't be following a stranger!

“Oh, Carson, dearie! Do catch up.” And without knowing it I was briskly walking forwards to catch up with her. I was suddenly at a battle with myself. One part of me was trying to abruptly stop and reason with my other half, which wanted more than anything to follow the pretty girl in the dress. My reasonable half almost succeeded at stopping, when she began to sing. And suddenly my reasonable half disappeared into oblivion. And I followed her.

When my head didn’t feel like it was full of honey anymore, I was sitting down on a picnic mat with the girl… no wait… she wasn’t a girl anymore. Standing in front of me was a creature with sickly green and bumpy skin, it had a long, ugly nose and was wearing a black hood. It still resembled a humanoid figure, but it was hunched and had a pointy hat… or as that a hat? No. It was horns. Two glistening black horns twisted together to form a point at the top of the hag’s head. And the eyes. The eyes were this time bright yellow, like cats' eyes, except something about them screamed unearthly. This time it had no pupils at all, just one solid color of yellow through and through. But something told me it could still see.

“Oh hello. You’ve come to your senses, I see.” The hag cackled, and it sounded like all the worst sounds in the world. Nails on a chalkboard, microphone feedback, and even slightly like the crying of a distressed and sick baby.

I immediately stood up and started running away, like any sane person would, but the witch made no effort to run after me, I saw when I looked over my shoulder. She was taking a glass vial off of the picnic mat I was sitting on — how did I not notice them before? — and threw it at her feet like a magician would to disappear in a puff of smoke. Oh and how I wished that happened. Instead, it burst into black gunk that surrounded the witch almost instantly, I stopped to look back, what happened? Why would the witch do that? Suddenly two yellow eyes appeared out of the gunk, and the black mound of writhing, bubbling, potion surged towards me. I started running again.

I had no idea where I was going, but I had to get away from the witch. I got out of the trees onto the main path and sat in the distance a blob of bright green. The golf cart! I knew that color would come in handy. I ran towards it. I could hear the witch’s horrible cable behind me and could feel the yellow eyes on me like I was being hunted. Scratch that, I was being hunted. I didn’t think about my burning calves, or that I am getting closer to the not much different dirt road outside the orchard, I just focused on running for my life. I passed the sign. The witch's potion armor shrunk to fit through the archway but grew taller right after. I kept on running. Consciously I had no idea where I was going. Subconsciously I was heading towards Larry’s hut, where Jerry was. I risked a glance over my shoulder, and almost grazed the black gunk. I accelerated. Then I saw it, Larry’s Hut. Or as some people called it, the Vampire House. Jerry, I prayed, please be alive.

I burst through the old wooden doors.

“Jerry! Jerry! There’s a giant back blob chasing me…” my voice faltered. Jerry was alive, alright. But he was standing next to an old man, and he had a bite mark on him. I stared at him in horror. His eyes were red now. And in them, I saw someone other than my friend. I saw a vampire.