The Light

It was midnight, and Kelsey was coming home late from a party. She knew her parents were going to be disgusted when they saw her the next morning, she just wondered why they hadn’t called her sooner. Her parents, Don and Gertie Shimer, were devout Baptists and didn’t approve of Kelsey’s rebellious behavior. It wasn’t that Kelsey rebelled because she hated her parents or their religious values, she just rebelled because she thought it was fun to see her parents all riled up.

It was also in part because of her brother. While Kelsey’s parents were as Baptist as it gets, Levi was involved in the local Cult of Satanism. At any point in the day, you could find him in either his room or out of the house. It all started after the accident. Not only was his face left horribly scarred, but his mind was also shattered after he claimed to have seen Hell. He used to wake the whole house with his terrible screams from his vivid night terrors. His parents would always rush to his side, no matter what it was. It wasn’t until he got older that he started to search for answers outside of his parents. That eventually led him to Satanism. 

Kelsey was always sympathetic to her brother’s pain, but she secretly envied the attention and compassion that her parents showed for him. It seemed that Levi could hurt her parents over and over again and they would forgive him without question. Kelsey felt that her parents gave Levi much more freedom than they gave her, and that set jealousy in her heart. Levi’s fanaticism had driven him to do some crazy things, and as soon as he turned eighteen, he left home and hasn’t been heard from since. 

She was just pulling up to the long, narrow stretch of dirt road that connected the family house to the road. It was dark. So dark, that she could hardly see with her high-beams on. As she started up the dirt road, she saw a flicker of light dashing through the forest. She couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but she felt compelled to follow it. She did her best, but it began to disappear deeper into the forest. She decided to try and follow it into the dense forest, but that meant she had to leave her car. Kelsey knew that what she was following could be dangerous, but there was something about that light that drew her towards it. Only equipped with a pen flashlight and her dying cell phone, she ran out into the forest after the light.

Kelsey ran for two hours. Every time she tried to stop, she would look at the light and feel panicked as it got further away. So she kept running. She only stopped after she tripped on her shoelace. It was that moment that she realized she had no idea where she was. She felt tired, and her knees were scraped from the fall. She wanted to keep going, but not only had she lost the light, she also lost the path back to her car. Confused and beginning to feel uneasy, she put the penlight to use. She looked around her and saw something she’d never really seen before. A tree with markings on it, but these markings did not resemble typical graffiti or carvings. A series of triangles, all numbered one through six, in the shape of a pyramid. Underneath the number of each triangle was a name. She didn’t know anybody on the list of triangle names, so she snapped a picture on her phone to show to somebody at a later time. As she tried to move backward in an attempt to get a better look at the tree, she saw another tree with the exact same markings. She inspected that tree and saw that it was the exact same markings, but the names were completely different. As she moved along the base of the second tree, she heard a snap behind her. She whirled around only to find a doe and her fawn stopped to look at her. Feeling relieved, she took a deep breath and was about to turn back around when a robed person stepped out into the light behind the deer. In one swift motion, the stranger scooped up the fawn and hogtied it. The doe, visibly distressed, left her baby behind. Then the stranger lifted the hood of their robe. 

It was still a complete stranger, but one with a face now. He had a tattoo on his neck, a snake wrapped around his throat. He didn’t say a word as he descended upon Kelsey with the rope, and she didn’t have the breath to utter out a prayer. 

The strange man silently dragged her through the forest alongside the fawn. Initially, they had both struggled against the stranger. However, when the deer had stopped fighting his fate, so did Kelsey. She didn’t try to plead for her life, she just resigned herself to whatever horrible fate was in store for her. She closed her eyes and just went limp.

Then she smelled the smoke.

It was thick and acrid. It seemed to envelop the trio as they entered a clearing, where a tall, orange bonfire was set. The stranger dropped Kelsey and the fawn close to the base of the fire then readjusted the hood of his robe and let out a sharp, distinctive whistle. A multitude of robed figures stepped into the clearing. Some wore dark green robes, some jet black, some a deep orange. But another six stepped out to the front, wearing blood-red robes and black harlequin masks. They stepped towards her and the fawn and Kelsey began to squirm back away from them. They reached past her for the fawn, and suddenly a long, thin knife appeared from a red robe. The robed person sacrificed the fawn right in front of her, throwing it into the fire behind her. Kelsey laid there shaking, wondering what would happen to her.

The red-robed figures then remove their hoods, and one by one removed their masks. Kelsey was horrified at what she saw. She saw local townsfolk, young and old.

And standing right in front of her, were her parents. They stared at each other, Kelsey was too shocked to say a word. Her parents, thought to be the hard-core Baptist preacher and wife, led the local Cult of Satanism.

“You’ve gone too far now dear,” said her mother in a sweet, unsettling voice. “Just like your brother.” Her father began to pull his knife up over his head.

 “And like your brother, you can’t be let loose. We have plans that we can’t let you know about.” Kelsey began to wriggle away from her father.

“You will be missed, but I don’t think it will be too hard to blame your absence on the party you attended tonight.” Her mother’s voice pierced her heart, and Kelsey began to sob. 

“This is just what needs to happen to keep the order around here. You should be grateful that you’re being used for reasons much bigger than yourself. Now just lie still.” In a swift slice, Kelsey’s father descended upon her. Everything was red for a split second, and then darkness.

In Kelsey’s last few moments, she saw the light she was chasing. She reached out and grabbed it. Then it was over.