The Eternal Bond

This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. They’ve known each other ever since they were kids, and later on they became each other’s first love. They had been together for years, when Ron finally popped the question, to which Alice said yes, and a year later, they held a wonderful wedding. It was love of the purest kind. A love that binds two people together eternally. In a bond that not even death could tear apart. After their beautiful ceremony, they should have deserved a happy life together, but things don’t always work out the way they should.

It happened on the night of their wedding, after they said goodbye to all the guests and headed home themselves. The venue was a thirty-minute drive away from their home, and at the midnight hours not a soul wandered around the roads. It was a starless and silent night, and the highway was only illuminated for seconds by the sheer number of streetlights they passed by. At one point, the highway entered into a wooded area and that’s when it happened.

Ron was holding the wheel steadily and even though the cold radiance provided by the reflector, it was getting harder to see in the distance. The scenery was foggy and dark. Even a careful man would have made the mistake Ron made. A huge beast emerged out of the woods and stepped in the middle of the road, and in his fright Ron immediately pulled the wheel aside. The car slid off the road and crashed into a huge tree. The passengers suffered a dizzying blow and the world went dark and silent.

Ron opened his eyes. His head was hurting and as he touched his forehead he felt the warm, sticky blood in his hand. Not even caring about his own injuries he turned to Alice, who was leaned forward seemingly unconscious.

‘Alice! Alice!’ He called the girl’s name gently, and slowly lifted her up. She murmured something incomprehensible and opened her eyes. ‘Are you alright?’ Ron asked.

‘Ron? What happened? Did you hit something?’

‘There was something on the road and as I pulled away, the car slipped.’

‘I can see that. There’s blood all over your face.’ Alice was then fully aware and scanning her husband’s face.

‘It’s nothing serious. I guess we were lucky that nothing bad happened. I’m going out to see the damage on the car. You should stay here.’

‘Okay, I’m going to call 911, just in case.’

With little struggle Ron got out. He barely felt the pain anymore. Looks like it really was just a small crash. With his phone’s lighting in his hand he checked the car’s front, which hit the tree so strongly that it canted and the car got totally wrecked. Wow. We were truly lucky.

‘Can you hear me?’ Whispered a voice.

‘Yes, dear. I’m just checking the car.’

‘What?’ Alice also got out of the car. ‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘I thought I heard someone asking me…’ The voice did sound strange and unfamiliar, like an echo reflected though a long tunnel. ‘Maybe it was just my imagination.’

‘Are you sure you’re alright, dear? Maybe that head injury is more serious than we thought.’ Alice gently touched his face.

‘Maybe. I don’t feel particularly bad, but to be sure it would be best if a doctor could check it.’

‘There’s a problem: my phone says there’s no signal here. I can’t make any calls or send messages to anyone.’

‘Don’t worry. I will try it on mine.’ After minutes of futile attempts he said: ‘It’s dead on mine as well, and the car is not going anywhere either.’

Alice’s eyes were filled with worry and fear, so Ron knew he had to reassure her. ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure if we go a little further on the road eventually we will find a signal or see someone passing by. It’s a highway, there are cars coming and going all the time. It’s not like a deserted area.’

Alice pulled herself closer and gave Ron a kiss. ‘Let’s go then.’

The road was covered in a blanket of fog by then, and under the flickering lights of the highway the way seemed uncertain. They began going forward but after minutes of walking no car passed them. The silence was only broken by their own footsteps. Not even the crickets made any sound.  

‘Are you sure it’s a good idea to wander away from the car?’ Alice asked as she was shivering in the cold autumnal weather.

Ron noticed that and pulled his wife closer. ‘Yeah, we can wait by the car. There’s no signal here anyway. And if a car passes us we will see that.’

Just as they were about to turn around Alice heard a strange voice: ‘Don’t worry…’. It faded away before it was finished. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘What?’ Ron asked looking around if there was someone around them but he didn’t see anything aside from the dark forest and the empty road.

‘There was a voice, saying “don’t worry…” then it stopped.’ Alice’s eyes were opened wide and she frantically checked the area around them. Voices don’t just appear out of thin air. She thought.

‘I didn’t hear anything. Look, maybe we both suffered a minor concussion. We’d better lay down until help arrives.’

‘Yeah, okay.’ She was still spying on the woods, when she spotted it. ‘Ron, look…’ Her voice broke up. Her heart was beating faster and she took tiny sudden breaths.

Ron looked at the direction his wife pointed to. It was the way they were walking towards, but instead of the empty road, a giant, headless figure dressed in a black robe was slowly walking towards them. The figure was almost as tall as the trees and was as wide as the whole road. Slowly, he descended towards them pulling his robe after himself, which looked more like a living being made out of tar than an actual piece of clothing. There was something tucked under his arm, but from the distance Ron couldn’t see what.

‘Let’s go back.’ Ron could only whisper those words as he glanced at the giant abomination.

They ran back holding each other’s hands. At one point, Ron looked back to make sure he didn’t just hallucinate the scene, but the giant was still towering in the middle of the road amidst the thick fog and darkness. It can’t be real. It must be some kind of illusion or my head injury. Yes, that’s it. I must have hit my head quite badly… but then why can Alice also see it?

They got back, where they came from only to find the half broken tree and no car. It disappeared into thin air. With widened eyes Ron frantically searched the place while muttering: ‘it was here. It couldn’t have gone anywhere’.

‘What’s happening Ron?’ Tears began rolling down the cheeks of Alice as she stared at her desperate husband. But she was also desperate for she felt like they were trapped in a nightmare… but it was all too real. She glanced back, only to see the black figure was plodding closer and closer.

‘Ron… Look there!’ She was staring at the other direction by then and saw a black, tar-like mass covering the road and spreading. Figures seemed to emerge out of the tar coming at their direction.

‘Let’s go. To the woods! Come on.’ Ron had to shake up his wife from her frozen state and holding each other’s hands they ran into the woods. For minutes, they kept running in the wilderness, where even the trees took on a strange horrifying shape. When it seemed they left behind the terror they had witnessed, they stopped exhausted.

‘What was that Ron?’

‘I don’t know.’ They were both frightened and couldn’t make sense of the situation. All was silent and still around them, yet they couldn’t feel safe.

‘I don’t know what is going on, but the important thing is that we have each other. Whatever happens tonight I will always be by your side.’ Ron said as he kissed Alice. In a moment of horror, this small gesture was enough to restore some strength in them.

Alice smiled warmly at the man, then staying close to each other, they went on away from the thing they experienced.

There was still no signal anywhere, but at least they found a clearing in the middle of the forest and even the moon came out from behind the clouds and shone down on them. In that new-found lighting Ron spotted something: ‘Look there. Seems like an observatory tower.’ In the distance, the silhouette of a tall building stood high above the trees, almost touching the sky.

‘Maybe there’s still somebody inside.’

Alice was hopeful, yet the horror that was behind them couldn’t leave her mind. On their way to the tower, she kept an open eye on the woods and could swear that she saw dark figures standing there, watching them. She felt like the black tar slowly filled up the whole area around them, chasing away everything familiar. ‘Ron.’ She whispered. ‘Let’s pace up. There are figures all around us.’

Ron looked around and discerned that the towering black monster was following them in its ever so slow pace. By then it seemed like the black tar-like thing came out of the thing it held under its arm. He squeezed his eyes for a moment to see what it truly was, and to his dread he realized it was the head of the thing itself. The huge head of the monster looking straight at them, vomiting out the black tar, which spread all around the scenery. As he stared at the thing Ron heard the uncanny. echoing voice again: ‘Stay with me.’ It was accompanied by a discord of distorted chatter and for a second, Ron felt a blinding light entering his eyes.

Was that the monster? He couldn’t answer his own question, and just looked at Alice’s worried face. The tower, their only hope, was only a few miles away, so they fastened their pace which quickly turned into a run. The darkness had spread around them and figures of the black tar manifested themselves in the woods. The ground seemed to be rumbling under their feet and distorted chatter started breaking into their minds. Alice was blinded by a sudden ray of light as well, but they kept on running. All around them, the world seemed to be breaking apart: the trees were losing their original forms, the ground was breaking down, and even the moon seemed to be falling under. It was only them, the black tar and the tower, which they had to reach. Blank, dark faces were watching them from all directions, but none were moving towards them, so they finally reached the tower.

They reached an old, rusty observatory tower, which pointed straight to the sky, where no corruption would ever reach them, but they could not find the entrance ok it. It seemed like its only purpose was to stand as a monument reaching to the sky, but without any purpose of giving shelter to those, who seek it. It gave false hope to those, who sought a sanctuary against the spreading darkness. The world crumbled around Ron and Alice, and the voices still shouted inside their minds: ‘we’re losing them’ was repeated again and again, but besides all the agony, they held together.

The darkness had corrupted everything around them and the headless monstrosity manifested itself in front of them. That was the end.

‘Are you going to stay with me?’ Alice asked the final question, which would be muttered by her.

‘Always.’ Ron kissed the girl, and held her in his embrace, while the black tar consumed them like a giant hand holding something. It wove around them in an eternal grasp.

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The ambulance arrived to the scene with delay due to the remoteness of the location. They took the two bleeding victims, while the caller explained himself: ‘I didn’t know what to do. I called you as soon as I saw them, and while you were coming I tried to keep them awake, but they didn’t seem to notice me.’

The ambulance men followed the necessary procedure and did everything they could, but the hospital was miles away from there. They tried to stop the external bleeding, while at the same time tried to keep the victims awake by speaking to them. The road was messy and the injuries were far too serious to tend to them in such an environment. The victims have been identified as Ron and Alice Davies. Both twenty-six years old. Freshly wed. According to the report, all the way to the hospital neither were fully conscious, and they anxiously kept muttering words seemingly to each other, but who knows what goes on in the minds of those, who are in the hands of fate. Some say our happiest memories play inside our minds, when the final hour is due, others think that death individually visits us all. Whatever may go on inside those, who are about to die, Ron and Alice struggled for as long as they could, and so did the ambulance try everything, but the cold hands of death cannot always be avoided. They arrived to the hospital ten minutes after they found the injured, but by then it was too late.