"Calling From Down Under"

Being a social outcast, Piggy was stunned when he was asked to engage in a game of capture the flag. But did they really want him to play...or did they want something else?

“Calling From Down Under”

By Cody Williams

 

            Gordon Birch walked out of his red brick house followed by seen friends. He led them to the end of the figure 8 driveway and turned to face them.

            “Okay, everyone line up against the fence so we can pick teams. I’ll be team captain for the red team and Jesse will be team captain for the blue team.” Gordon explained. Jesse stepped away from the wooden fence and turned around to face the group standing beside Gordon. Gordon was thin and had short strawberry red hair. Jessie was tall and had long black hair reaching down to his shoulders. “The name of the game is capturing the flag. Does everyone know where the area of play ends?” Gordon asked.

            “Piggy doesn’t.” Gary, one of the boys shouted out. Piggy was the youngest of the bunch. He was a freshman in high school while the rest of them were in their senior year. Piggy was short and slightly overweight. His real name was Charlie Banks III. But ever since he entered the public school system people began to call him Piggy. The truth is, he really didn’t mind it. He had become a costumed to it. Gordon looked at piggy.

            “Okay Piggy, the drive way is the safe zone. It is the only natural area.  The red team’s side is around the house and up the hill. The blues team territory is the opposite way. Starching all the way down the hill ending at the river. Do you understand?” Gordon said to Piggy. Piggy quickly nodded his head. “Okay, it’s time to pick teams. Red will go first. I pick Ben.” Gordon said. Ben was the most athletic of the boys. He was on the high school track team and he was damn good at it. In fact, he has won the state championship in track on two separate occasions. Ben stepped out of the line up and gave Gordon a high five.

            “Blue team will take Jeffery.” Jesse said. Jeffery too was on the track team. He wasn’t quite as good as Ben. He never was fast enough to make the top five at state but a damn good runner nonetheless. Jeff stepped away from the wooden fence and high fived Jesse.

            “We’ll take Ralph.” Gordon said. Ralph was wearing a flannel button up shirt and had short red hair. He stepped out away from the fence and stood next to Gordon.

            “Blue team takes Hugh!” Jesse said.

            “Red takes Stuart!” Gordon said happily. Jesse looked over at Gordon and rolled his eyes at him.

            “I guess that leaves us with Piggy.” Jesse said disappointed. Gordon smiled with pleasure and the two teams backed away from each other splitting the gravel road.

            “Okay! Split up!” Gordon said. The red team split up and ran up the hill while the blue team split up running down the hill towards the forest. Jesse stopped and knelt down behind a long black trailer and Piggy followed.

            “What the hell are you doing?” Jesse asked him, as Piggy got closer to him.

            “I don’t know what to do. I’m scared.” Piggy admitted.

            “What the hell is it to be scared about? Look, you don’t have to do anything okay? Just go over there and hide behind those trees.” Jesse told him pointing over to the woods. Piggy looked over there and looked back at Jesse with fear.

            “In there? I have to go in the dark scary woods?” Piggy asked terrified. Jesse just glared at him with a look that said ‘you better shut your Goddamn mouth and go!’ Piggy looked back at the woods and followed Jesse’s instructions. He stood up and began walking across the field towards the woods. He turned around about half way and looked back at Jesse. Jesse motioned for him to go forward and he did.

            When he got into the woods he began looking around until he found a big enough tree he can sit on the ground and coward behind. He sat down and pulled his legs up as close to his chest as he could and sat motionless in total silence.

            Gordon and his entire red team ran down the hill and behind the black trailer with Jesse and his crew.

            “Is he in the woods?” Gordon asked him. Jesse nodded and smiled. The seven boys stood up and turned to face the woods.

            Meanwhile, Piggy sat behind the tree freeing anything that made a sound. He flinched with every cricket chirp. With every sound an owl made he would leap off his a*s in fear. He looked over to the bushes across from him and he noticed they began to moving…or something in there was moving. Piggy stood up to his feet and leaned his back against the tree. He could feel his heart throb throughout his body.

            “Who’s…who’s there?” Piggy stuttered. The bush continued to spasm and move. Piggy slowly stepped away from the three and took off running deeper into the woods. He stopped and hid behind another tree…but he couldn’t escape it. It seemed no matter where he stopped something was fumbling around in the bushes. But it was more this time. He looked above him and was something that looked like a black figure moving around in there.

            Piggy ran even deeper into the woods. He ran trying to escape the woods, but it seemed that the woods were growing. There was no escape. Everywhere he looked it seemed as if the woods stretched longer and longer than he remembered. Tears of fear began rolling down the boy’s face. He felt as if he was being watched. Now it was no longer in one area. It was all around him…and whatever they were, they were growing closer. Piggy continued running until he finally reached the river starching thought the center of the woods. Piggy dropped to his knees and bent over holding himself while crying hysterically.

            “Please! Why are you doing this? Please leave me alone!” Piggy shouted. He bowed his head into his knees and then looked back up. The even boys were circling around him high fiving and laughing.

            “Man we got him good didn’t we Jesse!” Gordon said with glee. Jesse nodded his head. Piggy stood up and dusted himself off. He reached over and shoved Gordon and Jesse.

            “That was a real mean trick! That was really mean.” Piggy shouted as he wiped the tears from his face. “I thought we were just here to play a game.” Piggy said. The boys abruptly stopped laughing and just stood in a circle staring at Piggy.

            “What do you think we should do with him?” Jeff asked Gordon and Jesse. They looked at each other and then back at Piggy.

            “Just let me go okay? The joke is over!” Piggy said as he began crying again.

            “This is no game! This is no joke! This is real!” Gordon said. Something was strangely different with the boys this time when Piggy looked at them. Their clothes were worn and torn with dirt all over them. Their skin was now unusually pale and they stunk with the stench of rotting flesh. The boys began moving closer and closer towards Piggy. “It’s time. It’s time that you become one of us now Piggy! Join us down under.” Jesse said. Their teeth were now razor sharp and jagged and their fingernails had turned black and were about a half of an inch long. They began reaching their arms out at Piggy while he screamed with terror.

Copyright 2013 by Cody Williams

Courtesy of TRUE TERROR PUBLICATIONS

A division of TTP Entertainment

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Author's Note

I don't like to plot my stories. I don't like to force a story to be what it doesn't what to be. I began writing this story a last night after playing a game of capture the flag with a couple of my buddies. He lives near the woods and that was were my teams territory was. I looked into the woods and my imagination began running wild.

The story began as survival story about a group of boys playing a prank on an unsuspecting boy. That's not exactly how it ended up. It's now a horror story. One of my better ones in my opinion.

I hope you enjoy it. Please leave comments and reviews. Thanks for reading!

-CW

Reviews

[Craig2591]

An interesting twist at the end. What starts out as playing a prank ends up deadly (or undeadly).

I think if you revealed the other boys' motive and their true nature a little more slowly at the end it would create more suspense. Having Piggy starting off confused and then it slowly dawns on him what they really are.

The ending was unexpected.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Craig!

-CW

[Angel]

Definitely one of your better ones, my dear frightening friend-and that's saying something. I definitely did not see that one coming!!
Great story!!

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Angel! I thought so too!

-CW

[sonnie ibadah]

unpredictable, creepy, nice write...it seems you like suspense in your stories.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Sonnie!

-CW

[Dayran]

What a kid comes to discover in a simple game with friends ... the competitiveness, the individual expression and the revelation of what they think about others ... all these make for a great recipe as the flavor of a young man just out from behind mother's apron. Its revealing ... and points to the incredible exaggeration in first impressions that lack any perspective of the issues or putting it in context. Time for the kid to look at his own responses to issues. A nice growing up story ... when we climb out from the crib.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Dayran!

-CW

[Roo]

Its good to get the background. I must admit the story left me waiting for more. It was good to use the name Piggy, because that referred us to Lord of the Flies, a classic survival story. There are some grammer issues and spelling mistakes that confuse the reading but otherwise it reads well.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading!

-CW

[Leslie Philibert]

I like your work. Try to introduce the characters in a more obscure way, don`t describe them ( Piggy was...) but introduce them from the way they speak, what they say, what other characters say ( Piggy, you still as fat as elephants a*s..), what they do, details yes ( the review under is right, but in a indirect way..)

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Leslie!

-CW

[Lyn Anderson]

I like it, but it felt a little too "lord of the flies" for me, especially with the Piggy name. There are minor corrections, let me know if you check it over and don't see them

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading!

-CW

[Marie]

THis is one of your better stories. I thought at first you giving too much detail with the other boys and the game, but at the end I saw this was necessary. Zane obviously likes details, while I prefer shorter stories, especially when it cmes to horror.

[Cody Williams]

I think so too Marie. Thanks for reading!

-CW

[M. L. Zane]

I'd like to see some more details with Piggy, and give me some sensory feedback while this is going down. What was the air like that day, coming from his red and brick house? Was it hot at first, devolving to an icy chill as he went into the woods? This is a good chance to use the literal atmosphere in your story as a way of heating things up for your reader (oh god, the puns), and it might also trigger similar memories for them as well.

You should also slow down the action a bit. Give it a little more buildup, and let's see every finite detail on the inevitable dark conclusion. Very rarely is excess detail an issue, so go for gusto. Let me see the beads of sweat rolling down Piggy's neck. Show me every crack on the dessicated trees. Explain to me why writerscafe.org thinks that "dessicated" isn't actually a word. Really go for it, because those little details can scare the piss out of the reader when applied to horror. Go for gusto. If you'd like, I'll happily go line by line for you sometime and offer more specific feedback.

Oh, and would you mind reviewing some of my work as well? I could really use the traffic.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading! I'll take a look at something of yours as soon as I can. Have a good one!

-CW

[icelandicblue]

First the name Piggy comes from Lord of the Flies so that was all I could think about when I read his name, and that gave me a good idea his end would not be pretty. Again your stories have good bones but lack meat. I mean Gordon came out of his house so what kind of monster is he? There should be a hint that something is not right with these boys instead of at the very end. Read a couple of stories by Poe, read O Henry and the Incident at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce to look at the structure of a good short story. It's hard to have character development, setting descriptions and reasonable endings that tie into something that has already happened in the story. Your short stories need to be longer so you can develop the story so that you don't just gross out your reader you terrify them. Read Poe! If that's too old fashioned read some short stories by Stephen King.