The Legend of Somerville

This story is one of my favorite pieces of work. For those of you that know my town, you would be correct when you guess that I based it off of it. The story is about a boy that gets lost in the backwoods of his isolated down, and is chased by an unseen being. In the end however, I left it up to the reader to decide if the creature was real or not. Throughout the story I refer to the creature as either "it" or "the thing", they should be italicized each time I say "it" or "the thing", but for some reason they didn't come out that way in the blog.

The Legend of Somerville

I know of a place, where the rays of the sun never reach. They only softly brush the surface of its rolling, endless mountain peaks and rocky hillsides. However this seemingly uninhabitable land, has managed to support a sparse population of a world unto its own. And in this land of abundant snow capped ridges, there is a small village surrounded entirely by steep cliffs. The residences in this town leave its safe haven of natural rock walls very rarely. But with only one road leading in and out of this unknown hamlet, travel has little purpose for a community that can support itself.

In this valley of which I speak, there is a high school. Behind this school are a multitude of hills and cliffs. Very few know of these secret ravines and mountains, save a few midnight couples that have gathered enough energy to climb the rocky headlands to get a glimpse of the magnificent vista of stars that can be seen at the top of the highest peak. In these backwoods though, there is a legend that is shrouded in as much mystery as the very land in which it takes place. A story known by a small spectrum of people, and an even more select few knowing the true events that took place in those dark woods in mid-November.

Behind the school, there are many trails and abandoned paths. For these woods once held a prosperous quarry that harvested a splendid pink marble that was highly valued by both the wealthy and poor alike. One day after I served my duty as a tutor to some of my fellow classmates, I decided to take what I thought would be a brief walk down the nearest path and discover what I might. I had forgotten though, how dismal a wooded landscape looks in the midst of a cool, breezy autumn. For only a sparing few leaves managed to still cling to their eternal summer bond. This caused the early setting autumn sun to project long shadows across the path that resembled something more like fingers than that of mere branches. I contemplated on turning around, but my stubbornness refused to allow old folklore and superstition to prevent me from discovering a land few people had seen. So as I pressed onward, I soon came upon an X in the road. I knew then I had finally reached the long ago, abandoned railroad bed that once shipped priceless marble to its destination. This once mighty act of engineering has now become entangled in weeds, shrubs, and young spruce trees that wish to return this feat of man, back to Mother Earth again. I decided to take the right branch at this long forgotten intersection, for I believed I could eventually loop back around onto one of the other paths behind the school. It was on thing path that I got my first glimpse of the thing to which the legend of this story is about.

The sun had descended dangerously close to the valley’s steep walls and had begun to cast long shadows that would soon stretch across the horizon. It was in these long shadows that the thing had first emerged. At first it seemed to be one with the forbidding shadows casts by the trees, moving only by the corner of my iris to disguise its identity. But as the sun descended further toward the western horizon, the thing grew bolder in its attempts to capture my attention and fear of these already horrific woods that had become his domain. Soon though, I would see it standing next to a tall pine, or sitting on a distant rock, just waiting patiently for me to break down and fall into his trap. The thing is hard to describe, for its shape was only a silhouette in the darkened forest that had surrounded me. It was the shape of full-grown man, and was at least seven feet tall. But the thing that I shall never forget, were its eyes, those bright yellow eyes that glowed like a sun in an ambient galaxy, their radiant shine forever burned into my memory. It was when I saw the thing’s eyes that I truly became terrified and began to run with any energy I had left. With only the moon now to guide me on this forsaken path, I had little hope that I would get out of these dreadful woods. In the moonlight, ahead of me out of the blue tint that the moon caste on this landscape rose an ancient façade of crumbling rock and earth, and at its center was a hole so dark that it seemed time and matter did not exist in this empty space. I quickly realized however that this was not a portal into another world, but rather the time-forgotten tunnel that once heard the sound of steel rubbing against steel. Today though, its crumbling entrance of mold and shrubs only a brief reminder of what once existed here. As I neared the tunnel, a stench equally as horrible as the surrounding woods came upon much like the trains that passed through this very place, might come upon an unsuspecting worker. This stench however was something so despicable and grotesque that it forced me to seize my terrific sprit, for this stench, was the stench of death. I knew at that instant, that this abandoned railroad tunnel, had become the thing’s home, and that he had managed to reel me into his trap and place me right where he wanted. I had no way of escape, for to my left and right, were steep cliffs, behind me was it, closing the distance between us very rapidly, and in front of me was the place at which it resided. During the brief seconds that I wasted making my choice, I decided that there could be very few things worse than having to face those bright yellow eyes again, which gave me the only option of going through its home.

The smell that plagues the outside of this seemingly infinite abyss is even stronger upon entering its black depths. Inside, any light that the waxing moon may have provided, was quickly swallowed up by the black hole I had reluctantly dove into. I was in utter darkness; although I have great doubt that light would have made me feel any safer in a place that reeked of death. After around five minutes or so of stumbling and falling on unseen rocks and puddles, I managed to escape this horrible mouth that had swallowed me whole. After exiting, I found myself in a changed landscape. For it was no longer a forest of ancient oaks and maples, but had now become a forest of mighty pine and evergreens that’s height seemed to brush the heavens. This new landscape was littered with a thick layer of brown pine needles, only adding to the surrealism of the valley. I had little time though to be thinking of such needless things, for I could hear the sound of heavy feet of the thing coming my way from behind me. I once more commenced my sprint on the abandoned railroad with only the moon and stars to guide me.

After a great amount of time, I reached what appeared to be an abandoned sign. On its single rusted metal pane, it read “Somerville Center-2 Miles”. This brought me great despair, for Somerville was a small village that had been abandoned for almost a decade due to the great floods that struck the town annually. There were only a couple of residents that still called this forgotten place home, and I was unsure if paying a visit to either of them would be as good of an idea as it may have sounded. My determination though was too great to end my journey, and possibly my life, for I could once more hear the footfalls of the thing getting ever so closer. I now exited the old railroad bed, and instead continued on an overgrown road that was once called Route 147. This route would bring me straight through the center of what use to be Somerville.

In the center of Somerville, I laid my eyes on what use to be the town hall, church, and fire station. All these buildings had long since given way to the harsh winters and wet summers, and little was left of them except for their rotted walls and broken panes. The smell of mold was in the air, but it seemed more like a scented candle compare to what I had already experience on this fateful night. I figured that the thing had visited this place often though, for there was skeletons of various rodents scattered all over the road and many of the buildings were scarred with beastly marks that not even a grizzly could create. I could feel it upon me again, getting ever so closer to me, but still waiting patiently for me to break down from dehydration or sheer mental insanity. But as I walked past yet another rusted sign, I was greeted happily by both the lightening night sky, and the fact that the newly discovered sign read “Thank You for Visiting Somerville”. I knew now that I only needed to follow this old route a couple more miles before I entered the town of Mapleton, which had a fair amount of people and houses.

I had forgotten though, that there was only one way out of Somerville, and that was by going across the Augustine River. And when I approached the place where an ancient iron World War II bridge had collapsed into the river, I marveled at how I could ever make it across this gap before the thing got me. By now it was nearly dawn, and there were only a few stars still in the yellow sky. This provided me with much needed light to perform the last leg of this journey. I slowly made my way across the twisted metal cage that use to be a bridge, and tried my best to avoid the shredded metal beams that could impale me at any wrong move. And after a good fifteen minutes of struggling to free myself and avoid falling into the rapidly moving river below me, I managed to get across with no harm, save a few cuts on the hands that have since formed scars. I dared not look back, for I was fearful of how close the thing might be, and I dreaded having to see its empty yellow eyes again. After yet another half an hour or so of a fast pace walk, I entered a meadow, and across this meadow I saw a single light burning inside a window. I had finally reached Mapleton, and as I made my way across the meadow in the early morning sun, I turned around and saw it standing at the edge of the endless forest, only now it was not a beast, now it was only the shadow of a moving limb on a great, ancient oak.