After a loud day at Coronado High School, Tyler Leroy wanted the quiet of the woods. Instead he found the hole. It was a perfect, black circle, two feet or so in diameter, with a crowned rim as smooth as porcelain. It was good that he’d spotted it when he did. Another few steps and his right foot would’ve landed in the center of it.
He moved closer to the hole to check its depth, thinking he could fill it in and save somebody from a sprained ankle, or worse. He slowed in mid-step, though, because the hole wasn’t quite right. It was too…perfect.
He grabbed a bluish rock and held it over the hole, stretching his arm so that he wasn’t close to its edge. He leaned forward a bit, peeking into the circular blackness, taking in its unbroken walls. Definitely unnatural, he thought, like a pole had been sunk into the earth and expertly extracted, leaving a long column of darkness in its place. The day wasn’t cold, but Tyler shivered.
He dropped the rock. The wind changed directions, rattling dead leaves all around him. Other than that, there was no sound. If the oval shaped stone hit a bottom, Tyler didn’t hear it.
The smell came a split second later, an aroma of tilled earth and of the air washed clean by a raging storm. Intoxicating. Tyler’s eyes rolled back in his head as he swayed. He caught his balance, but dropped to one knee anyway. Then he crawled toward the hole, to that wondrous smell of bliss and its mysterious sweetness. Such a lovely, beckoning scent…
He felt the ground against his chest and realized that he’d laid down, mouth open, gulping at the sweet air, drawing it deep into his lungs. His back arched. His legs twisted, toes pushing at the ground. Then he came face to face with the darkness and stared into it, panting, and more content than he’d ever known.
***
Deputy Parker strolled the woods, looking for the Leroy boy who hadn’t come home after school. It was getting dark and Parker agreed that it was best to find the brat before the temperature dropped. But he knew the search was a waste of time.
Kids did stupid kid-shit all the time. They got drunk with their friends and passed out somewhere, or smoked weed and just plain forget to go home. Leroy would come to his senses soon enough and turn up somewhere.
Then he found the hole, a perfect, black circle with a rim as smooth as porcelain…
Hey, thanks for coming by. I really appreciate your reading time. To read more short horror, click on #FlashFiction in the main menu. See you soon. LL
