My Horror Stories:

The Ghost Town:

"How much further is it?" I asked my husband as he drove down the winding mountain path.
"About five miles left," he notified me browsing Google Maps on his phone before hastily concentrating on the road ahead again.
My husband and I were on a road trip, it was something we had always wanted to do after our honeymoon in Paris, we were heading to Romania by car, I know you may think that is weird since we resided so far on the outskirts of the city and people usually fly there by aircraft but a road trip was something that had always been on my bucket list ever since I was a child and now on this glorious Summer's day in late August I was getting a chance to fulfil something from the list.
I looked out of the window at the beautiful scenery, the sky was a brilliant bright Blue with the sun glistening high above the mountain peak, and the trees and bushes were brilliant, leafy and Green. I watched as everything flew by in a flash, I was having the time of my life with my husband Jim until......the car broke down.
Everything was going smoothly as we cruised down the road in Jim's Electric Blue Chevrolet Impala, which he had been gifted as a birthday present from his brother, we passed more trees and bushes along the way as well as a road sign which read 'ONE WAY ONLY' which we sped past.
Abruptly we hit a large bump in the road and the car started to tremble, the engine also turned off.
"What's going on?" I asked. I peered at my husband through my Rose Gold cat-eye sunglasses.
"Car's stopped," he told me.
"Well, can you fix it?"
"It's an old car, it's going to be extremely hard to fix," he answered me.
"Well, then call someone, maybe the repair service team?" I suggested.
"It's going to take them hours for them to come, nobody lives around here. I have no idea how far the local town even is."
"Where are we anyway?" I asked.
My husband grabbed his phone and pulled it out of the phone holder and tried to check Google Maps.
"I don't know, the signal's not good and this place isn't on the map!" He said after a while.
I looked at him thinking that he was being annoying.
"Don't play with me," I warned him. "How can it not be on the map? Seriously, just tell me where the hell we are supposed to be."
"I seriously don't know," he countered back.
I sighed at him annoyed.
"Do we have another map, like a paper one?" I asked. I opened the car holder and rummaged around looking for a map, but all I could find was an endless collection of tickets, receipts, a Yellow cloth and Jim's driving license.
"Why would I have a paper one? A virtual one is way better plus you can't lose it either as it won't fly away or get dirty," he explained.
"Yeah, but without wifi, we are pretty much screwed," I declared.
"Don't worry we'll figure it out. I'm gonna go check the car, see what's wrong with it."
Jim got out of the driver's seat and walked over to the front of the car, he opened the boot and started to inspect the wires doing "guy stuff" as I liked to call it since I had no idea about cars and he was the mechanic in his family. After a few minutes of fidgeting about, he shut the hood and came over to my side of the door and leaned in.
"The engine is out," he explained. "You're going to have to drive while I push," he said.
"Ok," I agreed.
I slid over to the driver's seat, shoved the key into the ignition switch and tried to start the car again, it sputtered and I put it into Driving Mode, my husband went behind the car and started to push, I could feel him pushing the car, he pushed and I drove and we continued doing this until we reached a part of the woods that was hidden and not on the maps, behind the woods I could glimpse a small town secluded. The sun was now setting behind the mountain peak, the sky had turned into an artist's canvas with splashes of Blue, Green, Yellow, Pink and Orange inside the beautiful sunset. I took my phone out and snapped a picture of the beautiful sunset.
"Let's stop," Jim mumbled. He pushed the car next to a tree to get it off the road.
I turned off the car key and got out, my stomach rumbled.
"I'm hungry," I confessed.
I had no idea what time it was but the night was soon approaching rapidly and we had nowhere to go or sleep.
"Well, there aren't any damn restaurants out here, we are in the middle of nowhere, Hayley!" Jim said.
"No, there's a town," I indicated towards the trees, I could see Grey buildings in the distance.
"Then let's go there, maybe they have dinner or something we can eat at and we can crash at a hotel until tomorrow," my husband suggested tiredly, he got his napkin out of his trousers pockets and wiped at the sweat on his face.
I gathered my belongings and bag and hopped out of the car, I shut the door and locked it and we walked together through the woods into the town. The sky was beginning to get darker and the birds had stopped cheeping, now I could hear an owl from a tree somewhere hooting and saw a couple of bats fly past us.
The town was only a brief walk from the woods and soon we found ourselves inside the town, except that it was abandoned, buildings had been torn down and everything was a dismal Grey colour and damped, even the shops and restaurants were all closed, in every direction that I glimpsed I couldn't see any people at all.
"This town seems to be abandoned," Jim remarked.
"Yeah, that's so spooky," I said. I felt a chill down my spine and so many thoughts wandered into my head, I knew something was wrong.
'Why was it so empty? Where are all the people? Did something happen here? Where are we? What's going on?'
So many questions filled my mind but no answers could be found yet.
We walked further until we came to a little building with the word 'Cafe' plainly written in Red neon block letters. We decided to enter, by now I was starving and couldn't tolerate the hunger and had also gained a vicious headache as well.
"Hello," Jim called.
We looked around the Cafe and it was vacant, there were old-fashioned booths and little wooden tables to sit on, the floor was a filthy rusty Brown colour that creaked as I walked in my sandals. I walked over to a table and sat down, Jim sat across from me, I picked up a menu that looked like it was either stained with tomato ketchup or blood, I truthfully couldn't tell, I plucked a tissue and tried to wipe it clean but the stain was stuck so I was forced to try to read the letters that I could figure out from the menu.
I decided to order a hamburger and fries, Jim craved the same and we both sat there and waited and waited for a waiter or even a waitress or anybody to come and take our order. I looked around the shop, still perplexed as to why there were no customers or staff there, the shop entry had the OPEN sign on the door and it wasn't even closed.
"Why isn't there anybody here?" I asked my husband.
"Must be a ghost town," he joked.
"Don't say that," I snapped. "That's creepy."
After waiting for nearly two hours for our food to arrive a man dressed in all Black entered the shop, he was wearing Black sunglasses and a Black mask over his face, he was tall and intimidating, and against the Summer heat and the luminous interior of the cafe he stood out by a mile. He moved and stood behind the counter.
"Excuse me?" My husband Jim called out to him waving the menu. "Do you work here?"
The man didn't respond, instead, he just lowered his head and silently nodded to signal "yes."
"We would like to order," I said.
The man walked over carrying a notepad. We both gave our orders of hamburgers with fries and chocolate milkshakes, the masked man wrote it down and hurried back over to the counter where he disappeared behind steel doors presumably into what I presumed was the kitchen.
In no less than thirty minutes the man came over carrying our food and napkins and set them down on the table and left. We grabbed our food hungrily and started to eat it as I took a bite of my burger I wanted to gag. The meat was raw, Pink and undercooked and it tasted awful but since I was starving I urged myself to finish it, we were in the middle of nowhere in a place that we had no idea what it was called and I didn't know when we would get the next meal we needed to save our strength. I unwilling shoved the pieces of burger into my mouth, then tackled the chips and drank my milkshake until the meal was completed.
We walked over to the counter. "Hello, how much was that?" Jim asked.
No response. I noticed a bell on the counter and pressed it down. It made a loud 'ping' sound still the man who had served us our food did not answer, it seemed as if he had disappeared. I looked out of the dull tainted window it was nighttime now and a crescent moon shone in the sky.
"Let's just leave," Jim said.
"Without even paying?" I asked shocked. "That just seems so immoral."
"We don't have a choice," Jim explained he put his arm around my shoulder and guided me out of the shop, since the man who had given us our food had not returned I realised that Jim was right, we didn't have a choice but to leave. I still couldn't figure out if the man was a waiter or not? If he was he was dressed rather unusually after all waiters didn't usually wear all Black and cover their faces and this town was just as unusual.
As we exited the shop and went outside thick fog clouded our vision, it was so thick that it was hard to see, it was like we were in the sky with clouds covering us except we were not, we were on Earth in an unusual place that didn't seem to be on the maps at all. And as I turned around to look back at the shop I saw a White shadow scatter past us in a flash of light.
"What the hell?" I muttered shocked.
My husband didn't hear. "Let's find a hotel," he said looking around.
We walked a few miles until we came to the town centre which was also abandoned, next to the huge building was an equally ugly Grey building that had the word 'Hotel' written on it in the same Red font that the cafe had used.
'Wow they must love the colour Grey,' I thought to myself.
We entered the hotel, the walls were Black, the carpet was also Black and only a dim candle was lit up, it was the only light source in the entire room. We stumbled over towards the reception and found a Guest Book, there were no people there either so I wrote our names down and Jim took a random key and we walked up the stairs into our 'free' bedroom after unsuccessfully trying the lift which seemed to be broken even though there was no sign left to let anybody know.
We unlocked the door to the bedroom, closed it, jumped into bed and fell asleep. We awoke moments later when I felt the bed shaking.
"Stop it," I mumbled in my sleep, I slowly opened my eyes and saw the White shadow I had seen hours earlier staring back at me. "Oh my God," I screamed waking my husband up.
"What's going on?" He asked sounding annoyed.
"There's a shadow over there," I said. I pointed to the Black blood-stained wall but when my husband turned around to look there was nothing there.
"Just go back to bed, we will deal with it later," he said.
I decided to give up, we were both tired and it was too late in the night to argue, I said a prayer, closed my eyes and tried to sleep again.