Short Story - Horror

This next short story that I wrote in my creative writing class was based on an idea I'd previously had called "The Trail." I didn't really have many ideas for that, so I decided that the very basic concept could be utilized.

Warning: gruesome death, fire, and firearms will be in this summary

The story starts off when seven college freshmen on a camping trip: Ken, Mitch, Allison, Alexyss, Brien, Aubrey, and Oliver. The opening scene was originally the freshmen telling each other horror stories, but I ended up cutting it for being a weak opening and taking up space.

The new first scene started with the action of the campers waking up to a strange sound. Oliver gets out of the RV to check the engine to see that an animal tampered with it. Outside, as Oliver and Aubrey work on fixing the engine, they hear an animal howl in pain. Brien, Allison, and Alexyss all leave while Ken stays on the phone so they don't lose contact. Ken hears the trio find a fox that's been eaten and is now laying in a nest of eggs. Ken overhears Allison describe a creature jumping on Brien's face and body. Despite Ken begging the trio not to come back to the camping site out of fear that the creatures will get her, Oliver, Mitch, and Aubrey, Mitch demands they bring him back.

When they return, Brien is unconscious with tentacle-like limbs clinging all around him with the middle part of the creature's body on his face. Mitch pokes the creature with a scalpel only to find that the creature's blood is acidic.

The rest decide that Brien needs more than first aid, so they pack up the campsite, but when they get back in the RV, the creature is gone from Brien. Aubrey and Oliver manage to fix the RV, and Allison drives off. Brien wakes up, but almost immediately falls over as a head of a smaller creature bursts out of his throat. It then escapes in the hole made by the acid earlier. In the chaos, Allison ends up crashing the RV into a tree.

The campers decide that they need to go find the creature to kill it. Aubrey and Ken take some hunting rifles and Allison takes a hiking stick as a weapon. Alexyss is frozen in shock after her boyfriend's death, and Mitch decides to stay with her and Oliver, who was knocked unconscious when the RV crashed.

Ken, Aubrey, and Allison make their way through the forest, using only a phone as their light source. Eventually, they find a nest of ovular eggs covered in a mossy slime with animal carcasses scattered around. Aubrey goes to the center of the nest, looking for the creature, which eventually appears. Aubrey and Ken fire at the creature, but as Ken turns away to reload, Allison's phone loses its battery, trapping them in the dark. Aubrey still tries to fire blind, but Ken realizes that the creature is following the sound, and ends up killing her. Ken and Allison run back to the RV.

Back at the RV, Ken and Allison explain what they found, and Mitch decides to go back to the nest to try fire, since the bullets didn't work. Ken protests, explaining that it's too dangerous and they should just leave, but she's ignored by Mitch once again. He and Allison decide to go back to the nest with flashlights and lighters, and Ken decides to go with them since she's the only one left who knows how to use a rifle, which can at least distract the teacher.

When they get to the nest, they light the moss on fire and are relieved to see that the eggs begin to melt from the heat. However, acid begins to fall on Mitch, and when Ken bolts away, she hears Allison get killed by the creature.

Back at the RV, Ken demands Alexyss and Oliver to leave with her out of the forest, and they agree. As they walk through the forest, Ken realizes that the creature didn't enter the nest when it was on fire and that it purposefully avoided the flashlight beams and the phone, attacking when it was pitch black. Alexyss and Oliver think to lure the creature out into the sunlight, but Ken insists they wait for the authorities. Oliver believes that the authorities won't listen despite the evidence, and she leaps on top of him when he tries to leave. Their physical confrontation escalates, and Oliver ends up knocking Ken out.

When Ken wakes up, she runs as fast as she can to the nest to stop Oliver and Alexyss, but finds only one egg and the creature there. She shines her flashlight on the creature and grabs the egg, running as fast as she can out of the forest as the creature follows her. She recognizes dawn approaching, and when she gets to a less dense part of the forest, she climbs a nearby tree, leading the creature higher up. When they're high enough, Ken moves the branches aside as the creature is about to reach her, allowing the sunlight to burn it to a crisp.

Guys I really am proud of this horror story, at least as a rough draft.

I borrowed a few plot points from Alien because I really needed to know how to pace the story (although Brien's death is the only real direct reference) and I'll move stuff around if I'm ever going to go back to this, which I definitely want to. Unfortunately, I had to cut over two thousand words from it to get down to the word count. The opening scene being cut helped, but the dialogue was what suffered the most because I didn't want to get rid of my descriptions of the actual horror aspect, which I am very proud of.

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