The Ancient Trail

By: Payton Moeglin

Scary stories are something you tell around a campfire or spook your younger sibling with. I have always loved scary stories and loved telling them. This is not one that you can just go out and tell to all your friends. This one is real and true. One day I was out with my two best friends, Joe and Lee. We decided to take advantage of the cool fall weather and go for a nice hike. We went into Kroger and got a few snacks and water bottles to take with us on the hike. We grabbed goldfish, lunchables, apples and granola bars. We planned on being out there all day so we bundled up and got in the car. Lee packed all of our snacks into a backpack while I drove us. We got to Freedom park and hopped out, we stretched our legs a little and talked about which trail to go on. We texted our parents that we were starting our hike and we would not have service while we were out. We picked the Ancient Trail. We wondered why it was called the Ancient Trail so we looked it up. Turns out, the park was an old battlefield which is why it's called Freedom Park. The Ancient Trail was the original trail that the soldiers were taking when they were ambushed by the other side. We all agreed that it was creepy to think about all the dead bodies and bloodshed that happened where we planned on walking. About 10 minutes into our walk there was a decision to make. We could either go right or left. We went left. We walked for a few miles and started to get hungry. We sat on a big log right off the trail. We all had one lunchable, a granola bar, and a handful of goldfish. Then we started walking again. We laughed and told stories.We made jokes, and we were just having a great time when the weather got bad. The sky turned black and the wind was horrible, the trees were blowing around and leaves flew around. We turned the other way and began to run. We had a 6 mile hike back to the car and things were getting bad fast. We tried to call people but none of us had any service. Then, the rain hit. It was pouring, we could not see a foot in front of us. Joe must not have realized but his shoe was untied. He ended up tripping and rolled down the steep, muddy hill. At the bottom was a huge mud puddle. We could not see him and we knew that we had to help him, so we slowly slid down the hill on our butts. After a few minutes, we found him. He was covered in mud and soaking wet, and at this point we all were. We were sinking in the deep mud. I was half way under, and I started to freak out. I thought we were going to drown and die out there and no one would find us. We were all freaking out. How would we get out of this thick, deep mud and get up the hill? I felt something touch my leg. I could not move, so it continued to touch my leg. It scared me. I thought it was some type of animal or a plant. I reached my hand down my leg, into the mud, and the “plant” grabbed me. Lee and Joe said something was grabbing them and touching them too. So, we were standing there sinking in this mud at the bottom of a steep hill in the middle of nowhere during a horrible storm with something grabbing our legs. So many things were going through our heads. Lee yelled out, “What if other people slipped down the hill and they are completely under the mud?” We thought that was the only reasonable explanation, so we tried our best to pull up the things that were grabbing us. Joe was the first to pull this thing out of the mud. It was a person but not a normal person. It was an older man with a uniform on, an army uniform. He had blood on him and had a hole right in the middle of his forehead. “What the hell is going on?”, yelled Joe. More of these bloody men started coming up from the ground. They pulled us out of the mud but we were still stuck at the bottom of this steep, long hill with these men. I tried running up the hill, but that did not work. Then, I grabbed a long tree root that was barely poking out of the ground. I was making progress when something grabbed my leg. I could barely see but I realized it was one of the men. He pulled me down and I sliced my hand open on the root. It cut all the down my arm. I gave up for a second, I couldn’t see anything, I was covered in mud, these bloody, dead guys were coming out of the ground and grabbing us. Then, I thought to myself, “What would my dad think if he knew I gave up? What would my mom think if she knew I let these men kill me? What would my friends think if they knew how scared I was when I died?” I would never see them again, so I began to fight. I yelled for Joe and Lee and told them to grab anything they could find and fight. We fought off all these men and the second the last one was dead, the storm stopped. The sky was bright and blue and it was sunny. The mud dried and everything was okay. The bodies were gone, and we were in shock. No one would ever believe us. Joe went first up the hill and pulled me up by my left hand. Lee went last and pushed me. We made it up the hill and just sat. We looked down at the hill we just climbed, and we were speechless. We ate some of our snacks then began our hike back to the car. When we made it, we told all of our parents to meet us at St. Joseph Hospital and we would explain the rest when they got there. I had to get surgery on my arm. Joe had a bad concussion and was covered in bruises, and Lee had a sprained ankle. We were right, none of the doctors or our parents believed us when we told them what happened; so we lied to everyone else. We told our teachers and friends that we fell down the mountain and that's how we got injured.