A bright moon slowly meandered about the clear blackened skies. Ghostly winds howled through the night as the air cooled gradually with each passing hour.

In an autumn forest, a rustle could be heard coming from some tall bushes. Could it be a forest creature wandering about for a late night meal? As the sounds panting and wheezing grew increasingly louder, a paw stretched out from within the bushes.

No…this was not a paw…it was a human hand! A woman with disheveled red hair and a bruised face emerged from the bushes as she scrambled frantically on her knees. A trail of blood followed her from the two stumps where her feet used to be.

A loud cackling howl drowned the cries of pain as a whoosh pierced through the night and into the woman’s heart. The woman whimpered with fear and tried to crawl away as fast as her bloody hands could.

RUSTLE!

A man of large build wearing a white tank-top and baggy brown pants emerged from the bushes, a machete his right hand and a crossbow in his left. The man wore an opera mask, but anyone could see the savage grin on his face. The man howled once more and aimed his crossbow at the woman.

TWANG!

With a tug of the trigger, a bolt of metal and wood dug into the woman’s shoulder, causing her to stumble. The woman tried to lift herself up, but the numbing pain from her shoulder prevented her from doing so.

The woman whimpered once more as she turned towards the man. She tried to talk but couldn’t. Her mouth revealed a toothless, tongueless pit of blood and flesh. She moaned in fear once more before silence.

The man, disgusted by her ugly look, pounced on the woman and sliced her throat with his machete. “Bitch, don’t you dare look at me with that ugly mug of yours.”

The murderer stood up and moved slightly away from the body. Sheathing the machete, the man pulled out a blunt and lit it. As he slowly inhaled the drug’s wonderful toxins, he became visibly more relaxed. After a few more breaths of smoke, the man tossed the lit joint onto the body and watch the fiery tip sizzle the flesh before dousing itself in the pool of coagulating blood.

The man glanced around him, estimating his exact location, before heading off into that direction. Sounds of cackling and hooting could be heard throughout the night with responses coming from two other sources. It seemed that in this night of hunting, there were three predators and an unknown number of prey.

Unbeknownst to the murderer, a blackness with slime-like consistency oozed out of the corpse and seeped into the bloodied dirt. The blackness moved towards one direction frantically as if called upon by an unknown entity.

Within seconds, the blackness arrived before a colossal monstrosity of grudge, hatred, and wrath with scowling facial imprints of the wronged and deceased. It pierced into the black and purple mass, assimilating with it. And in a couple of breaths, a new face imprint appeared twisting with pain and sorrow.

The face squirmed uncomfortably and screamed silently every now and then. If the machete murderer was to see this face, he would immediately recognize it as that of the woman he had just killed. In fact, if he had looked at all the other faces, he would have recognized them as well.

The mass of evil and sin was made from the grudge and regret and sin accumulated from the dead victims of the machete murderer and his two cohorts. Its blackness tainted the ground and spread throughout the hills, focusing mainly on forested area of the hills. It was where most of the deaths, tortures, and sins occurred.

Everywhere the taint touched ceased to produce life. Vegetations stopped growing and whatever remained ceased to live on. Animals either fled away or were corrupted. The atmosphere grew ever so dreary as a miasmic, purplish fog drifted about.

It was a sight one truly could not behold.

And so, time flew by until months later, something happened….

“For crimes against the people of the village, you three evil devil worshippers have been sentenced to death via hanging!” A man wearing a priest’s cloak roared as armed men approached the three tied-up murderers.

These three had been killing and abusing many victims both young and old, men and women for many years. It was due to the carelessness of one of the murderers that one of their ‘prey’ escaped and notified the proper authorities.

A large number of strong men, armed to the teeth, raided the hills. After confirming some of the evidence that hadn’t been buried during the hunt, the enraged men charged into the forests and captured the murderers one by one.

“Harold Juniper, Casper Holsen, and Adam White! Do you hear me?” The priest roared once more. “For crimes against the people of this village and the surrounding villages, I condemn you three in the name of God to Hell! Hang them!”

Nine men walked up the stairway of the gallows. Two men restrained each criminal while the third slung a noose around the criminal’s neck. Finished, they turned to look at the priest who signaled for immediate execution.

FWHOOMP!

A lever was turned and the platforms under the criminals gave way. The nooses tightened with a snap and bones shattered. The three serial killers died instantly. The people left soon after, leaving the bodies to hang and rot for seven days and seven nights before taking them down and cremated them. The cremated ash scattered across the hills in hopes of appeasing those that had suffered through the murderers’ villainy.

Little did they know….