The Massacre
Short Story : The Massacre.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ( Horror Story)
By Prabir Rai Chaudhuri . All Copyright Reserved 2018
The truth is that in my job in the Army we are used to seeing many strange or weird things, sometimes we spend many weeks, or even months, in the deepest part of the mountains, or in very remote and unpopulated places, and although in some way they train us to face almost everything we come across along the way, there are experiences for which one cannot be prepared.
I share this with you with all reservations. This happened to us a few years ago when we were patrolling a region of the Sierra Negra, Puebla, near a town called Santa Cruz Texmalaquilla. We had been hot on the heels of a drug trafficking criminal group for several hours. It was only a matter of minutes before we caught up with them, but in a desperate attempt to evade us, they got out of their vehicles and barricaded themselves in a very wooded area, where we lost visual contact with them. Sergeant Garcia ordered us to immediately surround the perimeter to prevent them from escaping. We were ready for the confrontation, and while they were giving us orders for the final assault, we began to hear many high-caliber explosions left and right, amid terrified screams for help, coming from the area where the criminal group had barricaded itself.
We stayed face down, alert, the shooting and shouting continued for several minutes. At certain moments we thought we saw some flashes and explosions among the trees. We couldn’t understand what was happening there. It was obvious that the attack was not aimed at us. Sergeant Garcia said that they had probably encountered a rival group, so he ordered us to remain on the lookout. After several tense minutes, everything stopped and became deeply silent. At a signal from the Sergeant, Corporal Martin and I crawled towards the area to do a visual reconnaissance. We stopped a few metres from the first trees and bushes in the trench. There we discovered that the ground in the entire wooded strip was sunken a little less than a metre below the level where we were.
We continued moving forward, and what appeared in front of us left us more than frozen, in the center of that place there were several severed and burned bodies scattered everywhere, as if they had thrown several explosive devices, but the strangest thing about all this is that we had not heard a single bang of a grenade or anything similar in the middle of that shootout, when I turned to look at Corporal Martin, I saw that he had a face of terror that he could not handle, I understood it, he was less accustomed than I was to these experiences of confrontations, so I told him trying to calm him down a little, that they probably used some kind of Molotov cocktail or, knowing how these criminal groups operate, maybe even a flamethrower, but it was very unlikely, the question was who had been capable of doing this, because once we did our visual reconnaissance it seemed that there was not a single survivor.
We identified all the vehicles we were chasing and there was no other strange car in the perimeter. I had to admit that despite having been in many tough confrontations with this type of groups, I had never seen such carnage before , but the worst was yet to come. Corporal Martin and I remained silent for a second trying to catch our breath, and then I activated the radio to tell Sergeant Garcia the situation but the transmitter did not respond. I tried several times but the result was the same, the radio seemed dead. I turned to look at Corporal Martin, he looked a little more recovered, so I asked him to report to the Sergeant. I saw that he activated his transmitter several times, but he still could not communicate.
It seemed very strange to me, but I thought that maybe it was the region that was causing the signal interruption, while I was checking the transmitter on my lapel I felt Corporal Martin pull me by the shoulder, when I raised my face towards him he made a gesture with his head pointing towards the center of that wooded area, in the middle of that carnage appeared a young woman kneeling wrapped in a black shawl, I was surprised that we had not seen her before, at that moment she raised her arms towards the sky, we saw that she was moving her mouth as if she were praying something, her eyes were closed and she looked too pale, at first Corporal Martin and I thought that maybe she came with them, and if so we were surprised that she had been unharmed from the brutal attack they had suffered, suddenly we saw how the young woman lowered her arms and rose very slowly from the ground, she was dressed in black from head to toe, but what caught my attention the most were her arms, extremely thin, and her hands, her fingers seemed too long and bony and they were all blackened, as if they had been put in ashes or coal, we could not trust and we followed very attentively any of their movements, then he raised his face to the sky, continued with his eyes closed, and began to shout many words that I did not understand, I could not recognize in what language he spoke, at that moment his body began to tremble as if he were convulsing, at times he seemed like a rag doll hanging from threads, I thought that perhaps he was going through a hysterical or traumatic attack because of what had just happened, I made signs to Corporal Martin to cover the flankstraight and advanced parallel to the young woman, but we had barely taken a few steps when I accidentally stepped on a dry branch, the cracking was almost imperceptible, but that young woman heard it and opened her eyes, they seemed of a bright reddish color, and at that moment I felt her gaze on me, a shiver ran through my body making my skin crawl, that young woman tilted her head and drew a mocking grimace on her face, her eyes lit up, she crossed her hands at the height of her chest and out of nowhere fire began to come out from between her fingers, at that moment I could not understand what was happening, automatically I pointed my gun at that woman's chest, the fire began to run over her arms until it reached her shoulders, I have to admit it, I was very scared, that was not normal, it was not logical, I felt my body stiff and trembling, and without being able to contain myself in a careless moment my finger pulled the trigger, behind the rifle scope I saw the that woman's body shudder from the impact of the bullet at the same time she let out a terrifying scream, the next thing I remember is that I closed my eyes and felt a blast of fire that threw me through the air and burned my face, shoulders and part of my chest, I felt like the fire was enveloping me, in those moments I only heard a macabre laugh that pierced my ears, I don't know how long I lost consciousness, by the time I opened my eyes again, I was on the ground face up, while someone was pulling my uniform through the bushes, when I turned my head I saw that it was Corporal Martin who was dragging me with one hand and with the other he kept pointing towards that wooded area, it was a dangerous situation.
I tried to raise my arms to look for my weapon but a very strong pain under my chest prevented me from doing so. At that moment several of our companions approached and surrounded us. Two of them carried me and another one helped Corporal Martin. The rest surrounded the perimeter.
While they were treating the wounds on my face and arms, Sergeant Garcia gave the order not to get any closer to the objective, at that moment we heard the transmission from one of our comrades, and he gave a detailed description of what we had seen, at the end he mentioned that there were no survivors, Corporal Martin asked the Sergeant to ask about the young woman we had seen, but our comrade's answer was negative, and when we told the Sergeant what we had seen the young woman do, he listened to us very attentively, but when we finished telling him he asked us to omit that part and say that our wounds were caused by an explosive device.
I was on bed rest for a few months, the impact had fractured several of my ribs, but fortunately the burns were superficial and I recovered completely.
Copyright © 2018 Prabir Rai Chaudhuri
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