hereticjones Thread

Growing up in Albuquerque, I used to walk to elementary school every day with some friends along the same route. Along this route was a vacant lot behind some houses. It had some tall trees along one end and an arroyo (a dirt irrigation ditch) along the other.

We'd often cut across this lot to shorten our route. There was always trash and sometimes larger items dumped here; old washing machines and the like. An old weight bench, that sort of thing. One day we found an old couch and we stood it up so we could sit on it. From then on we'd stop at The Couch and hang out for a bit on the way home. We'd shoot the shit and share some snacks if we had any left over from lunch. One time a friend of mine tried a half cigarette he found. He coughed and said it tasted terrible (no shit, right?).

Eventually we'd drag other shit over and started making a dirt lot living room to hang out in.

One morning I was a bit late and had to run to catch up to my friends. I'm chasing them down and see them cut into the lot (we had to cut through the trees and go under a tumble-down chainlink fence). As I came into the lot I look ahead and I see my friends standing around where The Couch is.

They're not passing it or sitting on it waiting for me like I thought they might be, just standing around it. I can't see the couch.

I run up to them, wondering what the fuss is about when WHAM!

The smell hits me in the mouth and I just pull up short, standing there with my brain kinda vapor locked, not knowing what to do. Just like my friends were; "gobsmacked" I think is the term.

Our couch was gone, and instead there was a blackened circle and the charred remains of the couch. On said charred remains were the burnt to a crisp remains of a person.

One arm was sticking up, the wrist curled back, the fingers flexed into a claw-like hook. All the hair was burned off and there was some melted... stuff all around it. Synthetic clothes and probably body fat, looking back, probably. The jaw was wholly exposed, and open impossibly wide.

One of my friends suddenly blarfed down the front of his shirt, and we all burst into tears and ran off to our respective homes.

We never cut across that lot again. We never talked about it, and I never asked what the aftermath was. I know our parents all called the police, but that's it.