| abstract
| - Out here, we don’t have many scary stories or legends. I live in a quiet rural town with a population of about five hundred. But out here we do have a legend. Most believed it. I didn’t until it happened… I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me explain. Goldfield is a small town away from all the hustle and bustle of big cities or even urban towns. We have a gas station, a few shops, a sheriff’s office (Occupancy 5 ) , an inn, and numerous farms. It’s a happy-go-lucky town, but something lately had been taking down the town's population. Now, not killing, but people had inexplicably gone missing. That’s what leads us to our town’s legend, the robin man. You see, in this town we don’t have finches, crows (much to the farmers pleasure), or any other type of bird for that matter haven’t shown up for about a year. Except we got robins. To anyone who passes through the town, it delights them to see so many happy birds, and they’re never here long enough to notice that something is amiss. The robin man legend hasn’t been around long, I thought that some kids just made it up to scare the local populous into thinking that’s where all the missing bodies go. Now I also gotta tell you about the forest around these parts. No one goes into them because of an “infestation of wolves”. People haven’t even gone hunting in them for years because they say the wolves drove all of the good game out. But people also don’t want to go there because they say it’s the robin man’s domain. People only started to believe that since a hunter came out stark raving mad, yelling and screaming about bodies stuck in the ground with just their heads sticking out, like worms after a rain storm. Well he disappeared a few months ago, right out of his cabin. Only thing left were signs of a struggle, a few feathers and a dead robin that appeared to have died from a bullet wound. That’s how the robin man came about. They says he only comes after you if you hurt a robin or enter the forest, seems ol’ Joe did both of those things. Now back to what I was sayin. I didn’t believe any of that nonsense. I thought one of them gangs from the city had moved in, or even a kidnapper, until I was driving one day and heard a small thump against the car. I stopped got out and saw that a robin had slammed itself right into the side of my Chevy, its small neck snapped. I didn’t care much for the things, so I tossed it in the trash and drove on and finished my business for the day. When I got home there were no sounds of robins like they’re usually were, as if they were mourning their lost comrade. I went into my house and hunkered down by the fire. Soon it got dark and I stood to go to bed. But something strange happened. The robins started to chirp and tweet merrily. They never did this after dark. I walked out freezing. They were all over my driveway and in my fields. “Get out of here!” I yelled, running at them. They just stared at me with them beady little eyes. I inhaled sharply as I heard footsteps advancing behind me, a sharp thwack echoed in my ears, and my vision went black. When I opened my eyes…My head was resting on leaves and underbrush, damn rickety porch must have finally collapsed and on me too…what rotten luck. Something was wrong, there were no trees around my house. I lifted my head looking about. I was in a forest, I tried to move to get up. But I was stuck. Not only that, but upon further inspection I was stuck into the ground like a fencepost. That’s when I started believing in the robin man. I looked around and to my horror there were other bodies in the ground, most rotted but almost all identifiable. Mary from the general store, John from the next house over, all half decomposed or eaten by small animals. There ain't any damn wolves here or these bodies would be gone. There was a movement in front of me and my head snapped forward, I saw him and my eyes widened, A tall man in a worn grayish green trench coat covered in feathers stuck by what seemed like blood, he had a few now more menacing robins sitting upon his shoulders and hat. He moved towards me, one perched on his hand, I noticed that its small neck was snapped. He bent down setting the bird down, its beak looked…sharpened. Now that the man was closer I could see he had dark eyes..like a robin and a long pointy nose, his wrinkled lips curled into a smile as the robin thrust its beak into one of my eyes. I screamed and a whole horde of the creatures were upon me. My vision black, I suffered unable to defend or escape.
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