CULT IN THE CITY
Mariah Basale was just moving into a new house with her family, they had been relocated due to her father’s job for a better opportunity and more money. They bought a house in a nice neighborhood, it beautiful old tutor it fully restored on the outside and totally remodeled on the inside. The house was ginormous, and had a room for everything and a pool, the backyard had a huge deck. Mariah had just turned sixteen and was starting her junior year of high school. She was so excited to start at her new school it was private, but she didn’t care she’d been wanting to go to St. Augustine for a long time and she begged her parents to send her there and finally agreed. She missed all her old friends but couldn’t wait to make new ones. She was on was summer vacation and had the whole summer to herself and to hang by the pool maybe even go out and meet some new friends. Mariah was unpacking her boxes and getting her new room ready while her parents were downstairs in the living room unpacking. It was Friday and Mariah couldn’t wait to go out. She’d been waiting for this all week and had asked her parents to go out and when they finally agreed. She was so happy she ran upstairs and got changed and grabbed her keys. She walked downstairs kissed her parents goodbye and left for the night remembering that she had a curfew at eleven. She thrilled she had five hours to herself. First place she drove to was the mall to grab a bite and walk around. The mall was busy with people and kids walking around. Mariah was sitting in the food court when a strange kid began staring at her. He gave the creeps, he was young around her age, he sitting by the plants just gawking at her. He was tall, skinny, and into all goth that she couldn’t stand it’s not that she didn’t like it wasn’t her look or style. She couldn’t take the staring anymore, she got to leave, and she looked for him, but he was gone. She was so relieved she couldn’t take another moment of him staring at her. “So creepy she thought to herself”, she grabbed her purse and walked through the mall looking over her shoulder to be sure that creepy boy wasn’t following her. After about an hour or so Mariah got bored and left the mall by this time it was getting dark, but she still had time before she to be back home, she wasn’t ready to home yet. “Where to”, she said to herself as she got into her blue V.W. Bug. She was craving coffee, which was her favorite, she pulled into the Coffeeland parking lot and went in, and she got out of the car and there he was again, that uber creepy boy from the mall he was following her, but why? Mariah went into the coffee shop, she ordered her favorite coffee and sat down at the booth and sipped her coffee. She took and her phone and texted her mom and told her what was going on and her mom said, “Come now as you as you can, and be safe, if you have to call 911.” She did what she was told, she grabbed her coffee and left looking behind her the whole time. He had been sitting in an old 80’s van watching her this whole time: what if he’d been following and watching me from my house or my neighborhood? What does he want with her? This was not what she needed right now, she was happy living in a new city, a new neighborhood and she actually was getting used to living here. And now this, no way was she going to take this. She got into her car and backed up and pulled out of the parking lot and headed for home. She kept her phone in her lap in case she needed to call 911, it too late before she knew she got slammed into hard, her head hit the steering wheel causing her to go unconscious. The creepy guy and another guy pulled her from the car and drug her to the van, they grabbed her belongings and left. They drove to an abandoned building in the city where they held their cults, the cult this kid belonged to was a satanic cult and offered people as a sacrifice. This kid was a neighbor who lived in the same neighborhood as Mariah, he’d watch her through his bedroom window. He started messing the family, first it was dead bird, then a dead cat, then he started knocking on the door late at night, he’d leave creepy, threatening notes. The Hodges called the police but could do nothing because they called them pranks and blamed teenagers. He kept tabs on her learning her schedule, and one night when they were all asleep, he crawled in though an opened window and bugged her house. That’s how he found out where she’d be tonight and when she’d be home. Poor Mariah lay there in the back f the van unconscious and not knowing where she was going or what had been planned for her. This cult is well known for making people disappear, you either join them or you get sacrificed. They went by the name of Goth Kids of Vamps. The cult were supposed be vampires who drank blood and was taught by this cult if they drank the blood they’d turn into vampires. The leader of the cult would drug with LSD which made them hallucinate then he'd brainwash them into thinking they were vampires. Then she remembered a friend who came to visit family here a couple neighborhoods over disappearing, it ha been someone she had gone to school with and grew up with, when she saw the news, she cried her eyes out it was so sad to see a girl her age get taken, there were no leads and the cops never found her, they assumed she was dead and ended the investigation. The van pulled up to the building and the van, they pulled out Mariah and dragged her into the building and tied her up and gagged her. They went off to have a cult meeting, they had a whole group of sacrifices. The cult members were all dressed in black and wearing hoods, they all stood around a huge fire with satanic candles and were chanting saying, “ooh, ahh, ooh, ahh, and kept repeating it, then they would sing, then chant and then mention name the vampire god Ambrogio. The head of the cult would choose his sacrifice, made him lay on the stone table and take his huge knife and slid it across the man’s throat, he choked up blood then blood squirted everywhere, the cult members cheered, the man spit out more blood before bleeding out: the head of the cult took a goblet placed under the table and watched the blood as it dripped into it, when it was full he took a sip and then passed it around to the other cult members. The cult members had in the back-room Mariah was just waking up and she was feeling groggy. She sat there struggling just realizing she’d been tied up; her head was pounding, and she’d had been bleeding. She looked around trying to figure out where she was, she was in a room surrounded by broken windows and concrete walls. She thought about her parents and how worried they must be. Just then a hooded person came into the room, her face was covered, she walked over and checked her out. She began to whisper, “are you ok? I’m going to figure out how to get us out of here ok?” Her voice sounded oddly familiar; Mariah strained to see her face, but it was too covered to see. For minute the hooded girl stared at her as if she remembered who Mariah was, then she had flashback, her memory when way back to grade school when they first became friends, there was Mariah on the playground crying because she had fallen off the swing and scraped her knee. Ana ran over to her trying to console her and just like that they become friends and were inseparable until the disappearance, she smiled warmly without giving herself away. Then she thought she’d been gone for so long that her poor parents probably thought she was dead. Ana had been missing for a year. And the only way for her to stay alive was to be apart of the cult otherwise she’d be a sacrifice to all the cult members. It was hard for her to believe she’d be in this cult for a year, it’s not what she wanted it’s what she has to in order to stay alive. And knowing her best friend is now here in front of her gave her a stronger will to survive. How she missed life, her family, she even missed her dog. She hated this cult she was in but what could she do, if she tried to leave, she’d be dead, and it was better for her to stay and be one of them, so she had a chance. Ana had walked off to get her friend food and water without been seen by the other cult members, she snuck off to the kitchen to get an apple and water, she’d sliced the apple and grabbed the water and brought to Mariah, “here Ana said kindly, you must hungry and thirsty, thank you Mariah said. What is this place she asked? This a vampire cult either they brought you here to join their cult or to be a sacrifice. Oh, Mariah said frowning. Don’t worry we’re going to out here tonight, Ana replied. You see, the members are going out for a hunt tonight to find more members and we going to leave when they’re gone. They’ll leave around midnight and be back by one or two in morning which gives us two hours to escape. We just have to patient and wait. I better get back to the cult before someone comes, I’ll check on you again soon.” It was too late someone had been watching in the shadows listening to everything, it had been one of the other cult members and he loyal to the leader and he was off to tell him. Ana turned to go back and ran right smack into the other member Jonas, she had already known what he was up to, she took the knife she had hidden in her cloak and stabbed him, dragged the body and hid in the boiler room of the building in closed off room that empty and she closed the door and locked it, praying that no one would ever find him. Now Jonas was the creepy stalker that followed Mariah and was watching her family and he was the one her brought her here along with another cult member. There was no way she going to let that narc stop her from leaving and finally being free. She wiped the blood off her knife with ac cloth and hid along with the knife and went back to the other members. She went back upstairs to join the others who all gathering and talking about the next hunt and how they would be leaving. She sat and joined the others and listened. After the meeting was over the cult left in a group and Ana waited and listened to the van drive making sure the coast was clear. She went upstairs where she stayed packed her clothes and went to get Mariah. She went downstairs to untie Mariah, but someone from behind her whacked her in the head causing her to fall, she got back up and fought, she punched, kicked, and bit her assailant who hissed at her, she grabbed a broken piece of concrete and hit him hard, hit him over and over till he was dead. Ana checked his pulse to make he was dead, she got up brushing herself off, she untied Mariah “thank you”, Mariah said smiling warmly. Come on Ana said we got to go. They ran and ran until they found a safe place to hide somewhere public and safe; Mariah grabbed her phone and her purse and called her parents to let them know what happened. They called the police who then went on a search for the cult when they found them they over people sucking on their blood with holes in the neck, the cult leader lunged at the cop but he aimed his gun at him and shot him right in the heart. All the other cult members tried to run but were subdued and arrested. Mariah looked at Ana and thank you’re my hero thank you, just then Ana took off her hood and revealed her identity. Mariah’s jaw fell to the floor when she saw who it was. “Oh, my stars, Mariah said, Ana? Ana where have you have been? We had a search party looking for you there was even an investigation. I have been here this whole time I drugged and kidnapped and was forced to join this cult, I played along just to stay alive, Ana answered.” Just then a cult member who ran and hid when she saw cops coming lunged at Ana and Mariah and cop who was watching in the distance caught what happened and shot the cult member. Mariah’s parents came right away rushing at their daughter hugging her tightly thanking the stars that their daughter was unharmed. They saw Ana and hugged her too because she was like a second daughter to them. They invited Ana to stay to them until her parents could come and get her. Mariah’s mother called Ana’s mom to tell her know she was found and safe and was coming home. That night the cult ended, and the building was deemed unsafe to be in and was condemned and the body that was found in the building was blamed on the cult and the bloody cloth and knife was never recovered. The head leader of the cult was arrested and placed in a mental institution where he still resides till this very day. The rest of the cult died of overdoses at the hospital. That night when Mariah and Ana went home, they scared but so happy to be alive and Ana finally went home to be with her family and she never wanted to see or hear about another cult ever again.