30 Nov Garden Angel

Posted at 11:00h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 0 Comments

📅 Published on November 30, 2021

“Garden Angel”

Written by Chisto Healy
Edited by Craig Groshek and Seth Paul
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 12 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 1 vote.

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Marisa had the nightmare again. It was the same as always; she was only seven or eight years old. She was at the big park down the block, and there was an enormous garden with a hedge maze. At the entrance to the maze stood a life-size statue of an angel. She was frozen in an attack stance. Sword raised high in her chiseled stone hand, face bent in a scream of war, legs propelling her charge.

Marisa stared fearfully at the statue. As scary as it looked, as angry as it seemed, it was just a statue. She started into the giant wall-sized hedges, and she could have sworn the statue turned its head to follow her with its stony gaze. When she looked back, she saw nothing.

She ventured further and thought she heard something behind her. When she turned back to see what it was, the statue was there, frozen mid-attack, staring at her. She shivered and turned back, hurrying further into the maze.

The process repeated several times, the statue following her into the hedges but always remaining a statue when she looked at it. Then she lost her way and couldn’t remember how to get out. She hit a dead end and was trapped against a hedge wall. She turned around, her back to the wall, and found the statue standing before her. Finally, it let loose its scream and brought down its sword.

Then she awoke, screaming and sweating, fresh tears glistening in her tired eyes. She was almost twenty years old now, and the dream wasn’t any less frightening than it had been when she was a child. What’s worse is that the garden in her dream was authentic, as well as the maze and the statue guarding it. She walked past it every day on her way to high school and now every day on the way to work. She couldn’t see the statue from the road, but she knew it was there, and that was enough.

Her mother had taken her there the first time she went. She thought she would love it. She felt terrible when she saw how frightened Marisa had been, and she apologized profusely. She told her it was just a statue. It was somebody’s art. She tried to distract her with the garden, the flowers and plants of so many colors. She tried to take her through the maze. Marisa just cried the entire time. She said the statue was watching her, and it was going to kill her.

That terror never left, not when they got home, not through the years that went by. The dream would come to her every so often, almost like the statue wanted to remind her that it was still there. More than half of her life, she had spent living in fear of that thing. She knew by now that her fear was most likely irrational, but that didn’t make it any easier to shake. She never went anywhere near that garden again.

Marisa couldn’t wait to get her degree and move away. She planned to find a job in marine biology somewhere, far away from that statue. Life would be better then. Maybe the nightmares would finally come to an end. Until then, she just stayed away and tried to focus on other things.

As she had done so many times before, she shook off the remnants of the dream and forced herself to get ready for work. She worked the third shift at a gas station, which was the furthest thing from marine biology until it was time to clean the toilets. Some unknown life forms were floating in that water, but she didn’t want to take the time to study them.

Overall, the job wasn’t bad. It was fairly easy, and it worked with her school schedule. During the bad moments, she just reminded herself that it was temporary. She tried not to think about the fact that temporary meant three more years.

The downside of working the third shift was that you had to deal with all the late-night crazies. On the bright side, though, the night obscured the garden across the street. She could almost believe it was no longer there since she couldn’t see it.

When she got to the convenience store, Tracy, the girl who worked the shift before her, quickly got out the door. This wasn’t anything new. Tracy was lazy and miserable. Marisa was willing to bet that she didn’t do half of the cleaning duties she was supposed to. More often than not, she left her jobs for Marisa to do when she came in. She didn’t mind, though, actually, because it made the night go faster. There wasn’t much business at night outside of the drunks, drug addicts, prostitutes and the occasional long-distance traveler making a pit-stop.

Reggie, a nighttime regular, was already there, fumbling through the snacks with trembling hands. Marisa said hello to him, and he attempted a wave, dropping several packs of cookies onto the floor. She knew better than to get started on anything with him there. So she waited for him to make his selections and bring his armfuls of chips and jerky to the counter. She rang and bagged his stuff for him and then waited again as he counted out seven dollars and eighty-six cents in change.

He told her his business idea for a chip and sauce company called High Bites. She humored him with smiles and laughs and then walked him out so she could lock the door and start on her cleaning. Once the door was locked, she checked the bathrooms to make sure no one was stuck inside. When she saw that the coast was clear, she cleaned and refilled the cappuccino machine. She made fresh coffee and restocked the cups and lids.

A knock on the door made her jump. She looked at the window and saw a haggard-looking man with his palms against the glass, staring at her. She didn’t recognize him. She lifted a finger for him to wait while she finished up what she was doing. He tapped again and pointed towards the bathroom. Marisa sighed, nodded and lifted her finger again. “Just gimme a sec,” she said, even though he couldn’t hear it.

She put the leftover cups and lids back into the cabinet under the counter and wiped the countertop down with a wet rag. Then she started towards the door.

The man was still staring at her through the glass, dirty hands leaving prints that she would have to wash. Another man walked up behind him, and it made Marisa stop in her tracks. Something seemed off about the newcomer. There was something strange about his face. When he was standing right behind the man looking to use the bathroom, she realized that he was wearing a mask. It was flesh color but hand-sewn with thick stitches that looked like scars.

The first man didn’t notice the newcomer’s arrival, but he did notice Marisa stop, so he started knocking and pointing at the bathroom again, more frantically this time. A scared, wide-eyed Marisa tried to point over his shoulder. He looked confused by her gesture, but it was enough to make him turn his head. Unfortunately, the large serrated blade was already there. Marisa stumbled backward in horror as it was dragged across his throat. She watched him fall out of view, and she backed into the counter.

Quickly she rolled around it and grabbed the phone, and there was no dial tone. She grabbed her purse with trembling hands to reach for her cell phone. A glance towards the door told her that the masked man was still there, eyeing her through the glass. He never took his eyes off of her when he walked to the door and started tugging on the handle.

Marisa jumped. She started to rush to find her phone, dumping the contents of her purse onto the counter. Her phone wasn’t there. She knew she had brought it. Reggie must have lifted it when he was there. That was probably why he took the extra time to make small talk. He was distracting her. She had no way to call the police. Sometimes they came around on their own, looking for coffee. She would just stay locked up inside the store until they showed up or morning came.

She glanced at the window again and found the masked man was no longer there for some reason that was even more frightening than having him stare at her. Her heart was thumping in her chest. She moved to the window and looked out at the parking lot, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary. The first man’s body was gone as well, but his blood remained on the pavement to prove it really happened.

As she was staring outward, a car pulled into the lot and parked at one of the pumps. Marisa shook her head. A woman got out of the car and started the pump with her credit card. Marisa sighed with relief that she wasn’t going to have to turn the woman away, but she felt nervous and unable to look away, just the same.

The woman finished pumping her gas and hung the pump back in its cradle. She went to get back into her car. Marisa watched the stitch-faced man step around from behind the pump. She started banging on the glass and screaming to alert the woman, but there was no way she was going to hear her.

The woman sat in her car, but a hand grabbed the door before she could close it. Marisa pounded and screamed to no avail as the strange man pulled the woman from the car and killed her in the open where Marisa could watch it happen.

Marisa felt defeated. She couldn’t just sit there all night while this madman killed people. The girl didn’t know what to do. She stopped pounding and yelling and just stared forward as he dropped the woman back into her car. He stepped forward then and stopped facing the front of the gas station. Even through his strange mask, his eyes locked with Marisa’s. A pink tongue pushed its way out of the mouth hole surrounded by thick red stitches. That tongue licked the blood from the serrated blade in his hand. Marisa shivered as she watched.

Then he started marching towards her. She backed away from the door and went behind the counter. The masked man tried the door again, jerking it aggressively. Marisa jumped, and she wondered if it would hold.

With his eyes on her, he slipped the serrated blade of his knife into the door crack while tugging on the handle with his other hand. She noticed then that he was wearing brown leather gloves. She picked up the business phone again, and there was still nothing. She knew that he had probably cut the lines. He may have even paid Reggie to steal her cell. Guys like Reggie were very much for sale.

He popped the door with his knife, and Marisa jumped at the sound of the chime when it swung open. He stepped in and stood before the counter, staring at her with hard eyes. She backed up, but there was nowhere to go. “What do you want?” she said.

Stitch face lunged over the counter, swinging his knife. It came inches from her face, and Marisa screamed. She ran to one end of the counter, but he met her there before she could come around. She yelled again and ran back the other way. Again he met her at the counter’s end, swinging his blade at her.

Marisa yelled and made like she would run back the other way again, but she stopped short. He took the bait, though, and ran to the end of the counter. Without hesitation, Marisa leaped over the counter and bounded forward, barreling through the front door. He realized his error and regained his place behind her. The door didn’t even shut. He grabbed it and flung it open furiously, running out behind her.

Marisa couldn’t slow down. She knew that. The killer was right behind her. She ran across the parking lot, the sound of his feet trampling the pavement behind her. She knew she couldn’t stop when she reached the end, so she continued straight across the street. Before she even realized it, she was at the entrance to the garden. It was the last place she wanted to be. She had never been so afraid in all her life.

She turned around to look for another option, and the stitch-faced man was walking towards her with purposeful strides, the blade dangling from his gloved hand. She had never imagined a scenario where something else would be more frightening than the angel statue that awaited her in the garden, but here she was. She swallowed the lump in her throat and then turned and ran into the garden.

Even with a killer on her heels, Marisa paused, frozen with fear before the statue of her nightmares. She realized that her nightmares had immortalized it from the perspective of a small child. They didn’t do it justice. It was far more frightening in reality. It was age-worn, weather discolored and cracked and flaking. The cracks spread like veins through its face, making the anger of its scream seem far more evil.

Marisa shivered in fear, but she could hear the madman’s boots pounding their way up behind her, and she knew that she didn’t have time to ponder a better option. She needed to move. She hurried into the hedge maze with a glance over her shoulder to spy the stitch-faced man and his serrated blade. She just hoped she didn’t make a wrong turn and get herself killed. Her recurring nightmare was still fresh in her mind.

She made a few turns and then crouched and waited, listening. She heard nothing. Had he not followed her in? She started to nervously chew on her thumbnail. She glanced over her shoulder and was still alone. She would be content to stay right there for the rest of the night. Part of her wondered if the gas station was being robbed while she was away. It wasn’t like she had time to call someone to fill in for her while she ran away from a psychotic murderer. She’d have to worry about that later. Where was he?

Staying crouched, she moved along the big hedge to the following path. She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from gasping. The statue was there. But how was that possible? This wasn’t a dream; this was reality. Yet here it was, poised to attack and staring hard.

Marisa walked up to it and around it, eyeing it, looking for details or differences. As far as she could determine, it was definitely the same statue that had been at the entrance. The girl grabbed the muscled arm and tried to pull it. She shook her head as she realized that it was too heavy to move. Maybe it was different. Maybe there were multiple statues throughout the maze.

Marisa had been so preoccupied with the impossible statue that she had given away her position to the other threat without being aware of it. She jumped as the jagged blade came crashing through the hedge beside her. Without wasting another second, she bolted, running further into the maze. She made several turns, trying to lose the man pursuing her.

Then she stopped again and sat there, near to the ground. She was waiting, listening. She knew he was definitely in there with her now. Eventually, he would come. Seconds ticked by, and she couldn’t stand the waiting, not knowing where he was. How did he move so quietly?

Marisa crawled to the edge of the hedge wall. She leaned forward and peered around the wall just to see his stitched face mask doing the same thing across the way. They both froze, staring at each other. Then Marisa broke the eye contact and darted back around the wall. When she got back to where she had been, she jumped backward and fell on her rump. The statue was there, staring at her, sword raised high.

Staying on the ground, she crab-walked around it and towards the next turn in the maze. Only when she couldn’t see either of the monsters following her through the maze did she get up and move more freely. There was a fork, and she went left without thinking. She couldn’t remember the way out. She couldn’t remember the way she went in her dream. She couldn’t remember if her dream version was accurate or not. It wouldn’t matter if it was the right or wrong way to go if he went the opposite. Silently, she hoped he did.

Then she turned a corner and found that he didn’t. He was standing right in front of her, that stitch-faced mask staring directly into her face. She screamed and ran back the way she had come. She felt the rush of air as his blade narrowly missed her.

She went the other way at the fork and ran head-on into the statue. She screamed again and jumped backward, bumping into the killer behind her. His pink tongue emerged from the red-stitched mouth and licked at her ear.

Marisa threw herself to the ground just in time to avoid being skewered. He raised the knife for another go, and she crawled on her hands and knees through the grass, going around the statue and heading for the nearest opening.

Then she was up and running. This time she could hear his steps as he ran behind her. She wondered if the statue was following too. How did it move? She turned left, and then right and then left again. She saw the statue up ahead to the right, and she shook her head. She half wondered if this was all part of her nightmare, and maybe she hadn’t woken up yet. In her heart, she knew better, though. She knew this was happening. It didn’t make sense, but it was real, somehow.

She turned the corner and ran face-first into a wall. She was trapped. It was just like her dream. She had to backtrack and hope the murderer wasn’t that close behind her. But as soon as she turned around, he was there. He was standing there. Knife clutched tightly in his gloved grip. There was nowhere for her to go. He was blocking the only way out. Marisa screamed.

Then she saw the statue. It was behind him, wings spread and sword held high, mouth open in a cry of war. The stitch face man raised his blade and stepped towards her. The angel’s sword came down first, its stone blade chopping through his neck. Marisa’s eyes went wide as she watched that stitched face roll across the floor. His body fell next. She looked up at the angel statue, wondering if she was next. She blinked. Then it was gone.

Marisa looked around. The statue had left. She didn’t know how or where it went, but it was no longer there. She knew it was real, though, because the killer’s headless body still lay at her feet. She stepped over it and started cautiously, making her way back through the maze. She didn’t see the statue anywhere. She expected to, and her heart was pounding. She felt anxious with each turn she took, but it was never there. She didn’t see the statue again until she took that final turn and came back out of the entrance. There it stood, just as it should. The only difference was that the stone blade was stained red.

Marisa looked into the statue’s eyes and quietly said, “Thank you.”

Her dream and fear had been wrong. The statue was a guardian. It truly was there to protect the garden and watch over its patrons. It saved her life. She sighed with relief as she left the garden and saw the blue lights. The police were there now. It was truly over. She crossed the road and walked towards them, all the while thinking to herself that she needed to change her plans for the future. She didn’t want to ever be too far away from that incredible garden statue.