Something was off that day, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
Maybe it was the feeling of being watched as I walked across campus, the bizarre prickling on the back of my neck that told me eyes were on me, but I couldn’t figure out from where. Maybe it was the weird experience of having my Screenwriting Professor, Mr. Crouse, remind me — and only me — that I could come to his office after class if I needed any help. Maybe it was the fact that Jeremiah hadn’t come to school that day, and Victoria couldn’t seem to put her vape down during our entire lunch break. I could smell alcohol on her breath again.
“Family problems,” Inaya said, with a heavy sigh before we parted for our last classes of the day. “I’ve known Victoria for a few years and she struggles when her parents don’t get along. No family is perfect. We just have to try to be there for her.”
Inaya was a better friend than I was. She planned to take Victoria out for coffee after class, but the day’s weird feelings had formed a solid knot of anxiety in my stomach. Once it started, there was no reasoning with anxiety. I just wanted to get home.
I just needed to walk home.
I’d figured those walks home in the dusk would get easier, but no. The sun had sunk beyond the trees, twilight’s dusky golden light filtering through the branches. It was beautiful, but the dark was coming. The clouds had been sparse that day, but on the horizon, a mass of dark, purple-gray storm clouds were brewing, moving ever closer. It would probably rain through the night. The thought of curling up in bed with a glass of wine, watching Scream for the umpteenth time as the rain pattered outside, made me walk faster.
Since delving into investigating the paranormal, I’d trained myself to consider strange feelings and emotions to be a key part of my investigation process. It was pretty common to encounter feelings of dread, cold chills, and panic in haunted locations. So I tried to give my feeling of anxious discomfort the same consideration I would if I was investigating a haunting; I wasn’t going to push the feeling away. It was there for a reason.
I just didn’t know what that reason was.
My boots crunched on the gravel as I crossed the road to walk along the dirt near the trees.
“Ugh, gross.” I pulled up my shirt to cover my nose. The wind had shifted, carrying with it the awful stench of a dead animal, sour and rotten. I looked into the trees, expecting to see a dead racoon or maybe a deer.
But there was something else standing between the trees.
In the dim light, I thought I was just looking at some bleached, gnarled branches between the maze of trees. The bone-gray limbs were patched with moss and spread out, some high and some low, reminding me of a spider’s web. But it was not a web, not a spider. At the conjunction of those strange, branch-like appendages was a rib-cage with taut, graying flesh stretched over the bones. There was a spindly, spine-like neck, and a canid skull with the jaw hanging open and a long black tongue lolling out.
I blinked rapidly, my heart pounding. Were my eyes tricking me? It was at least fifty yards away. I pushed up my glasses, leaning down in an attempt to get a clearer view through the branches. It looked like a mutated, rotting dead animal. It wasn’t moving. It was even more still than the trees themselves.
It was probably some kind of creepy art installation.
In fact, it had to be an art installation. Those long spindly limbs were just wood. The “ribs” were covered with some kind of goopy, painted cloth, or maybe silicone. I shook myself, shuddering as I began to walk away. The Art Festival had only been a few days ago — maybe it was common for sculptures to be set up around town. I would have to find out who was responsible for the piece. It was brilliantly placed and eerily realistic, exactly the kind of creepy shit I liked.
Goosebumps prickled up my back, and I walked a little faster. Something still smelled awful.
A twig snapped behind me. I swallowed hard and kept walking. I wasn’t about to indulge that prickly, nagging fear.
There was nothing to be afraid of.
Snap.
I wasn’t far from my driveway. I could see it up ahead.
I stopped walking.
There had been a sound beside me, something between a bark and ragged cough. And that smell, God. Why was it so strong?
I turned around.
The road was empty. The streetlights had popped on, casting little pools of light leading back toward campus. But there was no one there. Not a single soul. I peered through the trees, through the catacombs of crisscrossed branches, back toward that creepy sculpture.
It was gone.
There was a roaring sound in my ears, like the ocean filling my head in waves of terror. I took a step back, then another. My eyes darted across the road, toward every little growing shadow. I had to be wrong. I had to be. Where the hell —
The glow of headlights suddenly appeared behind me. I turned, to see a small white truck speeding down the road. The tires crunched as they came to a sudden halt beside me, and I narrowed my eyes in the dark as I attempted to make out the driver through the tinted windows.
The passenger door was shoved open from the inside, and from the driver’s seat, Leon glared at me.
“Get in.”
I was so freaked out I didn’t even pause to consider that maybe hopping into his car wasn’t the safest idea. It had to be safer than whatever I had just heard in the woods. The moment my door was closed he flipped a U-turn, driving back in the direction of my cabin.
“What are you doing walking in the dark?” His voice was tense, furious. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror. What the hell had I done to make him so mad?
“I’m going home. I always walk.”
“You think it’s a good idea for a tiny girl like you to be walking through the woods in the dark?” he snapped.
“What the hell is your problem?” I glared at him from across the seat. “If you’re just going to yell at me then let me out. It’s none of your business where I walk, or when I walk, or how!” His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched. But he didn’t say anything. He just kept glancing in the rearview mirror. What was he doing out here anyway? I hadn’t seen him on campus that day and had assumed it was his day off.
Not that I specifically looked for him on campus.
“Take me home,” I demanded, when seconds had passed and he was still silent. He snorted.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.” Without any directions from me, he turned onto the narrow dirt drive that led back into the trees toward my house. My eyes widened, my stomach doing a nervous little flip as I gulped.
“How do you know I live here?” That felt like a dangerous question to ask. I really needed to do a better job of thinking these things through. “Have you…have you followed me home? Have you been watching me?”
My cabin appeared out of the trees. I always left the kitchen light on, so when I got home after dark I could see the light. It made me feel better somehow, less lonely, like the house was waiting for me. Leon pulled his trunk up in front of the porch and parked, before leaning back in his seat and taking a slow breath.
“Leon. How do you know I live here?”
“Don’t ask silly questions.” He was bouncing his foot on the floor, and he rubbed his palms over his jeans. It was like all the energy in the cab of the trunk was being sucked into him, building and building, and he was trying to keep it all inside without exploding. His eyes suddenly fixated on my Subaru Outback, parked just beside him. “Start driving to school. I don’t know why the hell you think it’s a good idea to go walking around in the dark, but you need to cut that shit out.”
I laughed. It was a nervous laugh, admittedly, but irritation had a way of making me bold. “I’ll do what I want. Thanks for the ride.”
I opened the door, only to have Leon reach across me and slam it shut again.
My breathing slowed. His face was close to mine, his arm reached across my body to hold the door shut. I could feel his heat, warming my skin without even touching it, like being near a blazing fire. His eyes pierced into mine, pale green like the lichens that grew on the side of massive stones — but deep within that color, flecks of gold glowed like fireflies in the dark.
“Raelynn, I don’t want to catch you walking at night again.” His tone was vicious but desperate. Almost pleading. “Drive your goddamn car. I don’t know what you’re used to in California, but no matter how many streetlights come on here, they won’t chase away the dark. They’ll never illuminate the trees.”
The thought of that thing, that sculpture, flashed through my mind. Those teeth, that black tongue, the skeletal face. My fingers plucked at the seat as I imagined it spread among the trees, still as stone in the growing dark. Then – gone. Where had it gone?
Leon pushed open the door again. But he kept his arms on either side of me for a moment, pinning me there. “Stay inside at night. Don’t go walking around after dark. Understand?”
My first thought was to push back. But squashed beneath him on the seat, with his gaze not letting my eyes go for even a second, all I managed to get out was, “Got it.”
He didn’t move for a moment, as if he could see the lie in my eyes if he looked hard enough. Then a crooked smirk curled his mouth, and he said softly, “Behave yourself, Raelynn. Or there will be consequences next time.”
He straightened up, finally allowing me to hop out of the truck. Dozens of words all shuffled for space on my tongue, some angry, some curious, many confused. But before I could get any of them out, he revved the engine and sped off up the driveway, the glow of his headlights disappearing into the trees.
