I sprinted through the pouring rain, stumbling over roots, twigs snapping under my feet. The leaves above rustled in the wind, their boughs groaning like the voices of the damned. Despite my raincoat, my hair and pants were swiftly soaked and I was shivering with the cold.
With every step, I expected to feel Leon grab a hold of me from behind. That absolute asshole. How had he done it? How had he managed to sneak into the church and hide without me knowing? How had he known I would be there? How had he made blood congeal, smoke gather, and my chalk circle disappear?
Only when I feared my legs would go out did I slow down and dare to glance back. The trees were thick and the shadows even thicker, the world made blurry by the pouring rain. I had to keep going. I was lucky I hadn’t lost the trail in my frantic sprint. I checked my phone, hoping I could text someone, anyone, but there was still no service — why hadn’t I done that in the first place? Why did I have to be so damn stubborn that I didn’t even tell anyone where I was going?
I hadn’t told anyone, so how the hell had Leon known?
At least I’d gotten him on video, at least I had proof — not only of his prank, but of his threats. I still wasn’t sure if he’d been threatening to hurt me, or…or do something else. Something that made my brain go hazy and my thighs clench with desire. The moment he’d pinned me against the pulpit and lowered his voice to that dangerous tone, I knew I was done for. Done for mentally and morally, if not physically.
Snap.
I whirled around. That twig hadn’t snapped under my own feet, it had come from somewhere else, somewhere behind me. I pushed up my rain-spattered glasses, straining my ears for the sound of footsteps, expecting to see Leon standing there beneath the trees.
But the woods were empty. Utterly empty.
The wind gusted, and when it did, a strange scent prickled my nose. Sickeningly sour and slightly sweet — the stench of rotten meat.
The smell of something dead.
Goosebumps prickled up my back. I’d smelt that before. It was the same sickening odor I’d smelled when I’d seen that strange statue. Unbidden, the memory of its eerie bone face and long black tongue filled my mind.
I forced it away before I truly terrified myself. That wasn’t the thing to be thinking of as I walked the woods alone.
But what was that smell?
I kept walking, my ears straining for any sounds of being followed. It was just a forest, the same forest I’d walked through earlier without an issue. Creatures died in the forest all the time…
Except I hadn’t smelled that on the way in. Logical or not, my brain was sounding the alarm. Move, move, move. Don’t stop. I wanted to run, and I felt the tension up my back and down my legs, adrenaline demanding I sprint. But part of my brain told me otherwise.
When I was little, an overly excited dog had scared me in the park, and when I’d run, its big body had slammed into me from behind, sending me sprawling into the grass. As I’d cried, my mother had told me gently, “Dogs like to chase. Don’t run. Don’t give them something to chase.”
Don’t give them something to chase. I didn’t know why I remembered it now. I didn’t even know if that advice would do me any good. But I forced myself to walk, quickly but as calmly as I could manage. I walked until finally, with a gasp of relief, I saw the gate ahead and my Subaru parked beyond it.
Sitting in the driver’s seat, doors locked, gripping the steering wheel, I flipped on my headlights and stared into the trees. I must have sat there for five minutes just staring…waiting…watching. The rain poured down on the car, and the heater and seat warmers finally began to chase away the chill in my body. I was dripping wet, tired, shaken; I wanted to go home.
I wanted to go home and see what the hell I’d just managed to capture on video.
Back home, the first thing I did was turn the shower all the way on hot and melt under the scalding water. The heat eased away the cold, soothing the tension in my muscles, and washing away the dried blood on my hand. I let it pour down my back, eyes closed, steam rising around me.
Usually, the unexplained was exactly where I flourished. I wanted to see something I had no logical explanation for. But this was different. This wasn’t just a disembodied voice, or a vague apparition. This was a living, breathing man of flesh and bone — a man whose very presence seemed to reach deep into my inner darkness and draw out every secret shameful lust.
Why had he been there? How?
His eyes were burned into my soul — the way he’d looked at me as his fingers traced over my lips. The vicious gravel tone of his voice still echoed in my ears. He’d threatened to hunt me down, threatened to make me scream. Yet I knew if he caught me — when he caught me — it wouldn’t be to hurt me.
No, he’d do something far worse.
He’d make me give in.
All those lustful thoughts he brought up in me? He knew they were there. He could see them, somehow, as if my skull were made of glass. I had no doubt he’d exploit each and every desire until there was nothing left of me but raw, carnal lust.
He wouldn’t even need to take control from me, I’d simply hand it over. Hand him the grimoire. Hand him whatever the hell else he wanted. That wasn’t natural. That wasn’t normal.
I grabbed a bottle of cheap wine from the fridge, poured a large glass, and lay in bed, naked beneath the covers. The rain tapped against the window above my head, the trees outside creaking and swaying in the wind. I put on music to drown out the howling, and lay there until the wine and sheer exhaustion forced me into sleep.
But not for long.
It seemed as if I’d only just shut my eyes, but the playlist I’d put on had ended, and my laptop’s screen had gone to sleep. The rain had slowed to only a few little droplets occasionally smacking against the window. I lay there for a while, groggy, trying to figure out why I’d woken up.
What had I heard?
I sat up slowly, frowning. I was still in a dull state of half-sleep, trying to remember if I’d been dreaming. I shuffled out of bed, pulling my blanket with me and tugging it around my shoulders. Regardless of what I’d heard, I needed water. The wine had left me with a headache.
In the kitchen, I filled a glass at the sink and gulped it down, then filled it again to take back to the bedroom. But when I flicked off the kitchen light, I paused.
Someone had been standing in the yard.
I’d only caught a glimpse of them through the kitchen window as I turned off the light. When I looked now, the yard was empty. I blinked rapidly, narrowing my eyes as I stared around my car, and then further, toward the trees.
It was three in the morning.
Why was someone standing in my yard at three in the morning?
Trying to get a better view, I went to the glass doors that led out to the porch and pulled aside the curtain. The clouds had lessened just enough to let some moonlight through, but the silver light was barely able to penetrate the darkness. I flicked on the porchlight, illuminating the deck and just a little way beyond.
There was nothing there.
It had probably just been a deer. It was common enough to see a few of them lingering in the yard in the morning. I was just being paranoid.
I made sure the deadbolt was turned before I went back to bed.
I woke on Sunday morning with my heart pounding. I’d been dreaming, but the memories of it were fading so quickly I could barely grasp them. I’d been wandering in the dark, somewhere pitch black and narrow. But now all that remained was the smell of seawater, briny in my nose as if I’d just taken a dip in the ocean.
Once dressed in some lounge pants and an oversized hoodie, I put on a pot of coffee to brew. The recollection of what had happened yesterday had me jittery, unable to sit still before I’d even downed my morning caffeine. I’d planned to upload all the St. Thaddeus recordings to my computer after breakfast and begin editing, but I also had that video of Leon on my phone. I felt bizarrely nervous to view it.
I went into the gallery, my heart pounding, irrationally scared at what I’d find. What if the video wasn’t there, what if it was all static or the file was corrupted?
But it was still there, and it was clear as day.
“Is this the attention you wanted? Well, now I have it on video that you’re a creep who follows women into the woods. Good luck keeping your job after this!”
Leon hadn’t even glanced at the camera as I shoved it at him. He only looked at me, furious and panting below him, shining that obnoxious flash in his face. I cringed as I listened to myself, wishing that I’d been calmer.
Leon snatched my wrist, forcing the camera down, and the remainder of the video was just a blurry view of the dusty floor, the audio muffled. But I could still make out his voice as he growled, “I warned you, doll. Didn’t I tell you to behave? I told you not to come here, not to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
My stomach fluttered. The viciousness in his voice ignited an immediate, visceral feeling within me. It made no sense to be aroused by that, but there I was.
“What you’ve started here isn’t easily undone.”
What had he meant by that? What had I started?
“I’m going to catch you. And when I do, I’ll make you scream.”
My insides quivered. Fucking hell. I’d been threatened by a man who stalked me out into the woods, and my vagina decided to turn on me like this? This was on another level of fucked up.
The longer I listened to his voice, the more I ached to find him again, to — to do what? To jump on his dick? Demand answers? Rage at him for confusing me?
“Give me the book. Otherwise, you’re going to be a very sorry girl.”
I paused the video. These didn’t seem like the words of a man who had just pulled off one of the world’s most elaborate pranks. He sounded furious, even desperate. I restarted the video, skipping ahead just a few seconds to the moment right before he grabbed my wrist.
There was a frame, a single frame in the blur of motion when he grabbed me, that looked different. I struggled for several moments to pause it at just the right spot, moving the video backward and forward until…
There. A single frame. A frame that should have shown Leon, but it didn’t. Instead, it showed a dark figure with Leon’s face, with golden eyes and sharp grinning teeth.
One slightly blurred frame that felt like a puzzle piece sliding into place.
