The thing in the woods

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

A girl sat in the decrepit front yard, almost hidden amongst the overgrown weeds, her dark eyes staring vacantly into the flames of a campfire. The girl’s feet were bare and covered in mud, her dress was in tatters, her arms - one whole and one ending at the elbow - were wrapped so tightly around her knees they had begun to shake.

It was coming for her. It had been coming for her for as long as she could remember.

Now her time was up.

She began murmuring to herself. Quiet as a babe’s sleep-muffled breath.

To the uninformed observer, the string of sentences slipping from the girls lips would have been unintelligible. A stream of noises, rather than words. But if you took the time to lean in, close enough to feel the brush of her wispy, silver hair against your cheek, you would hear the hushed, stilted rhythm of an ancient song. So old it had nearly been forgotten. And, if you sat by her side, taking a few more minutes to observe, you would see that the song, soft and eerie in the emptiness of the night, was manipulating the fire. Each word lured a flaming-figure from the coals. Creatures resembling animals, though none were whole, and none were quite right. They crawled from the flames out onto the damp earth, glowing as they moved, growing with each limping step. A fox with a broken jaw. A wolf with a dragging leg. A bear with gashes down its side, missing an eye and an ear. And as the girl sang her ancient, harrowing song, the flaming animals staggered clumsily away from the halo of the fire, toward a series of dark lumps, half hidden in darkness and disguised by the grass.

Bodies.

Carcasses.

Some fresh, some old, some half decayed.

The fire creatures reached for the bodies, releasing sighs that crackled and snapped as they eased themselves down, slowly, and disappeared beneath the cold, lifeless hides.

It took a moment, a few bated breaths, but one by one the bodies began to rise, strained, with forceful movements, shoving themselves up, feeling their broken limbs collapse, righting themselves until they could stumble forward.

The girl continued to sing, the song shifting to a chant, then back to a melody, lined with the ever-present tremble of fear. She remained focused as the creatures moved towards her from the dark, so absorbed by the fire that she appeared entirely oblivious.

Until a wolf with a skull like a broken eggshell pressed against her arm, tyre marks blackening its side.

The girl did not take her stare from the fire, nor did she cease the anxious melody of her song, but she lowered a filthy hand, dried blood colouring the crescents of her nails, and gave the undead wolf a scratch in the hollow that should have been its brow.

The candle in the cabin window continued to burn, the only object marking the flow of time. Wick withering, wax dripping, leaving a pool of congealing white on the table on which it sat.

A branch snapped in the woods.

The girls voice grew brittle, a husk of the murmur it had been, as terrified tears began to well in her eyes. And as the quality of her song decayed, so to did the flame-creatures still crawling from the dying fire. No longer did their parts resemble a whole, they were simply glowing skeletons, flayed, leathery skin flaking off bone. They took longer to find their remains, longer to slip back into themselves, to force themselves up, bones clicking and clacking as they moved.

Another branch snapped.

And another.

Still the girl sat, still the girl sang, until every body, and every pile of gleaming white bone in that small, overgrown yard, stood, not living, not breathing, but not gone.

An army of animals undead.

Roadkill she could revive, luring their souls from the afterlife through the flames of her fire, with the hushed and stilted rhythm of her ancient song.

The girl shook as she finished singing, lifting her hand to wipe the tears from her eyes as she tilted her head and listened…

She could hear no snapping branches.

No movement.

No wind.

Just silence.

… It was already here.

Watching her.

Slowly, the girl stood, her figure bathed in the blood-red light of dying embers. She shook with fear as she searched the yard, trying to find it.

“Sweetheart…”

The lilting voice rose from the dark, soft and sweet as a molten marshmallow.

She knew that voice. It was her mothers.

… And it wasn’t…

“There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. It’s time to come home.”

Fear gripped the girls belly. “No.” She shook her head, clenched her fist. “No, no, no, no.”

“Come now, you’re filthy, why don’t we go inside and wash you up, fill that little belly of yours.”

Not her mother.

It was not her mother.

“No.” Tears clouded the girl’s vision as she took a step away from the voice, her undead creatures stepping forward, bearing their teeth. “No, no, nononono.”

“Now, now, dear, play nice.”

“NO!” The girl screamed. “Leave me alone!”

The girls broken creatures attacked, leaping through the overgrown weeds, some almost whole, some nothing but bone.

The lilting voice began to laugh. And as it laughed, the girls creatures began to fall, first one at a time, then a half dozen, then two.

The girl ran.

Disappearing into the forest.

Feet pelting across the damp earth.

“Now, sweetheart.”

The girl skidded to a halt.

Lost her balance.

Barrelled into the dirt.

“You know you can’t outrun me.” Her mother’s voice was directly ahead of her now.

The girl curled into a ball. Sobbing. Crying.

Not her mother.

Not her mother.

Her mother was gone.

The girl didn’t want to go.

Not like that.

She wouldn’t be able to sing herself back through the fire.

She would be gone.

And the thing would take her voice, just like it took her mothers.

“Hush hush, dear, I’m not going to hurt you.”

It came through the trees like a ghost, movements silent, skin a translucent white.

Its face was missing.

And when it spoke, it did so without a mouth.

“I’m only going to take you somewhere… else… Away from here.”

The girl shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Her mothers pallid face flashed before her eyes, anaemic lips hanging open, blood spattered across her cheek.

“Come now, sweetheart, be reasonable.”

The girl gritted her teeth, dug her hand into the dirt, shoved herself to her feet.

Again, she ran.

And kept running.

Until the breath burned in her lungs, and her legs threatened to collapse.

She came to a stop deep in the woods, leaning against the trunk of a tree to keep from falling, and listened.

The wind whispering through leaves was the only sound she could hear. The gentle, constant hush disturbing her silver hair, worrying the edges of her horribly tattered dress.

No movement other than her own.

No sound of the thing that wasn’t her mother.

The girl slid down the trunk of the tree to the earth, shivering from over-exhaustion, from the cold. She stared into the night with eyes that were just as dark. Waiting.

Her eyelids began to droop.

The girl shook her head, lifting her hand to slap her cheek.

She couldn’t sleep.

She wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t…

A clawed hand reached out of the dark.

Grabbed her throat.

Pinned her to the tree.

“I asked you to be reasonable.”

The girl recoiled, jerking herself awake.

To find the thing standing over her, staring at her with a face that was not there.

It reached out and the girl found herself unable to move, unable to speak, unable to scream. She could do nothing as a tendril of translucent flesh emerged from the thing’s palm, snaking through the chill night air, reaching towards her mouth.

The girl pressed her lips together, tears streaming from wide eyes as the cold, viscid tip of the tendril shoved its way into her mouth, and down her throat.

The girl convulsed against the tree, eyes rolling back in her head.

It took a moment.

An eternity.

Then the tendril extracted, dripping mucous down her chin.

And the girls eyes rolled forward. But they were no longer her eyes, dark as night, no, the eyes were white, completely white, and when the thing spoke, it was with her voice, and her mouth moved with its every word.

“There. All better.”

The thing took the girls hand in its own and together they walked back through the forest, to that abandoned cabin, its candle no longer flickering in the window, its wax no more than a puddle.

I tell you this tale, dear friends, this horrible, disturbing account, to give you fair warning. The thing and its girl, they are still in this forest, they reside in that cabin to this day. So if you see a fox with a limp, or a creature that isn’t quite right, or if you hear a broken howl deep in the woods while you toss and turn restlessly in the night - Do not go outside. Do not wander into the dark. Because the only reason the girls fate did not match that of her beloved mother, is due to her powers to bring back the dead.

And you, my friend, would be far less fortunate.