It's Getting Dark

It’s getting dark. We have to get home.

Lexi spun in a slow circle, peering into the shadowed trees through the dark curls of her bangs. Their grandmother would lose her mind if they didn’t make it back to the house before sunset. They had been warned endlessly about staying in the woods after dark. Not that Lexi believed in her grandmother’s superstitions, but her brother did.

Ohhh, my brother! 

“James!” she called. “James, come on! I didn’t mean it!”

The volume of her voice scared the nearby birds into silence, and her ears strained for a sign that her brother was around. 

She heard nothing. She heard so much nothing, in fact, that her left ear started to ring. 

The longer the silence went on, the faster her heart began to race. He couldn’t have gone far. He was only six, and he had only been gone for a few minutes. 

It had only been a few minutes, hadn’t it? Looking at how much sunlight was coming through the trees, trying to remember how much there had been when James stormed off… suddenly, Lexi wasn’t so sure. 

Just as the ringing in her left ear became painful, a sound spun Lexi around, her back to the setting sun. 

“Hey,” a soft voice croaked from the trees. 

It sounded hoarse, but James had been crying when she’d let him stomp out of her sight. A stone of guilt dropped in her stomach, but the relief washed over her all the same. 

“James,” she breathed, smiling and stepping toward the sound of his voice. “James, we need to go back. It’s almost dark.”

She walked several yards into the trees, into the dark, but she saw no sign of her brother. Frowning, she balled up her small fists and set them on her hips in the way their grandmother did when they were about to get a good scolding. It really was getting darker by the moment. 

Lexi opened her mouth to call for him again, but she heard him a little farther into the trees.

“Hey.”

Lexi sighed and trudged on, old leaves and twigs crackling under her bright pink sneakers. This was just like her brother, to storm off and hide until you were forced to go find him. Her grandmother said he did it for attention, but Lexi understood. Someone had to care about you an awful lot to go looking for you when they were upset with you, and it was nice to feel cared for. Lexi always looked for James, always, no matter how upset he’d made her. 

Lexi stopped when she thought she’d reached the spot where the sound of his voice had come from. She pulled a deep breath through her nose, the smell of the trees and the dirt clearing a bit of her frustration. 

“Okay, James, we really need to--”

“Hey!”

Lexi jumped. The voice was much closer now, but it had come from above her head. 

She frowned as she tipped her head back. James had needed her help many times to get down after climbing too high before. 

As Lexie spun slowly, head still tipped back, a chill made its slow ascent up the grooves of her spine. In the fading light, she could see the crisp silhouettes of the tree branches around her, and her brother was not in them. Only a bird, a single crow, perched on the branches of a hawthorn tree. The inky feathered beast seemed to be looking right at her.

Her breathing became audible to her. Her chest ached as her heart began to pound. There was a ringing in her left ear like before. It was quiet, much too quiet for this deep in the woods. 

Lexi tried to swallow, but her tongue clung to the back of her throat. She stared at the bird, and the bird stared back. Lexi watched as it opened its mouth. 

“Hey.”

Lexi’s hands trembled as the bird’s throat worked around the sound it produced. 

“Hey.”

Lexi could not move. She wasn’t even sure she could breathe. All she could do was stare at the bird like some kind of idiot, mouth open in shock. She thought perhaps the bird had swallowed her brother and was somehow using his voice, but that sounded like something out of one of her grandmother’s silly mountain stories. Besides, now that she could see the source of the voice, it didn’t sound much like James at all. 

There was a breeze against the bare skin of her neck. It was not a cold wind, like it should have been that time of year. It was hot and damp, like a breath. Slowly, Lexi dared a glance over her shoulder but saw nothing besides shadows. 

The sun has to be almost down by now. 

Lexi felt she was even farther from James than before. 

She turned to look back up at the bird, but it was gone. She hadn’t even heard it leave. The branches were completely still. Everything seemed still. The woods were supposed to be wild, full of motion and life. But now, nothing moved. Nothing besides her made a sound. Then a raspy voice came from behind her. 

“A bit late for one so small to be so deep in these woods,” the voice mused. Its cadence was slow, almost lazy. 

Somehow, the sudden appearance did not really surprise Lexi. It was as if it should be expected. Of course, she thought. Of course this voice should be here. These trees do not belong to me, after all. 

Slowly, carefully, Lexi turned to face whoever had spoken. 

At first, Lexi thought it was her grandmother. Something about the posture, the way the shoulders slumped with age and the chin was set with a sort of long-earned pride, reminded her of a lot of the mountain elders. But this was no one she recognized. 

She could not tell if it was a man or woman, just that they seemed very old. Deep wrinkles were set in their sun-damaged skin, and a large hooked nose obscured the shape of their mouth. They had a ragged-looking hood covering their hair, and the rest of the clothes were in no better shape. The person leaned into a thick wooden walking stick that was clenched tightly in one boney fist. Maybe it was just that night was falling and there was so little light now, but to Lexi, the stranger’s irises looked nearly black as they peered down at her over that big beak of a nose. 

It took Lexi a moment to realize she was staring and the person had spoken to her and she had yet to respond. She tried to focus, blinking and taking an intentionally slow breath. She tried to stand taller so that she might be taken more seriously. 

“I’m sorry,” Lexi said, and was relieved when her voice didn’t shake. “I’m looking for my little brother. I can’t go home without him.” 

“Little brother?” 

The stranger’s head cocked to the side in a way that unsettled Lexi. It made her hesitate a moment, her lips moving around words that weren’t coming out of her mouth. 

“Yes,” she said, finally. She must have spoken too quietly because the stranger leaned in closer. Lexi tried again, a little louder. “Yes, his name is James. I can’t find him.” 

“James,” the stranger whispered with too much breath in their voice, as if Lexi had named their favorite dessert instead of a person. She thought maybe they even licked their lips, but she still couldn’t see their mouth clearly enough to be sure. 

“Yes,” Lexi said again, unable to think of anything further to say. 

The stranger eyed her for a moment, looking from her wide eyes to her fisted-up hands to the goosebumps spreading over her thin, knobbly legs. Slowly, they lifted their coal-like eyes back to hers. 

“Well,” the stranger said, sounding excited. “What a lucky day this is for me.”

Lexi blinked. “Lucky?”

The stranger nodded, the motion slow and mechanical. “Yes,” they said, voice becoming almost hoarse with some feeling Lexi couldn’t name. “Very lucky.” 

The stranger lifted their chin a little higher so that Lexi could finally see their mouth as they smiled. It was a slow smile that spread the lips apart, displaying one yellowed tooth at a time. 

It registered to Lexi that something about that smile was very wrong. It was a little too wide. There were too many teeth. 

Those black eyes seemed to grow until they were too big for the face they sat in. There was a particular gleam in them, and now Lexi could name the feeling she’d heard in that ancient voice. 

Hunger.

A very deep and very old kind of cold settled into Lexi’s bones. It made her hands shake and her teeth chatter as the stranger’s teeth grew longer, sharper. Drool pooled over the creature’s lower lip. Creature, because Lexi now knew that this thing was not human. It did not care how small she was, nor how tall she had tried to make herself. It would not spare her. 

Lexi stepped back and her knees almost gave out. She held her balance by taking another step back, and then another. The not-person crouched lower, not like an arthritic elder, but like a predator. A low growl came from it that reverberated through the still air, through Lexi’s own chest. She stumbled back another step before she found it in herself to turn her back to whatever that thing was and ran. 

There was so little light; the sun had to be below the horizon now. Much longer and it would be dark in those woods. Already, Lexi had to run with a hand out ahead of her to keep branches from hitting her face and to propel her off the trees she would otherwise crash into. 

The rest of her was less defendable. Twigs and sticks cut up her legs and ribs as she tore through the woods. Lexie didn’t know where she was going, as long as it was away- away from that thing she could hear barreling through the trees behind her. 

She had no idea how she was outrunning it. Maybe it just wasn’t very fast, but that didn’t seem right. 

Lexi’s breath ripped in and out of her lungs so hard she could barely think, just move. Somehow, a thought registered anyway. Not a thought, a memory. It was something her grandmother had told her and James once, tacking it on to a lecture about coming home before dark. 

There are things older than god out there, old things with strange hungers.

Lexi had hated it when her grandmother said things like that. James would obsess over them. There was a stack of monster books beside his bed right now, books he wouldn’t shut up about. She tried to recall anything helpful from his rants when a light emerged through the darkness ahead. Hope warmed her aching chest as she flew through the trees remaining between her and the clearing. 

A house! She almost cried out, but there wasn’t a spare breath in her lungs. 

Lexi didn’t register much about it between the darkness and her panic. It was brick and there was smoke puffing out of the chimney. 

She picked up speed. If there was a chimney, there was a fireplace. She began to form a plan. 

Lexi slammed into the door as she heard the monster break through the trees. It screamed. It was an awful sound, a wail loud enough Lexi stopped to cover her ears. A sob escaped her, and she grasped the doorknob. It was unlocked. 

She stumbled inside. As she slammed the door behind her, it occurred to her that the creature had appeared human at first. 

It might live here, in this house. I might be in its home. It might be planning to roast me over whatever fire was creating that smoke. 

But none of that mastered anymore as the door shook with the full weight of the creature. 

Lexi could smell the fire. Praying for a fireplace and not a stove, she followed the scent into a living room. She might have laughed, she wasn’t sure. Directly ahead of her, on the other side of a wooden coffee table, was the fireplace. Beside it sat the rack of old, black, iron tools. 

She ran around the coffee table as the front door opened. The creature did not try to cushion its heavy steps as it entered the house. Lexi wrapped her fingers around the first tool she touched: the poker. She spun around and hid the poker against the side of the couch just before the thing entered the room. It was on all fours now, nails grown into talons on its fingers and bare toes. 

“Stupid girl,” it hissed through fangs that used to be teeth. “You have cornered yourself.”

Lexi wanted to reach for her weapon, but she had to make the thing come to her first. 

“Help!” she cried, voice weak from terror. 

It was a long shot, she knew. Sure enough, the thing laughed. 

“No one is here to help you, girl. This house is my own.”

She had been right.

It stalked closer, taking a deep breath through its nose like it was smelling a Christmas pie. “You will be tasty when your flesh is no longer raw,” it said, glancing at the fire behind her. 

Right again. 

It slunk between the coffee table and the couch. It paused to sniff at her again, and seemed to savor the fear she trembled with. 

Lexi’s eyes stung as she stared at it, not daring a glance at the poker beside her. She rehearsed her next move carefully in her mind. 

It crawled closer, close enough for Lexi to smell it. It reeked like bloated roadkill in the summertime. 

One more step…, she thought.

It took it.

Lexi snatched the poker and raised it over her shoulder like a baseball bat. The thing only had time to hiss before she swung, connecting hard with its skull. The sagging skin sizzled as if placed on a hot burner. It howled and reeled back as its skin melted, exposing the white of its skull. 

Iron kills monsters, you know. Something James had said to her. Something she had rolled her eyes at. 

She darted forward and swung again, landing a blow to the ribs. The thing made that terrible sound again as it fell to the floor. 

Lexi turned the poker in her hands, raising it above her head. A scream ripped out of her chest as she brought the point down and through the exposed bone at its temple. 

For a moment, nothing happened. Then there was an explosion of black ash. 

Lexi coughed and shook, and when the debris cleared, all that remained of the creature was a collection of mix-matched bones rattling onto the hardwood floor. Lexi just blinked at them: a human skull, a crow’s beak, a pelvis that looked large enough to be a cow’s. 

She fell to her knees in the dust and screamed again. It was a good scream, one to draw all the tension out of her body. 

Her head fell into her hands before she heard something that pulled her away from the tears about to fall from her eyes. 

“Alexis?” The voice was soft and familiar and so, so scared. 

She whirled around, and there, peaking around the back of a bookcase, big blue eyes blurry with tears, was her baby brother. Now she was sure that she laughed, crawling to him through the remains of the not-person. 

Lexi pulled him to her by his wrists, hugging him so tight she thought she might suffocate him. 

When she could speak, there was only one thing she could think to say as she looked out the window and into the night. 

“Grandma is going to kill us.”