Here

Noah swatted at a passing firefly and tried to think of a way to excuse himself politely. "Uh, Ms. Johnson, are you sure-?"

"Shh!" His elderly neighbor was leaning out of the tree line, gazing upward at the stars. One wrinkly hand gripped the tree bark - a tether to the apparent safety of the forest.

Noah dropped his voice to a whisper this time. "It's really late, Ms. Johnson. Shouldn't you-?"

"Shush, boy!" she whispered quickly. "This is when they come out."

Noah bit down a sigh. He gazed longingly past the edge of the forest, where their quiet suburban neighborhood was dark and silent. They were probably the only two people awake in their entire subdivision.

An odd sort of flash - a passing comet? - brightened the sky for a moment, illuminating the surrounding trees, and Ms. Johnson ducked back into the forest with a gasp. She cursed. "I think they saw me," she said.

"Did you want me to take a look? Isn't that why you brought me out here?"

She shook her head, her features barely visible in the darkness of the forest. She was little more than a silhouette. But Noah could hear her breathing - the harshness of it, the way each inhale and exhale rattled in her chest. "Don't look now. It's not safe."

Noah couldn't hold in his sigh this time. "Ms. Johnson, I promise it's safe. You were probably imagining things last night."

Another shake of her head, moving slowly back and forth. "I tell you, I saw it. It was about this time. I couldn't sleep because it was too hot. So I got up, and I heard it." Her wheezing breaths came faster now; the tremble in her voice was more noticeable. She moved again in the shadows, her arms crossing around herself. "Footsteps," she breathed. "On the roof. They moved..." She lifted a hand and traced a path through the air above their heads. "The footsteps moved over my house, and then stopped on the landing right outside my window. I stood very still. I could feel it there."

Noah shuddered despite the sticky humidity of the night. He looked away from her, into the surrounding forest. It was eerily quiet; where were the crickets?

"Then," Ms. Johnson continued, her shaking voice just barely audible, "a car drove by out front. The headlights swept past my window. And I saw it. I saw its form. Long. Skinny. Unnatural."

Goosebumps crawled across Noah's forearms; he hated her for riling him up like this. "Ms. Johnson, I'm sure it was just-"

"No. No, you listen here, boy."

A hand on his shirt made him jump; it was Ms. Johnson, pulling him closer. He could feel the coldness of her hand, smell the mothballs on her clothes.

"They are here," she whispered. "Watching us." Her free hand, skeletal and unsteady, pointed at the stars above them, obscured by the canopy of leafy oaks overhead. "You can hear them at night. In the trees. Scouting us out. Studying us. Learning our weaknesses."

"Ms. Johns-"

"They use the forest as cover. They move around unseen, unnoticed by all except the animals. Or haven't you wondered why the crickets have gone silent?"

Noah swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry despite the heavy moisture in the air.

"Haven't you wondered why the dogs don't bark at night? Why the birds don't chirp until after dawn?"

His own heart was pounding in his chest now, his own breathing speeding up to match Ms. Johnson's pace. He pulled away from her, backing deeper into the forest, shaking his head. "No, ma'am. I'm sorry. You're just getting a little overexcited." Did his voice sound high-pitched to her, too? "You're just a little paranoid. Did- did you take your medicine today?"

"Listen to me!" she hissed as the hairs on the back of Noah's neck stood on end. "I'm telling you the truth, and I'm the only one who knows. I'm the only one who's onto them. You need to know, too, so you can warn the others." She advanced slowly towards him as he continued to shrink back, and in this manner they sunk deeper into the trees. The streetlights disappeared from view.

Noah stepped on a brittle branch, and it snapped beneath his weight. The sound seemed to carry like a gunshot in the silence. Noah cursed under his breath and pulled out his phone, turning on the flashlight. It lit Ms. Johnson in a harsh fluorescent glare, but did little to abate the darkness around them.

Ms. Johnson snatched his phone with surprising swiftness. "Give me that newfangled telephone!" She tapped the flashlight off - perhaps she had grandkids that had shown her how to work smartphones - and pulled up the camera. "If you don't believe me, I'll show you. That's why I brought you out here tonight. They are here. In these trees." She turned and walked away.

Noah watched her go for a few seconds, and then followed in her footsteps, his entire body taut with tension. It was strange how quiet it was. There were no mosquitoes buzzing past, no squirrels or chipmunks scrabbling through the trees. Only their footsteps as they shuffled through the leaf-strewn forest. Their harsh breaths as they wandered beneath the dim starlight.

Snap! Noah froze. Another broken branch. From behind them. Hardly daring to breathe, he turned on the spot. Darkness. Tree trunks that twisted into clawing branches and deformed knots. Silence. No, wait. A sound.

Footsteps.

Ice replaced the blood in his veins; his heart skipped several beats. His head swam. He blinked away the blur in his vision and scrutinized the forest in the direction of the sound.

Oh, God.

A flash of movement. The briefest glimpse of a dark silhouette as it passed between trees.

Noah squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his body shake as absolute terror overwhelmed all rational thought. Oh, God, please no. Please no. Please no. No, no, no.

His breathing was coming in gasps now, and perhaps that was why he hadn't heard another sound. He wrenched his eyes back open, forced himself to look. The silhouette was gone. He scanned the forest in all directions. He was alone.

He wasn't supposed to be alone.

Cursing his decision to come out here in the first place, Noah spun around and tripped forward in the direction Ms. Johnson had gone. "Hello?" He didn't care that his voice was thin and raspy; it was all that he could manage. "Ms. Johnson? Are you there?"

But there was no sound in return. No more flashes of movement.

Something was glowing on the forest floor a few yards ahead of him. His phone. Moaning softly, he stumbled ahead and dropped to his knees beside it.

"Ms. Johnson?" he asked again. But there was no reply.

Noah glanced down at the screen, pulled the camera up again. He hovered his finger above it hesitantly, and then pressed the button to bring up the gallery.

He stuffed his free hand in his mouth to prevent himself from shouting. The last picture was a harshly-lit flash photo of the forest. The dark trees were a white-washed brown, each leaf on the floor sharpened by the light. At the edge of one tree, a single inhuman hand stuck out, just visible in the frame of the photo.

Noah clutched his phone to himself and sprinted the distance to the edge of the woods, the warm air whipping past him in the horrible silence. When he broke the tree line, he fell to his knees on the gravel pathway, shaking beneath the orange glow of the streetlights.

He looked up at the stars.

They were here.