If This Monster Doesn't Kill You

The sounds of the fireplace slowly died and Lyla began to hear her grandfather’s cabin come to life. Without the crackling of the flames, she heard the creaking of the old wooden structure as the wind outside relentlessly pounded against it. With every gust, the walls whined, giving the impression that soon the roof would peel off and expose her to the elements. She was alone, it was getting dark, and she was terrified. 

Lyla’s grandfather had built the cabin when he had first arrived in Canada as a young man. He raised her mother in it, and it was Lyla’s weekend refuge as a child. She had fond memories of playing outside in the woods while her grandfather collected the sap from his maple trees to make her candy. However, every time the night came and darkness crept in on those woods, she would be rushed inside and sat in front of the stone fireplace. Her grandfather would tell her never to go outside when the moon came out, and that something evil lived deep in the forest. 

She hated these fireside stories and resented him later for scaring her as a child. He spared no details as he lectured her on the horrifying creature he claimed to have seen. Tall and pale, with skin pulled so tightly over the bones you could see every detail of its thin skeleton. It had bright-coloured eyes that glowed in the darkness. Its fingers were long and slim with nails like claws growing to a fine, sharp tip. It ran faster than the eyes could follow and was able to draw you out with the call of its many voices. He would always finish his tirades by telling her, ‘Lyla, if this monster doesn’t kill you, it will change you forever.’

Many years later, Lyla lay on the rough wooden floor of the cabin in front of the fireplace where her grandfather used to scare her, wishing he were here as the sun went down. His delusional lectures made many around him think he was insane. One night, he disappeared and was assumed to have wandered off into the woods surrounding his cabin. They never found him, and every weekend since his disappearance, Lyla would return to the cabin, hoping he would walk through the door.

The fire had died and the once warm floor quickly grew cold. She knew she needed more firewood if she had planned on making it through the harsh Canadian night. The stock was empty and her only chance to avoid hypothermia was to go into the place she had been terrified of since she was a child–outside.

She buried her fright and rose off the floor and onto her feet. She walked across the room to the small wooden table next to the door, picking up a packet of matches. Pulling one out, she dragged the grainy tip across the table and a small light illuminated the room. 

In the soft orange glow, she was face-to-face with a picture hanging on the wall of herself as a baby in the arms of her grandfather. His smile beaming through his thick red beard, he looked down on her with eyes full of love and happiness. A tear rolled down her cheek as she wished he could look at her like that again. Next to it, another photo drew her eyes as his bright yellow touque made him stand out against the snow surrounding him. His sleeves were rolled up and he was carrying a bucket of sap. On his bare forearm, red from the cold, she saw his tattoo. The name Lyla clearly inked onto his skin with her birthday underneath it. He got it the day after she was born. 

Wiping the tears of these memories off her face, she shoved the match into the lantern on top of the table and the small orange light became a shining beacon, bringing the whole room to life. She picked it up and reached for the rusting doorknob. Her grandfather's words echoed once more in her ears as she grasped it. 

‘If this monster doesn’t kill you, it will change you forever.’

She hesitated as she remembered every terrifying lecture, but she needed wood to get the fire burning again. She had no choice. Taking a deep breath in an attempt to clear her mind of her grandfather’s monster, she grasped the ice-cold handle and opened the door. 

She stepped out of the cabin and into the night. The cold air stung her face so intensely it burned as if it were hot. She pulled a scarf over her nose and continued further into the snow. The woodpile became visible on the edge of the glow from her lantern. She trudged through the snow, lifting her legs up high to free her feet and reach out for her next step. 

She trekked forward, just steps from the covered pile of logs when something caught her eye. A line of tracks in the snow emerged from the woods, circling the pile of wood and leading back out into the tree line on the other side. They were long and spaced apart as if a person had made them, but Lyla shook her head. 

‘Probably just a coyote or something,’ she muttered to herself under her scarf. ‘Just grab your wood and get back inside. Grandpa was sick, there is no monster.’

She stepped over the line of tracks and reached for the tarp covering the wood. She wiped a layer of snow off the top and whipped up the corner to reveal the wood pile underneath. The partly frozen tarp ripped at her pull, and she fell back into the thick white blanket of snow. She was partly submerged and struggling to get back to her feet as she stared up into the trees. The light from the lantern shot up into the sky and revealed a pair of bright yellow eyes staring down at her through the branches. 

She screamed in horror as the eyes that haunted her childhood dreams were no longer a thing of fiction. Unable to get to her feet, she crawled in the snow as if she were swimming in a white lake, trying to return to the safety of the cabin. She heard the snapping of twigs and branches behind her, followed by a loud thud. She reached the doorway of the cabin and threw the door open, then turned around to face the noise.

It stood on top of the pile of wood, illuminated by the lantern she forgot in the snow. A tall and thin humanoid creature with skin as pale as the white snow it stood in. It was so skinny she could see its bones pressing outwards as if they were trying to escape the skin containing them. She slammed the door shut, locked it and pulled the heavy wood table in front to barricade it.

Lyla burst into tears as she backed away from the door. Her body was not frozen with fear, but convulsing in horror. Her shaking was so violent that she could no longer stand and she fell to the floor at the base of the now dark and frigid fireplace. Her monster was no longer fiction, it was very much alive. Years of therapy to recover from the fear her grandfather rooted within her were thrown out the window. Her seemingly crazy grandfather was telling her the truth. He was not trying to scare her–he was trying to warn her. 

Lyla lay on the floor, praying for her grandfather to help her when she heard a deep voice cry out from beyond the door. 

‘Lyla please help me! It’s so cold out here!’

She sat in silence, still vibrating from shock. The voice, though muffled through the door, was familiar to her. 

‘Lyla don’t leave me out here, please open the door!’ it called out once more. 

‘Grandpa?’ she thought to herself. 

She stood again, her legs gaining strength at the thought of her grandfather being just outside. She walked towards the door, troubled about what to do. Her grandfather had been missing for months, she knew it could not be him. The voice kept calling from outside as she got closer and closer to the door. She propped herself up onto the table and grabbed the dusty curtain covering the window at the top of the door. Pulling it aside, she cautiously peered out, the lantern still lighting up the front of the cabin, but there was nothing there.

Suddenly, a figure stepped in front of the window, its yellow eyes staring directly into hers. It shrieked so loudly that she covered her ears to protect them from the sharp note. The figure rammed into the door and the barricading table gave out, throwing her onto the floor. 

She rolled over to face the door as the figure stepped into the darkness of the cabin and grabbed her ankles. It had hands so cold to the touch they felt like ice through her thick denim pants. She was pulled out into the cold once more, screaming as she went. The creature dragged her through the snow while she kicked and screamed. No matter how hard she tried, she was unable to free herself from its long talons. She got closer to the lantern that still burned in the snow and saw the arms gripping her legs tightly in greater detail. 

The left forearm had small blurry numbers which she recognized as a tattoo stretched thinly on the pale skin. Above it, clear as day to her terrified eyes, the name Lyla in blue ink. Her prayers for her grandfather to come for her were answered, but not in the way she had hoped. 

Her grandfather released her right leg and the tattooed arm swiped at her head with his long claws. She fell motionless into the soft bed of snow. The light from the lantern now faded as she was pulled into the darkness of the woods. Her grandfather's words echoed in her head. 

‘If this monster doesn’t kill you, it will change you forever.’