Night's Creatures

The night was darker than sin and colder than a banker's heart when I took shelter under the bridge. The thunderstorm raged overhead, torrents of rain coming down in icy sheets blown sideways by the howling wind. I was soaked clear through to the bone and shivering something fierce. Still, the bridge provided a respite from the worst of the storm's fury, and I hunkered down, hoping it would pass quickly.

That's when I saw it, quick as a flash against the dim shadows—a sleek shape darting past, quiet as a whisper. At first, I thought it must be a stray dog trying to get out of the downpour. But as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I realized this was no dog. It moved with a peculiar, almost human-like grace, and it seemed to walk upright on two legs instead of four. 

In my many years wandering these parts, I'd never once seen a creature like it. I pride myself on knowing all the beasts and varmints that roam these hills and hollers. But this thing—this was something alien. Something that had no earthly business being out here tonight. 

I hesitated, unsure if my mind was playing tricks. The wind wailed on as I strained to get another glimpse of it. There—I spotted it again, creeping along the shoreline just at the edge of the bridge. It was man-sized, but hunched and hairy, with limbs that bent the wrong way. I could swear it turned to look right at me with eyes that reflected the lightning flashes like an animal's.

Now, I'm a God-fearing man, and I knew in my bones that to follow such an unnatural creature was flirting with the devil's work. Every ounce of sense told me to stay put. Wait out the storm under that bridge, and put the thing out of mind. Come sunrise, it might all seem like a bad dream conjured up by the night's tricks.

But curiosity got the best of me. Quiet as a church mouse, I trailed after it, keeping to the shoreline brush. With each flash of lightning, I caught glimpses of it loping along ahead of me. It seemed to have a destination, the way it picked its way purposefully through the terrain. As if called by some silent siren song I couldn't hear.

We went on like that for maybe half a mile or more, the creature picking up its pace while I struggled to keep up. The driving rain made it hard to see much of anything clearly. I stumbled over rocks and branches, boots sticking ankle-deep in the mud, freezing clear to my bones. But I'd come this far—couldn't turn back now without unraveling the mystery of this phantom in the night. 

Just when I thought my legs might give out, I saw it slip into the mouth of a cave hidden beneath tangled tree roots. I crept up slow and took cover behind a nearby boulder. Peering out, I could just make out the shape of the creature building a fire, its crooked silhouette dancing in the flames. It started arranging some kind of altar, like for performing rituals, with bones and skulls of small animals, crude drawings scrawled on the walls in what looked like blood. The howl of the wind took on a strange, almost chant-like cadence.

I felt a shudder pass through me then, despite my soaked jacket and numb hands and feet. Because in that moment, gazing into the light of that cave, I realized the truth I'd been ignorant of all these years. I had stepped out of the world I knew and into the Twilight Zone. 

This storm-battered wilderness was merely a fragile barrier between what my eyes recognized as reality and the realm that lurked beneath. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind—a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are only that of the imagination. What lay in the darkness of that cave waited beyond time and space I comprehended. 

Perhaps I should have fled then. Retreated from this thing I had no business witnessing. But I had come too far to run away. The creature beckoned—I had no choice but to follow, like a moth to a flame. 

As I entered the cave's mouth, the creature turned, eyes aglow in the firelight. My breath caught at the sight of it—the bizarre, distorted features under matted fur. Half animal, half something no natural law could explain. It looked right through me, into parts unknown. In its presence, I felt infinitesimally small, a trespasser in a universe operating by rules predating mankind itself.

The creature continued its ritual, indifferent to my intrusion. Or perhaps, intentionally letting me glimpse what should not be glimpsed. I tried to speak, but no words came out. The chanting wind, the creature's fireside dance—it became a hypnotic blur. I lost all sense of time, of myself. There was only the flame, the flashing sigils and skulls, the creature's eyes drawing me into fathomless black depths.

How long I lingered there enthralled, I cannot say. But suddenly, the first light of dawn fell across my face, rousing me from that chasm of the mind. The storm had passed, and with it, the creature. No sign of fire or ritual remained in the cave, now little more than a hollow in the earth. Had any of it happened at all? 

I stumbled back out into the morning mist, wet and shaken. As I sat shivering on a nearby rock, I spotted something on the ground—one single tuft of matted fur, which I carefully placed in my pocket. Proof this had not been merely a midnight reverie conjured out of weariness and wind. 

I have not returned to those parts since. Some doors, once opened, cannot be closed again. But I will always wonder what it was I saw there in that lost hour. Did I gain some shard of insight into the true reality hiding just beyond the veil? Or merely a glimpse of the unspeakable things the night conjures from the soul's unfathomed depths? 

I can no longer say what is or is not. But the next time night falls, bringing with it a storm's full fury, I will remember the fire-lit cave and the creature who dwells between worlds. So if you find shelter from the darkness and see something that should not be—beware, my friend.