The Other Thing

La dee da, dee da dee dum, ’tis autumn.

Nat King Cole’s voice sang the same phrase over and over again in Oliver’s brain. Though it pissed him off to no end that he couldn’t remember any other part of the song, he drew some comfort from the melody. It was like a safety blanket as he walked through the crimson golden woods, returning home from school.

The walk was always nerwracking. Oliver had to walk briskly. It was a two mile trek, and a dangerous one at that. 

Not because of bears or low hanging branches or holes in the ground. 

Because of Other Things.

They were the guardians of the forest. Of the town beyond it, too, when it had once been an extension of the trees. The addition of civilization had made the Other Things far less benevolent, much less inclined towards man.

Oliver didn’t blame them. If someone came and chopped down his house, he wouldn’t want to chat about it either. It still, however, made things much more difficult. 

He lived with his mom and four sisters in an old wood house in the middle of the forest. His mother was a sculptor and once a month they’d all make the trek together to peddle her wares at the town farmer’s market. Other than that trip, they never really left. Except for Oliver, who—after a month long battle—had convinced his mom to let him go to high school in town.

To be honest, public school was even more frightening than the walk in the woods. 

But he was far too stubborn to tell Mom that. 

So, walking through the forest it would be.

..Dee da dee dum, ’tis autumn.

Oliver exhaled a cloud of white and hugged his woolen poncho tight against his ribs. The air was getting crisper by the day, chai spice and jack-o-lanterns giving way to peppermint chocolate and twinkling lights. Living so secluded was perfectly picturesque during that time, because everything beautiful about the changing seasons what right on his doorstep. The fallen leaves, the first glittering bits of frost, and, of course, the…

Cats?

Oliver stopped in his tracks as a silky black creature stepped out from behind a tree and directly into his path. The cat’s face was round and youthful and precious, but the gold of its eyes was staggering. 

Oliver stood there for a moment making eye contact with the tiny beast, breathing the cold air in and out. He hesitated, then slowly crouched down and extended a mittened hand.

“Hello,” he greeted the cat in a hushed voice, “are you lost?”

The cat blinked slowly at him. 

Oliver swallowed and reached out his hand an inch further.

“Are you far away from home?”

The cat blinked again, looking particularly friend-shaped. 

Behind a close-lipped smile, Oliver secretly gritted his teeth. He couldn’t stray too far, and he certainly couldn’t go all the way back to town for this cat. By the time he was at that point once again, the sun would’ve set. If he was in danger now, walking through the forest in the dark was an entirely different animal.

“Howabout you come with me?” Oliver continued, knowing very well that the cat didn’t understand a word he was staying but still wanting to be polite. “You can have some food at my place, and…and then tomorrow you’ll come to school with me. I’ll see if anybody knows you?”

Oliver waddled forward and, to his shock, the cat approached. It sauntered right up to Oliver’s deep green mitten, considered it, then buried it’s face in the wool.

Oliver beamed and even allowed a little laugh to escape his lips.

“I’m Oliver,” he said, beaming, “I wonder if you have a name little guy.”

Oliver reached out his other hand and carefully lifted the cat from the leafy ground. It sank into his arms without dispute. Oliver smiled as it even began to purr.

“Yeah, yeah! It’ll be great.”

And maybe we wont find your owner and you can stay with me, Oliver mused with a glimmer of selfish hope.

However, as soon as Oliver took a step forward the golden-eyed cat leapt from his arms with a chirp and sped away like a bullet.

Oliver was stunned. Logic would have advised him to leave it be and carry on, but desperation clouded the pathway in his brain to common sense. With a resounding “Hey!” Oliver sprinted after it. His backpack, old dinosaur laptop in the back pocket, thumped against his spine as he ran and his breath came out in gasps. The irregular terrain wasn’t fit for a run, especially with an added obstacle course of stumps and stones and shrubs.

But, the cat was still in his sights. He was hopeful! And that hope was like a glittering ember, warming his chest from the inside.

Only for a moment, though.

The cat made a quick turn behind a towering, chalky stone and was gone in a flash. Without hesitation Oliver pursued.

And just as he turned behind the stone, he skidded to a halt and fell back onto his elbows. The warmth was snuffed out in an instant, replaced by the coldest cold, the darkest darkness, the deepest fear. The fear of a child, lost in the wood, confronted by something.

Something inhuman.

An Other Thing.

Oliver was frozen in time and space as he stared, slackjawed, at the harbringer before him.

The Other Thing had to be eleven feet tall, spider-thin and looming. It was shrouded in an assortment of charcoal and faded brown, vines leaking from the holes in the fabric. It’s head was a bright white skull, not quite a deer and not quite a man. Jagged anters sprouted from the back of its head. They were adorned with red crabapples, like drops of thick blood on a gleaming blade. 

In it’s sickeningly long fingers it held the little cat, who stared calmly—and proudly—down at the trembling Oliver.

La dee da, dee da dee dum, ’tis autumn.

The song rang in his head yet again, but this time it wasn’t the voice of his conscience. It was a low, hollow drone that crinkled and cracked like the leaves beneath him. It sounded as ancient as the forest itself and more ominous than a midnight breeze. 

Your mind is loud. You disturb the quiet twice daily with your thoughts. Your journeying.

The Other Thing gave the slightest tilt of it’s long, pointed face.

Where do you go? Your chest and brain hum with fear and caution, and yet you still go.

Oliver couldn’t think. The voice was so thick that it had clogged the pipes in his brain. 

“I go to school,” the words tumbled out of his mouth without any strategy or substance, “I g-go to town, where the people are. Learning. To learn. I go to learn things.”

To learn. From people.

The voice snarled that last word like it was stale and rotting.

Tell me, child, what do you learn from them?

Oliver’s mouth felt filled with cobwebs as he spoke.

“How to…I learn math. And about the world and the things inside of it. LIke…” He swallowed. “Like…shapes.”

The voice let out a horrific rumble that Oliver knew, somehow, was a laugh. 

Shapes. These are nothing. Do they teach you the shape of life itself? Or the shape of decay? The way the sun burns and gives simultaneously, and the way night revitalizes and makes love to the earth? 

The Other Thing stepped forward and Oliver felt his stomach lurch.

These people you speak of teach you things that are only meaningful in your persuit of destruction. Tools that aid in the tearing apart of every tendon, every sinew of our Mother Earth. You are a part of this horrid machine, are you not?

Oliver licked his lips and tasted salt. He didn’t even realize that he’d begun to weep, overwhelmed with sheer awe of the being before him. 

“N-No, I’m not. I mean, I don’t want to be. Not like that. My family and I, we—we live here in the forest, with you. Not with you, I mean, we…we…”

He lost all of his bearings in that moment, pushing himself up to his knees. He desperately stretched out his hands toward the Thing and pleaded.

“Please, don’t hurt me, please I’m just trying to get home to my family. I’m so sorry for disturbing you, I’m so sorry!”

In an instant, the Other Thing had lifted Oliver into the air by the collar of his poncho. The cat had scittered out of its needle hands and was now perched atop its head, considering the boy right along with the guardian of the forest.

Oliver opened his mouth to scream, but instead a boatload of flower petals cascaded from his lips. He coughed and sputtered as tiny patches of the hair beneath his sweater sleeves turned into moss, and two of his fingernails turned into little stones.

“Please,” he whispered, spitting out the remainder of the petals, “please.”

Hush. Be calm, child.

At those words, Oliver realized that the grip he was being held in wasn’t suffocating or harsh. It was firm, but almost…curious. Maybe even a bit motherly.

I will not harm you. In the least, not now. You…fascinate me. There is a warmth inside of you that the other humans I have encountered do not carry. You seem to not be as full of the capacity to betray and wither and destroy. Perhaps…

The Other Thing lifted Oliver even higher, eye level with it’s bony face.

Behind the skull was inky blackness. And deep, deep within that, he could see two of the tiniest white lights. Galaxies of their own, perhaps. Or maybe something frightening. He wasn’t sure, but in that moment he no longer felt scared.

Perhaps I can teach you instead. 

Oliver blinked, choosing to make eye contact with the golden eyes of the cat instead of the darkness.

“T…Teach me? Teach me what?”

You say you reside here in Our forest. But I can see into your soul and there is much you do not know of it. Of the Other world beyond your eye, beneath your feet. If you agree to meet with me every seven turns of the Earth, I will spare you. Perhaps even save your soul. Do you agree to this?

Oliver, once again, could hardly think.

“I…I…What if I don’t?”

The Other Thing grew still for a moment. Then, it lifted one of it’s horrid fingers and pressed the tip just barely against Oliver’s chest. He felt a burst of pain and this time, coughed out a cloud of dead leaves.

Then I will make you one with the ground. I see this best, as then you will not continue to be corrupted. Now, do you agree to this, young…what do they call you, child?

“Oliver,” he breathed, rubbing his tear-filled eyes with his fists, “my name is Oliver. And…And yes, I agree. I’ll meet you.”

The very second the young man said those words, he was on the ground. The Other Thing had disappeared completely, leaving only a cloud of dust in the air.

The cat, however, remained. It slunk up to a stunned Oliver and nestled against his chest, purring once again.

Oliver sat there unmoving for five whole minutes before wrapping the cat up in his arms and wobbling to his feet.

La dee da, dee da dee dum, ’tis autumn.