Blood. So much blood. Jake looked down at the forest floor, which was soaked with it. The pine needles were crimson. He could smell the metallic sweetness and fought the urge to gag.
Above him, the moon hung full and luminous in the sky. The woods were alive with the rustling of small animals, but he knew his was the only human heart beating for miles around.
“Lizzie!” he yelled. His voice echoed off the rock walls of the cave ahead. He could see its mouth, black and yawning in the forest night. “Lizzie, where are you?”
He knew she wouldn’t answer. She never did. It was the same every time. He closed his eyes. It was a dream…a bad dream. He knew this, yet it wasn’t time to wake yet. As much as he longed to, he couldn’t. Not until he saw what lurked inside the cave, inside the darkness and chill only a few feet away.
He took a step. And then another. The pine needles crunched under his feet. The breeze caressed his skin until the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
“Lizzie?”
She was in there. He knew it, just as he knew she was no longer alive and something hovered over her. He could hear its soft, huffing breath as it stared out of the darkness with its round, yellow eyes.
He stopped, unable to take another step. He wanted to know, yet he didn’t. He needed to see inside, but he was afraid at the same time. Because once he did, the world as he knew it would change. His truth would turn upside down. Inside out.
So he stood still, feeling his heart thump in his neck, beads of sweat pop up along his hairline. She was gone, and something guarded her body, waiting for him to enter its darkness.
So it could take him too.
* * * *
Jake woke with a start. He thought he’d cried out, but couldn’t be sure. The clock on the bedside table read 11:58.
Rubbing his face, he sat up. The moon coming through the window was full and round. Glowing silver, just like it had in the dream.
That fucking dream.
He’d been having it for months. Ever since Daniel had gone missing in the woods last summer. It was about Lizzie. Not hard to figure out that part. He was no psychologist, but he knew enough about grief to get what his brain was trying to sort through.
The hardest thing to grasp was the part that had him waking in a cold sweat. In his nightmare, something always lurked in the cave with her. Whatever had killed her. The thing that had dragged her away to sink its teeth into her neck like something savage and half-starved.
Jake swung his legs out of bed, anxious for the image to fade. Every night the same damn thing. He hated falling asleep. It was one of the reasons he worked so hard, so late into the night. When sleep came, so did the dream. And he always woke with the feeling of a lead weight sitting on his chest, his heart lumbering against it.
He rose and crossed the bedroom floor, then headed into the hallway toward his son’s room, able to hear his soft snores even from this far away. He stopped in the doorway and looked in. Daniel was nothing but a small lump underneath the covers. Dante lay on top of him, head curled neatly into his dust mop of a tail. A Spider-Man nightlight glowed next to the bed, bathing the room in soft yellow.
Satisfied, Jake took a deep breath. Safe. Healthy. Sleeping easy. It had been the worst year. Harder than he ever could have imagined, for both of them. But nights like these, when he saw that Daniel could achieve what he himself had a hard time with, made him feel a little better. Not a lot, but a little.
After watching his son another few seconds, he finally headed toward the living room and flipped on the light. The cottage usually felt warm and cozy, the walls painted a rich, butter yellow, the furniture cushy and oversized. Leftover touches of Lizzie. But tonight, it was chilly. The embers in the fireplace had long since died out, and he could tell the temperature outside had dropped. The old house seemed to shift in the midnight hour, creaking and popping without any provocation from its occupants.
Sinking onto the couch, he picked up a book. Maybe he’d get tired soon and could salvage a few hours of sleep before he and Daniel had to get up to start the day.
He opened the cover, but froze at the sound of something outside. Low and muffled. A thump of some sort. He sat absolutely still and listened. It wasn’t unusual for raccoons or even bears to nose around, looking for trash. But after the dream he’d just had, the thought of anything outside, even looking for food scraps, didn’t sit very well.
He sat there another minute with the clock ticking obnoxiously from the kitchen. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Slowly, he looked down at the book. He read two paragraphs before realizing that he wasn’t paying attention, and had to start over.
And then, there it was again. He jerked his head up and stared at the back door. A low thump. Not really a sound. More like a vibration. Something was on the deck. Or had been a second ago. And Daniel’s bedroom window faced the deck.
He stood and headed toward the door, pausing only to grab a long, iron fire poker as he went. It was ridiculous really. He had a gun in the cabinet by the door, but with Daniel being so little, he always kept it locked up tighter than a drum. The poker wasn’t as effective, but it was faster to get his hands on, and he had a pretty good swing.
He unlocked the door and opened it enough to stick his head out. The temperature had dropped. Plummeted, more like it. His breath escaped his mouth in a silver cloud, only to vanish into the freezing night air.
He looked around. The deck sat empty, illuminated by the full moon overhead. No animal—big or small—crouched there like he’d been half-expecting. The wind wasn’t even blowing tonight, making it hard to imagine what could have made the sound. Jake shuddered.
Whatever it was, it had gone. Disappeared back into the night from which it had come. He stood there a minute longer, clutching the heavy poker in his fist and staring into the darkness.
Then, a movement. A flash of something to his left. Jake’s pulse skipped as he scanned the shadowy pines not thirty feet away. Realizing he’d brought the poker up to his chest, he forced himself to relax a little.
He watched. Waited another minute. Wondered if it could have been his imagination. That fucking dream always had a strange effect. He felt off somehow, like his equilibrium was jacked up.
Just as he started to back up and lock the door behind him, he heard something grunting. A soft huff of breath. The snap of a twig beyond the line of trees in front of him. Then silence.
Jake’s stomach felt like it was full of rocks. Go inside and lock the door already. No more fucking around.
But something stopped him. A familiar feeling, one that had been eating at him for close to twelve months now. It sat below the shock, the sadness, the fear even. It lay curled inside his heart in a tight, little ball, waiting for the right moment to unleash itself. Anger. Fury. A white-hot rage that up until now he’d been able to keep at bay for his son’s sake. And for his own as well. Because what did giving in to that shit really get you? Lizzie was still gone. And she would never come back.
Still, something took her life. And as hard as he’d tried to maintain a rational mindset, the anger was always there. He wanted someone to pay. Or something to pay.
He found himself shaking in the doorway, bristling at the thoughts running through his head. He forced one even breath, then another, until he was at least focused again, or close to it. Whatever roamed his property was nothing but an animal sniffing around, doing what animals do. It was big though. So no reason to take any chances.
Slowly, he backed up, never taking his eyes off the dark line of trees in the distance. He closed the door and locked it, feeling his heart begin to slow. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.
“Daddy?”
He jumped, nearly dropping the poker on his foot. He turned to see Daniel standing in the hallway, watching him with the blank stare of half-sleep. “Dante put my pants on again.”
Jake sagged against the wall and cursed under his breath.
The little boy shrugged, his hair sticking up in all directions. “He’s always…” His voice trailed off, his eyelids droopy.
“Come here, buddy.” He walked over and scooped him up. He’d had a bath before bed and smelled like baby shampoo, his skin warm and smooth against Jake’s cheek. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
He carried him to his room where Dante waited at the foot of the bed. Jake gave the cat a look as he tucked Daniel back under his covers and handed him his stuffed dog. The little boy took it, rolled over with a soft exhale, and immediately grew still again.
Bending to give Dante a scratch behind the ear, Jake smiled. “I thought you’d be wearing pants,” he whispered.
The cat closed his eyes and leaned in.
“That’s what I thought.”
Jake took one more look at Daniel, pushing the thoughts from a few minutes ago aside. His son was safe. Tonight, under this full and troubling moon, that’s all that really mattered.
Then he walked silently out the door.