Across the Tracks

One

  It was raining when he ran over the steel bar, the gravel beneath his feet crunched and made him painfully aware of what he was doing. He'd snuck out earlier that night and now the moon was high in the pinpricked sky, shedding light on his obvious crime. He dove into the side of a large tree, the bark making impressions in his palms with how tight he gripped it.

  The houses behind him were dark and the streetlamps were merely decoration. He saw something stir behind one of the trees before him, something dark and harsh, and there his shadowy eyes shot. The sight burned his eyes for a moment, he rubbed them. Nothing moved, he didn't breathe.

  His chest felt empty as he heard a crunch. He took a sharp breath and turned to hit the attacker. His older brother caught his pale wrist.

  "What are you doing here?" he whispered loudly and looked around for danger.

  "I want to see- what if they're true? The stories," he told him and watched the older boy's eyes dart back and forth between their surroundings.

  He shook his head and his grasp constricted on the boy's wrist. "No," he shook his head lightly, "no, come on," he pulled him back, "we have to go home-" he dragged him towards the train tracks.

  The younger boy sighed and took back his arm, rubbing where the bruise would form tomorrow. "Fine..." he groaned and followed.

  "You can't sneak out like that, Farren," he reprimanded, keeping a whispered tone, "something could have happened to you-" his footsteps fell silent behind him. He turned to see a large black misted creature the size of a tree clasping a hand over Farren's mouth. "No!" he lunged forward to grab his outstretched hands but felt his fingers slip through his own. His eyes were wide and terrified and red.

  The creature hissed as its eyes fell on him, burning his vision but he couldn't look away, its free hand lashed out and nails like acidic knives slashed into his arm. Within less than a second it lurched backwards and carried Farren back through the wall of trees.

  He ran after it as Farren was able to scream but felt his uninjured arm get tugged back. He resisted but his bloody arm was restrained and he was dragged back towards the tracks.

  "What have you done to your arm?" the voice said angrily.

  "It's got him! It's got him!" he repeated as he struggled. He jerked his head back to see the face of the border guard, Henri.

  "You're out past your curfew, Iden, you know you're not allowed here after dark-"

  "But it took him! I saw it!" he screamed back in anguish and pulled himself violently away from the car he was being shoved into.

  "There's nothing there to take nobody," Henri told him and propelled one last time to get him into the back seat. He felt a terribly sharp pain in his shoulder as he refused and was finally thrown in. "You gon' catch a cold," he said finally and slammed the door shut.

  The door immediately locked on him as he tried an escape. It was fruitless. He watched in pain as Henri started the car and drove from the sea of black trees.

  He remembered that night perfectly. Especially on nights like these, a full moon shining on the small town with the wind so gale-force it threatened to knock down a building. He rolled over and watched the rain beating sadistically against the window.

  He remembered what took his brother. He could still hear the hiss in the wind, see the eyes in the dark if he concentrated. He hated it. He hated nights like these

  He knew somewhere deep down, if he fell asleep he wouldn't wake up. Something was watching him, it smelt his blood and eyed his skin. He knew it. He saw it. The only proof of that night was a missing boy. A boy with wavy dark hair and big green eyes they both inherited from their mother.

  Everything else, they told him, was what his brain made up to account for his disappearance. The monster isn't real, it didn't take him, no one is watching you. But he knew better.

  He knew the beast that hunted when no one saw. But he saw. That's why they watch him, so he doesn't see again. The eyes that had burned through his own still remained on the backs of his eyelids. He could still see it when he looked, when he made himself a burden to them. It was dangerous to look. That's how his brother was taken, after all. He must have seen something.

  The three long scars on his arm had been deep and tore through not only flesh but tissue and muscle. Whatever the creature was, it had infected him, for weeks his arm burned and itched and he had needed medical treatment for three months afterwards. It still stung deep down against the bone when he thought about it.

  Was Farren still alive? Years later? Was he at the bottom of some hole in the forest floor with nothing to keep him warm in the dirt and rain? Were his lips and fingertips turning blue?

  Or was his lifeless body left in a pile of autumn leaves to rot and decay until the earth rolled over his bleached white bones? Did the animals pick at whatever was left of his meat after the things were done with him? There was no way to know. Unless he looked.

  He had tried looking, for five years everyday he'd wandered over the train tracks under the protection of the sun and searched the trees, the ground, the leaves, the bushes. He mapped out the entire area, he cut it into sections and everyday he poured over one.

  The next day the next, and so on and so on and so on for five years. He spent one thousand, eight hundred and seventy-eight days searching and looking. It had been longer than five years, hasn't it? He was losing track. A year and two months, just about. He didn't remember the exact date.