What We See in the Dark

Shhh

Tom sat in his back yard, a burning pile of papers in front of him. The bloody moon shone down on the forest around him. Everything had a deep hellish orange and red glow to it from the moon and the fire's light dancing as one. He looked past the fire, through the black breath of the flames, over to the woods. Tom hated the patch of open woods surrounding this house, it creaked and groaned as the wind whistled past its trees every night.

He couldn't wait to get this business trip over and go back home, back to New York. The man moved his view back to the fire, where wood and papers burned. He yawned and rubbed his heavy eyes, taking another sip of the beer in his hand. Tom stretched his sore body and went to stand but paused. Looking past the fire again he saw beady eyes looking back at him, shining red from the fire. The eyes were past the first few trees where dim light dared to not shine. He rubbed his eyes again, then tossed the beer down mumbling to himself of how he shouldn't drink this late at night. He groggily trudged over to the side of his house and grabbed the shotgun the cabin had when he got there. He held the rusted weapon in his hand and walked back over to the fire only to see nothing there. Groaning he set the weapon next to him and plopped back down onto the moist wood he sat on. It was for nothing he reassured himself, the gun was not necessary. He kept going on and on of how it was just a raccoon or a figure of his imagination. Just as much as he hated these woods, he hated the darkness that loomed within it. Torn and tattooed into the bark like threat pulled through skin. 

Looking at the fire once again he saw a shine in the distance, closer than his last experience. Those stupid beady eyes from before boring into his own hazel orbs. A shiver ran down his spine as if his body was telling him to hide from the creature. He grabbed the gun and slowly stood not taking his eyes off of the ones in the distance. A deep staring contest held between man and mystery. He felt his eyes burning, the smoke of the fire filled his senses. He refused to blink. His lids twitched screaming too close, begging to regain moisture. The lids twitch and his body forced the movement.
"Shit" he mumbled to himself, ignoring the fear creeping through him. He opened the fleshy covers as soon as they closed and froze still. Just past the smoke, in view just across the flames. Like a painting in an old cathedral of Satan himself was the picture in front of Tom. He felt his mortality, he felt nothing but terror. Flames flicked to frame the misshapen face, the eyes that bore blankly into his. The eyes  in the darkness now reflected the hellish red of the fire. He was shaking, even though his body was numb he knew he was shaking from the clicks and ticks of the Mossberg shotgun in his hands. Knuckles white, blood rushing to his head. The moments so quick but the seconds were hours in his mind. He backed up slowly, trembling. "It'll be over" there was a deep raspy breath as if to refuel the sentence, "before you blink." We all know the statement, a little fib mothers tell their children to calm them down. But no mothers were here to comfort a weeping babe waiting for their annual injection, only a grotesque creature waiting for a simple clip in time. The voice was raspy and dry yet bubbling as if the creature was choking. It towered over him, pale and unnatural. If the material on it was skin, it was holding on barely to the bone beneath the surface. Rotted teeth exposed through thin lips.  His eyes felt the familiar burn, tears welling within them, but he was't sure if it was from the need to blink or the fear of death. They slowly began to close, slowly the world became just a blurry nightmare. As the weights on his eyes forced them to concave he saw thin bony hands reach out to him through the fire. 

A blood curdling scream ripped out through the woods. Gunfire. A sound erupted over the scream, over the crack of the gun. A sound so simple, shhhhhhhhh, as air was pushed from lungs through rotten teeth and into the world. Just as the voice from the creature, the screams bubbled as if there was choking or drowning, then a deep crack as bone shattered, then nothing. Nothing but the whistles of the wind pulling through the closely knit trees. The bugs dare not make a sound, the fire crackled. 'Thump'. As the wood readjusted in the fire, and as a body was dropped.