The walk from the Peterson's wasn't too bad during the day. During the day, it was like any other suburban neighbor, with its almost uniform houses painted various shades of white, light blue, and light grey. It was normal, almost picturesque in a way, like something you'd see in a movie.
During the day, it seemed like a safe place, and sure, kids would fall off of their bikes from time to time and scrape their knees on the unforgiving concrete, and sure, sometimes people would speed by despite the signs that read, 'Slow down, children playing' but that was inevitable. During the day it was just like any neighborhood, any safe, normal neighborhood that is, complete with barbecues and kids on swings.
At night, it transformed into a hulking monster, like the woods in fairytales. The only problem was that at night, it seemed to be home to more than a wolf.
At night, the neighborhood had a life of its own, transforming itself from a white picket fence to twisted pieces of barbed wire. It was easy to feel like a prisoner that was being ran down. But the easiest thing to do was to keep walking.
One foot in front of the other, counting your steps in mind, 'fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,' you don't want to mess up, because in this neighborhood, there isn't room for error. Maybe during the day you can fumble your words, trip over a rock, just mess up, but at night, you need precision, accuracy, you have to be careful at night because the wolves are out and they are always hungry for something, whether it be little girl or teenaged boy. No one is safe at night.
Especially not on cold nights, like this one, nights where it seems like the chill seeps into your blood and freezes it. The wolves seem hungrier on nights like this. Maybe it's the cold. It makes them desperate.
You can hear them when they're following behind you, sometimes the sound of heavy boots crunching leaves, or the soft sound of sneakers on concrete, the sound of rain hitting an umbrella. The sound changes, but they do not. You don't change either. You can't. To change would mean to know and knowledge is not power. Knowledge is vulnerability. Awareness of something only makes it more real.
So you keep your movements slow and steady, leisurely almost. You'll be alright, you always are, and things don't change. So why would you be hurt now? The sound tonight is the soft crunch of leaves underfoot, it had been windy, so they had drifted onto the sidewalk from the lawns where they had been neatly raked. You tell yourself that it is your imagination, but you know better.
It is a wolf, an apex predator, waiting for your actions to slow or to speed up, some indication that you know it's there. That's all it takes, and once it knows, you know you're done for. There is no way that you can outrun it, so you walk. One foot in front of the other.
'Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four,'
The silence is unnerving, and your heart is racing. The walk is always like this, and you always try to leave before dark, but it always ends like this, with the wolf, the predator close, you can imagine what would happen if it got closer, with its rancid breath on your neck and the coppery smell of blood. You stay with your current pace, and with the smell of decaying leaves and past rains. The steps count on and on and your eyes face forward, waiting to get to eat streetlight. There are three more left before you reach your house, with roughly twenty steps in between each. About sixty steps total, sixty steps and the safety of a locked door.
You can practically hear its smile. It does this every time, and you know and also don't know why. There could be a million reasons why, but you only know one to be true. It is closing in, and it can smell your fear. You speed up just a little, as your own panic begins to smother you. That's when you make a mistake.
"Our Father, who art in heaven," you whisper, assuming that its hearing is subpar. You are wrong and you know it. You hear it speeding up, just a little, and you do the same.
"Hallowed be thy name," your heart is pounding so hard that you feel like it wants to break out of your chest and run to safety on its own, leaving you behind. It's even closer know, you can hear its breathing, and the hairs on the back of your neck are standing on end. There is nothing you can do. It knows.
"Please," it sounded a lot weaker than you meant it to, but you are weak, you are just a scared child, running from the big bad wolf, who's pretending to be some friendly stranger. You can't stand it anymore, the fear, the not knowing. You whirl around to see an empty street, and your eyes widen in fear. From behind you, you hear a voice.
"My, what big eyes you have."
