The Endless Night

Chapter 11

Right by my ear I hear a hiss and then a haunting voice that says, “Hello Neszzie, your timez has runz outss...”

My heart jumps and I scream louder and more real than I ever have in my life. I kick and fight, and I hear a screech as my punches make contact. I try to quickly crawl away, but that monster dives after me and holds me fast by the ankle. I feel his claws sink in, and I scream in agony. It's hopeless. I will probably die right here in my own front yard. Suddenly, I hear footsteps, light footsteps, coming toward me. As I look up in their direction I can recognize the little girl's voice calling out, “Hold on Nessie!”

Oh, so she does know my name, I think to myself, but at this moment I don't care if she lied to me. I hear what sounds like a big stick hitting something, and I soon realize that that something is a someone. The hisses tear through the air loudly when suddenly my ankle is released.

“Come On!” The little girl yells, then grabs me by the hand and pulls me up. Now we are off in a full sprint, ankle injured or not, and headed back towards the sorrowful woods.

“Thank you, but why didn't we just go into my house! We were right there!” I yell.

“We couldn't,” she replies.

“Why not?”

“Because he would have killed us both before we could have even reached the top step; he's a vicious creature, believe me, I know.”

“And how do you suddenly know so much about him if you supposedly just got out here tonight? And: you lied to me didn't you?”

“I'm sorry Nessie, I'm sorry, he made me.”

He made her do what?! A violent tornado of thoughts race through my mind. How could he make her do anything unless—they knew each other?

“Do you know him?! Or work for him?! Are you even on my side?!”

“No, no, Nessie, it's not like that! Please hear me out! I'll explain later, but right now we need to find somewhere safe, do you know anywhere we could go?”

At this moment I have to search back through my memory of where I had felt safe. I almost blurt out “the tulip poplar tree” before remembering that that didn't exactly end well the last time. Then I think back to the shed. Sure, it would be a chore to get to, and I had just come from there, but we need refuge, and right now, that's the only refuge I can come up with.

“There's one place...” I say slowly and unassuredly.

“Where?” She responds eagerly.

“I'll show you.”

It's a long journey, but I eventually lead the girl to the shed. We can hear the footsteps gradually fade away behind us as we near the old, rundown excuse for a building. We make our way through the foliage and back to the same hole I had crawled through just hours before. Or was it minutes? I think I lost all sense of time when I first heard the footsteps. Or was it after? No, it was before. Or—never mind that.

“There's a bunch of thorns in there,” I warn, “but it is safe.”

“Okay, we can talk here right, without...interruptions?” she sounds uneasy.

“We better be able to talk here! I need some answers.”

We crawl in and settle down on the small, clear space on the rough, wooden floor.

After picking out several thorns from our exhausted bodies, we began to discuss the issues at hand.

“All right, start talking: who are you, and why did you lie to me?” I fire. A single tear rolls down her cheek and she wipes it away quickly as she begins to speak. I feel bad for being so harsh.

“My name is Annie Marsh. When I came to you in the woods, after you saved me, I was going to tell you everything, the truth, but then...” A look of terror consumes her face and she starts to shiver violently in fear as if something were holding her captive.

“What?” I try to press on gently.

After a moment Annie wraps her arms around her small body and keeps talking, slowly at first, “Well, after I asked you if you were okay, he...he...grabbed me by the neck and told me to lie to you and act as if I had just come out to the woods tonight or he would kill me then and there.”

“Oh my gosh! Are you okay?”

“Yes, I'm quite all right now,” she says, and glances up at the ceiling. I can faintly see the marks on her smooth, white neck where the shadow man had grabbed her. It makes me want to cry to know that someone so much younger than me has had to deal with the monster lurking in the forest around my house. We sit in silence for a moment before returning to our conversation.

“He wanted me to tell you something that wouldn't make sense, so you wouldn't trust me...”

“Wait, what you told me, it was all a lie?” I ask.

“Not exactly,” she explains, “what I told you was true; except, it happened two years ago.”

At this I freeze up. This girl had been stranded out in these hopeless woods for two whole years? This doesn't make sense; or does it?

“Nessie, I have been wandering around your property for the last two years of my life, with that dreadful creature after me. For two years I've had no one until you came tonight!” Tears pour down her face. “I've had no one to talk to and nobody to share my birthdays with and nobody to share the holidays with and not even someone to be scared with! It's...torture...” her voice trails off pitifully as she sobs; I reach over to her and hug her tightly. I can't even imagine how much this poor girl has been through. It makes me cry with her. For awhile we just sit there and cry out our sorrows—mostly Annie's though. After hearing that there doesn't seem much else I could do or say—I am at a loss.

“Nessie, do you see me?” Annie sounds very hesitant.

The question takes me back a little. It's random. But after thinking about it for a moment, it makes sense. When I had first encountered Annie I had only heard her voice, never seen her. Yet now as I look up I can see an angelic face hidden beneath cuts and dirt. Brown eyes now red from tears just cried. Red hair matted and tangled. Yes, I see Annie physically but what I really see is a girl who has gone through more struggle in these last two years than most people have in their entire life.

“Yes, I see you,” I reply.

“You didn't used to,” she sounds sad.

“Huh?” Around every corner with this girl it's like practically slamming into a brick wall from a dead run.

“Vanessa, you have to know that over the last two years, I wandered and wandered and wandered with no where to go, but then one day I found your house. I could see you and your brother and your parents in that big window in your living room and...I felt...safe...”

“Wait, you were outside our house for the last two years?”

“Not all the time! But I went there whenever I needed a family. I was there at Thanksgiving and Christmas; you have a nice family.” She smiles in the most innocent way possible that there's no way I can be creeped out.

“...Thanks,” I say, “but why did we never see you?”

“No one sees me anymore. Ever since the first time that beast grabbed hold of my wrist it's like...I vanished from the world.”

My heart near stopped. Had this happened to me? Will my life be just like Annie's? Will I just vanish too? I think of my family, Skylar, Piddle, all who I will probably never see again. Annie looks at me and notices how I have begun to cry.

“Don't worry Nessie, we have each other now...” Oh, how she tries to encourage me, me, after all she's been through and everything that's happened. I can tell that Annie Marsh has a strong and loving and caring heart. I can't help but hug Annie again. I decide I'm not going to let adversity win this battle.

“Annie, I've just decided: I am going to get you home.”

“How?” She asks eagerly.

“That's sort of the hard part. Is your brain still good? We'll need it to come up with a plan.”