After dark, I’d hear them. Not quite every night, at first, but most nights. My mother told me they were just wild dogs hunting in the woods on the border of our property; that there was nothing to worry about. Not while I was safe in bed, anyway. But something about their nocturnal prowlings never failed to inspire a vague dread deep in the pit of my gut, one I couldn’t ever fully ignore as I sought sleep. Then, one night, it wasn’t just the distant howls and grunts or the faint scattering of crunched leaves underfoot anymore. They would scratch at my window with long, yellowing claws - my window on the second floor of our old farmhouse, to which there was no earthly access from the outside.
The whispers followed shortly after, seeping through the windowpane, corrupting my dreams and rendering any semblance of undisturbed rest utterly impossible. What they spoke of was a mystery to me, incoherent as it all was, and while I should have been frightened by the hoarse, inexplicable mutterings, I found myself strangely intrigued instead; a sense of curiosity which spurred me out into the darkness to investigate.
The moon hung bright and full, almost blinding in its shimmering glow, as I stepped out onto the front porch. The screen door closed behind me with a smack, a disturbance which I was sure might have woken my parents, however the wind’s intermittent howling surely muted it, at least somewhat. I remember the chill, immediate and brutal, and I began to lose my nerve. That’s when I saw it, poking through a bush in the treeline.
It looked just like a man’s face, however not quite right; as if the jaw was somehow uncannily elongated, accompanying a wide grin bearing a mouth full of sharp canine teeth. For the first time, I understood it when it spoke. Only it didn’t use words in the way in which I was used to hearing them. The words came from inside my own head. It simply stated, calmly and in a soft soothing voice, that I shouldn’t be afraid; and I wasn’t, and it knew as I did. Just like that, I began to follow it as it vanished out of sight, deeper into the forest.
It wasn’t long until I could no longer see the soft illumination from the lamp left on in the safety of my bedroom over my shoulder anymore. Now that the twinkling light was gone, I began to notice just how dark it truly was, and I started to realize how much I had forgotten myself in that powerful sense of intrigue which had moved me to such a foolish outing in the first place. I began to feel exposed; totally surrounded, and despite the consistent, whispered reassurances of my mysterious guide, I couldn’t quite escape the urge to run back the way I’d come. Still, I continued onwards through the trees, until most anything resembling light had been extinguished by the thickening branches overhead.
The forest’s blackness was as opaque as the night sky itself, miasmic almost in the air, and it stayed that way for quite a while. Until, finally, a faint flickering shone wanly in the distance. The mouth of the small cave seemed almost to speak too, warping around the dim light of the campfire within. A collective of voices called out in a twisted unison, each with the same whispering cadence as the one who had brought me there, yet clearly individual. I no longer felt afraid.
Inside, a number of hooded figures sat crouched on their haunches, presumably warming themselves by the fire. However it quickly became apparent that wasn’t what they were doing at all as the sickening-sweet odor of seared flesh filled the small chamber. They were each burning the palms of their hands over the flames until they were charred and almost cooked.
Slowly and in single file, they proceeded to stand and make their way to me as I stood fixed in place by the opening, stunned in a dazed astonishment. Each creature pressed their blistering, blackened hand over my face as I breathed into them, inhaling their surprisingly pleasant choking aroma. I began to feel increasingly invigorated as a result, as though through their collective sacrifice I myself was becoming stronger somehow. Fed.
When the last approached me, my eyes met its, and suddenly, in a single instant, I was entirely within their thrall. Its hard, beady eyes penetrated my soul and its leathery gray skin rippled as it pressed a dark, bloody palm over my face. From within me radiated a single word. Home. And I knew that was where I was.