One night with the cicadas chiming their song of summer, Francine heard
TAP
TAP
TAP
At her window.
Francine jumped out of her bed. Her little feet pattered against the hardwood as she ran up to her window. She pulled aside the curtains. There in the darkness was a terrifying sight to behold. A girl, or what looked like a girl, was looking in at her from the darkness. She had dry wrinkled skin that sagged away from her face. Her long stringy black hair looked almost slimy and was plastered to the sides of her head. She smiled at Francine and her teeth were like a wolf’s, long and sharp. Her eyes were yellow and oval, like a goat’s. But when she spoke, she gave the child comfort.
“Hello dear. I am your fairy godmother.”
Little Francine looked up at her and her eyes widened.
“You don’t look like a fairy godmother”
The thing’s smile widened.
“But of course, I am one!”
Its head cocked and a sickening crack sounded out. Little Francine started to cry.
“Don’t be afraid, child!”
It said in a comforting voice.
“I am here to take you to the deer!”
It smiled in what it considered a warm way.
Little Francine smiled up at it and wiped a snotty nose on her sleeve.
“Open your window, child”
Little Francine unlatched the window and raised it to be cracked slightly. The thing lowered its head so its mouth was by the crack. Francine could smell it’s putrid breath as it whispered to her,
“Don’t tell your father now. This is our little secret”
It smiled and reached a leathery, thin, and almost skeletal hand under the window sill. Little Francine started to get frightened again and let out a shrill cry. Noises started to sound from her father’s room.
The thing at the window became desperate. It smiled, or rather sneered, so wide that the dry flesh around its mouth started to crack and separate. It thrusted the window open more, just enough to slide a long bony arm through the window. As it reached for Francine, her father burst in, shotgun in hand. The thing’s rotting hand grasped little Francine’s arm, its dirt encrusted nails clawing and ripping into the child’s flesh. Behind them her father cocked his gun. Francine screeched, her child’s brain only comprehending the pain.
Her father fired, but he missed. The buck shot rocketed into the back of little Francine’s pig-tailed skull, sending a spray of her brains and blood all over her father. Her little body crumpled to the floor, a pool of blood forming around it. Her father’s shotgun clattered to the floor. There was no sign of the thing. He stumbled to the window, searching for it in shock. The window was closed, the curtains, now stained red, were drawn. His child lay on the floor, maimed by his own hand. He vomited. The smell of the alcohol he had been drinking filled the room. Had he really killed his daughter? He laid by her side, sobbing and clutching her body. The blood around them was starting to congeal and the smell of vomit and rot sunk into the walls when he finally got up. He shot himself with the same thing he used on his daughter. The thing laughed outside. It raised the window and crawled in to take its earnings. It ate their bodies, the sound of bones cracking echoed through the woods.