The Creature

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Layla paused as she watched the flame flicker in the darkness. The cabin had been left to rot for longer than she’d been alive. No one had the courage to enter past the threshold since that gruesome night almost a half-century ago. Fear kept the cabin from being torn down years ago. There it still stood at the end of the town’s only cemetery.

She shivered in her too thin jacket. The wind whipped her around her face as the skin on her cheeks burned. The hood of her jacket did little to help protect her head from the frigid temperature. Her gaze focused on the flickering light in the window. The goosebumps on the back of her neck told her she should turn back. She didn’t know what possessed her to be out in the middle of the night anyway – in a cemetery of all places - but she couldn’t sleep. And walking on a cold night seemed better than tossing and turning in a too small twin bed.

The quiet was unnerving. She’d forgotten what small-town living was like. It was barely half past ten and the whole town seemed to be asleep. Her pace slowed as two silhouettes appeared in the window of the cabin. The shapes jumped from one window to the other and then disappeared. She rubbed the middle of her forehead. I need to lay off the whiskey, she thought to herself. She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

Stories of ghosts at the cabin ran rampant. Kids used to dare each other to knock on the dilapidated door. Most jetted down the hill after the first knock swearing they heard footsteps. Layla was never one of the brave few who dared to awaken whatever spirits supposedly lived there.

Her instincts kept telling her to run. But she just stood there, her eyes trained on the candlelight and the shadows it made. She finished one cigarette and immediately lit another. Her numb hands made it hard to grip the lighter. Chills racked her body as if she was encased in ice, but she stood her ground. Somehow going back to her family’s home felt like an even worse decision. She was stuck in a purgatory of her own making.

She longed for a drink. If she was truthful to herself, her newfound dependence on nicotine and alcohol was concerning. But she'd been lying to herself for a long time.

Storm clouds hid the light of the moon. The rain that had been threatening to fall all day finally erupted in the skies. Her head jerked back at the shock of the thin slivers hitting her exposed face like ice needles. She walked as fast as she could deeper into the cemetery, closer to the cabin.

Tiny puddles of water surrounded the headstones as the rain came down harder. Her boot caught on a bunch of twigs in one of the deeper puddles. She slipped and took hold of a headstone to steady herself. Her chest heaved from the shock as the smoke from the cigarette mixed in with her visible breath. Still the flame burned bright in the window of the cabin.

She caught a glimpse of a tall shape as it stalked around the trees. For a moment she thought it could be the wind and the rain playing mind games with her. But kept seeing something float in and out of the trees.

The rain helped produce a foggy mist that made Layla’s surroundings less visible. Her cigarette was doing her no good in the rain. She dropped the bud and stomped on it. She took a step closer to where she first saw the figure, but immediately took a step back. What am I doing? She hated feeling like the star of her very own horror film.

The atmosphere cracked and split in two as a huge bolt of lightning rippled through the sky. A boom of thunder soon followed. The light illuminated a figure only ten feet away from Layla. A man-shaped creature hunched over with pale skin and eyes devoid of color. The thing wore a black suit and a hideous smile of sharp teeth. Layla screamed and tried to run backward as it lunged at her. In her haste to get away, she tripped over a headstone and fell to the cold, wet Earth.

Her screams became louder as a strong set of hands lifted her up. She struggled against the hands as more thunder drowned out her voice.

“No! Get off me!” She yelled.

She punched upward, but only connected with air. She risked opening her eyes and was met with only foliage and rain. Slowly getting to her feet, she slipped twice of the mud. Her ankle twisted in an unnatural way. She bit her lip as she tried to place weight on it.

She turned around as best she could to find the creature.

“I…I..know…I didn’t imagine this,” she said out loud. “My imagination isn’t that good.”

Her heart pounded in her chest. Though the cold hadn’t let her, beads her sweat dotted her forehead. She wanted to run, cry, hide, and curl up in a ball all at the same time.

The rain came down like a hundred-year flood. She needed to move and get out of the weather. But she couldn’t get far on her injured ankle. There was only one place that could offer her shelter: the cabin.

Her ankle throbbed as she limped towards the cabin, head on swivel looking for danger behind every tree. She screamed as lightning struck a tall oak tree to the left of her. Several of its mighty branches crashed to the ground.

She was both relieved and terrified when the door of the cabin opened with a loud creak. It smelled of mold. Dust and dirt touched every surface. Only a lone table stood in the middle of the single room.

The pain became too unbearable to stand. She dragged herself to the table to lie down. Barely conscious of subjecting herself to germs and filth.

The table was hard and uncomfortable with splinters sticking out every which way, but it would have to do. She laid half on and half off. She closed her eyes, exhaustion settling all over her. She fell into a state of not quite awake, but not yet asleep. Cold air seeped through the cracks in the walls.

Layla.

Mmm?” Layla said with her eyes still closed.

Layla, look up.

The words were as echo in her head.

Layla, I said look up.

“What?” Layla opened her eyes. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. A huge shadow levitated on the ceiling above her.

She rolled off the desk. She bumped her head against the floor and her ankle twisted even further. Shadows swarmed all around her.

You’re next.

It’s time for the town to pay.

The shadows circled faster. She could only see a blur of black all around her. Layla scooted back to the wall to try to get away, but the shadows grew. It rose to the ceiling. The face she saw on the creature stalking her in the cemetery appeared in the shadows. A primal screen erupted from the opened mouth.

Its sharped teeth smile was the last thing Layla saw as the shadow monster descended on her.