IFFY FICTION

I sniff the air. There’s that pungent, metallic stench. I sniff the soil. Blood.

The same thing every day now, it seems.

I part the undergrowth and press my body through, catching thorns, nicking tears into my skin. I scarcely notice. Let another scar be added to the mass of old ones crosshatching my skin. It ceased to bother me long ago. 

The woods are silent this time of day. When the rest of the world is waking, folk here hide, measuring their movements. A tense quiet. Are they all asleep? Or is everyone hiding from what wakes at this hour? 

Most horrors prowl the night. At least that’s what the stories would have you believe. But who told those stories? The first ones. Like my son to me, and me to my father, and his father before, stories have a lineage. They can be traced, if you have the right information, back to one. The mother of all that follow. 

From whose lips do you think that first story was uttered, whispering in the pale sunlight, disguised as rustling leaves? The same lips that part now, pulling in the air, searching for scent, looking for the prey that it would destroy, consume, leave to rot. Some creature scurrying along, naively believing it’s safe in the sunlight. 

That’s what it wants them to believe. 

But these woods are old. Memory goes deep. No one can afford to believe the thing’s lies, dispersed on the whirling wind. Not if they want to survive. 

I step softly through the leaf litter, careful not to crack a twig or crinkle a leaf. The pads of my feet are firm yet quiet. They are truly my best weapon. Here you are nothing without stealth — or you won’t be for long. 

The bark of a birch tree, peeled away, reveals four deep gouges in its milky flesh. In each one, the same blood that stains the forest floor. I stick my tongue out, pressing it into a wound, tasting. Fear.

I listen closely, holding my breath so all I can hear is the silent woods. The wind plucks a nearby leaf from its stem. It falls slowly, rocking in the wind. The sound as it strikes the ground resounds in my ears. Then nothing. 

Something tells me where to move, an old sense that I can’t find in my body. A knowing. Perhaps it’s the thing’s evil that draws me. Most flee, but I know that if it isn’t me, it’s no one. I move silently in the direction of the thing. Like walking knowingly into a trap. My heart thrums like the drums of ancient times. I must be quiet. If I’m not, it will evade me once again — or worse. 

A tiny sound ricochets through the woods. A familiar sound that sends me running toward it, discarding all caution. I enter the small clearing in the center of the seven-tree ring. A shape lays face down on the ground. I approach with dread and nudge it onto its back.

“What are you doing here? I told you not to follow.” Panic rises in my chest when the small thing doesn’t respond. He takes a shuddering breath, his eyes flickering open. 

“I wanted to come with you.” His voice is a weak rasp. Two trickles of blood spill down his neck from small round holes, one on each side.

“Foolish! You’re too young.” I feel the anger rising in me, reddening my sight. Anger with a heart of terror. “Which way did it go?”

“That way.” He nods toward the stream. The barrier across which none of us venture. Where the thing lives when it isn’t here, hunting. 

A branch cracks in the distance, and then another, closer. Not the work of the forest folk whose feet fall so softly, so cautiously. No, these are the heavy steps of something without fear, something with no need for stealth and caution, with no predators. 

It doesn’t sense me in the shadows, stalking. And now it’s hurt the flesh of my flesh.

I look down at my son. He’s shivering, despite the warming day. “Can you move?”

“I think so.” He pushes himself up and stands, legs shaking. 

“You’re going to be okay. Let’s get you back to the den.”

We walk slowly through the woods, my son leaning against me, back to the safety of home. I am on high alert, ears pricked, eyes scanning. 

Deep in the den, I help him gently to the ground. His mother, sisters and brothers surround him, taking turns licking his wounds. I watch for a moment, touched by the affection of the family we’ve created. 

I turn to leave but stop. “Daughters, sons. Learn from your brother’s carelessness today. You must always be wary in the woods. It makes food of fools.” My voice echoes off the stone walls.

“Yes, papa,” they say, quivering at the strength of my voice. My wife glances toward the mouth of the den, bristling, and I know it’s time for me to go.  

I return to the center of the seven-tree ring, sniffing with intense focus, my adrenaline running high.

Its scent is on the air. An unnatural stench. Sickening. I follow it, and soon I catch a glimpse: its horrifying slick skin, pink like the scar left after a burn, its disgusting pelt stolen from the carcass of a forest folk whose step hadn’t fallen lightly enough. I won’t make that mistake. 

I approach upwind. It doesn’t detect me. Its small eyes are fixed on something else, its breath clumsy and loud. I see its huge, lumbering shape hunched over a glinting weapon, its clawless, fleshy hands sharpening the substitute for what nature denied it. 

I crouch low, stifling the growl that threatens to escape from my chest. I think of my son. The punctures in his neck. The blood in the soil. 

My mouth slavers as I think of its repulsive flesh’s taste in my mouth. I nearly retch. But it must be done. 

I sink lower, muscles taut as a trap spring, baring my teeth, ready to pounce. 

It ends today. 

Photo by Filip Zrnzević on Unsplash