Susan Weeks had never seen a monster before.
At the time it happened, she was sitting alone at the kitchen table, eating an
afternoon snack of chocolate cookies. Her school gear lay in a pile near her
right elbow: a writing tablet, a set of colored pencils, two third-grade textbooks,
and a lunchbox. To her left, had she cared to look in that direction, a window
offered a view of the vegetable garden that bordered the woods behind the house.
Susan finished her second cookie and licked her fingers. This was a good day,
she decided. School was done, her aunt and her sister Darlene had gone shopping,
the breeze through the open window was cool and pleasant, and--best of all--Uncle
Felix wasn't home yet.
Susan Weeks hated her uncle. Felix was almost always drunk, and when he was drunk
he was a problem. Susan, who was nine, had endured regular beatings during the
six months she and Darlene had spent with their aunt and uncle since their mother's
death. Darlene, who was fifteen, had endured a different kind of problem--or
at least the threat of it. And though Susan didn't really understand it all,
she was old enough to know there was something very odd about the look in Uncle
Felix's eyes whenever Darlene was around.
But right now Felix wasn't home, and it was a good day, and the spring sunshine
was warm and tingling on her left shoulder. Susan popped the last of the chocolate
cookies into her mouth and leaned back in her chair.
She could never remember, afterward, what made her turn and look out the window,
but when she did she saw a sight that stopped her chewing and froze the blood
in her veins.
Something terrible was standing at the edge of the woods.
It was about the height of a tall man--between six and seven feet--but all resemblance
ended there. Its head was huge and misshapen, its body hairy, its snout long
and pointed like a wolf's. The face itself reminded Susan of pictures she had
seen
of mandrills and baboons. Fangs three inches long lined its grinning mouth.
And it was staring at her.
It was standing there in the weeds beyond the garden, completely motionless,
its head slightly lowered . . . and watching.
After a long moment the creature turned away--a grotesque statue come to life--and
shuffled toward the woods. Just before it melted into the shadows, it turned
and gave her one last look.
And something about its eyes . . .
Sitting there at the kitchen table, Susan Weeks felt a chill that reached to
the core of her soul. Only when the monster had vanished did she realize she'd
been holding her breath. Instantly her muscles unlocked; she clapped her hands
over her eyes, spat out her half--chewed cookie, and gasped for air like a drowning
sailor. Her head began to clear a little, her heart began to slow down. She forced
herself to peek out the window again, this time through the trembling spaces
between her fingers.
Nothing there. Just the woods and the weed-choked garden, basking peacefully
in the sun.
The thing--whatever it had been--was gone.
But the image was there, burned into her brain. The fearsome, grinning face,
the teeth, the matted hair, the somehow knowing look in its eyes.
It was the eyes that had kept her from screaming.
Suddenly she heard something move behind her, and this time she did scream, her
face contorting as she grabbed the edge of the table and swung around in her
chair--
"What the hell's the matter with you, girl?" Felix Bowman said. He
scowled at her a moment, gave the window and the ejected cookie a suspicious
glance, then looked at her again. Susan couldn't tell if he was drunk or not,
which usually meant he was. She had often wondered how a kind, sweet woman like
Aunt Helen--her own mother's sister--could have married a slug like Felix.
"Answer me," he growled. "What mischief are you up to?" As
he spoke, his narrow eyes swept the room, searching for evidence. His big fists
clenched and unclenched.
Still trembling, Susan opened her mouth to tell him about the monster. But nothing
came out.
His eyes narrowed even further. "Ha! Something is going on, ain't it?" A
crooked smile stretched his face. "What've you done now, little gal?"
Again she tried to speak, to tell him of the horrible creature she had seen through
the window. Again, no words came.
In the blink of an eye Felix's belt was off, hissing snakelike through the loops
of his jeans. He doubled the belt in his fist and slapped it hard across the
tabletop, two inches from Susan's right hand. The sound was like a pistol shot
in the small room.
"Tell me!" he bellowed.
Yes, Susan thought, tell him. So she opened her mouth and said, clear as crystal, "She's
in the woods."
Felix's coal-black eyebrows drew themselves together. "What?"
Susan just sat there, stunned. The four words she had just spoken were not her
own. She had uttered them with her own mouth, her own tongue, but someone else
had put them there. She didn't even know what they meant.
Even Felix, no Rhodes scholar, apparently knew something was amiss. Probably
because her voice sounded different. He cocked his head to one side, like some
overgrown, evil puppy. "Who's in the woods?" he asked.
"Darlene," Susan heard herself say. "She's taking a bath."
Felix blinked. "She's what?"
"There's no water in the house. Darlene wanted to take a bath after school,
and she couldn't, so she got a bar of soap and went out to the wading pool in
the woods." Susan swallowed. "I'm supposed to watch, make sure nobody
goes down the path."
Just for a moment, as this strange message was being told, Susan saw a gleam
in her uncle's eye. Then his better judgment, what little there was of it, seemed
to take over.
"What are you trying to pull?" His lip curled. "There ain't nothing
wrong with the water."
Susan was well aware of that. She had washed her hands at the kitchen sink fifteen
minutes ago. For an instant, all thoughts of the monster and of the strange voice
disappeared as she considered the beating she was about to get. Felix hated to
be lied to, and Susan and his belt were old acquaintances.
But all she could do now was watch as her uncle marched to the sink and, to prove
his point, twisted the handle of the hot-water faucet.
Nothing happened.
"Well, dern," he said, and tried the cold tap.
Not a drop.
Susan Weeks didn't say a word. After the things she had seen and heard over the
last few minutes, she was beyond surprise. More than anything else she wanted
to cry.
But she didn't cry. She didn't even change her expression. Just as the monster's
eyes had a moment ago forced her to keep silent, the odd voice inside her head
now told her to do the same. And to try to act naturally.
Ten feet away, Felix Bowman had come to a startling conclusion. "The water
is off," he said, half to himself.
Slowly he raised his head, and their eyes met. Then he turned to the window,
staring hard at the narrow path that led from the garden to the forest. He had
a weird smile on his face, and Susan could almost read his mind. She knew he
was picturing her sister Darlene, at the wading pool just past the edge of the
woods. His eyes were fixed like a laser on the spot where the path melted into
the shadows.
Susan looked too. And even though she could see nothing in the dark, leafy foliage,
she knew--somehow she knew--the creature was there, crouching near the pool,
just out of sight.
Felix turned to face her. The goofy smile was gone. "I got something to
do, girl," he murmured. "You go to your room and stay there." He
held the folded belt up for emphasis.
"Yes, sir." Without another thought she stood and scooped up her scrap
of cookie and her books. It occurred to her, as she fled through the hallway
door, that those last two words had been spoken in her own voice. Felix didn't
seem to have noticed. He was still gazing out the window toward the garden.
Once in her room, Susan dumped her things onto her bed, counted to fifty, and
hurried back to the kitchen. She arrived just in time to see her uncle creeping
like a thief into the shadowy woods. Then he vanished from sight.
Susan eased herself into her chair. For a full thirty seconds or more she sat
there, watching. She didn't really know what she was watching for, or waiting
for. She saw nothing but the forest.
Then she sensed, rather than heard, movement behind her. For the third time that
afternoon Susan felt her heart leap into her throat. She whirled around in her
chair.
Her sister was standing in the doorway.
"Darlene," Susan said, exhaling. With an effort, she resisted the urge
to run and hug her. "I thought you were shopping with Aunt Helen."
"I've been over at Debbie Olson's, listening to music." Cautiously
Darlene entered the room, her eyes glancing everywhere at once. "Who were
you talking to, a minute ago?"
"Uncle Felix," Susan said.
"I know that. But who else? I heard another voice."
Susan hesitated. "It was just me. What . . . what exactly did you hear?"
Darlene studied her sister a moment, then seemed to relax. She crossed the room
and took a drinking glass from the overhead cabinet. "Not much. I heard
someone--you, I guess--say 'About ten minutes,' then I heard Felix say he had
something to do, and he told you to go to your room. He sounded a little funny,
so I hid in the bathroom for a while." She gave the door an uneasy look. "Where
is he, anyway?"
"He's gone," Susan said. She found herself watching with interest as
Darlene held her glass under the cold tap and turned the faucet handle. Water
jetted into the glass. Somehow this didn't surprise Susan at all.
Darlene shut off the water and looked at her younger sister, who was still staring
at the faucet. "You make it sound like he's gone for good," Darlene
said.
Their eyes met and held.
"What if he was?" Susan asked.
Darlene's face darkened. "Then I'd start believing in miracles."
"And what about Aunt Helen?"
"I think she would, too."
The kitchen had gone quiet. Darlene stared into her water glass and Susan stared
out the window, at the path leading to the forest. Somewhere far away, a dog
yapped.
After a minute or so Darlene drained her glass. "I gotta get back to Debbie's," she
said, patting her shirt pocket. "I just came home to get some CD's." She
paused. "You are okay, aren't you?"
Susan sighed. "Yeah. I'm okay."
Darlene started to say something, seemed to think better of it, then nodded and
walked to the door.
"Darlene?"
She stopped in the doorway.
"Who did you think you heard?" Susan asked.
"What?"
Susan felt strangely calm. "You told me you heard another voice. Who did
it sound like?"
A silence passed.
"It sounded like Mother," Darlene said.
This time it was Susan who nodded. Very slowly, lost in her own thoughts, she
turned and looked out the window again. The breeze had died down now, and the
shadows were longer.
Nothing stirred at the edge of the woods.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John M. Floyd is the author of more than 500 short stories and fillers
in publications like The Strand Magazine, Grit, Woman's World, Alfred
Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
He has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and once
for the Derringer Award. Several of John's stories are currently featured
on Amazon Shorts.
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