After Dark

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Content Warning: This series includes violence, ritual harm, bullying, and psychological trauma involving teens. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

Read carefully. In Antigua Falls, even stories have teeth.

In this episode: After dark, something hungry moves through Antigua Falls. It knows the path. It feels the prayers. It is almost ready.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Interlude

It waits until dark to move. The night air is still, the smell of her faint. Still, there is a trail. It stands, slowly. It always hated this part. The aching muscles, the hunger. But without the pain, there would be no satiation. Warm saliva pools under the tongue. It opens and breathes, lets the drool slip out in heavy drops onto the ground.

The smell of wet earth erupts with each drip. It raises its’ nose above the muddy scent, catches her again. It stands, listens. Each step is silent. It moves like a shadow, black fur blending into black night.

It passes the white house where the boy’s mother sleeps. The white pills make her strange whimpering stop. It stands for a moment, listening again. When it moves between the chain link fences, a chorus of yowls and barks chorus in its wake.

Bones litter the tall grass, the marrow and blood long ago coaxed from each curve and crevice. It emerges onto the empty county road. For a long time the only sound is heavy breath. The cluster of lights that are Antigua Falls grows small in the distance.

Burnt coffee and grease pollute the air by the diner. Its stomach tenses. Hungry, but not for food. For a moment she is gone, but it keeps to the path. It knows the way.

The clearing opens. Here, the woods are covered with her. Cool creek water fans her scent. She overwhelms the smell of pine sap.

No bones. They took her while it slept. It smells. Not all of her.

It moves past under the yellow barriers into the clearing, nose to the ground, searching for the last bits. A depression in the shape of her, the pine needles black where she was. It lowers its head, breathes her in. Tongue to the earth, it drinks.

Its ears turn. The creek carries their voices, murmured prayers.

Something rises in the darkness. It sees the pyre, piled with bodies. The scent of burning flesh, steaming ground. When they bled children in the pits in exchange for food. Blood for rain.

It looks towards the cabin. The boy with the black blood is there. They are rebuilding.

It opens its mouth, feels the jaw unhinge from the joint. It hangs, bone clicking against bone as it sways back to the road, drunk on her. Its teeth, a strange mix of human and animal bone.

Another change.

The flicker of candlelight where the trees break. A small log house where none had been awaits. The door opens like a mouth.

← Chapter 9 Coming Soon

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