The Search

Inside the woods, the night was as black as pitch.  Although the moon and a smattering of stars had been visible when Jane, Grace, and Jane's father, Keith, stepped from Keith's rusted out Chevrolet pickup, the dense canopy of foliage overhead blotted out the sky.  Shadows rose and fell in the two beams of light provided by Jane's and Grace's flashlights, darting between trees, scuttling beneath the withered brown leaves coating the forest's floor.

"You two should be back at the car," Keith said, his muttered words barely audible over the howl of the wind and the crunching of leaves beneath the trio's feet.

Jane shivered.  She tugged at the zipper on her down jacket, but it was already as high up as it could go.  "I thought you didn't believe us," she said, breath billowing from her lips in a frosty cloud.

"I don't.  Sheriff's not that kind of a person.  But it's not safe out here."

An owl hooted, its sound deep and gravelly.  Grace gasped.

"See what I mean?" Keith said.  "These woods are no place for a couple of girls."

"Nobody wants to hear your tired old sexism, dad."

But that call - it was just like Willow had described it all those years ago.  Recognizable, but not quite right, as though some creature was imitating the owl's question.  A disquieted current rippled through Jane's stomach.  What if it wasn't the sheriff who was holding Willow captive?  Bullets might stop humans, but if the legends were true, their guns would be useless against supernatural beings.

Jane glanced down at her phone.  The blue arrow on the map tracing their path continued at its glacial pace.  It seemed like they should be almost there, but she had felt that way since they had entered the woods.  The woods were not expanding, were they?  Those were just stories the kids told to frighten one another.  Space could not warp of its own volition.  But the weight in her gut belied her mental reassurances.

A set of glowing red eyes materialized.  Jane darted her flashlight toward them.  The beam revealed a tree hollow, the shadows shrouding its interior too thick for her flashlight's beam to carve through.

"What was that?" Grace whispered, her voice quavering.

"Nothing," Jane said.  Sweat soaked through the long-sleeved shirt she was wearing beneath her jacket.  "A trick of the light."

Or a trickster, those little goblin-like critters that used cutesy disguises to lure their victims into the woods.  But shapeshifting creatures did not exist either.  Could not exist.  Right?

"Are you sure?" Grace said.

Jane squeezed Grace's hand.  The thickness of their gloves dulled the sensations, but Jane felt Grace's hand tighten around hers.  For an instant, the fear that had clouded Jane's head slipped away.  A heady sensation took its place, warming her to her core.  Whatever happened, she was not alone.

Silver moonlight cut through the inkiness as the trees gave way to a field, the knee-high grasses faded to a pale golden brown.  Jane's heart skipped.  This had to be it.

"You fucking bitch," a voice called out from somewhere ahead.  Jane's stomach dropped as the blood in her veins turned to ice.  She tucked her phone into her pocket and pulled out her father's revolver.  It felt heavy in her hands.

Keith Howard's shotgun clicked as he flicked off the safety.  "You girls hang back."