The Path
She was off the path. She knew almost immediately, even in the dying light of the evening, with the last rays of the sun's light barely penetrating the thick foliage above her head, it was obvious. She knew these woods like the back of her hand, had grown up here, had walked this path almost every day this summer.
That was why she was so puzzled when she saw that
thing.
She wasn't worried, not at first anyway. It looked like a big dog curled up in the middle of the path, at least until it turned its head. Its eyes, those were what really gave it away; they were red, not blood red or even like hot coals – they were suns, so hot and piercing that it was a surprise they could be contained. They were malignant and filled with what could only be described as a human level of intelligence. That was when the worry set in. She panicked and she ran and she had been running ever since. She could feel it behind her, chasing her through unfamiliar trees in fading light.
She could hear it too. It was crashing through the underbrush faster than she could hope to stay ahead of, shrieking and howling like an owl or maybe a wolf and panting in time with her own breathing.
She thought that maybe if she just kept running it might lose interest and leave her alone. She was sprinting over roots and ferns, rocks and boulders, and that
thing
that was chasing her was keeping up just fine. She was on the verge of collapse when suddenly the trees gave way. She was running in open space over gravel and loose leaf litter.
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She hit a rock.
She tripped.
She fell.
And she didn't stop falling.
* * *
The police found the body the next morning, just as the sun began to reach its apex. It was lying face down in a creek at the bottom of a steep-sided gully. It was almost a peaceful scene, small rocks interspersed with bigger boulders, water running over them, babbling all the way down the creek while birds chirped on branches brought low by some long-gone storm, the tranquillity of the scene broken only by the body, broken and battered, and by a set of tracks running back up the face of the cliff.
The death was ruled an accident by the coroner, just another stupid kid who wandered off the trail and into the black inkiness of the night, never to be seen again by human eyes.
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