Out of Darkness

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

When I was younger, we lived in a house that looked out on pasture land. Cows, goats, and horses grazed on the pasture near a lake. It was ideal for raising a young family. My sister and I used to bounce on our trampoline, run through garden sprinklers in August heat, and dodge the occasional copperhead or water moccasin snake.

Around my seventh grade year, the landscape began to slowly change. Animals were removed, and tractors pulled up the lush green earth. I watched from my porch the changes that were taking place, and even at such a young age, I related them to my life. I watched these changes for over a year.

Finally, when the golf course opened, I was a freshman in high school. We learned to deal with the occasional golf ball crashing through windows. Eventually, I began taking a seven iron and popping the lost balls back onto the fairway or looking for lost golf balls in the giant ditch between our houses and the golf course.

As the years passed, I enjoyed reading a book with the television on as background noise and listening to the snores of my sweet boxer Mo. He would jump up at the slightest of things, and I swore the dog saw things we never did.

I found myself a senior and home alone. My sister had a track meet, and my mom and dad supported her there. I was grateful I did not have a soccer game or practice. This particular night, I placed my book down, headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and two sugars, and stood by the back door. I looked down adoringly at my old friend lying by the door, snoring his heart out.

My gaze slipped out the window and to the landscape beyond our chainlink fence. I sipped my coffee and noticed a light in the trees. I knew there was a cabin there, but it had been deserted. It flickered in the window as if the wind manipulated the light. The breeze through the trees brought the light in and out of focus. Then it stopped.

The trees froze as if by magic. I stopped and blinked. Mo looked up at me, and when I returned my gaze to the tree line, I swallowed the dry knot in my throat. I told myself that was not normal, and then I remembered every horror movie I had seen and clutched my coffee cup tighter.

Darkness, absolute darkness. Nope, absolutely not normal. I could not tear my eyes away from the trees. I could not rip my gaze from that inky black shadow as it crawled over the farther fairway. I glanced to the sky. There were no clouds, just a brilliant bright moon.

I returned to the fairway, and my heart began to pound, and my breathing hitched. Darkness crawled over the lake where the animals used the drink, and then it oozed over the small hill onto the fairway closest to our house.

The shadows slid down into the ditch, steadily taking the light from the area. I felt my heart in my throat, and my hands squeezed my coffee cup tighter as I witnessed the shadows crest the hill before our fence.

'It didn't go through the fence,' I remembered thinking.

Slowly, inching like goo dripping on a hot summer day to the ground, it slid over the fence. I held my breath as the shadow stopped. I cocked my head, wondering … what I could not tell you. The shadow seemed to think and have a mind of its own. I placed my hand on the door's lock, making sure it was locked.

Then it flew towards me. It hit the window with a slight thud, then smashed in on itself. Steadily forming in the shadow. Slowly the grades of darkness contorted and smoothed. A face.

It reached out harshly, and another thud on the window sounded. I dropped my coffee cup on Mo and heard him grunt, but nothing else. I couldn't take my eyes off the face.

The door opened, and lights flicked on. My family arrived. I peered out over the moonlit yard and fairways to the swaying trees beyond. The flickering of the candlelight was gone.

It was three weeks later when my father put the newspaper down. I saw that face and my father's grave expression.

"Your grandfather died. They didn't find him for days," he said quietly.

I looked once more at the photo of a man, alive and healthy. A man I never knew, never met. It was the face of the shadow.