Shadow Hound

Every night before bed, Caleb helped me brush my teeth. I could have done it on my own with much difficulty, but I couldn’t open the cabinet Mom kept our toothbrushes in or turn on the water, or hold a cup…not easily… Okay, so maybe I couldn’t brush my teeth on my own. After my teeth were cleaned, he washed my face with a warm washcloth and brushed my hair. Luckily, I hadn’t gotten any marshmallows on my pajamas, so I didn’t need to change before bed. Then he tucked me into my little bed, and I was happy.

My eyes shot open. It was dark. Dark and loud. The whispering breathing rasping evil anger battering at my ears. My nerves were shattered into immobility. For what felt like minutes, I tried to inhale so I could cry out, but fear had chased away control over those muscles. My chest burned with the need for air until eventually, with tremendous effort, I finally broke free of paralysis.

Scrambling off my bed, I scurried across the cold floor and down the hall to Caleb’s room, scritching at the door with unsteady fingers. Quietly though, I was so quiet, trying not to draw the attention of whatever it was that stirred behind our house. Because it was…not alive…yet…questing? Searching? It was looking for something to snare with its corruptive, plant-killing, insect-graveyard-making, tendriling tentacles. During the day and early evening, it was restless but felt contained. Not until after darkness did my home begin to feel unsafe.

I could feel its “gaze” shifting toward me. Yes, it was irrational, yet I knew with every frantic beat of my heart that I couldn’t be alone when it “saw” me. All it would take would be a Moment for it to latch its attention on me and I would be doomed. So, I scratched harder at my brother’s bedroom door, whining in my distress. Though it had only been Moments since I woke, I nearly fainted with relief when I heard his large feet, larger than my mother’s padding hesitantly toward the door.

“Is that you?” His voice was high and tight with terror. I couldn’t form words and whined in reply, nearly collapsing into his arms with relief when he unlocked the door and swiftly pulled me inside. The door closed just as swiftly behind me, sealing out the encroaching danger. It had the scent now, of our combined fear, or maybe it was our movement that had triggered its hastened approach. Or it was the too-loud click of the door latching and locking in the still noiseless night that drew its attention toward us.

The floorboards up the hall creaked in succession. A trail of sound as vivid as any vision, stalking nearer and nearer. Neither of us had any doubt that the thing would be able to see us through the walls and our only hope was to hide from it, pretend we didn’t see it, to be united in our blocking of it out. With a glance at one another, we dove to the bed covers, pulling the heavy comforter over our heads and cuddling together.

We didn’t so much hold our breaths as we just stopped breathing while holding our mouths closed. I may have also covered my nose in the paranoid belief that it would keep out the evil or that the passage of my nostrils into my body would tempt it to find me. The presence slowed briefly in its already slow progress scanning through the house.

I never thought it was odd that neither Caleb nor I tried to go to Mom on these nights of terror for comfort or protection. It was probably because we both knew that would be a disaster. Mom was a doer, a fixer. She liked to face problems head-on and solve them. If someone or something was terrorizing her babies, she was going to confront it and show it the wrath of Mom. And I think Caleb and I both knew that it would destroy her.

Mom was the essence of goodness and light, but as much of a force of nature as she was, neither Caleb nor I thought she was a match for this manifestation of death. For some reason, it never slowed or stopped outside of Mom’s room. The evil didn’t seem able to see Mom, or maybe that wasn’t it. It seemed to rumble with discontent as it bypassed Mom’s room without hesitating. Maybe it knew that she wasn’t corruptible from a distance. Maybe it didn’t want her.