Terror in the Night

The moon hung heavy and low, a swollen silver orb against the thick, cloying darkness of the night. The girl pulled her cloak tight about her. Before her, stretching away in a mass of inky blurred shadows was the forest. The summer rains had washed away the road home and she had no choice but to venture into that swaying throng.1

The wind, which had been steadily rising all day, was now reaching its climax. It seemed to howl around her, sending the trees into a creaking frenzy. The stars had come out by now and were mere pinpricks in the blanket of sky above. It was a clear night and her breath hung on the air in little gasps of mist, as she stood, small and afraid before the wilderness.2

She clutched her basket to her chest, trying to map her way through the forest to her cottage on the other side where her mother would be waiting, bathed in the warmth of candlelight and the crackle of the fire in the grate.3

Her heart was pounding in her chest like the drums the soldiers had played as they marched through the town on Mayday. Her brother had joined them, going off to fight the war with the French. Their invalid mother needed looking after and she was the only one left to do it. There had been no food left in the cupboard this morning, the shelf had stared back at her infuriatingly bare and unwelcoming. She had had no choice. It was enter the town and get food, or stay and starve. Her mother needed food and so did the chickens and cows that were their livelihood. 4

It had started so well, she had skipped through the forest that morning, listening to the birds as they spoke to each other in their strange twittering language. They had flown from tree to tree as if they were her honour guard. She had brought food from the marketplace, spoken to friends and stayed to the midday meal with the baker’s wife and the five young children. She had started walking home and stopped to pick flowers. It was there that tiredness overcame her, brought on, no doubt, by the baker’s wife's thick and creamy chicken pie. 5

She had lay down to sleep for an hour in the shade of a tree and when she had woken, the sun was going down over the hills. In a panic, she had fled for the road, but had found it washed it away under a swirling torrent of water. Now, she stood before the forest and tried to decide what to do. She should have been home hours ago.6

The blood rushed to her head and she gave a little sob. She took a step forward and then stopped, skipping backwards, fear consuming her. Her head pounded, her heart beat inside her breast like a fluttering and frightened bird. She felt very cold. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and tried to still her panting gasps. She took in a deep breath of icy cold air and ran. 7

Her feet slapped against the grass and then met with the soft spongy floor of the forest, the dead leaves, the broken branches and the plants. She opened her eyes, aware that to push on blindly through the forest could end in death. Branches slapped and raked at her face and arms. The trees seemed to be all around her, pressing in on her, towering over her. She was sobbing now, uncontrollably and her breath hitching almost to the point of hysteria. She felt the stinging brush of a nettle, but was too afraid to even feel it.8

Shapes and shadows seemed to be rushing past her. The noise of the wind was ten times as loud inside the forest. She felt as if she was in the eye of a cyclone and she could feel a scream rising in her chest. A caged creature, determined to get out, a symbol of her fear and terror. All the stories she had ever heard of ghosts, goblins, demons, murderers and other things running through her mind. 9

All at once, she realised that she was in open space, the frenetic crackling and creaking of the trees behind her. The moon shone on open grassland. Her heart felt as if it was about to burst right out of her chest, her legs shook and her tears were drying almost to freezing on her cheeks.10

The cottage was ahead of her now, but she couldn’t stop running. She was nearly there, nearly home. She thought she would die from the relief of it.11

She came to the head of the slope, something wasn’t right, she found her legs had stopped running. Almost without being aware of it, she was standing still, staring at the darkened windows, the open door and trying to understand what it meant.12

She heard the rustle behind her and knew it hadn’t been the trees in the forest, the howling had not been the wind, but something else. The creature was behind her now at her back and almost on her.13

She sank to her knees in the wet grass, let a defeated sob escape from her lips and closed her eyes. 14

The basket fell from her arms and rolled away into the long grass at the foot of the forest, spilling its contents like blood.