Quiet Nights

The full moon shed beams of silver onto the forested grove. The light gave plants a ghostly luminescence. It was a perfect image of a silent, serene night. The natural motes of moonlight alighted along droplets from a recent rain. The smell of fresh rain, that crisp and clean smell, floated like a pleasant reminder. The sound of a light breeze could be heard rustling pale green leaves. It was a night breeze. A wind of darkness that chills the spine and brings expectations to this gentle grove.

A gray cloud passed over the moon temporarily darkening the sedate wood. A moment passed. A moment that was but a second and yet lasted an eternity. In that single moment the grove was altered as if by a gruesome painter. Splashes of gore drip from tree branches and pools of rotting organs sift across the grass. The scene of an epic battle with no contestants. And then...the moon.

The grove sat in perfect harmony. The wind rustled branches. Moonlight danced across the grass. A glistening droplet of water fell from a leaf. And if, for a moment, it appeared to turn a dark-rusty color as it passed through a shadow...well, Who was to say it wasn't imagination?

Suddenly the night-time peace was shattered by the gleeful shouts of children. Three boys and two girls, not one past thirteen, romped into the disturbed clearing. one might ask, why are these children up so late? But that is for another time. The little ones ran and jumped around the clearing. Stomping grass and shaking down raindrops from the trees. A boy with brown hair is tripped by another with curly hair and he falls. He stops. In mid fall he felt a chill as he passed into the shadow of an oak. His young mind cannot comprehend the horrors flashing through it, it comprehends only Fear. But, it was only a moment. For the child rolls on the wet grass and into a shaft of silvery light. The brown haired boy cries and runs in fright to his mother, claiming that monsters live in the woods. The others follow in silence, each disturbed by the feeling that the grove's shadows are following also. And who is to say that they didn't?

Quiet returns to the grove. The branches lightly rustle with the wind. Silver rain drops glisten on the grass and the grass that was trampled slowly stands upright again. The smell for fresh rain is clean and crisp beneath the trees. And if a strange smell of rot seems to float just beneath, who is to say it isn't just imagination? As the branches rustle...something seems off. For there was no wind tonight. Or rain, for that matter.