KATIE MARIE

Going back can be dangerous

“It’s already getting dark out.” The trees around the cabin are moving. Slow, deliberate rustling not caused by the wind but rather something big moving through the foliage. 

“Your cars got headlights. Now don’t mess about. Leave. I don’t want you there tonight.”

“Dad, the night Jason went missing, you chased something out of the cabin.”

Dad is silent.

“It was one of them, wasn’t it?” I can hear something moving outside. Dad is still quiet. “Why won’t you admit what it was?”

“JoJo.”

“You never let us come back after that, you never made fun of gran after that, what the fuck was it? Why can’t you say it?”

“It-” Dad doesn’t finish, my car alarm goes off and the loudest crash I’d ever heard in my life has me dropping the phone and leaping to my feet. I run to the window. My car is upside down on its roof, wheels turning in the air.

“Joanne!” Dad is shouting.

The wall behind me shakes as something big throws itself at the cabin. I hear the wood fracture and I’m running for the door. Another loud crash behind me and I hear the wall collapse, I look back. The creature tearing its way into the cabin looks like a bear. If a bear was twelve-foot-tall, 800 pounds and had a human face. The creature meets my eyes and suddenly I can’t breathe.

The creature has Jason’s face.

It moves with awkward grace and roars. The sound a twisted union of a child’s scream and a bestial roar.

I wrench open the door and run down to the lake. The rain has turned the path into a stream of mud and dead leaves. I skid and slip my way down, sliding right into the lake. The ice water turning my legs numb almost immediately.

The monster tears itself free of the cabin wreckage and lumbers towards the lake.

I wade out into the water. I’m swimming by the time the gas stove explodes, and the wreckage burns. The creature stands on the bank watching me.

“JoJo,” it cries in Jason’s voice. “JoJo come back.”

I cling to a piece of driftwood and pray for daylight.