Run & Hide by Beatrix Hollow

9

Iwas dreaming. Shapes and colors were crisp and sensations felt sharp. I could even smell the soft scent of smoldering fires in the distance and feel the cool air of night on my skin. I couldn’t recall ever dreaming this lucidly before.

The soft patter of rain dripped on leaves and soaked into the black dirt but no rain touched me, even when I held my hands out and waited.

There were no sounds of animals or bugs. The moon was being choked by clouds in the sky. I didn’t feel any fear in the dream, just a detached calm.

I was standing in the exact spot where I thought I’d seen the shadow move. There was an empty space where the shadow had been as if something had been there but was now gone. I turned around to head back to camp but a cave was jutting up from the ground behind me, a gaping entrance beckoning me to come closer. Curiosity and lack of fear made my feet move forward.

I peered into thick darkness. The moon’s light couldn’t permeate it. A damp, cool air slithered out and I took a step in, seeing if my eyes might adjust.

Swiftly the darkness was all around me. The prickled sensation of being watched rolled over my back, making my hairs stand on end.

A sense of unease began to develop in my belly and I pressed my hand there, pushing my palm hard against the fluttering anxiety. The darkness in front of me felt vast and I imagined a giant cave, the ceiling a hundred feet above me, and its tunnels going deeper into the earth than any person had been.

Anything could be in a cave like this.

I wanted to leave. The urge hit me in the chest and I jerked around towards the entrance but there was just more blackness. I had gotten turned around, like falling into the water and not knowing which way was up or down.

I felt dizzy, my head bobbing on my shoulders. The anxiety grew, culminating.

Then two glowing red orbs appeared in the darkness. An insidious buzzing noise burrowed into my ears, making me sway on my feet. I knew the red orbs were eyes, a monster looking at me.

The noise grew louder, making me grind my teeth. Nausea roiled up and I began to feel chilled while sweat collected on my forehead and above my lip.

This thing didn’t feel like it should be in this world. It felt all wrong and it was looking at me. It didn’t blink, it didn’t move, but its presence pressed on my mind harder as if it was capable of seeing the very fabric of my mind and unraveling it.

I could sense its curiosity weighing on me. Its attention was almost too much to bear.

It shifted closer and I jerked away from it and spotted the exit. I ran from the cave and through the woods, hoping I was heading back to camp. Instead, the ground suddenly sloped downhill. I felt my feet come shooting out from under me as my butt hit the ground and I slid downhill. The trees ended and the New River was in front of me.

Violin music caught my attention. It was smooth and sensual, drawing me in.

“Caspian,” I said to myself. He was here playing his violin. It was the first instrument he ever played and the one he loved the most. My neck throbbed where he had bitten me and I felt myself clench between my thighs.

I stood up and moved towards the sound. Tree roots and a thin shore made me stumble along slowly as I followed the noise. The edges of the dream blurred the closer I got to the music, making me feel as if I were drugged.

“Caspian,” I called out, finally seeing him. He was sitting on a rock in the river that was half-submerged in water. His long black hair was hanging down his back in waves past his shoulder blades. He didn’t stop playing his violin and didn't acknowledge me at all. I moved closer, listening to his song in the night, both haunting and beautiful.

As I got closer, things seemed to be wrong. His hair was thick strips instead of small strands and glossy with a green shine. His skin had a pale, blue color instead of the normal olive tone. He was only wearing pants, his feet buried in the water to his calves.

The calmness and peace began to leak away. The music sounded harsher now, too fast and jerky. All the notes were sharp. It sounded threatening.

I walked around to see his face, trying to get his attention, but his hair hung thickly in front of his head. I felt nervous and unsure—an anxious feeling building in me. There were no tattoos on his blue skin.

“Caspian?” I asked quietly. Was this really him? My eyes trailed to his violin where he pressed the strings and pulled the bow. The music was growing louder into a crescendo, the notes straining over the increasing noise of the river. The water’s flow was fast now. It splashed brutally against rocks, spraying up behind Caspian and sprinkling his body.

He refused to look up, to even react. My eyes trailed to his fingers, something was wrong with them. He stretched them out to play a note and I stumbled back, seeing webbing. My heart pounded in my chest.

His hair began to divide and glowing yellow eyes peered out, resembling an alligator’s at night—like mirrors, reflecting light. I held my breath as we looked at one another. His stare felt mesmerizing, his music overwhelming. The urge to walk out into the water plucked at my muscles.

The sound of Caspian whispering flew around my head like a haunting of ghosts. The words were all the same, “come to me”, overlapping and merging. It was as if there were more than one of him, all pleading quietly in my ears—taunting me forward.

His lips never moved.

“Come to me,” whispered in my ear. I wanted to even though I was scared and confused. Even though he looked strange. Stranger than I first noticed—sharp long ears poking from his hair, bony fin-like protrusions glued on his forearms.

But it was Caspian. I could feel it and I wanted to do what he begged me to. I wanted to be with him.

A high-pitched grating noise shot through my head, making me cry out. It sounded like speakers screeching with bad feedback. I jerked my head to the forest. Two circular, glowing red eyes looked from between thin trees and shadows. The monster’s body was shaped like a man’s but hidden in shadows.

The dream felt too real—all of it—and suddenly I just knew that Mothman was real and that he was coming for me.

Mothman stepped out from shadows and I saw a leather hat on his head, the brim wide and worn, cloaking his face in shadows. A dark brown leather duster coat hung down to hide the tops of his boots, swaddling his body from sight, hiding what differences might lay underneath.

The glowing red eyes never blinked, burning into me, making my eyes widen. I felt unable to look away. The rest of his face was pure blackness. A void of darkness.

Behind me, Caspian’s violin screeched, the bow bearing down on strings that threatened to snap. It sounded angry, filled with rage.

It was all too overwhelming, two monsters demanding my attention, angry it was divided. The violin squealed and the white noise from Mothman buzzed in my head at the same time.

I screamed, slamming my hands to my ears, half expecting to feel blood leaking out.

“Ava!” A voice in my ear called to me.

My eyes popped open and the tent’s ceiling came into view just barely visible in the darkness. Caspian was pressed up on his elbow, looking at me with wide eyes.

I patted the mattress around me until I felt my phone. It was four in the morning. I swallowed and laid there, blinking at the ceiling of the tent. Caspian must have woken me because I was screaming in my sleep. I shuddered for a brief second, still feeling the cloying dream in my mind.

“Sorr—” Before I could finish apologizing for screaming he pressed his hand to my mouth, not letting me finish.

That’s when I heard it. The shuffle and crunch of twigs and leaves outside the tent.

The raccoons were back? A twig broke under the weight of something too big to be a raccoon. Steady, heavy footsteps moved close to the tent, circling around the camp.

The sensation from the dream wouldn’t leave me. It felt even stronger now. There was something in the woods that wasn’t human or animal and it was close—watching.

It was here.

A scratching noise slid slowly across the side of my SUV. My heart pounded in my chest and my inside churned nervous energy. My mind replayed the ranger’s details about a blood-soaked mouth and I imagined a pile of rib cages in a cave.

Mothman was in our camp. I felt it in my bones. That wasn’t Caspian’s bandmates or some other camper. It was something that terrified me. Something that felt unnatural and alien.

The scraping, scratching noise continued dragging across the vehicle as if someone was pacing around it. Did it think we were inside the car? Did it want to eat us?

Caspian moved his hand from my mouth. I reached out and grabbed him, not wanting to lose contact.

This wasn’t happening. I was delusional. Half asleep, hungover from beers, and still freaked out by the campfire stories and running around in the woods. My fear and dreams were combining. The scratching noise suddenly stopped and a pregnant silence took over the night.

A knock.

A horrifying, quiet knock on the car that an animal wouldn’t make. I pulled the covers over my head and unlocked my phone, trying to send off a text to my mom.

Me: Something is trying to get us!

Me: I’m scared!!

Both texts failed to send.

Caspian slowly moved to the front of the tent, blocking the entrance.

The knock came again and frightened tears spilled from my eyes. I was not crying, I insisted to myself. This was an adrenaline reaction, something biological. I was not crying. I wiped at the water leaking from my eyes as I tried to calm down and think logically. Think like a person who grew up in a normal family and didn’t jump to wild conclusions.

I popped my head out of the covers.

“Hello?” I whispered as quietly as possible. It had to be his bandmates. Maybe they were trying to scare us.

“Ava,” Caspian said quietly in warning but I ignored him. I cleared my raggedy throat and tried again. “Hello?” I said louder.

In response, the knock came again. Goosebumps rose over my arms. Why wouldn’t they say anything? Something felt off.

I thought of the eyes, the cave, the sensations of wrongness. Mothman, a shadowed monster cloaked like some western gunslinger—hiding how different he really was.

I shook my head. I came out here to get away from these things.

“Who is it?” Caspian barked out.

Silence. We sat there eyeing each other, Caspian’s eyes looking inky black in the darkness. His nose twitched as if he smelled something. I took a deep inhale but smelled nothing.

Then the knocking came again.

And again and again. Each time it seemed to reach inside my chest and tease more fear from me.

I shivered and more water leaked from my stupid non-crying eyes as I squeezed my arms around myself. Caspian laid back down beside me, holding me tight in his arms.

“It’s okay, Ava. I can protect you,” he murmured into my ear and he sounded so confident, so nonplussed. His confidence eased me a little. He squeezed me tight, holding me protectively. His hand gripped the base of my neck and his thumb purposely pressed into the bite he’d given me. It throbbed painfully but then I could breathe easier.

The knock came again but this time it was against the picnic table—right next to the tent. A dull thud of knuckles on wood.

“Cas!” I gasped.

“I’m going out.” He started to pull his arms from around me.

“No!” I cried, clinging to him. He settled back down right away and whispered to me that everything was okay over and over—just like he used to. His gentle words and the slow way his hand rubbed between my shoulder blades made me breathe easier.

The noise never came back and Caspian’s quiet, calm assurances that everything was okay settled me.

Eventually, I fell asleep exhausted.