Into The Thicket.
1076 Words
~Aria~
News of the mutilated cats spread through Black Hallow faster than wind through dry trees.
It was the kind of news that stopped casual conversation mid-sentence. The kind that crept into every corner of town—every whispered exchange in the grocery store, every slow shake of the head on the porch steps. Nearly a dozen cats, dead by morning. Torn, slashed, some left untouched except for the eyes—those were just… gone. Not eaten. Not chewed. Just missing.
It wasn’t superstition anymore. Not paranoia.
Something was out there.
By nine, Lenore and I stood outside the road, surrounded by neighbors who looked just as anxious as I felt. The place was thick with murmurs and worry, a sea of flannel jackets and knitted scarves, crossed arms and restless feet. A few people cried quietly, others stared ahead like the floor might open and swallow them whole.
I hadn’t said much all morning. Not since we found Mittens. His fur had been matted, his body untouched. poor little thing.
It didn’t feel random.
It didn’t feel like an accident.
I kept seeing Percy in my head. Mrs. Carter’s cat. I’d seen his body too. And I couldn’t unsee it.
Animal control arrived just after ten. Two trucks. Three men in dark green uniforms and matching grim expressions. One of them wore a patch that said “Thatcher.” He walked beside Mayor Kingsley, who looked like he hadn’t slept. His beard was more silver than I remembered, and his usually calm voice cracked slightly when he asked for silence.
“We believe we’re dealing with a wild animal,” he said, loud enough. “A large coyote, perhaps. Or a grey wolf that’s wandered down into town.”
That got a reaction.
“Coyotes don’t kill like this,” someone shouted.
“They don’t kill this many,” someone else added.
The woman from the bookstore stepped forward, eyes red. “My cat was indoors. It tore through the screen to get out. Something called it.”
Mayor Kingsley hesitated, then looked to Thatcher.
Thatcher cleared his throat. “We’re taking this very seriously. With the mayor’s permission, we’ll be conducting a search of Forest today. We’ll be looking for signs—tracks, hair samples, dens. Anything we can find.”
“It’s not a normal animal,” I heard someone whisper near me.
I believed them.
At noon, they started the sweep.
Three officers from animal control, two deputies, and the mayor himself. They carried tranquilizer rifles and sidearms, though their faces said they weren’t entirely sure what they were up against.
I stood with Lenore, as they moved toward the west end of the woods. The trees loomed darker than usual, like their shadows stretched further than they had yesterday.
“Watch how they return,” Lenore said, her voice barely above a breath. “The forest doesn’t like being hunted.”
I didn’t ask what she meant.
They walked in slow, deliberate strides, flashlights raised even though the sun was still high. The woods were unnaturally quiet, the way a room falls silent when someone stops breathing.
After maybe twenty minutes, they paused. One of the officers—Grady, I think—crouched near a fallen log and called the others over.
They found a print.
Even from where I stood with the rest of the town, I could see the shape of it. A paw. But not just any paw.
A huge one.
Thatcher dropped to his knees, placed his hand inside the print. It dwarfed him. Bigger than a man’s boot, wider than a dinner plate. Deep too—like whatever made it had real weight behind it.
“Jesus,” I heard him mutter.
The mayor knelt beside him, pale and visibly shaken.
Another print. Then another. They were spaced evenly. Deliberate.
“This is no coyote,” one deputy said. “No dog neither.”
They followed the prints deeper. We couldn’t see them anymore after that, only the rustling of leaves and the flickers of light through trees.
And then… they didn’t come back.
Not for two hours.
By the time they returned, every man looked different. As if something had scraped along the inside of their ribs and left a mark. Thatcher’s face was ashen. The mayor’s hands trembled when he adjusted his tie.
“There was nothing else,” he told the gathering crowd. “Just the tracks. They vanished into moss. No signs of blood. No animal. Nothing.”
“What do you mean vanished?” someone asked.
“I mean they just… stopped,” Thatcher answered. “Like it lifted into the air.”
No one knew what to say after that.
I didn’t either.
That night, Black Hallow felt tighter. Smaller. Lights stayed on in every window I passed. People locked their pet doors. Some put bowls of salt near their thresholds. Old superstitions, Lenore said. For protection.
At dinner, she barely spoke. The only sound in the house was the steady ticking of the kitchen clock and the clink of forks against plates.
“I don’t think people believe it’s just a wild animal,” I finally said, breaking the silence.
Lenore’s hands paused mid-cut. “Because it isn’t.”
I swallowed. “Then what is it?”
She looked out the kitchen window, her profile framed by candlelight. “There are things that live in this land, Aria. Old things. They don’t walk in the open unless something’s wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
She set her fork down gently. “Balance. Territory. Cycles. If something is taking the cats—especially like this—then something has been disturbed.”
I thought of the woods. Of the night I’d followed Percy. Of the growl I heard. The yellow eyes in the dark.
My heart began to thump in my chest.
“You think this is… supernatural?”
Lenore didn’t flinch. “I think you’ve already felt it. That night behind the school.”
I didn’t say anything.
Because she was right.
I had felt it. The wrongness. The watching. The way the air seemed to pull tighter around my skin, like something just beneath the trees had noticed me.
“It’s not over,” Lenore whispered. “Whatever it is, it’s still hungry.”
I didn’t finish my dinner. At night, the lights in town didn’t flicker once. and to make the matter worse, it started to rain.
- Writer
