by Ira Robinson
Now that she was back inside, however, she could recognize the way her mind felt dampened by it, a haze shrouding her ability to think as straight as she should be.
It was probably just a cold, some kind of opportunistic virus that grabbed hold of her while she was down from lack of sleep, nutrition, and wandering around in the woods all night long.
She could not afford for it to get the best of her. Not when there was so much at stake.
She went to the bathroom and got a few pills. It would hopefully be enough to take care of the major part of the fever, and if it made her head clear because of it, so much the better.
She dropped the plastic cup in the sink and froze in place as another sound entered her ears.
A soft rapping sound coming from somewhere.
It stopped before she could figure out from where.
She swallowed, feeling her throat click from the tightness.
Liz walked through the bathroom doorway, let feet leading her to the front door of the house. Her senses were on edge, with every sense in play.
A hesitant scratching came from the front door, sounding two times before falling silent.
Her heart fiercely beat in her chest and she stopped moving for a moment, unsure she actually heard the noise.
After only a moment, she heard a low, raspy voice.
"Mommy?"
It came through the crack of the door.
Liz sprang forward, crossing the hallway and living room in only a few steps. She grasped the handle of the door and flung it wide, her arms outstretched to enfold her lost child into an embrace.
The thing on her porch step was not her daughter.
In the fleeting moment of time, before the smile already beaming on Liz's face melted away to a shriek, she took in the horrific sight of whatever the thing was.
It was almost as tall as Liz, herself, with long, stringy hair glossy in the light pouring onto the porch from behind Liz. Its face elongated, almost beak-like, wrapped with flesh.
Small eyes peeked out from behind thick lids, reflecting some of the light away. The pupils were so tiny she could not discern them at all, and rheumy gooey green globs of some kind caked around not just the orbs themselves, but the cheeks, as well.
Its clothing was far too small for it, the spindly arms and legs, reminiscent of the spider Liz had watched earlier in the evening, sprouted from the holes.
These rags transfixed Liz the most, as the screech, beginning in the depths of her chest poured out of her in waves.
The filthy rags, as the terror swept through Liz, were Cassie's. It was the dress her daughter wore to bed the night she disappeared.
Liz balled her fingers into fists as she stepped back one pace. Her mouth opened as another scream tore through her weary and sore throat.
The creature reacted to her own movements by backing up a step, itself. It stretched its arms out before it, the palms of the long hands held outward. The ribbon Liz left on the plate for Cassie was around its fingers, drooping downward. It already picked up some of the filth covering the thing.
Its head turned back and forth on its thin neck, so thin it seemed barely able to hold up the weight of the bobbling thing on top. A low, guttural noise started to form in its chest, pouring out through its tooth-lined mouth with a fetid, dead odor that instantly made Liz think of rotting flesh and maggots.
Liz pushed outward at the thing, her terror mixing with rage at the sight of the clothing it wore. Somehow, it had gotten hold of Cassie and taken her clothing, stripped away what she had and taken it for itself.
"Where is Cassie?" she screamed at the top of her voice, watching as the thing stumbled backward at her hit.
It went down the steps and touched the ground with its bare feet, slabs of flesh against the dirt.
"Mommy," the thing said, raising its arms above its head. The sound of its voice grated, a growling barely comprehensible. "You mommy...?" The words stretched out as one droning tone.
Liz glanced around, trying to see where this thing hid Cassie. Was she around somewhere? Maybe close by? "Cassie!" she screamed into the night as she raised her fists again toward the monstrosity.
Only the labored breathing of the thing before her made a sound; even the denizens of the dark had gone silent.
"Where is my daughter? What have you done to my child, you bastard?" She stepped forth again, bracing her feet as she punched once more at the face of the beast.
It struck in what she thought was its snout. A soft crack followed the groaning growl of it as it went back another step. Its head snapped back, as well, the weight of the punch causing it to lose balance and fall to the ground.
Liz immediately pounced, her fury at the thought of this thing, this demon spawned from hell itself taking her daughter and doing... something... to her giving her impetus to push past any fear she felt of the thing.
Her legs went around its own, and, though the thing tried to reach out to grasp her with both of its arms, she bucked them away with her elbows. Her hands then went straight to the throat.
"Where is she?" she screamed at it again, raising it up slightly to bash it back down to the ground again, bouncing its head into the dirt.
"Don't..." she heard it say, its voice barely above a whisper as the pressure of her fingers pushed into its throat.
Her mind shut down, rational thought gone away as the heartache at the loss of her daughter and her despair over the long days burst out, fueling the rage even further. Bits of spittle crossed the distance between her lips and the bleeding snout of the thing.
"Tell me what you did to her!" The meat at the back of the creature’s head slapped into the ground, as Liz brought it up and back down again, punctuating each word.
It roared through the gasping of breaths and the hands scrabbled at her fingers, trying to force them loose. It was losing strength quickly, though, and each second that passed caused it to fight less and less.
It tried to kick her off itself, but she tenaciously held fast, the fire of her rage bringing a primal scream of her own to her mouth.
"Sor..." the thing tried to spit out, but her hold on its throat tightened even further, cutting off what it would say. It brought its fingers beneath Liz's own again and pulled slightly, its final moments coming as the fight lessened further. "Sorry... momma..."
Its tongue lolled out of its mouth at the last sounds and Liz held it still for a moment longer, her heart fiercely hammering repeatedly while her ragged breaths came out in puffs.
The small rivulet of blood pouring from its nose stopped, glistening in the low light.
The only movement she could see coming from the thing was from small bugs, gnats, and tiny flies, crawling along its skin, flitting away and landing again between soft tufts of fur, wispy and white, which were interspersed across its head and face.
She let go of its neck and leaned back away from it, still straddling the body with her legs; her knees pushed into the sides of its chest.
Her hands and arms ached terribly from the pressure she put on the beast, but it did not matter. She had done what was necessary.
She got off the thing but did not stand. She sat beside it, staring at the large figure in the small dress, the same pretty dress Cassie liked so much. She let her fingers drift across it, feeling the fabric.
As her rage settled, ebbing into a small fire while her breathing slowed, she could not help but be satisfied with what she had done.
Whatever the thing was, whatever hell it spawned from, it had obviously done something to Cassie. She might never know the full truth, but it deserved the fate it got. She was not glad, but she could feel satisfied knowing the creature would not be able to harm anyone else.
If she could do it again, she would.
She stood, slowly rising to her feet; the aches in her body and the fever rising from her efforts did not make it easy. She kicked at the leg of the thing, a last flash of her vindictive anger getting a form of satisfaction from it.
A moment later, she stopped and grabbed both arms of the creature and dragged it slowly to the back yard, rounding the corner of the house so it would not be seen from the road if someone happened to look.
It was a bit dark for her to do anything about it at that moment, so she went back into the house to wait for the first sparks of morning light. She would bury it near the woods then.
As she sat in her chair waiting for morning to come, she considered calling the sheriff to let him know what happened. He should see what the thing was, the thing that destroyed her life and stole her little girl.
But if she did, then would come the calls. The investigations. The intrusions into her life. The questions with no answers. The sympathetic looks and the rumors of what really happened.
Things she did not think she had the strength to deal with. Not anymore. Not now that her Cassie was gone from her for sure.
She would get through this night, then bury the monstrosity in the ground and, hopefully, begin to grieve for her baby, somehow.
Nothing would ever be normal again. Others around her would move on. Jack would probably start his family anew with his girlfriend; he barely cared about Cassie, anyhow. Those who came to search would just move on with their lives as if nothing happened, with everything status quo.
Not for her. Not ever again. Even if she moved to another town, the memories of what she lost in Tanglewood would never leave her.
When the light outside became sufficient for her to see by without hurting herself, she got up, wincing a little at the stiffness and pain, and She pulled the shovel from its place in her small utility shed at the back of the house and dropped it at a spot near the first line of trees.
The thing was still laying near the back of the house, the stink of it nearly overwhelming after only a few hours of death. At least a longer period had not passed; she could not imagine how it would be at that point.
As she dragged it toward the spot she picked out, she thought about trying to take it out of Cassie's dress. It really did not deserve to burial with the memory of her child carried with it, but in the end, she had to consider why she would want to.
Would she want to keep it around? It had been the last thing her daughter wore, and that meant something intense, but, at the same time, the creature who stole it had horribly tainted it.
If she tried to keep it, maybe, in some way, a bit of the creature itself would live on, kept in stasis by its presence.
No, perhaps it would be best to just leave it as it was, a festering bag of unspeakable atrocity, buried forever in the woods, never to be seen again.
It took the better part of the morning for her to dig a hole big enough to cover the creature entirely and have it be deep enough it would not be dug up by every wandering animal who wandered nearby. It would not float up from any of the monsoon rains they sometimes got in the area, either.
She had difficulty getting out of the hole, but by the time she managed it, she also decided against going to the store and trying to find lye or some kind of fertilizer to help hide the scent of it. The ground should be good enough.
Its legs were closest to the hole. She grabbed them, dragging them the few feet toward the spot she dug. She readied herself for the throw.
The dress had pulled away from the legs toward the stomach and Liz froze in place when her eyes caught the sight of a mark on the white, pasty flesh.
It was a large, kidney-shaped brown spot, not far away from the left hip.
She stumbled backward slightly, her rear coming to the ground and her breath escaping in a huff. She tried to swallow, but the dry crack of it did little, and her mouth went back to slack openness.
Her hands gripped the grass, tightly clinging to it, though it pained the new blisters she created with the heavy use of the shovel. She tilted her head, squinting severely to cut through the haze that was already trying to form.
Her right hand let go of the grass and reached forward, stopping short of touching the body laying only a few inches away. Even the stench of it lessened as the confusion in her mind ran rampant.
The mark was the same shape and in the same place as the one Cassie had on her leg, there from the moment of her birth.
It was larger on the creature, much larger. It was the same mark, nonetheless. It stood out clearly, a dark splotch in the midst of a sea of pale white.
The words the creature tried to utter floated back to her, cresting the waves of static in her mind as the hesitation continued.
"Mommy. Sorry. Don't..."
The red ribbon was gone, left behind in the grass somewhere around the house. Cassie would have loved that ribbon. She would have probably wrapped it around her own hand, as she so often did. Whenever she did it, Cassie would act like she was a fairy of some sort, able to do wonderful magic, and Liz would smile at her as she ran through the house with it trailing behind.
This thing, too, had the ribbon wrapped around its hand, like a playacting mutant fae princess.
"Mommy. Sorry. Don't..."
Her fingers reached the dark spot and touched it, the cold flesh causing her to tremble against her fever heat.
Could it be? Was it even possible?
Welters of tears started to flow out of her eyes as they widened and she bit her lip hard enough to taste blood.
As the truth sunk in, she could not think, could not come to terms with it all.
Somehow, her daughter had changed. Somehow, in the woods, she had become this... thing.
She found her way back home after being lost for so long.
All she wanted to do was come home.
Liz turned her eyes away, but the image of the leg burned into her memory. She closed her eyes, straining to tighten them as the floodgate inside her opened. Her shoulders bent, stooping her forward as the weight of her guilt crushed her.
Her fingers tightened in on themselves again, the sensation of the throat, the thin neck, barely able to cope with holding the head upright, between those same fingers, blocking off the breath of the thing that she now knew was her daughter.
The daughter she loved beyond life itself was gone, taken from the world by her own hands, and she was damned for it.
She started to move, keeping her eyes closed for the moment, crawling away from Cassie on her hands and knees. The remnants of her weeping dripped from her eyes, splatting softly against the grass as she went.
Finally, she stood, opening her eyes. The aching of her body, the fever she was fighting hard against and the depth of her anguish made her stumble and fall a few times, as she went to the back of her house, but she eventually made it and opened the door.
The small garden shears she used infrequently were easy to find. She pulled them away and went, with faltering steps as she cried loudly, to the cold body of her child. She came down to her knees before it and stared at the horribly disfigured face.
"I'm so sorry, baby." The words came from her slowly, barely above a whisper. She hoped Cassie could hear them. Maybe she could.
She failed Cassie her whole life. From the moment she was born, she had tried to give her a good life but always fell short of it. She always hoped she would have the chance to make up for it later.
Always later.
As Liz brought the shears down on her wrist, slicing it open as deeply as she could, she hoped Cassie could somehow find peace, away from the horrible life she never deserved.
Her other wrist was harder to do; the shears were slick with the blood from her wrist as the flow quickened with her nervousness at what would happen next. The cut was not as deep, but it would do.
The shears fell to the ground and Liz lay down beside the changed body of her little girl. Her hand reached out to touch the corner of the dress she had put on her the morning they woke up and went to the bakery together.
The blood spilled out with each beat of her heart, greedily absorbed by the ground beneath her wrist.
She closed her eyes as the moments passed, praying that Cassie would be waiting for
her, somewhere on the other side.
Maybe she could be a better mother to her there.
Black Rose Society File #21-03184
Incident report filed by 00417
Parties involved: Elizabeth Barlowe, Cassie Barlowe
Incident notes: Original report was a child missing, presumed in the woods surrounding Tanglewood.
A wellness check was incited by Sheriff Bartholomew Miller, who arrived on scene to find E. B. near death from attempted suicide and a body of creature type TORMASTU. Subsequent investigation concluded.
TORMASTU killed by E.B.
