by Flynn, Mac
Amanda released a lung-full of breath, the first time she felt she'd breathed that morning, and collapsed atop the nearest stump. Now she had time to pay attention to her appearance, and she found herself appalled. Her skin was filthy from her head to her feet. The new cuts from the window had closed up, but not without the help of some nasty-looking scabs. The old cuts from last night were...gone.
The young woman blinked. Then she tapped her skin in the places where she was sure there should be healing gashes filled with grime and dried blood. There was nothing there save for a strange indentation where the skin met and closed up the vanished wounds. The only explanation, if it could be called that, lay with the creature. The thing had touched the entirety of her body and yet she could recall feeling no pain or discomfort from the contact. On the contrary, the remembrance of the event caused a soft heat to rise from her center, and she blushed.
Amanda also noticed her body had returned to its original shape concerning her breasts and hips. Whatever aphrodisiac mixture it had given her had no doubt worn off over the night. She regretted the loss of the changes, as she wouldn't have minded having a much bustier figure.
Fortunately her terror still overrode her insatiable lust and soft remembrances of the evening, and Amanda quickly dressed. She was more or less presentable, at least for the hasty retreat she beat down the mountain. Amanda hoped never to return to that horrible place, and did not look back in time to see the shadows in the trees retreat back to the lonely cabin.
Amanda reached her car in record time and was relieved to find it just as she'd left it. There were no other cars in the lot, so she hurriedly slid into her lonely vehicle and locked all the doors. For the first time she had the security to think over the previous night, and the more memories she recollected the more abhorrence she felt. The breaking point came when she remembered how needy she'd been at the last, how desperately she wanted the creature to take her and make her its own. She covered her face in her hands and sobbed at what she'd done. The tears poured from her eyes and she started to blubber like an idiot.
"Oh god, why?" she sputtered out. The darkness had penetrated every part of her, and she'd enjoyed it. Her whole body felt corrupted, unclean. "What have I done?"
No one answered her quiet questions save for a few angry squirrels and chirping birds. Life was all around her again, but she was shut off from their happiness. Her disgust knew no bounds, and she pulled away her hands to look down at the dirty and grime tucked away in their lines. They reflected the filth she had become, the disgusting person who had given into their desires and slept with a horrible creature.
A loud crack in the woods startled Amanda from her brooding self-deprecation, and her head shot up. She glanced over the dashboard and half turned to look out through the back windows. She saw nothing but her instincts told her to run far away from here. She was still too close to the cabin, and the thing could come for her and drag her back. Even knowing how wicked her acquiescence was before, she couldn't guarantee she wouldn't give in again. Not when the thing's methods were so persuasive.
Amanda needed to find someone to tell, someone who wouldn't outright call her crazy. The authorities were immediately ruled out, as was her psychiatrist, but there was still one close person to whom she could turn. She started up the car and pulled out of the parking lot in such a hurry that her tires left deep pits in the gravel. The young woman put the car in drive and gave one last glance toward the trail. Nothing stirred, but deep down inside herself she felt it was out there waiting for her. Then she drove out of there and toward the safe, normal arms of the man she loved.
Tony Cochran owned a small flat near the heart of the city's business district. It cost him a great deal in rent, but he saved in travel time and expense for everything from getting groceries to going to work. It was a lazy Saturday afternoon and he was sitting on the couch watching tv when he heard the knock on the door. He frowned and glanced at his watch. It was too early for the get-together he'd planned with some of his friends. They weren't going to the clubs until after five, and that was a good two hours away.
He heard the knock again, but this time it was louder and more persistent. Then he heard the yelling.
"Tony!" The said young man jumped to his feet. That was Amanda's frantic voice. "Tony! Please let me in!"
Tony rushed over to the door and opened it. Amanda collapsed into his arms and clung to him as though he was her last lifeline. She sobbed into his shirt and her entire body quivered in both fear and relief. He grabbed on to her shoulders and managed to pull her away so he could get a good look at her. She looked awful.
Amanda's hair was matted and her clothes were in disarray, what with her pants buttoned but not zipped and her shirt askew. She had scratches and cuts all over her arms and legs, and her shoes were scuffed and dusty. His girlfriend was blubbering out words he couldn't understand.
"Wait, wait," he pleaded with her. He pulled her away from the entrance and shut the door to avoid any unwanted attention. With care Tony led her over to the couch and set her down on one of the cushions. "Now slow down, take a deep breath and tell me what happened."
His suggestion didn't go as well as he'd hoped. She paused, took a deep breath and then burst out into tears. He set his hands on her shoulders and was surprised by how badly they shook. She was more than just sad, she was terrified.
"What happened? I thought you were going to the cabin?" he asked her. She inhaled some sobs and nodded her head.
"I-I did go, but something happened up there. Something terrible." Amanda broke down again, but this time she opted to wrap herself around Tony. She buried her face into his shirt and the poor, clueless man could only pat her on the back.
The worst-case scenarios ran through his mind. She obviously hadn't died, and there were no signs she'd been attacked by some wild creature. There were the bruises and scratches all over her body, but they were covered in tree sap and tiny bits of rock. That meant she'd gotten them from carelessly brushing up against the forest greenery and resident minerals. With all those options brushed aside, all he could think of was that she'd seen something horrible.
"Did you see something?" He held his breath for her to reveal a murder, but she shook her head. Tony was at the end of his wit,s and so he took hold of the situation. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away from him. From arms distance he could look into her swollen, tired eyes. "Calm down and tell me exactly what happened."
Amanda blinked at his firm voice, and she managed to get a hold of herself. She wiped away the tears, blew out her nose courtesy of Tony's handkerchief, and steadied herself for her outlandish tale.
"I-I did go up to the cabin just like I'd planned," she explained to him. "I didn't get lost or see anyone else, and I made it up there just before it got dark. I was by the fire when I heard a noise beneath the floor." She paused and shuddered at the remembrance, but Tony wasn't terrified in the least.
"So was it a rat or mole or something?" he asked her. He had the sneaky suspicion that she'd been frightened all night by some woodland creature. She shook her head.
"No. I-I don't know what it was. It was dark and moved like tar, but fast like a snake. It came out from between the floor boards and grabbed me." Amanda clutched onto Tony and lowered her head in disgrace. "It touched me everywhere."
Tony blinked. He took hold of her shoulders and pulled her away. They looked into each other's eyes, hers full of fear and revulsion for herself, his mirroring confusion.
"Wait, so you're telling me some tar-like thing made out with you?" he slowly questioned, and she nodded in reply. Tony was quiet for a minute and then he gently smiled. "Seriously?" She frowned when she noticed the disbelieving tone in his voice.
"This isn't a joke," she insisted in her most serious tone. His playful smile was knocked off his face by her stern expression. "It came at me and-and it took me. I couldn't fight against it." The last statement was to hide some of the shame she felt for wanting to be taken. She coul
dn't bring herself to tell Tony about her betrayal of their relationship with that thing. He looked at her again, and then the teasing expression fell off his face.
"You really are serious about all this, aren't you?" he asked her.
"You really think I'd be making up something as bad as this?" she countered in an irritated tone. Amanda shoved herself away from him and spread out her arms to show off her filthy appearance. "You think I'd want to admit that something did that to me and then filthy myself up like this to put on a show? Why the hell would I do this?" Her voice was at a high pitch and Tony worried she'd upset the neighbors.
"Come on, Amanda, let's just calm down and get you cleaned up," he insisted. He stepped toward her but she only matched his step by moving backwards. Her eyes were spitfires of anger and her whole body was trembling.
"Why would I do this?"
Tony paused and his arms dropped to his side. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then shrugged.
"Maybe to get attention? Maybe you'd want others to feel sorry for you, especially after what you heard from the doctor," he pointed out. His words deflated her fury. Amanda was more disappointed in him than angry.
"You honestly think I'm making this stuff up to get attention?" she asked him.
Tony shrugged his shoulders again. It wasn't a question he could answer that wouldn't elicit some angry outburst from her, so he opted to remain quiet. Tears sprang into her eyes and Amanda shuffled over to the couch. She collapsed on it and Tony winced when he heard her sniffle. He hated to see her crying so much. She generally was made of tougher stuff than this, but whatever she'd seen up there had really shaken her loose.
Tony went over and sat beside her. She tried to scoot away, but he was too fast and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Instead she turned her face away from him. He could still see the tears rolling down her cheek.
"I've got a way of making us both happy. Want to hear it?" he softly asked her. She didn't look at him, but she did nod.
"I've got the day off tomorrow. We can go together, see what's up there and figure out for sure what happened," he suggested.
Amanda stiffened and then her head snapped to him. Her eyes were wide and her entire body trembled. She clutched onto his shirt, and her fingers her shaking so hard he wondered how she managed any grip at all.
"Please don't make me go back there," she desperately pleaded. Her tone was a whisper of her usual voice, full of barely restrained terror. She only wanted that place to burn to the ground and be erased from her memories. "I don't want to see that place ever again."
"Then we'll never know for sure what happened," he countered her fear. He looked into her eyes with his own steady ones, and his showed determination. "If you say something attacked you, then what's to say it won't get at somebody else? The least we can do is go back there during the day, check it out and see if we need to tell the authorities about it."
"There's nothing they can do about that thing, don't you understand? They can't catch it and lock it up. It has no form to capture," she spoke to him. Her breathing was growing increasingly rapid and her eyes penetrated his own with such an expression of fear that he felt some of what she was experiencing.. Her trembling hands couldn't keep a grip, and she began to claw at his shirt. "It'll catch us and this time it might not let go."
"And that's precisely why we need to go up there and make sure nobody else gets hurt. We know this thing's up there and there's two of us now. If something goes wrong, one of us is bound to get out of there and tell the police." That scenario didn't produce the best images in either of their minds, so he opted for a concession. "How about we go up there and only I go into the cabin? Maybe it doesn't like boys. I mean, there's been plenty of hunters up there all these years and nobody's ever complained about something strange before, right?"
Amanda still wasn't fully convinced by his practical logic, but she nodded her head. She would go back there, if only to convince herself of the truth or falseness of her memories. Besides, Tony had a point. There must have been dozens of men up there before her and they probably never had any problems sleeping there at night.
"In the meantime, I think you need a long, hot shower," her boyfriend suggested. He tried to lighten the mood by sniffing the air and wrinkling his nose. "You smell like the woods. I think you even ran into a skunk." Amanda frowned, but the expression had lost its seriousness. She gently shoved her shoulder against his own in a playful show of abuse. "Hey, it's true. You look awful."
"Yeah, yeah, I'll get going," she agreed with him. Amanda got up and made as though she were heading out to her own apartment, but Tony gently took hold of one of her wrists. He spun her around and released her so she went tottering toward his own bathroom.
"How about you not scare my neighbors and take a shower here?" he pointed out. He also didn't want her to be alone just then, most especially because night was coming upon them. "And while you're at it, how about you stay the night? We can order out."
Amanda wasn't so emotionally shaken that she couldn't see through his smiles. The young woman understood her boyfriend wanted to keep her close by in case she really decided to flip out and maybe hurt herself. She appreciated his kindness, if not maybe his concern. However, there was a definite upside to this arrangement. She took off her shirt to show her clean bra. Tony stood at attention until she tossed the dirty cloth into his face.
"I'm going to need some laundry done," she told him even as she began stripping off her pants. He was disappointed to see she wore underwear. Then he got a face full of filthy pants. "So you think you can do that while I go mess up your shower?"
"I'd rather you didn't mess up my shower, and why do I have to do your laundry? Why can't you do it when you get out?" he asked her. She put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot on the floor in a dramatic show of annoyance and disappointment.
"I'm the guest here, remember? You're supposed to be at my every beck and call," she teased him. Tony was inwardly glad when he saw the corners of her lips turn up in a smile. He wasn't glad, however, when she tossed her smelly socks at him. He ducked at those projectiles.
"You know this is biological warfare, right?" he countered. "I'm pretty sure the Geneva Convention has a particular paragraph for people who throw dirty socks at anyone else."
"And what's the punishment? A few years in jail or a fine?"
"That's up to the victim," he mused. Wonderfully joyous ideas came to mind, but the one that stuck involved her with a little less clothing.
Amanda noticed his lecherous eyes on the naked parts of her body, and her face paled. Tony saw her suddenly begin to shake and she wrapped her arms around herself.
"Was it something I said?" he wondered. He moved over and wrapped his arms around his girlfriend. She gladly clung onto him and buried her face into his shirt. "On second thought, how about you just get into that shower? I'll call us up some food and get your clothes clean, all right?"
Amanda nodded and looked up into his face with a smile. He warmed beneath her pleased face and then gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the bathroom. She went on her way and left him standing in the center of the room.
His own expression was one of deep worry. Between her interview with the doctor and now this incident, her mind was stretched to the limits of what it could handle. He wondered if she wasn't already breaking under the strain of depression with this story about the cabin. However, there was a small, dark voice in the back of his mind that told him not to disregard her story. She hadn't been known to lie before and life was stranger than fiction. That brought him to a horrible realization. He most feared was what he inwardly most believed.
That she had seen something terrible at that cabin, and that they would find it tomorrow.
Though the next day was bright and sunny, the trip back up to the mountain was gloomy. Tony tried to get Amanda to talk with him about work, food, anything that would bring out a smile or at least a hint of one. She could only manage a few basic answers
, and after an hour he finally gave up. They had to stop only once to gas up, and at that point they were about fifty miles from the head of the trail. Tony paid the cost inside the small, old-fashioned log convenience store.
There weren't any other customers that day, not with the tourist season just about over. Tony opted to ask the storekeeper about the cabin. He was an older gentleman, about sixty years old, and had an open and frank manner about himself. The perfect man to tell him something about the area, down to the hoary tales of old.
"My girlfriend and I rented a cabin up on the Arkham Mountain. Can you tell me if it's an easy climb?" he wondered. The storekeeper gave a noticeable wince at the mention of the mountain.
"Well, it's pretty easy all the way up, but the view isn't too pretty from that cabin," he replied. The way the man spoke, however, created the feeling that he had much more to tell, but dreaded letting the words slip passed his tongue.
"Is there something wrong with it?" Tony asked him. The man frowned, took a look at Tony's female passenger and leaned over the counter. He lowered his voice to a whisper.
"There's been a lot of strange legends about that old place for as long as anyone can remember. I was born and raised around here, and my grandpa told me how no hunter would stay up there alone. It wasn't that they feared disappearing or anything fantastical like that, it's just that they didn't like the noises."
"What noises?" the young man spoke up. He told himself he dreaded to hear this tales because they would give him a biased picture of the cabin, but a part of him insisted on knowing. It was like these bits of information were vitally important to their survival.
