#cburke

[lolzcollz]

T R E A D

I walked through the woods one night. It was late, past midnight but I don’t remember by how much. I couldn’t sleep that night. I couldn’t sleep most nights during that time. I remember lying in bed next to him and I just couldn’t stand to be near him. I felt an immediate need to get away. So I threw on a sweatshirt and some shoes and started walking.

We live in a rural area. Our backyard opens up to a nature trail. It’s really lovely, honestly. When we found the house I dreamed of bringing a baby back there one day but that was back then, now I try to avoid those woods. Something pulled me towards it that night. I wouldn’t be able to explain it and even if I tried I don’t think anyone would believe me. I went into the woods and walked for a while.

I don’t know what I was thinking about. I don’t even know if I was able to keep my mind occupied. I think it was just blank, a clean white page with no words. It felt good to not have to think. It felt freeing to be out in the woods in the moonlight alone. Except, I wasn’t alone.

I hadn’t ever really walked too far into the woods before that night. I used to explore further and further each day when we first moved here. Then after it all happened, I stopped altogether. That night I had gone further than I had ever gone before. I found a clearing in the woods and I moved some branches so that I could look.

There was a group of people standing in a circle. They all wore dark robes and I couldn’t see any of their faces. There was something in the middle of the circle, I wasn’t able to quite make it out right away but it looked like it was a lump of something. The people were chanting something, not loud enough for me to hear it. When the chanting stopped, one person moved forward into the circle and knelt down. When they stood up again and rejoined the circle, the lump in the middle was beginning to burn. I leaned forward slightly to get a better look. The fire was growing bigger and hotter and I could see some of the faces. They were all older than me. I recognized some of them from the grocery store or the post office. One of them was even my neighbor.

Then, the screaming started. I jumped backwards at the sudden noise in the silent night. The lump in the middle of the circle that was on fire was screaming. I once again leaned forward and moved the branches. I could see the lump was a bag of sorts. It was wiggling excitedly. There was someone in the bag. These people were burning someone alive. I watched with wide eyes as the lump continued to scream and wiggle and the people just stood there still in a circle and held hands.

Eventually, the screaming stopped. Without thinking, I walked out into the clearing. I stopped just outside the circle.

“Is there a person in that bag?” I asked everyone. They were all silent. “Is there a person in that bag?” I repeated my question. I locked eyes with every single person in the circle and still no one answered me. I walked to the lump in the bag and found the charred zipper. I grabbed at it and it burned my skin but I needed to know. I needed to see inside the bag. I didn’t recognize the person inside the bag but they were definitely dead. I stood up and looked again at everyone. I stopped when I saw Linda, our mail lady. I walked up to her.

“You just killed that person.” I said. Slowly, she nodded. “Can you do that to my husband?” I asked her. She nodded again.

  10/29/2019

Colleen Burke

[lolzcollz]

M I N D L E S S

I was seventeen when the world went to shit. I grew up in a time where people loved to talk about the end of the world. It was everywhere, you couldn’t escape it. It was on TV and movies as made up scenarios of alien invasions but also on the news as real scenarios like global warming. I tried to ignore it as much as I could but sometimes a thought snaked its way down into my brain and I wouldn’t be able to let it go. I would lie awake some nights and think about the impending doom of the end. It made life pretty hard for me, that’s why I preferred to ignore it. Just sweep it away and under a rug and don’t pay it any mind. That I was able to do. I went to school I came home from school, skirted through the internet without looking too close at the bad stuff and rinse and repeat. That’s just the way my generation dealt with stuff.

I noticed something weird was happening when I walked into school one day. Nothing out of the ordinary particularly stood out but when I looked back I pinned it as the beginning of the end. I went to public high school and just my class alone had over five hundred students in it. Add that in to the other three classes that shared the school and we had roughly two thousand students in total. In between classes, the hallways were packed with kids running this way and that. It wasn’t unusual to be bumped into every now and again just based on how many kids were trying to move at once. That morning though, it seemed like everyone had lost their sense of balance. Students were running into each other, teachers were bumping into students, people hit lockers and open doors. It just seemed like everywhere you went, someone was running into something. Sometimes it was hard too, not just a little bump or a small shove. No, I watched a kid slam head first into the doorway of Mr. Rald’s class room. He hit it so hard he got a bloody nose and had to go to the nurse’s office. It seemed weird but I didn’t pay it any attention because well, you just didn’t pay attention to things, that’s how it was.

Over the course of the next couple days I noticed it got worse and worse. The coordination of the whole student body plus the staff was declining rapidly. I went to the bathroom during math and I saw a few kids just wandering the hallways and it was strange. They were slowly walking around, dragging their feet, bumping into the walls or each other, and their eyes weren’t focused at all. It was like they had checked out and their bodies had taken over. They just kept moving and it didn’t matter what they ran into. I walked past one of the kids and stopped in front of him. He didn’t even notice I was there. I waved my hand across his eyes and snapped in his ear, trying to pull him out of whatever trance he was in but it was no use. It wasn’t just happening at school either. My little sister and my parents were noticeably off balance, too. My dad would be setting the table for dinner and drop a plate, shattering it to pieces on the floor. He didn’t even know he did it, either. He kept setting the table. He walked over the pieces of the ceramic plate on the floor and cut his foot wide open. He bled all throughout the house only stopping when I drew attention to it. He hadn’t even noticed he was bleeding.

No one talked about what was happening to the world so I figured I shouldn’t either. Maybe if I had I could have helped fix whatever it was that was happening. By the time someone finally did say something, it was too late. A report came out a couple months later that finally drew attention to whatever the fuck was happening to the world. In those months it got way worse. There were clips all over the internet of people just mindlessly wandering all over the world. People in the mall, at work, on the beach, you name it and you could find a video. It seemed the majority of people were like this. It got to the point where whenever someone entered one of these trances you didn’t ever know if they were going to snap out of it. My sister got into a trance a month in and she still hasn’t come out of it. My parents went into a trance not long after she did.

The report that came out was from a group of scientists who noticed this all happening. They all met up and worked together to figure out what was happening. It’s a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo that I only understand every other word but essentially they discovered there was a hidden gene that was somehow getting turned on. When the gene got turned on, the brain processes went dormant. They didn’t die but their brain’s electrical impulses stopped firing. Something was causing the blockage of the neurons which put people in these trance like states. The scientists claimed they were working on finding some way to reverse the gene and turn it off but that was almost three years ago. There really hasn’t been any news since then.

I haven’t seen another person who’s not in a trance in nearly that whole time. Sometimes I think it’s just me that’s left and if I’m the last of humanity then I feel real sorry for us. At first it was alright, there was no one around to stop me from doing anything I wanted. I would walk down to the beer distributor and drink all night and when I woke up the next morning I’d walk down again and grab more beer. I entered a different kind of trance, an alcohol induced one. It was fun at first but with no one to share it with it got old pretty quick.  I haven’t really been doing much. I feel as mindless as those people out there wandering around some days.

Recently, I’ve been able to pull myself out of that feeling. I’ve been putting all of my effort into finding other people. Out of the seven billion people on this planet I refuse to accept the idea that I’m the last one left. So I put myself to work. I went out and got an old school radio that I’ve been using to send out distress calls for anyone in the area. Everything’s basically been shut down at this point. Phone lines, internet, and electricity are all done. But thank God for battery power. Eventually, sure, I’ll run out of batteries but when that happens hopefully I’ll already be with other people or I’ll be in a trance myself. I’ve been going house to house on my bike, too. I’ve been knocking on every door in hopes that someone opens it. No one has yet but I still have plenty of houses to try.

I was doing this for a solid month before I started noticing I was blacking out. I would be knocking on the front door of someone’s house one minute and the next I’m six streets down and in the middle of the road. At first, I was terrified. But now it’s happened to me three times this week and I figure now is just my time. I bought this tape recorder and I’m telling my story in the hopes that someone finds it, someone who’s still walking around consciously, someone who can help save the rest of us. I’m going to attach it to a string and wear it around my neck and hope when I’m out there wandering around like the rest of them that someone notices what’s dangling around my neck. I don’t know when the next black out is going to happen or if it’ll be the last one before I’m perpetually in a trance but I feel at peace. I’m not scared anymore. With whatever time I have left, I’m going to be hopeful. Hopeful that you can save us. So if you’re listening to this, my name is–

Colleen Burke

10.2.2019

[lolzcollz]

W I L D

Can I tell you a secret? I think someone’s trying to kill me. Actually, I know they are since they told me point blank they would kill me if I ever told anyone about this. But I have to tell someone.

I’ve always felt…different than everyone else. In high school I was the kid who didn’t fit in with anyone, not even the misfits. I was the one lone wolf and no one wanted to be friends with me or talk to me. I got bullied. Not a whole lot, but you know, enough to make it mean something to me. I always wondered what was wrong with me. There’s just something that makes people think I’m a werido and a loser. But that’s why when I’m online I can be something…else. People don’t know me as me, you know? They don’t know Calvin the weird guy who doesn’t have friends. They know C.C Andre, the esteemed smut writer.

I know what you’re thinking: a smut writer? What the fuck is that? I write stories about sex. People having sex with each other, people having sex with household objects, people having sex with animals, animals having sex with animals, etc. Basically anything that can have sex with something else, I’ve written it. I get people emailing me requests for stories all the time. I don’t actually want to write about someone fucking their pet dog but people idolize me. They tell me how great my stories are and how rock hard they get when they read my words. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted. I feel like I’m almost needed, you know?

I know, I know. It’s fucked up. I decided recently I was going to stop writing them altogether. And I swear, I was going to but then I got an email from someone. It was an anonymous email, most of them are, but that wasn’t the weird part. I’ll just copy and paste what this person sent me:

“C.C. Andre,

I hope this email finds you well. I have a request for you to write a story. I’ve attached a file to this email. Watch the video. Memorize the video. I would like for you to transcribe every single detail. I mean, every single detail, down to the last hair. I am entrusting you to not share this video with anyone else. I hope I wouldn’t have to threaten you but if you do share the video I will know, and I will kill you.

I am willing to pay any price you name. I look forward to hearing back from you.”

None of this was really strange to me. I mean, sometimes people send me pictures of their furry suits to use as reference but no one had ever sent a video before. I had just assumed it was a at home porno some couple made. I opened the link without thinking twice. What I saw on that video…it was…it was something else.

The video opened up in the woods. There were trees all around, you couldn’t see past the thick bunches of leaves. The camera was shaky. Whoever was holding it seemed nervous. You could hear their heavy breathing. They walked further into the woods and eventually came upon a clearing. They put the camera down on a tree stump and stood in front of the lens. The person was a man and seemed to be in his early forties. When he got in front of the camera he stopped for a couple seconds. He looked like he was listening for something. When he was satisfied with whatever he was waiting for he began to undress. He slowly unbuttoned his shirt and folded it. He started a pile of his clothes next to him. Next, he took off his jeans. He too folded those and added it to the pile. He waited for a second before taking off his boxers. I could see his boner through them already. I didn’t know what to expect from this. Maybe he was just in the woods alone and filming himself jacking off? Also not the most unusual request I’ve received. Finally, he took off his underwear and released his throbbing cock. It sprung over his boxer’s band with full force. He added those to the pile.

Once all the man’s clothes were folded neatly and he was stark naked in the woods, he slowly got down on his hands and knees. He stayed in that position for a long time. I waited five or so minutes before I started to skip ahead to see what would happen next. I finally saw motion behind him, in the woods. The leaves had moved just slightly. I played the video and waited again. I saw a hand or…a paw or something move the leaves. I couldn’t see a face. The hand receded back into the woods. I could hear a sound. It was like a grunt or like a snort. It sounded almost pig like or a noise only an animal could make. The man in the video heard it too and a grin broke out across his face. He started to work his cock in his hand, pumping up and down at a fast pace. The grunt happened again, closer this time as if whatever was making the sound was behind the camera. The man looked up at the camera and moaned. It sounded more like a battle cry than a moan. There was a noise then that sounded like a bark. The man immediately stopped touching himself and looked down at the ground. Nothing happened for another ten minutes. I waited and waited but there was no more noises and the man was as still as a statue. I almost thought the video had frozen because of how still he was. Eventually though, whatever was standing behind the camera, whatever had been making those noises started walking towards the man. I don’t know what that thing was. I can’t tell you with any confidence or surety but I can tell you what I saw.

The thing was huge. I’m talking seven or eight feet tall kind of huge. Mother fucker was big too, at least a couple hundred pounds. I thought it was a bear at first with all the hair it had. It was covered head to toe in brown hair. The hair looked a little straggly. It seemed almost like a combination of human hair and fur. I guessed it must have been a furry suit someone created. Kinda weird, but again, nothing I haven’t seen before. The weird part is what happened next. The creature or the man in the furry suit or whatever the fuck that thing was mounted the guy on his hands and knees and started to fuck him. When I say it started to fuck him, I cannot emphasize this enough, it fucked him. I could have sworn there was something wrong with the file. The thing moved faster than any normal human could have. It continued for forty five minutes. I’m not kidding. I watched every single fucking second. I tried to see if there was some kind of loop happening but it wasn’t on a loop. It was real time happening for forty five minutes. Eventually the guy started to bleed basically everywhere. There was blood streaming down from his ass, blood was coming out of his eyes and nose. Halfway through, he wiped his face and saw the blood covering his hand. He didn’t seem worried or scared he fucking smiled. He took his bloodied hand and started masturbating with it. I was disgusted. I couldn’t watch another minute yet I watched the whole thing. Then I watched it again, and again. I had to make sure I was actually seeing what I was seeing.

When the creature was done fucking the guy it, I’m assuming from the insane growl it let out that it had come inside the man. The creature moved backwards to remove itself from the man’s ass and put its hands on the man’s waist. It flipped the guy onto his back and with one swipe it opened up the man’s midsection. His intestines spilled out of his body and the man screamed. He screamed and screamed. The creature grabbed the intestines and shoved it into the man’s mouth to muffle his screams. The man continued to scream through his own organs and tried to shake the creature off of him. But like I said, this thing was fucking huge, there was no way this man could buck it off. Eventually the man stopped screaming and he stopped fighting. He lay still and silent. The creature pulled the intestines out of the man’s mouth and put them in its own mouth and started to eat. It slurped it up like it was a plate of fucking spaghetti. When the creature was done it got up off the man and walked to the camera. I could finally see its face. It looked like the combination of a dog and a human. It picked up the camera and looked right into the lens. It growled one last time and the screen went black.

I don’t know what the fuck any of that was. I watched it over and over trying to decipher it but I couldn’t find any indication that it was a hoax. I started to do my own research. I felt like a fucking fool googling this shit. I looked up any creature I could think of and in my mind I’ve come to a conclusion. I think…that video is of big foot fucking a dude. I don’t know who sent it to me or how they got their hands on it but I can’t just fucking sit here and do nothing. This needs to be seen it needs to be researched. If anything, I need to know if it’s a fake so I can sleep better at night. I can’t be the only one who’s seen this.

I just heard someone open my front door. I think they’re coming for me. Please, I need you to watch this. I might not be alive anymore by the time you’ve finished watching and if you don’t hear from me send this to everyone you know. Reporters, bloggers, your friends, everyone needs to know the truth.

  10/24/2019

Colleen Burke

[lolzcollz]

L E G E N D

“Legend has it if you hear a baby crying between the hours of 2 AM and 4 AM it’s little Tabitha crying for help and if you fall for it, you’ll find Tabitha wrapped in a blanket with black eyes and when you look into her eyes you DIE.” Ryan whispered everything but screamed the last word. Everyone jumped except for Nicole.

“Oh, please. That’s the most ridiculous campfire story I’ve ever heard.” Nicole guffawed. “2 AM to 4 AM? What a ridiculous time frame! By the way, all babies cry between 2 and 4 it’s just like what they do.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “It’s a STORY, Nicole. It’s not actually true. We’re just having fun, God. Why do you have to ruin everything we try to do?” The others in the group watched with wide eyes.

“Oh, I ruin everything? Well fuck you, Ryan. Fuck you all.” Nicole stood up and stomped up the steps. She left the front door, passing Ryan’s parents on the way.

“Leaving so soon, Nicole?” His mom called to her. Nicole stopped and slowly turned around to face Mr. and Mrs. Levy.

“Your son is a piece of shit.” She told them. Mrs. Levy’s jaw dropped. Mr. Levy tried to hide his laughter. Nicole turned back around and finished storming out of their house. She walked to her car and got behind the wheel. She felt tears start to well up in her eyes but she quickly blinked them away.

“Fuck them. I ruin everything? It’s not my fault they do dumb shit and I call them out on it. Fuck it. Whatever.” She tried to convince herself she didn’t need them and they were shitty friends anyway but she had a feeling she just did something she couldn’t take back easily.

Nicole drove back to her parent’s house and she unlocked the front door as quietly as she could. Her mom would go mad if she woke up Nicole’s sister. Emily was only a couple months old and if you woke her up she wailed until sunrise. Nicole tip toed upstairs and shut her door. She knew how to close the latch without making a sound. Nicole undressed and got into bed. She picked up the book that was on her nightstand and opened up to the page she had saved and started to read.

Nicole was reading for a while when she heard Emily start to cry. She unlocked her phone to check the time. It was 3:03 AM. Nicole couldn’t believe she had been reading for that long. She didn’t even feel that tired. Emily’s crying got louder.

“Ugh, mom will get it.” Nicole thought to herself and continued reading. Twenty minutes went by and Emily still cried. “How can mom not hear this?” She wondered. Nicole was starting to get annoyed with the crying and decided if Emily didn’t stop in ten more minutes she would go and check what was wrong.

Ten minutes went by and the crying continued. Nicole couldn’t even concentrate on her book anymore. She was too distracted by her little sister’s wails.

“This is ridiculous. Where the fuck is mom?” She asked herself. Nicole slammed the book shut and got out of bed. She walked over to Emily’s room and slowly opened the door and poked her face inside the room. Her sister was lying in the crib, wrapped up tightly in her blankets.

“She probably got tangled up and couldn’t undo it. That’s why she’s crying.” Nicole convinced herself. Something in the back of her mind was sending out warning signals. She tried to ignore them as much as she could and walked towards Emily. The closer she got the faster her heart started beating. She stood next to the crib and looked down at her sister. The blanket had covered her face. Nicole quickly picked Emily up and uncovered her face.

“What the fuck?” Nicole asked out loud. The baby in the blanket was not her sister, Emily. Panic ripped through her. Where was her sister? As Nicole was about to put the strange baby back into the crib its eyes shot open. Nicole glimpsed at them and furrowed her brow. She lowered her head to get a better look. The eyes were as black as the night sky.

     10/24/2019

Colleen Burke

[lolzcollz]

A S H

We never thought the nuclear threats were serious. That was our first problem. Our second problem was not being prepared in case they were serious. It’s been fifteen years since the war happened. I was only a kid when the bombs dropped. I’ve been trying to survive ever since but I feel my time is coming soon.

It was a Tuesday. I’ll never forget it. There had been back and forth talk about this nuclear bomb threat for years. It was always like a dick measuring contest but with weapons of mass destruction. I was only ten years old, I didn’t know anything. My only responsibilities were going to school, coming home from school, doing school work, and going to bed. I didn’t pay attention to the news, what ten year old pays attention to the news?

When the sirens went off we were in science class. Science was my favorite subject. We were learning all about the cells in our bodies. When everyone kept talking about nuclear weapons I thought they meant the nucleus in our cells. I had no idea what it actually meant and what the long term consequences would be. We were taking a pop quiz. I had just finished mine and got out of my chair to hand it in the Ms. Brindy. She took the quiz and I watched the paper move from my hands to hers. I looked up at her and she smiled at me. Then the sirens started. I covered my ears before the paper had fully exchanged ownership and it slowly fell to the ground. I was still looking at Ms. Brindy. She was just as scared as I was. I remember thinking, but this is the teacher, why is she scared? Shouldn’t she not be scared?

The sirens wailed again and again. After a few minutes, they stopped. Everything was silent besides the slight ringing in my ears. I looked around the room and saw my classmates, all confused and scared.

“Don’t worry, kids! It was…um…It was only a fire drill! Finish up your quizzes.” Ms. Brindy told the class. I finally walked back to my seat.

Not even five minutes later the first shock wave hit. The actual bomb was too far away for us to feel the rumble of the earth but the shock wave had whopping power behind it. It shattered all the windows and threw us all to the ground. I started to cry and I wasn’t the only one.

“Kids, get up, we’re going in the hallway. Get in your tornado positions. Against the wall, hands covering heads, and heads down. Now!” I didn’t understand. What was happening? Was this a tornado? My classmates and I filed outside into the hallway and did as we were told. We saw the other classes in the hall doing the same thing. We sat with our heads down for what felt like hours.

Another bomb dropped. This time it was close enough for us to feel the shake. I had only felt one earthquake in my life up until that point and that’s exactly how it felt. The whole building moved and our desks fell to the ground with loud bangs. Parts of the ceiling fell on our heads. Minutes later we felt another shock wave. This time it was hot. It burned my skin slightly turning my arms raw and pink. Everyone was crying now, even the teachers. No one knew what was happening or how to handle the situation. We sat in the hallway for the rest of the day without any further incidents.

I remember getting up and walking to the window at some point. My feet crunched on the shattered glass as I gazed into the world outside. There was a thick fog, I couldn’t see very far in any direction. The things I could see were covered in ash. It had even coated some of the classroom. I ran my finger across the windowsill and my finger was covered in the ash. I looked at my finger as my mind tried to make sense of what was happening.

It wasn’t until much later that we finally got the details. This is all from word of mouth so I can’t be certain it’s actually even the truth. The dick measuring nuke contest that was all over the news had moved into the next stage. We were not the first to launch our bombs but we did release them in retaliation. I don’t know what the rest of the world looks like or even the rest of the country. We found an underground bunker and a small group of us have been living in here for the last fifteen years. Unfortunately, we were all exposed to the radiation for too long. We didn’t react quickly enough. We’ve already lost a couple of us and I think it’s my turn next. I’ve been coughing up blood the past week. I feel weaker than I have in the past decade and a half. I’m lucky to have made it this far.

My advice to you? Make sure you’re prepared. Anything could happen. Prepare for the worst.

  10/17/2019

Colleen Burke

[lolzcollz]

S N O W

Caroline was babysitting on a Friday night when the first snow of the season hit. It was a bad storm. It’d only been snowing for maybe an hour and already a foot had accumulated.

“Can we go play in the snow?” Mike asked her.

“It’s night time, Mike. You can play in the snow tomorrow!” She tried to make it sound like tomorrow would be way better to play than tonight.

“But I wanna play now.” Mike said with a pout. “Please?” He begged.

“Fine. We can go outside but only for a little bit.” Mike jumped up and down. She rolled her eyes and laughed. It was funny how something so simple could make a kid that happy.

It wasn’t too late, only around eight or so. She told Mike to go upstairs and put on his warm clothes and then she would help him put on his snow pants and snow jacket. He ran upstairs faster than the speed of light. As Caroline was putting on some boots, her cell phone rang.

“Hi, Caroline!” Mike’s mom said through the phone. “How is everything?”

“Hi, Mrs. Hanoby! Everything is good. This snow is killer, huh?” She replied.

“Unfortunately, yes. That’s why I’m calling, dear, I don’t know if we’re going to make it home tonight. We might just find the closest motel and book a room.” She said. “Would you be able to stay over tonight with Mike? We’ll pay you double your normal rate.”

“Of course I’ll stay with Mike! You two just stay safe, okay?” Double her normal rate? Wow. That was an opportunity she wasn’t going to get often.

“Thank you, sweetie.” They said their goodbyes and hung up the phone as Mike was running back down the stairs.

“I got on my warm clothes! Let’s go outside!” He yelled.

“Snow pants and snow jacket first, you know the rules.” Caroline told him and motioned for him to sit down at the kitchen table. She put one of his legs in the snow pants and pulled. “Your mom just called.” She started, putting his second leg in the pants. “They won’t be coming home tonight because of the snow but I’m gonna stay with you all night so you won’t be alone.”

“That’s cool!” Mike said not even listening. His mind was already outside playing in the snow. Caroline finished putting his snow clothes on him and she tied a scarf around her own neck. She opened the back door and they both walked into the fresh snow. It was dark out. The only light was from the back porch. It made the snow look that much more beautiful and serene. Mike ran out into the backyard.

“Not too far, Mike! Stay where I can see you in the light!” Caroline yelled to him. He retreated towards the porch a little bit so she would be able to keep an eye on him. He dropped to the ground and started to make a snow angel. Caroline watched him for a little longer before she walked over to where he lay and dropped to the ground herself. She started to create a snow angel of her own. They both lay in the snow with faces turned upwards and watched as the flakes fell to the earth.

They were laying there for a few minutes before she heard something rustling in the trees. Her ears perked and she sat up, eyes searching for what caused the noise. Mike didn’t seem to hear it or notice Caroline’s sudden attention; he kept his eyes on the sky. She heard a rustle again to her left and her head jerked in the direction. Caroline saw a flash of fur. There was some kind of animal out there and she had a bad feeling about it.

“Hey, Mike, let’s go inside now.” She said with what she hoped would be enough sternness in her voice to not get push back.

“But I’m having fun.” Mike whined.

“Yes, and we’ll have more fun tomorrow but right now it’s time to go inside.” Caroline said without taking her eyes off the trees.

“We’ve only been out here for like a minute though!” Mike’s voice increased in octave and he kicked his feet in protest. “I wanna stay out here longer.”

“Stop whining, Mike. This isn’t a joke. Go inside.” She looked away from the trees to look at Mike so he would see how serious her face was. “Now.” She said through clenched teeth. When she looked back she had lost sight of the animal. Mike started a rebuttal but Caroline shushed him quickly. Her ears were at full attention for any kind of noise.

Caroline heard a low growl coming from her right. She slowly turned my head and looked over and saw glowing yellow eyes. The sound of her heart beating drowned out the growl instantaneously. She was frozen. She saw Mike turn his head and look at the animal.

“A doggie!” He yelled. Before Caroline could react Mike had gotten up off the ground and started to run towards the animal. She reached to grab his jacket but the slippery material only ran through her fingers.

“Mike!” she yelled after him. The sudden movement of his run had startled the animal and it jumped out of the brush and lunged for Mike. She watched as the animal collided with Mike and they both fell over. The animal opened its jaws and bit Mike’s neck. Mike screamed and she saw the blood pouring out of the bite. “Mike!” she yelled again. The animal gripped Mike’s neck in its mouth once more and with its mouth full it pulled upwards, ripping Mike’s neck wide open. The warm blood that ran out of Mike met the snow with a low hiss and steam began to rise. Mike gurgled and tried to slap the animal away but what could this small child do?

Caroline couldn’t move her body. She was completely numb from both the temperature and the events unfolding before her eyes. She watched as Mike finally took his last breath and the animal continued to feast upon him. Tears began to silently fall from her face. She prayed the animal would be satisfied enough and walk away without giving her a second look. She also prayed for forgiveness for having such an awful thought. Alas, she was not so lucky. The animal raised its bloodied snout and looked directly at her. She let out a sob and that was enough for the animal to charge her.

    10/16/2019

Colleen Burke

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