The Beast

A simple daily walk turned life-altering experience.

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The boy’s backpack hung loosely off of his shoulder, only a couple of papers and a drawing he’d made that day inside. His usual walk from his bus stop to his home was long and cold, yet he still had a spring in his step, as that afternoon had marked the first of the winter break. His jacket rustled each time he’d waggle his shoulder to push the too-light backpack up onto it again. His boots pushed against the frosted grass, making a thousand tiny crunches with each pace. Other than his own feet and his wandering thoughts- what he might do tomorrow, what he’ll get for Christmas, if his father had anything fun to take him to do over the holiday- all was

quiet. A light fog rolled over the frozen mush of the ground, and while to tourists it may be seen as creepy, to the boy it was normal. The humidity mixed with the cold- that's all. Nothing scary about it.

No. What scared him was that his steps, his short, crunching steps, seemed… too loud. He was young, but not too young to know very well how his own steps sounded. He’d heard hundreds of them- every day- as he walked this same walk. He learned a couple of years ago that cutting through the field by the woods was much shorter than following the winding roads of his gated neighborhood- so strict about unwanted guests that not even the bus was allowed past the gate. After all, he was the only child that lived here. The house he lived in used to hold only his father- that is until his mother passed, and he was moved in with this tall man he’d rarely met. Since then, he’d learned that his father was quiet, but overall easy to live with. Since then, he’d learned what his steps sounded like. When the grass was dried with sun, and his sneakers rustled against it sharply. When it had rained all day, and his boots seemed to almost splash as they mushed and squelched through the thick mud. And of course when there was frost. The crisp, crunching frost, that barely made any noise at all. Except for today.

Today each step was echoed behind him, and was matched with a windy, breathy noise, although his hair stayed still and unblown. Today, he refused to look back, as although he was young, something in him told him there was nothing back there that he’d wanted or needed to see. Today, he took more time than usual- stopping every so often and listening to see if the steps behind him followed suit. He scolded himself for being so silly, and for undoubtedly making himself more than a few minutes late. Today, he reminded himself that he walked this route alone, but it had always been peaceful, and his father always knew exactly when his boy would come through the door. He reminded himself, lied to himself, that he was still, in fact, alone.

He kept up the mental charade, almost succeeding in fooling himself, until the steps behind him no longer matched his- they quickened. He could tell they were still far back, giving him time to turn around, and face what had been following diligently behind. His instincts had been right. This was not something he ever needed to see.

He was young, but he learned a while ago that monsters were not real. At least, not the fairy tale kind. There were no werewolves, there were no vampires, and there were no zombies. All of these things were fiction, told for fun. But he saw nothing fun about what he looked at now.

A hulking mass of gnarled, black fur curled around four long, almost broken looking legs. Those legs sat atop paws the size of dinner plates, large chipped claws peeking out from the hair surrounding them. They pounded into the ground, making up the space between him and the creature a bit faster than would have seemed natural. There was nothing natural about the way it’s bright green eyes almost glowed into the fog, and the way twisted, nasty horns sprouted from its thin head. Sharp yellow teeth snarled at him through jaws like that of an old, beaten hound. As it grew ever closer, the boy became frozen in fear and disbelief, seeing its long, mangy tail wave behind it as it curled and uncurled its large, scrawny figure into a run that matched that of a deer with all backwards legs.

The boy realized now, just how close this thing was getting. How much bigger it was than him. How much ground it could cover in one stride… How- even if he could will his legs to move- he’d have never been able to outrun it. This creature- straight out of one of those scary books his dad didn’t know he’d hidden under his mattress- had decided to give him a leading role in one of those stories. But the boy knew how many of those stories ended, and that he ended with it. He was young, but he knew he was going to die. Still stuck in place with legs that just wouldn’t listen, he closed his eyes, and waited...

A sound cracked across the field, somehow louder than the pants and paces of this thing in front of him. All at once, its broken, wrong run, turned into a stumble, and after another crack, into a roll. He thought he saw fear in its burning green eyes, just as they began to close.

Finally, the boy regained his legs, and turned to see his father, wide-eyed, holding the two barrel that had always hung above their fireplace. Somehow- despite the many taxidermy-d heads and pelts in his father’s office, and his father’s stories of how, when he was young, he’d gone on great adventures and hunts- the boy had always assumed it was just for show. He never once thought that the locked cabinet in that same office had held rounds for the weapon. He had no idea how quick his father had been to pull the now smoking gun from above the mantle, grab the rounds from the cabinet, and rush out into the cold without a jacket- or even his shoes. How he’d done this because he checked the clock, and because the arms were too far past where they should have been, and because he’d looked out the window and seen the boy, his only son, frozen in place, as something in the fog moved too fast toward him.

They both stood very still, just looking at each other, and then to the pile of fur and bones, and to each other again. Then, all to casually, and somehow also as if he had to force himself to do so, his father walked further across the frost toward his son. The crystals of ice poked and chilled his feet, and stuck between his toes, but he didn’t notice. He had to get his boy home. It was far past the time he had usually arrived. The boy should have already pulled out the drawing, and told the story of why it was how it was, told his father about his day as he ate his afternoon snack- a sliced apple that was already beginning to brown on the counter. The boy’s father took his son by the hand, pointing the spent weapon in his other hand lazily at the grass as he lead the boy the rest of the way home.

The boy followed, wondering why his father didn’t show any interest in making a trophy of this thing- surely his rarest game. The boy didn’t even know what to call the thing, but he was sure he’d never seen one before- unlike the deer, ducks, or foxes that would look at him lifelessly from the shelves and walls of his father’s office. As the grass gave way once again to pavement, the boy turned to get one last glance, to try and figure out what it was, how it’d gotten there, why it was running at him at all. But when he turned to where the beast had lay…

All he saw was the unsettled grass.

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