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The evening air in the holler felt a little heavier than it should that day, like the humidity was trying to hold onto a secret it couldn’t quite keep. I was sitting out on the front porch, the wood creaking under my weight as I waited for the familiar cut of headlights from my friendās truck to break through the mountain fog. Down here in the North Carolina hills, the silence isn’t ever truly silent; itās a living thing made of cicada hums and the distant rustle of the treeline. But that night, the woods went dead quiet. Even the crickets seemed to be holding their breath. If youāve spent time out in the woods you know this usually means that a predator is nearby.
Suddenly the shadows across the road started to shift. At first, I figured it was just a stray dog or maybe a deer that had lost its way in the mist, but as it stepped into the dim, flickering glow of the lone streetlamp, my stomach did a slow, cold curl. It had the frame of a wolf but the build of a heavyweight fighter with heavy muscle with legs that looked wide enough to kick down a barn door. Its fur was the color of a moonless night, thick and matted, but the way it moved was the real kicker. It didn’t trot like a canine; it prowled with a predatory, calculated grace on 2 legs that made my skin crawl.
When it reached the stop sign diagonally across from my house, it paused and turned its head toward me. The eyes didn’t have that green or orange animal shine youād expect from a flashlight beam. They were a piercing, sulfur yellow with pupils like jagged black glass, and they were surrounded by a ring of white that looked far too human to belong to anything natural. I didn’t move. I donāt even think I was breathing. I just sat there, paralyzed, as it stared at me with a terrifyingly calm intelligence, as if it were weighing my soul in its hands. I finally found my voice, though it sounded like it belonged to someone else, and I whispered a shaky promise to the shadows, a deal that if it let me reach the door, Iād leave the night to whatever it was.
I stood up, never breaking eye contact, and backed away toward the house. Every step felt like I was walking through deep water. I fumbled for the handle, slipped inside, and threw the lock on the storm door, knowing full well that glass and a thin bolt wouldn’t stop something like that if it truly wanted in. I watched through the side window as it drifted toward the edge of the woods. It didn’t run, and it didn’t hide; it simply began to fade out of existence mid-stride, turning from solid muscle to a gray smudge before vanishing entirely into the thin mountain air.
The rest of the night felt like a fever dream. When my friend finally arrived and banged on the door, I nearly jumped out of my skin. She found me white-as-a-sheet, staring at the walls, and while she believed me because of the other odd things that happened in these hills, the real chill didn’t set in until much later. Long after the house had settled, a voiceāgravelly and low, like grinding stonesācalled my name from the pitch-black yard, beckoning me to come back outside and finish our conversation. When I stayed rooted to my spot, refusing to answer the call, I heard it: the slow, deliberate sound of something long and sharp dragging across the siding of my bedroom wall. It was a metallic screech that echoed through the studs, a reminder that the deal Iād made on the porch wasn’t a closing of the door, but just the start of an introduction.
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