Poacher

CHAPTER 1

“There is something wrong with him.” his mother said softly from beyond his door.

“No, there isn’t.” replied his father. “He’s just being a little kid. All of the them are like that.”

“They aren’t.” his mother argued.

A strange silence pierced the room where eight-year-old Ronnie Cane was supposed to be sleeping, but the real truth of the matter was that he wasn’t—not even close, in fact. Today he had another accident again. It wasn’t the go-potty-in-your-pants kind of problem, nor was it a fight. Instead Ronnie had been found sobbing in the bathroom two hours earlier, trying to escape the dark, scary thing that had been on his wall.

Ever since he was born, he had been consumed by problems of a similar kind. When he was a newborn, his parents said that he would scream for hours and hours inside of his crib regardless of what they did to comfort him. As the years went on, he was plagued with night terrors and the usual childish fear of the dark. What made him different from other kids, though, was that the monster in his closet wasn’t some imaginary phantom that he had dreamed about. He could see the shadow creatures around him and describe them in detail so intricate that it often drove his mother to tears.

From outside his room, he heard a light creak of the hallway and saw that his bedroom door was slowly being opened. Hastily he shut his eyes, pretending to be asleep to soothe his constantly worrying father, Leon. His mother, Marian, was prone to being easily upset, a young parent that had dropped out of high school to give birth to him. Though he didn’t know what it meant, people often informed Leon that he had robbed the cradle. At least, that was what Ronnie’s grandmother always said.

As the sound of footsteps carried off down the hall, he immediately sat up and focused on the ceiling of his room. A dark shadow was already beginning to form at the base of his light, which then worked its way down a nearby wall. For a moment he heard the hiss that came with someone’s breathing, then he shivered as the room grew devastatingly cold. Above him, a man of blackness was suspended in midair that he could clearly see. It was a shadow of someone that was invisible.

‘Ronnie,’ said a voice so chilling that it hurt his heart. ‘Ronnie.’

Ronnie burrowed himself deep within his pillows, listening to what sounded like a chorus made only of his name. More than anything else, he wanted it to go away. As he delved deeper into his bed sheets, he felt a hand touch his back, which then ran its way down his side tauntingly. He did his best to ignore it, but he felt vulnerable and sick all at the same time.

As the hand continued its fear making, he felt urine dribble down his legs as he wet the bed. ‘It followed me,’ he thought. ‘It’s that scary monster that I saw in the store. It followed me.’ With a squeaky scream, he jumped up from the bed. The figure was still on the ceiling as if he was accompanied by an invisible person. His heart leapt out of his chest as an upheaval of stomach acid waged a war on his throat.

This wasn’t like some videogame or television program that he could merely turnoff. The way his heart felt was real, and it was enough to entice him to vomit all over his sheets. Instead he compromised by leaping out of the bed. As he did so, he felt air lift up the sweaty hair on the back of his neck, which caused him to whimper slightly.

He caught sight of his own terrified reflection in the mirror hanging on his wall, which brought him to a pause because he suddenly remembered that he was not supposed to leave his room unaccompanied. Instead, he breathed and studied his reflection, doing his best to calm down.

For an eight-year-old he was overly skinny, and he had dark hair with a reddish sheen that was almost always messed up. His eyes were a very deep brown that had hardly any alternate color in them at all, which made them stand out from his pale face. There were freckles along his button nose that his mother called love spots—the more someone had, the more they were loved.

He shivered as he peered at himself, growing steadily more frightened by the second as he felt the figure approach him again. His focus changed from his own reflection to that of the shadow man’s. ‘It’s breathing on me,’ he thought wildly. ‘The monster is breathing on me.’

For a moment he contemplated running out of the house screaming, but he recalled his mother’s words from mere minutes before: “There is something wrong with him.” Even as he sprung open the door and headed out of his room, the inner controversy between his fear and his mother’s opinion of him continued. As he proceeded down the stairs, he didn’t even bother to check whether or not the monster was following him.

He paused briefly to jump at the doorknob—as it was too tall for his short body—unlocking it and running into the rain that had been pouring outside the house for hours now. His whole body burned, since he had no shoes, jacket, or umbrella. It was mid-October, the temperature dropping dangerously low for an unshielded person.

Their family home was separated from the town by a thick expanse of well placed woods. It was a small abode, painted a cheerful yellow with white shutters, that looked as safe as a warm hug. Ronnie was the only one that truly knew the evil within, and as he fled from the house and into the safety of the forest, fear jumped up his spine once more. The trees, with their welcoming branches, had tricked him—it wasn’t safe out here either.

As his fragile, shoeless feet pounded against the ground until they bled, he continued through the forest. It was only as he stumbled to a stop a half an hour later that he realized that he was desperately and completely lost. The trees gave him little protection from the whipping wind that rushed through their leaves, and he shivered as he stood by a large oak’s trunk, trying to protect himself from the pounding weather. Every once in awhile the sky would light up a vivid white from the powerful lightening, and Ronnie would squeak before hiding his head in his hands.

As he exhaled white mist, he checked his surroundings before concealing his face again. The monster may or may not have come after him. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he began to feel numbness sink into his thin, superhero adorned pajamas as he stood there all alone. Suddenly he felt a thick and heavy hand grasp his shoulder, making him let out a scream of terror that cut through the air. Thunder crashed through the night as if in response to Ronnie’s wail.

“Ronnie!” a familiar voice cried. “Ronnie, are you okay!?”

His father stood in front of him, arms outstretched and opened wide. It was obvious that Leon had been searching in the rain for quite some time, because he too was soaked to the bone in his plaid pajama set. Ronnie let out a sob of despair, falling into his father’s widespread arms, smelling the rain on Leon’s body as he was kissed and hugged desperately amongst the trees.

“Dad, a monster was there.” Ronnie sobbed. “It was there. It wanted me.”

“Okay.” Leon soothed, stroking Ronnie’s unusual hair. “Let’s just get you back inside, alright?”

Judging by the look on Leon’s face, Ronnie knew that he had just proved his mother’s point. Ronnie gulped, shivering even more as he was led by the hand to their yellow cottage. At this moment, he wondered whether there would ever come a time when he would truly feel safe.