A winter walk.

It was a beautiful crisp winter’s day. Snow blanketed the fields and icicles decorated the naked branches of the trees. Michael was taking his daily walk. At Sixty years old Michael was as full of energy as a young man as he strode towards the woods that bordered the snow covered fields.

For more than thirty years Michael had walked in these very woods, but today they seemed quieter than usual, as if the snow had dampened the sound. The birds were silent and even his footsteps through the snow seemed more muted than usual. The sun was hidden behind the grey clouds that promised another gift of snow before the evening blanketing the forest in shadow.

Michael walked easily through the snow whistling under his breath when suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks and listened. In the distance he heard the sound of a child’s voice singing softly. Horrified that a child would be out on such a cold day, Michael decided to follow the singing to see if the child was alright.

The singing had a haunting quality to it, and while Michael couldn’t quite make out the words that the childish voice was singing, he felt as if he had heard the song before. As he followed the mysterious voice Michael did not realize how deep he had wondered into the forest. He also did not notice that it had begun to snowing again covering his tracks. All that Michael could think of was the child, lost and all alone in the darkening forest.

Michael had lost all track of time when he finally stumbled into a clearing deep in the forest. The sun was beginning to set and the shadows had lengthened. There was the singing child, seated on an old fallen tree with her back to Michael, her voice filling the forest. She had not noticed that he was standing behind her and carried on with her song. Her straight brown hair hung to her shoulders and was tied up with a piece of white ribbon. Michael realized with surprise that the child had no jacket on. She sat in the falling snow wearing a simple white cotton dress, and playing with a very dirty doll, gently stroking its hair and singing her lullaby.

Michael shrugged out of his warm winter jacket, wincing as the cold wind bit into him and hurried towards the child to cover her against the snow. As Michael made his way towards her it felt as if the snowdrifts reached his waist and his feet were encased in lead. Time stood still. It was only when Michael finally stood right behind the girl that he noticed how dirty her dress was. Puzzled he wondered how long the child had been left out in the snow covered forest. Michael reached out to slip the jacket over the child’s shoulders to warm her, when she turned.

Michael let out a piercing shriek and staggered backwards tripping over the small drift of snow behind him. It was not a child that had been singing in the forest. Michael found himself staring into an ice white face with lips the color of blueberries. While the face was bad enough, it was the huge black eyes that made Michael believe that he had gone mad. The eyes were endless black holes that seemed to want to draw him into some unimaginable hell and trap him there. Terror flowed through Michaels’ veins, paralyzing him as he lay sprawled in the snow drift. The hideous apparition kissed its doll, stood up and walked to where Michael shivered in the snow.

“I am so cold.” The child said in a voice that grated in the old man’s ears like broken glass and slipped an icy cold blue tinged hand into Michael's trembling one. A sensation of cold rushed through Michael's body as if he had been plunged into an icy river. Summoning strength from some hidden part of him, Michael leapt to his shaking feet, turned his back on the terrible ghost and fled back into the forest as the sun dropped lower. Michael ran like a frightened animal, as fast as his legs would carry him. He did not care which way he ran, he just wanted to get away from the awful creature that chased him, he ran and ran, not realizing that he was running in circles.

As Michael ran the sound of the child’s voice was always right behind him, when he dared to glance behind him he would see those dark all-consuming eyes, give a soundless shriek and run even faster. Soon Michael was completely lost in the maze of the forest. When the sun finally dropped below the horizon and night fell, Michael collapsed to the snow covered floor of the forest the breath sobbing in his aching chest. Michael had realized that he was back in the clearing where he had first encountered the child. The child looked down at Michael and smiled a knowing smile that no child should ever smile.

“I like to play with you.” she whispered. Michael let out an exhausted sigh, closed his eyes and let blessed darkness swallowed him.

Abbey had stared out of the window since the sun had set, worried about Michael. He had never been so late before. She chided herself for not making him stay home, she had told him it was going to snow again. Abbey’s panic washed over her as she looked at the dark, snow-clad forest. She picked up the phone; it was time to get help. Michael was an old man; he could never survive a night out in the open.

The phone dropped from her hand as a movement in the field between the house and the forest caught her eye. Breathing out a quick prayer, Abbey threw the door open and rushed across the new fallen snow to the man carrying a small child.

Word count: 988

The end