The Insatiable Hunger of Trees by Samantha Eaton

Author:Samantha Eaton [Eaton, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Samantha Eaton

Thirty

I reach for my phone and open the camera, then walk to the window.

Staring past the glass, I hold my phone up and hover my thumb over the button to take the picture. I wait for something to appear in the frame. A silhouette. Eyes. Claws. Anything.

Soon, a creature emerges from the trees in the golden dusk, the setting sun illuminating it from behind so it glows. It lifts its head and looks to the window, and I take a photo. Another step closer, another photo.

It stops ten feet from the window and stares at me.

The monster is perfectly still, the desiccated body of a shadow. It stands tall on two legs, limbs stretched to impossible lengths and nothing more than skin over bone.

It wears the skull of another animal over its head, and its familiar eyes burn behind the mask. It doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. It doesn’t do anything but watch.

So I watch it back, try and rationalize it as a trick, a hoax, a prank.

I can’t.

“What do you want?” I ask it. “What do you want from me?”

It doesn’t answer, not that I expected it to.

Should I run? Should I shut the lights off and pretend I’m not here? What did Lucas say to do? What did he say about the Iceheart?

I can’t remember.

My bones freeze, too heavy now to pull away from this place in front of the window, though I know the glass won’t protect me.

The feeling of its eyes on me leaves my skin crawling with thousands of imaginary insects, and I scratch at the feeling.

But I still don’t move, don’t step back from the window.

I stand there, held hostage by fear and thinking the monster could turn on me at any moment, but it doesn’t.

Then, it does the last thing I expect. It turns and lumbers back toward the treeline.

Its withered body moves like even the smallest motions drain what little strength it has. Stick-thin arms dangle at its side, bent slightly at swollen elbows, and claws protrude from the ends of its fingers and add several inches. The light from the chicken coop outlines its figure, drawing my attention to everything wrong with it, from the bulging knee joints to the neck so narrow it shouldn’t be able to hold its skull-clad head upright.

How can a creature so slow, so awkward, be such a vicious killer? Maybe it’s not what Lucas thought. Yeah. I hold on to that. This thing isn’t the Iceheart. It’s just… something else.

But if this isn’t the Iceheart, how do I begin to comprehend something else even more terrifying?

I slump down against the wall beside the window and let my trembling hands fall to the floor. The phone tumbles from my fingers and onto the carpet beside me.

It may be gone now, but the monster can return anytime.

I need to warn Mel, so I text her and tell her I saw the coyote again.

Then I text Lucas. There was something here.

With shaking thumbs mispelling words, I send another message seconds later begging him to come to Mel’s so I can talk to him.

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