Night of the Hunter

The night I arrived in Burke, New York, clouds were rolling into the city, hiding the stars. I watched in fascination as they curled over each other, blotting out everything in the sky except a select area around the moon.

The taxi pulled up to the mansion I would be staying in and I handed him what little money I owned. He helped me to pull my heavy bags out of his trunk, nodded grimly at me, and shot a dirty look at the place, before hurrying into his car. I disregarded the look and turned to the mansion, eyeing it slowly.

A rich man was said to live in this mansion. His name was Shannon Leto, a little over forty years old. The job description said he needed someone to cook and keep house while he worked on his studies, and since I had no money and no way of working in my old town, I'd freely moved here to Burke, population just over two hundred, for a way to pay myself out of poverty.

The alternative wasn't as pleasing. At least this way, I had food and a warm bed to sleep in. I sighed and began moving forward across the dark lawn. There was no gate, yet the mansion was huge, and nestled in the side of a large hill. A forest leered at me to my right, and the rest of the town watched me from the left. A little unsettled, I moved across to the place as fast as I could and rang the doorbell after nearly tripping up the porch.

The door opened slowly and a man stared down at me, eyebrows raised. "Yes?" he asked slowly. I handed him a piece of paper and he glanced down at it, reading it intently. "Ah, you're Christian Pierce. Come in, I got your room situated earlier today."

He let me inside and closed the door, locking it, then sliding home the door jams. He nodded toward the stairs, grabbed my two bags, and began leading me up. Flustered now that I had nothing to do with my hands, I followed him up the stairs and down an extremely long hallway. Before we could get to the end of it, he turned right into a large room, then tossed my things onto the four poster bed.

"You'll be staying here," he informed me. "If you need anything, feel free to come and find me. I should be in my room when you need me, which is the only room on the other side of the stairs." He moved back toward the door. "Oh, and, Christian?" I turned to him, curious. "Don't go to the room at the end of this hallway. It's absolutely off limits, and you should never go in there for any reason. Do you understand?"

I nodded and he smiled at me. "Alright. Go ahead and get cozy. It's straight to work in the morning." He left the room and I glanced around it. Two closed doors on the wall opposite the bed gave me the impression of closed eyes. I walked over to the one on the right and found a vanilla white based bathroom, sparkly clean, with a toothbrush and toothpaste on the counter. Everything was neatly put away, and after inspecting everything, I knew where everything would be when I needed it.

Upon inspecting what was behind the other door, I found myself in a walk in closet. After marveling at its size, I began putting my clothes away, moving fluidly, running my fingers over the materials, wanting to speak their names. I knew them - polyester, cotton, silk - and once, a long, long time ago, I could have sounded out the syllables to the words, spoken the letters. Now, that option was gone. 

After finishing, I moved back into my new room - it was so large, I could have fit my whole house into it - and caught sight of the two open windows. One faced the town, the other the forest. I moved toward the one that faced the town and closed it, locking it tightly. Then I moved toward the one facing the forest and paused. 

The trees rustled, but there was no wind. They seemed to reach up, screaming, moaning. I looked up, my eyes zeroing in on the bit of the sky where the moon shone through. As I watched, a figure appeared there, falling. From the distance I was at, it looked like a bird; it had long black wings that were thrown up by the force of the fall. I watched it in horror as it fell toward the forest, wishing I could scream. 

I raced out of my room and toward the room that Shannon had said he would be in. He wasn't there, but there was an open window facing the forest here, as well. The winged figure reached the tips of the trees, and then it paused, suspended. I raced toward the window to see the trees leaning in toward the figure, practically embracing it. As I watched, the trees holding the figure bent slowly downward, swallowing it into their dark depths. Then the clouds curled in over the moon and the forest went black. 

"Christian?" Shannon called quietly. I whipped toward him, shocked, as he eyed me curiously. He was breathing heavily, as if he had just ran across the hallway. "What do you need?" I pointed toward the forest and his eyes moved to the window. "Did something scare you? Don't worry, Christian. You'll be fine. Go ahead and go to bed. I'll be up for a while, so if you need me, I'll probably be in the kitchen or something."

He shooed me out of his room, insisting that I get some sleep, and after a while I moved down the long hallway and into my room. After staring out at the dark forest for a while, I closed the window and moved to my bed. As I slid under the covers, rain began to fall.