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*Act I *

Affirmant quidam inueniri aliquando rattum c _æ__ teris_maiorem, procerior & latiore corpora qui à cæteris otiofus alatur. Rattorum regem, appellant. _________ Konrad Gesner, Historiæ Animalium

It was just to take his mind off stuff, just to be somewhere else, anywhere else, except his house, empty and loveless, except his life, also empty, also loveless - somewhere to go, to smoke, to be alone and yet not alone, to feel alive amidst nature. This was all because he had been really high when a quote by John Muir on a Tumblr he followed made him decide yes, sure, the nature reserve by his house well after dark was a perfectly sane choice. Why the Hell not? He was alone out here, but it was an alone that felt far better than the alone he usually felt, all his friends off to college at places like Gainesville and Tallahassee and Miami and New Orleans, but he was alone back in Tampa, alienated amidst the horrifying Brutalist architecture of Hillsborough Community College. Getting high and sleeping and his best friend Hampton were his only pleasures in life anymore, but he'd been out of high school five months, there was no reason he should already be this much of a nihilist. A pack of cigarettes came out of his pocket, a Zippo from the other, and he stopped to light it: for a moment his face, the boyishness and the perfection that was being eighteen, untainted by the coming ravages of weed, nicotine, booze, was framed gorgeous against the omniscient darkness, and a glimpse could be seen, of his bright red toboggan drooping down to his neck, and the grey shirt with the near-illegible band name splayed across it. And then the flame went out, and the darkness swallowed him again, one gulp. The woods are lovely, dark and deep he remembered from his English class. Deep - perhaps - lovely_only in the way that a funeral is lovely, a loveliness that was also consumptive, also grotesque. _Dark - there was nothing darker. There is no dark side in the Moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark, that Pink Floyd vinyl Hampton played for them when they had done shrooms together. The sky was cornflower blue, the Moon was made of crystal, a sliver, not shining, most of the stars obscured in the violet skyglow of Tampa even far as here in Rocky Creek, the October cool-down causing the crickets to ease off the endless chorus of their own names, and from nowhere a constant breeze rustled the canopies of palms and live oaks and creeping vines. He took his first puff of the cigarette, hands in his pockets as he watched the crescent Moon above him. Ghastly, spooky, creepy - tonight was some good shit. Coming out here was the best idea he'd had all week. The weather fit the mood, fit the place: he used to hear all the time that, out here, back when he was in junior high and he had started getting wise to just how weird people really were, people way older than him would come out here and do occult stuff, light a fire and drink cat's blood and make crazy backwoods altars - inherited, he did not know for sure but could guess from the context, from the first Cracker settlers, who took their nighted practices that had been crushed into obscurity under the heel of Christianity out of Europe and into America...where, far from the prying eyes of the divines that kept them orderly and submissive for so many centuries, they could once again pray to their weird gods and say their weird words and slit the neck of cats and drink from them like the juice of the oranges they planted. He exhaled a long plume of smoke that he watched disappear before him, a ghost for the coming Halloween. Could have been all rumors...could have been. Teenagers like to talk. He wanted to believe, and too many shrooms and too much pot had probably left him with the incurable necessity to believe, that there was some root cause to everything in the cosmos and what he was seeing and feeling and hearing was only a taste of what was truly real...that witches still rode the nightwind in the same day and age that a black man was President of the United States. Stupid of him, he was too smart for that - he was smart, he was a smart boy, he kept getting told that, so why had he done no better than community college? Back went the cigarette into his mouth, the tiny ember-cherry the only illumination in the crawling pitch of the jungle-forest that closed upon him like a slow-springing trap. His buzz was wearing off - he slapped his pockets to check if he had brought his bag and his pipe with him and no, no of course he hadn't. The sudden irritability at being so forgetful killing the mood - he spun on his heel and went back the way he came, down the trail, toward the road a half-mile away, perhaps longer, he had forgotten being in this delicious Autumnal haze how long he'd been out here, how far he had walked. The leaves and grass crunched beneath his feet, dry and dead from the cessation of the Summer rains, and the unseasonable chill that had afflicted Tampa earlier that month. He paused for a minute to put his cigarette out, extinguishing it with his foot so that it wouldn't catch fire. He was cognizant enough to think of it, that tired old poster at his high school with the admonition from Smoky to prevent forest fires that had been hanging there since probably his dad, wherever the fuck he was now, had gone there-- Cameron. His head came up slowly. He had heard it, the sound, the hissing swish that could have been too-dense sabal palms rubbing against each other, that could have been the wind coming through the canopy and his mind, too active from too much THC - there's a reason they call it dope! - playing unfair tricks on him. Cameron... No. He heard it. He heard his name whispered at him, from oblivion, from the darkness, from the dried-up creek beds that were covered in shadows. "What - what the fuck? Wh-who's there?" he asked the darkness. He crept along cautiously, his head jerking from one side to the other - he was sure this was a freakout, he was sure of it, he was sure that there was no way, no way in Hell, that something all the way out here had followed him, or knew him by name...or sight...or smell... ...smelling his blood, that raced, cold, fearful. Cameron - Cameron. He heard it again. His name, whispered, whistled, out of teeth, out of a mouth, that he could not see, that was somewhere near him - around him - following him...

Every footstep that crunched on the dried undergrowth seemed to fuck with his ears, and again that whisper, relentless, noisome even when it was so quiet, so deathly, maliciously quiet-- Cameron...found you...Cameron...

This time there was no question, his head whipped back and forth over his shoulder, too soon and too sudden so that his toboggan flew off at his feet as he broke into a jog. The trees waggled their inky tendrils in the nightwind as he passed under them, stalks of dead flowering daisy hit against his jeans leg, as if, in the weakly-lit darkness of this nightmare-forest, everything had come alive at once to watch his impending doom. How far would it be to the road? How far, beyond it, to his house? He couldn't be sure - the sound of his heart pounding in his heart rose in a din, turning what should have been a serene October night, around him, into a cacophony of horror, for amidst it, amidst the deafening blankness inside his own head of the flight-or-fight response that basic biology commanded, he heard something else, something that turned his jog into a tearing run:

Behind him, in a parting and shifting of the underbrush, came a rustling, hesitant, but insistent - until it was not a rustle at all but something matching his steps, something behind him, something close, that padded on the grass and dirt even as his own shoes did the same.

He stopped - his legs had finally given out, and he stumbled forward, tripping over a raised root, catching himself on his hands, the ache on each palm making him swear aloud. He tried to suck in as much as air as he could, hunching over, clutching his knees. The Moon held the entire forest in the same dark glimmer as before - the rustling had ceased, at last, whatever he had thought pursuing him was gone. As he stood back up, the panting, the ache in his lungs that came from having exerted himself too much too fast, gave way to a peal of broken laughter.

Jesus Christ, Hampton was gonna bust his balls over this one - thinking something was chasing him in the reserve, serves his stupid ass right for being out here alone, high as a motherfucker, what kind of dumbass was he? This was the kind of shit Creepypasta was made of, that quality post in the thread on 4chan when people were talking about skinwalkers or some shit - and that was all it was, that's all the fuck it was, he freaked himself off so badly he didn't realize-- Cameron! This time it was loud - a near-shout, no longer a whisper, it came forth ragged and hoarse. His laugh was cut short, warped mid-sound into a terrified yelp. He jerked back with such force that he landed square on his ass - as he winced, he saw something...a shape, moving through the darkness, a liquid shadow.

A dim roar from somewhere ahead of him came to his ears, with a glare that almost blinded him even at this distance as it passed - a car. He could barely contain his elation - the road, he was so close, he was so very close - he leapt up to make his escape, to leave behind whatever heinous things he was probably just imagining... ...a stray glance over his shoulder, and he felt his blood run cold. There it was, not twenty feet back. The light from the car did not bring any clarity to its shape, but it did light up - its eyes. They were amber, luminous in the reflection of the passing electric light, flickering like candles caught in a breeze.

They were moving, they were getting larger - they were catching up.

He tried to run again, he tried to will his body to move, to do something, anything, to keep moving...but another step, and his heels slipped on ground, and he tumbled, and as he came to the ground the cold certainty that this is where he would die swept over him, he half-curled into a fetal position and gave a strangled cry for help that left his lips as little more than a quavering whimper, the loping stride of the thing's feet overtaking him in a rising climax. He could hear breath that was lower, deeper, slower than his, in spare seconds that passed as agonized eternities, as the sound of the padded footfalls slowed...and then stopped. On his neck, still crouched to the ground, hot tears coming to his eyes in the most complete terror he had ever felt in his life, he could feel the thing's breath, moist, flamelessly burning his skin. It was close now - achingly close. His nose picked up something - a whiff of fetid, nauseating horror, of unwashed fur, clumped blood and pus, garbage that had been reeking in the Sun for months. He felt his throat tighten in an abrupt gag of nausea but he suppressed it, not wanting to move, his mind latently consumed with the idea of playing dead to whatever predator was now about to claim him. His body aquiver, he felt the thing come over top of him, the harsh breath, the snuffling of what surely had to be the thing's nostrils - it seemed to be examining him - and in the plunging fright of the moment he took in an involuntarily sharp breath...the stink of the thing hit him again, with another requisite gag. And then came the long, hissing whisper he recognized from the sounds of the trees, what he had thought was the wind, what he had literally laughed off as nothing but what he now knew to be true, hideously true, the three syllables drawn out into a trill of blackest nightmare: Cameron... The masquerade of playing possum fell apart as it reached his ears. He let out a sob, his muscles releasing him so that he was prostrate to the forest floor, amidst the dried-up mud and the grass and the leaves: "Wha-what - what - what do you w-want - what do y-you want?!" Want...? Atop him the beast seemed to freeze in space. The silence rose like a wave - there were no other sounds in his ears other than that of his own beating heart, other than that of his own convulsing lungs as adrenaline surged into every nerve, and he began to quietly whimper, yet more tears forcing themselves, thick and helpless, down his cheeks. Want...you!

His chest heaved as he shook his head rapidly, a repeated mantra burst from him, a repeated no that he spat over and over again, even as his body tensed against feeling something like claws dig into his shirt and tear a hole, and he felt the thing pull on his back, forcing him upright, with his eyes shut as tight as he could make them, supplicating a god he had never seen and never really believed in to make it stop, make it stop, no, please - please-- Taste - you... He felt the thing's teeth sink slowly, slowly, like he was savoring the taste of flesh - into his shoulder - there was a desperate, vain struggle, weak against the beast's grip, its digits holding fast against him even as agony rocketed through his nerves. In that moment his being seemed to swim, awash in that moment of complete and unyielding pain. His eyes twitched at the shock that numbed the rest of his body even as the bite threatened to extinguish his life then and there, a gust of wind driving against the flicker of a candle. The grip that had held him unmerciful relinquished, and he fell forward to the ground, nose and mouth smack into leaves, grass, and dirt. There he stayed, sobbing, shamelessly weeping in agony and terror...for how long, he did not know. At a length which was impossible to tell, he rolled over. Above him was the same ebony canopy of oak and palm and palmetto, around him was the same half-silence of dying crickets and dull roars from the nearby road. The weight that had pressed him, the claws that had gripped him, the breath that had nauseated him...was nowhere to be seen. The beast was gone. He sprung to his feet again, tearing off out of this accursed nature reserve, high as a motherfucker from an adrenaline that possessed every corridor of blood that pumped out of his still-wildly beating heart. Only vaguely was he aware of a wetness building under the fingers clasped to his shoulder - only absentmindedly did he wonder if was what he feared, a bloody gash, or just that - that thing's spit, saliva, all over him.

Cameron...

The voice echoed behind him again as he tripped a third time, very nearly losing his balance yet again as he saw the streetlights of the road, the song of the cars traversing it, tire on pavement, even closer... Another sharp gasp tore through him - turning quickly he looked back, back into the nighted jungle. Nothing. He shook his head, slowly at first, then rapidly, another sob breaking from his throat, his mind, a mess of hormones, endorphins, fear, panic, anguish, and shock, could not be sure, could not be sure if he heard something, actually heard something, if it came from his own head, or from the tenebrous recesses of the forest he had left behind... Cameron...see you soon...Cameron... The road before him was lit by the orange-yellow streetlights and the impassive leprous sickle of the Moon as his footsteps passed onto the hard tarmac of the road. His lungs ached, his right side ached, his arm still held the wet and pained side of himself as he walked on, dazed - his left hand clenched and released, trying to do something, anything, to alleviate the pain that seemed to grow stronger for every second the hormones ebbed. It took him a moment to realize the source of the wetness that was starting to flow around his hand and trickle into his shirt - blood. Blood. There was blood - so much blood, it was soaking the fibers, it wafted up to his nose mixed with the acridity, the nauseous miasma, of - yes, that's what it was - saliva, what had clung to that awful thing's mouth. Hospital? Call 911? His phone was still in his pocket... Even in the dark he could feel his head getting lighter. He couldn't believe what had just happened, attacked...by something in the woods, that nature reserve, what was wrong with him, he was retarded the fuck enough to venture into near Halloween and at night, pitch black. A hospital - no, not 911 either, no one would believe him, they'd laugh at him, and what did it matter, no insurance, and Tampa General was too far away. What would he say to the dispatcher? That a monster had tried to eat him? For fuck's sake... He couldn't stop running - he couldn't stop running. He was alive, for now, that was all that mattered, he could make it, he could make it if he just tried, if he just kept going, kept going down this street, and turned a corner - how empty everything looked this time of night, no one to see him, no one to hear him moan under his breath, no one to watch him bleed...

A quick glance behind him...nothing. There was nothing behind him, nothing around him, just the same noises, the same lights that were - growing bleary... His house, third one on the left if you turned right, loomed in front of him, and he let out a gravelly breaths, mid-pant against the endless wind out of his lungs, before he made for the door. He pounded the concrete sidewalk that led from the driveway as he reached his unwounded side-hand for his keys. He grasped, nervously, at the full ring, before pulling them out, in his haste dropping them and letting out a delirious, startled cry. Whirling around in panic he saw, still, nothing there. Still - still... His hand quavered in an unsteady tremor that made him falter twice before finally grasping the keys again, he plunged the housekey into the knob and turned it hard...the door opened, carrying him inside with it. The faintness he had been feeling had become a crushing lassitude that he could no longer fight, and, spinning around the door to threw his body against it, he nearly all but fell into the closed door as he twisted both the knob lock and the dead bolt. That was all he could do. There was a fleeting moment of safety, euphoric and perfect, and then a chilling fear that he might die...and then a spark, a strange and sinister spark that made his stomach clench in revolt, that no, this was not it, he would not die at all. The last words inside his own head, he heard, were the strange voice of the creature that maimed him - see you soon. He slid down against the door and collapsed, prostrate, before it, his eyes closing at last, the voice echoing over and over, in his comatose head.