Night Woods
A very short story about the woods at night.
Based on a childhood fear.
We saddled the horses, and wolves howled. The leather of the cinch straps creaked, cold and stiff around the warm, nervously prancing beasts. Outside the warm, hay-smelling safety of the barn, black-furred death stalked the rustling, nighttime trees. Inside, hunger gnawed the bellies of three men. Gaunt was I, Ragged Pete, and Haggard Bill. We worked quickly, with little talk. Spurs and holsters clicked beneath worn, unkempt dusters. A boy had cried wolf. If only it had been a lie.
A dozen of us came up from the south. We were brash; we thought ourselves brave. We were armed; we thought ourselves strong. We were learned; we thought ourselves wise. Now, bravely armed and knowing our foe, we faced the barn door. It rattled and groaned under the weight of an enormous shoulder. Black, diamond claws raked splinters of wood from our increasingly meagre defense. Behind the door, the golden, flickering light of a lantern marked the space where fire and steel would meet midnight fur.
Hand steady, but voice quavering, Ragged Pete's eyes flickered across to the rest of us. "Fight or flee?" His question rang with the force of a demand. Uncertain silence answered him, punctuated by the boom and rattle of the weary barn door. A trio of claws rent the door. With a sound like snapping shinbones, planks shattered and midnight fur bristled just beyond the threshold. Worse than the threat of razor claws and pointed teeth, the gleam of a yellow, canine eye peered between the jagged, wooden slats. That gaze alone froze the soul, promised gleeful malevolence, and stopped cold all hands that dare rise against it. All hands but Bill's.
One voice rang through the bitter cold of the night. One command spurred hearts and hands to action. One word leapt forward to challenge the night, and thunder followed it. "FIRE!"
Eighteen gleaming brass cartridges had waited patiently for this moment. Three hammers clicked back, then rushed forward to unleash noise and violence on that which howled beyond the door. As one, muzzles bloomed with light and the deafening roar of mankind's answer to the wild.
For a moment, all was silent.
Empty brass rained to the floor in a celebratory shower of gold and soot. Eyes cast left, right, or stayed fixed upon the crumbling door. No black fur lay bleeding beyond it. Re-filled cylinders snapped and locked back into place, loudly announcing the call to further action. Pete's quavering voice was swift as his feet. He mounted his horse, soon barreling toward the door. "We flee!"
His ragtag form crashed through what little remained of the door. I followed, slightly slower on the draw. Tree limbs whipped and clawed at us in our mad, frantic dash to get away, get anywhere else. I followed Pete's flapping figure as it ducked and dove between the trees. My aging charger bellowed and surged under blanket and saddle. Behind me, I heard Bill galloping hard, and then I didn't.
One glance behind burned frosty terror into my soul. That glance behind showed yellow, wolven eyes getting nearer. Steel whipped from its holster with a speed I had never known. Six desperate flashes blazed in defiance of the night. Six rounds strobed through the darkened trees, revealing bloodied teeth flashing closer, closer, closer, gone.
The threat behind vanished, and I continued on. I forged ahead with no one to lead me. Before me, stretched the foreboding, rustling woods. Around me, darkness coiled. Despair whispered to the recesses of my mind, and panicked plucked at every nerve. There was no sound of galloping hooves, nor sight of Pete's flapping coat. The woods closed cold and silent around me, and I stood alone.
Except I wasn't.