She stepped into the slop with a squelch. It gripped her foot, sucked at it like some hungry thing, then swallowed her sandal whole. Cold ooze slipped between her toes and crawled up her arch as she yanked her foot free. The storm was close. The clouds had warned her with their grey-bellied swell, but it was the silence that came after the lightning strike that truly frightened her.
The lamb was gone.
Of course it was. They always go missing after a bolt hits the field. A mother bleats, frenzied, the flock panics, and something small always runs the wrong way. This time it was into the trees. Always the damned trees.
She should’ve left it. Just one lamb. But this one had a mother who screamed for it. And Bo had never been able to ignore a scream.
Not after Jill.
Not after Jack.
Not since Ri Ting Hud wandered into these woods and never wandered out.
But Bo wasn’t them. She wasn’t a child. Nineteen now. Strong. Capable.
“He doesn’t like grown-ups,” she whispered aloud, mostly for herself. “He never did.”
Still, the forest didn’t seem to care about her age. It dimmed its light to blur her silhouette, conspired with the dusk to turn her petite frame into something more… edible. Rain misted the leaves above, dripped steadily, slicking her shoulders as she trudged deeper.
The trail was barely visible now — a bruised vein slashing between trees whose trunks grew too close together, whose branches clawed at her hair. Her steps were cautious. Slow. She feared losing her footing and breaking an ankle. She feared screaming even more.
But fear doesn’t always wait for its cue.
Her foot slipped on a slope, catching in a groove between roots. Instinctively, she grabbed for the nearest trunk. Her palm skidded over moss so greasy it felt like she was sliding through animal fat. Her hand plunged into a pool of brown water at the tree’s base, dragging her face with it. Something hard struck her elbow. Pain lit up her arm. A scream tore from her mouth.
It echoed too long.
Bo slapped her own lips with her muddy palm. “No,” she gasped. “No, Bo. Not here. Not now.”
The rain came heavier — first a whisper, then a war drum. Droplets smacked the canopy, struck the earth, and battered her until she was soaked. Her cotton dress clung like a second skin, tracing the curves she didn’t want anyone to see. Lightning split the air with a crack, revealing her in flashes. Her form. Her fear.
Thunder rolled. Applause from something unseen.
And then blackness again.
White. Black. White. Black. The storm was strobing. With each flash, the trees jerked forward, closer, as if they moved when she wasn’t looking. The path dissolved. Shapes flickered at the edge of vision — too quick to name, too still to be imagined.
She should’ve turned back.
She didn’t.
Bo stumbled forward, breath catching. She was thinking about the lamb, the way it would shiver without her, the way its mother had cried. The forest wanted her to think about that. It wanted her distracted.
And then the marbles stopped falling.
Time fractured.
In that frozen silence, an arm slid out from the trees.
A hand closed around her throat.
She choked, clawed at it, gripped the wrist — a thick, muscled limb, wet and sinewy with cold. She tried to scream again, but this time nothing came. The forest had learned her tricks.
His face emerged slowly through the beads of water, as if carved from the storm itself. His eyes were the colour of grave-dirt. His teeth shone like old coins.
“That won’t help,” he murmured, his breath rotting against her skin. “It never has.”
Bo’s body quaked. Her lungs burned. Her hands scraped against his skin, nails bending back.
And then, he smiled.
“I’ll make you a deal.”
He brought forward his other arm. Cradled in its crook was a trembling ball of wool, sodden and bleating. The lamb.
Her lamb.
“Well?” he asked, his grip tightening. “Want him to go home? Wagging his tail behind him?”
She tried to nod, but the pressure on her neck turned it into a spasm. Her eyes darted between the baby animal and the man’s dead stare.
“I thought so,” he said.
He crouched, unhooked the lamb from his arm, and placed it on the ground. The thing hesitated, then darted away into the trees. Its cry echoed, grew distant, vanished.
Bo remained frozen, trembling in the muddy clearing.
“He’s going home,” the man whispered. “You are not.”
His hand moved to the back of her neck, squeezing. Her feet lifted from the earth. He held her there, her body pressed against his, her wet skin meeting damp fabric. She could feel him — too much of him.
“I’ll give you a minute to run,” he whispered, warm breath trickling into her ear.
She gasped.
He grinned wider.
Then, with a swift motion, he tore at the neckline of her dress. The thin cotton shredded easily. It came away in two pieces, dropping her bare shoulders to the open air. She twisted, desperate to fall free, but he only laughed and spun her around, peeling the garment from her like skin from fruit.
He let go.
She collapsed into the mud.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of marbles hitting leaves.
And then, his voice — faint now, but no less sharp.
“Your time starts now.”
She didn’t know how long she ran. Her limbs ached, her lungs burned, and the forest never gave her a path for long. Every tree was a trap. Every shadow held teeth. And behind it all — behind the heartbeat of thunder and the crash of branches — she knew he followed.
She could feel him. Breathing with the storm.
Taunting.
She crashed through undergrowth, stumbled across roots, and when she fell, she kept falling — through air, through time, through the memory of his hand on her skin.
There was no direction. No way out. Only the lamb had a way home. She did not.
Eventually, exhaustion won. Her body folded at the base of an ancient oak, mud streaked from thigh to brow, blood trickling from her knees, her palms, her heart.
Above her, the trees whispered.
She wanted to cry, but the forest had stolen her tears.
Behind her, a twig snapped.
She didn’t look.
He didn’t need her to.
His voice curved around the tree and kissed her ear like an old lover. “You didn’t run far.”
She whimpered.
“Want to play another game?” he asked, crouching beside her.
This close, he smelled like leaves turning to rot.
“You’ve got such delicate skin,” he whispered, tracing her shoulder. “It bruises easily.”
Bo closed her eyes.
She thought of Jack, of Jill. She wondered if they had sat under this tree once. If they bled here too.
“Do you remember how to pray?” he asked, his fingers coiling in her hair.
She opened her mouth.
No sound.
Just the rain.
“Good,” he said, satisfied. “Then listen.”
At dawn, the lamb found its mother in the field.
It nudged against her belly, fed, and bleated happily.
A shepherd counted the flock.
One short.
He didn’t know her name.
But the trees did.
And when the clouds darken again — as they always do — they will remember her footsteps, her cries, her final breath stolen with a whisper.
Not even a peep.
–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)
SEETHINGS promises a gripping psychological thriller that blends murder, passion, and secrets of a sexless marriage. Forman’s vivid prose draws readers into a world where lightning illuminates the skies and hidden truths. As the storm clouds gather, Mitchell’s journey promises to unravel more than just the mystery of the murders.
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