Evil Eyes

Chapter 1

 There was a cold kind of darkness about the woods behind the house next door. You could feel it wrap around your heart, choking you with a python’s grip. Its aura was intoxicating…familiar. The air was unbalanced, and the closer you got to those strange woods, the harder it was to breathe. 

   As I stared through my window at the decaying, uninhabited land, a flashback flooded my mind. At the tender age of eight I had seen for myself what was lurking in the thicket behind that haunting structure. See, I had just been given a shiny, red ball for my birthday and I couldn’t think of a better way to break in the new toy than by playing with it outside. I sat in the afternoon sun, bouncing my new toy off the fence that surrounded my yard. The notion started out innocently enough until I accidentally threw it further than the fence. I watched, to my dismay. as the ball landed in the lawn beside the house next door and rolled into the woods. Carefully, I slid through a wide crack between the fence and ran across the yard towards the woods. Before I even realized, the grandeur of the woods had over taken me. The trees, tall and thick expanded in every direction for what seemed like miles. I held in my tears, and need to escape because of my desire to retrieve my beloved red ball. I skimmed the undergrowth and brush for any trace of it. But I felt the woods closing in on me the further I tread. Suddenly, I spotted a flash of red in the corner of my eye. My ball, stuck between two tree roots, protruding from the ground. Even as an eight year old, I couldn’t figure out how my ball had gotten so far. Without any further thought, however, I dashed toward my ball and tugged at it. It wouldn’t budge. I pulled as hard as my tiny arms would allow when it finally broke free. As I turned to walk away, the same fear crept over me, even to my younger self, it felt as if something had led me to that point in the woods, like a trap. 

   Now, almost ten years later I remember those woods, that heavy, suffocating feelings. I can see the enchanting electric blue eyes of the monster that lurked behind the trees that day. Its eyes followed me, as I looked back, running as fast as I could to escape the cold white blur the woods had become. Since, that say , I have known what is in those strange woods behind the house. A creature that crept like a lion around its prey, a creature with a heart of ice, the creature our ancestors always warned us about.