The other children taunted and teased Miles Gordon for his fear of the dark. To prove them wrong he took up his father’s straight razor and shaved his eyes.

~~~

It was night twenty-seven, very deep in the high-country backwoods where no others braved to hunt, where alone as the last dying embers of his campfire expired, Trevor Hull peered into the moonless and still night. As he rose to find his tent, a voice whispered from the dark.

~~~

The howling was at first distant but grew louder and closer with each passing night. By the coming of the blood moon, it was just outside the window.

~~~

Charlotte died alone on a Tuesday. It took four weeks for her twelve hissing and caterwauling cats to eat her.

~~~

It scratched at the window every night after she died. Defeated, worn and tired of it all, Timothy finally gave way and let it in.

~~~

The widow’s kitchen was always well cleaned, with spoons and forks untouched by her trembling hands after she put them away each evening. The knives, however, so often were found in the morning to have gone missing and the sink dirty dishes filled.