Runner up - Madi
By Madi
THE WILD THINGS
Scarlett kept walking, convincing herself she had just inherited her mother’s paranoia.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was there, a presence in the stationary air, a being lurking in the dark corners of the sparsely lit council estate.
Of course it feels like that, she told herself harshly, it’s a council estate! There’s bound to be some yob about wanting to freak you out.
The houses were basic and uniform, clones of each other lining the newly laid road. Scarlett felt like she was walking beside a mirror, each way, left and right was exactly the same as it’s sibling on the other side of the street.
One thought kept bouncing around her mind, rattling and upending the calm front she was trying to build.
If it is some idiot trying to scare me, where the hell are all the people?
The windows of the houses were dark, no glimmer from the harsh yellow streetlamps, no indication of living beyond the pane. They gaped and leered, creating holes and vicious mouths in the buildings which once seemed so bland and normal.
Her breathing hitched, and momentarily, she stood stock still in the middle of the night road.
Get a grip.
Scarlett clutched her bag closer to her body and tried to walk purposefully, striding out thinking of home, how close it was.
She walked faster, but fear poked at her body, like thick smoky tendrils, slowly engulfing her in a fog of panic. There was something wrong with that street, the windows which screamed, the silence which was almost a continuing ringing in her ears, the...
The nothingness. It was as if no living thing had set foot on the land, nothing had breathed the air or felt the cold against their skin.
Scarlett let out a whimper, her hands shook as she rummaged in her bag for her mobile, constantly looking round, as terror twined her in place, like ivy, it constricted and tightened.
Something had appeared.
Twenty feet away, swaying under a sputtering lamp post, the harsh light bending its features and submerging the thing half in light, half in shadow.
Scarlett let out a petrified gasp, tremors rocking her body. The figure swayed again and it turned its face up to the lamp. The glow flooded its features, its dark, jewel like eyes, the harsh gouges in its coal coloured flesh, the malicious grin contorting its face.
Scarlett had never, ever seen a real monster before.
It fixed her with a hollowing stare and her senses unwound. As if departing from her body, she plunged into the nothingness which consumed the street.
“What are you?” She whispered, no longer able to feel her breath, her heartbeat.
The thing approached, walking steadily, strolling almost.
A sharp claw tilted her head up.
The face loomed in front of her, and the horror increased in tempo, sending shockwaves through her fading mind as it fought to hold on.
“I’m a Wild Thing.” It whispered.