Mr. James used to light little fires in our eyes with ghost stories of the San Antonio Thornscrub: a forbidden, hidden place that waltzed the blade between modern civilization and something primordial.
There’s a darkness hidin’ out here, he’d start—always careful to whisper with his back to the shadows. As if he’d already felt it there himself and raising his voice even a decibel higher’d whip the brush into a rage for spilling secrets too loud and to the wrong folks.
It lurks wherever the light ain’t, just…droolin for a good hunt….It’s got fangs the length of your palm—he’d smirk. It’s as old and elusive as the gnarled roots that keep it. But if you’re calm and concentrate—it’ll show itself. Our eyes glowed with the prospect of witnessing something magic. Something with teeth.
But Mr. James knew better.
This ain’t the kind of thing you make friends with. He’d warn. It’s sophisticated. It knows what your family looks like …friends, too. It shifts into the thing that feels safest so it can get you nice and warm before it feeds. And if you’re not paying attention, it’ll sneak up and…
Eat. you. alive.
He knew that something hidden we wanted so badly to unearth, wanted nothing more than to stalk and slobber in the dark. And for a long time it did. Summers passed and Mr. James told his stories and we listened.
But as we settled into the skepticism of tweenhood, the dark secret lurking in the shadows had mostly dissipated into a cryptic anecdote to share at campouts and slumber parties.
Still, it was a thrill to entertain that unease on the occasion we’d find ourselves out in the Thornscrub. But we never actually saw anything. Until one Summer, for no particular reason, it reared its ugly head at a block party in Schertz.
It came for Anny first.
…to be continued…
Tight tight write perfect narrative doling out for me- good tell