Page 13 of When the Night Comes Knocking

“Did you see that?” he whispers, jumping as several sharp snaps filter out from the trees.

“I saw it,” Jackson replies in a hush. The Boy Scout’s steady demeanor finally seems shaken, his eyes wide and shoulders squared for a fight.

Then Thomas hears it: the low, grating rumble of what sounds like gnashing teeth and bone scraping against bone. He knows these sounds—they are the same ones he heard in the bathroom earlier, the same sounds he heard just before glimpsing those sharp points retract over the window ledge.

Next to him, Evan hurriedly wipes his glasses with the tail of his sweater before shoving them back onto his face. “Well, what’s it doing—”

The tall figure takes off suddenly, running sideways through the trees at a frightening speed. Branches bow and break around it until the darkness has consumed it whole, and the woods once again look as they had before—a line of endless trees circling them like a barrier from the outside world.

“What the fuck,” Thomas mutters, heart racing as he searches the new portion of woods for any signs of movement, though the lone streetlamp keeps flickering out in uneven intervals above them, feeding the shadows.

Jackson puffs out a nervous breath while tightening his grip on the shotgun. “It was probably just a deer or something,” he says, circling to check the rest of the parking lot.

Evan gives a light shrug. “We could have scared it off. It might have been threatened once it got a look at all of us,” he says, despite his hands clearly shaking around the box of shells he’s carrying.

“Yeah, I’m sure your wife’s pink Taser really has it pissing itself,” Thomas replies, exhaling. Inside the store, the others continue to squint through the glass, faces creased with varying lines of worry and confusion. “Look, let’s just get out of here—”

He stills when the new sound hits his ears, chasing goose bumps all along his skin.

“Did you hear that?” says Evan, just as the sound starts through the trees again.

The whispers are low and fervent, coming from the same area of woods where they last saw the blur of the figure disappear. After a few more seconds of listening, Thomas is able to discern a man’s voice—deep and tinged with a Southern drawl.

“There’s definitely a person out there,” Evan continues, taking a timid step toward the tree line.

“Someone could have gotten lost in the woods while hiking,” Jackson says, though his tone doesn’t inspire much confidence. His German shepherd starts barking then, looking out at the same patch of trees lurking in the darkness beyond the streetlamp’s warm glow.

As the whispers continue, Thomas finds the cadence reminds him a bit of Jim’s voice. The drunk’s earlier words float through his mind then, seeming to stir up the surrounding darkness further.

It was like the devil was looking back at me.

Thomas swallows hard, keeping his feet planted firmly in place as Evan cautiously steps forward past Jane’s car and the white sedan parked next to it. The box of bullets rattles gently in one of the man’s hands, with the pink Taser gripped tightly in the other.

“Hello?” Evan calls out, voice cracking. “Is someone out there?”

The whispers pause. Overhead, the streetlamp briefly flicks out again, leaving only Winnie’s barking reverberating around the empty lot.

“Look, man, maybe we should just head back inside,” Jackson suggests. He glances over at Thomas expectantly when Evan takes another step closer to the woods.

Thomas only shrugs back at him, gripping tighter to his arm as the breeze picks up around them again. He can’t hear the man whispering anymore, not with that dog’s incessant barking and his own stupid heart pounding in his ears.

Evan pauses at the tree line, sighing slightly as he tilts his head to the side. He shakes it, turning back around to face them. “I swear I heard someone asking for help,” he says, lowering the Taser. “Maybe we’re all losing—”

His words hitch.

Thomas blinks, and the red patches have already bloomed swiftly across the man’s chest and stomach, seemingly there in an instant. “Evan?” he asks.

A gurgled choke tumbles from the man’s mouth as sharp points slice clean through the front of him, taking claim over his body until his whole torso runs crimson. The box of bullets drops from Evan’s hand, busting open as it hits the ground, so that shells spill out and roll in various directions.

Thomas feels the dark world around them shift into slow motion as he meets the man’s petrified eyes for only a second before Evan is yanked back into the darkness of the trees. That bloodcurdling screech rushes out to meet them, smothering the fervent sounds of Evan choking until he is quiet altogether.

Amidst the darkness, the outline of a tall figure steps forward, followed by a low, chittering growl.

The streetlamp flashes on for another few seconds.

Thomas’s eyes go painfully wide. His words stick in his throat. “The gu-gun. Use the gun!” he shouts, catching only a glimpse before the lamp sends them back into the dark.

He leaps away as Jackson shoulders the shotgun. The boom rips through the air, as loudly as if firecrackers had been lit off right at their feet. When the bullet connects with the figure’s chest, it barely stumbles back a step, blurring in with the darkness of the tree line behind it.