c h a p t e r t h r e e .
Jude Evergreen
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ROMAN DID NOT STAY AT HER HOUSE THAT NIGHT. Jude went outside.
Something called her to the back porch of the trailer that she couldn't explain. The deer were screaming again- which was strange in itself- because they usually stopped, but tonight they didn't. Tonight they cried out, barking and snarling, stretching off into the darkness in a discordant melody and echoing from far beyond, closer and then distant, distant and then closer.
The breeze on her face was warm and then still, like someone had abruptly turned off the heating, leaving her in an uncomfortable limbo between warmth and cold. Jude stood there for quite some time simply looking at the edge of the woods, trying to figure out exactly where the strange sounds were coming from. She stood there until the air turned cold and goosebumps formed on her flesh, and suddenly she regretted coming outside in just a sweater and shorts.
She tried to look and see if she could spot any of the usual deer that liked to graze in the clover patch near the fence.
She saw a thing in the trees.
At first, she wasn't sure what it was. It was a blur of white from far off in the darkness, nowhere near close enough for her to even begin to comprehend what it might have truly been. It flickered intermittently, casting strange shadows that danced and swirled among the trees. Jude's initial thought was that it might be a torch or some kind of illumination from a house across the stretch of forest. The trailer park was situated on one side of a relatively thin stretch of woods, with the town on the other side, and Jude would often see house lights glittering through in dark on the other side.
This was different than a house light, and when it flashed on occasion it would spill out and illuminate the outline of the trees through the path. Jude assumed it was a torch, and while it didn't raise enough concern to feel afraid, she still decided to go back inside.
Deer screaming and torch lights. Perhaps someone was hunting, or hiking. After all there was a walking trail through there, and it wasn't uncommon for people to go jogging along it. Not this late though.
Jude made some popcorn and put on a movie to try and pry away the feeling of being watched. It worked, and soon the uneasy feeling vanished as she settled in for a cozy late night with Minnie.
She stayed up for a few more hours.
Then Minnie did something strange, stranger than usual. She got up from Jude's lap and went over to stick her bulbous head beneath the blind to stare out the window. She began pawing at the glass. The French bulldog never really took an interest in anything aside from sleeping. It was beginning to spook her.
Five does stood outside when Jude got up to take a look. They emerged cautiously from the nearby bushes, their ears twitching as they surveyed their surroundings. The motion-sensor light by the fence flicked on, startling the deer and causing them to skitter off into the woods. She watched them go, wondering what the fuck was going on.
That night Jude had a strange dream.
She dreamed that she was standing in a circle, the circle itself made up of a python consuming its own tail. Each time she went to step out of it the serpent would hiss, which she took as a sign to just stand still.
The white light of a torch continued to flash on and off, on and off, on and off, in a particularly rhythmic fashion although Jude was sure that even if it was morse code she would not have been able to understand it anyway. She couldn't see who was holding the torch or even how far away it was.
Soft music was playing, jangly and industrial sounding. If she listened closely she could even hear what sounded like someone whistling, followed by the crunch of footsteps over dry dead leaves.
Heart in her throat she tried to scan the tree line for whoever was out there, her breath escaping her lungs faster than what it could be pulled in. It was fear, stark and real and pure. She couldn't move in any way that wouldn't disturb the snake, and was therefore forced to stand still and wait, unable to run.
Something was stalking her, she could feel it. No more than the way you just knew how to breathe, instinctual, something you could become acutely aware of if you just focused.
Movement in the trees.
The five does that she had seen at her window were standing by the edge of the clearing, bleached white in the light of the crooked crescent moon. A trickle of blood leaked from each one's mouth and, as she peered closer, also from their eyes. The once peaceful and gentle creatures appeared to her now in a grotesque and macabre form. She felt a tug in her stomach at the sight, discomfort hatching like maggots in a wound. Squirming and putrid.
Terror seeped into her bones, pulling her down, keeping her frozen. It wasn't what she saw but what she felt and it felt awful. A rotting smell reached her nostrils, and when she looked down she saw her the flesh of her arms tightening and ripping- wilting to black before her very eyes. Rotting, rotting away to the milk-white bone.
The snake let go of its tail. It bit her on the calf, fangs penetrating the supple flesh without much resistance. Jude couldn't scream. Something was covering her mouth, a glove or cloth or something material. It felt like she was frozen in time, her head pounding so violently she thought it might explode- thin red streams leaking from her ears and the corners of her eyes. The eerie music grinded to a painfully slow motion trawl, scratching like a broken record on rewind.
The cracking of bone spliced the sound of the jagged violin.
Jude woke up to a TV screen of static and beeping. She stayed awake until daylight.
She stayed home from school the next day after she woke up sick to her stomach.
It was miserable, truly, and when she wasn't in bed she was keeling over the toilet hurling up her guts. The contents were black. As she sat there bewildered and shocked and horrified, she saw an insect wing. Large, with a blue-green sheen to it.
Huh.
Almost as soon as she blinked the black bile along with the wing was gone. Jude took it upon herself to lay back down in bed and keep hydrated. She considered texting Roman back, who had already flooded her messages with his disapproval of her skipping school without him, but she didn't have the energy to come up with an explanation for her own delusion.
Minnie stayed by the window, watching rain drops trickle down the glass, the air humid and sticky. For some fresh air the girl also went to sit there for a bit, watching the trees as a few deer once again came to the clover patch. One of the does looked at her, from over by the fence as its curious gaze met hers on the other side of the window. She would have gone outside to try and get a little closer if it weren't for this weird crippling nausea.
Night fell once again and her father, Lance, was not home. He worked as a truck driver which meant being away for periods of time, which up until now she had never minded.
Over the back fence in the stretch of darkness the torchlight flickered again.
Jude went missing that night.