"Still a work in progress"
1.
The wind howled just outside the blackened window relentlessly. Somewhere out in the bitter and cold night lying alone and beaten and forgotten in the forest Jonathan Connor wept. The evening news had said that late storms would be moving into the area around 9:00 pm however the wind didn’t start until much later and now minutes after 3:00 am , as the thunder began to crash into the dark abysmal night Joanna Connor stood looking out into the black nothingness that had swallowed Black Ridge Hollow with clinched jaw and watered eyes, fearing the worst as she waited for her husband to return.
Earlier that evening as they sat at the dinner table eating their regular meal of grilled chicken penne and silently exchanging empty looks at one another by a dimly lit table lamp a loud screech had echoed from somewhere in the hills surrounding the property. Jonathan and Joanna both shot straight up in their seats and looked at one another with startled gaze as if both had been shaken by some deep primal fear that suddenly reached out and grabbed them from behind. “Did you hear that?” Joanna practically screamed as they both raised from the tabled to move closer to the side of the room closest to where the noise seemed to come from. “Could have been an owl or tomcat Anna.” Jonathan replied with faint conviction in his tone. “I will go out and check and make sure that no one, if God forbid someone were hiking, has fallen down the ravine and hurt themselves. He reached for his 12 gauge and jacket has he headed for the door. Joanna looked at him with contempt as if to say that she did not approve of his carrying a gun with him. “It’s just in case it is some animal that may be aggressive, everything is fine Anna, don’t over react and stay by the window in case some one comes down the hollow road.” She nodded and watched as he walked out into the evening light toward the woods struggling to put his jacket on while shifting the shotgun from hand to hand. Slowly he disappeared into the woods just past the curve of the nearest hill to the house.
Now as she fought back tears and anxiety she wondered would he be coming any minute with maybe some young city kid who decided after reading a travel magazine in the dentist office to take an outdoor venture, injured and half frozen to death only to need a good cup of hot soup and rest. The storm began to rage into the night in some twisted mockery of her fears for her soon to be happy 40th birthday boy. Little did she know that he would never see that 40th birthday. Now as she stared out that window into the pitch black stormy night all her dreams and future plans lay bleeding and damaged deep in the woods half covered by dead limbs from broken tree limbs and decaying leaves. Joanna would never again hear his scowling demands for clean socks and maple pancakes with chocolate sauce and cream cheese. The days of sitting on the porch and listening to the ground squirrels rustle nearby as the sun sat just over the western hill as the birds sang were gone for good.
Joanna paced back and forth but never more than a few feet from that window hoping at any moment his shadowy frame would take shape in the night safely returning from his survey of the property. Should I call the police or someone for help?, she thought struggling not to loose it all together. Lord knew she was seconds from hysteria. What had made that scream? Was it an animal? It didn’t really sound human but really it didn’t sound like any animal that she had heard before. She decided to grab a flashlight and go see if she could hear or see anything from the edge of the yard, not crossing into the woods just in case he did return while she was outside. It was now past 4:00 am so she put on her jacket and grabbed the flashlight, taking a deep breath she went to the kitchen door and out into the horrid and wet night.
2.
Jonathan walked to the edge of the yard and with purpose steadily carried on into the woods following the old walk path that had served his kin for decades. The screech or scream or what ever the sound was had come from the direction just beyond Black Bear Peak. It was a ridged and rocky incline that gave a healthy man pause on a sunny day but Jonathan had walked it many a time in his life. The most anyone around these parts had to fear was the occasional bear and the random coyote that might wonder into the area searching for food scraps left out by neighbors. When he finally made his way half way around the gorge something moved quickly to his left just off in the distant. The rain had began to pour even harder now and the lightening was very little help in the visual department. How stupid he felt for walking out into this night without the most obvious necessity, a flashlight. His eyes had adjusted well and he could still make out the trees and rocks and shadowy figure just in the distant pathway. Wait, shadowy figure? Is that a person or animal there just beyond the birches? Has to be my imagination. He looked around to his right side up the hill, nothing, then to the left down the gorge and nothing still. He turned toward the original location were he imagined the shadowy figure and nothing there. “Thank goodness, for a minute I thought you were loosing it Johnny.” He said to himself, moving forward again. As he made his way he heard the screech again, this time giving him a sick feeling in his stomach. The sound was louder and closer and more not like any animal or human sound he had ever heard before. He pumped the 12 gauge and took a deep breath to calm himself just as he heard something move very fast around his side and onto the path behind him.
This had to be some sort of nightmare or fucking dream he was having. There was no way that he was now standing in the middle of a thunderstorm on a dark night in the woods staring at this, this…What the hell was this thing he was looking at? Somehow deep in his mind he knew though. He had heard the legends and spooky tells of the Shadow Demon of Black Mountain. That shadowy and terrible creature that haunts the mountains of this most desolate part of Kentucky. Every kid new the stories. They were just stories, nothing more. Now standing before him just before his 40th birthday was this shadowy monster that seemed to drip gray smoky ooze from its form that vanished as it did so, with white shimmered eyes and silvery slivered teeth just feet from him staring with such evil intent.
The warm flow of liquid slowly ran down Jonathan’s face soaking the top half of his shirt. He hadn’t even had time to take in what he was looking at good when the pain hit him knocking him back on the flat of his ass, sending the shotgun landing feet away from him. The creature had sliced his face open with one swipe of its talon shaped claws. Jonathan dragged himself backwards toward the gun as the creature just stood staring at him like a cat with a mouse that he plans to torture before ripping it apart. He managed to get one shot off into the night air as the demon moved forward and picked him up, sinking its teeth deep into Jonathan's neck and sucking out as much of the warm and thickening fluid as it began to gush from him. He thought of Joanna standing at the window still or had she given up and went to bed, maybe she called the police or a neighbor to come and assist. God forbid if she was bold enough to come out into this dark wet night to come looking for him. The terror filled his head as the blood drained out. The image of his Anna walking up, unsuspecting, and meeting this horrible creature on this black night full of death and nightmarish fantasy realized, was too much for him to bare. He kicked and flailed at the beast trying to break free. He was weaker than he could ever remember being in his whole life. Just then the demon released him and threw him down the gorge as if he was some waste to get rid of, but why so abruptly. He new he was close to death, actually wished for it hurry before the thing changed its mind and came down the gorge and decided to fillet him some more.
3.
Joanna had just reached the edge of the pathway leading into the woods heading up to Black Bear Peak as the gun shot echoed through the night air. Her heart seemed to almost stop as she thought of Jonathan out there in the night in those dark woods alone against God knows what. She moved as fast as she could along the pathway shining the light radically from side to side as she moved along. The second screech must have triggered Johnnie to fire a warning shot at the animal. An animal it had to be because there was now way that a human made that noise. She wasn’t even convinced that an animal could make such a soul curdling sound but it had to be, what else was there?
As she got closer to where she thought the gun shot came from she could have sworn something moved into the light as she flashed it to the right but it wasn’t there now and after a little bit more distant she finally came to the edge of the gorge just as the curve led up steeper pathways to the top of Black Bear Peak. She shown the light around and then lost her breath with fear as she noticed the cold black iron of the gun barrel half covered in debris from the heavy rain rushing sediment down hill. “Johnny!” She screamed out. “Johnny answer me, where are you?” The panic began to set in as she realized that something had to have gone horribly wrong for him to drop the 12 gauge on the trail like this. She followed the light up the hill and nothing, wait what was that?, was that a shadow moving there again? She then moved the light down the gorge and gasped as she saw the only man she had ever loved lay crumpled up like some old abandoned rag doll motionless against the rocks and fallen tree limbs down the ravine. Joanna wasted no time getting to Jonathan only to find the horror that had become of him. Lifeless he lay there pale and cold. The gash to the face was more than just a gash. The creature had tore the entire flesh and muscle from the whole left side of Jonathan’s face exposing the jaw and mandible. She felt the wet sticky fluid gathered on his shirt and shined the light to see where it came from feeling the sickness swell up inside her gut from the image in front of her. Something had tore a big whole in his neck as much like a shark would tear into a seal. The mangled strips of flesh and tendon exposed and the piercing whiteness of shoulder bone, at least she thought that is what it was. What is that noise? It sounds like something is racing around just out of site moving very fast! Shadow! Oh God that shadow what was that? Suddenly Joanna felt the sharp pain as claws pierced into her back ripping into her flesh and releasing her warm sticky fluids out onto her clothes. She didn’t have time to turn around or fight to see what was attacking her. She could only form the thought over and over of the shadow she saw. Oh fuck! The shadow has killed my love, my only love in my whole fucking life, and now it is eating me! The demon opened its obscenely large and jagged mouth full of needle sharp teeth and with one motion tore into Joanna Connor’s neck and fed.
