The Swamp
I, Swaying Reed and Croaking Toad, tasted malice on the wind. I turned my many eyes to look, and my many ears to listen, and found two men stalking up the dirt road with their bloodlust in tow.
They approached the simple wooden house perched at the swamp's edge. Crept up the steps and onto the front porch, careful not to let the planks groan. At the door, they craned their ears to listen and found silence within. The taller of the two, a lean man with a vulpine face, withdrew a hungry, gleaming blade from the waistband of his trousers. He cocked his head toward the door with a malicious grin, a signal to his partner.
The other, a stockier man with a cretinous smile, drew back his shoulders, lifted a heavy boot, and thrust it at the entry with all his might. But the door held, the boom waking those inside.
"Who's there?" A man within demanded. An oil lamp flickered to life, flinging squares of warm light across weed and loam.
Another kick and the door gave with a deafening crack and a shower of splinters. The men and their ill-intentions entered, as did I, Biting Fly and Skittering Lizard, between the intruders' feet.
It was the man called Pa the two encountered inside. He stood shirtless outside his bedroom door, a rifle primed and ready against his shoulder. Behind him stood his wife, Ma, terrified and white as the sleeping gown she wore.
"Who are you?" Pa demanded again. "I'll shoot'cha dead where you stand!"
The tall man's smile widened. "That so?" He taunted, bending his knife to the light as if to intimidate Pa. "Got somethin' I want, see." He inched closer, stalking Pa with a predator's delight.
"Ain't got nothin' here for ya," spat Pa. "Now git, 'fore I put the lead in you."
"If you were gonna, you'd'a done," the stocky one replied.
Pa turned the gun on him, giving the fox-man the moment he needed. He leapt at Pa, who was too slow to swing the rifle back around, and paid for it with his life.
The fight was brutal, but short-lived. Not a single shot was fired before the men had wrestled Pa to the ground while his wife hammered at their backs with futile fists. She screamed, wailed, called out to the Jesus man as the tall man's knife found purchase in Pa's gut. Once, twice, again and again.
It was Ma next, whose screams intensified before dying away with a sickening gurgle. And I, Biting Fly and Chirping Cricket, witnessed it all.
But there was another the monsters did not see. A girl-child, whose home had been the swamp all her life. Perched on the window sill of her bedroom, I, Bobbing Gnat, watched her cower beneath her bed. Even in the darkness her blue eyes shone wide and white with fear. The smell of urine choked the air. She would die if she were found. And I, Suckling Mosquito and Dutiful Ant, could not allow that to happen.
For I am the Swamp, and what resides here belongs to me.
Run, I begged, but she would not abide. She could not hear me, Disembodied Voice, above her fear. It was then that I, Gnat and Moth and Ant, coaxed the girl from her place, crawling over her eyes and mouth, tickling her ear with my nuisance until finally she stirred.
Run, I begged again, and this time she obeyed. The girl-child slipped from beneath the bed and to the window, throwing it open to face the hot, sticky night.
"The girl!" Shouted the man with the vulpine face.
From the trees, I, Watchful Owl, saw the girl-child tumble from the window to land with a hard splash in the fetid muck below. The breath went out of her, but she recovered quickly. In moments she was to her feet and running, racing deeper into the swamp, a streak of muddied white in the black. And I, Slithering Snake, followed.
A dark figure rounded the house, shouting for the child. With longer legs to tread the viscous waters, he soon closed the distance, catching the girl-child by a fistful of pale hair.
Fear bittered the air as he spun the girl around to wrap a meaty hand around her throat. She flailed, clawing desperately to loose his tightening fingers. Blood welled in the scratches, and I, Greedy, Brackish Waters, waited for a taste.
The blood dripped, and the night filled with a sinister sound, with all manner of hissing, rattling, chittering things. The sound rose to a fever pitch. It gathered, coalescing into a towering, human-shaped mass. A writhing hand of Beetle, Tick, and Aphid extended to grasp the man, who released the girl with a startled shout.
He spun, mouth gaping, and saw that it was I, Cicada, Mosquito, Moth, and Fly. He looked up into the moss-dripping oak and towering cypress to find their boughs staring back. In the waters he found the same; hungry, gleaming eyes.
His scream died as it reached the air, for all at once, I, Vengeful, Ugly Thing, surged upon him, ripping, tearing, and biting at his flesh until I could crawl beneath it. Until he had become mine.
The girl-child paled, collapsing from shock, and I, Burning Malice, laid her among the cypress knees and left to find the vulpine-faced man.
He thought the steps he heard clunking across the wooden porch to be his partner, the oafish man with the heavy boots, and turned to greet him with a satiated smile. Blood stained his hands, his arms, his sweat-yellowed shirt. It freckled his face and matted his greasy hair. But it was not the oaf he found waiting there in the broken doorway. It was no man afraid of sharpened steel, nor the coward behind it.
It was I, for I am the Swamp, and what resides here belongs to me.
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The Swamp
@1000 words
Fiction, Horror
Had this short collecting dust on my hard drive for months now and didn't know what to do with it. Decided to polish it up and submit for @danielandangel 's weekly writing contest. I'm not a horror writer by any means so it's probably full of cliché but alas, here it is. Hope you enjoyed! I mean, I hope you have nightmares.