“They are here! Flee! Hide yourself! It is not too late. Run!”

He spun around, fists clenched in angry resignation. “No more!” he yelled to the trees. “I’m not going to listen to you anymore,” he added to the air above his head and the earth beneath his feet. “Do you understand me?” he asked the darkness that encircled the clearing.

Eric turned in a slow circle, his insanity still attempting to overwhelm him with its clamorous jabber. He could stand it no more.

“Shut up!” he shrieked at the top of his lungs. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

And all went instantly quiet.

As intolerable as the voices had become, the sudden lack of them was equally extreme. There was nothing now: no buzz of insects, no cries of night birds. Not even leaves rustled by the wind. The silence was deafening.

“Well, all right then,” he said, speaking aloud again to make sure that he hadn’t gone deaf. Made uneasy by the abrupt hush, he turned to leave the small clearing the way he had entered.

Eric stopped short. A lone figure stood on the path.

Was it a trick of the shadows? The woods, darkness, and moonlight conspiring to drive him crazier than he already was? Eric closed his eyes and opened them again trying to focus on the manlike shape. It still appeared to be somebody blocking his way.

“Hello?” He moved tentatively closer to the dark figure. “Who’s there?” Eric still could not make out any details of the stranger.

The shape came toward him, and so did the darkness, as if the undulating shadows that clung to the figure were part of his makeup. The comical image of Pig Pen from the Charlie Brown cartoons, surrounded by his ever present cloud of dust and dirt, quickly flashed across Eric’s mind’s eye. In a perverse way it did kind of remind him of that, only this was far more unnerving.

Eric quickly stepped back.

“Who is it?” he asked, his voice higher with fear. He had always hated how his voice sounded when he was afraid. “Don’t come any closer,” he warned, making a conscious effort to bring the pitch down to sound more threatening.

The figure cloaked in darkness stopped in its tracks. Even this much farther into the clearing, Eric could not discern any features. He was beginning to wonder if his psychosis had started to play games with him, this shadow being nothing more than a creation of his insanity.

“Are…are you real?” Eric stammered.

It was as if he had screamed the question, the wood was still so unusually silent.

The darkness in the shape of a man just stood there and Eric became convinced of its unreality. Yet another symptom of the breakdown, he thought with a disgusted shake of his head. It couldn’t stop with hearing voices, he chided himself, oh no, now I have to see things.

“Guess that answers that question,” Eric said aloud as he glared at the figment of his dementia. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Miss your cue or something? When I realize you’re nothing but crazy bullshit my mind made up, you’re supposed to disappear.” He waved the shape away. “Go. I know I’m nuts, you don’t need to prove it. Beat it.”

The figure did not move, but the covering of shadows that hugged it did. The darkness seemed to open. Like the petals of some night-blooming flower, the ebony black peeled away to reveal a man within.

Eric studied the man, searching his memory for some glimmer of recognition, but came away with nothing. He was tall, at least six feet, and thin, dressed in a black turtleneck, slacks. And despite the rather muggy temperature, he noticed the man was wearing a gray trench coat.

The man seemed to be studying him as well, tilting his head from one side to the other. His skin was incredibly pale, almost white. His hair, which was worn very long and severely combed back, was practically the same color. Eric had gone to elementary school with a girl who looked like that; her name was Cheryl Baggley and she, too, had been albino.

“I know this is going to sound crazy,” Eric said to the man, “but…” he stammered as he tried to formulate the most sane way to ask the question. “You are real…right?”

The man did not respond at once. As the mysterious stranger pondered the question, Eric noticed his eyes. The oily shadow that had cocooned him previously seemed to have pooled in his eye sockets. He had never seen eyes as deep and dark as these.

“Yes,” the pale-skinned man said curtly, his voice sounding more like the caw of a crow.

Startled, Eric didn’t grasp the meaning of the man’s sudden reply and stared at him, confused. “Yes? I don’t…” He shook his head nervously.

“Yes,” the man again responded. “I am real.” He emphasized each of the words as he spoke them.

His voice was strange, Eric thought, as if he were not comfortable speaking the language.

“Oh…good, that’s good to know. Who are you? Were you sent to find me?” he questioned. “Did my grandparents call the police? I’m really sorry you had to come all the way out here. As you can see, I’m fine. I’m just dealing with some stuff and…well, I just need to get back to the house and have a long talk with…”

The man stiffly held up a pale hand. “The sound of you, it offends me,” he said, a snarl upon his lips. “Abomination, I command you to be silent.”

Eric started as if slapped. “Did…did you just call me an abomination?” he asked, confusion and fear raising the pitch of his voice again.

“There are few words in this tongue that define the likes of you better,” growled the stranger. “You are a blight upon His favored world, an abhorrence in the eyes of God—but you are not the one that incites me so.” The hand held out to silence the boy was turned palm up. Something had begun to glow in its ghostly pale center. “However, that does not change the reality that you must be smited.”

Eric felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end, the flesh on his arms erupt in tingling gooseflesh. He didn’t need the voices of the wood to warn him that something was wrong; he could feel it in the forest air.

He turned to run, to hurl himself through the thick underbrush. He had to get away. Every fiber of his being screamed danger, and he allowed the primitive survival mechanism of flight to overtake him.

Four figures suddenly blocked his way, each attired as the stranger, each with a complexion as pale as the face of the full moon above. How is this possible? His mind raced. How could four people sneak up on him without making a sound?

Something whined at the newcomers’ feet, and he saw a young boy crouched there. He was filthy, naked, his hair long and unkempt, a thick string of snot dripping down from one nostril to cling to his dirty lip. The boy’s expression told Eric that there was something wrong with him—that he was touched in some way. And then he noticed the leather collar that encircled the child’s neck, and the leash that led to the hand of one of the strangers, and Eric knew something was very wrong indeed.

The boy began to strain upon the leash, pointing a dirt-encrusted finger at him, whining and grunting like an animal.

The strangers fixed their gazes upon Eric with eyes of solid shadow and began to spread out, eliminating any chance of escape. The wild boy continued to jabber.

Eric whipped around to see that the other figure had come closer. His hand was still outstretched before him—but now it was aflame.

His mind tried to process this event. There was a fire burning in the palm of the man’s hand, and the most disturbing thing was, it didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

Eric felt his legs begin to tremble as the orange-and-yellow flame grew, leaping hungrily into the air. The stranger moved steadily closer. Eric wanted to run screaming, to lash out and escape those who corralled him, but something told him it would be for naught.

Fear overcame him and he fell to his knees, feeling the cold dampness begin to soak through his pants. There was no reason for him to turn around; the feral child growled at his back and he knew the four strangers now moved to flank him. He kept his gaze on the man standing above him holding fire in the palm of his hand.