Walt's Forbidden Secrets

*

I was not prepared for this.

I was relaxing in my natural habitat, the forest, and then they came. They looked like tiny old men, but with very long arms, like a monkey’s. Their clothes were tattered beyond repair, and their eyes were filled with blood. I had never seen their like before, so I stayed hidden in the branches of the trees until they left.

That was three months ago. Now it is mid-summer and time has passed without incident. The trees are full of fruit and life, and I have grown accustomed to the sounds of nature all around me. But today something strange happened.

I was hunting down a wild animal that had been killing my chickens, when suddenly I heard a scream. It was loud enough to shake the very earth, but it was also muffled as if someone was holding a hand over their mouth while screaming into it. It lasted only a second, but there it was again: another one! This time I could tell it wasn’t coming from the woods; it sounded like it was right near my house!

I sprinted home as fast as I could, but when I got there everything seemed fine. My wife Lolly was humming to herself in the kitchen while cooking dinner, and our daughter Candy sat on her lap happily playing with an old doll she found in the attic. “What’s going on?” I asked Lolly when I got inside. “Where’d you hear that scream from?” “What scream?” she said calmly, putting Candy down before walking over to me and placing her hands on my shoulders. “There was no scream honey. Everything's fine now. Why don't you go sit down and wait for dinner?”

When we were both seated at the table eating dinner later that evening, Candy suddenly began to cry out in agony while clutching her throat with both hands as if she were choking. Lolly quickly ran over to her and put her arms around her crying daughter to comfort her until she stopped howling like that and calmed down again after a few minutes. Something strange is happening here tonight...and I'm afraid if I don't do something soon, there might not be anything left to save by morning...