Todd watched from his bedroom window as his father placed the plastic trash bag in the hole and covered it over with the freshly dug dirt. Todd knew he should cry about this. He’d cried over things that were far less important and much less sad. Like the time his Little League team had lost its first game. And the time his cousin had ripped one of his baseball cards by accident.
But when he thought about Faith being gone, the tears just wouldn’t come, even though he wanted them to. He felt sad, all right. Terribly sad and lonely and let down, as if a part of him had been torn out and thrown into that garbage bag to be buried with his cat. Yes, there was an emptiness like he had never felt before since this was his first experience with death.
But another, stronger emotion drowned out his grief, engulfing him in a bottomless fear that choked away at his very breath. This terror lived with him always now, had, in fact, been his constant companion and bedfellow ever since that awful night in the woods.
His Dad had told him that Faith had been killed by a fox and he wouldn’t let him see his cat because it would bother him even more. But Todd was already beyond being “upset” as his mother called it. Not because Faith was dead-that itself would have been terrible enough-but because he knew what had killed his beloved pet. It hadn’t been a fox, or any other animal either. He knew what had happened to Faith and that was why he was almost paralyzed with a terror so complete and so devastating that he couldn’t even cry now when he needed to the most.
It was that thing in the woods. That rock. That’s what had gotten to Faith. That’s what had killed her. He knew it without the slightest doubt.
And he knew the thing would kill again, would kill him, in fact, if it possibly could. The thing enjoyed killing. It fed off of making its victims suffer. The thing wanted to kill again, and it wanted to kill him.
He had escaped from it once and that had made it angry. That was why it had chosen his cat. He knew this. He also knew that the thing was growing stronger and more powerful with each day. Now it would wait for its victims to come to it. But soon enough it would be strong enough to come for them. Strong enough to come for him.
He turned away from the window and crawled onto his bed, remembering how Faith would curl up beside him on his pillow and allow him to scratch behind her ears, pretending to only tolerate his advances while betraying her pleasure by purring like a lawnmower.
Todd sighed. Somehow he’d have to get that thing in the woods before it got to him. He didn’t know how, but he knew it was important, that his very life depended on it.
But he was only a little boy and this…this thing had all of the strength and experience of time.
Then, when he realized how small and insignificant he had suddenly become and how hopeless his situation was, only then did the tears begin to flow.