A brisk Spring morning saw me taking a walk around the neighborhood. Lost in my own world, thinking about nothing in particular, just watching the squirrels running across the road, I heard a loud gurgling sound. I had passed a side road about 30 yards back that cut into the neighboring cranberry bogs, so I turned around to see if there was an animal in distress, since there are lots of rabbits, squirrels, and deer in the area. Instead I saw two humans.
I don’t have great vision, even with my glasses on, so I was squinting trying to figure out what was going on. The man had his arm around the woman, and they were looking at me. After five seconds I heard, “Hi, Kim.” Realizing it was a neighbor, I felt myself calm. I called back a greeting, and continued on my way.
For a second I almost turned around to see if they needed any help, but then the scene started to replay in my mind. I realized after I had started turning around to look back at them, the wind had caught his words and brought them towards me, “You have to stand up now.” When I was fully turned, she was standing upright, and he had his hand on her back, supporting her. Since he had called out, and I knew them, I had continued on my way, but had that been blood I saw on her face? Like I said, my vision is not the best, so maybe it was just a shadow.
My mind continued to replay the brief moment, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up. I could feel eyes watching me as I walked away, and I just knew that if I turned around it would be them staring at me. I wanted to quicken my pace, but kept myself at the same speed, so they wouldn’t realize I had seen anything. But had I seen anything? They were far away, and I knew that shadows could easily play tricks on the eyes.
I was two blocks away from home when I noticed a car was coming my way. As the car got closer, the speed dropped down to a crawl. Since I was facing them I was able to see into the car as they passed. The driver was the neighbor I had seen on the cranberry road, and the person, dare I saw monster, in the passenger’s side, must have been his wife. One side of the face kind of looked like her, but the side closest to the window looked like it was made from melted wax. The right side of her lip was drooping down, along with her eyelid. It reminded me of a Salvador Dali painting.
My mouth dropped open in shock, and she just gave me a little finger wave, licking some blood off her lips as they drove away.