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It walks the streets of Gravesfield.
He saw her, everyday, going to school, acting like any human would. Acting.
The girl it replaced, well, she was never normal. An odd one, she was. What with meaty guts during school plays or spiders from school projects. But she was human. He knew that much. This, this thing, though… was anything but.
It was one year ago, when the local troublemaker oddly stopped acting out, but he hadn’t thought much of it. The way his son put it, it just seemed like the girl had finally moved on from her pop’s passing. It’d been hard on her and her mother, he understood that, but causing mayhem… it weren’t the answer. He laughed it off when the boy had passed around school rumors of changing skin or slitted eyes.
Maybe he should’ve listened.
When the school year began, that’s when he began to notice… worrying abnormalities. The girl, she began spending time with a group of children he’d never seen before. They said they were from out of town. But their sudden arrival… they didn’t really talk much with other folk aside from the Nocedas. Mostly because when they did with the girl around, it was as if they’d never talked with another person before. Most unnerving of all to him, though, was that they avoided the church like the plague… and would even glare it down if they realized they were near. It was suspect, to put it mildly.
Then he caught glimpses of… other things. Unholy things. Upon closer inspection, something about their visages was… off. Glimpses of pointed ears under their hats and muffs, skin that seemed to cling too close to their bones in some places, and teeth that looked like they could bite through bone. And from there, he noticed more, bit by bit. Pieces of the earth or plants that subtly bent to them when they stuck their hand out. Little freaky toys he sore moved ever so slightly, out the corner of his eye.
Then there was the other girl. ‘Her cousin’s kid’, the mother would say, and that she had adopted her when said relative passed away. And his boy, he said the girl fit all the rumors from before. And this time, he listened to his boy. He watched for it, the skin that seemed to change, the eyes that seemed to flatten.
But that young Noceda girl… he knew. They were doing something to her. She changed when the school year began. The life in her eyes just seemed to drain, more and more, every day. And his boy, he spoke of how the girl’s once optimistic mood had become dour and vitriolic. His boy spoke of an outburst in class that genuinely worried him.
And then… after Halloween, they all distanced themselves from the community. You never saw more than one of them at a time. Supposedly, a death of another family member had brought them to mourn. But he saw. He saw the slits and the skin that seemed to stretch and change, in every one of them.
They opened up to the community again after about a week or so. The kids from out of town, they weren’t as frequent, but he would still see them from time to time. He would even see new faces, every now and then. A snaggletooth woman. A spectacled woman. Another toy, with a horned skull, that moved when it thought he wasn’t looking.
But the girl… the girl was what spooked him most of all. She’d gotten noticeably taller, first thing. Bout half a head more. A growth spurt, her mother would say. But in only a week?
Then, there was this… atmosphere, around the girl. You could feel it if you walked close. Like a slight pressure in the air. And it was as if the entire world bent toward her, ever so slightly. She needn’t even reach out to it.
But it was when he was up close that he caught sight of the subtlest changes. It was a school event. He walked up, and greeted the girl and her mother, with a little half lie that his son mentioned she’d become the talk of the school. He offered a handshake… and he could see it.
A golden tinge in her eye. One that definitely weren’t the lights reflecting off her. Her hand felt… hardened, like bone, and he feared she’d tear his arm off. And if he focused ever so slightly… he swore he could see little nubs atop her head.
Right then, she spoke up, and he noticed the girl giving him a blank look. And he cursed himself internally, because he realized she’d caught him staring. He excused himself, but he could feel her eyes on his back the whole way out.
But he knew by that point. Knew that she wasn’t no girl anymore. No… something had taken her place. Those children… children of hell, he figured. The poor girl was always lonely, always an outcast. Had the fake one been put in her place while she cavorted with them? Did they charm her mother, or was she seduced as well? Had she realized too late how steep the toll was just before Hallow’s Eve?
He supposed it didn’t matter by now. She was gone. She was gone, and in her place stood a horror from the depths of hell, wearing human skin. He shuddered to think of what it had done to her… had it eaten her from the inside out and saved her skin? Had it possessed her and withered away her soul? He couldn’t bear the thought of the same thing happening to his boy… or any other child, for that matter.
He saw them sneak into the woods. Those woods… they always felt wrong to him. Felt like there was something evil within them. There was an old shack he knew of when he was a boy, deep in those woods. He and a couple friends had found it, as youngsters. Dared each other to go in, but never had the nerve. Felt like it might swallow him, even back then. Looking back on it, he’d been smarter than he realized.
But the girl… no doubt she’d been lured into those woods, into that evil little cabin. The one with indigo-dyed hair, of course. It’d corrupted her with pleasures forbidden by the good book. And deeper she fell until it was too late. They had power over her by then. for an entire year, they prepared her. And now... she was the sacrifice to bring something even eviler unto this world.
So, when he saw them walk into those woods that night, he was determined to stop it. One whole year he had watched it walk around in broad daylight, going unnoticed by everyone around it... this was the day he would bring it to an end. No one would believe him, of course. The other parents laughed off when he suggested anything off about them. Even the priest thought he was being ridiculous. So he took his gun and a light, and braved the evil himself.
He trembled as he walked through the brush, his eyes darting around. And as he came upon the shack, he gazed upon a door he did not recognize, open just a crack. The windows were dark, but light peered out from it. Light that shouldn’t be there. He readied his gun, steeling himself for the ordeal he might face.
A shifting of the leaves behind him caught his attention instead, and he whirled around to find… it. It stared at him with a half-lidded glower. He pointed his gun at the demon, a warning to back off. But it paid the firearm no mind, only continuing to scowl. It took a step forward, and he fired, right into its gut.
But aside from appearing briefly winded, it appeared no worse for wear. The only damage he had done was tatter its shirt around its stomach. Its glower became a much fiercer glare as it swiped the gun right out his hands. He cringed as he fell backward unto the steps of the house, desperately trying to inch away.
His flashlight had fallen, the bulb inside shattering as it hit the ground. He could only gaze up as the monster angrily stared at his gun, before breaking it apart. It turned his attention to him, and he thought it might tear him apart, there and then.
But it breathed in, its fists clenching, before giving him a cold, half lidded stare. Its eyes were now glowing with gold, as it looked down upon him.
“ Leave. ” It said, its voice low, tinged a subtle growl. “ And never come back. ”
He dared not stay there a second longer, in case it changed its mind. He ran all the way home, clutching tight onto his rosary and muttering hail marys the whole night.
Now, he can only watch it walk through the town. Wearing the skin of a young, misguided girl. The others, they don’t see him watching… but that thing does. It catches him every time. And it glares at him out of the corner of its eye, an all too effective warning. He dare not get close. All he can do is watch…
…As it walks the streets of Gravesfield.