Brett Eland

Eddie Trumbull hit something on the way home.

He didn’t see it. One second the road was clear, the next there was a thud-thump beneath his tires, the kind that rattles up through your spine. He cursed, checked the rearview. A lump in the road. Something wet and dark.

Probably a deer. Or a dog. Not his problem.

He kept driving.

By the time he got home, there was a smear of something on his fender, thick and black in the porch light. He’d clean it in the morning.

But then, as he was putting away the groceries he’d picked up that afternoon, he heard the scratching.

It started at the front door. Light at first, like wind pushing a loose branch. Then heavier. Deliberate. Claws raking wood.

Eddie peered through the peephole. Nothing.

Just as he turned away—

Thump.

A single knock.

Not from the door.

From inside the house.

Eddie swallowed hard. Had someone gotten in?

The hall light flickered. His breath turned to ice in his chest.

He smelled it first, a thick, coppery tang that clung to the air. A chill curled up his spine as he stepped forward, his breath coming shallow. Then he saw the tracks. Bloody footprints. Wet, glistening, leading from the door into the house.

And they weren’t human.

Something shifted at the end of the hallway, its movements jerky, stuttering like a marionette with tangled strings. A shadow twisted, elongating unnaturally, its limbs clicking as it tried to find its balance in the dim light. A thing that should’ve died on the road.

It smiled.

The last thing Eddie saw was its mouth—too wide, filled with glass and gravel and teeth that weren’t teeth at all.

It took a shuddering step closer, its joints cracking like splintering wood. The air turned thick, heavy with the scent of rot. Eddie could hear it now—the wet, rasping breath, the faint squelch of blood dripping onto the floor. It whispered something, just above a sigh, before it lunged.

Something wet.

Something hungry.

Something like thank you.