The Thing.

[WP] The three rules have been passed down from generation to generation: One, when it visits, do not refuse it entry. Two, when it offers a gift, do not reject its generosity. Three, when it leaves, do not turn your back until it is no longer in sight. In this way, our family has been kept safe.

*****

Three soldiers wound their way up our garden path as the whole town burned behind them.

Smoke coiled up into the sky from the church. That’s where they took everyone last night.

Took them and burned them.

I looked over at my little sister, Lana, who had finally fallen asleep sometime in the past hour or so, on a fur blanket in front of the stove. She was curled up like a hedgehog, her tangled brown hair spread across her back.

On my father’s orders, we had taken what we could carry from the house and hid here, in the cottage. It sat in the shadow of the main house, which my father built for my mother the year I was born.

Soldiers were rampaging through it now, tossing furniture out the windows, drinking their way through the wine cellar, ferreting out silver, gold, diamonds, and survivors.

I heard the soldiers approaching the door. “Lana,” I whispered, “Lana, wake up.”

Her eyes shot open. She was flooded with the realization that the attack had not been some awful nightmare. The war really had come all the way to our village.

“Some men are here. You need to be brave, OK?”

A heavy fist banged on the wooden door.

“Lana – brave, yes?”

"But we're all alone," Lana said.

"No," I told her. "Not alone."

Lana nodded. I took a moment to steady myself, breathing deep as the door shook again. I felt my chest and the necklace I was wearing. Idiot, I thought as I quickly unfastened it and hid it in my dress.

I opened the door. The oldest of the three, rotund with a handlebar mustache and a creased forehead, stepped inside. The other two followed, inspecting the humble cottage. They carried swords at their sides. The youngest one, probably my age, maybe seventeen, carried a musket.

“Identify yourselves,” the old one said.

“We’re not from here,” I said. “We are refuges. I am Susanna and this is my sister, Lilly. We hid here during the attack. We came from—”

“You are not members of the Mackenzie family, the owners of this estate?”

“No, sir,” I said.

The old one stroked his mustache. I made eye contact with the young one. He put his musket down between his legs.

“She’s lying,” he said. “I’ve seen her. She’s in one of the paintings in the house.”

The old one brought his face close to mine. I could smell the whiskey on his breath.

“I do not appreciate being lied to, young woman. The Mackenzie family have funded the rebellion from the very start. They and all the others like them are traitors. They will be hanged.”

His eyes moved to Lana.

“No matter how innocent they may appear to me.”

I saw something flash by the window from my periphery. I noticed then that it was deathly quiet outside. Not a sound. I could hear my own heartbeat.

“We’re not Mackenzies,” I said.

“Prove it,” he said.

A shadow fell over us, like a dark storm cloud had moved in overhead. At first I was chilled to the bone, just like the soldiers, who looked around in confusion. But then I remembered what my mother had said. The stories she had told us. The rules we were given.

One: When it visits, do not refuse it entry.

There came a knock on the door. Light, almost gentlemanly, but somehow impossible not to hear. The younger soldiers looked to the old one.

“Who is that?” he spat at me.

I stepped back, putting my arm around Lana. “I don’t know.”

The knock came again. The wind was howling outside the walls of the cottage.

“I think we should open it,” said the third soldier. He wore glasses and had a bandage around his head.

“Shut it,” said the old one. He wheeled around at the door.

“Get out of here,” he screamed, as the knocks came again, “I’m warning you!”

When nothing changed, the old one drew his steel sword from its scabbard. As he held it to the door, prepared to fight anything, the window on the far wall shattered. A shrieking wind whipped into the cottage and grabbed him by the neck.

The old soldier was sucked out through the window like soup from a spoon. With a scream and a pitiful cry, he vanished. The soldiers, terrified, peered through the smashed window.

All traces of the outside world were gone. It was pitch black. Frost started forming on the jagged glass and around the broken window frame.

“Open the goddamn door,” said the bandaged solider to the young one. He did as he was told.

The ghost unfurled itself as it passed the threshold and entered the cottage. Lana gripped me tight around the waist. I told her everything was okay. It was here to help us. It was family.

A black shroud, forming a cloak down its backside but morphing into a face at the top, loomed over the young soldier. It spoke in a whisper, but the sound didn’t come from its mouth – it came from inside our own heads.

“I bring gifts,” it said, holding the ‘s’ a little too long.

Two: When it offers a gift, do not reject its generosity.

The ghost wove its skeletal hands through the shroud and produced a red, gooey, cold hunk of raw meat. The soldiers looked at each other. The ghost stretched its arm out and caressed the young one’s face.

“Taste it,” the ghost said, “It nourishes the soul.”

The soldier hesitated. He looked to the bandaged one, who nodded, “do what it says.”

The solider took the meat in his hand. He gagged as he felt it respond to his touch. It began pulsating, secreting blood.

The young soldier lost his nerve. He dropped it on the floor and bolted, crying out and trying to sprint through the ghost, out into the void.

“No!” the other shouted, reaching to catch his comrade’s coattails. But the soldier vanished. All was silent. The ghost didn’t move. He let the boy go.

And then they heard a piercing, blood-curdling scream. The ghost picked up the piece of meat from the floor. It was now twice the size.

“For you,” it said, turning to the bandaged one. He grabbed it with both hands and tore into it with his teeth, shutting his eyes and suffering through.

“Nourishing, no?”

The solider nodded, “Th- thank you, kind spirit.”

The ghost smiled. As it did, light returned to the outside world. The darkness receded, bringing back the blue sky, the trees, the grass, the smell of smoke.

A dozen soldiers were gathered around the cottage. The soldier and the ghost remained near the door, locked in a shared gaze.

“Farewell,” said the ghost, as it gathered its shroud and stepped backwards into the grass. The soldiers, frozen in place by their terror, watched as it swept away, up the garden path.

I watched it go. Lana wiggled in my arms, but I held her steady, looking straight on at it.

The bandaged soldier sighed in relief and turned to me.

“You’re a dead girl, you evil little witch” he said. He took one step toward me before his torso folded over his legs like someone was crumpling up a piece of paper. He screamed for just a second – it was cut short. His limbs folded up, his neck snapped, his head caved in.

The soldiers outside fell back, dropping their swords and guns. When it was over, the soldier was a chunk of red, gooey meat, lying on the floor of the cottage.

I stood in the doorway and watched the soldiers scramble down the garden path, howling and crying for their mothers.

Three: When it leaves, do not turn your back until it is no longer in sight.

I took the necklace out from my dress and fastened it around my neck. I brought the locket up to my lips and kissed it.

"Thank you," I whispered.

*****

THE END.