 Our house sat on a pretty steep incline. In the back there was a room for a concrete patio and a little space for a vegetable garden. Past that, the ground sloped steeply up into very thick woods that were full of oak, birch, and pine trees. The woods were pretty wild, but there was an obvious path that led straight off from our property into the thicket. It ignited my stepsister's curiosity as soon as she saw it. She was a few years younger than me. I think she was about 12 when we moved in and I would have been 14 or 15. Rita, my stepsister, was on me from the second we moved in to go into the woods with her. I used to go hiking with my dad before he started dating my stepmom, so to her that made me an expert on nature. But the thickness of the underbrush in the woods behind the house really put me off. Eventually I gave in to Rita's constant weedling and agreed to explore the woods behind the house. I talked to Rita into putting on long pants to protect from brambles and we set out into the woods. The incline was really steep and only got steeper the further we went in. The weeds and brambles along the forest floor were thick and cloying, clinging to our pant legs and pricking at our skin, even through our jeans. The path we were following was narrow and roamed left to right, seeking the easiest way past trees and bushes. It was probably a path used by deers and foxes and we struggled to follow it. I remember Rita saying, this is so cool. It's a real forest right behind our house and trying not to scoff where she could hear or see it. I already felt like I was too old to play around the woods. Those thoughts aside, I thought it was unwelcoming and kind of creepy. Definitely not the kind of place I would have wanted to play, even when I was her age. It was quiet in the woods. As we stepped deeper and higher, the incline just kept going up and up. We didn't hear any bird sounds or insects. It seemed like the only sound was what our feet made as they pushed through the underbrush and what the wind made as it blew hot sticky summer air against our backs. After a few minutes of hard going, the incline started to even out. And soon we were walking downward, the forest floor now sloping away down into a valley. Have you ever been out in the woods like this before? Rita asked, holding on to the back of my shirt as she cautiously descended down deeper into the woods. She was stepping carefully in my footsteps as she picked her way down. Not like this. I told her holding onto a crooked tree as I held a handout to help her over a fallen log. We went to public parks mostly. They maintain their forest, so they aren't congested like this. Isn't it exciting to have this as our backyard? She asked with a smile, her hands small and strong in mine as she hold herself over the tree. Yeah, it's pretty nice. I agreed, even though I privately thought that the woods were too wild to be much fun to walk in. We'd only been hiking for maybe 15 minutes, and I was already starting to breathe faster due to the harsh incline. We went a little farther and heard the sound of running water. It was the first sound other than the wind that we'd heard since entering the woods. A stream, Rita exclaimed. Do you think it's at the bottom of the valley? She asked excitedly. Yeah, probably. I grunted, but don't rush. You don't want to fall and get hurt in here. I kept a handout to help her along all the same. The image of her with a twisted ankle or broken leg filled me with anxiety, and I tried to keep a hand on her as she hurried ahead of me. The stream was at the bottom of the valley, a small but fast moving creek that was perfectly clear. The bottom was covered in a fine silt and tiny rounded stones. Looking close, we saw that there were little minnows swimming at the edges where the current wasn't as fast. We both took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pant legs, and waited into the water. In the center, it came up to our calves, and the current was swift. The water was blessedly cool and felt great against my feet. Rita was delighted, picking up stones to put in her pockets and watching the little fish swim around her feet and brush against her toes. For the first time since we started to push through the woods, I was happy that Rita had suggested it. This was a great find and was worth the hard work to get to it. Then, seemingly out of the blue, I was struck with a strong feeling that I was being watched. It was bright even that deep in the woods, the air was hot and the wind through the trees was humid. Even so, I got a cold chill that ran down my back, and suddenly my throat and stomach were in knots. There was some part of my brain, like this primal hind brain, that pricked up and said, you're in danger. I froze, barely daring to breathe, and looked around as much as I could without moving my head. And I saw it. I'm still not really sure what it was. It was standing further down the stream, which steadily moved lower between the hills. It was standing up straight and perfectly still in the center of the stream, watching us. Small trees and shrubs grew all along the creek and leaned into the space above it to stretch for sunlight. This made it hard to see the person or figure through them. Their face was obscured by branches and leaves, but I could make out a little of their body, and everything about it made me feel something was wrong down to the marrow in my bones. They were in a human shape, standing up, arms at their sides, their legs straightened and locked. The water was visibly burbling around their shins, so they were displacing the water. But they were completely black, not like they were painted black or wearing black clothing, like a complete absence of light and color, as if their shape was punched out of the air around them. I grabbed Raida's arm as she danced past me, probably too hard for someone so much smaller than me. I remember in the corner of my eye, I saw her turn to me with a narrow look, like she thought she was going to fight me. Then she looked where I was looking, and saw it. She froze. Her eyes went wide, her breathing shallow. I realized we were like deer who had just spotted a predator. Some part of us realized we were prey, and that the next few seconds would decide if we got out of this or not. With a single shove, I pushed us both in a movement. Raida took off up the embankment into the woods with a kind of grace and brutality I didn't realize she was capable of. Without her shoes, she leapt from rock to root to fallen tree, like it was something she'd done every day for years. Being bigger and bulkier than her, I didn't feel nearly as graceful, but I felt that my panic and the adrenaline pounding between my ears made up for it. I kept up with her. Behind us, there was the horrible silence. We were a cacophony of crashing noises ripping through the woods and all around us. No birds sang, no insects chirped, not even the wind whistled through the trees. That whole run back through the woods was a blur. I never once looked back for fear of what I would see, and I didn't see Raida look back either. I kept my eyes glued to her back, carefully watched her every footfall in constant fear that she would slip or fall, but she never did. Once we crashed back through the edge of the woods and into our yard, it was like the sound was suddenly turned back on. Not that Raida or I cared. We continued running as fast as our bodies would take us for the house, and once inside we slammed the back door shut and I slid the deadlock home. I pressed my back against the door with my breath heaving for a moment before running to the front door and locking it as well. Then I went window to window on the first floor, making sure they were all locked and that the curtains were pulled. Only once that was done did I collapse onto the living room floor with Raida. We left our shoes and socks by the creek. She said, sticking her muddy feet into the air where I could see them. Who cares? I said back. I'll tell dad we lost him. I added. That was really the start of it all. After it happened, for a while Raida and I assumed we'd left whatever it was down in the creek. We knew our parents wouldn't believe us, so we never brought it up to them. But I don't think we really left it behind, and now it knows where we live.