The Pummeled Night

I was nine that summer, my sister Ada was seven. We lived with our parents in a rented house at the edge of a small town called Millbrook, where the old railway tracks ran behind our fence, and the forest pressed close on three sides. Our bedroom faced the back, its window looking out onto a tangle of blackberry bushes and a broken swing set that creaked in the wind, even when there was no wind.

That night, a storm rolled in from the east. Lightning split the sky, and thunder rattled the windowpanes. Ada and I were supposed to be asleep, but the storm kept us awake. We lay in our separate beds, whispering about what we’d do if a tree fell on the house. Then, between two claps of thunder, I saw something at the foot of our beds—a darkness that seemed to seep from the corner, thicker than the ordinary dark of the room. It rose, not like a shape forming, but like a stain spreading upward, and it took the form of a low, broad creature, no taller than a dog, but with a slick, oily coat that seemed to drink the light. It had three eyes, arranged in a triangle on its face, each glowing a dull, ember red. Its mouth was a gash filled with needles, and three tails, each tipped with a bony spike, thrashed behind it.

My breath caught. I wanted to scream, but my throat closed. Ada saw it too—she let out a tiny whimper and pulled her covers up to her chin. The creature turned its head, its three eyes fixing on Ada, and it began to move, its steps silent, its claws leaving no marks on the wooden floor. I knew, with a sick certainty, that it meant to reach her first. I found my voice, though it came out as a rasp, ‘Ada, get under the covers!’

Ada obeyed, vanishing beneath her quilt. I forced myself to look at the thing. I shouted, ‘Go away! Go back to wherever you came from!’ My voice cracked, but I tried to sound brave. The creature paused. Its heads swiveled with an unnatural click, and all three eyes locked onto me. I felt a cold weight press on my chest, as if its gaze was a hand pushing me down. It turned from Ada’s bed and padded toward me, slow and deliberate. The floorboards creaked under its weight, a sound like snapping twigs.

I screamed then, a raw, piercing shriek. ‘Mom! Dad! Help!’ The creature advanced, closer, closer. I could smell it now—a stench of wet earth and rot, like something that had been buried and dug up. Its three tails lashed the air, and its mouth opened, revealing rows of jagged teeth, and I saw a black tongue flicker. My heart hammered. I threw my pillow, but it passed through it as if the creature were smoke. It was an arm’s length from my face when the bedroom door burst open, and light flooded in.

Mom stood in the doorway, her hand still on the light switch, her eyes wide. The creature seemed to dissolve, not suddenly, but like ink dispersing in water, its edges fraying until there was nothing but the ordinary dark of the room, now banished by the light. I blinked. The room was empty. I looked at Ada’s bed—she was a lump under the covers, perfectly still. I called her name, but she didn’t move. I scrambled off my bed and ran to her, pulling the quilt back. Her face was pale, her mouth half-open, and she wasn’t breathing. I shook her, screaming her name.

Dad burst in a moment later. He saw me shaking Ada, and he rushed over. He turned her over and felt her pulse. Then he did something I’d never seen him do—he slapped her lightly on the cheek. Ada gasped, her eyes flying open, and she burst into tears. We both cried. Mom knelt beside us, wrapping us in her arms. She kept asking what happened, but all I could say was, ‘The dog, the three-eyed dog.’ Dad checked the window, the closet, under the beds. He found nothing, of course. He muttered about nightmares, about the storm. But I knew what I’d seen. And when I looked at Ada, she nodded, her face buried in Mom’s shoulder. She’d seen it too.

We didn’t sleep the rest of the night. Mom and Dad let us stay in their bed, the light on, the radio playing softly. I kept my eyes on the door, expecting the shadows to move. They didn’t. But I heard something, just as dawn began to gray the sky. It was a sound I’d never heard before, and I’ve never heard since—a low, steady hum, like a swarm of bees trapped in a jar, coming from the blackberry bushes outside our window. I didn’t tell anyone.

The next day, I went to the spot where I’d thrown my pillow. The pillow lay on the floor, but the strange thing was that it was covered in thin, black scratches, as if something with claws had raked across it. I showed it to Ada, and she turned pale. She said, ‘It left marks.’ We hid the pillow in the back of our closet, and we never spoke of it. But some things you can’t hide—the memory stays, like a brand. We moved out of that house a year later. And for a long time, I thought I’d escaped. But last week, I found the same scratch pattern on the baseboard of my new apartment. It’s there, under the paint, as if it had been carved from the inside. I’m writing this now, not to warn you, but to ask you—have you seen it? The thing with three eyes, three tails, that leaves its claw marks on your things, that waits for the storm? If you have, tell me. Because I’m starting to think that it doesn’t live in houses. It lives in the spaces between our fear.

I’ve started leaving the light on at night. It doesn’t help. The darkness in the corners is always a little thicker than it should be. And last night, I saw a shape at the foot of my bed. It was gone when I blinked, but I felt its three eyes on me. I think you know what I mean. If you’ve seen it, maybe we can help each other. But be careful—once it knows you can see it, it doesn’t go away. It just waits. And it’s patient.