Cobweb Head

f i f t e e n

I was in town, sitting at one of the booths in the diner with both Leo and Mae across from me, where I sat wondering how on earth I had managed to land myself here.

To my relief, the weekend had come quickly, and I was feeling like crap after failing the test and getting into the fight with Effie. The moment Leo asked me if I wanted to go into town – the perfect distraction – I'd also realised I had barely done anything for Mae, who was likely to show up anytime with the Frights or a new set of threats.

With something twisting inside my chest, I'd asked if Mae would like to come too. He'd been confused at first, and after I'd explained to him that I didn't want to keep him away from his real friends, his expression melted into a smile.

I felt awful – he thought I was doing it out of the goodness in my heart.

I couldn't hate myself more than I did at that moment.

With a darkened stare fixated on Mae, I pressed my elbows into the counter and hunched my shoulders. God, I hated this.

She had her lips curled into a smile, watching Leo as he spoke. I hadn't realised I'd been scowling until he turned to face me.

"Are you alright?" He asked, his brows creased.

I couldn't stop my gaze from darting to Mae, nothing but warning in her eyes, and I cleared my throat. "I'm fine."

He tapped his cheek. "I've been meaning to ask about the bruise, what happened?"

"It was just a stupid accident, I said I was fine." My voice came out like a growl, to which I immediately clamped my mouth shut.

He leaned back into the booth. "You're more grumpy than usual today."

I didn't reply to that, instead looking out the window like an angry child, silently cursing to myself. The sky had gone grey. It was almost always grey here. I stood up.

"I'm going to the bathroom – I don't feel like being a third wheel today." I flashed Mae a look. She grinned.

"Oh, we're not—"

But I'd already left, Leo's voice trailed behind me.

I waited at the back of the diner, hoping to stay as long as I could before it became suspicious. Mae was suffocating, as if she had sucked up all the air in the room with one flash of her nasty grin.

I leaned back against the grimy brick wall, next to the dumpster, staring out into the trees ahead. There were layered shadows, thickening as I looked deeper into the forest, like black cobwebs.

I shouldn't have been surprised when I saw the shadow.

I should've ran straight back into the diner.

But it was different this time – it was bigger, a proper nightmare, walking out of the forest on long, thin legs. The face was something horrid, a cracked grin overfilling with teeth, sunken eyes buried deep into its skull.

I expected it to attack, but it didn't. It watched me from where it stood in the shadows.

My breath had caught in my throat as it started to shrink, twisting and crinkling like paper being crushed into a ball. And soon, what was left of it was a person.

I stepped forward as I peered into the darkness, the obvious outline of the woman slowly falling back into the shadow, as if melting into tar.

I ran forward – I didn't know why, there was no restless tugging at my chest, only one loud obnoxious thought.

Was she like me?

The night of the fire crossed my mind, and I couldn't help but grimace. Trish, her stifling phobia of fire, the feverish warmth becoming all too overwhelming. How my skin had gone hot until I couldn't feel it anymore, as the fires rose around me -- that night, I had changed. Morphed into Trish's overwhelming fear as if it was some grotesque parlor trick.

And now this woman was here, turning into nightmares.

Tree branches clawed at my skin as I tore through the forest, dirtying my clothing with freshly drawn blood. The figure was fading quickly, like how shadows disappeared at night when there was no sun to cast them.

"Wait!" I yelled. My voice cracked.

There was no response, her footsteps were too quiet.

I cursed as I lost sight of her, coming to an exhausted stop next to a tree. There was nothing to fill the silence but my rasping breaths. Who was she? And why had she been lurking in the forest, watching me from afar?

When I turned around, I soon found that I was lost. The wind carried the sound of whispering leaves.

Fuck.

I shrugged my hands into my pockets but found that I'd left my phone back at the diner, where both Mae and Leo would be wondering where I'd gone. Nothing but dirt trailed behind me, where I'd hoped to see footsteps.

Light filtered in through tree branches, mottling my path as I stole back the way I'd come. I whirred around when something cracked from behind me but found nothing there.

I clamped a fist over the ends of my sleeves, warily moving passed trees and holding my breath as another crack sounded from my left.

Just as I was starting to walk faster, wondering if the nightmare had planned on leading me away instead of spying, there was a flicker of movement.

My heart leapt into my throat as I spun around, and soon I felt hands grip at my shoulders. There was the woman, draped in a surprisingly mundane sweater, watching me with crazed eyes through the blonde hair that'd fallen across her face.

I yelped, tearing away from her grasp and tumbling to the ground. She watched me gingerly. "You're the boy who reads fears."

How would she know about that?

I scrambled to my feet – she didn't stop watching me, and only spoke again once I'd taken a few steps back. "We need you."

She drew forward, but I was already running. I ripped passed trees, not daring to look behind me. I came up near the back of the diner, finally pulling through the branches and whirling to the concrete ground as leaves skidded across the ground around me.

I looked back only once, as I stood at the threshold of the diner. There was no evidence of the nightmarish woman, only the leaves I'd kicked up running from the forest.

My heart shuddered against my chest as I went back inside.