The Portal in the Forest Read online

  ~45 seconds?

  Moves no sooner than 45 seconds ✔

  first appeared at 2 am? 1 am but slow

  hide, break all light sources done

  wait

  write down everything

  [tear drop stain]-omething is outside our house. We're sitting now. Nothing more can be done. All we can do now is wait.

  We first noticed it somewhere around 1 AM in the morning. David came over right about that time, and he says he saw something weird with one of the neighbor's houses, but he didn't know what to make of it. Ryan and I were here housesitting, but did not notice anything strange until 2 AM. It began with an eerie sense of unease. We were in the basement watching a show on a laptop, playing cards?

  David felt it too, and thought he heard something. We went to the windows. It was a very dark night. Clouds covered the moon. The back yard was lit only by two floodlights from the property across the way, and very thick fog rolled across the long expanses of grass and bushes. We saw a few lit panes in the house directly opposite ours, and, through other windows, we saw a few lights on in a neighbor's house. Something seemed off about the shared back yards - something horribly and innately wrong - but it was impossible to say what.

  We went around the house closing and locking every window and turning on every light. For a while, it made us feel safe. We clung low, peering out between the blinds, each of us trying to figure out why the back yards terrified us so.

  I had the strangest idea, before it even happened, that there was something wrong with the lights outside. I watched the two flood lights far off and to the left, and then I watched the lit window directly opposite us that seemed to be weirdly bulging and changing shape as I stared. Was it just a trick of the light? The crossbar seemed to be moving up and up and up until… there was no way I was imagining it…

  We knew for sure when our neighbor two houses down came out to let out his dog. We heard it barking, and we rushed to the side windows, watching from total darkness. Ryan slid the window open just enough to shout go inside! It's not safe!, even though we didn't know for sure…

  A third floodlight came on abruptly three houses down; an angled and bright light that usually lit up many of our backyards. The back porch light our unaware neighbor had turned on…. suddenly went dark. A strangled cry rang out, the dog squealed in horrible pain, and we slammed our window shut in terror.

  There was something out there.

  Ryan suggested that it was some large and fast-moving creature that had been lurking between us and the third floodlight.

  David peered out the window, offering no ideas.

  I sat in a corner, trying not to hyperventilate. We'd been afraid, definitely, but there'd been no proof until… until…

  "There!" David whispered. "It moved again!"

  We practically planted our faces against the glass. Our hapless neighbor's porch light was back on, and… the middle floodlight across the way was out. Darkness dominated the space between our backyards.

  "What's it shaped like?" Ryan asked, confused.

  David just shook his head as he peered intently at the night.

  To block out that high-set floodlight, the thing out there either had to be very tall, or… very close…

  Gasping, I pulled them both down just as the windows began to rattle.

  We hid in the corner beneath the windows, not daring to move until the rattling stopped.

  Eventually, David peeked.

  As he did so, screams rang out from the house opposite ours. We peeked, too, and we saw that the weirdly morphing window had gone dark. All the other lights outside were on at full strength.

  "It's… jumping from light to light…" David breathed, looking rather sick. We watched intently as his guess proved true: one light came on, another went out, and our neighbors within that light screamed in pain and terror… and went silent.

  "Turn off all the lights," I whispered, my heart pounding. "We have to break all our lights."

  David stayed at the window and brought out his cellphone to call the police. Ryan and I hurried through the house, smashing light bulbs with shaking hands.

  "I'm so sorry," Ryan said quietly as we met up back in the kitchen, now cloaked in darkness. "I just wanted to hang out with you, and then… this…"

  I touched his arm. "It's crazy, I know, but it's not your fault. There's stories, always stories…"

  I remember our words, because… screams came from the basement, and we rushed through the house -

  Pitch black radiated from a rectangle on the floor, darker even than the non-light of the basement at night. I realized our mistake at the same moment that I saw half of David lying in silhouette on the floor: with all our other lights broken, the entity had jumped to the glow of his cellphone. An expanding rectangular cone of utter darkness lined the space from the phone on the floor to the ceiling.

  Ryan and I froze, not daring to move. What was this thing? Could it see? Could it think? Was it aware of us at all?

  Time wore on, and every muscle in my still body began to burn to its limit. If we made no sound, if we made no move, would we survive?

  As I felt myself about to break, light flashed by our windows.

  "Police!" someone shouted. "If there's anybody back here, identify yourselves and step out!"

  A few moments later, the void was gone from our basement, and bloodcurdling screams echoed outside. A loud gunshot followed.

  Ryan and I plugged up all the windows with blankets and pillows as best we could, then huddled in the basement.

  I thought to peer out with just my eye exposed and watch the thing leap from light to light in search of more victims. Forty-five seconds. It never jumps sooner than forty-five seconds since the last. It barely missed Mr. Jeffers, our neighbor, who I can see hiding in the basement next to ours. If it could have jumped sooner and gotten him, it would have…

  It revels in the play of light and dark outside. That is its strength: it needs light, but, without darkness, it has no place to hide.

  We just have to get to morning, and everything will be alright…

  The half of David that was outside the cone of blackness… is starting to smell…

  5 AM

  6 AM

  Almost sunrise

  come on

  No… no, it couldn't

  I can see the sky lightening, but… it couldn't…

  It couldn't jump to the Sun, could it?

  oh God

  We're going to try to get it to jump to a cellphone again, then trap it in the laundry room - no windows, no escape

  I'm so sorry