Eyes Shut

The old Victorian home creaked and sighed, settling into the silence of their first night without parents. Rain tapped a gentle, sporadic rhythm against the windowpanes. For fifteen-year-old Maya, it was a peaceful sound, allowing her to relax. For eight-year-old Chloe though, the sound of the rain was masking unseen threats.

“Maya?” a small voice called from down the hall, trembling. “Can you come here?”

Maya sighed, marking her page in the fantasy novel she had been reading. She padded down the hallway into her sister’s room, where Chloe sat, as a small lump under a comforter covered in cartoon unicorns.

“He’s back,” Chloe whispered, her eyes wide and fixed on the window.

“The monster?” Maya asked, her voice soft. She walked to the window and pulled back the curtain. The backyard was dark, the old oak tree casting a long, shifting shadow as it swayed in the wind. “See, just the tree, goofball,” she stated, trying to set her little sisters mind at ease. “But I will admit, it does look pretty monstrous.”

Chloe gave a weak smile. “You promise?”

“I promise. No monsters. Just you, me, and a whole weekend of no parents and tons of pizza for breakfast.” Maya tucked the blankets tightly around her sister, a ritual their mother called “making the burrito.” She kissed her forehead. “Now go to sleep, Stink.”

An hour later, the call came again. This time, Maya found Chloe standing on her bed, pointing a trembling finger at the window.

“He was there again, I saw it! His face was all big and hairy!”

Maya’s patience with her little sister’s imagination was wearing thin. She checked the window again, this time unlatching it and sticking her head out into the cold, damp night air. “Hello? Mr. Monster? You’re scaring my little stinky sister”. Chloe giggled at being called Stinky. “If you don’t quit it, you’ll have to answer to me, do you hear me?” She pulled her head back in. “He says he’s very sorry and he’s going home now. His mommy monster is making him meatloaf.”

Chloe giggled, the fear momentarily broken. “Monsters don’t eat meatloaf.”

“This one does. He’s very polite and meatloaf is his favorite. Now, sleep.”

Around midnight, Maya was halfway through a classic horror movie, the glow of the TV illuminating the living room, when yet another call came from Chloe’s room.  This time, the call was more frantic.

“MAYA!”

She paused the movie and stomped down the hallway. She was starting to get a bit annoyed with   her sister. “Chloe, this is the last time. There are no monsters. It’s the wind. It’s the shadows. It’s your imagination. You are safe. I am right down the hall. Nothing is going to hurt you. Do you understand me?”

Chloe sat in her bed with her knees to her chest, and her lip quivering. Maya’s heart softened. “Look, Stink, I’m not mad. I just need you to be brave. Okay?”

“Okay,” Chloe sniffled.

Maya returned to her room and started to hit play on her movie, but something suddenly felt off. The house felt different. Too quiet. The comforting creaks now sounded like intrusions. She was about to check the locks on the doors when a sound sliced through the silence.

It was a short, sharp muffled yelp, like a cry that was instantly stifled.

She turned off the TV, her heart hammering against her ribs. The house was silent.

“Chloe?” she yelled out. No answer.

A cold dread slowly crept down her spine. She ran to Chloe’s room.

The door was ajar. The window was wide open, the curtains flapping like ghosts in the rainy breeze, but Chloe’s bed was empty.

“CHLOE!” Maya screamed, her voice raw with a terror she had never known.

She flew down the stairs, yanking the front door open, and spilling out into the muddy front yard. Her eyes scanned the yard frantically. And there they were. In the soft, rain-soaked earth beneath Chloe’s window, a set of large, deep boot prints. And beside them, the small, heartbreaking imprint of a child’s bare foot.

The tracks led away from the house, toward the dark line of woods that bordered their property.

Without a second thought nor a plan, Maya ran. The cold mud splashing up her legs and the branches whipping at her face as she plunged into the trees, following the brutal, unmistakable trail.

Then she saw them.

A massive man, his frame hulking and draped in a tattered coat. A wild beard covering most of his face and as he walked, he had Chloe tucked under his arm like a ragdoll, her small body limp, whether from fear or something else, Maya didn’t know.

“Hey!” Maya yelled, her voice cracking with fury and fear. “Put her down! Put my sister down!”

The man stopped and turned. His eyes were small, dark circles, glinting in the faint moonlight. He smiled, a yellowed, crooked thing. “Go home, little girl,” he growled, his voice like gravel. “Or I’ll snap her neck right here.”

He shook Chloe, and she whimpered.

Something in Maya broke. Or rather, something clicked into place. A calm, cold certainty washed over her. The patience she’d shown all night was gone, replaced by a predatory stillness.

“You have three seconds to put her down,” Maya said, her voice low and steady, no longer the shaky voice of a frightened teenage girl.  

The man laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “Or what?”

Maya moved.

It wasn’t a run, it was more or less a blur. One moment she was roughly ten feet away, the next she was right in front of him. Her fist, seemingly too small and delicate to do someone of his size any harm, shot out and connected with his jaw with a crack that echoed through the trees.

The man’s eyes bulged with shock and pain. He dropped Chloe into the mud and stumbled backward, collapsing onto the ground, groaning and clutching his face.

Maya was at Chloe’s side in an instant, rolling her over. “Chloe! Chloe, are you okay? Please, Stinker, talk to me!”

Chloe’s eyes fluttered open, filled with tears and confusion. She nodded, sniffling. “Maya…”

“It’s okay, baby girl, it’s okay,” she said, squeezing the shivering girl. “Look, I need you to do me a favor, okay?” Maya’s voice was gentle again, but tight with control. “I need you to turn around, cover your ears, and sing your favorite song as loud as you can. Don’t turn around, no matter what you hear. Promise me.”

Trembling, Chloe did as she was told, turning away and pressing her small hands over her ears, all while belting out “24K Magic” by Bruno Mars.

Only when she was sure her sister was distracted did Maya turn back to the man. He was struggling to push himself up, one hand on his shattered jaw, his eyes now wide with a different kind of fear. He was shocked at the speed and strength of such a small girl.

Maya walked over to him, each step determined and deliberate. She bent down and closed her hands around his throat. She lifted him into the air with an impossible strength until his feet were dangling off the ground.

“My little sister,” Maya hissed, her eyes slowly beginning to glow with a faint amber light, “is afraid of monsters”. “She looks for them in shadows and in stories. And I promised her that as long as she has me, she’d never find a real one. And she never will.”

The man gagged, clawing at her arm, but it was like trying to bend iron. He felt her fingers… change. They elongated, the nails hardening into sharp, black talons that slowly penetrated his skin.

He watched in horror as the skin on her back tore through her t-shirt with a soft, shredding sound. Two giant, leathery wings, the webbing stretched taut between elongated fingers, unfurled behind her, casting him in a monstrous shadow. She grew, her form shifting, becoming something ancient and terrifying, her beautiful human face now a mask of fury with slitted eyes and sharpened features backlit by the cold moon.

“The only monster she needs to know about,” the creature that was Maya growled, its voice a chorus of nightmares, “is the one that protects her.”

The man tried to scream, but only a choked gurgle escaped his throat before his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell into unconsciousness.

Maya released him, letting him drop into the mud. She folded her wings, her form shrinking, shifting, settling back into the familiar shape of a fifteen-year-old girl. She took a deep, steadying breath, and walked back to her sister, and knelt.

“Okay, stinky girl, all done,” she said in her regular voice.

Chloe uncovered her ears and turned around, throwing her arms around Maya’s neck. “I knew you’d save me.”

Two days later, their parents returned, bustling through the door with suitcases and chatter about their trip.

“There are my girls!” their father boomed, scooping Chloe up. “How did you manage to survive without us? Any exciting events?”

Chloe nodded seriously. “A monster tried to get me. But Maya saved me.”

Their parents laughed, a warm, dismissive sound. Their mother kissed Chloe’s forehead. “Of course she did, sweetie. Your big sister is the best monster-fighter in the world.”

They carried the luggage upstairs, oblivious to the world.

Maya ran over to Chloe, grabbed her, and started tickling her mercilessly. As Chloe squealed with giggles, Maya pulled her close and whispered in her ear, her voice a loving promise. “That’s right. And I always will. You never have to be scared of monsters ever again.”