Excerpt from a Young Woman’s Journal RACHEL MYERS
I was nine years old when it started. There had been nothing different about that day. The sky was its usual blue, and my mother and I were going to the store. I stepped outside and my mom grabbed my hair and yanked me back in, yelling that there were vibrations and I couldn’t leave the house unprotected. She powdered my cheeks with ash, but I didn’t say this is why dad left. I was not as cruel then as I am now. Exiting the store, I saw it. I was riding on my mother’s back while she carried the groceries – she was exceptionally strong – and I glanced towards a gutter. I thought it was a naked child. But its gray skin hung off its scrawny frame in waves of wrinkles. It was on all fours, staring intently into the gutter with bulbous bug eyes the color of yellowed paper. It lifted a skeleton hand to scratch itself with absurdly long nails, twisting into coils. It yawned, revealing two sharp, vampiric fangs, surrounded by rows and rows of rotten teeth. I watched as it reached into the gutter, plucked some small trapped animal, and ate it. My mom didn’t see it. I didn’t point it out to her because I knew she would blame the vibrations and exalt her own wisdom. I didn’t want to hear it, but I would have to anyway eventually. The non-stop news coverage focused on how some people could see them, some could not. I saw them every day: climbing trees, perching on branches, crossing the street, peeking through my window. My mother also saw them. In one news interview, a man brought a creature he had trapped, and the anchors nodded uncomfortably, playing along, until finally they admitted to seeing nothing but an empty cage. I stared at the screen, at the gray goblin they couldn’t see, and I screamed. I was crazy, wasn’t
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