by Unknown
“You have been saying that for 4 years now, Mr. Callahan!” she laughed. “You are ever so kind. It's nothing particularly fancy. ”
“Nay. Tis hard to find anyone willing to take in an Irishman. Even a good paying one, as I be.” He winked, and Mother laughed and ushered them to the table.
“Let's eat, before the food gets cold.” She smiled and let Mr. Callahan pull out her seat. Malachi threw himself in his own chair. How could mother think such a creepy guy was charming? He babbled on and on about the most ridiculous stories. He was old and wrinkled and exceptionally odd.
Dinner was a quiet, uneventful affair. Mostly because Mother had a strict rule about fairy tales at the table, but Malachi thought he heard the old boarder chanting. Malachi ate his boiled ham and potatoes almost mechanically. He helped clear the table and listened to his mother humming as she cleaned the dishes. She stopped as she placed a serving bowl in the cupboard.
“Oh, dear. I forgot to bring this back to Mrs. O'Shannon.” She held out a casserole dish gingerly as though it had offended her. “Malachi, will you bring it back for me? I shall take a month off your punishment.”
“Oh? Is that wise, do you think?” Mr. Callahan asked darkly. “It's getting dark, it is. The mist is coming in. The Far Darrig likes nights like this.”
“The what, Mr. Callahan?” Mother laughed gently. She stopped doing the dishes and crossed her arms over her chest.
“The Far Darrig. An old creature from the shores of Erin. Tis a tricky one, to be sure. He likes to play games that scare the mortals.” Mr. Callahan leered gleefully. "He loves tricks more than anything. Some say…”
“I'll do it, mother. I'll take the dish.” Malachi volunteered. Mother smiled and handed him the dish.
“Straight there and straight back,” his mother said. “Promise me, you will come straight back?”
“I promise.” He ground out at last and bustled out. The last thing he heard before the door shut was old Mr. Callahan once more chanting:
"Beware, beware, the man in red
Lest he fill your heart with dread
Shriveled skin and flaming eyes.
Knows all your truth, believes no lies.
Should the red man comes for you
Too late, you're through”
Then the door slammed shut and the wet night air swallowed him in eerie silence. It was quickly growing dark, and the fog seemed to grow denser with every minute. There was no noise other than the crunch of gravel under his feet, the huff of his own breath and the steady soft drip of wet leaves. As Malachi traveled along the dirt road, dark plans took shape in his mind. He could run away from home. It would even be incredibly easy. He could skirt the lake and find the main road. Walk off into the night.
Malachi was a hard worker. He knew just a few miles down the road there was a large farm. The owners were always hiring a dozen or so farmhands. Malachi watched the fog rise over the lake. That's just what he would do. Go to the farm and earn some money. Once he saved up for a few months, he could travel down the road again. He could go anywhere. Once he found his dad, the pair would have so much fun. But first he had to return the casserole dish. Otherwise, his mother would get suspicious. Anyway, he didn't want to go all over the countryside carrying a casserole dish.
“Malachi Case!” Mrs. O'Shannon smiled when he knocked on her door. “What brings you all the way here on such a dark, wet evening?”
“Mother asked me to bring this back.” Malachi held up the casserole dish. Mrs. O'Shannon looked it over and bustled about her kitchen. “Would you like to come in, dear? I just made a fresh batch of cookies?”
“No, thank you Ma'am. My mother wishes me to come straight home,” Malachi replied. When he ran away from home, Malachi knew there would be no kind neighbors with offers of fresh baked cookies. If he surrendered to their sweet warmth now, he would never leave.
“Just a few for the road, perhaps?” Mrs. O'Shannon insisted, pouring the cookies into a small paper bag. She was one of the best bakers in the countryside.
“Perhaps that would be alright,” Malachi agreed as he turned back down the road and made his way to the lake.
“Well, young Malachi.” A croaky voice called. Malachi turned to see a short wrinkled creature dressed in red. It was a hunched creature with a ratty face, long tail and sallow skin.
“Where ye be off to? Home is in tha' other direction,” the creature asked in a thick accent. It would have sounded like the traditional lilt of an Irish dialect if it didn't bite the end of its words off.
“Do I know you?” Malachi asked uncertainly. The creature’s squinty eyes opened wide for just a moment. It did an odd little two step and slapped its knees – well Malachi guessed it was the creatures knees.
“Eh? Do ye?” It asked with a mad cackle. Malachi jumped away. It wiped a tear of mirth from its blood shot eye. “Aye Boyo. Ye know me. But ye don' know it's me.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like you.” Malachi insisted.
“Oh? Ye never heard o' the red man?” The creature’s cackle made Malachi's blood run cold.
"Beware, beware, the man in red
Lest he fill your heart with dread
Shriveled skin and flaming eyes.
Knows all your truth, believes no lies.
Should the red man comes for you
Too late, you're through.”
The Far Darrig did an odd little jig and whipped off his red woolen hat, bowing low at Malachi's feet. He was completely bald, and somehow without the hat, looked like he didn't belong to his body. When he stood up again Malachi saw his yellow, broken teeth
Malachi swallowed nervously. “You're the Feary deary?”
“Fear dearg, ” the creature corrected with a sneer. “Aye, I am. And I know who you are. Malachi Patrick Case. Ten years old. Born July 11, 1912. Will die on-” the little man leered and wagged a finger. “That's for me to know and you to learn the hard way. But tell me, where do you think you're a-goin on such a foggy night? Easy to get lost. Never find your way back. ”
“I…I…I ran away from home.” Malachi blurted out. He hadn't meant to and tried to muster some self-assurance. “I'm going to find my father. He's selling vacuums.”
“Vacuum cleaners? Well! ” The creature took a great sniff and spat into the lake. “Indeed, tis an honest man’s work. But it has no air of truth. Come on boyo. Don't lie to me!”
“No! It's the truth! Mother said it was,” Malachi insisted. “Even Grandma says it is.”
“Aye and you believe them?” The red man laughed “You didn't see her? The woman in the blue coat? You
didn't sneak down stairs one night? See him give her flowers?”
Malachi felt his mouth go dry. “No, it's not true! It can't be true!” he croaked. “I was…it was a dream! It…
How did you know that?” Malachi felt his world unraveling. The woman in blue couldn't be real.
“Twarn't no dream, boyo.” the Far Darrig replied darkly.
“No! He wouldn't do that! He said he loved me. When he thought I was asleep...” Malachi fought back tears. “GO AWAY!”
“Like your da? That's what you want is it? But then, you're the one running away. Perhaps I ought step aside and let ye go. Never mind how your ma takes it. Was that a dream, too? How she cried? How she wept for days? Why did she cry so?”
“The divorce,” Malachi said almost against his will. “Father left mother and I to start a new family.”
The Far Darrig nodded thoughtfully. “Aye. But your ma, she stayed with you. She loves you. Always has and always will. Would you really break her heart like that?”
Malachi chewed his lip. “No, I suppose not. I do love her, and I would hate to hurt her.” Malachi shrugged.
“Aye. Are you sure it's not too late lad? Being here with me. You might not get home. Ever.” The Far Darrig laughed madly and jumped toward him. Malachi broke away and ran down the dark road toward his house.
Malachi heard fast footsteps behin
d him and a mad cackle as the Far Darrig chased him. Desperate, he threw the bag of cookies at the creature and ran on, not slowing until he reached the door. He looked back to see the Far Darrig was gone. With a sigh of relief, he pushed open the door and walked in.
The lights were low, mother must have trimmed them before she went to bed. Malachi began to extinguish the rest when a loud snore caught his attention. Mr. Callahan had fallen asleep in the parlor armchair again. Malachi crept up beside him and shook his arm lightly.
“Mr. Callahan? Mr. Callahan, wouldn’t you be more comfortable in bed?” he asked. Mr Callahan jumped and sat up, blinking uncertainly.
“Ah. Mr. Case.” He smiled. “Do you know the legend of the Far Darrig? There is a very old legend about him. Once upon a time, he was a human. Got trapped in the world of the fairy.”
“How did that happen?” Malachi's voice trembled. “How did he get lost?”
“Wondered into the fog. The fae are very sneaky. Change roads around. Trick wanderers. You meet a Far Darrig on the road surrounded by fog, it's his way of getting you out of your own way. Well, the story says he got lost in the world of the fae. He now stops others from wandering in. Guards the borders, you might say. ”
Malachi swallowed hard. Could it be? He’d nearly wandered into an unearthly realm of creatures? Mr.
Callahan stood and pulled on his red woolen cap. The same cap, Malachi realized as the Far Darrig wore.
“By the way, boyo.” He laughed mischievously and bounded high into the air before disappearing. “Thanks for the cookies.”
Snip Snap Crunch
Amanda M. Lyons
Jayden was always the last one home after dark. It wasn’t that he meant to be, it just wound up being true because he got caught up wandering the woods, drawing and writing about various things he found there. He didn’t exactly have anyone to hang out with, so he was usually out on his own when he was exploring. Jayden was twelve, more than a little awkward, and half-afraid of everything. If you wanted to get down to it, he wasn’t terribly popular. Not with anyone.
It didn’t really bother him most of the time because the quiet helped him think and work on all the thoughts that buzzed through his head. A lot of it had to do with nature and the way things worked, and that was where the stories came from. The woods just gave him a nice place to sort those things out, pick at them and draw in his notebook for when he got home to do more research. If there was one place he never expected to feel scared it was the woods he hung out in every day.
He was lugging his backpack onto his shoulder that particular day, and slipping out of the woods, when he saw something that stopped him cold. The sun was at that level where it was little more than a golden glimmer on the skyline, and outlined several trees at the top of the next hill perfectly. It was just the right time of day for him to start heading home, except now he didn’t know what he wanted to do. Something was off, not quite right about the scene before him. He had to look at it a long while before he truly saw what he was looking at, and then he tried to will it away like any other daydream or fear that got him when he was somewhere alone.
It was there no matter how much he tried not to see it, the thing standing just on the other side of an old gnarled tree, and worse yet, it was looking right at him.
Jayden was frozen in place, the strangeness of the moment sending chills up his back and icy worms through his belly. What was it? Why was it there? It wasn’t quite real, all stretched out and hunched forward like maybe it could be something perfectly normal being seen at the wrong angle. He could almost have shrugged it off, if it weren’t for the direct angle of what appeared to be its head; and the eyes, the bright glowing sunshine yellow eyes in that face.
What is it? What is it and what does it want? What could he do if this thing meant him harm? What could he do if it decided to come after him? He had to go up that hill to leave the woods and head home, he had to go straight through those trees and it might…it might…
Snip!
“Wha-?”
Snap!
He whimpered, his eyes locked on it as its neck shifted in jerking movements that made it clear this was real, this was really happening and it wasn’t just his imagination. Oh man! He couldn’t stop himself, his legs becoming a tangle of pin-wheeling limbs as he suddenly lumbered forward in a dead run up the hill. It worked for when he got spooked and ran down the hall so it had to work for this right? It was still light out and if he was fast enough maybe he could get away and there wouldn’t be any more weird stuff and he could pretend it was all a dream and maybe never come out to this part of the woods again and-
He was halfway up the hill when it moved again, this time its face jerking hard to face him with a loud snap. The glowing yellow eyes locked on his, with its strange human head and straggly hair wavering in the breeze. This was no normal creature, not even close. Where was its body? Where were its arms and legs? How could it be a head and nothing else? Didn’t it have to have some sort of body? It only stared back at him, as if it were waiting, trying to gauge where he might go next, and how it would act based on what he chose to do. He darted further up and to the right, away from the tree. He got several feet before he saw it’s terrible alien head dart out and around to the other side of the tree to wait, watching with those eyes as he got closer.
Is it a part of the tree? Is it growing from it? Jayden couldn’t tell, and now the light was fading, making the eyes appear all the colder and more alive. It writhed, some strange snake-like being that had latched onto Jayden because he was here and he was alone; out in the woods too close to dark because he’d wanted to get some good sketches of the creek down over the hill and past the old gas lines.
Go! Just go! He screamed in his head, his feet stuck fast to the ground as his eyes locked with those of the creature, almost hypnotized and certainly frozen where he was. He was losing the light, soon he wouldn’t be able to see anything but those glowing orbs in its face and then…
With a jerk he managed to pull his eyes away from it, shooting forward several feet before stopping again to see where it was and what it was doing. He’d crested the hill and was getting closer to the trees there. He had to be sure he would be safe if he tried to make the mad dash to the last several feet of the clearing and then home.
It was gone.
Where had it gone? What would he do now? Then he heard something in the growing dark, a cold quick jab of sound followed by another and another.
Snip! Snap! Snip! Snap! Snip snap snip snap snip snap!
Where was it? Where was it going? Did it have some way to move? Had he been wrong about it being a part of the tree? He didn’t know, and there was no sign of its eyes now, only the sound of it. The terrible wrong sound of its neck shifting as it moved to wherever it had gone. He knew from listening that it had to be close, it hadn’t gone away no matter how much he wished it had. He had to just go, get it over with and hope that he would somehow manage to get through all of this like a bad dream.
With the sound of it moving somewhere in the trees around him, he shot forward, his backpack a loud thwacking accompaniment to the sound of his own sneakers hitting the earth and tall grass over and over again as he moved. Jayden had always been scared, but never quite so much as he was now. What was more frightening than having your fears realized? Soon his breathing was ragged, his lungs burning and his throat sore from all of the agonized breathing he’d done in such a short time. He almost couldn’t hear it over the sound of his own pulse in his ears, but it was still there, just loud enough to be heard.
Snap! Snip! Snap! Snip! Snap! Snip!
It was getting closer, he could feel it, that strange dispersion of air around you that tells you something is wrong, that soon it will touch you, make itself known! Still he charged on toward the end of the hill and the downward slope that would take him to the edge of the woods and then out onto the street. It wouldn’t be long now if he could just hold on! If he could just make it!
Snap! S
nap! Snap! Snip! Snip!
It wasn’t just a feeling now, he could feel the waft of air being displaced by something right behind him, the weight of it tossing it forward and down as he started the descent that would take him close to home. Its pace kept time with his, faster and faster as the momentum pulled them down toward the bottom of the hill, one after the other. He didn’t dare look back to see it, just kept on running with his mouth thrown wide in horror as he gasped in breaths that barely seemed to keep him going down the hill. His muscles burned and his side ached, his lungs screaming from the exertion and the terrible force he had to exert to keep from calling out in the falling dusk.
Then he hit the bottom and shot forward a few steps, barely missing the fallen limbs scattered at his feet as he moved. The backpack nearly threw him off his feet when it met his back too, but he managed to maintain his balance anyway. He didn’t dare look back until he stood at the very edge of the trees between him and the street beyond. He could just barely see anything in the rising moonlight, the hill, the trees at the top, and there, at the bottom of the hill, a strange lumpen object with its long neck stretched forward and its eyes aglow, only watching. Maybe it won’t follow. Maybe I’ll get away and I can forget all about it.
Except that wasn’t the way it worked, was it? In all the stories you always got munched when you least expected it, grabbed, bitten, attacked and never seen again; some creepy urban legend growing up around you getting lost in the woods and other kids daring each other to go in there where they’d found those bones. The idea of it made him want to throw up, and he almost started to tear up in fear. Until the anger rose in him and he charged back toward the monster that had scared him.
Instead of running he stopped several feet short of it and threw his backpack, full of library