Pitter Patter is a fictional horror story set deep in the woods. I have written a few short fiction stories recently but this was lots of fun to write!

By Gavin Turner

     It was almost possible to grip the silence on the winding paths between the pines. The steady drips hit the plastic hoods of a small group of children, trudging through the woods. Miss Tyler fumbled with a soggy map and hopeless compass. This trek had already taken longer than planned. The meagre puddles of sky began to flood. The thought of not getting back to the road was nauseating. It would not be sensible to camp without equipment. Children had a propensity for wandering off or injuring themselves in the dark. Miss Tyler tried to check their position on the map. They had to be less than a mile from the road now. She was sure that she had heard voices ahead and took this as a positive sign. They were getting back towards civilisation. It would be highly embarrassing to have to call the rangers to rescue them, especially if they were a few yards from their destination. 

     The enthusiasm had disappeared, and rather than shrieking and hollering excitedly, the children had succumbed to a murmuring doleful slope through the mud. They wanted home as much as she did. The pitter patter was all around them. Bouncing off soft mud, anoraks and cold fingers. Then the voices ahead, bleeding through the noise of the rain. 

     “Nearly there everyone” Miss Tyler said without much conviction. The group upped their pace a little, heading into the forest, and towards the sound of the voices ahead.

     Alastair Blair threw the last gulp of freezing cold tea out of the window as he huddled in the land rover. Rangers never enjoyed a hot drink unless it was at base. As soon as you opened the thermos something would need his attention. He was used to drinking it cold, but when the weather turned he missed that small comfort. Greta used to make stuff for him, sandwiches, treats, that kind of thing. He missed that feeling that someone cared. This time she had chosen to be distant permanently it seemed. As quickly as she had appeared in his life she had gone again. He remembered how lost she looked, at the side of the road in the rain.

     Alastair told all of them when they set off that you really can’t see the wood for the trees.Not that any of these groups listened. He sat in the land rover awaiting the return of the final group of school kids. They would not launch a rescue just yet. There was every chance they would pop up out of the woods and all would be well. Every chance. The radio crackled into life.

     “Ali, can you head over to the Campbell road, there’s a few branches down and we need to get it clear, over”

     He took a deep sigh and clicked the button on the radio “Heading there now, ten minutes. Any sign of that school group?, over” he replied. 

     “Nothing as yet, Keep an eye out, over” 

     He spun the vehicle back towards Campbell road. He began to mentally prepare himself for a long night. If this group had not made it out of the woods by now, there was very little chance they would be able to do it in the dark.

     The forest was thousands of acres wide. An intricate pattern of service roads cut through the lines of trees creaking under the weight of their own existence. They fell against each other like drunken relatives, held up by their sturdier siblings. Under this dark canopy, in the deepest part was the pitter patter. Closer then further. The forest heaved, hiding its truth. But it could not hide the voices, echoing without coming from any direction in particular. 

     “Hello, help, hello?”  and then “Lost, I’m lost” then it cried a miserable cry.

     Murray and Malc raced through the trees, engines screaming. As long as there were no Rangers up this way the estate belonged to them. They would have to catch them first.

     They reached the camping spot and skidded the quads over to one side of the road.  Three or four bottles of wine clinked in Murray’s rucksack as they hoisted their gear and took the well worn path to their favourite spot. They didn’t need a tent. Black rock was set up and ready to go. They already had everything they needed.

     The large piece of granite jutted out like a broken thumb from a fist of hillside. Over time, they had built a short platform with just enough room to camp out. Above them the forest teetered on its edge, the broad sky hung like an ever changing tapestry. It was an unruly lovely place.

     A small pine lay across the road, the recent rain having lifted it out of its earthy boots. Bare roots exposed like gnarled toes. Alastair lashed a length of rope around the root end and tied the branch end to the land rover. A short drag pulled the tree to the side of the road and he rolled it down the hill into the darkness. He scuffed the cones and needles from the wet tarmac with his boots. The radio remained silent. He pulled a cigarette from his jacket. The smoke rose worm-like into the cold air. He loved it out here. It offered the peace and silence he needed. 

     Footsteps tapped against the road. He spun round, expecting to see one of the school children. There was nothing, just the empty road. The trees shrugged in the breeze and offered no answers. Maybe it was pine cones. Maybe he had not heard anything.

     He reached into the car for the radio.

     “Hey where did you say that school party was walking, over?”

     There was a brief pause of static. He took another drag on the cigarette whilst looking around again.

     “Down by Bleachers brook, south side we think – though they could have wandered elsewhere?”

He tried to work out the distance against how long they had been out. There was a small chance they could have got up here but it was not very likely.

     “No worries, just thought I heard something that’s all, over”

     “Can you return to base now Ali, there’s no sign of them, we need to pull together a potential rescue, over”

     “On it, be there in fifteen. Put the kettle on will you? Over”

     “Make your own bloody tea, pal, over and out”

     He smiled to himself as he drove back to the house, hoping that they would be found before he got there. He did not want to be out there all night.

     This was a good place, quiet. The ground is dry and smooth. Optimal for our needs. I usher the children gently against the sap, holding them fast. This will keep them safe. Unless they escape. I call for them to stay close. I hope none are missing. It will soon be supper.

Murray and Malc were steaming drunk. They rolled around the small fire laughing at Murrays last terrible joke.

     “Go and get some more wood for the fire you nutter”

     “I ain’t getting the wood”

     “It’s your turn”

     “We brought this lot with us – how is it my turn?”

     “Well we’re starting turns now, and your first”

Malc pointed at his brother accepting this was a good point.

     “Well, I’ll go he said”, “But not because you said so, it’s because I’m a better person”

He sauntered up the hill towards the trees.

     Murray picked up an empty bottle of wine and flung it down the hill. He heard the satisfying smash of the bottle as he reached into the rucksack for the next one.

Malc was struggling. There was no dry wood when he reached the trees. He clambered further into the forest. He was struggling to stay upright and low branches banged against him in the dark. The phone torch refused to stay on as he poked at the blurry touchscreen. He slumped down for a minute against a thick trunk to try and get his act together. It was pretty comfortable here, not too cold. He closed his eyes for a second.

Tonight I will give birth to myself, a new fermion, new life. I will draw energy from the earth, coat myself in the ooze and slime from the forest  and stick the mossy layers to my skin. The trees are heaving muscles, ropes tying together contracting and squeezing the air. In those cold caves. Those cabins of solitude, I feel my screams leach from an inside out throat. It is not a birthing, it is a cocooning, a metamorphosis to a fresh fully formed being, a whole new being.

I was ready this time, I knew the signs, the ageing of the skin like old leaves turned crisp in spring. Eyes knotted wood. Limbs like falling branches, brittle. The forest will help me build this shell, keep me in, safe. The pod hangs listless from a thick branch, held tight with gossamer threads. The breeze rocks gently bye baby, like a sunless slumber. thick with the heavy scent of a new self. 

Malc woke suddenly, as if someone had shook him awake. 

     “Murray?” he yelled. No answer. He was about to shout again when he heard it, close by, pitter patter. He fumbled for his phone as it grew closer, then further away. He managed to get the torch function working but it was little use in the darkness. There was nothing. He pocketed the phone and pushed himself upright from the ground. His neck was sore. He followed a trail of broken branches. That must be the way he came in.

     “Hello” he heard in the distance. 

     “Hello” he yelled back. Then heard the reply again. He headed towards the sound of the voice. He would be back at black rock with his brother in a few minutes. He stumbled through the blackness. A small translucent globe, egg-like, clung tightly to the damp skin at the back of his neck.

Evan Aldridge stomped across the office. 

  There had been some rumours that Evans’ brother had been having an affair with the boss’s wife and that this was the reason he had disappeared. It was not the affair that bothered Evan, it was the night he abandoned him in the forest. That night when he needed his brother most.

“The kitty was empty and his stuff was gone by the time I got back” Evan had told them. I hope that coward never shows his ugly mush round here again, I’ll rearrange it for him”. There was no love lost between them. Occasionally Alastair had come across Evan wandering through the woods, still looking. There was something about the whole thing that Alastair thought Evan didn’t believe. Maybe thought he was still out there somewhere. 

They had worked out the areas where each ranger would start searching. Alastair had volunteered to go back the way he came over the Campbell road, particularly as he knew the spot where he thought he had heard someone.

     “If this group are just messing about I’m not gonna be best pleased”

     “We can’t run the risk of that. You only thought you heard something, you didn’t actually see anyone did you?

     “Well no, but”

     “But nothing, get back up there and if you see anything, report it back in. But only if you actually see something”

The rangers shuffled out of the office and into their respective vehicles.

     “Fine” Alastair said “but I’m taking these” and swiped a packet of biscuits from the table and stuffed them in his pocket. He got back in the Land Rover before Evan could catch up with him and headed back to the spot on the Campbell road where he previously stopped.

Along the road his headlights reflected against something, shoved over to the side and almost in the ditch. He slammed on the brakes and reversed, winding down the window. Two quad bikes, parked facing out to the road. “Murray and Malc” he said to himself. He pulled the Land rover over, took a torch from the glove box and scanned the area. He saw the path that he had not noticed before heading up the hill. If they were about then it was possible they had seen something. They may even have stumbled across the group themselves. Anything was possible with these two he thought. He grabbed the radio and started walking along the path into the darkness. It was not long before he spotted the flicker of the fire at black rock.

This is a good place, I can leave the children holding fast to the trunks with pine sap. They will find their host and then I will draw them in. Let them find the nest and the children, they need to find us, the children are hungry. I am hungry. I can hear them getting closer, I can smell their heat on the breeze. I will call to them, “Hello, help, hello”. Watch them come running. 

Malc wandered blindly towards the sound. It could not be much further. He didn’t remember the forest being as dense as this, or perhaps this was a different path to the one that he took. He still felt a little dizzy from the wine and he could feel his heart beating thickly, as if there was not enough blood to go round the body. He felt weak and paused, leaning against a tree to support him. He heard the voice again “Hello”.

     “Hello, hello” he called back weakly into the dark silence. He pressed onwards. The trees were beginning to clear a little. A beam of moonlight illuminated what appeared to be a small clearing just ahead. He was not out of the woods, but perhaps this was something, a place to stop and be found. His head ached and he wanted to stop walking, but something drove him forward, something told him this clearing was the place he needed to be. He reached the spot just as his knees gave way. He was suddenly aware of a presence, something else, slithering out of the undergrowth. He was too tired and weak to stand or even raise his arms in defence as he felt the creature’s rippling segmented trunk wrap itself around his torso.

     “Hello, help, hello” he heard from the creature’s snapping jaws, before its elongated mandibles sliced deeply into his throat. The earth turned, swam thick with the smell of his own blood, He could only gurgle as his lips mouthed the word ‘help’. Then the blackness descended.

     When the creature was finished feeding, it rolled the body over, its antennae gently caressing the egg attached to Malc’s neck, ensuring it was not damaged in the attack. Seemingly satisfied, the creature returned to its position lying close against the thick trunk of the pine tree, flattening its body. Intermittently, clacking its jaw, “pitter patter, pitter patter” followed by the vocal call to the darkness “hello, help, hello”.

     High above, swinging gently from a thick branch was the pod, a silken shell, large enough for the creature to fit in. It was inviting, warm and ready. Soon she would fill it with herself, stitch up the entrance and await the transformation. It would all be done soon.

     At Black Rock, Alastair found Murray flat out on his back, wine bottle still in hand.

     “Oi Murray, Murray where’s your brother”

     “Eh? He went to get the wood for the fire, what are you doing here?”

“Lost kids, looks like we have another one now don’t we – when did he leave?

     “Ages ago, he must have took the wrong path, he’ll be alright”

Alastair ignored him for a few seconds and got on the radio.

     “It’s Ali here – I’m just off the Campbell road with Murray. Did you hear anything back yet? Over”

     The radio crackled for a while, then nothing. Murray kicked at the dirt beneath his feet. Another night where the rangers had turned up to spoil their fun. Dad would be furious.

     “I’ll have to try further down the hill, c’mon you we need to get you home” Alistair hated babysitting these two. He wished he was back on the road with a cigarette and his cold tea.

     “But what about Malc?”

     “I can’t risk both of you getting lost up here, there’s no sign of him, he must have walked back”

     “But what about…”
    “I’ll come back to the spot soon as we get you back and find him, don’t worry”

     Then from above them they heard the noise again.

     “Hello, help, hello” clear as the night, echoing over the treetops. They both stood still for a second, staring upwards into the pitch.

     “That’ll be those schoolkids. Come on, we’ll get them back onto the road and then get you back. They must be quite close – I’m sure I can hear their footsteps”

     Evan Aldridge was an experienced woodsman. His head torch beamed through the pines like a second moon. His feet gently crunching against fallen leaves and loose roots.  He had sat in the office long enough and after two hours of nothing had climbed into his jeep and headed down the back lane, parking at the spot where he last saw his brother. He brushed the branches aside every few minutes to regain his bearings. He would not be surprised if his brother had been camping out here all this time, lying low. He knew he could be dangerous. There was no way he wanted those schoolkids stumbling across a grizzly hermit and some sort of accident taking place. He turned his head slowly across the landscape. Through the trees he thought there might be a small clearing, one he had not noticed before. He took out his penknife and released the blade. Just in case. He thought he heard footsteps, perhaps. Perhaps it was just the rain again.

     “Always bloody raining here,” he whispered to himself.

     At the estate office the telephone rang out to an answer machine.

     “Oh hello it’s Miss Tyler here, sorry it took me so long to get back to the hostel we got lost…again. Anyway just to confirm we are all safe and well. If you need to get in touch you can contact me here. Sorry if we caused any bother…goodbye.”

     The empty office returned to silence again after the call ended.

     Alastair and Murray followed the sound of footsteps deeper into the forest. Alastair was sure they were here. They could both hear the calls for help. There was something familiar about the voice, or at least he thought there was. It sounded like Allia.

     Evan reached the clearing slightly ahead and from the opposite direction. The voices were louder now and he was half expecting to see the group huddled together in the darkness. He saw the creature move seconds before it struck. Knife ready he lunged forward, tripping at the key moment. The creature descended on him biting and snapping wildly. Evan tried to move in resistance but found he could not. He wondered in the last moments what had caused him to fall. Managing to turn his head in the direction he had come from his eyes landed on a skull, stripped of flesh. But he would recognise those broken glasses anywhere. They belonged to his brother.

     Alastair and Murray had frozen in fear as they saw this creature writhing and biting at Evan’s body in the darkness. Murray reacted first and tried to run. The creature was on him quickly, dragging him back into the nest, this time its sharp mandibles ripping into his stomach like butter. Alastair made a grab for Evan’s knife and swung wildly at the beast, slashing and ripping. On multiple legs it wrapped and squeezed round him like a snake, forcing him to drop the blade to the ground. He held still, expecting the final strike at any moment. He thought of Allia, he thought of nothing else.

     The creature had not struck. There was some moment of recognition, the long antennae stroked at his frozen face as its bulb-like head turned from side to side. It reached to the back of his neck grasping him in its powerful jaws, biting deep to retain its grip and lifting him bodily into the air. The creature and Alasdair simultaneously drawn into the cocoon and drew him deep inside. Gossamer threads stitching the edges of the nest together.

The pines sighed in the breeze as the droplets of rain hit the top canopy. Down the road, the cars lay abandoned. The forest held its breath.

     Time has passed, how much I cannot say, long enough to grow strong, reform. The old body has become a shell, wrapping around this new form. Its flesh is softer, more nimble, dextrous. It has hair, long and thick over its head, the mouth and teeth are smaller, supple. It is warm inside the cocoon. Soon it will be time to leave.

     I walk out of the forest, not crawling. A woman, fully formed, taking bold strides. Under a rock by the fallen tree that crossed the road are a set of clothes, just where I left them. I recognise the spot from the cut log that had now been shifted from the road. I washed my feet in the stream and pulled the clothing over newly formed skin. It was overly sensitive and responded to the change in texture with raised bumps where it touched. I drank a little from the stream, washing the taste of old blood from my new mouth.  I am ready to live again. The road beckons. The abandoned Land Rover with the keys. I remember how it worked, this travelling machine.  Soon I will relearn more of the language, how it sounds, how the words can be mangled in my mouth. I sit in the driver’s seat. I make the sound that will draw him in.

     A new figure emerged from the pines, following the sound of my call, a familiar sound now. Its limbs were new, stronger, younger, hungrier. It grew steadier as it continued to walk, vision adjusting to the emerging daylight.

“hello hello hello” it called back. The new larger male stepped into the vehicle next to me. He grins, reaching out a hand to touch my face. I snap my teeth at the fingers and then grin back. I reach into the back of the land rover and retrieve a large blanket, wrapping it around his bare shoulders.  I have found him again. And he has found me. He calls me Allia, I like my new name. I start the engine and the vehicle lurches down the road. Soon we will find a new home together, it will be dry and warm. There will be plenty to eat. We will make more children together, we will be a family.

     In the forest, beneath the dry pines lay three bodies, an empty gossamer sac hung listlessly above like an empty cradle. Surrounding the bodies were a scattering of small opaque globes, the colour of a misted moon. The globes began to slit open, sharp mandibles slicing through the membrane that had kept them safe. Wriggling free from their shells the sightless creatures crawled unsteadily on new legs towards the scent of the food their mother had left. As they began to feed, their jaws became stronger and broader, till the sound of their snaps could be heard for miles around, pitter patter, pitter patter.

Thanks for reading. If you liked this short story why not read some of my other work? You can subscribe below to get regular updates.