And then Seth Ryan stumbled through the gate that the groundskeeper had forgotten to lock. His hair was disheveled and dirty, its usual blonde dyed brown with mud from where he had fallen in a ditch several hours before. He wore his only clothes (he had sold all of his formerly extravagant wardrobe for drug money) an old grungy green t-shirt, a pair of torn up Levi’s, and black Converse dotted with holes and tears. His face had seen better days. His mouth hung open, slack-jawed from another night of binging on booze and mysterious drugs he couldn’t even name. His eyes were heavy and bloodshot to the point that they appeared to glow red in the near lightless night.

Seth plodded toward the bleachers, his only wish to find sleep and, if he had his way, never wake up. Seth had fallen on hard times, like so many of us do. His drinking and drug use had pushed his wife and daughter over the edge. Two months before, he had come home early (before his wild nights would normally have had him blacked out in an alley somewhere in the neighboring town) to find his wife in bed with their neighbor. In a fit of righteous anger, he threw his neighbor out of the house and, not quite so righteously, beat his wife to a point of near death. After she spent the next two weeks in the Intensive Care Unit at the nearest hospital, she left him. He’d been wishing for death at the hands of The Drink ever since, yet a quiet death wouldn’t come, no matter how hard he tried.

Seth laid down on the lowest bench and closed his eyes. In a matter of seconds, he had fallen into a deep, drunken slumber. While he laid there, his mouth hanging open and taking loud, snoring breaths, a shadow passed over him in the nearly nonexistent moonlight. Then, creeping as slowly as the shadow of a tree in the afternoon sun, a hand appeared over the side of the bench. It was gnarled, and the fingernails were as long and sharp as a wild tiger’s claw. It crawled over his leg, mimicking the movements of a spider, and then moved up his stomach and chest, stopping at his neck. The arm connected to the hand stretched out under the bench, growing longer than any arm should as the hand crawled.

The hand’s forefinger tapped once, then twice on the left side of Seth’s neck. By the third tap a drop of blood was oozing from a small puncture wound left by the nail.

“Wha-?” Seth slowly stirred and the hand shot back under the bench.

He laid back down, snorting and sniffling, and tried to sleep again. This time, however, he found sleep much more difficult. As he lay there, his thoughts swam in a sea of narcotics and alcohol, unable to come together in any coherent fashion. Yet occasionally, a word would jump out in his mind.

“Run.” He ignored it.

“Scared.” No reaction.

“Die.”

He rubbed his crimson eyes and sat up again, just as a screeching noise came from the bleachers four tiers above the one he’d chosen as his temporary home. A sound almost like nails running down a chalkboard reached his ears. The sound of metal sliding over metal. He looked up in the direction of the noise but found nothing, and the sound stopped, so he let the mere acknowledgement that it had existed slip back into his cocktail of thought, and laid back down.

Within moments, he was up again and staring into the night, this time due to a hissing squeal like that of a cat whose tail has just been stepped on. It went on for several seconds before stopping again. “What the-“ Seth started, but cut himself off when the noise pierced the silent night once more. Then he found the source. Out in the middle of the field, his mouth open and emitting that screeching scream, was a man.

He was skinny, and deathly so. He wore an old green shirt that was stained with vomit and caked with dry blood and mud. His jeans had so many holes and tears that they looked more like old rags held together despite all odds. His feet were bare and held many cuts and scars, so that it seemed he hadn’t worn shoes in years. His hair was blonde, and matted so that it looked like a patch of dry grass in the summer, rather than a head of human hair. Scars marred his facial features, which may have been handsome in their prime, but were now so worn and gaunt that he could have passed for a skeleton. Seth’s addled mind took no note of how familiar the figure looked.

Seth blinked slowly, and when he opened his eyes, the man was mere feet away from him. He swore, started, and fell from the bench. He tried to scramble to his feet, but started again when he looked up and saw the man standing right over him. Silent now, the man simply stood and stared.

“Look, man, what-“ Seth stumbled to compose his words, “Man, if- And- What- Whatever you want, man…”

The ominous figure blinked once, then twice. Then he stretched out his left arm and pointed it right at Seth, who was transfixed. Somehow he couldn’t pull his eyes away from that outstretched arm, in spite of his frantic tries. He also found his arms and legs locked into place. He tried to kick out and crawl backwards along the ground, but he couldn’t. He was paralyzed.

Though his limbs were still stuck in place, he found his eyes now drawn to those of the man standing over him. He stared into them and the man stared back, his arm still held forward towards Seth. As he stared into those green eyes, more words burst to the forefront of his scattered thoughts.

“My eyes.” He tried to blink, but was unable.

“Run.” He tried to move in vain.

“Die.”

He could do nothing but stare.

Stella Crawford stood over her kitchen sink, washing the pan she’d used to make a grilled cheese sandwich. She didn’t usually eat at midnight on a Wednesday, but the way she saw it, she had just lost her job and found out her formerly staunch Christian daughter was moving to New York to shack up with her new girlfriend whose band was, as her daughter put it, “About to hit it big on the grunge scene, if they just stuck it out for a few more months.” She would do whatever she pleased, and she didn’t care.

She finished washing the pan, took her sandwich to the living room, and sat down in front of the TV to see what shows would be on that late at night. She and her husband Bill had the only farm for miles, which she hated. She needed the comfort of neighbors, but her husband had insisted on buying the secluded old place. Besides the county High School, and a small hunting lodge that was rarely inhabited, she had to go a good five miles for the most inane social interaction, let alone anything necessary or worthwhile.

She flicked the TV on and turned it up loud, hoping to spite her husband who was sleeping peacefully upstairs. Over her blaring television, she couldn’t hear the tortured screams of Seth Ryan’s final moments on this Earth in the bleachers of the football field only one half of a mile from her home.

This time she let out a moan of her own, stumbling backwards. The creature twitched its ears again, whimpering. It curled its tufted tail beneath its legs like a sort of massive, submissive dog. Slowly it took a step; yellow tongue lolling out of its mouth as it leaned forward, planting a kiss on the entirety of her upper body. The bovine ears swiveled, and it backed away again with a whine.

Sputtering, the woman shivered. “Home, friend. You cause more harm than good here.” Each word was softly spoken, as if she was scolding a toddler. The monster considered the words, then curled its tail, bristling scales as if they were fur. Large brown cow-eyes met green human-eyes that would not relent, and finally the beast subsided, lowering its head and shaking its body. Its scales swung to-and-fro, suddenly loose on its body.
“Back to your woods, my friend. Off you go.” She made a small shooing gesture. Defiantly it bucked its head and howled, snorting and snuffling, its nose contracting as it breathed deeply. It had, the woman decided, the ugliest, boarish face she had ever seen. Tusks sprouted from its lower jaw, spittle flying from its loose lips. She lost her patience.

“ENOUGH! What do you want, foul creature? Gems, gold, meat?”  It snorted, air ruffling her brown hair. She could smell the stench of rotten meat on its breath as it nudged her breast, right where her necklace was hidden beneath her ruined clothing. She fished it out and the beast let out a happy moan, bounding up and down, prancing like a pony.

The necklace didn’t look to be much to any onlooker; a small ivory circle etched with swirls and shapes. The charm – barely larger than her thumb nail – was held on a simple silver chain. It was hardly worth a second look, not gaudy or stunningly beautiful. To both the woman and beast, however, it signified her status as a midlevel passer-of-ways. One strong enough to pull the monster from the realm between worlds in which they were both currently stuck.

“You want me to take you to my realm?” The creature yowled, nodding its monstrous head. “No. I will return you to your land, friend. No creature should be stuck in this foul, unstable place. But bringing you to the mortal realm? Out of the question.” It let out a defiant squeal, pawing with webbed paws at the street. The parts it touched seemed to evaporate into a black smog, fading into nothing.

The woman sighed, dropping the necklace back into her dress, crossing her arms. “Why do you want to cross to my realm, anyway? There’s nothing there for you.” The beast moaned, foam gathering at his maw. It jabbed again, this time violently, at her chest. “I already told you no! Why don’t you – Stop that!” The beast tugged at the silver chain, pulling it forward. She gagged, trying to pull her necklace from the monster’s gator-like grip. “St-“

The chain snapped. Time itself seemed to slow – not that time existed within the realm between mortal-and-fae – as the charm flung itself through the air, disappearing beneath the seemingly solid road. They both sat there silent, stupidly staring at where the charm had vanished. Then brown met green again.

Shaking, the woman stepped closer to the beast, resting a hand upon its scales. The monster started as she let out an insane cackle. “Well, beast, you got your wish. A part of it, anyway. That charm was my only way of getting between realms without a gateway, and now we’re stuck here together. I suppose we might as well travel together, since neither of us will survive alone here. Lower yourself so that I may climb onto your back. We have to start moving now, and my legs feel numb.”

The monster lowered itself silently, allowing her to scramble onto its back. She gently whistled and kicked its sides. The beast moaned, its gait a slow lumber until it built up speed, moving into a gallop as the fog engulfed them.