Clovers

The room had grown dark. The light coming from the window was dull, the sun swallowed by a mass of grey clouds. I felt lightheaded.

A cold breeze blew in from the door, open just far enough for something small to slip through. I try to stand up and flick the light switch, but it's too high—I can't reach it.

There's a man sitting in the stool, near the window. I could make out the stiff, plastic whiskers coming from his white mask. He looked from me to the bed, guiding my eyes.

The lump was missing. The blankets laid flat.

I reached above my head and grabbed the doorknob to pull open the door, and a blood-curdling scream shook my eardrums. A woman, from somewhere outside.

"Don't go," the man said. "You won't like what you see."

The air was still as I stepped outside, the grass dyed the same bleak color of the sky. The woman who lived next door brushed past me, her face in her hands to dampen wracking sobs. She had come from my backyard.

There was a canopy of trees leading behind my house that formed a tunnel of wilderness and blotted out the sky. They were gnarled and twisted, surrounded by fallen, dead leaves that covered the dry dirt. Before long I thought I was lost, as the trail had taken me to a place I did not recognize—I tripped over a bent root coming from the path and tumbled into the overgrown grass of my backyard.

An unmistakable smell of rust, somewhere among the gray blades of grass. I pushed them aside to step through, and my hands became cold and damp. Splotches of red stained the grass and painted my arms as I carried through the brush.

In a small clearing among the forest of grass, a red trail led me to a spot covered in feathery grey fluff. Bits of hair flung this way and that, and tiny paw that had removed from its body sat on the ground. I fell to my knees.

There in the center was a pile of fur and gore, its insides splayed before me. Its long, grey ears were limp. Its unmoving eyes gazed at me in accusation. In its mouth, it held a clover.

I took its body in my hands and held it close, staining my shirt red. A shadow loomed over me in the shape of a man. I turned my head to see those plastic ears and fake whiskers, staring down at me.

"It will rain soon." He said. "You can't stop it."

I felt tiny movements turn to panicked flails. In my hands, it was struggling to flee. The thing in my grasp had turned white, with violet-red eyes that opened wide in terror.