Stitched

Everyone's had a regular place where they start their day, like a kid at a bus stop for school, or a man at a cafe to get morning coffee. For me, I was a sophomore in high school, and I waited for a bus. I had recently moved to a neighborhood with a strip of woods that ran through it, so I would often get to see wildlife early in the morning at the edge of the trees. We had everything from squirrels to deer, and it wasn't too uncommon to see the occasional bobcat.

On a particular day, I saw what looked like a dead dog, lying in the grass on its side at the edge of the woods. Now, it was an ugly little thing; it's tail was brown and  hairless, kinda like a rat's, and is face was sunken in - you could almost see the details of the skull underneath the skin with how thin it was. It's eyes were gone, and so were it's lips and nose. What I found the most peculiar, however, was how the fur on its face seemed like it hadn't been touched, as well as the fur on it's body. The corpse seemed fairly fresh, and almost too fresh to have begun to decompose. ''How could it's fur be there, yet its eyes, nose, and lips are gone? ''I figured that since those were all soft parts, that they'd been eaten by other wild animals, but if the was the case, then why wasn't there any blood?

The bus arrived, and I had to go to school. I watched out my window as the thing grew smaller and smaller as we drove further and further away.

When I got home that day, I was somewhat eager to go take a look at the animal, but when I looked to where I'd seen it, the creature was gone. ''The city must've cleaned it up. ''Since there was no reason to stay, and I had chemistry homework, I decided to head home and continue on with my day.

That night was awful; there was a really bad thunderstorm that rolled in after dinner, and kept me up until at least 1 o'clock in the morning. I really needed to sleep; I had school in the morning, and a test in geometry. The thunder and lightning didn't care about my school work, and only proceeded to keep me awake. I decided to surf the web on my phone, finding it pointless to just even try to sleep anymore.

2AM eventually rolled around, and at about 2:30, I heard tapping on my window. This would scare anyone, of course, but what made it especially scary for me is that my bedroom was upstairs. Not only that, but we didn't have any trees outside my window, or even on that entire side of the house. Frightened yet curious, I hesitantly opened the blinds to see what was making the noise, and when I did, I saw two little white pins of light, and a big red glowing heart.

The heart didn't look realistic, but more like what a kid draws. I tried to get a better look at what it was, but it was too dark to see anything else. Luckily (I can't decide if if was good luck or bad) a flash of lightning lit up the room to reveal a dog-like shadow before me - it was the dead dog I'd seen at my bus stop earlier that day. Suddenly the heart cracked, and the creature let out a piercing cry. It wasn't just any cry, it was the cry of a dying animal in a great deal of pain; the sound an animal makes when it knows that it's going to die. I had NEVER been so terrified in my life.

Out of pure shock I jumped away from the window, fell out of bed and accidentally fell on my dog, Milo, waking him up and causing him to yelp. I hated it when I heard Milo cry, he was such a sweetheart and never deserved any harm. I hugged my dog and calmed him down, feeling bad for squashing him. After Milo had fallen asleep again, I climbed back into bed and checked my phone. 2:59AM. I looked out my window one more time, since I hadn't heard anymore tapping. I only saw the now distant storm in the sky, nothing at my window. Relieved, I brushed it off as a hallucination from fatigue and eventually fell asleep, only to get up a few hours later for school.

The next morning at school, there was an announcement that there had been a wild animal attacking people, so all outdoor classes had been redirected to the gym, or otherwise cancelled. What they didn't tell us is that the thing had already attacked 4 people, and every one of them was found with their heart ripped out. The most unsettling part was how each heart was replaced with a stitched up heart of felt. Hearing about this couldn't help but remind me of the creature I'd seen at the bus stop, and outside my window.

When I got home that day, I told my parents, but they said they already knew. I decided not to tell them about the thing I'd seen, since I thought it wasn't all that important. I was probably just imagining things.

After dinner I decided to draw a picture of the creature I'd seen, for shits and giggles. Of course, I had to go to bed for school in the morning, but got to sleep in since I wouldn't be waiting outside for the bus anymore. Not with that vicious creature out there.

Later in the week, while I was at my desk doing homework, I'd noticed someone had touched my drawing: someone had drawn stitches on the heart, which now appeared cracked. It also had bear claws now, which just made it even creepier. I was almost in disbelief when I saw the stitches on the heart. Was this the creature that had been murdering people? Then I saw a small scribbly note in black pen next to it which read, "It can't be fixed." The words freaked me the hell out, so I confronted my parents. They didn't know anything about it. In fact, they thought I was trying to poke fun with them considering how uncanny and coincidental the whole thing was. Frustrated, I stormed into my sister's room and confronted her - she was just learning how to read and write - but she hadn't a clue. I also doubt it was her since she was so young and innocent, and wouldn't write something like that. Not to mention, she hadn't been told about the creature's work.

Again, that night I heard tapping outside my window, and didn't bother to open the blinds. This continued for days, then weeks, and soon a month before I made the choice to swallow my fear and peek through them. Again, it was the thing, hanging on the gutter on the side of our house by its tail. It stared at me, snapping its jaws, teeth glistening in the pale moonlight. What scared me the most, however, was the dim glow of a torn, stitched up heart on its chest. It also had black bear claws like in my picture. I shut the blinds, and ran to my light switch. The power was out. Thankfully I could use my phone flashlight, even though it wasn't too great. I had to use it sparingly, though, since my battery was only at 17%.

I crept down the stairs to tell my mom and dad, but for whatever reason, they were gone. I wanted to call out for them, but I was held back by fear. I decided to check on my little sister, Emily, and when I got to her room, I saw her in bed. I was relieved, but only for a brief moment before I tried to wake her up. She wasn't breathing. I was startled, and threw off her covers so I could attempt CPR. At that moment, my heart stopped as I stared at my sister's bloody chest. Her heart had been gouged out, and in her ribcage I saw a little stuffed felt heart. Emily was only 5 years old, and now she would never get to have the privilege to grow up and read properly. Her life was gone.

I wanted to call the police, but the service on my phone was out. I thought I heard my dog, but quickly realized it wasn't him. The sound of the animal was much too big, and it seemed to have big claws. I had to hide fast, so without second thoughts, I locked myself in the bathroom. I heard the sound of claws dragging across the floor grow  nearer as it made it's way through the house.

There were several loud crashes, followed by a disturbing hissing noise, and the sounds only got louder. I knew that I had to make a break for it, or else I'd never get out alive. I carefully unlocked the bathroom door, and as soon as it opened, I ran straight for the front door and shot out of the house.

I screamed for help, claiming that there was a wild animal in my house, but with every yell I let out, the more hopeless I felt as I noticed that nobody seemed to be noticing.

I went to every neighbor's house I could, and nobody answered. It was only 11:00PM, so you'd think that people would still be awake. Thats when I noticed that nobody was home. Anywhere. The whole neighborhood seemed to have been suddenly quiet, almost like in an apocalyptic city. I didn't know what else I could do, so I hid in a tree in someone's front yard, about a block away from my home, where I had to sleep until daybreak. There was no way I was going to go back to my house.

I awoke in the tree the next morning, and ended up missing my bus to school. A lot other kids did, too. I walked home to see if it was safe, as well as if my parents were home, and they were, standing in the in front of our house, just like the many other families (what was left of them at least) with the cops at every house.

My mom and dad were in tears, hysterical over Emily's death. When they saw me, they ran to me and hugged me. My dad was never one to hug, but even he held me tight. I hugged them back and asked them where they'd gone, but they said they'd gotten a phone call from a relative who needed something, and they thought we'd be ok by ourselves. Although I was upset, I couldn't be mad at them. They'd done this before, but of course, things never ended like this.

It appeared that my almost my entire street was taken out by the thing. Every house I'd gone to had been the site of a recent murder, whether it be just the children, or the entire family. All of the victims had little sewn hearts in place of their real ones, tucked into their chest cavities.

I somewhat wanted to go back into our house and look at the damage, but the police refused to let anyone into any of the houses for investigative purposes. All of our stuff was confiscated, and the authorities never told us why.

I was even interviewed about the drawing of the creature I'd seen, and questioned if I knew anything about it. I told them what I knew, and they seemed to understand that I knew no more than they did. I'm just glad they didn't get all suspicious and pin the whole thing on me.

We ended up moving to another town - a safer and nicer one, too. They never ended up catching the creature, but it did stop attacking people after a while. By the time, it did, though, too many people had already been killed. I will never forget that night, or the things that I saw.

..... Now for those of you wondering what happened to my dog, Milo, I will only tell you that he seemed to have disappeared and never came back. No one knows if he was killed, either, but we can only hope that he managed to find somewhere safe, away from the wretched creature.