Waiting Out the Hound

Stillness saves

Photo by sahil muhammed on Unsplash

Janna felt the moth crawling on her shoulder. Its sticky little bug feet, tiny points of attachment, moved slowly on her skin, perhaps contending with the fine hairs on her arm. The moon kept shifting behind clouds so she couldn’t get a good look at the small trespasser. And if she moved to look more closely, her presence would be felt. The tree she leaned against dropped a leaf, it bumped the trunk on the way down and then gently crashed into the leaf litter below. Janna held her breath. The moth paused, she could see its pale, luminous antennae flicker and twitch. Janna gritted her teeth, her own ears strained against the silence. The forest, all the creatures, knew that patience meant survival. The hound would try to use the stillness against them, let it goad them into movement with its warm, airless caress. But no, she knew what the forest knew, to move was to die. So she waited.

The cloying scent of jasmine, twining and pulsing its fragrance into the night tickled Janna’s nose, she tried to breathe lightly to avoid sneezing. The moth rubbed its fuzzy head on her arm. It wasn’t often Janna liked moths. They tended to be trouble makers. Flitting about when they should be still, knocking into the Rulers as though their insubstantial, powdery bodies could do anything but anger them. This one was no different. Horrible, ticklish little creature. Just trying to provoke the hound.

The Rulers’ hound was not much of a hound, it had no snout to smell with and no eyes for sight, it was slow and dragged a filthy, matted tail behind it that often got caught in shrubs and brambles. Its angular bones poked out from underneath its pelt, as though even they couldn’t bare to be part of the travesty and wanted to escape. For all its faults, though, the hound was smart, for it had once been a man. A formidable hunter that the Rulers had caught poaching on their land. As punishment, they had turned him into a hound with no adaptations for the hunt besides his large, dish-like ears, and paws that sensed even the slightest vibration. They’d given him teeth, of course, many sharp, jagged teeth, so that if he ever did catch anything, he could cause it immeasurable pain. The Rulers loved pain.

The hound stood in the forest every night, stalwart and silent, waiting for the tremors of those stupid enough to get caught out after dark. Waiting for fear and impatience to bubble up inside the unlucky fool and push her to run. The hound was slow, but he also knew the forest, no one escaped.

The moon emerged from the clouds. The moth tapped a silly rhythm on her arm. Janna glared at it in the dark. It wriggled its moth bottom and flapped its wings. Waiting out the hound had felled greater creatures, maybe it had lost its stupid little mind. Its legs tickled her arm. She itched to swat it off, but that was movement. That was something the hound would feel vibrating. She took a slow, careful breath and wished the moth a speedy demise.

Beyond them, out in the heart of the dark forest, the hound shifted. Janna heard its great bones clack together. On the breeze she smelled its rank breath.

The hound was close. How had it gotten so close? Janna felt her heart thump in her chest and breathed slowly to calm it. For all she knew the hound could feel a heart trying to burst out of a chest when its body wouldn’t run. Panicking was what just what the hound wanted her to do.

A sharp pain in her arm made her look down more quickly than she would have liked. The moth grinned at her with blood dripping from its jaws. Janna felt a wave of fear, bitter as bile.

What kind of moth bit people?

As she watched, it opened up wide and took another bite. Janna bit her lip to keep from screaming as pain shot through her. The moth gnawed at her flesh, in seconds it had disappeared inside her arm, its pale wingtips the only things visible as it burrowed.

Janna lifted her other arm from where it rested on her knee and brought it up to the moth. She pinched its wings between her fingers and pulled. Slowly. Forcing herself to keep her eyes open and her breathing calm. The moth held fast to her meat. Janna tugged and felt a tiny pop as it ripped from her arm. She held it out in front of her face, her features contorted in rage and pain. The moth snarled and snapped at her. Janna flung it into the forest.

She heard it land with a tiny thud.

The hound grunted and shifted, its bones grinding together like dry gears. Janna heard it take a few steps away from her as the moth thrashed in the leaf litter.

It was far too late when she noticed the trickle of blood running off her elbow to stop it from hitting the ground.

The hound turned and bounded over to her, knocking her flat on her back. Janna kicked its knees out of their sockets before it ripped out her throat.

The hound starved where it fell, on top of Janna, unable to move with its broken legs. Unable to rise and devour her.

No one waits out the hound anymore, but some say, if you stand by the spot where Janna’s bones lie underneath the hound’s, you’ll hear moth wings flutter. And if you do, you’d better run.