Teach & Talk Tuesday: A.M. Supinger

Guest Post: Today on Teach and Talk we are in for a treat. Maybe I should have called it Treat T-days :) A.M. Supinger from Inner Owlet has written for us a piece of creepy flash fiction. If you like what you read hop over to her blog and read more of her short stories. Plus she has a some stories in a new FREE anthology. More detail HERE.

Treeline

Nina stared out from the porch of her hovel, pupils dilated against the heavy darkness. She felt the strain pound into a headache as she tried to catch sight of movement.

Something was out there. 

Her home was tucked into the forest's depths, away from other people. She did not like her kind, their wasteful ways. Instead, she made her place amongst wild things. Dangerous things. The animals and not-animals that lurked the forest weren't always friendly, but she knew how to cope with them. It was the something beyond her garden that bothered her.

It stalked her.

Earlier, while the sun had been high, she'd seen scales in the woods. A flash of metallic blue so abruptly there and then gone, she might have imagined it. But then, at sunset, a rasping screech, like claws scraping stone, filled the forest. It was not a sprite or demon—those defended, but did not stalk.

This something acted more like a man. A shudder forced her eyes closed and her heart skidded. Men acted more foully than the worst creatures housed within the forest. She'd been normal, once. Long ago. She'd been young and nubile and beautiful. But men did not care for beauty, except what they could reap from it, and she'd been long scarred by her unlucky face and form.

Hidden from the world of man, she no longer knew or cared if she was beautiful. She certainly wasn't young. Her body and mind were peaceful and solitary, and this stalker threatened that. Her eyes flicked again across the shadows lining her home. The wall she’d built to keep out the critters seemed impotent now, even though nothing in the darkness moved.

In silence she sat, all night, until the sky lightened. With every hour that passed the black sky blurred into purple, then blue, and then the red sun blazed above the tree line. Finally, she sighed. That something may have only been a passing dragon on its way home. If so, she was glad to be rid of it. Dragons were nasty pests.

At ease in the burgeoning dawn, she stood to go inside—but an icy warning in her heart froze the very blood in her veins. Chilled and knowing, she paused. 
With all her attention focused on the trees, she'd never once imagined that her house was the danger.

With resignation, she inched her chin to the side so she could see her door. 

Blue eyes stared back.