Jawbone

"Mommy! Mommy! I want to show you something." Lilly said, running up to Rachel and grabbing her by the hand. 

"What is it, Honey?" Rachel responded, allowing the little girl with brown hair and a dimpled smile to lead her up the trail towards the back of the property.

"It's really neat, just wait and see." Lilly said, practically falling just to drag her mother even faster. It was the beginning of November, and the path was covered in muddy leaves. The trees were bare except for a few stubborn maples scattered around. Rachel loved how the plot looked this time of year. Her and her husband had bought it with the intention of starting an apple orchard, until he died unexpectedly last june from pneumonia. Now it was twenty acres of land that she could barely afford to own. However, she knew for the sake of her daughter she would do whatever it took to keep the property.

"Slow down, Lilly," Rachel said as her daughter ran ahead, her high ponytail whipping back and forth across her thick blue coat. The cold air was starting to nip at her fingertips as she barreled forward in an attempt to keep up with the rambunctious nine year old. Looking around, she realized this was the furthest back she had ever actually been and didn't like knowing her daughter had been wandering out there alone. A few moments later, the landscape seemed to change. The trees were not as dense, the grass stood long, burnt, and weed-ridden. There were thick metal chains wrapped around a few of the trunks even dangling from some of the branches. She stopped to examine one that looked like it had been broken only to realize she couldn't hear or see her daughter anymore.

"Lilly, where are you?" Rachel said, feeling uneasy in her new surroundings. A large fallen tree laid ahead. Did her husband ever mention this place? She couldn't recall but felt like she would've remembered something as strange as this. Even the air felt different.

"Lilly? I need you to come out right now!"

Laughter floated through the trees.

She walked twenty more feet around a thick overgrown bush coming face to face with a large cage dangling from a post in the ground. The shape of a bird cage, it was rusted with thick bars and covered in what looked to be animal feces. Ten feet to her right stood a wood cabin with a pitched roof and a flimsy overhang. The entire structure leaned awkwardly to the side as vines clung to the siding, interlacing in and out of the window frames.

Rachel could feel her palms begin to sweat.

This isn't funny. Lilly Anne." Rachel said, her fear building as the orange glow of dusk turned to grey with the shadows kicking out like the woods themselves were coming alive.

"If you don't come out this instant you are grounded, you hear me!"

From the corner of her eye she saw movement inside the window of the cabin. As she walked over towards the door an animal's jaw bone laid in the dirt. It held bits of skin as flies hovered and landed on it in mass. She yelped and felt all the blood rush to her head. She stumbled slightly and grabbed a hold of the door.

What the hell was this place, she thought.

The door creaked slow and loud as she pulled it opened. The smell of rotting meat and what she could only describe as death hit her in the face. Her eyes began to water as she put her hand over her mouth and nose. She kept the door open using what little light there was to see the open floorplan. In the corner stood a little girl wearing nothing but dead animal hides around her body, strands of matted brown hair hung in front of her face.

"Lilly?"

The girls head cocked sideways. The little bit of her eye that Rachel could see was cloudy. Almost completely white and unnatural looking.

A scream left her lips. She backed out of the cabin as fast as she could, her feet tripping over themselves. Her back and head hit the ground knocking the air from her lungs. Looking up at the grey clouds that were forming, she noticed a buzzard circling just above the trees.

"Isn't it neat mommy?" Lilly's voice came from behind her.

She took a deep breath before pulling herself to her feet. As she spun around and went to rush towards her daughter she noticed who or what her daughter was standing next too.

She had to be somewhere around thirteen years old; her eyes bloodshot and also, without any color or iris. A metal collar with a broken chain clamped around her neck.

Everything about her was off.

The pale translucent complexion, the skin and bones, even the veins in her arms seeemed to squirm underneath.

"They want me to come live with them." Lilly said, taking the other girl by the hand.

"Lilly, come here right now." Rachel said, doing her best not to panic.

"NO!" The other girl growled. "She belongs to us now."

The voice didn't sound normal either. Whatever this girl was it wasn't human and Rachel had no idea how to fight something that wasn't human. Her eyes scanned the forest floor for a large branch or rock, but there was nothing close by.

"Over my dead fucking body." Rachel said, feeling the rage she'd been holding in since her husbands death fill her stomach. She bent down and went to charge when a cold hand wrapped around her ankle. The fingers crushed her leg like it was a soda can. She screamed and thrashed before dropping to the ground as she felt the bone start to crack. Another little girl held her leg in a death grip. This one looked even younger than Lilly. Through the tears in her eyes, Rachel noticed that the girl was mostly a corpse, a patch of blonde hair fell down exposed skull where the skin on her face had been torn away. Both her legs were missing and the filthy white dress she wore had big holes exposing the rotting spine of her back.

"Your dead body is exacly what we want." The translucent girl said behind her.

Another scream left Rachel's lips. The wind started picking up as leaves and dirt swirled around her. The girl at her feet started climbing up her legs, each hand grabbing and tearing into flesh. The pain was nearly unbearable. She tilted her head back where her daughter was standing. Both she and the other girl watched on. Her daughters eyes now completely bloodshot and cloudy white.

"NO!" She screamed.

A bony hand grabbed Rachel's bottom jaw. The taste of decaying fingers lapped her tongue before the worst pain of her life ensued. Her jaw dislocated and jerked forward, the skin and nerves ripping slowly. Every muscle in her body seized as the tendons and ligaments severed. Blood splattered in the air before pooling and running down her throat. A gurgling noise and a strange warmth passed over her body. Her vision began to fade as she kept her eyes on Lilly, who was now bending over top of her.

Like a rabid animal ready to feed.