Free The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree by S. A. Hunt

owl?”
    “How could I forget? That’s a seminal piece of film history. Right up there with Krull, The Neverending Story, The Beastmaster, and Conan the Barbarian .”
    “Remember the ugly dude with the curly hair and funky skin? Maybe his name was Calephebas or Calibos or something. I think Harry Hamlin cut his head off at some point and carried it around in a bag. Anyway, that’s what I saw in that closet, except it was bald and had pale pink skin.”
    Sawyer’s big bright eyes gazed at me, sparkling in the eerie green light from the dashboard. “No offense, Ross, but that’s scary as shit. I think I might be regretting coming out here with you.”
    As I got out, Sawyer was digging under the seat and I heard him swear under his breath. He jumped out of the truck and we walked through the damp late-night chill to the front porch, where the front door was standing wide open.
    I looked over at Sawyer and saw that he was carrying his baseball bat and the camera. There was no visible light emanating from it, but I could see on the screen that it was in nightvision mode, the viewfinder screen displaying the world in shades of mint green.
    The house was still as dark and silent as I’d left it. I started up the stairs to the second floor, beckoning to Sawyer to follow me. He trailed behind, sneaking almost cartoonishly, gripping the bat with a white-knuckled fist as it rested on his shoulder.
    I could hear a faucet dripping as we crested the landing and I looked at Sawyer. He was biting his lips in anticipation.
    I stepped in and turned the handle as far as it would go, cutting off the leak. As I did, I noticed something odd: the shower curtain was closed again. I used the tip of the knife to pry back the edge of it and peer into the tub, my heart thundering within me.
    To my relief, nothing awaited me.
    I lingered momentarily in the soft green light of Sawyer’s camera, trying to remember if I’d left the curtain drawn when I’d come through the first time, but I wasn’t willing to stand around in there staring at my spooky reflection in the mirror.
    When I came out, Sawyer was standing guard, looking up and down the hallway, the bat at the ready. I tapped him on the shoulder and felt him jerk in surprise. I nodded toward the back bedroom.
    He pushed the door open with the end of the baseball bat and I rushed in SWAT-style with my knife, waving my cellphone around. My foot struck something and a loud clatter scared me bad enough to make me shout. Sawyer was beside me in an instant, ready to start swinging. I have to give him credit for that.
    “What?! What is it?”
    I picked up the hatchet I’d kicked and showed it to him, then jabbed the tip of the knife into a fat, yellowed Nora Roberts paperback lying on the dresser, so that it was standing up. I left it there and I pointed at the closet, hefting the axe, preparing to defend myself.
    Right there, I mouthed at Sawyer, my face a ghostly green in the display on his camera, my eyes gleaming with an oblique light like a telescope lens. That’s where I saw it. Get ready.
    The door was still open. I cat-stepped toward it, too aware of the floorboards shifting under my feet, every creak and click amplified to deafening levels, a stage upon which I crept and fretted, sure that at any time, I was about to be disemboweled by some horrific spectre from the dirty, black, root-veined underside of the earth.
    I slid the axe-blade between the clothes hanging inside, slowly, and then swept the hatchet back and forth, chuffing out loud in a high voice of fear and certainty.
    A frigid thrill erupted at the base of my neck and turned my hands and face into numb cadaver parts, and my hair prickled at the sight of a silhouette crouching in the back of the closet, waving something menacingly at me in the weak glow of my cellphone.
    I froze, muttering, “Aaaa —aaaah!”
    “W—wait a minute,” Sawyer said, leaning over my shoulder to gaze into the abyss that was staring back at