Winona Morris always knew she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. When it became apparent that she was never going to grow up she decided to become a writer anyway. After sharing her multi-genre fiction on various free blogs over the years she has finally decided to become a "real" writer and is currently working on her first short fiction collection.
She currently lives in coastal Georgia with her husband, 2 kids, and 8 pets. When not writing or working at the full time retail job she's kept for nearly 2 decades, she likes to read and live vicariously through other people on social media.
SOMETHING IN THE WATER
by
Winona Morris
Josiah had come into the forest looking for clues, but found a flowing crimson skirt in the water. A wide swath where he stood, it narrowed upstream. An accusatory arrow, pointing back to its origin.
A deer, or something else, shot and left to waste.
“Ass-hats,” he murmured, resettling his pack on his back, making sure he could reach his camera.
He had started bird-watching this year, but had found several carcasses abandoned in the woods. Bodies left for the other wild animals to scavenge on.
His dad said they were just animal kills, but animals didn’t hunt with weapons. Animals didn’t leave their kill to waste and rot, either.
Now, ripples of red led him back upstream. He thought he’d catch evidence of an arrow shaft or a clear bullet hole.
The trail of ichor didn’t lead to the deer he expected. Following the swath of bloody water, his eyes stopped at a swatch of creamy white, a leg, a thigh.
He gasped as he realized he was looking at a woman’s leg. She stood naked and blood smeared, her side turned to him, her head down, unaware he was there.
Her hip was bleeding, her stomach and breasts were covered in scratches. Something dark floated in the water in front of her. Her clothes he supposed, but if she had stepped in the water to bathe, wouldn’t she have left her clothes on shore?
Her hair was deep burgundy. What a day for red things, Josiah thought. Then wondered, was it really red, or was it more blood?
He knew he should say something. Felt like a pervert peeking at her. Clearly, she was hurt and needed help. After all, the crimson skirt that led him here came from the pool of blood awash at her hips.
Still, he couldn’t stop staring. Bloody, disgusting, she was beautiful. Raising the camera, he pushed the button.
His camera was digital and nearly silent. Silent as it was, she heard it.
Her head snapped towards him in an instant. Her eyes flashed and her lip curled over her teeth, locked in a snarl.
Hatred flowed from her as thick as her blood, and Josiah blushed, looking down at the black mass near her feet. Was it moving?
“S..s…sorry,” he stammered. “I just saw the blood in the water. Are you okay?”
He felt pulled to look at her again. Not at her body, but at her eyes. Brown, flecked golden, flecked a glowing yellow.
She stood up straighter, eyes still bright, teeth still barred. As she straightened, a fresh gout of blood poured from the biggest wound in her side. She reached out towards him, red-covered palm up. Fingers beckoned.
Josiah coudn’t get over how beautiful she was. How perfect her body was. How much he wanted her. Behind those thoughts, he knew they were wrong. This whole situation was wrong. But something more primal was pulling at him.
He took a step towards the water. A second and his boots were in the water. A third and tainted water poured into his boots. She waited, hand out, teeth showing, chest heaving, bleeding everywhere.
“STOP!”
The sound blew through the woods. The woman flinched slightly, and a man stepped out of the trees.
His clothes, his face, his weapon raised and aimed towards the river, each part of him looked as if it had grown out of the dirt with the rest of the wild.
“Help her,” Josiah said. “She’s hurt!”
“She’s a savage son.” The man said. “Come away from her.”
Behind him, something splashed, moaned. Ignoring the man, he turned back to her, but she was coming to him, hand still out, teeth barred.
“I SAID COME AWAY!”
The man’s voice was stronger than whatever primal spell the bloody woman had him under. He looked past her, seeing that the dark form in the water had a face, had a body, and had been the source of most of the blood after all.
The woman flickered, and he felt a sensation in his skin and bones. The world thrummed and there was a woman there, but she wasn’t a woman at all. The form he had been lusting after was still there, just a transparent overlay of something else. It was something dark and hungry, and he refused to look hard enough to really see it.
Josiah turned to run for the man in the woods, to the safety of the spear he had, to seek shelter behind his commanding voice, but she was on him already.
Her body was frigid and he could smell the blood on her, the bile on her, could feel her inhumanly icy breath on his throat and he found himself immobile.
The man in the woods shook his head slightly. Josiah saw him shift, saw the spear coming forward, its silver tip glinting against the darkness of everything around him, taking up his world.
The spear ripped into his shoulder just as her teeth scraped against his neck. Something else shoved deep into his back, something that felt like a jolt of electricity. He thought momentarily about the human mouth, and how bites from people tended to fester.
Then his world went black.
Later, Josiah opened his eyes to the same pains that had closed them. The punctured shoulder pumped fire down his arm, into his torso, merging with the sizzling electric pain in his back.
He was alone. No man. No woman. Frogs sang at the water’s edge. Stars flicked above him like celestial fireflies.
The camera was gone. His pack was still there, with a dirty bit of paper fluttering from under the strap.
“I’m sorry.”
Only two words which looked scribbled in what looked like blood. He wasn’t sure what they meant. Sorry for what?
Somewhere distant, an animal cried out in the night, and the electricity in his spine responded.