"Bringer Of Nightmares" by Amber Silver

        The sun was setting as Jonathan closed the barndoor and headed towards the farmhouse. Bloody light leaked over the conifers like a plague, sweeping over the farmer's seeded fields, before slowly ebbing away into the forest. Paying no attention to the unusual color display, Jonathan shut the heavy door of his cabin with a hearty thud, and slid the solid bolt lock into place. He was exhausted, but proud of the enormous amount of work he had accomplished during the day. Quickly Jonathan surveyed the tiny, two room cabin and ensured that the fire was burning low in the stone fireplace.  Satisfied, he pulled off his muddy boots at the door and headed towards his bed.
        As he pulled his filthy shirt off over his shoulders, he smiled fondly at the sleeping form of his wife, and watched as her chest rhythmically rose and fell. Then he silently crossed the small expanse of space in the bedroom to gently tousle the hair of his four-year-old son, who slept in a modest bed by the door. He chuckled to himself as he watched the child smack his lips and rub a chubby fist across his chin.
        "Well, lad," Jonathan murmured as pulled his pants off and crawled beneath the covers to collapse beside his wife, "I pray that I may sleep as well as you tonight. I've even more work to finish tomorrow!"

        As the last traces of crimson faded from the evening sky, a heavy blanket of darkness was pulled across the land. When day transformed into night, the forest's silence underwent a similar drastic transformation. All at once, it seemed the forest became alive with the sound of animals; bats chittered through the darkness; a chorus of owls hooted and bleated into the night air; and in the distance, a lone wolf howled. However, just as the symphony was reaching its usual crescendo, the chatter was inexplicably suspended. Silence cut through the night air like an ominous dagger, as though death had suddenly descended on the land. The silence was so severe, that had Jonathan been awake, he would have been terrified.
        Then, from the depths of the forest, there came a stirring. It was not a sound nor a vibration, it was more of an untraceable and undeterminable sensation. The shadows seemed to tremble and then stretched forth with malicious dark talons from the tangle of trees towards the farmhouse. The shadows swept from the treeline and pooled around the house, forming eddies of darkness from which the last traces of moonlight trickled away into nothingness. Then, the last of the shadows drained from the forest and the modest little farmhouse became an impenetrable island, marooned and helpless.
        Inside the farmhouse, Jonathan and his wife slept on unaware that there was an assault occurring on their pleasant homestead. Darkness bubbled up from between the floorboards, while shadows flowed in from the corners and drained down from the roof's slats. Darkness dripped and oozed, leaking its way in streams onto the floor before flowing beneath the baby's cradle and pooling together. Slowly a form began to take shape. The shadows grew, blossoming, and gaining height and depth. It was not long before there was a fourth figure in the small bedroom. The figure was composed of darkness, scarred and demonic, leaning over the sleeping child. But then the child suddenly awoke, for no explicable reason, and fastened his sleep-dusted eyes onto the hazy red orbs above him.

        The sound of a child's terrified screams shattered the silence of the night. The baby screamed and screamed, and the sound was not childlike at all; it was more a sound that was curdled from the depths of a creature in primal fear; the sound of realized nightmares and living terrors. Outside, the pool of shadows marooning the cabin swept together and flowed back to the forest. Once the shadows reached the treeline, they spread out and returned to their respective positions with a shudder. In their wake stood a black stallion, who flicked his tail over his flanks and snorted white steam from his dew-laden nostrils. He briefly craned his neck towards the farmhouse, and his fiery eyes regarded the building without remorse, before they vanished as he returned his gaze to the forest, and galloped into the darkness.