She didn't know where Charlie was, but she could see where he had gone. The snow was thick, and it betrayed Charlie in an instant. Jena followed the tracks with her eyes and her flashlight away from the house, and up and over the hill.
She hesitated. She knew exactly where Charlie had snuck off to yet again, and that gave her pause. Jena knew her older brother well. They were never apart, except for when he went there. When he went to the Marsh House across the creek. That's where he was now. Over the hill, across the creek, and he was watching it again. Trying to see what was inside.
How could he? He had left her there. By herself. Outside. The thought that she was alone at night finally came to her. She turned, monsters suddenly behind her, but reality blew her nightmares away. There was only darkness there, dotted with specks of late snow. They floated in no particular direction, carefree and unconcerned which way they took. Beyond them, a solid wall of night. So thick that it could drown her if she lowered her flashlight. Silence her.
She could face it, chase it back, and walk into the house. She could leave Charlie to his own foolish decisions. She didn't. She couldn't leave Charlie alone. Not there. Not tonight. Tonight she could finally catch him.
She allowed the darkness to follow as she ran up the hill.
Trudging through the snow that swallowed her ankles, she kicked and pushed to get over the incline, and she struggled to stay upright as gravity pulled her down the other side. With darkness keeping pace, she knew she couldn't stop. She didn't want to. She only wanted Charlie.
The wind whispered in her ear, and she shook its sharp tongue from her face. Bushes rose out of the night. Where they grew thinnest she slipped between them, and she dropped down to the creek bed below. The water was shallowest here, narrow, and she leapt across it with ease. Scampering up the other bank, the cold stabbed at her exhausted lungs like daggers, but she didn't yield. She found Charlie's footprints again, and she chased him.
She could have called, but she was across the creek now. This wasn't home anymore. The barren land here was hard beneath the snow. Home was further and further away every second, and her father had told her many times about this place. He warned her that the land over the creek is the Marsh's land. She wasn't allowed to play on it. Neither was Charlie. The difference was that Charlie didn't care.
"The Marshes are dead," he had told her. "I heard about it at school. Everyone knows they're dead. It's the thing that lives in the house that you gotta watch out for."
She never believed him. Their mom said it was nonsense. A tall-tale. It wasn't real for Jen, but it was for Charlie. She knew that's why he snuck out at night. In the dark. Isn't that where the monsters live?
Though the footprints guided her to Charlie, she felt a warmth leak from her eyes as she imagined the darkness behind her growing corporeal. She could feel it scraping her back with claws, nudging her arms as she ran, and breathing down her tiny neck. She could feel every labored breath coming in sync with hers. Just as fast. Just as strong. Just as overwhelming. Jena wiped away the tear. Charlie was strong. She could be, too.
Jena was worried. She knew the house was getting near. The snow fell harder now, and with her vision reduced to nothing but black and white, she started to hate Charlie. Truly she hated him in the way siblings do. How dare he make her run out here, alone, after him? She was going to beat him when she found him.
If you find him, the night whispered.
The tracks went on, but it wasn't right. Charlie should have stopped by now. He never got too close to the Marsh House. Never. Not even he and his friends dared when they tried, and Jena had watched. They barely went further than the creek, not even halfway to the place. None of them had the guts to go closer. Not Charlie. Certainly not alone. Why had Charlie continued? What did he want? They never saw anything of interest at the Marsh House. There was no monster. It wasn't real. So why had he come so close? What had he seen?
