Everything comes at me like a thunderbolt.

The starlit sky above. The cold of the ground seeping into my back. The sound of the cicadas in the tall grasses. The fact I'm wearing my nightshirt and I'm outside.

The tangy taste of something so sweet in my mouth.

I sit upright with a strangled gasp and the first thing I see is my house, looking like a ghostly apparition in the moonlight, and Rheemus' barn casting a shadow over the back yard. The second is that my white nightshirt is stained with a thick river of something dark and wet that streams from the curved neckline all the way down to the hem at my ankles. My hair hangs down in stringy wet knots and stinks like pond water, my bare feet are stained and dirty, as are my hands. Trembling, I touch my chin where the skin feels strange, flinching as my fingertips find some dark, sticky liquid that coats my face, from my nose downwards.

I whimper, a thin reedy noise that sounds like a wounded animal, only I instinctively know I'm not the one who's wounded. All this blood, on my nightshirt, on my hands, in my mouth – it's not mine and I'm seized by a panic that's on the cusp of pain. A tightness spreads across my chest, my throat constricts and my heart beats louder than the night song of the cicadas.

Rising onto my hands and knees, I begin to scrabble around in the dirt, searching. I follow the path halfway across the yard, finding nothing. Turning full circle, I frantically scan the yard, because I know it will be here somewhere, and as my eyes follow the line of the white perimeter fence that separates our yard from Bitter Creek, the five thousand acres of twisted and gnarled woodland that runs all the way to the state line, it's then that I see it.

A dark bloodied handprint, glistening in the moonlight, is smeared along the top rut of the fence.

"No,' I whisper, grabbing handfuls of my hair. "No, no, no."

I break into a run, ignoring the harsh cut of stones in the soles of my feet, ignoring the scuttle of beetles and other many-legged creatures that flee out of my path. Reaching the fence, I lift my blood-drenched nightshirt above my knees and clamber over and as soon as I do, I spot more blood on the other side, blood that trails into the gloom of the Creek.

I've never liked the Creek. Rheemus, on the other hand, loves the Creek and often comes down here to fish, but I can't say I've ever cared for it much. There's always been something about this place that gives me the shivers. Some places are so dark that it's always made me wonder what could be lurking. There's too many hidey-holes. Too many places where the sun barely touches. Strange noises always emanate from between the trees. Rheemus says that's just how the woodland sounds, because it wants to scare people away so they don't go in there with their axes and their fire. He says some things are made for nature's benefit only and unless you're going to respect that and be sure not to outstay your welcome, the woodland will do what it can to keep you out.

But I can't keep out. Not this time.

As I make my way down the path that Rheemus has made trudging up and down here, my eyes adjust to the gloom far quicker than I expect them to and I don't want to think about what that means. I don't want to think about how I don't feel so scared about the Creek no more, how somewhere deep inside it feels right to be here, but I am scared to find out why I'm drenched in blood. I remember the hunger so clearly, I remember what I hungered for and the thought of that is just too much to bear.

As I venture further into the woods, following the scent of the blood that glistens here and there along the way, I wish with all my heart that I could turn and run away but I know I can't. I have to know what I've done, I have to see it, yet while every step forward leads me to the answers, it also feels like I'm walking deeper and deeper into a nightmare that I know I will never be able to escape from. A nightmare in which I'm the monster.

I'm almost there now, I can sense it, I can smell it and as I break through a thick copse of knotted trees, I hear the soft, babbling voice of the Creek itself and I stop instantly, holding onto a branch to stop my legs from giving way beneath me.

There's something lying on the bank of the gurgling stream, something small and still, something that oozes blood which is now trickling sluggishly into the dark waters. Cloudy patterns of blood swirl on the surface, thin tendrils drifting out across the water. It stinks down here, a putrid stench of death and rotten things.

A sob bubbles up in my throat. "Brenda, oh God, Brenda."

I stagger towards the edge of the Creek, slipping and sliding down into the mud that sucks on my bare feet and squelches between my toes. My eyes are so blurred with tears, my vision hazy with panic, that I don't see it until I'm almost right there, until I'm on my knees beside it.

The thing that now lays half-submerged in the water so that its dead eyes stare back at me from under the surface is not my daughter. The thing that lays there with its belly torn open, stringy intestines trailing from the bloodied hole is not Brenda. It's a dog. Our neighbor's dog. A scruffy little yapper that was always escaping from their yard and digging holes in ours.

I reach out a shaking hand to touch it, I don't even though why because it's dead and I don't want to touch no dead animal, but as soon as my fingers sink into its sodden fur, I'm bombarded by so many awful images – no, not images – memories. Memories of what I did.

I'm on my hands and knees in the back yard, shoving beetles into my mouth, spitting out hard, pieces of black shell onto the ground. I'm hungry, so hungry that I claw at my own stomach, desperate to be free from the pain. A scrabbling, scratching noise makes me whip my head around and I see the dog, scrambling through the gap under the fence. I'm chasing the dog into the woods and as it yelps, I'm squealing with excitement, stomping through the mud after it. It's struggling in my hands, trying to bite me, but I'm holding it down, ripping, tearing. I'm burying my face in the hole where its stomach once was and it tastes so damn good.

So. Damn. Good.

I did this. I killed the dog. I tore open its belly, down here in the bowels of Bitter Creek, and then I fed from the ravaged, open wound. And even now, even as I sit here, staring wildly at the dead animal, a horrible thought creeps into my head, a horrible, terrible thought that repulses me and excites me all at the same time.

I'm still hungry.