2022 Student Horror Writing Competition
The Dark Watchers
by Ellie Gabriel
“You know, Edith, they say that guilt is just fear and grief in one body.”
Edith’s grandfather, Walton, said this to her when she was just a child. She had just pushed over her mother’s favorite flower vase in the midst of a temper-tantrum. Her eyes were still brimming with leftover tears, face pink and raw with anger. Her mother loved that vase. Perhaps more than Edith liked.
She could still recall the way her grandfather’s leathery, tanned hands rested on the fraying, yellow arms of his chair, a cigarette delicately perched in-between his middle and index finger. He wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, and his cane rested on his knee. His wiry, thin glasses rested on the tip of his nose as he peered out the cracked living room window.
“Dad, enough.”
She looked over to her mother, who was standing in the kitchen, her back to them. She rested a shaky hand on the faded, once obnoxiously-bright retro-style countertops. Above her, a painting of the lake next to their house. The canvas’ paper was already yellowing, the corners curling with age. Walton had painted it when he moved in with Edith and her mother.
Edith watched as her grandfather slowly tore his gaze from the window, tapping the flickering ashes from his cigarette into a ceramic tray as he turned to face his daughter. “It’s true,” he replied, looking down at his grandchild knowingly. “You understand, don’t you Edith? You feel grief for this broken vase. As does your mother.” Her mother turned to face the two, watching them with her pale lips pressed into a thin line. Edith only stared back, her expression vacant as she fiddled mindlessly with the hem of her shirt.
She didn’t understand why her mother was upset. Really, she never could comprehend why anyone latched-onto these sorts of things. After all, it was a vase, not a human being. Something replaceable, forgettable.
Though, sometimes, for Edith, the lines would blur.
***
Edith’s brother was born when she was thirteen years old. His name was Gideon. A stupid name, she thought. Her mother had elected to keep the identity of his father a secret from her and her grandfather. Edith couldn’t have bothered to press it, but Walton felt otherwise. She heard them bicker into the night as she laid in her bed, her eyes pinned to the lake beyond her room. She loved that lake, though she rarely swam in it. She often imagined herself wading through it when no one was awake, paddling and paddling until she winked away at a nonexistent horizon, never to be seen again. There was something majestic; something peaceful about that place. Until she saw them.
She could still hear the chatter of her family as she sat up to get a better look, hands braced on the bed under her. On the perimeter of the lake was a figure, made from something like shadow. It was shaped like a human, but far from such. It had no discernable facial features, but where the eyes would be were two spots of light like stars. The edges of its form ebbed into the night behind it like smoke and cobwebs. Though it was, at its very essence, empty and stagnant,
She couldn’t help but feel like it was watching her. Like it was waiting for something to happen. As she stared back, she remembered the broken vase from years ago, her mother’s tired eyes..
Once she blinked, it was gone.
The next day, Edith stood at the kitchen sink, arms crossed indignantly as she watched her mother and grandfather play with her brother, loving grins on their faces as they babbled and cooed to him. She felt a knot of anger in her stomach as they continued, and she imagined her cold stare burning into the back of her brother’s head. She imagined a world without him; a world in which their noxious joy was dimmed in a way that made the air breathable.
She could not stand children.
But Edith didn’t know that every time she found herself wishing her brother was never born, glaring knives at him when her mother’s back was turned, and refusing to hold him in her arms for fear that she might strangle him, Walton saw. Walton noticed. And he simply watched.
Suddenly remembering what happened the night before, she crept over to the living room where her family laughed, sitting down in her grandfather’s chair silently.
“I saw something last night. By the lake.”
Her grandfather looked up at her confusedly, his smile fading as he scanned her face. Edith didn’t meet his eyes– she looked to her mother, waiting for her to react.
She ignored her, brushing Gideon’s wispy hair away from his face idly.
Edith rolled her eyes, letting out a grunt as she leaned back into the chair. Her grandfather spoke to her from his seat at the wooden dining table.
“What did you see?”
She gave him a sidelong glance, still reclining in passive frustration. Edith explained reluctantly, including every strange detail. The old man folded his hands on his lap as he thought to himself, brow furrowed and his head bowed. He was silent for a moment, then cleared his throat.
“I believe you saw what many call the “Dark Watchers.” His tone was bare; unreadable.
“In the Santa Lucia mountains, many hikers have reported seeing something similar.” He looked up at her, his gaze perhaps more intense than he intended. “The dark silhouette, the bright ‘lights’ for eyes.. But their presence is far from random. Often, people are driven to insanity after seeing them just once. And then.. When you are at your weakest..” A bizarre smile spread across her grandfather’s face, though his eyes were shockingly dead. “They strike.” She could not break his stomach-churning stare. The air around them felt heavy, and Edith noticed the woods grow silent– like something was listening. She heard her heartbeat pumping rapidly in her ears.
“Some say they are our recently deceased, watching us from purgatory. From the beyond. In my belief, they watch some people for a reason. Because they know what will–”
“Okay, that’s enough. We don’t need to give the kid nightmares.” Her mother snapped, scooping up Gideon in her arms as she stood up and walked into the kitchen. Edith scowled.
“No. I want to know.” She turned to her grandfather. “Tell me the rest, grandpa.” She demanded. Even as she implored for him to continue, a familiar, fearful feeling crept into her subconscious. A feeling that she hadn’t felt since last night. But it was manageable, small. She could squash it like a bug if she really wanted to. But it always came back.
Walton sat up straight, the severity of his manner suddenly vanishing. He adjusted his hat with a wink. “That’s a story for another day, I suppose.”
***
A week had passed. Edith had not forgotten what she saw near the lake, nor had she let go of her grandfather’s foreboding words. The Dark Watchers.… Why, of all people, was she being watched? Edith glanced at a face-down photograph of her late father that rested on the kitchen counter. As she reached for it, she watched as the glowing red rays of the sunset filtered through the kitchen blinds, flitting over her fingers like liquid..
Something was wrong.
She slowly turned her head towards the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Patterned, yellowing wallpaper that peeled at the edges. An oak end table that she knew was there, but could not see due to the lamp that barely lit the space. She took a hesitant step forward, the electricity on the shag carpet stinging her foot. Why was the house so quiet? Her staggered breaths ripped through the air, her chest caving in, throat burning.
Edith dragged her eyes across the vacant living room, feeling as if she were in a trance. The deafening silence thrummed against her suffocatingly. One minute passed. Two. It was becoming difficult to breathe. She continued to walk into the hallway. She found herself in front of her grandfather’s room, which was seldom lit by the bloody color of the evening sun through his window. Her shoulder to the open door, she felt herself unwilling to turn her head. Edith clenched her jaw, her back growing damp with sweat and fear.
She finally brought herself to look inside the room.
Her grandfather was slumped in a rocking chair. He had his back to the door, facing the window.
“Grandpa.”
No response.
She forced herself to enter the room, unable to look away from the back of his head. Edith had been holding her breath for so long that her chest was on fire. She drew a clammy hand onto her grandfather’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”
His mouth was open, and so were his eyes. Frozen and glazed over in a permanent stare, fixed on the lake beyond the window. Dead.
She stumbled back, knocking over a ceramic bowl. It fell with a crash onto the wooden floor. Edith turned her back to her grandfather, preparing to sprint out of the room.
But it was there. A shadowy silhouette of a man, with lights for eyes lingered in the doorway. It stood with its hands at its sides, a walking cane gripped in one of them. Like her grandfather’s. It watched her. And waited. Minutes must have passed as she kept still, paralyzed with fear. Her eyes flickered to the broken bowl.
It spoke with a shrill, grating voice.
Where is your grief?
After a beat of silence, the creature wordlessly walked backwards into the hallway, dissipating into the crimson glow.
She didn’t dare look at Walton’s husk of a body as she wandered out of the room.
***
Walton was collected the next morning. Edith watched plaintively as her mother stood silently at the front door. Her eyes were puffy from crying, and she clenched a wrinkled tissue in her hand. Gideon was in her arms, her free hand pressed against his back. Once the paramedics were gone, the three of them were alone in the front yard of their home.
Any other girl who had just discovered her dead grandfather would have felt something akin to sadness. But Edith felt none of it. She had only recalled feeling fear for her life, when she saw the Dark Watcher.
Every day, every minute, she saw them. Shadowy forms in the corner of her vision. Sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. Waiting. And watching. But what for? Their vacant eyes screamed at her.
Her loathing for them continued to bubble and burn, and she began to feel like a caged animal. Rabid, panicked, and itching to run.
She remembered the cryptic words of the Dark Watcher, of her grandfather. Grief. And guilt. They were only words, after all. Images of her mother’s neglect flashed in her mind. I’ll show them grief, she thought compulsively. They don’t know what things like guilt and grief can be.
Edith’s mother decided to take Gideon to the lake one afternoon. She supposed she would come with them.
She waited at the door for her mother, watching her pack Gideon’s water toys and snacks, plastering bright white sunscreen onto the boy’s face with haste. He was now about three years old. Every once in a while, Gideon would stare pensively at his sister, his round face resting in an unknown expression. Edith merely stared back apathetically, arms still at her side. Useless thing.
Once they arrived at the lake, Edith’s panic did not cease. They would show up eventually to taunt her. It was just a matter of time. She scratched at her neck, the skin blistering as she dragged her nails over it again and again. Her eyes darted rapidly around the clearing. Why were the Dark Watchers now silent? The world was eerily calm at this moment. Too calm.
Her mother swore to herself, realizing she had forgotten her change of shoes. She set Gideon down, pointing a manicured finger at Edith.
“Watch him while I’m gone. Don’t fuck it up, okay?”
Edith nodded idly, her eyes on the woods beyond her. Her mother scoffed in response.
Once she was out of sight, Gideon began to toddle away from his sister, clearly set on exploring the water. She rolled her eyes.
“Hey! Don’t go over–” Her voice faltered as she heard intelligible whispers from somewhere in the clearing. She snapped her head around, looking for something. Anything. The sounds of her brother splashing in the water began to be muffled as she turned around.
As she expected, there they were. Two of them. A couple yards away from her, watching as they always did. Her heart fell to her feet. Please go away. Please. But they did not move. Their tendril-like limbs bent and pulsated against the light around them, bright eyes fixed on Edith. As they always were.
They were torturing her; making her feel sick. It had to end. She held a hand to her throat, continuing to claw at it frantically. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she felt hot tears slip down her cheeks.
Turn around. They croaked to her.
“No.” She choked back a sob as her fingernail broke against her neck, sticky blood dripping onto the dirt. The whispers turned into indistinct chanting, thudding against the earth with ungodly force.
Three.
Edith wrapped her arms around her torso as she hunched over, eyes still closed for fear of what she might see if she opened them.
Two..
She swiveled in the dirt, facing the lake again. Suddenly, her eyes were open– but the dreadful chorus of chants continued. A few feet away, she watched as her brother soundlessly thrashed in the water. His pale face dipped below the surface, then bobbed up again. She did not move to help as he struggled for air, opening his mouth like a fish on land. Up. Down. Up. Down. They want me to do this. This is what needs to happen. This is what grief means. If she let it happen, they would stop. They would have to.
One of the Dark Watchers shifted around her field of vision, becoming visible to her once again.
One.
It was quiet.
Her brother’s back rose to the surface, his body still. Where did the second watcher go?
She felt an icy hand close around her neck.
Ellie Gabriel is an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz majoring in Linguistics. Her story, “Dark Watchers,” took first place, Local Monsters, in the the Center for Monster Studies’ 2022 Student Horror Competition.