Chapter 7: The Wrong Walk

Chapter 7: The Wrong Walk

The presence of the thing wearing his mother’s skin poisoned the air in the cabin. The following day was a masterclass in quiet, psychological warfare. To his father, Sarah was back. She was quiet, withdrawn, maybe suffering from some kind of shock after getting lost, but she was home. He clung to this explanation with the ferocity of a drowning man clinging to a piece of driftwood. He made breakfast, his movements loud and clumsy, trying to fill the dead air with a clumsy performance of normalcy.

"See, Alex? Told you she'd be fine," he’d said, sliding a plate of burnt eggs onto the table. "Just needed to clear her head."

Alex said nothing. He watched the woman who looked like his mother. She ate with a delicate, precise slowness, each movement economical and serene. She never looked directly at anyone for more than a second, her gaze constantly sweeping the room, observing, learning. When she spoke, it was to offer pleasantries that were as hollow as a dead tree. "This is nice," she would say. Or, "It’s good to be all together."

Mack was the only one who refused to play along. The dog had become a furry, golden statue of pure animosity. He stayed glued to Maya’s side, a low, constant growl vibrating in his chest whenever "Sarah" came near. He was a living lie-detector, and the needle was permanently in the red.

"For God's sake, Mack, knock it off!" Mark snapped when the dog’s growl intensified as "Sarah" reached for the orange juice. "What has gotten into you?"

The woman merely smiled her placid, empty smile. "He’s just being protective. It’s sweet."

The word "sweet" sounded utterly alien coming from her mouth. It was a word learned from a dictionary, devoid of all warmth and meaning.

The breaking point came in the late afternoon. "Sarah" was standing on the porch, staring out at the treeline with that unnerving stillness of hers. Alex was watching her from the living room window. Mack was at the screen door, his body a coiled spring of tension, the growl in his chest a low rumble of thunder.

"Sarah" turned her head, her gaze falling upon the dog. The serene smile on her face shifted, just for a fraction of a second. The corners of her mouth tightened in an expression of cold, predatory annoyance. It was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it micro-expression, but Alex saw it. And Mack felt it.

With a volcanic eruption of barks, Mack launched himself at the screen door. The flimsy mesh tore as he burst through, a blur of golden fur and righteous fury. He wasn't barking like he would at a squirrel or a stranger’s car. This was a sound of pure, unadulterated war. He charged across the porch and into the clearing, not at the woman, but at something just past her, something only he could see moving at the edge of the woods.

"Mack! Get back here!" Mark bellowed, storming out onto the porch.

But the dog was deaf to his commands. He plunged into the suffocating green of the forest, his frantic, desperate barks echoing and then fading as he chased his invisible enemy deeper and deeper into the crooked mile.

"Sarah" stood perfectly still, watching the spot where he had disappeared. Her placid mask had slipped back into place. "He’ll come back when he's tired," she said calmly, turning to go back inside. The incident hadn’t raised her heart rate by a single beat.

Mack didn't come back in an hour. Or two. As dusk began to settle, painting the woods in shades of bruised purple and grey, a profound dread settled over Alex. Mark stood on the porch, calling the dog’s name until his voice was hoarse, his anger slowly giving way to a gnawing worry. The forest had already taken his wife and returned a hollow copy. What would it do to their dog?

It was almost full dark when a shape stumbled out of the treeline. It was Mack. He wasn't trotting or bounding; he was dragging himself, his head low, his tail tucked so far between his legs it was invisible. He had a long, shallow gash on his flank, but the deepest wounds were not visible. He crept onto the porch, collapsed by the door, and let out a long, shuddering whimper. The fight had gone out of him. The fire in his eyes had been extinguished, replaced by a dull, defeated terror. He wouldn't look at any of them. He just lay there, a broken soldier returned from a battle he had decisively lost.

That night, the cabin felt smaller, the walls thinner. The broken spirit of their loyal protector was a terrible omen. Alex lay in his attic bed, listening to the house settle. He could hear his father’s restless tossing and turning in the room below, the sound of a man wrestling with a truth his mind refused to accept.

Sometime deep in the night, he was jolted awake by a noise.

Scrape. Click. Drag.

It was coming from the hallway just outside his attic room. The short, L-shaped corridor that connected his staircase, Maya’s room, and the master bedroom. It was a soft, rhythmic sound. The sound of claws on old pine floorboards. He assumed it was Mack, restlessly pacing.

But the rhythm was wrong. It wasn't the four-footed gait of a dog. It was a clumsy, two-beat cadence.

Drag-thump. Drag-thump.

A cold sweat broke out across his skin. He slipped out of bed, his heart hammering against his ribs. He crept to his door, which he’d left slightly ajar, and pressed his eye to the narrow crack.

The hallway was dark, illuminated only by a sliver of moonlight filtering through a window at the far end. What he saw made the air freeze in his lungs.

It was Mack.

But he was standing on his hind legs.

The form was his dog—the familiar golden fur, the floppy ears, the long tail—but it was hideously, impossibly elongated, stretched into a bipedal shape that was a mockery of both man and canine. Its front legs, now acting as arms, hung limply at its sides, twitching. Its spine was bent at a sickening, unnatural angle to support its upright posture. It took a step, and Alex heard the wet, popping sound of a joint being forced into a position it was never meant to hold. Drag-thump. One of its back legs was stiff, dragging slightly, creating the sound that had woken him.

The thing in his dog’s skin paced the hallway, a grotesque parody of a sentry. It stopped and its head swiveled, the movement not smooth but a series of jerky, ratcheting clicks. The moonlight caught its face, and Alex saw the same vacant, glassy stare from his mother’s new eyes. It was the same entity. The same puppet master.

It had hollowed out their loyal, loving dog and was now wearing his skin like a poorly fitted suit. The body horror of the sight was a physical blow, sending a wave of nausea through him. This confirmed everything. The thing impersonating his mother wasn't a separate being. It was all the same monster. The Winter Man, the smiling man, the thing in his mother’s clothes, and now this… this shambling, canine horror.

The creature stopped its patrol. It stood directly in front of Maya’s bedroom door. It raised its head and seemed to sniff the air, its borrowed nose twitching. It stood there for a full minute, a silent, twisted guardian standing watch over the family's most innocent member.

Alex shrank back from the door, his hand clamped over his mouth to stifle a scream. He was trapped. They were all trapped. The monster wasn't just in the woods anymore. It wasn't just in their house. It was wearing the faces of their family, and it was walking the halls in the dead of night.