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Once upon a time, in a small town in Idaho, there were monsters.

Of course, if you asked, no one could tell you if the monsters were real. That would have required a type of understanding and cooperation between the citizens of the town to decide what was truth and what was fiction, and this town was not known for its unanimity.

The town couldn’t even decide what they thought the monster looked like. Forked tongue? Horns? A tail? Scaled on its body? Fur on its body? Who even knew anymore?

When I was a kid, my parents explained to me that I wasn’t supposed to walk in the woods because that was where the monsters hid, but what they could never explain to me was why, if there were monsters in our town, we didn’t just leave it…

“Guess what my parents just told me?” Zach says into my ear as he takes the seat beside me at my favorite table in the dining hall.

I tip my head back so he can drop a kiss onto my mouth before settling in. “What did your parents just tell you?”

He reaches over to my plate and swipes a potato chip from my open bag. “That they’re going to be out of town for the whole weekend. Four days starting tomorrow. Bet we could fit a lot of good fucking into four days.”

I roll my eyes but smile anyway. “Actually, four days at your place sounds amazing. My roommate’s had her boyfriend over every night this week, and they are not quiet.”

Sometimes I think Zach is lucky he gets to live at home. The beauty of living in a college town is that the people who are comfortable at home get to stay there and just commute to classes. Probably, next year, Zach will join a frat and things will be a little different, but for now, he’s still staying with his parents during our sophomore year of college.

My parents, on the other hand, couldn’t wait for me to move out. The second I graduated, they started packing up my stuff. The type of parents who believe parental support ends at eighteen.

Fine by me. I like living on campus, even if I’m going to be paying off loans for the rest of my life to afford it.

“Well, good,” Zach says, reaching over to smack my jean-clad hip. “You can come stay tonight, too, if you want. Just sneak over after sunset.”

A shiver goes down my spine. Zach didn’t ask me to sneak over to his place at night very often, but when he did, I always hated it. I had to cross through the woods behind my dorm room to get from my place to his, and it was bad enough during the day. In the middle of the night, it’s terrifying.

“I can stay at my place tonight.”

He rolls his eyes. “I know, but I’m horny, and I need you to ride me so bad.” He puts his arm around me and bites my earlobe. Under any other circumstance, it might be hot, but I sort of hate that Zach asks me to do something dangerous just so we can have sex. It’s not like he’s ever sneaking through the woods to come and stay at my dorm.

“We’re about to be alone for four days,” I remind him, shoving him off me. “I think you can wait.”

He leans sideways, and right there in the middle of the dining hall, he slips his fingers into my jeans, setting them right over my pussy.

I gasp, and he smiles, rubbing circles into me. “Sure, but do you think you can wait?”

Every drop of blood in my body has traveled to that spot between my legs, and he’s right. I want it.

Without warning, he slips his hand back out. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re such a little slut, Grace.” I know he means it as a joke, but it stings. My intense love for sex has always earned me that title, even when boys who wanted it just as much were giving me what I wanted. I know Zach isn’t like them, but…

“I’ll see you tonight,” he says, kissing me on the cheek and hopping up from the table. As he walks out of the dining hall, he greets a few people he knows, and I just watch him go, feeling alone in the midst of it all.

I wish I could say for certain what it is about the myth of the creatures in the woods that scares me enough to make me think it’s real. I’m not an overly spiritual person, the kind of person who believes in demons and Bigfoot or whatever.

But there’s something about the way the myth of the forest creatures is taken so seriously in this town that bugs me. People genuinely don’t go into the woods. I’ve seen children cry when their older siblings even suggested it.

I stand outside the woods now that separate my dorm from Zach’s neighborhood. Last year, during my freshman orientation, the campus police came out specifically to talk to everyone about why they shouldn’t go into the woods, but the actual facts are so hush hush that it’s impossible to know if anyone has actually ever gone missing or been hurt.

I glance up at the full moon. At least it’s pretty bright. If I see something, I can just run the other way.

I lift my chin, determined not to be a victim of scare tactics, and stomp into the forest. It’s a pretty straight shot from one side to the other. I can already see the front porch light on Zach’s house. These are not dense woods, not the kind of woods you can get lost in, not even at night.

When I’m halfway through, I hear a noise behind me.

I stop, spinning around. I hold very still, my eyes scanning the trees. Through the gaps, I can see the sign on my dorm hall, shining under a streetlight. Clark Hall.

I hear the noise again, a small shuffle, and swing to my left. For a second, as my eyes adjust to the shadows, I squint. I’m not looking at a tree. There should be nothing but trees, but whatever that dark shape is in front of me is definitely not a tree.