The Damned Thing

The CampfireThe openingFree

In a small cabin in the hills of California, by the light of a single candle, a group of men were holding an inquest. A coroner and a jury of local farmers.

On the table, under a sheet, lay the body of a man named Hugh Morgan.

He had been torn apart. Nobody could say by what.

A young newspaper writer, a man named Harker, had been with Morgan when he died. He was there to testify. He had written down what he saw, and he read it aloud to the jury.

He and Morgan, he said, had gone hunting quail in the hills. Morgan was nervous all morning. He kept stopping and staring at a patch of wild oats, a field of tall grass on the hillside.

Harker asked what was wrong.

Morgan said, "It's that damned thing."

Harker looked. He saw nothing but grass. But then he saw the grass moving. A wide path through the oats was bending and parting, as if something big were walking through them. Something coming toward them. Slowly.

There was no wind. And there was nothing there.

Morgan raised his shotgun and fired both barrels at the empty grass.