Over the Moon: Moonlight

He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.

 ~ Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

At ten at night the streets of Woodhills were already deserted on a weekday. Most houses’ lights were off already and some street lamps threatened to turn off at any minute, some already had turned off.

Olivia Ventura, the newest waitress of the local diner had moved to Woodhills less than a month ago from the city about three hours away from this little rural town surrounded by woods. She was not afraid of walking alone at night especially at ten pm, even in this lonely place; she´d been out at later hours back in the city where you could really get dangerous stuff happening to you. She wasn’t scared of her haunted house either, not that she had heard anything there, it was just in serious needs of repairs… her grandmother, the former owner of her current residency cautioned her to never to go to that haunted house, or to that decadent town as she called it.

Olivia´s grandmother, Cindy had tried to sell the place but it was such an old property that it was somehow bound to them, to her family and she, as the only living member of that family, was entitled to it… it had been a blessing when money for rent wasn’t available anymore after both her grandmother and mother had died in the space of three years.

Grandma Cindy surely didn’t like the country. She insisted Woodhills was a decadent place but she’d never lived there. From what Oli could see it was not decadent just that they all seemed happy to go to bed early and keep their evergreen plants everywhere. It was actually a nice little place, nothing like the city and all its places to go but people were still friendly and polite, most of them, Oli thought.  There was no crime in the town or so she thought until in the blink of an eye some unknown person had swept her up her feet and carried her on his shoulder at such speed that he had to be an athlete. She was so shocked that she couldn’t even scream.

This person had taken her to the greener part of the town, the thick woods where she´d heard you could get lost if you didn’t know your way out.

“What do you want?” Olivia gasped as soon as the person let her stand on her feet on the darkest of caves. Her heart pounded and her skin had goose bumps the air was cold there. She tried to see but she couldn’t

“I don’t have any money” her voice faltered, she was a woman that had been taken to the woods, to a cave, isolated from people, surely this person did not want money. Oli swallowed hard as she hugged herself and felt tears stinging her eyes. She was scared but couldn’t even muster the strength to scream for help.

The chilly wind must´ve cleared the sky of the gray clouds that covered the moon; the cave must´ve had some kind of opening to the sky because the moon light shone inside giving Oli enough light to distinguish her captor. A man, a young man of very long black hair and grimacing features, unshaved, very tall and lean. She was small, small and skinny, she couldn’t take him, she had no weapon and he was covering the entrance of the cave.

As Olivia looked around the place to find something to use to escape the man started to remove his clothes. Oli gasped stepping back until her back touched the cave wall.

“Please don’t hurt me” she hugged herself tightly and then the man just fell on the ground convulsing violently, moaning and grunting. Oli was terrified. The man still crept towards her; she squatted down trying to be invisible, closing her eyes tightly and making herself small as she cringed at the sounds of snapping bones as if the man was throwing himself on the rocks as he kept moaning and grunting in pain. Without wanting Oli peeked through her lashes but she saw only darkness, it made it all worse. After the man´s pained sounds there was silence for a second and she wished the clouds that covered the moon would go away.

“Someone help! Help!” she could barely speak. The sky cleared and she could see again. Where the man had been a huge animal stood, a dog looking animal that seemed like some kind of wolf with the size of a Great Dane or even bigger, it had long teeth and glowing yellow eyes. It moved closer making huffing noises and showing his teeth in a menacing manner.

Olivia couldn’t see pass the animal; had it attacked her captor? That´d be great she thought but now she´d be also killed by the wild animal. Tears spilled from her face as the wolf or dog came closer and closer, his nose flaring, sniffing until his nose touched the skin over her cheek. Oli gave a muted cry and the huge animal backed up and lowered himself to the ground with a low whine. Olivia loved dogs, she´d seen all kinds of shows related to dogs, had read about how to handle them, at some point had wanted to be a vet but she was seriously terrified and couldn’t remember a thing about any of that information; she just had to get out of there. So, carefully she stood up, started to slowly walk around the cave, her back touching the wall… When she was about three feet away from the exit the wolf-dog jumped in front of her, snarling, not letting her go, he growled and came closer making her crouch down again as she sobbed.

The night felt infinite and then like a blur once Oli was running through the woods at sunrise the next day once she could go out of the cave, there was no sign of the wolf or the man, not that she looked back. She´d fallen a lot, her feet stumbling and bumping against the rocks and roots of the enormous trees, her knees and palms were bleeding, her dress was dirty and she felt like she could faint at any moment but it didn’t matter, she had to find her way out and by some struck of luck she did.

She came out of the woods near a lonely path very close to her house and that´s where she went. Once inside she closed the windows and locked the doors and ran upstairs to her bathroom, got rid of her clothes, got in the shower. There was dirt all over her, her face tear-stained, her hair had dead leaves and mud, her cheeks were scratched from the tweaks that she couldn’t avoid as she´d frantically ran out of the woods. She took a long shower cleaning herself thoroughly as if that could wash away the night spent in that cave.

Once the sun was fully out and up high in the sky, Olivia walked to the bus stop and took the one that´d take her to the town’s police station. The chief himself took her report. He seemed very concerned and though she´d feared that he wouldn’t believe she´d seen a wild animal that had kept her captive too, he made her describe what she remembered of the man and even comforted her when she cried as she told him how the weird dog had saved her in a way. In the back of her head she thought it sounded ridiculous but the policeman didn’t comment on that. He assured her that they´d look for the man and make a report about the animal in case it attacked other people. Once she was done he gave her his card in case she saw the man again and offered her to call her boss at the restaurant who happened to be his sister Leah so that she could take a day or two off. Olivia refused, she´d rather work than be alone. 

**

A/N: what´s going on?! lol My poor Olivia haha 

This was the first scene I saw when I started this story, and it kept showing itself to me over and over when I fell asleep and when I woke up... I wrote a sort of outline after that and then it just kept bugging me so I wrote a character´s profile and then I couldnt resist the temptation to make it happen in Woodhills!! lol lol (That is Ashley´s hometown btw, from my other story DL so... there´ll b some info about the place haha no Ash, Josh or Nic though, I hope)