The hermit never left the woods. He didn’t want to. People were vile creatures, even by comparison to the snakes and spiders and coyotes that ran through the trees around him. He much preferred the company of a squirrel to an actual human. 

But one night, he realized he could no longer hide from them. He would have to venture out of his once safe home and ask the townspeople for help. He didn’t know what else to do.

The creature was hunting them.

For some reason, it didn’t want him. Maybe he seemed like every other animal in the woods to this beast. He didn’t know why, but it only wanted humans. Children, specifically, but the hermit had a feeling that given a scarcity, adults wouldn’t be off the menu.

It would lurk far off in the woods, and the hermit would hear the creature moan deep into the night. It was like an ape screaming to be heard by other apes, yet pained and sorrowful. 

The moans would slowly transition into roars of great volume. The hermit knew the creature was far from his meager home, yet the walls would rattle and animals all around him would flee in the opposite direction. 

Then, every night, the creature would leave the heart of the woods and venture towards town, passing through the middle of the hermit’s camp. The fire, by this time, would always be nothing more than a few coals, giving off no more than a soft glow. The hermit had to squint to see the creature through a crack in his old door. He never saw the entirety of the body shape, just bits and pieces through the hole, and even now the only way he knew what it looked like was from piecing together information he gathered night after night of cowering behind the door of his home. 

It wasn’t natural, this thing. For one, its skin was rough; patchy, black leather that looked scabbed over. It covered a pointy bone structure, and wisps of grayish hair grew sporadically over the putrefied looking wounds. 

And it was tall. Close to nine feet the hermit guessed. Maybe taller. It always slouched as it moved through the trees, hunched over and holding its long arms close to its body, its claws perched close to its chest like a child mimicking a dinosaur. 

These things were strange to the hermit, as he had never seen another creature like this one. But it had never really bothered him. It was an animal, just like anything else, and the hermit was content to know that some animals were still undiscovered and living like they had for possibly millions of years. But then he saw it running.

It hid behind trees, galloping quickly on its way back from town. Every night, zig zagging back and forth, foaming at the mouth with glee and fear. It still ran hunched over, and the speed at which it moved still gave the hermit shivers. As it stepped with incredible silence into the dry leaves, the hermit could hear a faint sound coming from the long snout of the beast. 

Giggles. High-pitched giggles, as if it was imitating the very children it was preying on. And more often than not, it ran through camp with an unconscious child held close to its steaming body. 

The hermit watched as it disappeared into the blackness, time and time again, and through the night he could hear, once again far away, the ripping of flesh and the gnashing of unnatural teeth. 

He had to do something. 

One night, after the creature had ventured to the woods edge in search of children, the hermit began digging. He worked fast, not wanting to get caught out in the open by the creature. He dug a hole, aiming for ten feet deep. He didn’t think the creature’s thin arms would be strong enough to lift itself out of a hole that deep. He dug faster and faster, his heart racing. The soft soil of the swamp turned to mud, then water. But he was done. He placed sharp, whittled limbs in the bottom, pointed straight up.

He then built a series of fires on each side of the hole. The creature always took the same path, but he wanted to be sure it didn’t stray too far and miss the trap. 

The fires burned low, and the hermit returned to his house, his heart beating hard against his chest.

Then, the creature arrived. He heard the same familiar giggles of joy, and the hermit knew that the creature had killed another child. He saw the black figure at the edge of his camp, slowing from his incredible speed to survey the unusual fires. He heard the creature sniffing the air, blowing hot clouds of steam out of his nostrils. 

It continued running, full speed, along the same path as it always took. In an instant, it fell into the hole, and the hermit heard the crunch of bones and the wail of pain. The creature raged in the trap, flinging the body of the child out of the hole. The hermit saw the frail arms of the creature pawing at the earth, trying to lift itself free.

Quickly, the hermit ran to the fires, shoveling coals from the pits and throwing them onto the creature. The creature hissed and squealed, digging deeper into the hole to try to escape the raining inferno. 

Suddenly, all was quiet. But the hermit could hear something coming through the woods. 

Flashlights bounced off the trees, and soon the hermit’s camp was filled with a posse of townsfolk and police officers.

They scanned the camp and saw the hermit standing over the body of the deceased child. The hermit pointed into the trap, begging them to look at the beast he had captured.

One of the police officers went over to the edge of the hole and scanned the bottom of it, while one of the civilians grabbed the boy laying in the dirt and hugged him, sobbing. 

“Nothing.” The police officer said, shaking his head. “A big, empty hole.”

The hermit looked into the smoking hole. He saw the creature, impaled and burning in the bottom.

He turned to explain what had happened, and what had been happening all this time, but the woman who cradled her dead child interrupted him. She pulled a revolver from her jacket pocket and fired it at the hermit.

The hermit never felt the bullet impact his brain. The last thing he saw was the dead child, and as he lay there dying beside him, he heard a strange noise. Far off, in the dark woods: a soft giggle.