It Waits in the Woods

Brenda Jennings's younger sister Amanda vanished into the dense woods of Michigan one night. Brenda was supposed to be keeping watch. Her own parents blamed her for it, and so did viewers of the national television coverage.

Three years on, Brenda cannot let the matter rest. She goes back to the forest alone to stake it out, and she is drawn to a bridge to nowhere, where wails and the sound of hoofbeats carry out of the trees.

What waits there is Opso, a creature out of old legend that lingers between the real and the unreal. It hunts for faces to take in place of its own.

This is horror in a tight, atmospheric register, written for a single sitting. It belongs to Josh Malerman's Creature Feature line. Grief and guilt run through it, and Brenda's solitary watch puts her within reach of whatever stands on the far side of the bridge.