Rain cascaded in rivulets through Charlotte's hair and down her back. A flash of lighting lit the sky brilliantly and she began to count.

1... 2... 3... 4...

Thunder rumbled in the distance, signaling a storm that was well on its way toward the homestead. The chickens had all escaped into the coop, and those that hadn't made it huddled under the ramp, looking puffed-up and dumb. Most of the cows remained out to pasture as rain pounded their backs and the ground, none lying down as the city slickers' legend suggested. There hadn't been a storm like this in months, and the crops needed it.

Charlotte sat straddling a fence rail, staring out at the horizon over her family's farmland and then the woods that encroached on the property line. The pigs rooted to her left, completely unfazed by the rain and delighting in the mud it made.

There was a time, she remembered, when storms had terrified her. It felt like something horrible was bearing down on the earth, riding closer until it was just above to attack the land. She had hid under her bed or in the closet up until she was 11 or 12, and then she had been tired of the teasing it brought on. Let whatever it was come, she had no power to stop it.

Come to think of it, there were a lot of childhood fears that existed much longer than her peers'. Her friends would laugh when she sprinted blindly down the dark hall to turn on the light. They didn't understand what she felt or what she saw. It was as if things waited for her in the dark, watching her run and taking pleasure in knowing they were frightening her. She felt innumerable eyes on her, peering from behind door jambs and windows until she finally made it to the lifesaving switch. Several times she would swear she had seen something, a shape or a shadow blacker than the unlit hall shifting just beyond her grasp. Even at 19 she couldn't help but lunge up the stairs in twos and threes to get to the light beyond.

Of course, there was quite a bit of darkness on the farm. Fields weren't lit, barns and stables stood with gaping black mouths and pitch-dark corners, feeling dead and horrible even when full. Even worse were the wood on the east property line. Nobody could say for sure who owned the land, but it didn't seem like anyone was eager to find out. Charlotte thought she knew why. In those woods was something so horrible, it transcended the normal senses. Other people felt what she felt when faced with shadow. Often while walking the perimeter of the property, Charlotte would feel pursued and have no chance but to run while cold panic gripped her heart and tears stung at her eyes. It always felt like she had barely made it. When chickens went missing or a cow was slaughtered in the pasture, evidence would streak in clumps and smears toward the woods and then stop beyond the tree line. Everyone said it was coyotes and foxes. Charlotte didn't want to investigate further.

Another flash of light tore through the sky, and she began to count again.

1... 2...

It was getting closer now. She watched another bolt of lightning streak across the blackness, looking like a crack in the atmosphere. Normally she would be afraid, quivering from the dark that pressed in at all sides, separating her from the little white house beyond. Something was different tonight. The electricity in the air compounded on the feeling that something, or many somethings were watching her from a distance, just far enough out to not be seen. Any other night she would be terrified. Tonight she felt purpose.

Admittedly, when the shadow first moved Charlotte was struck by fear. It was not the shape of a wild dog or one of their overweight cows, but tall and slender and moving with horrible grace. It crossed through the pasture, seeming to move through the fence rather than around it, and continued toward her. The farmgirl sat as still as a startled rabbit, and could not force herself to move, to run; this was something she'd needed, she was sure. This was something important.

Whether it was a man or a woman, Charlotte couldn't tell. Its face was obscured and its body almost unnatural in shape that seemed to shift with every passing moment. When it spoke, it did so in a voice neither male nor female. Lightning flashed and briefly illuminated the stranger's features, hollows and shadows that belied some unknown evil.

1...

"You have questions for me, that only I can answer..." Thunder clapped hard, just above the farmstead and shaking it to its very core. Trees were shocked to the roots, and the cows began to holler.

Charlotte swallowed, peering up at the stranger with eyes as innocent as a lamb's. There was no reason to trust this being, no sign that it was not one of those evil, staring eyes. Still, it offered knowledge she was starving for, the young woman afraid of the dark. She nodded and looked to her feet, pulling a lock of soaked curls behind her ear. It was to be the beginning of something amazing and terrible.