Meadow Monsters

• autotranslated

Somewhere between Zarasai and Visaginas, where the meadows seem endless, the Meadow Monsters wander at night. From afar they look like three pale little dots drifting across the hills — up a hill and down a hill, always at the same speed, never stopping and never tiring.

Up close, they look almost like people — and that is the most terrible thing. Their bodies are gaunt, gray, and dry: the skin stretched straight over the bones, every rib and vertebra showing. Only there are too many joints — the arms and legs bend not in one place but in two, folding at angles like an insect's. Their limbs are so long that the creatures rest their hands against the ground as they walk, striding above the tallest grass. Their long fingers end in curved claws.

Their heads have pointed ears, a few long strands of hair on a bald skull, small nostril holes. The eyes are round, black, without whites — reflecting neither the moon, nor the stars, nor you. They do not blink.

Their mouths are wide, lipless, filled with rows of small, sharp teeth — and they open too far, the jaws dropping the way a human jaw does not. The monster bites down and sucks through the wound — so violently that the blood vessels burst around its mouth.

They say their den is an old abandoned farmhouse on a higher hill, and beneath its kitchen floor... Well, better you not know what lies beneath its kitchen floor.

If you camp in the meadows near Zarasai and see three pale little dots in the distance — do not wait for them to come closer.

Translated from the Lithuanian original at https://sutemudirbtuves.lt