A jolt shot through my rotting chest and I yanked the shutters closed, my dilapidated heart muscles twitching nervously. Eyes. I had definitely seen eyes staring in at me. Big ones.
I staggered to a chair and collapsed into it, bracing myself against the table and holding the splotchy remains of my face in my bony hands. Maybe it had been a wolf or a bear staring at me?
No… I could recognize human eyes. Though many years had passed, I still remembered what human eyes looked like. I still remembered the way human eyes could pierce the soul and read it like a book. I wheezed in half a lung of air, groaning as my exposed ribs slowly deflated. Flesh and strips of ancient clothing dangled from me as I slowly got back to my feet and resumed shuffling about with the broom, sweeping away the dead, decayed remains of my body that were strewn about my cottage.
A quiet, timid knock sounded against my heavy wooden door. I froze and gasped, clenching my jaw and groaning internally. I had to do something. Hide? Scare the human away? Escape through the window and run away? My mind raced. Whatever I chose to do, I had to do it quick. The knock repeated more vigorously. Frantically, I tried to imagine each scenario, playing it out in my tired, bony skull. If I ran away I’d be giving up my home, but perhaps it was too late anyway. I was discovered. I would never find quiet solitude here again. If I scared the intruder off I would surely be hunted. I could expect a mob, and soon. I paced around nervously, a bit of drool dripping from my peeling, withered lips.
The door creaked open and I jumped. Part of the decision had been made for me. The door swung open and I gazed down at a wide-eyed little girl, who stared up at me with a slack jaw framed neatly by two curly pigtails tied in pretty pink bows. I waited for her to scream and run away. I braced for the shrill, terrified sound of terror to fill my cottage and send birds fleeing in a flutter of frantic flapping and squawking. But she just stared up at me, her tiny body standing firmly in my doorway, unshaken and still.
I stared back at her, frozen and bewildered. A breeze picked up outside, sending a whispering shiver through the tree leaves and my leathery, tight skin tingled. Old, wiry hairs on the back of my neck perked up and stood on end. The little girl blinked and I flinched. She blinked again and I winced. Then she took a few steps toward me and I stumbled back.
“Don’t be afraid,” the little girl said sweetly. She extended a tiny hand, her chubby little fingers poking out from a plump, round palm. Without hesitation she gripped one of my rotten fingers, the cracked and withered flesh scraping softly against her supple, hot skin. She pulled hard, and I jumped forward, earnestly trying to avoid letting her death grip pluck my dead digit free from its precarious perch on my hand. She tugged again and I lurched forward again.
Soon I was tripping and shuffling through the forest behind her as she dragged me along. She skipped and hummed, sometimes stooping to sing about a pretty rock or pick up a freshly fallen leaf to gift me. She smiled and bounced along without a care, the skirt of her dress bellowing around her like flower petals in the wind each time she dropped to the ground.
Suddenly I screeched to a halt as a blood curdling scream rang out through the trees. A flock of birds took to the sky in an explosion of rustling feathers and shaking branches. I heard the dull thud of someone falling to the ground and we raced ahead.
“Mommy!” the little girl called out, rushing to the side of a woman collapsed in the grass outside a humble home not far from my cabin.
The woman stirred, her wrist draped dramatically over a sweaty forehead. “My dear, where have you been?” she asked weakly.
“I found a friend!” the girl replied, looking over at me.
The woman got up on her elbows to get a good look at me. At once her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed back to the ground.
I sighed. What had I gotten myself into?
Mermaid Pirate Dispatch 
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