Iron

Scarlett hues glittered off the remaining nails. There wasn’t much time. The sun’s silencing gaze over the forest would soon cease. The now father-of-one had to nail this last board, this last line of defense, into the marred roof. He wouldn’t allow them to take his daughter too.

The townspeople had warned them when they arrived to sell their deceptively regular scrap metal — a chorus of knowing looks, shaking heads, whispers of the forest shadow. He should have listened.

They would come again, chittering and screeching. He should have never removed the iron bars from the windows.