Hello, gentle listener, and welcome to Nocturnal Transmissions, the fortnightly podcast that brings you dark tales, both old and new,

performed by your humble narrator, Kristen Holland.

Sorry to bug you, but we have another creepy, crawly little tale we'd like to share with you.

Nocturnal transmissions is proud to present John Michael Kelly's.

A Mim mimicry of

night

At no

particularly advantageous point, Dario Frey left the beaten path that cut through the heart of Leighton Woods.

A sizable run of coniferous acreage that, save for a tiny cemetery and a struggling barbed wire fence,

was indistinguishable from the national forest that

boarded its fringes. Now, in the thick of things, several miles from the nearest town,

he trudged along with a watchful eye. In his left hand was a small metal cage, the preferred enclosure for today's quarry.

He was on the hunt, his khaki shorts, climbing boots and safari hat, flattering the task.

Ponderosa pine and aspen congregated here, as did juniper, poplar, and any number of deciduous shrubs, all now in full dress.

The sun was intervening through a ragged canopy, splashing limbs and bows in its descent, then soaking finally, patchily, into the dry needle-littered crown.

Butterscotch, the resin scent of the Ponderosa, was unusually bold this afternoon,

sweetening the tang of yucca and pine. Dario blamed the uncommon heat for that enhancement.

It was the dark days of summer, a time that had decades earlier prematurely ushered his mother

into her own eternal season. She'd raised him in the absence of a derelict father, and it was always

her determination to see him achieve his dreams, as menacing as some of them were to her feminine

sensibilities. Even when invited, bugs and snakes could make for intimidating houseguests, how she would squeal when surprised by one slithering across the kitchen floor, scaling the drapes or hiding under the toaster.

He'd loved her then for her tolerance,

...