Meeny ducked as his ball caught wood close by. "Damn," he took a deep breath, "nice shot." He put his hand to his ear. "Listen to that thing go." The ball had clearly caught two trees squarely so far and was now losing itself noisily in the smaller brush and deep ground scrabble of the out-of-bounds woods.

"Mulligan," said Meeny to himself as he sullenly teed up a new ball. He straightened up and waggled a time or two whilst looking speculatively down the fairway. He took a deep breath, looked at the ball so hard that the remainder of his foursome thought it might explode, and drew back a mighty swing.

The ball sliced off the tee at head level and screamed off into the air. Nobody saw where it went. Although it seemed logical, Meeny did not scream.

"Gentlemen," he said speculatively as he walked to the cart. "I am going to find that first ball." His companions hardly dared breath as he pulled a hefty iron from the bag. "Wood wedge," he said with an evil look in his eye. "Play on," he grated flatly, "I’ll be back soon." He gripped the club like a dying man grips his priest’s hand. "With the goddamn ball."

His compatriots looked on in silence as he strode squarely into the woods and disappeared into the under growth.

"Damn," muttered his brother Dan. "That’s a committed golfer."

The small group nodded wordlessly.

It was late afternoon, a little after four. The light was not strong, worse and dappled in the woods. Meeny let his eyes adjust and took in the tangled undergrowth and the thick woods. "Who the hell would cut a course out of this?" He muttered to himself. "Looks like some damn National Geographic special." He heard a club-head smack a ball cleanly off the tee behind him and began to sweep the forest floor with a new determination.

Twenty minutes and a thousand little scratches later Meeny heaved a heavy sigh. It was getting truly dim and the ball was gone, just plain gone. "What the fuck." He yelled into the woods in frustration. "Stop eating my goddamned balls!"

"Why are you so upset?"

Meeny’s heart stopped. The voice had come out of nowhere.

"It was a low quality ball," the voice continued. "An x-out if I’m not mistaken." It grunted. "Didn’t like it."

Meeny closed his eyes and took a breath. "That," he said, "was not funny." He opened his eyes. "Okay, joke over. Come on out. You got me, Ha ha." Meeny fully expected his brother, or one of his other buddies to pop out from behind a tree but no one did.

"No joke was intended. It was a crummy ball, didn’t like it." A spitting noise came from his left and bits of ball cover sprayed against Meeny’s leg.

"What the hell?" Meeny whispered. The spray had come from low and he squatted to see just who’d go this far. A fox-like face with a pair of pale orange eyes blinked back at him from the underbrush.

Meeny bolted upright, tripped over his own feet and crashed to the forest floor. In a flash the thing was next to him.

"Are you alright?" It tipped its head quizzically.

Meeny closed his eyes again. "I must have hit my head. That’s it, I’m unconscious and hallucinating." He smiled to himself. "An imaginary ball eater," he muttered, "so that’s where they all go."

"Not imaginary, I’m right here."

Meeny opened his eyes a crack. So it was. He opened them all the way. "No shit." He pushed himself up onto his elbows. "A ball eater?"

The foxy thing nodded. "Uh huh."

"Not dangerous?"

"Not unless you’re a ball. A nice one preferably."

Meeny swore the thing smiled. "I’ll be damned." He got to his feet and the foxy thing skittered back a few steps. Meeny looked dubious. "These woods are full of guys like me. No one looks for anything harder than a golfer with a lost ball. How come nobody’s ever seen you before? I’d have heard about it by now if anyone had, that’s for damn sure."

"Because I can do this." The small creature did not move but faded from sight.

"I’ll be damned," breathed Meeny. "An invisible ball-eater."

The creature re-materialized.

"Wait a minute," Meeny had a thought. "There must be millions of you. Golfers lose balls on every course in the world."

"Uh huh. Millions and millions."

"And not a single one of you has ever been seen?"

"Nope."

"Then why aren’t you afraid I’ll blow your secret?"

The foxy thing smiled again. "You’ll see."

The light was fading fast and that last remark made Meeny nervous. The foxy thing had teeth, lots of them. Meeny backed off two steps, turned and began to run toward the fairway, yelling his head off.

Meanwhile, on the ninth hole, the club pro, Eldon Farley, teed up and smacked the ball. It went badly wrong. He cupped his hands and yelled for all he was worth. "Fore!"

Meeny didn’t even see it coming. As he broke the treeline the ball caught him squarely in the forehead. He went down like a sack of cement; purely unconscious.

Eldon Farley cringed as Meeny fell, dropped his club and yelled for help.

Minutes later, as they strapped the bleeding Meeny to a stretcher he reached out and grabbed the paramedics arm with a panicked look. "In the woods," gasped Meeny, "a creature, millions of them!" His eyes went wide. "It ate my ball!" He fell unconscious again.

The paramedic smiled and pulled the blanket onto Meeny’s chest. "Sure it did pal, sure it did." The medic looked at the knot of golfers watching and pointed to his head. "Poor guy took quite a whack."

Eldon Farley shook his head. "I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened. My balls never go that far off the rails." He shrugged.

Deep in the woods the foxy thing smiled.