2 Nights Ago
Panting and sucking in the cold winds, her chest begins to ache and burn, but she pushes herself to run harder, all the while not letting go of Amys hand. Into the thicket of woods they run, screeches of metal being carved mix intensely with cries of children from behind. “What was that! What about the others?” Amy yells in a hushed whisper.
Becky doesn’t speak, she just continues with tears streaming down her face. Never in her life had she been so afraid. She didn’t know what she saw, or what was to become of her classmates, all she knew was that they were alive, for now. Bumping into a tree she lets out a grunt and pushes to the side of it, trying to see her way through the darkness. A branch catches onto her shirt, she gives it a tug and tears off a piece of fabric. Amy halts when she does so and begins to look around nervously. “What if it comes for us, what if it’s in the woods right now, what if-”
“Shhh.” Becky presses a finger to her mouth, visibly shaking she allows her fear to be exposed and shows it’s okay to feel the way she does. “Just keep running.” She whispers.
They continue to run until a beam of light pierces the darkness. Two flashlights scavenging across the dirt. Amy begins to yell for help, ignoring the wise advice to stay quiet. The flashlights aim their way, then back down as a man replies, “What the hell? What y’all doing out here this late?”
Amy falls against the man bawling, “Please, help us! There was this animal it attacked our bus and classmates, please get us out of here!” A second man comes from the left and aims his flashlight to Amy, then to Becky. “Whoa, whoa, slow down. An animal attacked you?” Both men were dressed in hunting gear and had rifles strapped to their backs.
“Yes, please take us out of here! We need to call for help!” Becky says.
“We will, just slow down for a second. You said it attacked your classmates? What kind of animal we talking about?”
“Sir, please we have to get out of here. It knocked our school bus over and killed our coach!” Amy replies.
The second man slides his gun off and steadies it. “I told you I had a feeling, get them to the house, now!” Becky stares at them confused, and still shaking. “What do you mean you had-”
“Get down!”
The man grabs Becky by her shoulder and pushes her aside. She slides into the hard ground scraping her arm. A blast goes off before a muscular creature pounces upon the second man. He aims the rifle between it’s blood red eyes, pulling the trigger the beast pushes the rifle away as the shell explodes by its left ear. It rears down burrowing its face into the mans throat tearing out his vocal cords.
Becky, Amy and the first man all begin to run as hard as they can.
The man gurlges out blood, stretching his hand upwards. The beast grips his arm and pushes it back cracking out a large sliver of bone. Furiously clawing away at his chest, globs of intestines fly in random directions as it continues to burrow until hitting the mud beneath him. Looking up with anger flowing through its veins, it tramples the ground following the scent lingering behind.
—
Present Day
“You never explained to me what this thing is, or do you even know?” Sara asks.
“Could be many things, but from what I could see that night, seems to be a werewolf. Not the kind in movies though, this is something different.”
“A werewolf? So some guy got bit by a wolf and now he turns into a monster with the full moon?”
“Not necessarily. Movies portray the tale like that, but my grandpa was obsessed with the lore of them. He told me one day that in order to become one, a man must sell his soul to the devil. Legend has it that on that first night, you turn. And with it comes the price, your loved ones must go first, in order to prove you’re worthy of the power. Wife, kids, pets, doesn’t matter. Once you’ve achieved this, you’ve passed. They can turn at any given point, doesn’t need to be night time or a full moon, and they choose who they infect. The man I mentioned, Cole, was chosen, for what I don’t know. I don’t believe he meant to choose me, but part of his power was passed onto me.”
Sara strikes a match and lights her cigarette. Her hands are beginning to shake at this point. “This is a lot to take in, do you know h*********l it?”
“My grandpa said silver would only wound it, unless it was blessed by a priest. With this being something from Hell, it requires something holy.” He reaches under his seat and pulls out a wooden box. Placing it in the center he pops the top exposing two rows of silver bullets in a velvet casing. A separate compartment to the side of it was a small vial.
“Holy water.”
He answers her question before she can ask what it is. “And you think this will kill it?” He reaches for his flask and takes a drink. Placing it back into his jacket pocket he responds, “I guess we’re gonna find out.”
Coming to a stop they get out and look towards the woods. The search party had gone to other areas to look at this point. The sun was going down over the horizon. Harland inhales the air and looks around. He walks over towards the woods and enters, to Sara it looks like he’s roaming in random directions. She begins to think she’s made a mistake when he stops by a tree and pulls a piece of cloth from a tree. He looks towards Sara who runs to him and looks at it.
“This is from the shirt she was wearing!” He doesn’t respond, he just continues to walk. He smells death in the air, stale and putrid from somewhere nearby. Passing over blood stained leaves he notices a circle of dirt with claw marks embedded into the cracked soil. He doesn’t want to alarm her, so they continue. After about twenty minutes they come to a clearing up ahead, they both see a truck flipped over. A cabin sits next to it with claw marks across the walls, a window was shattered with blood stains seeping down it, the door was ripped off the hinges and laying on the grass. A fragile arm was sticking out of the doorway, as if trying to reach out. Harland tries to stop her, but Sara runs past him, screaming Becky’s name.
