Side by side, we crashed through the trees, the four of us clustered together. Raina and Alex were slower, their breathing ragged. Camille, with her longer legs, could have easily outpaced all of us, but she kept close, slowing her strides to help protect them. Trips to the gym with Will kept me fairly fit, but, like Camille, I kept pace with Raina and Alex. Fear clawed at me and every ancient instinct in my lizard brain screamed at me that a predator was near, something horrifying, somethingunnatural, but nothing would make me leave behind a single one of them.
The second we broke into a run, the thing began to chase us. Instead of coming directly behind us, though, it ran through the bushes, unseen but not unheard, as though sowing terror was just as exciting as the hunt. If I hadn’t figured it out before, I would have known now that this was no bear. It could have easily caught us, but instead it paced us, letting us think we stood a chance while we wore ourselves down fleeing. We had no choice but to run, though. If we stopped, we were dead. I knew that as certainly as I knew that I loved Alex with all my heart.
Almost imperceptibly, the trees thinned around us, but the snow grew heavier, keeping visibility almost at zero. I’d left the car parked on a gravel shoulder of the road, right near the tree line. It wasn’t far now, and an impossible kernel of hope lodged within me. Maybe it only wanted to scare us, to keep us out of the woods. I couldn’t hear it beside us now. Maybe we’d left its territory? Maybe we’d make it, after all.
The creature burst out of the trees ahead of us, a blur of darkness in the falling snow, forcing us to scramble to stop. Alex slipped in the snow and went down hard, but I didn’t dare take a hand off my gun to help him up, not with that thing in front of us.
“Oh, God,” Raina breathed, a tiny whimper of sound.
The creature in front of us was something whollywrong. Big as a grizzly bear, but slender and long, more like a panther, it stared us down with those strange orange eyes that almost seemed to glow. Long fangs reached past its chin, easily eight inches or more, and razor sharp. Matching talons grew from its scaled feet and clawed into the ground as it flexed, readying itself to move. The scales ran up its legs and melded into the pitch black fur that covered its body. A long tail curved up behind it, covered in the same dark scales but ending in a wickedly pointed tip reminiscent of a scorpion, while wings not unlike a bat stretched out to the side. Even in the weak sunlight, I could make out gaping holes and fresh, jagged tears in the webbing of the wings, bad enough that it couldn’t possibly use them to fly. It was a small mercy when faced with those fangs and claws.
It didn’t move, just waited, body tensed and ready, blocking our only escape route. A faint tremor wracked its frame as it stood, whether from the cold or maybe even pain from its wounds, I couldn’t tell.
“What do we do?” Alex whispered once he was back on his feet.
“Maybe we can scare it away,” Camille suggested. As slowly as possible, never taking her eyes off the creature, she clicked the guard off her rifle. It was such a small sound I barely heard it even a foot away from her, but the creature’s pointed ears twitched and its claws dug in deeper, body lowering slightly as though to pounce. From its tail, a glistening drop of liquid dripped, sizzling when it hit the snow.
“I don’t think that will work,” I said, as quiet as possible. I took a small step forward, putting myself between the creature and Alex, and the thing took an answering step toward us, a low snarl cutting through the silence. “Shoot to kill.”
The creature and I moved at the same time, like it understood what I’d said. I brought my gun up as it lunged for me, firing off a shot. It hit the thing’s shoulder, sending a spray of crimson blood splashing across the ground, but it didn’t stop coming. I barely dodged out of the way, grabbing Alex just in time. The roar of a shotgun blast echoed in the silence, followed by another. Raina’s shot went wide, but Camille found her mark, hitting it high on its back left leg. The creature stumbled, nearly going down, but regained its footing. It still supported weight on the front leg I’d shot, but it kept its back leg off the ground. Blood dripped down black scales, forming a small pool beneath it.
“Shit. I think we pissed it off,” Raina hissed, hands shaking as she chambered another cartridge. I took another shot at the same time as Camille, but Raina was right. The creature used its shredded wings to gain a burst of speed, whipping to the side and lashing out with its tail. I heard it whistle through the air, missing me by barely an inch.
“Go for the car!” I shouted at the others as I fired again, missing its body but putting another hole in its wing. It let out a bloodcurdling cry of rage, a sound like nothing I could ever describe. Guttural and oddly shrill, it was as unnatural as the creature itself and sent primal terror crawling down my spine.
“We’re not leaving you!” Alex snapped, his voice breaking. He was the most vulnerable of the four of us, the only one without some sort of weapon, and the creature’s attention snapped to him, clearly realizing the same thing. With a low growl, it darted into the trees, silent despite its size. I grabbed for Alex, finding his hand and pulling him closer just as it burst back through the underbrush, landing exactly where Alex had been standing less than five seconds ago.
Raina fired off her second shot and this one hit, the bullet sinking into its back leg only a few inches from where Camille had hit. That bone-chilling cry echoed through the woods again and, to my horror, something moved in the trees behind us, from the direction we’d been fleeing.
“There are more of them?” Camille whispered, and the despair in her voice echoed what I felt. We didn’t stand a chance againstoneof these things. If another appeared, we’d never leave this place.
“We are not dying in the fucking woods today,” Raina growled. She fumbled to reload her rifle with shaking hands and the sound of her girlfriend’s voice bolstered Camille. I fired again to buy them time, but even as injured as it was, the creature dodged and my bullet hit the tree behind it. It used its momentum to dart toward me, ducking low to the ground to avoid another shot, but instead of slashing me with its claws, it turned at the last second and its tail swung toward me.
“Donovan!” Alex grabbed for me, pulling as hard as he could, and we both fell to the ground just as more creatures burst from the underbrush. Except…
“Are thosecoyotes?”
Camille’s shocked voice sounded oddly distant, distorted as though we were underwater. I could only stare as two coyotes ran straight for the creature, drawing its attention from us. One ran behind it and grabbed its wing, the crunch of bone and tendon shockingly loud. When the creature shrieked and snapped at the first coyote, the second lunged and went for the throat. It couldn’t pierce the tough hide protecting the creature, though, forcing it to regroup and go for the other wing.
The creature’s tail swung, forcing the first coyote to retreat, followed by the second, but they took a chunk of the creature’s wing with them. Before they could move in for another attack, the creature screamed again, dripping blood from its injuries, and disappeared into the trees.
“Wait!”
The two coyotes started to give chase, but stopped when a voice called out. A moment later, Ori ran out of the trees, their long hair disheveled, dark eyes wide. The bigger coyote shook itself, and the air around it seemed to almost ripple. A moment later, a naked man stood where the coyote had been. It took longer than it should have for me to recognize the man who’d been with Jean DeVor. My thoughts felt slow, muddled. Was this shock?
“We need to stop it before it goes after someone else!” he protested. He didn’t seem to notice or care that he was standing naked in the middle of a snowstorm.
“The two of you can’t take it on by yourselves. We need backup,” Ori said. They looked over at the four of us and the man glanced back as well.
“Fuck,” he muttered. The air rippled again and a moment later, there were two coyotes.
“It’s a little late for that, Dane,” Ori said with a heavy sigh. “The cat’s out of the bag. Or the coyote, in this case.”
“What the hell is happening here?” Camille asked and the stress must finally be getting to her, because there was an edge of hysteria in her voice.
Logically, I knew what they were. Alex had told me. But nothing could have prepared me for whatever that other creature was. I should be as horrified as Camille and I was, but like the voices, it felt distant, barely worth noticing.
“I guess I’ll explain, but we need to get out of these woods first,” Ori said. “Anjeli, Dane, go find Jean and Landon, and make sure they get home safe. I’ll ride with Alex.” They turned to us as the two coyotes ran off. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”
