“I can hear its footsteps,” Terrence told us. “On the front porch. It’s sniffing the house.”
“Be quiet,” Caitlyn told him. “Don’t say a word.”
We set there in silence waiting for any sound to come from Terrence’s phone. I was sure that it was able to break down the door and kill Terrence as well as his brother and Sarah. I have never felt such fear and anxiety before and I wish that I have never felt it. It was just so uncomfortable to the point I was becoming dizzy and walking back and forth as Luna followed me with her gaze.
“It’s leaving,” Terrence said after a grueling 5 minutes. “I’m going to check through the window.”
There were another few seconds of silence before Terrence continued.
“I can barely see it,” he said. “It’s walking away on all fours.”
The next morning, he checked his front yard. Despite seeing what he saw the night before, he could not find any footprints. Just grass and gravel looking the same they did before.
Four days have passed since that incident, just as much as since the Bunny’s body was found. How he got outside, nobody knows. What we do know, however, is that he was one of the 47 cat deaths in those 4 days. This situation was becoming more than just crazy. Three other searches were started but no one found anything. From the 24th of October, 2018, when all of this started, to the 18th of November, 2018, only I have seen the true killer. Some people felt it, but none of them saw it or felt it follow them. In fact, even I didn’t see it completely. I saw its shape on the roof of Jessica’s house and I saw the clawed hand, but other than that, I saw nothing.
People started to believe that it wasn’t an animal killing their pets. The authorities tried so hard to prove that it was just a rabid animal but no one believed it. They all thought it was a human who did it. To protect their pets but also to prove that they are right, people started to not let their cats out of their homes. They hoped that no one would break in, but if there were no cats outside, someone so thirsty for cat blood would probably find a way to break into people’s houses. That way, they’d prove that it was a human, but at the cost of her pets. Unfortunately, nothing else could be done.
Well, we could do something else, and Elle, Caitlyn, Terrence, and I were preparing for it. We bought some hunting equipment like bear traps, camo gear that was warm enough for the cold weather, proper boots, and some other stuff. Terrence also went to a local butcher and got some meat. At first, he was hesitant but we told him that if anyone asks him something, he should just say that his family is having a big celebration. We also bought a transport cooler for the meat. And atop all of that, Caitlyn got a phenomenal idea. She offered to buy motion-detect night vision cameras and suggest we put them in a few different places in the woods. It would alert us of the monster’s presence if it ever showed up and we would know where it is. She would be the one paying for the cameras and would be able to connect them to her laptop and tablet.
Matthew somehow found out what we were trying to do. I assume that he found the cooler filled with meat Terrence was supposed to hide. Terrence explained that after a lot of arguing and explaining from his side, Matthew reluctantly decided to help us. He knew the forest really well, and he was the best hunter among any of us. His knowledge and abilities are beyond useful to our operation. Our plan was to put up cameras one day and set up a trap after a few days. We would stay up overnight since it seems like the night is when the monster is the most active. Caitlyn and Sarah would stay in the car from where they could watch the cameras. The rest of us would be sitting in pairs in small hunting towers nearby. It was a great plan and unlike in the movies, we wouldn’t really be separated. We wouldn’t be even a minute running away from each other and all of us would be packed with firearms and hunting knives.
“Matthew doesn’t look too happy,” I said while we were pulling into their backyard.
“I don’t think I’d be happy in his place as well,” Elle told me. “How would you feel if Lucy just suddenly brought three people into their home, thought them to shoot, and decided to go monster hunting?”
“I guess you’re right,” I replied.
Caitlyn was just sitting behind me in silence. She was looking through the window. Her cat Dairy was found split in half with her guts spilled all over the floor around the corpse. Caitlyn really liked that cat. Almost as much as I loved Luna. I moved Luna’s food and water bowl into my room and mostly I didn’t even let her out of the room unless I was leaving it as well. Lucy started to care for Darkness much more and she usually hugged her while crying. Darkness didn’t mind her attention so much. It seemed like it enjoyed it. My brother left back for college and even if he wanted to take Darkness with him, he couldn’t. The dorm didn’t allow any pets.
When we got out of the car, Matthew took the cigarette out of his mouth and stubbed it out in an ashtray standing on the fence of the front porch. Terrence was sitting on the porch stairs and sharpening one of the hunting knives. Sarah was sitting in the rocking chair. When we got out of Elle’s car, she jumped off of the chair, waved at us, and smiled.
“Whose idea was it to hunt down this monster or whatever the hell you saw?” Matthew asked.
“Mine was to ask Terrence,” I replied. “Terrence’s was to hunt it down.”
Matthew took a look at Terrence while leaning on the rail.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, little bro,” Matthew said seriously. “Otherwise, we are pretty fucked,” he took a step backward.
After he picked up a rifle and the bag with the cameras, he walked down the porch stairs. The rest of us just kept standing then, and when he realized it, he stopped and turned around.
“Are you going or what?” he asked. “I’m not doing this without you.”
Terrence stood up and put the strap of his rifle around his shoulder. They were carrying those rifles just as a precaution. If something comes running at us, we can scare it or kill it. Depends on what it is. Elle and Sarah followed them and started a quiet conversation. When Terrence got to Matthew, Matthew asked him something and they started walking towards the forest together. I turned around to take a look at Caitlyn.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked her.
“Ye… yeah, I’m good,” she answered with a small fake smile. “I’m just distracted a bit.”
“If it helps, you’re not going through this alone,” I told her. “As you know, Bunny was also found dead.”
“I know, I know,” she said looking right into my eyes. “But that’s not what will make me feel better. The only thing that will make me feel better is seeing the monster that did this dead.”
I chuckled.
“That’s the spirit,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Caitlyn brought her tablet and laptop so that she could connect the cameras and mark the important places on a map. There was this program she found on her laptop which allowed you to connect to the cameras and show you where they are on a map. You could also mark some places and so she did. She marked where the hunting towers were and she marked the place where the car would be. I also brought my tablet so that she could do the same with it. We decided that Caitlyn and Sarah would be using the laptop while the two other pairs will be using the tablets since they are easier to carry around.
It wasn’t too hard to find good places for the cameras, but the problem was setting them up. Out of the 8 of them that we had, we needed to set 6 of them higher on a tree and point them toward the ground. Matthew and Terrence climbed those trees and set up the cameras about 17 feet above the ground. The cameras had a perfect view of the ground. The other 2 cameras were set up in bushes. They were hidden in such a way that they gave us a perfect view of the surrounding area, but they were well hidden. You wouldn’t be able to see it just by looking at the bush but if you’d move the leaves away, you’d see it immediately. We hoped no one would do that.
After the cameras were set up, Caitlyn checked all of them once more on her laptop. The cameras could turn to sides as well as up and down. You could also zoom in and switch between the normal and night mode. They were always on and you’d be alerted when one of them detected movements. A message would come to your device accompanied by a single clicking sound. It was so perfect for this situation that it basically felt like it was made for it.
While walking back to Terrence’s house, Matthew led the group. About 15 feet behind him, Terrence strolled looking while looking around at nature. He liked nature and I assumed it was another reason why he hated when his dad took him hunting. Shooting from a gun was one thing, but using it to kill an animal was completely different. I noticed him smiling as he moved his head left and right. I was walking about 20 feet behind him, alone. I wanted to be by myself so that I could listen to the silence of nature. However, I also wanted to find a way to approach Terrence and talk to him by myself. Suddenly, something came over me and I decided to run up to him.
“Hey,” I told him.
“Hi,” he replied nervously.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Uh… not much really,” he answered looking away. “I’m preparing for hunting a monster I haven’t really seen and am not 100% sure is actually real. Other than that, pretty normal day for me, I guess?”
“Wow,” I chuckled. “That sounds really fun,” I joked. “But seriously now, I swear to God and everything I hold dear, the monster is real. It exists.”
He looked into my eyes but the smile on his face was gone.
“I believe you,” he told me. “No matter how much I’d like that you were wrong or lying, I believe you. You know that I felt its presence as well and it tickled this part of my soul. It made me realize that true evil exists in this world and I’m afraid to face it.”
We were silent for a few seconds.
“But I’m happy that I’m facing it with someone who understands it as well,” he said looking away from me. “I don’t know if it will be easier or harder that way or if we will even survive.”
“Don’t say that,” I replied immediately. “We’ll survive.”
He took a glance at me and smiled.
“Hey, when all of this is over and we go back to our normal lives… do you maybe think that we could… uhm… go out for food or something sometimes?” I asked him with a hint of hesitation and anxiety.
“Uhm… y… yeah,” he replied completely dumbfounded. “We could go for some… uhm… food… I guess.”
“Great, I…”
“Hey, Mat, wait up. I have to ask you something,” he cut me off. “Sorry, Taylor, I just remembered something important. Talk to you later, okay?” he asked already halfway between me and Matthew.
“Oh… okay,” I replied stopping in the middle of the path.
I looked as he ran up to Matthew and started talking to him. I knew he had nothing important to talk to Matthew about. He just wanted to avoid me exclusively. Why the hell would he want to do that? Did I do something wrong? As I was standing there and not moving, Elle, Caitlyn, and Sarah walked up to me. Caitlyn and Elle gave me sympathetic looks which was basically like telling me that there are other fish in the sea. It didn’t help because as their best friend, I expected some words of encouragement from them. At least from Elle. Caitlyn was already having a really bad time because of her cat’s death. But Elle could have done something to help me.
“Hey, are you okay?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah,” I replied still standing in place. “I’m just thinking about something.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” she chuckled. “I know you like Terrence. I saw how you had your eyes on him the first time we met.”
“Is it that obvious?” I asked her.
“It was to me, but I don’t know about Matthew,” she told me. “Matthew’s… a bit complicated. He doesn’t see what he doesn’t really care about.”
“He doesn’t care about Terrence?” I asked her surprised.
“No, no, no,” she started walking. “He loves Terrence and he wants him to be happy. He doesn’t really care who Terrence is happy with as long as he is happy.”
“Oh…” I followed her. “So, do you know why Terrence doesn’t like me? Did I do something wrong? Did he tell you something? Please, tell me if you know something,” I begged.
“Calm down,” she told me before taking a look at Terrence. “I know something… but if I tell you, you have to promise me not to tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” I replied Immediately. “Please, just tell me. I promise I’ll keep quiet,” I was desperate.
“Well… I don’t really know how to say this but…” she sighed.
I could not wait for her to tell me what it was. I felt like my head was going to explode and at the same time, it felt like she was going to reveal this amazing but to me heartbreaking truth.
“He… well… he doesn’t like girls,” she looked at me expecting a reaction.
“What the hell are you trying to…” I stopped as soon as the realization hit me. “Oooooh.”
“Yup,” she confirmed.
“I feel a bit better now, I guess. I mean, I believed I was not good enough before,” I told her.
“Yeah,” she elongated the word. “It’s been really hard on him, you know? He never believed that anyone would accept him even though the times are changing.”
“Does Matthew know?” I asked.
“As I said, Matthew doesn’t care who Terrence is happy with. He just wants Terrence happy.”
“He’s a good brother.”
“An amazing brother… and an even better boyfriend,” she smiled. “Look, I love Terrence, but he would have been a terrible boyfriend.”
“Why?” I asked.
“He’s very untidy, reckless, and very careful with his money. He mostly spends time just in the forest just sitting around or doing some stuff in his room. I don’t know what he’s doing there and I don’t want to know. He’s so clearly not boyfriend material judging by some this and some other stuff.”
“Well, I believe that he’d be an amazing boyfriend,” I told her.
“You’re just saying that because you like him.”
“No…” I replied smiling.
Both of us laughed out loud and continued walking after the rest of the group. I didn’t get a boyfriend that day, but I found a really good new friend. After we returned to the house, Caitlyn checked the cameras on the tablets and the laptop once more to be completely sure that everything was working properly. Sarah offered us to stay for dinner, but we refused. We said we didn’t want to impose on them. We sat in Elle’s car and drove away.
“What the hell happened with Terrence?” Elle asked me. “Did he try to avoid you?”
“I guess so…” I replied.
“Why would he avoid you?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I lied.
“Should I try doing something about it?”
“No, no, no, no, no,” I said quickly. “Don’t talk to him about it at all. I’ll handle it.”
“I mean, it’s just not right. You’re trying hard to get him to like you and he isn’t even telling you anything. It would even be better if he told you that he just doesn’t like you,” she said before taking a look at Caitlyn through her rearview mirror. “What do you think, Caitlyn?”
“What?” she jumped. “What do I think about what?”
“You know what? Never mind, Caitlyn,” Elle told her. “I was looking if you’re here with us. Your silence made me think you’re dead.”
“Oh…” Caitlyn replied and leaned back at the window staring outside.
“Look, Taylor, I love you. You’re my best friend and I don’t want you to get hurt,” Elle told me. “Maybe I am being a bit… aggressive, I guess. However, everything I do is because I want to help you. But… if you want me to do nothing, you just have to tell me.”
“I don’t want you to do anything, Elle,” I told her. “Everything is okay.”
We were silent the rest of the ride. Caitlyn kept looking outside and thinking about something. I assumed it was just about her cat but there could have been something she wasn’t telling us. Elle thought that she overstepped her boundaries with me and stayed silent believing that I didn’t want to talk to her. She was kind of right. The thing was that I didn’t mind it that much. And I just thought about Terrence. How didn’t I realize it? To think back on it, the only hint he ever gave me is standing close to me, but even then, it was just because the stairs weren’t that wide.
Elle stopped in front of my house around 6:30 PM. My parents went to dinner at their friend’s place while Lucy and I stayed at home. I found Lucy in her room. She was laying in her bed and silently crying while hugging Darkness. I laid down next to her with Darkness in between us. I gently pet Darkness on her head and she closed her eyes. It made Lucy smile while still crying. I felt Luna jump onto the bed next to my legs and she slowly walked up to Lucy. She snuggled in right up to her chest so that Lucy would pet her instead of Darkness. It made Lucy chuckle.
“They know when you feel bad,” I told her. “They can sense it somehow and will come to you to make you feel better.”
She started to pet Luna as Luna tried to find a perfect position to sleep in.
“Do you want me to order pizza for dinner?” I asked her. “I have some money in my wallet.”
Lucy nodded with a smile and turned her eyes back towards Luna. As I stood up, Darkness just opened her eyes slightly before closing them again. Luna, on the other hand, lifted her head and looked at me wide-eyed. She meowed at me.
“Stay here, Luna,” I said leaving the room.
I didn’t see Luna following me so I assumed she just stayed there. After I got to the phone, I called a local pizzeria and ordered some food. Since I’d be waiting for about half an hour, I decided to sit on the couch, turn on the TV as a background and spend time on my phone. I used to scroll through Instagram and sometimes even Reddit looking at animals or stuff about celebrities and almost nothing could ever distract me from watching the phone until that time.
“Breaking news,” the reporter said on TV while I was scrolling through Instagram.
I immediately sat straight up since I already knew it was about the monster I saw. I don’t know whether I was filled more with fear or with the need to know what happened.
“Seven people have returned to their homes after being done with their job only to find their houses completely trashed, everything destroyed one of their windows broken. However, that wasn’t the worst part. Nothing was stolen from their homes. Instead, they found their pets brutally murdered by some animal,” the reporter exclaimed.
Again with the animal. The authorities did not want to say that it wasn’t an animal no matter how much evidence there was to support the claim. That thing was no animal and even if most people didn’t believe that it was a monster, most of them knew that it had to be a human at least. But those weren’t all the news.
“Police have also found remains of two people who were murdered just as brutally as the animals,” the reporter said.
She proceeded to explain their appearance and one of the victims was immediately recognized by one of the cops. It was an 18-year-old guy who disappeared in New Mexico in early 2017. The other one was a woman in her 40s who it took the authorities a bit longer to identify. We got no answer about her identity that day. However, the day after, on the 19th of November, 2018, she was identified as a woman who went missing in France in 2006. How the hell did the two of them end up in my state so much time after their disappearance? No one knew. But for me, Caitlyn, Elle, Sarah, Terrence, and Matthew, it only meant one thing. We needed to prepare a lot, and we did.
We trained much more and even decided to put out the meat a day earlier. We decided to put the meat and bear traps on the 20th of November and spend the night between the 20th and 21st of November waiting for the creature to show up. All the cameras were set up in such a way that would alert us when we needed to get ready. We decided to put up the traps near the towers and even a few without meat around the car. It would give Sarah and Caitlyn a bit more protection. They’d be carrying guns as well but wouldn’t be the ones initiating a fight with the monster. Those would be us.
The 19th of November passed like any other day and the 20th of November came just like that. I woke up early, had my breakfast, and went to school. There, I went through the plan with Elle and Caitlyn once more. We needed to be 100% sure that this plan would work since the creature has now clearly demonstrated its capability to kill humans. I assumed that the French woman and the guy from New Mexico were the victims of the creature but I didn’t know how they showed up there. It didn’t matter in the end.
Elle, Caitlyn, and I all sent messages to the school saying that we were feeling bad due to some bad food we ate the day before. All three of us used our mom’s e-mails. Since our moms weren’t too knowledgeable in technology, we easily tricked them. We told them that they need to update the G-mail app on their phone and sent those messages. How we tricked our mothers into believing that we went to school? Well… we just left our houses at the time we usually did to get to school. Elle picked us up and we went straight to Terrence’s house.
We talked, we shot, we revised the plan, we checked the cameras… We did whatever we could do to pass the time but the dread from the idea that we would be meeting that monstrosity eye-to-eye reignited that primal dread in my heart. Around 8 PM, we set out into the forest. We took Terrence’s pickup truck and drove to the destination where Sarah and Caitlyn would spend the rest of the night. When we stopped in the right place, all of us exited the car and took what we were supposed to. We decided that Terrence and I would be stationed at one of the towers while Matthew and Elle would be stationed at the other. Both of us took three bear traps and three pieces of meat. The pieces of meat were light enough not to trigger the bear traps and it was a perfect bait.
We said goodbye to Caitlyn and Sarah and Matthew kissed Sarah for one last time before we parted. Terrence was carrying the traps while I was carrying the bag with the meat. The entire time we were setting up the traps, we were silent. I haven’t spoken a single word to him. I just followed him around as he put the bear traps on the floor and gently put the meat on them. He didn’t speak to me as well. I didn’t blame him that much but I wanted to get rid of that awkwardness that was between us. Now that I knew about his secret, I wouldn’t pursue him anymore and we would stay friends. It seemed like he really liked me as his friend and I wanted to be just that.
After we set up all the traps, we climbed into the small hunting tower. We had a great view of all three of the traps we set up. One other piece of equipment we had were walkie-talkies. It was the best way to contact others.
“Hey,” Terrence said into the walkie-talkie. “We set up the traps. We’re in the tower now. Over.”
A buzz came from the walkie-talkie.
“Same here,” Matthew replied. “Everything’s going great. How are the cameras? Are they still working? Over.”
Another buzz. A few seconds passed before we heard a reply from Caitlyn.
“The cameras are working. You can check them from the tablets you took,” she said over the walkie-talkie. “If you need anything, just call us. Over.”
“Will do,” Matthew replied. “Good luck. Over.”
After that last buzz, the forest around us turned into silence. Since it was winter, it was already pretty dark. We would still be able to hear if something started eating the meat and would only need to shine our flashlight on it to be able to see it. It was a bit risky, but still the best we could do. As time passed and Terrence and I didn’t say a single word between us, it only got more and more awkward. Finally, around 11 PM, I decided to say something.
“Hey, Terrence,” I said.
“Yeah?” he replied looking at his rifle.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“About what?” he asked.
I took in a deep breath. To calm myself down, I took out a pack of cigarettes Matthew gave me. After taking one out, I lit it on fire with my zippo lighter I got from my grandpa before he died. It was like a parting gift from him and I used to play with it sometimes.
“All my attempts at… winning you over,” I told him. “I know it bothers you.”
“I…”
“You don’t have to say anything,” I cut him off. “I know you don’t like me and that you’re uninterested in a relationship with me.”
He looked at me and then back at his rifle.
“You’re right, but I didn’t know how to tell you,” he replied. “I mean, you are attractive and interesting and all that but…”
“But you don’t like girls,” I finished his sentence.
The look he gave me was priceless. He was dumbfounded that I knew and he almost seemed like he was afraid.
“It’s okay,” I told him with a smile. “Sarah told me. I still like you as a friend.”
It took him a minute before he responded.
“You don’t hate me because of it?” he asked me.
“Of course not,” I told him. “Only a very few people will while the most won’t even care at all. It doesn’t change who you are and it shouldn’t matter to any of your friends.”
“That’s funny,” he chuckled. “I don’t really have any friends… other than you, I guess.”
“See, I’m already right,” I joked.
Both of us chuckled.
“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “But I still have that fear, you know?”
“I’d like to say that I do but I really don’t.”
We were silent for another minute after that.
“How did you find out?” I asked him.
“Well…” he stopped to think for a bit and he looked towards the tiny ceiling of the tower. “While I was younger, I had a best friend. He thought of me just like that. A best friend. I had feelings for him and I knew I did, but at the time I just thought that best friends were just like that. When I found out what being gay meant, I realized I was gay and like the stupid little boy I was, I told my friend that I loved him. He ran up to his parents and told them what I said. I had to pass it off as a joke and his parents believed me, but he didn’t. He slowly distanced himself away from me and that was it. I found out I was gay and immediately I lost my best friend.”
“That’s rough,” I told him.
“You don’t have to tell me that…” he said before realizing it. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it. You were just trying to help and I…”
“Sh, sh, sh,” I calmed him down. “It’s okay. I don’t mind it. How did Matthew find out?”
“He and my best friend were the only ones who saw through my lies, but Matthew didn’t leave me,” Terrence told me. “He didn’t care.”
“Maybe your best friend was just afraid,” I suggested. “You know that something would change or… I don’t know.”
“Yeah. I doubt that. At least he moved away before he grew up enough to realize it was something he could use to bully me.”
“I don’t think he would have bullied you. You’re just being hard on yourself.”
“I don’t know,” he told me. “I haven’t really had the best experiences being gay.”
“You know what? I asked you if you wanted to go out while all of this is over. Let’s do it, but instead of getting to know each other better, let’s try to find each other our first boyfriend. What do you think?”
“It sounds like a fun idea,” he smiled.
“Great, then we’re doing it,” I offered him a hand.
He looked at it, then at me, and in the end, he shook my hand. As soon as we let go of each other’s hands, we heard the walkie-talkie buzz.
“Look at camera number 5,” Caitlyn said in a trembling voice filled with fear. “O…” she gulped. “Over.”
I took the tablet and turned it in such a way that both Terrence and I could see the screen. I slowly opened the app and switched to camera number 5. It displayed the forest floor from 17 feet in the air. The night vision made everything look dark green and it gave this weird feeling. The area the camera was pointed to looked identical to everything we saw the night before, but this time, slightly out of the reach of the light from the camera, a figure peaked from behind the tree. Its eyes were glowing bright white and judging by what part of the tree its head reached, I assumed it was at least 7 and a half feet tall. However, it wasn’t what I saw that scared me, but that primal dread that appeared every time I felt the monster’s presence. And this time… it was stronger than ever.